Читать книгу Dragon Mountain - Daniel Reid - Страница 10

V

Ching Wei was right. It was good that I had another brandy while I had the chance. For the next six weeks I ate nothing but rice and barley with fiery curries that burned twice—once going down, and once again coming out. The natives were all devout Buddhists or hopeless opium addicts, or both, so they didn't touch booze. Some of Ching Wei's white hostages distilled their own arack from millet or palm, but that stuff burned even worse than the curries.

There seemed to be lots of white men around, but I rarely saw more than two or three together in the same place. Each went about his own business as if he were walking down Main Street, USA. Some had gone native, with local wives and children, and lived in their own native huts. Others remained perpetual guests of their hapless hosts and flatly refused to conform to local customs. To the great disgust of the natives, most of the unmarried white men stayed stone drunk much of the time, occasionally abusing their hosts as well as each other in drunken brawls. But the villagers had strict standing orders from Ching Wei to make his "guests" feel at home there, so no one dared protest the behavior of these drunken louts. The first phrase I learned in the local lingo was, "Liquor is as natural to the white man as milk is to babies."

One of Ching Wei's whims, to which he devoted increasing attention over the years, was to collect a sort of menagerie of white captives to amuse him. This hobby he pursued with great enthusiasm. When I arrived, he had about fifty men in his collection; by now there are at least three hundred fifty. Each captive lives in the household of his assigned host and receives everything he needs without having to do a lick of work for it. Those with special skills—like me—lived in the main village near the mountain, where Ching Wei could beckon us at will. But basically we were free to do anything we pleased—except leave.

One of our main functions was simply to amuse Ching Wei, like a collection of exotic pets. Whenever the mood struck him, he would invite a bunch of us up to his place for a huge feast and lavish entertainment. The more drunk and disorderly his guests became, the more he seemed to enjoy their company. He himself rarely drank more than a glass or two of champagne or cognac, but it was clear from his glazed eyes and manic grin that he had something a lot stronger than booze coursing through his veins.

White men were not his only whim. He also collected exotic animals from all over the world—mostly predators—and these he kept in a zoo within the palace walls. The animals were tended by an English veterinarian specifically selected and kidnapped for that purpose. When he felt particularly perverse, he'd sometimes pit one of his pet predators, such as a tiger, against a guest or native who'd broken one of his rules.

Ching Wei also collected guns and orchids. I saw his gun room several times over the years, and I doubt there's a single type of firearm produced in the last hundred years of which he doesn't own at least one sample. That's where One-Eye got the Uzi he used to nab me.

Ching Wei's orchid collection contained over five hundred varieties. He kept an elaborate, fully automated greenhouse tended by a French orchid cultivator named Moreau, whom he also kidnapped expressly for the job. Ching Wei once explained to me the source of his endless fascination with orchids. He said the blossoms reminded him of the intricate, delicately convoluted folds of the female genitalia, each breed displaying its own unique shape, size, and colors, each blossom exuding its own individual fragrance. "Everything about the orchid is designed to arouse sexual excitement in the roving butterfly or passing bee," he'd often say while sniffing lovingly at a bloom. When you think about it, he's right.

Except for the foreign luxuries brought in from Bangkok, Dragon Mountain was entirely self-sufficient. The Shan tribes-men grew food in great abundance, with staples of rice, millet, and barley, and all sorts of fruits and vegetables for variety. For meat, Shan hunters stalked their prey throughout the surrounding mountains and valleys with vintage carbines, bringing back monkey, small deer, wild boar, water rats, civet cats, and snakes. The only domestic animals they ate were dogs and pigs, and those only on special occasions. The natives observed a strict taboo against eating beef, for the cow and buffalo were sacred animals to them, but because their white guests preferred beef above all other food, the locals were forced to butcher cattle for them. I soon learned another native term for the white man, always muttered in a tone of deep disgust: "The Beefeaters."

Security was no problem at Dragon Mountain. Ching Wei deliberately kept his domain as inaccessible as possible. The massive mountain dominated the entire region, and the village at its foot was heavily fortified. This village served as the administrative center for his entire domain and was called Poong. His palace sat high above the village, most of it carved directly into the living rock on the mountain's northern face. The palace was surrounded by five acres of elaborate gardens, and the grounds were completely enclosed within a tall corniced wall. The only access to the palace from the village was the steep path I'd taken with One-Eye the first night.

