The Three Leaps of Wang Lun Read online

  On the last western outrunners of T’ai-shan, overlooking the flowerdrenched plain of the Tach’ing-ho, he laid up for almost a month among the beggars and vagabonds of the area, who squatted together in miserable hovels. Grew thin; felt wretched; he kept quiet about his means of subsistence in front of the idle creatures that he set up puzzles with in the evenings using pieces of quartz. Around midday he took a rocky path upwards, clambered through a bare gorge, then arrived at the back wall of a vile inn that owned three Mongolian cattle. The first time he rabbitpunched the boy who looked after them and threatened him with the axe as he helped himself to half a pail of milk. Now the boy expected him every third day, hid old rice cakes for him, raw eggs, let him take as much milk as he wanted.

  When the boy was not there one day and two snapping dogs were running around the cowshed, Wang slowly and hungrily retraced his weary steps, through the gorge, down the rocky path. At first he wanted to get back to the beggars and give one of them a thrashing; then he sunned himself for the last few hours of daylight, stayed sleeping on the loose gneiss and at the first glimmer of dawn climbed down from the mountains over the gentle hills, the smooth elevations of chalk. The well watered plain stretched out beyond the horizon. In the dazzling light of evening he saw in front of him the strong walls and the great city of Chinan-fu.

  It was immensely lush, the country around Chinan-fu.

  On this side of the broad, clay-coloured river and across it the millet fields stood higher than a man already, erect stems with green sharp leaf blades and brown heads that bent heavily and hung like warhorse manes or helmet plumes, fuzzy with fine hairs. When the warm breeze from the mountains passed over them the fields shook themselves as if the stalks were fleeing, all crouched in the starting position. Young fresh plants grew in the narrow footpaths that Wang Lun ambled along next morning; he pulled a few up, stuck the thin tender silky fronds in his mouth and sucked on them. Thrushes and great ravens chased each other noisily over the damp earth, perched on slender locust trees in whose broad crowns the gynandrous leaves set up a swaying and rustling, as if the trees were suppressing frantic laughter.

  In a roadside barber stall outside the gate the unkempt man had himself washed, shaved and cheaply outfitted for one of his glass bottles. Then, smiling, he strolled with a familiar greeting to the fat gate guard into the town, in a blue-black overgown, on new felt soles, an empty snuff bottle at his green, rather frayed belt, as if he were just back from one of the many small tea pavilions outside the walls frequented by poets and young gallants.

  A great bewildering maze of streets. Shop crammed against shop; food stalls, inns, teahouses, gaudy temples; on the walls bells tinkled in two lovely pagodas to ward off homeless spirits. Wang let himself be carried along in the stream of people, gazed about craftily and with pleasure, in a narrow alley shoved aside a sedan chair and its two bearers.

  And after he had laid them both on the ground he found in them his first friends in Chinan-fu, who took him within the hour to their lodging house, an open airy clapboard building doubling as a food stall in Unicorn Street. One wing of the house contained the sordid eating place, from which smoke and smells penetrated the other wings, the open terrace for tea drinkers overlooking the street, and the sleeping quarters. These were cubicles at the back of the tearoom, low, narrow, with a bench to lie on and a stool. Wang only glanced into his room, then went roaming through the nearby streets, spied out opportunities. He had no cash.

  He followed two hawker women who were carrying a basket between them into a building, across a wide courtyard and into a half dark room that he recognized only by its thick sweet smell as a temple hall. In the round carved doorway an old, sturdy man sat in a bright green robe with wide sleeves, queue tied neatly on his crown; he was sitting in front of a little table with incense sticks, paper figures, making an unctious face by pushing his lips down to form a snout, placing his hands before him with the fingers twisted in a peculiar way, and closing his eyes. The women had bought six sticks of incense from him, set them up in front of a brightly coloured wooden statue in the background, a seated god, next to whom drums, mandolins and panpipes hung on the empty wall.

