The Story of the Stone

2

The rain had almost stopped and the sky was clearing rapidly. It was going to be a beautiful afternoon with enough clouds left over for a glorious sunset, and I reveled in fresh air after inhaling the reek of raw alcohol in Wong's. The rain had left the streets slippery, so I carried the old man on my back as we came back up the Alley of Flies, as I always do when the going is difficult. His tiny feet fit comfortably into my tunic pockets, and he weighs no more than a schoolboy.

The streets were nearly empty. That suited me very well because we were in the part of the city called Heaven's Bridge, where every alley is usually filled with scar-faced gentlemen who converse in the silent language of the Secret Societies: fingers wriggling rapidly inside the sleeves of their robes. Heaven's Bridge is also the place for public executions, and it is said that at the third watch one can see rows of ghosts perched like vultures on top of the Wailing Wall behind the chopping blocks. (Decapitation has not improved their dispositions. Kindly strangers who hear the sobs of a child or the pleas of a woman and step into the shadows will never be seen again.) Heaven's Bridge makes me nervous, and I was pleased that the only person we encountered was a bonze who was dutifully banging his wooden fish even though it wasn't subscription day.

“The double hour of the goat!” he bellowed. “The Governor's Banquet has been canceled, but there will still be a recital of the stone bells in the Temple of Confucius! West Bridge is closed to traffic, and drivers will be fined! A new storm is approaching from the east, but the western horizon is clear!”

I looked around. “He's crazy,” I said. “The east is clear, and the clouds are in the west.”

Master Li nudged my ribs and pointed. A patrol of the City Guard was approaching from the east. He pointed up, and I spied some gentlemen who were perched on top of Meng's Money Exchange. The burglars waved to the bonze and slipped out of sight, over the western ridgepole.

“Heaven's Bridge,” I sighed.

Master Li was gazing at the bonze as we passed him. “Alibi Ah Sung, from Chao-ch'ing,” he said thoughtfully. “That's the Purple Flower, and what are they doing…”

His voice trailed off. Then he began to chuckle.

“Ox, what do you smell in the air?” he asked.

“Wet earth, pine needles, pork fat, donkey manure, and perfume from Mother Ho's House of Joy,” I said.

“Wrong. You smell destiny,” Master Li said happily. “Destiny that appears to be approaching with the delicate tread of an overweight elephant. Do you recall what I was talking about in Wong's before we were interrupted?”

“Fraud and forgery, Venerable Sir, and something about our decadent civilization blowing away with the wind.”

“And last night I was impelled to assassinate a fellow and examine the body, which led to the fact that he had a peculiar pattern of metallic acids on his fingers and a tube of Devil's Umbrella in his pocket. Then somebody slipped a few Thunderballs to Lady Hou, and the darling girl decided to slit a mandarin's throat, and then a monk popped up with a forgery to end all forgeries, and now some crooks from Chao-ch'ing are burglarizing Meng's Money Exchange. Add it up and it totals destiny,” Master Li said confidently, if somewhat enigmatically. “Let's make a detour.”

Peking is not beautiful the way big cities like Ch'ang-an or Loyang or Hangchow can be beautiful, but Fire Horse Park is very lovely, particularly after a rain, when the air is filled with the scents of pine and poplars and willows and locust trees. Master Li told me to head for the Eye of Tranquility, which is not my favorite place. It's a small round lake set aside for old sinners who are grabbing for salvation at the last moment, and the conversation is not exactly inspiring. For some reason the codgers confuse sanctity with senility, and the dialogue consists of “goo-goo-goo,” accompanied by drooling and coy little glances toward Heaven. I think they're trying to prove how harmless they are. They also follow the example of saintly Chiang Taikung and sit on the banks with fishing poles, carefully keeping the hooks three feet above the water. (Chiang Taikung loved to fish but refused to take life, and he said that if a fish wanted to leap up and commit suicide, it was the fish's business.) Venders do a brisk business with worms. The old rogues buy bucketfuls and cast more coy glances toward Heaven as they ostentatiously set them free. Frankly, the place gives me goose bumps.