The terrain was ribbon ed with swift, torrential rivers and carpeted with jungles so thick that light rarely reached the ground. The only way into Poong from the outside world was the drawbridge I'd crossed with One-Eye the day I arrived there. To get to other villages from Poong, you first had to cross the bridge, then take one of the narrow trails that branched off into the jungle on the other side of the river. The trails were all guarded around the clock by armed sentries and trained hunting dogs. Ching Wei kept the trails so narrow and overgrown that no wheeled vehicles—not even a wheelbarrow—could negotiate them. Booby traps were planted everywhere, and only the guards knew their locations. Careless natives wandering about without permission occasionally got killed or horribly maimed by these traps.

Uninvited intruders were spotted and killed long before they even got near Poong. As for captives bent on escape, even if they miraculously managed to get by the watchful eyes of hosts, guards, and dogs, they still faced a gauntlet of uncut jungle crawling with predators, snakes, poisonous insects, and bandits. And if that didn't stop them, then the Wild Wa headhunters who infested the region did. No one had ever escaped from Dragon Mountain and lived to tell about it.

When I left the palace that night, One-Eye was waiting outside to escort me back down to the village, where he brought me to the house of my assigned host. The size of the hut and garden indicated a family of relative wealth and prestige. This was no doubt Ching Wei's idea of honoring an "old friend."

Except for a single oil lamp sputtering through an open doorway at the top of a rickety bamboo staircase, the entire house lay wrapped in darkness. An old man snoozed on a bamboo stool just inside the threshold, his back propped up against the mud and wattle wall. He wore the turban, tunic, and loose pants favored by the Shan, which, incidentally, means "the free people." One-Eye climbed the steps and woke the old man with a swift kick in the ribs, muttered something at him, then disappeared back into the darkness.

The old man blinked at me with glaucous eyes as he stood up to greet me. He stretched and yawned, then motioned me to follow him inside the house. We crossed the main room, where I noticed a few bodies stretched out asleep on reed mats. The whole place reeked of curry, garlic, and charcoal. Groping his way through a narrow hallway, which gave access to the back of the house, he led me into the room farthest in back. This was no doubt a precaution aimed at protecting his family from the white man's notorious smell, that rank, musty odor that the Chinese describe as "fox-stink."

Inside the room he lit another lamp, swept his hand around, then pointed at me and said something. I shrugged. He shrugged back. Suddenly we both burst out laughing—the unwilling guest meets the unwilling host—and I knew instinctively that we'd get along fine.

He pointed to a cot of jute webbing stretched over a wooden frame, the kind we used to call a charpoy in India. Next to it stood a crude table with a clay washbasin, a large jug of water for washing, and a smaller jug for drinking water. He lifted the lid of an old wooden chest: inside lay two moth-eaten blankets, a pair of baggy Shan pants, a wraparound sarong for wearing around the house, a bamboo cup, and a wooden bowl.

"Thank you," I said.

"San-kew?" he repeated quizzically, pointing at me. "Kiang!" he trumpeted, cocking a thumb at himself by way of introduction....

"Glad to meet you, Kiang. My name is Jack-not San-kew."

"Jacknut San-kew!" he said, nodding with approval.

"No, just Jack. Jack, Jack, Jack."

He tested the word a few times under his breath, then flashed a broad betel-stained smile to confirm it. "Jack!"

"Kiang," I pointed to him. "Jack," I cocked a thumb at myself. We grinned and nodded at each other, then he tucked both hands against the side of his head and made a snoring sound to indicate that it was time to sleep. I bobbed my head in agreement, and he backed out the door, bowing and grinning the whole way. Shucking boots and pants, I stretched out on the cot, smoked my last cigarette, and fell sound asleep.

I awoke next morning to find three young girls hanging in the doorway staring at me. I winked at them as I rolled out of bed, and they went' flying like startled birds.

The first thing I noticed was my own sour stench. It was hot and humid there, and I hadn't been out of my underwear for almost three days. I've lived in Asia long enough to know that "fox-stink" is the one thing about white people that offends Asians above all else, so I stripped naked and squatted down by the wash basin to scrub myself as clean as possible with my handkerchief and water. Then I wrapped the sarong around my waist, stepped into the straw sandals by the cot, and headed down the hallway.

The main room was full of smoke from a cooking fire, which smoldered in the far corner. An old woman squatted by the coals, stirring some sort of porridge. The girls stood against a wall gazing at me, all three of them wearing faded sarongs and short sleeveless blouses that left their bellies exposed. The old woman wore the black, nondescript gown that all Shan women adopt after the age of forty. When I entered the room, she turned her head and grunted a command at the girls. Immediately one of them led me to a bamboo stool at a low table, while another brought me hot tea, and the third set a bowl of steaming hot porridge before me. There were several saucers of condiments on the table to spice up the porridge, which turned out to be a blend of barley, millet, and rice. It wasn't bad—if you don't mind garlic, chili, onions, and fermented fish paste with your morning cereal.

