Down to a Soundless Sea (34 page)

The elder Fat found these stories difficult to believe. None of this sounded like the Sing Fat he knew, but they were
the only reports that came to light. Perhaps they were true. Perhaps madness had come to roost in the young man’s soul after all.

The one piece of evidence that finally convinced the apothecary that this identification might prove valid was a report that just such an individual, described just as he had heard, always traveled in the company of a beautiful white cat. This last piece of intelligence corked the bottle of speculation.

Chow Yong Fat, apothecary and healer of local distinction, at last buried any hopes that his talented pupil and friend would ever return to him as the man he once knew. The affliction that claimed victims of such cataclysm had consumed his most promising student, and there was no remedy for such misfortune save prayer. One either survived or withered into the grave of love’s despair.

The old man assumed, with good reason, that he would never see Sing Fat again. After all was said and done, Sing Fat would not be the last child of the Middle Kingdom to go mad in the land of the barbarians.

It was sad to think upon, but no consecrated soil would claim his bones, and his grave would go uncherished by the generations of family he had hoped to sire.

Chow Yong Fat was alone once more. He despaired of ever finding someone to whom he could pass on his knowledge and practice, but disappointments were part of the currency traded with heaven for the gift of life. He was altogether resolved to accept this fact and went about his business as usual. Out of respect for his loss, no one ever mentioned his tragic apprentice again.

*  *  *

Seven months had passed since the death of Sue May Yee, and on New Year’s Day of the Chinese calendar, Master Chow Yong Fat traveled to the Brooklyn district of Watsonville to witness the celebrations as a guest of his old friend, Dr. Lee Wah. It was tradition to render up debts on New Year’s Day, and that had prompted one of his reasons for the journey. He maintained business relationships with the elders of the Fon Lee Look Company, the Ling Fook Company, and the Quong Wo Company, and there were important debts to be collected as well as paid during this propitious time of the year.

He had also pledged to visit his onetime benefactor, T. M. Shew, who now owned a general store on San Juan Road. Shew had acquired part ownership of a Chinese nickelodeon down by the Pajaro River, and the elder Fat was curious to see this strange new oddity.

The apothecary arrived back in Salinas two days after the New Year celebrations. It was late in the evening, and not a soul moved on the streets. He had no sooner closed the shop and gone up to his rooms when there came a loud knocking on his front door.

Chow Yong Fat naturally assumed it was a minor medical emergency and went downstairs to answer the summons. When he opened the door he received a shock, for there stood an ominous-looking brigand who resembled the cowboy villains he had seen illustrated in the cheaper periodicals. He was about to slam the door in the man’s face when he noticed a beautiful white cat step out from under the man’s full-length trail duster.

He looked up in the dim light and saw that behind the wispy beard, mustache, and long, unkempt hair burned the
eyes of his erstwhile apprentice, Sing Fat. He had changed to such a degree that the apothecary barely recognized him at all.

Behind Sing Fat, in the street, stood a mule-drawn wagon with a little gray burro haltered to the tailgate. At Sing Fat’s feet lay a number of large sacks packed to bursting and a small ironbound strongbox. The elder Fat swung open the door and warmly invited his former pupil to enter. The Duchess of Woo made her entrance first, followed by Sing Fat, who dragged in the sacks and the strongbox.

There followed a few moments of embarrassed silence before Sing Fat spoke a greeting. The elder Fat noticed at once that more than appearance had changed. Sing Fat no longer spoke in his usual fast-paced, youthful manner. His voice had sunk to a low baritone, and he talked in a slow, studied cadence that left one with the impression that he had only just learned his own language.

Sing Fat apologized for the lateness of the hour. He had come by on New Year’s Day, as tradition mandated, to repay his debts, but he was told that Master Chow Yong Fat had gone to Watsonville. He said that he would have waited until morning, but he had business to attend to, and he wished to be back on the road as quickly as possible.

The old man shook his head in confusion and said that he didn’t recall any debts owed him. His former apprentice had paid his own way and owed him nothing. But Sing Fat said that some debts were a matter of opinion and it was his considered belief that a substantial debt was owed for all the elder Fat had taught him. He appraised the services rendered by his teacher to be of the greatest value and, as such, worthy of remuneration even if his former teacher did not consider it so.
Pulling a large knife from under his duster, Sing Fat began to open the sacks and lay their contents on the counter.

Chow Yong Fat was surprised and dismayed by the variety and value of the gifts. There were bags of wild Indian ginseng, rare mountain herbs by the pound, pickled sea urchins, dried juniper berries by the quart, and rare deepwater shark fins in dried bundles of ten pounds each. He also presented his old teacher with rolls of beautifully smoke-tanned buckskin, dried cobra root, best-quality willow bark, and the cured gallbladders of wild mountain boar as well as their curled tusks, the luster of which rivaled the finest ivory. Along with these he stacked wax sealed crocks of pickled green eels and jars of wild mountain honey still in their wax combs as well as big black wood bees preserved in their own honey. Finally Sing Fat lifted the sturdy strongbox onto the counter and opened it with a large, iron key. He withdrew eight large goose quills packed with gold dust, approximately five ounces in all. The gold, he said, was to help his teacher’s business and might finance the recruitment of qualified assistants for the shop.

Sing Fat paused, looked at the Duchess perched on a tea chest, and then said it was the least he could do since he had left his master’s employ on such short notice. He went on to remark that every few months he would return with more goods appropriate to the arts of medicine. Whatever profits were to accrue from his contribution were to be reinvested in the business. Sing Fat let a sad smile cross his lips. He said he no longer had much need for ready cash. His life was simpler now and required little in the way of money.