Master Li had me circle the lake until he found what he wanted, and then he slid from my back and walked up beside an apprentice saint who strongly resembled a toad. The fellow had two small leather cups over his ears, secured by a headband, and Master Li removed the headband. I took one of the cups and held it to my own ear and listened to the lovely linn-linn-linn sound of Golden Bells, the little insects from Suzhou who sing so sweetly that dowagers keep them in cages beside their pillows to soothe them to sleep.

Golden Bells are also said to induce pure thoughts, and the toad looked like he could use some. I politely picked up and moved a couple of codgers so Master Li and I could sit down flanking the toad.

“Goo-goo-goo?” said the codgers.

“Goo-goo-goo,” I replied.

The toad's pale bulging eyes slowly moved toward Master Li.

“I didn't do it,” he said.

“Ten witnesses,” said Master Li.

“Liars. You can't prove a thing.”

The toad turned back to his dangling fish hook. His mouth was set stubbornly, and I doubted that even Master Li could get another word out of him.

“Hsiang, I envy you,” Master Li said rather sadly. “Such is your seraphic vision of the life hereafter that you can turn your back on this one, and forgo such worldly pleasures as watching your family flourish. Your nephew, for example. What's his name? Cheng? Chou Cheng of Chao-ch'ing, and what a promising lad he is. I hear he's risen right to the top of the ling-chih trade, and has practically cornered the market on Devil's Umbrellas and Thunderballs.”

The toad continued to stare straight ahead.

“I also hear he's put up part of the profits to buy a full seat on the Purple Flower council. Such precocity!” Master Li said admiringly. “I predict the lad will go far, not least because he knows what to do with his assets. Last night, for example, I met a delightful fellow who had a full tube of Devil's Umbrella, and it just occurred to me that the odd stains on his fingers might come from the coiner's trade, and that I had seen him slipping in and out of Meng's Money Exchange. A fellow like that might know all sorts of valuable secrets—what's in the basement, for example—and do you know what we saw on our way here? The Purple Flower Gang, opening up Meng's Money Exchange, and I rather suspect they don't intend to steal anything. They intend to draw the attention of the magistrates to some rather peculiar paraphernalia.”

The fishing pole was beginning to tremble.

“Everybody knows that Meng's Money Exchange is merely a front for the counterfeiting business,” Master Li said thoughtfully. “It is said that the ringleader is the Second Deputy Minister of Finance, and can you guess what we saw at One-Eyed Wong's? Some bright young man who had access to every kind of ling-chih presented a few choice Thunderballs to Lady Hou, and then he whispered something into her lovely ears, and—well, you know Lady Hou. Guess who she approached with her little dagger? Right! The Second Deputy Minister of Finance, that's who, and I rather suspect that his position as king of counterfeiters is temporary. I wouldn't be at all surprised if your precocious nephew and his friends take over, unless somebody decapitates them first.”

The toad dropped his pole into the water. “Li Kao, you wouldn't do that, would you?” he said pleadingly. “He's only a boy.”

“And a delightful one, so I'm told,” Master Li said warmly.

“A trifle wild, perhaps, but that's the way of the young,” the toad said. “You have to allow for a little excess in boyish ambition.”

“Youth will be served,” Master Li said sententiously. “Sometimes after having been stuffed with truffles and basted in bean curd sauce,” he added.

“Li Kao, if you're working for the Secret Service, I can give you a few tips,” the toad said hopefully.

“No need,” Master Li said. “All I want is an expert opinion, and no evasions.” He pulled out the manuscript fragment and passed it over. “Do you know anyone capable of doing this?”

The toad looked at the fragment for no more than five seconds before his eyes bulged even farther and his jaw dropped.

“Great Buddha!” he gasped. “Do I know somebody who could do this? Nobody but the gods could do this!”