Kiang appeared just as the girls were serving me a second portion of porridge. He sat down next to me and applauded my appetite, as if I were doing him a great honor by eating his food. His eyes reflected not the slightest hint of resentment at my presence there. Perhaps the sarong and sandals, plus my timely morning bath, made me seem a bit more civilized. I later noticed that most of the white men there clung stubbornly to button-up shirts, tight trousers, leather shoes, and other items of Western clothing, despite the extreme discomfort that such clothing causes in that sort of climate. And they bathed so rarely that even I felt offended by their odor. Most of the white men there also spurned the native food as no better than cow dung, insisting instead on eating beef and bread. As for me, after so many years of living in Asia, I felt very comfortable with both the local diet and the way of dressing, and I had no trouble adjusting to either.

Kiang puffed on a crinkled black cheroot that looked like a dried turd. He offered me one, and one of the girls fetched a glowing twig from the fire to light it. As we sat there contentedly puffing cheroots and sipping tea, Kiang commanded his three daughters to come and stand before me. They giggled and lined up obediently.

Kiang then rattled off a rambling speech in the local lingo, aiming his bony fingers at me and the girls as he spoke. They appeared to be between fourteen and eighteen years old, though it's hard to tell with Asians, especially women.

I indicated that I had not understood a word he'd said by shrugging my shoulders and muttering in Chinese, "I don't understand." Though I did not expect him to understand Chinese, it somehow seemed more appropriate than English.

Kiang's eyes lit up the moment he heard my words. "You speak Chinese!" he yelped with delight, clapping his hands. He said he'd picked up a bit of the language from dealing with Chinese overlords for so long. He spoke it with a very heavy Yunnan accent, no doubt the influence of Ching Wei's troops, and his vocabulary was limited to three or four dozen words, but in Chinese that's enough, and soon we were communicating quite well.

Pointing at his daughters, he asked, "Which girl most pretty?"

"All very pretty!" I replied. "All three same."

He looked scandalized and shook his head vigorously. "One girl pretty," he insisted, holding up a single finger, "only one."

That confused me. Apparently he wanted me to compliment his most attractive daughter, so I looked them over again. They were all quite lovely, but the oldest one was running a bit fat in the gut, and the youngest hadn't quite developed the curves of a full-fledged beauty queen, so I chose the one in the middle. She was an absolute knockout, with big, dark doe eyes and long silky lashes, thick jet-black hair hanging in a single braid down her back, and a beautiful face with a flawless complexion. Her full firm breasts strained at her buttons, and the curves of her hips bulged through her sarong like an hourglass.

"That one most pretty," I said decisively, pointing at her. The girl immediately clapped her hands against her mouth and dissolved into fits of giggling, while her two sisters shrieked and nodded knowingly at her. Then the three of them disappeared in a huddle through the door. Kiang looked very pleased.

Just then his wife stood up from the fire with a grunt, shuffled over to the table, and set a three-tiered lunchbox of woven bamboo before her husband. She was an enormous bow-legged woman, with a kind but work-worn face. Kiang placed his palms together and bowed in the traditional Buddhist gesture that means "hello," "goodbye," and "bless you" all in one, then he grabbed his lunch and headed out to work in the fields.

I finished my tea alone and wandered into the village. Most of the men had already gone off to the fields to farm, or up to the hills to hunt and fish, while the women busied themselves hauling water from wells, washing clothes by the river, winnowing grain, and screeching at their children. No one paid me much notice.

A smooth dirt path bisected the village, which ran about a hundred fifty yards from end to end. Compact huts of mud and wattle with thatched roofs and shaded verandas stood on short stilts on both sides of the main path. In each yard grew at least a dozen areca palms, source of their beloved betel nut. In the middle of the village the path widened to form a sort of public square or plaza, shaded by several enormous pipal trees. The pipal, which looks like a banyan tree without the branch roots, is called the bodhi tree by the natives. Buddhists regard the bodhi tree as sacred because the Buddha attained enlightenment while meditating beneath the shade of a bodhi tree 2,500 years ago in India. Every bodhi tree in the village had a small shrine erected against its massive trunk, with fresh offerings of fruit, sweets, flowers, and incense always present.

