Читать книгу The Jade Enchantress - E. Hoffmann Price - Страница 15

Chapter XI

When the Ming De Gate opened at dawn, Ju-hai told Shou-chi, “I went with you when we combed the western market, but the Old Man should know that I didn’t tell you what to do or how to do it. When you say this to him, say that I told you to speak for me.”

Shou-chi bowed, then straightened up, grinning. “Elder Brother, I’ll also say that I didn’t tell you how to pass the examinations.”

It was Ju-hai’s turn to bow.

The drivers were looking to Shou-chi for the go-ahead. He said, “Mustn’t be robbed the first time I’m in charge.”

“In this dung-eating city,” Ju-hai retorted, “I stand a better chance of being held up than you do.” Lowering his voice, he added, “It’s all yours!”

Shou-chi raised his arm. “Lead off!” he shouted; he reined in, pausing long enough to say, “Good luck, Elder Brother.”

Ju-hai raised his arm in farewell. He wheeled his pony and rode to the rear until, with a start, he realized that he was near the Jin Guan Gate, beyond which was the Mongol colony. Retracing his course, he rode to his new home.

Doctor Wu allowed new students several days in which to become accustomed to their new environment before he assigned studies. During this interval, Ju-hai had divided his time between the Kwan villagers and touring the shops to get additional town clothes and to buy books, brushes, ink slabs, and all the other accessories of scholarship, which his teacher had suggested in a longer talk the day following their meeting.

As he flipped the reins to the doorkeeper, Ju-hai realized how right the old scholar had been in allowing time for acclimatization. He still groped, off balance in the way of a man prowling about the house, one shoe off, one shoe on.

When he stepped in, Orchid said, “I knew you’d be back soon. Everywhere else is still strange.”

Now that his fellow villagers were on their way home, this was the least strange corner of Ch’ang-an. From the reception room, his glance shifted to the study room. Orchid had arranged all the things he’d been buying and dumping on the table.

“Old Master,” she said, following him, “you forgot to get a brush-holder, so I got one when I bought kitchen supplies and a few utensils.” She beckoned, and he stepped into the kitchen, where he noted other purchases: jugs of shao-hsing, and some shao-hsing hsueh chiew, something he’d never heard of. There was kao-liang, san shu, and ng ha pai. The last named was considered a tonic because of the many herbs which the potent stuff contained; that made it popular with orthodox Buddhists, since it wasn’t an intoxicant, but was a medicine.

“You probably won’t care for all of these,” Orchid continued. “But you’ll be making friends—students always do—they’d go crazy, otherwise, in a strange city. And they do have a range of tastes. There is even araq—I can’t say that word right, it’s Arabic. Anyway, there are a few camel jockeys among the students; they come from Khotan.”

“You think of everything!”

“I’ve lived here all my life. I know you must be hungry, since you left before sunrise. What would you like?”

“After road cookery and the stuff at Maqsoud’s, I’d go for anything. Use your imagination. Come to think of it, I didn’t get to the inn at the west market until my brother’s wagon train was all ready to roll, so I didn’t have breakfast.”

He stepped into the study room and reached for Li Po’s latest collection of poems. He stretched out the accordion-pleated pages compressed by hard covers and glanced down column after column of elegant calligraphy, but nothing suited his mood until, finally, there was one which fitted the mood set by the day:

Here I must leave and float away

On river flood or soaring cloud.

Our days are gone, our nights are done…

Farewells—the keynote of the Civil Service. Fellow students, graduated, serving in the same prefecture several years of their youth, meeting again many years later and a thousand miles from the start…another encounter, perhaps after retirement. Ju-hai had had his first sample.

The great city was not the loathsome place he had anticipated. After several days of rest and recuperation, he showed up in midforenoon at his teacher’s home to begin the study of classics and to practice calligraphy. The following day, he appeared soon after breakfast, but promptness tapered off. Each time he was late, he apologized with charm and entire sincerity. Master Wu, after mild reproof, urged him to devote more time to sleep. In the long run, late study was not productive.