He held it up to the light, oblivious to anything else, and Master Li took the opportunity to continue my education.

“Ox, there are no more than ten great men in history whose calligraphy was so prized that kings would go to war to get a sample,” he said. “Such calligraphy is unmistakable, and no connoisseur could look at that fragment without crying, „Ssu-ma Ch'ien!“ Surely you studied some of his texts in school?”

Surely I had, and surely I was not going to give Master Li a frank opinion. I used to love history class. I can still quote whole passages by heart: “When the emperor entered the Hall of Balming Virtue, a violent wind came from a dark corner, and out of it slithered a giant serpent that coiled around the throne. The emperor fainted, and that night earthquakes struck Loyang, and waves swept the shores, and cranes shrieked in the marshes. One the fifth day of the sixth moon a long trail of black mist floated into the Hall of Concubines, and hot and cold became confused, and a hen turned into a rooster, and a woman turned into a man, and flesh fell from the skies.” Now, that is grand stuff, just the thing to give to growing boys, and then we were old enough to read the greatest of all historians. This is what Ssu-ma Ch'ien had to say about the exact same subject: “The Chou Dynasty was nearing collapse.” Bah.

“Nothing is harder to forge than calligraphy, and the calligraphy of greatness is nearly impossible,” Master Li explained. “The writer's personality is expressed through every sweep of the brush, and the forger must become the man who's hand he's faking. Somebody has done the impossible by perfectly forging Ssu-ma Ch'ien, and the baffling thing is that he made the forgery pathetically obvious.”

“Sir?” I said.

“Would you write down your father's name unless you were directly referring to him?”

“Of course not!” I was appalled at the idea. “It would be grossly disrespectful, and it might even open his spirit to attack by demons.”

“Precisely, yet in a fragment supposedly written by Ssu-ma Ch'ien, he refers to a minor government official named T'an no less than three times. T'an was his father's name.”

That stopped me. I couldn't for the life of me imagine why a forger would produce a masterpiece that would be unmasked in an instant. Neither could the toad.

“This is both unbelievable and incomprehensible,” he muttered. “Have you seen the entire manuscript?”

“No,” said Master Li. “I understand it's quite brief, and was perhaps intended to be attached as a footnote to one of the histories.”

The toad scratched his chin. “The parchment is genuine,” he said thoughtfully. “When one thinks of forgery, one thinks of modern works, but what if the forger was a contemporary? Li Kao, we know that Ssu-ma was castrated by Emperor Wu-ti, but are we sure we know why? The official reason has never seemed very persuasive to me, and this forgery is so superb that Ssu-ma would have a hell of a time proving he didn't write it. One can imagine sly courtiers pointing out to the emperor that the Grand Master Astronomer Historian was so impious he would write down his own father's name, and if the text also contained slighting references to the throne—”

At that point his voice was drowned out. One of the reprobates looked at Master Li's venerable wrinkles and decided that somebody might be challenging for the title of Saintliest of Them All, and he took three or four deep breaths and raised his gaping mouth toward the Great River of Stars.

“Hear me, O Heaven, as I pray to the six hundred named gods!” he bellowed. “I pray to the gods of the ten directions, and the secondary officials of the ten directions, and the stars of the five directions, and the secondary stars of the five directions, and the fairy warriors and sages, and the ten extreme god kings, and the gods of the sun and the moon and the nine principal stars!”

The venders perked up. “Worms for sale!” they cried.

“The gods who guard the Heavenly Gates!” the champion roared. “The thirty-six thunder gods who guard Heaven itself, and the twenty-eight principal stars of the zodiac, and the gods for subjugating evil spirits, and the god king of Flying Heaven, and the god of the great long life of Buddha, and the gods of Tien Kan and To Tze, and the great sages of the Trigrams, and the gate gods, and the kitchen gods, and the godly generals in charge of the month and the week and the day and the hour!”