The elder Fat asked what he did and where he now lived, but his ex-pupil avoided the question by apologizing for any undue inconvenience, disappointment, or distress he might have
caused his revered teacher. Sing Fat said that, though he still took great interest in medicine and collecting specimens useful in those arts, he could no longer abide the company or fellowship of other people.

He preferred to live away from human society and craved no companionship save that of his beloved Duchess of Woo. Together with his mule, Po Lin, and his burro, General Sing, he was blessed with all the comradeship he needed.

For habitation he preferred the mountains of the Big Sur. They sheltered him from the ravages of an unjust world and the soul-stripping flails of heaven.

With that, Sing Fat made a soft clicking sound with his tongue and the Duchess reappeared from her feline explorations and jumped nimbly up into his arms. Then Sing Fat bowed to his mentor and wished him a prosperous and fruitful new year.

Clutching his strongbox under one arm and cradling the Duchess in the other, Sing Fat disappeared into the night, leaving his bewildered benefactor to contemplate the power of grief over men’s lives. It seemed to him that the older he grew, the less he really understood about the intricacies and frailty of the human heart. For him it was enough to know that the organ pumped blood and kept one alive against the odds of nature.

For all intents and by design, Sing Fat slipped from the weave of Chinese society and, indeed, from the fellowship of humanity in general. For thirty-nine years he wandered the mountains and coasts of the Big Sur. Everyone living in the area remembered having seen him on one or another of his enigmatic foraging expeditions, always accompanied by his white
cat. Nobody knew what he did for money, where he lived, nor did they really care. He was always fastidiously polite to everyone, but never went out of his way to seek their company. He made no close friends and rarely spoke unless spoken to.

There were a few odd souls that Sing Fat counted as helpful and worth the time of day. West Smith, Horace Hogue, J. W. Gilkey, and the Posts fell into that category, but the rest were shadow acquaintanceships and of little real importance aside from infrequent instances of trade.

After the death of Master Chow Yong Fat, his erstwhile pupil bought a bigger spring wagon and went into the seaweed trade. Sometimes he would stop by the Post ranch and trade for apples, sugar, tobacco, or a portion of beef if the deer proved scarce. But other than that, the Chinaman and his reasons for living such an isolated life on the wild coast of the Big Sur remained a mystery to everyone.

One day in spring, a passing cowhand discovered Sing Fat, by then an old man, sitting under a broad oak near his spring wagon. He looked asleep but was, in fact, dead of natural causes. He appeared quite tranquil and at peace with the world at last. He was buried on a gentle hillside not far from where he was found.

Some years later Sing Fat’s little cabin was discovered in the mountains. In a well-preserved clearing overlooking the sea near his rude shelter, a tiny ornate grave was discovered. It was just big enough for a cat. It was surmounted by a simple Chinese shrine cleverly constructed of wood and cut stone. The legend, intricately carved and painted on the marker, was in Chinese. Translated, it said, “Here reposes the truest Heart and Spirit of
Sing Fat. The humblest servant of the Imperial Duchess of Woo.”

Below that, carved and painted in gold, was a sentiment in English: “That which the compassion and glory of heaven has united, no power in the universe shall ever divide.”

Q: An aura of performance, as suggested by the author’s note, permeates
Down to a Soundless Sea
. As a devout raconteur, do you see these stories as attempts to translate the experience of storytelling? Does the act of fixing them on the page complicate or simplify the stories?

A: In my humble opinion, all storytelling, and in turn writing, by virtue of its human origin, entails profound elements of performance. Authors either perform on their own account, such as historians, journalists, and essayists; or, like novelists and playwrights, they fashion characters to perform specific roles at the author’s behest. One way or the other, the puppeteer remains the same.

It is specifically because I’m a carrier of raconteur’s disease, in its most virulent form, that I have come to realize that one can never really cross-pollinate the act of live storytelling with its literary reflection. But I can think of any number of great authors who have come within a hairs-breadth of convincing me they could.

I’ve never known a story, whether true or false, to remain fixed to any page for long. If it has legs at all, it will self-propagate through numerous generations and variations, until not even the author would recognize his own child. On the other hand, if a story’s basic structure should prove totally paraplegic, the moral hopelessly pathetic, and the general presentation tragically pointless, it will probably find great success as a television movie of the week. Which goes to prove, you can’t keep a dead man down.

Q: These stories are animated by an attention to history and the shared import of the oral tradition. Is writing, in this sense, a collaborative venture?

A: All reasonable stories are basically collaborative affairs insofar as they are, in the main, salvaged from an oral tradition and therefore rewoven from previously milled strands. Some are reborn from the ashes of ancient myths, some are rooted in our personal or national histories, while still others, like Robin Hood or Frankenstein’s Monster, are inextricably bound to “popular culture,” and therefore recycled and repackaged continuously as demand requires.

It is true that I indulge an energetic interest in histories of every category, such as they are, but the one all-encompassing fact I have learned through my years of reading is that there are as many colorfully different versions of history as there are colorful authors writing about it. It then should follow that as simple weavers of entertaining stories, most writers should have plenty of room in which to maneuver their narratives. It remains a mystery that so many plots keep colliding into each other in such an open channel. “Damn the hyperbolae! Topsails set ahead!”

Q: We don’t use phrases like “to put the tail on the dog” or “kissing feathers” much anymore. What kind of research went into the colorful vocabulary of these stories?

A: To unearth accurate tints of dialect, phrasing, and language long since out of common usage, I find it helpful to read letters and articles written during the era I’m exploring. I’ve discovered it interesting that many phrases in present usage have parallels in past dictums that use different key phrases meaning very much the same thing as they do today. For instance, “To put the tail on the dog” means the same as inserting a “drag-line” into a yarn with an appropriate hook to fit the moral of the story, a spontaneous “punchline” in modern terms. And the phrase “kissing feathers” means the same as pressing one’s face into the pillows of exhausted repose.