Ju-hai attributed his comfortable lethargy to letdown, after years of farm hours plus overtime, to change of climate, and to change of diet. There could be no doubt that Orchid’s kitchencraft was outstanding. She worked on impulse. Whatever she offered, it was exactly what he would have asked for, if ever he had bothered to wonder whether his next meal would be a tray of snacks—dim sum in or out of season—or a nine course meal.

And here she was, bringing a bowl of spicy meat balls floating in congee—this in lieu of soup; duck feet, smoked, steamed, and each garnished with a ribbon of red roast pork; a plate of dumplings stuffed with minced meat and vegetables; and a small earthenware casserole, a farm-style, one-dish meal of duck, mushrooms, diced pork, and dried oysters miraculously brought back to fresh size and texture. For good measure, clusters of tree fungus floated in the gravy.

Always, Orchid stood by, ready to refill his wine cup; this ceremonial touch gave him a feeling of magnificence. Master Wu, the teacher, was indeed understanding. It did take a while to become accustomed to his new life.

Courtyard walls blocked out the cries of street hawkers. He could not recall when he’d ever been more content with life and the world, except for missing Hsi-feng.

Ju-hai sighed. Yawn followed sigh. It became ever more fascinating to watch Orchid’s stately pacings from the table side to the kitchen annex for more wine, and finally, for tea of a flavor different from any that he’d ever tasted before. He’d been speculating, not so much as to what Orchid’s contributions to his welfare were to include, as to when she’d be getting around to that.

“Nice, really nice…kind of exciting, in her quiet way.”

A deeper sigh, another yawn…the Orchid query would keep until he set his books aside, tonight, but right now…

Ju-hai decided he’d lounge in the garden, loll around, and compose verses to capture the autumn spirit; but at the door opening into the court with its miniature lake, miniature bridge, and pavilion not large enough for three persons, he paused. He’d eaten too much…o mi to fu!…what a cook…what wine!

Before he was halfway to the bedroom he was sleepwalking from golden pleasance into a cozy blur of shimmering shadow and darkness, a confusion of times, places, and people…a borderland wherein dream and waking merged, each borrowing from the other, until finally he could not guess whether he was in both or in neither.

Eventually he became aware of certainty; someone, during one of his waves of more than half oblivion had slipped into bed with him—a shapely girl, none the less alluring because her warmth was filtered through the filmiest fabric imaginable.

That shao-hsing hsueh chiew—dark, syrupy, sweetish, with a mouth filling flavor…oddly enough, he knew that something had stimulated his imagination and he wondered at this, as if he stood outside himself, studying his moods and whimsies. Maybe he was becoming a poet… Master Wu would be pleased…mouth filling flavor of that dark wine…how ideas associated… Hsi-feng’s two outstanding attractions, dainty and… Speaking of Little Orchid—no, Little Phoenix—what would happen if she and Mei-yu and Orchid merged to become a one-woman composite… with a dash of Lan-yin essence—

In his stumbling drowsiness, Ju-hai had not drawn the bedcurtains; but moonlight reaching in, after contending with all the obstacles of the courtyard, cast a glamour which was more deceptive than revealing. The girl in the fragile garment ought to be either Hsi-feng or Mei-yu—and why not Orchid? The light was too tricky but he’d outwit that bit of lunar witchery.

He closed his eyes firmly. With the most subtle caress, a scarcely touching stroke, he traced her curves and paused at times to appraise the fastenings and the confusing loops.

Despite tightly closed eyes, he could see her exquisite body, a bit at a time… Careful now…mustn’t wake her; that would be discourteous. The further he progressed the more he became confused as to her identity—

“Going to school hasn’t done a thing for you,” she murmured. “If I’d worn harness, you’d have had me undressed in a flash. I’m not your housekeeper—”

“Mei-yu!”

Before his awareness could find voice, she gave him no further chance for word or gesture. “I’ve been going wild, day after day after day.” She sat up. “Let me get out of this thing.”

This she did, with a body twist and arm flash, whisking away the fragile garment, a wisp of mist swallowed by darkness.