  Wang walked past the women’s basket that was sitting in the middle of the floor, saw from the corner of his eye as the bonze counted his few cash from one hand to the other and made them vanish without a sound into a box on the wall by the door, again put on his unctious fishface. It was a temple of Han Hsiang-tzu, patron of musicians.

  As Wang turned towards the door the bonze stood up, bowed to him, reverenced with folded hands, praised his exalted visitor’s piety in a well sifted rhythmical flood of words. Wang too bowed politely. At last the bonze enquired whether the subscription list for a water Mass had yet found favour of admittance at the palace of his patron; five poor blind musicians had drowned in a boat as they were returning from a village on the other side. The Mass for the souls of the drowned would begin in two days. Wang gave a false name and false residence, offered to enter his name there and then on the list of donors affixed to the temple wall.

  Then in the dark he broke without difficulty into the temple, got away with over seven hundred cash.

  He lived contentedly at the inn for more than a week, then chance brought him in bustling White Tombs Street face to face with the bonze. It was already too late to conceal himself when he saw the light grey priest robes. But to his astonishment the man passed him by grinning with a wave of his hand.

  That same night he broke into the bonze’s place. The money box was locked but empty. Wang felt his way in the dark to the offering table; under the ashes too there was nothing. Only when he pulled aside the soft cloth on the Eight Immortals table did something clink: spread out under the cloth were a few handfuls of copper coins.

  When the money was spent he worked here and there for some days as a coal hauler, runner in a yamen; but the paltry wages stung him to fury, and also he could get along with nobody. His swaggering nature, his hot temper allied with his giant’s strength impelled him everywhere to deeds of violence.

  So two weeks later he broke in again at the Music God’s temple. He considered first where the bonze might have concealed the day’s takings. Not in his bed or sleeping room, that was clear; the bonze knew beyond a doubt that it was Wang who had robbed him, and in his bedroom he would certainly fear for his life. For almost an hour he felt around in the temple, knocked on walls and floor. Finally he placed the bonze’s stool on the altar table, felt the statue of silent Han Hsiang-tzu. The god’s throat rang hollow: he climbed up, and standing on the wooden thigh easily reached the little money box and opened it. Three handfuls of cash slid into the pouch at his belt.

  When he tried to let himself down from his perch he felt something pulling on his queue, no, his neatly tied queue was stuck fast to the ceiling and back wall of the room. With his free hand he fumbled above and behind him. A thick tarry mass was stuck there; he freed his hand with difficulty, fearing that he and the heavy statue would topple down together. Painfully and with the loss of much hair he extricated his queue from the sticky ooze. Growling softly at the bonze he slipped into the street. The stuff stuck resinous on the well shaven skin of his head; his left hand clung to whatever it touched.

  His friends in Unicorn Street next morning scraped him clean, painfully, with sharp sticks of wood; his skin bled. No one laughed at him; they feared and loved him, they wondered at his daring. Also he divided the spoils with them.

  After that night the flayed thief Wang Lun had only one wish: to avenge himself on the bonze. The man seemed to know where he lived: a few days after this episode he met the grey robe strolling slowly down Unicorn street. The wrinkled face smiled only slightly as Wang bent over the balustrade of the tea terrace; it converted itself to an expression of pained sympathy for Wang’s bandaged skull. The bonze turned many times to look at the poor thief, who made faces behind his back.

  Now Wang gave nothing of his last haul to his two friends; he pla
ced almost all of it with his landlord so that he could carry out his plans undisturbed. It had come to a contest between him and the bonze.

  Still with his head in bandages he went one afternoon to see the bonze. He was sitting in his place in a solemn attitude; strangers from Wuting-fu were there viewing the temple. When he recognized the casually swaggering Wang, he hurried delightedly across and thanked him for his handsome donation to the recent water Mass, asked how his evidently suffering patron found himself. With furrowed brow he added that his temple was beset with troubles. Some cunning thievish rogue was making himself free in this peaceful quarter of the town and plundering poor Han Hsiang-tzu and his humble servant T’o Chin: that was his name. Wang listened with interest, looking down at him, and asked after a pause for thought what precautions wise T’o Chin had taken against this criminal.