I sat down on a rickety bench in the shade of the biggest bodhi tree in the village and looked around. I would have given anything for a cigarette. In the middle of the village square stood a big communal hut about sixty feet long, set on thick, squat stilts, but without any walls. It was an open pavilion that served as a sort of community center. Near it was a stone house of Western design, with corrugated tin roofing and real glass windows. Boxes and barrels of supplies were piled carelessly behind it. This turned out to be the foreign provisions shop to which Ching Wei had referred. Attached to the shop was a bar, where only Ching Wei's troops and white guests were permitted to drink. The bar suddenly reminded me of the outside world, and I wondered how my disappearance was affecting my family and friends back home. I cursed Ching Wei out loud.

"You must be new here," a voice rumbled over my shoulder. I leaped up and spun around to see who it was. There stood a tall, stooped, skinny white man dressed in sarong and sandals like myself. "My name is Moreau," he said, extending a limp hand. "I am the orchid man."

I introduced myself, and he sat down next to me. "The orchid man?"

"Yes, it is my duty here to care for Ching Wei's orchid collection. He has over five hundred varieties, you know, and almost three thousand specimens. Some are very rare. It is a big job." His voice was flat and listless, but there was no mistaking his accent: it was French. There was also no mistaking his condition: he was stewed to the gills on opium, his pupils shrunk down to the size of pinholes. He reached into his shirt for a pack of cigarettes and offered me one.

"Thanks, I just ran out of smokes last night. Where'd you find these?"

"These and other foreign goods are available at the shop over there," he replied, jutting his chin in that direction. "I live with my wife and child in a house over on the hillside just beyond the village." He pointed toward a densely wooded hill that faced Dragon Mountain from the far side of the village. "You must come to our house for dinner one night and tell me news of the outside world. I have been here already five years now." He gazed blankly across the village, his head bobbing rhythmically.

After a long silence, he stood up and stretched his limbs. "Well, I must go to work now," he said, and handed me the pack of cigarettes. "Please accept these; I have more at home. Where do you stay in the village?" I told him I was Kiang's guest, and he looked impressed. "Kiang is a good man. You are lucky. He has a big house and three beautiful daughters. You should be quite happy there. I will see you again soon, monsieur. Au revoir."

I sat there in a funk for the rest of the day, smoking Moreau's cigarettes and daydreaming. What else could I do? Soon the sun was sinking over the trees, and men began trickling back to the village from the hills and fields. Smoke from cooking fires curled up through thatched roofs, giving the impression that the whole village was aflame. The smell of fresh food and spices cooking reminded me how hungry I felt, so I left my roost under the bodhi tree and strolled back to Kiang's house.

He was already home and puffing on a cheroot when I returned, and he welcomed me with a cup of hot tea. Soon his wife and daughters had dinner ready, and we all gathered around the table to eat.

Except for festival days—when they slaughtered a pig or dog—dinners there were usually the same. We each got a heaping bowlful of boiled rice, millet, or barley. In the middle of the table were three iron pots, each with a different curry in it. Two were always some combination of vegetables, while the third was usually chicken, fish, wild game, or eggs, depending on what was available that day.

They used no chopsticks or any other eating utensils. Instead, each person ladled some curry onto his rice, then used the thumb and first two fingers of the right hand to mash the grain and curry into little bite-size balls, which were then popped into the mouth. The left hand is never used for eating, because its function is to take care of business at the other end of the line, using water instead of toilet paper. The Shan always wash their hands and mouths thoroughly both before and after eating—an excellent habit.

After dinner, Kiang and I chatted for a while over cheroots, but I was in no mood for socializing that evening. Despite the unfailing kindness of Kiang's family, I felt like an alien who'd landed on an unknown planet. No one protested when I stood up early to say good night, bowing my head with hands folded at the heart, in the traditional manner.

I got undressed and lay down on the cot, using my sarong for a sheet. I thought of reading myself to sleep, but there was nothing to read, so I just stared at the bouncing shadows cast against the walls by the flickering oil lamp.

I was dozing on the edge of sleep, eyes closed and mind adrift, when I heard someone swish quietly into my room. Startled, I bolted up in bed and focused my eyes on the intruder. Standing there next to me with a broad ivory smile, naked to the waist, was the daughter I'd selected that morning as the winner of Kiang's little beauty contest.

Surprised and embarrassed, I moved to cover my thighs with my sarong, but she snatched it from my hands and flung it aside. Then she yanked a knot on her hip and her own sarong fell in a heap around her feet. Purring softly, she twined her arms around my neck and pressed her body gently down on top of mine.