Finesse ignored, the pillow book forgotten, for some while the lovers had no thought for Orchid, whose elegant body had pleased many a high official when he needed a traveling concubine during an inspection tour of a remote province.

Finally, Mei-yu sighed and went comfortably limp and relaxed. Like Ju-hai, she was ready for gossip, retrospect, and for words relating to their future.

“Lady Chang Wo’s light is shifting. Let’s hitch over and stay in the dark. You can imagine this is all-me; some time, maybe, if I can talk the Goddess into it, I’ll be all-me, in a body all my own! Then you’d know, really know—”

“Jade Lady, I’d not live through it.”

“Of course you would!”

“If I didn’t, I’d die happy.”

“I was desperate that night I appeared long enough to give you and Hsi-feng my blessing. I didn’t want to spoil your farewell night, though.” She sat up, twisted about, and caught him by his shoulders. “Lover, I know all the stories and things about what bitches women are when another woman is concerned—but really, I wouldn’t have borrowed her body. I was an idiot ever to start this escapade. I’m miserable whenever we’re not together, though I’m happy we’ve shared as much as we have. You’ve got to become an Immortal yourself, so I can make up for my lost thousand years.”

It was night in Ch’ang-an, three thousand feet above sea level, and the harvest moon was past her fullness.

“It’s getting chilly,” Ju-hai said.

Mei-yu groped till she found and drew covers about them. “It would be awfully bad karma if you and Orchid got pneumonia, which is something an ethereal Immortal can’t get—aiieeyah!” She shuddered. “What nasty karma we’d get!”

“We must have good karma,” Ju-hai objected. “Or I’d never have met you or Hsi-feng.”

She snuggled up and clung desperately tight. “Lover, you’ve never had me in a body that’s all-mine.” Mei-yu shuddered. “I’ve been worried about you.”

“I’ve had my worryings. Getting Hsi-feng the last minute, just to make it as sad as possible—just when I had to leave.”

Mei-yu sat up straight. “The sadder you are at parting, the more you should know that it or she was so awfully good for a while. If you just have to be sure you’ll never be sad, avoid everyone that’s fine and wonderful. You’ll have none of the pains the Lord Gautama the Buddha talked about.”

“You mean no attachments, no loving anyone, no wanting anything, no wanting anyone, then no grief?”

“That’s right,” Mei-yu replied. “That’s the Great Law of the Cosmos. Whatever you get, you pay for, in one coin or another. Once you accept the Great Law, know its rightness, you don’t suffer any more. It is written and it has been said, ‘He who knows how to suffer, that one suffers never again’ ”

It took Ju-hai moments to digest that one, and it ended by giving him spiritual indigestion. He said, bitterly, “That is simple, isn’t it?” He made a snarling sound, deep in his throat, as if a far-off tiger had bared its teeth. “I’ll accept the grief it takes to pay for the good I—we—have had.”

“Really mean that?” Mei-yu asked, very softly.

“Yes.”

“You’ve challenged the Great Law. All you have to do now is to accept the Great Law, karma, and at the same time go beyond that law—do the impossible and win.” She drew a deep breath and shook her head. “Sometimes, I look into the future, and I see grief for you. I can’t see details. I’m awfully uneasy about you. I had a talk with Chang Wo, but a Goddess can’t go more than so far. Things are closing in on you. My dharma, the personal law that rules me, the law of that-which-I-really-am, often makes me leave you when I want to be with you, when I could do more than crawl into bed with you—”

“Jade Lady,” he cut in, “I’m still people, and a thousand years ago, you were people. And people manage to carry on. How long can you stay in Orchid’s body?”

“If I keep her body too long, there’s the risk that she could die.”

Ju-hai frowned. “That would be a left-handed way of killing her?”

“It’s not that simple, but you’re not far off! That would be bad—awfully bad—for you and me—and there’s the law of what I am. No one and nothing makes that law—it is, just because I am.”

“Meaning?”

“I’ll be with you here as long as I can and I’ll be with you somewhere else when I can. I promise.”

Each caught the other and, mouth-to-mouth, they found the deepest darkness, beyond the moon’s reach.