  Then T’o, with warm and reiterated thanks for his unbounded benevolence, took this serious man who observed everything with the inquisitive eye of an official on a guided tour. T’o Chin let him see the old empty wall box, showed him the mantraps that he set in the evenings by the doors, pointed out the dried tar on the wall behind the statue. Wang gave advice; would it not be wisest for the bonze to keep the day’s takings about his own person? T’o Chin replied by alluding to the dangerousness of the scoundrel, who even … Wang bridled, repudiated the term “scoundrel”, explained at the other’s smiling glance of enquiry that such strong expressions grated on his ears, that he cultivated such sensitivity of hearing out of deep respect for the patron of music.

  They wandered several times, eyeing each other, up and down between the pious strangers from Wuting-fu. Then Wang condescendingly took leave of the priest, who expressed himself rapturously grateful for the confidence of his illustrious guest.

  That night the fisherman’s son from Hunkang-ts’un walked distractedly up and down outside the temple. He didn’t know how to handle it. He was afraid of exposing himself to the old joker’s ridicule. Letting him be was impossible after the wily trickster’s latest triumph. For several moments Wang seriously considered waking T’o Chin, thrashing him, and giving himself up to the police.

  Then he felt his way across the pitch black yard. In a corner by the outhouse on one side he stopped to let his eyes grow used to the dark. There, dose beside him at an angle to the main door, he saw a long ladder lying on the ground.

  He didn’t touch it; he pondered. It was one of T’o Chin’s little games; the ladder normally stood in a corner of the yard. On the other hand there couldn’t be any more hiding places inside the temple where T’o could put his day’s takings. Wang carefully stepped around the ladder, tried several times to jump up onto the low roof but couldn’t reach and it made too much noise. Then awkwardly, sliding back again and again, he pulled himself up a damp post of the outhouse, swung onto the roof. It took more than an hour before he made it across to the temple roof itself; he was afraid that if he stood upright he would be seen from the street.

  And so he crawled bent double and at every doorslam, watchman’s drumbeat he fell flat on his stomach, in constant danger of sliding down the steep-angled tiles. He cursed his luck, having to live off the money of such an old villain. Roofrib after roofrib was negotiated; slowly Wang let himself down to the warrior figure on the eaves that held a shiny shield. Behind the shield on the warrior’s arm something hung, swung darkly as the eaves bent under Wang’s weight. It was the purse. His clammy fingers untied it, a tricky half hour ensued until he stood once more in the street, shivering, his dirty face twisted with anger at the old man’s guile.

  Around noon, as he stood on the terrace chewing tobacco after lunch, the quick footed landlord came blathering up to hand him a long visiting card. T’o Chin enquired after his benefactor’s health, was visibly pleased that his head wounds were healing, observed Wang’s torn hands with distress: earning a living in Chinan-fu was so hard. When they had drunk their tea Wang paid quite openly from his guest’s purse, accompanied him to the temple to find out what the business of the ladder was all about. They evinced great sympathy for each other, especially Wang for T’o, since he felt that the advantage was with him and T’o seemed to accept this. At the suggestion of his guest T’o fetched the ladder from its corner, placed it against the roof, climbed up a few rungs. Wang, puzzled, climbed after him up to the roof.

  Wang knew it: this game, which he always won and lost at the same time, would be resolved today.

  On shaky legs and with a weak back he crept at nightfall hungry and nervous into the yard, got the ladder that was lying again in front of the main door, placed it against the roof and climbed up, his heart pounding. A purse was hanging there again right from the warrior’s arm. He lay prone on the roof, uneasy; something seemed to be moving in the yard; once the ladder jogged. He climbed down again quickly, without incident.