“Worms!” cried the venders. “Take pity upon poor helpless worms, most unfairly condemned to cruel death upon hooks!”

“The gods of the nine rivers!” the saint shrieked. “The gods of the five mountains and the four corners! I pray to the gods in charge of wells and springs and ditches and creeks and hills and woods and lakes and rivers and the twelve river sources! I pray to the local patron gods! Chuang huangs and their inferiors! The gods of minor local officials! The gods of trees and lumber! The spiritual officers and soldiers under the command of priests! The spirits in charge of protecting the taboos, commands, scriptures, and right way of religion!”

“Gentlemen, think of your poor old white-haired grandmothers who may have been reborn as worms!” an enterprising vender shouted.

“Boy!” Master Li yelled, and to my astonishment he bought a bucket of worms.

“I pray to the gods of the four seasons and eight festivals!” screamed His Holiness, “I pray to—”

Master Li reached up and pried the gaping jaws even wider apart and dumped the contents of his bucket inside. Silence descended upon the Eye of Tranquility. The toad was holding the forgery no more than an inch from his eyeballs.

“Forgery of a forgery,” he muttered. “Someone's made a tracing of this, and recently. The oaf left marks where he pressed down too hard.”

He handed the manuscript back to Master Li. “Tracing is an amateur job,” he said contemptuously. “A freak forgery that can make scholars doubt their sanity is worth a fortune, but a tracing of it couldn't fool an illiterate baby, if the idiot tried to sell it to the wrong man, he'd soon be contemplating the pretty fish swimming around his solid stone sandals.”

I had a sudden queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, but if Master Li was thinking of a dead dice cheater at the bottom of the canal, he gave no sign of it.

“How very interesting,” he said mildly. “Hsiang, the manuscript has apparently been stolen. Any word on the grapevine?”

“Are you serious? Li Kao, if a collector allowed word of something of this quality to get out, he'd have a visit from the emperor's agents inside of a day. There can't be another fraud as good as this in the whole world,” the toad said. “And don't bother looking for the forger. The August Personage of Jade has lifted him to Heaven, and he's now handling the divine correspondence.”

Master Li scratched his forehead and tugged at his beard.

“One last question. I can think of any number of men who would kill to get their hands on the manuscript, but the murder I've been handed appears to have been rather gaudy. Can you think of a man who would use methods suitable for the worst excesses of Chinese opera?”

“One,” the toad said promptly.

“Who?”

“You,” said the toad. He turned to me. “Boy, do you realize that entire cemeteries are dedicated to this antique assassin? How many corpses did he leave behind during that weird fling you had with the birds?”[2]

“Well, maybe twenty or thirty,” I said. “But that was only because—”

“Begone!” the toad yelled. “Begone, and let an old man die with dignity.”

“Old?” said Master Li. “If my oldest grandson hadn't eaten an untreated blowfish, he'd be about your age.”

“The problem with you is that you refuse to expire from old age,” the toad snarled. Then he quoted Confucius. ” ‘A fellow who grows as old as you without dying is simply becoming a nuisance.’ ” He turned back to me. “I, on the other hand, shall succumb with serenity, secure in the sanctity of my soul. Boy, just look at the soul shining through my eyes! It's like a goddamned flower!”

It is dangerous to play the quoting game with Master Li. ” ‘When I return from trampling flowers, the hooves of my horse are fragrant,’ ” he said softly.

The toad turned pale. “Now, look here, Li Kao, there's no need to find offense where none was intended. All I seek is the True Path that will lead me to the Blessed Realm of Purified Semblance.” The thought of his newfound purity emboldened him. “Begone!” he cried. “Begone, you animated accumulation of antiquated bones, and take the sulphurous scent of sin with you.”

He turned and glared back at me.

“Also,” he added, “take this walking derrick.”

Master Li stood up and bowed, and I followed his example, and we turned and walked away over the grass, and a gentle bubbling chorus of goo-goo-goos faded behind us.