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The day Minister Li
retired from office, he lay on his bed and felt a great sense of
release, as if the values and morals that had controlled him through
his life were as frail as the morning dew. For a moment he felt he
was hovering an inch above the mattress and gripped the sheet. He
took in a few long deep breaths and relaxed enough to wipe the cold
sweat from his upper lip. Get up, get up, the insistent birdsong
seemed to say: you have many years yet.
It was nearly ten
before Minister Li finally stood up into the day. He threw back the
furs, lowered his legs over the side of the bed. The fire beneath
his brick bed kang had gone out in the night. The clay still felt
warm. There was a smell of ashes in the air. He pushed himself to
the edge. His feet nosed into their slippers. He stood up and
limped towards the chamber pot, set it on his writing desk, moved
the paper to the side in case he should miss, dragged up his robe.
The urine came in
hesitant spurts; the smell was not healthy, nor the colour.
Minister Li let his robe drop back to the floor, turned back towards
his bed. As he took his blue silk robe from its bamboo peg, a line
from a poem came to mind. She plays her anger on the red lute
strings, only a bud when he taught me. He ignored it and tied
his belt and folded back his sleeves, reached for his comb. The
doorstep’s carpeted red with leaves. He combed all the thoughts
and worries away, tied the winter-grey hairs into a bun, let a few
strands fall fashionably in front of his ears. He turned his head
to admire them before he stepped towards the door, made ready to
start his day.
Unswept till he
returns,
the words came, but as always he clenched his teeth and ignored
them.
The servants had
already eaten, and a stack of bowls and chopsticks stood by the door
as they finishing the final packing, sacks and chests heaped in the
corner. Minister Li cleared his throat, spoke in his ministerial
voice.
‘Fang,’ he said,
‘when will all this be ready?’
The young man turned
and nodded, flapped across the room in his straw-sandaled feet.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘At the latest.’
‘Tomorrow is too
late,’ the Minister said. ‘I wanted it done three days ago.’
‘I know,’ Fang
apologised, but however much Minister Li swore and fumed but there
was nothing he could do to change the world. ‘It was difficult to
find enough men,’ Fang explained. ‘There were rumours about
conscripters. All the village men stayed away. I had to pay these
men double.
Minister Li looked
at the foreigners: hooked noses, deep-set eyes, dark skin. What
were the armies for if not keeping the barbarians out? he thought.
But now the armies were foreign, their generals were Mongols and
Kazaks, only the servants were still Chinese.
‘Well,’ Minister
Li’s tone turned almost conciliatory. ‘We can’t wait. I want you
to leave this and see that everything we need is ready. I’m leaving
today. I can’t bear to stay here any longer.’
Fang bowed low and
ran off into the yard, bristling with orders. He was already
shouting at his team of men when Minister Li went to take yet
another last look round. He thought of admiring the ornamental
fish, but they were frozen into their pond. They stared up through
the ice, and waved up at the world with their long trailing fins,
but the old man’s eyesight was never strong. All he saw were
smudges in the ice. Leaves, he thought.
The paint was
peeling off Moonlight Pavilion. In his room he tried to conjure up
a vision of his younger days – but all he could see was the tattered
windows, dusty floor and long cracks in the plaster, inching
curiously up the walls.
Minister Li shut the
door of their old room and walked back towards the main hall. Fang
was waiting in a cloud of his breath, his hands tucked into his
sleeves for warmth, his face drawn and anxious.
‘Minister,’ he said,
‘your chair is ready.’
The Minister walked
out of the main hall on to the steps, a troop of uniformed men were
standing around, blowing on their fingers, coughing in the cold.
His sedan stood in the centre of the yard, the gold and red silks
worn and faded, flapping wearily in the breeze.
Minister Li stepped
down the stairs. His mind’s eye joined the watching men, an unseen
face in the crowd, saw himself as others saw him: a retired official
in blue silk gown and red felt boots leaving the capital.
The picture of the
Li family tomb came to mind. He had taken his mother’s body there
when he was a young man. Memories of that time returned for a
moment, as vivid as a silk painting. He paused to let Fang hold
open the curtain, then he bowed his head low and stepped inside.
The headman of the
chair bearers clapped his hands and the men moved towards their
places. Fang pulled himself up on to his horse. He watched the
bearers take the weight of the poles on their shoulders, then
stand. The sedan rose awkwardly, like a camel. The vermilion gates
bent slowly open and the procession marched out into the streets.
The Avenue of Heaven
was jostling with people and traffic. ‘Out the way!’ Fang called
out to the crowd beneath him as he steered his horse through the
throng. ‘Make way for Minister Li!’ he shouted and felt the blind
hands of the crowd pulling his horse back.
Fang kicked his
heels and the horse pushed forward, the sedan following in their
wake. As they marched to the south gates they passed the Large
Goose Pagoda on the left. The temple bells were ringing and the
monks were chanting for compassion and freedom from the world’s
sorrows. Minister Li gave a snort of contempt, but when they passed
the Small Monk Monastery he pulled the curtains of the chair back
for a moment.
He had studied
Daoism there in his youth. They had a revolving library, a huge
cylinder of scrolls. He looked at the ruins, watched farmers
ploughing between the crumbling walls, turning the frozen clods.
The ‘Greatest City under Heaven’ was crumbling back to farmland. He
nodded silently to himself, stared down into his open hand and shook
his head. Who would ever have thought the world would disintegrate
so quickly?
As the Small Goose
Pagoda came into view the Minister let the curtains hang closed.
His name was carved on that pagoda. He did not want to think of the
excited young man who had written his name that day, paid the stone
carver to chisel it into posterity, but the image leapt into view.
Was she there that day?
Minister Li sat and
thought for a long while and decided no. She wasn’t. His memory
had her there – laughing and clapping her hands - and he could see
the glossy sheen of sunlight in her hair, see her teeth as she put
her head back to laugh – but he hadn’t met her yet.
No, he thought to himself. Not yet.
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The
Drink and Dream Teahouse
A
Bend in the Yellow River