  He stood rooted there at the foot of the ladder. He couldn’t move. His felt shoes were embedded in a thick slime that rose over his ankles. He groaned; worked his way loose by pulling himself up the ladder, leaving his shoes stuck there. His anger gave him grim strength, made him almost senseless. When he stood barefoot and with gummed-up trousers free in the yard, he threw the purse violently at the door of the bonze’s room. He yelled through the quiet night to the tinkling of rolling coins:

  “There’s your filthy money, you son of a turtle.” Hammered on the thin wooden wall of the house with his fists, until a soft voice made itself audible from within: “What do you want, my dear? What presents have you brought this son of a turtle in the middle of the night?”

  “He’d better come out, that son of a turtle, I want him out here.

  “I want to show him what meanness and baseness are. You’re going to pay for my shoes and my trousers.”

  “But the dear, tempestuous man has already received the price of his shoes and his trousers.”

  “Come out I say, you prattler, you swindler, you lump of lard, and I’ll show you what I mean by pay!”

  While Wang Lun raged freezing out in the yard, T’o Chin dressed by the light of an oil lamp in his best robe, put the kettle on to boil, and very calmly opened the door into the yard. Wang wanted to rush at him; because of his gummed-up trousers could only hobble painfully. T’o Chin held the lamp up for him, bowed without ceasing. In the eyes of the strapping young fellow, who felt the ridiculousness of his situation, stood tears of rage and pain. The bonze moved aside for him, indicated the warm brickbed, on which Wang lay down whimpering.

  The cup of hot tea that his host proffered with great ceremony he drank in two gulps, while T’o threw open his priest’s robe, poured a strong smelling liquid onto a wad of cloth and slowly rubbed the pitch from Wang’s legs. Now and then he ran into the yard with his lamp. “A thief might come and steal our money,” he explained as he came back in with the purse and shut the door again. He offered Wang a pair of trousers and good felt shoes. The fisherman’s son from Hunkang-ts’un sat at the generous man’s table, devoured watermelon and gulped down cup after cup. He seemed to be swaying up and down, but the tea was hot and the melon juicy.

  In his conversation T’o Chin proved to be as great a reader of men’s souls as he was a rogue. His defeated opponent laid his head first on one side, then on the other in wonder at such manifold artfulness. As intended, T’o had caught himself a trusty collaborator.

  So the remarkable interaction between the two mutated into friendship.

  T’o Chin’s occupation was a very simple one. He had under his care the temple of a very poor company—the musicians. They paid him an insignificant sum for his services and placed the room at his disposal; essentially he had to make his own living through the sale of incense and Masses, and everything depended on his own abilities. In a different quarter of Chinan-fu stood another temple of the Patron of Music, and when T’o’s god failed to grant their wishes people would take themselves blaspheming and complaining to the other temple and bring T’o’s god into disrepute.

  Now Wang
Lun and T’o Chin carried on the business jointly. Wang was the bonze’s crier and witness. When they made their way of a morning together through the streets and the swarming marketplaces, the giant Wang in a green smock walked ahead of the priest, held the two yard-long horns by their mouths; T’o Chin from time to time blew into the mouthpieces; two deep startling notes bellowed from the horns into the scattering crowd. In front of the silk merchants’ booths, the porcelain sellers, they loudly praised the rare, immense efficacy of their god: the lots in his temple gave the surest prescriptions against every illness; a Mass said before him was as effective as it was cheap. It was a good idea to freshen up the divinity now and then, ascribe sensational new abilities to him; so they cried the music god’s flair for sniffing out crimes, thefts. If they were then led off somewhere they simply spied out the opportunities as they carried a small statue of Han Hsiang-tzu around, stole something later, and with the help of Han Hsiang-tzu’s nose unearthed the greater part of the booty in some distant spot. Naturally, when the haul was particularly rich the god left them in the lurch.

  T’o Chin, recognizing Wang’s inclination to tomfoolery and high jinks, gave him a beautiful stag mask with splendid antlers, a mask such as the lamaistical shamans wore at their Cham-dance. Wang Lun was as happy as a child with the thing, romped around the yard and out in the street together with the two sedan bearers; startled visitors, drove them off.