The Blue-Eyed Shan (30 page)

Olevskoy shook a long cigarette from a cardboard box, dropped it, retrieved it, thumbed his wooden match. It flared. His lips were dry on the paper mouthpiece.

“Thirty-two men!” Greenwood, Yang and the footlockers were alone at last, at sunset in the House of the Dead.

“How could I know what lay before me?” Yang demanded. “Communists. Bandits. Ambitious police. How many letters reached you?”

“Three. Hong Kong, Macao, Tokyo.”

“I sent six. It was the only way, you know. We were well and truly cut off. January now; my last chance of air transport was Shanghai in May. To Formosa, where the high command would have abused me for a common criminal and whisked those footlockers away. Je suis mal vu à l'archêveché, tu sais.”

“Oh, stop the French. What was that?”

“The brass hats have always hated me.”

Greenwood said, “You're grayer. White-haired, even.”

“Venerable! You're softer, laddie.”

“The academic life. This Russian.”

“What of him?”

“I dislike him. Dog and cat. Also he looked at my daughter in a man's way. Is he insane?”

“No, only a prince,” Yang said. “I too dislike him. I have never met a Russian that I liked. They are either bullies or bores. I trust they will not let him cross the road again.”

“Does he know?” Greenwood indicated the footlockers.

“No one knows.”

“Incredible. Shall I ask how you found them?”

“A Japanese. He wanted his freedom.”

“You freed him?”

“Forever.”

Greenwood sighed at the world's rude ways. “The padlocks?”

“My own. I sawed through the old ones. As I understand it, these bones were dug out of a hill called Chou Kou Tien near Peking, delivered to your marines in nineteen forty-one and run down to Tientsin for shipment to the States from Chinwangtao.”

“Somewhere they vanished,” Greenwood said. “They were to be loaded aboard a liner, the
President Harrison
, on the eighth of December.”

“Of all days. Remember Pearl Harbor.”

“Of all days. The Japanese fleet chased the
Harrison
and ran her aground down around Shanghai somewhere. As far as we know, these little boxes sat in a warehouse—”

“In Tientsin,” Yang said, “behind several tons of civilian furniture, beds, cupboards, armoires, Western stuff that no Japanese would have in his house. My own Japanese was a colonel, but he was one of those fellows who
keep track
, the sort of man who likes to go through his own garbage for the thrill of finding a bent spoon or half a comb.”

Greenwood's finger traced the letters, USMC. “Do you know what a benefactor you are? Do you know what you've done? What it means?”

“All in a day's work,” Yang said. “Any boy scout would have done the same. All I ask is half a million dollars.”

“I don't see how you managed.”

“Nor do I. Two small children could not have been more trouble.”

“Well,” Greenwood said, “shall we?”

“You have photos?”

“Better.” Greenwood unstrapped his pack.

Yang drew a metal necklace over his head. Keys clinked. He squatted. He opened one chest, then the second. He tossed aside paper wadding and uncovered cardboard boxes. He opened cardboard boxes and plucked out wads of cotton. He held up a bone. He sniffed at it.

Greenwood passed him a sheaf of photos and two plaster casts, and set aside a thick manila envelope.

“A skull,” Yang said, raising it into a shaft of dying sunlight, “and this long one. A thighbone?”

“Yes.” Greenwood took the skull with reverence. Side by side, skull and cast were identical, a small dent precisely where it should be. “My God,” Greenwood said. “My God, my God.”

“Switzerland,” Yang said, as his smile bloomed.

Greenwood said again, “My God.”

Yang seated himself, leaning back against the north wall. “A long journey we've had, he and I. Tell me about him.”

“Them. Little bits of about forty people.” Carefully Greenwood rewrapped the skull. “Half a million years old next month.”

Yang said, “They don't look a day over three hundred thousand.”

“Sinanthropus pekinensis,” Greenwood said. “Chinese man from Peking. Not Homo sapiens, but well on the way. I know a professor who has a reconstruction hanging behind his desk, like a skeleton in a doctor's office. He calls it Sin.”

“Because it's Chinese.”

“And because it's what everything is as old as.”

Yang liked that.

“They were little fellows,” Greenwood said. “About five feet. Not deep thinkers but had a fair-sized brain for the times. They knew how to make fire. We have reason to believe they experienced love.”

“Poor fellows. And look at the result: half a billion Chinese.”

“Not just sex,” Greenwood said. “Bonds. Emotions. Let me catch my breath.”

It was a moment beyond speech. Greenwood and Yang and these old friends; old bones. In the mortuary hut: fitting.

The two living men communed in silence. The bones slept on.

Yang asked, “How do you know they loved?”

“Inference,” Greenwood said. “Riddles within riddles. They used fire. Lived in groups. Gathered and hunted and cooked, cooperated and crowded into caves, overcame a bad climate somehow, and survived. There must have been likes and dislikes, attachments, protective feelings. Maybe there were other tribes, another species even, that were the enemy and reinforced the bonds.”

“On the frontier there is always an enemy,” the general murmured. “Now what?”

Still dazed, Greenwood said, “Yang's luck. At noon tomorrow a plane will make its first run over Pawlu. I think tomorrow anyway. Is today Wednesday the eleventh?”

“I believe so,” Yang said. “Dates don't seem to mean much in the presence of these bones. Will there be trouble with the Shan? That Naung is a tough soldier.”

“All they want is to be rid of us. But there is plenty of trouble. Mine, not yours.”

“Nonsense. One for all and all for one. We're veterans of the old Fifty-fifth.”

Greenwood handed him the manila envelope. “Letters, from the State Department and the university. If we're separated …”

“You have more to say.”

“I can't leave my people with soldiers outside Pawlu and the Wild Wa prowling the woods. My daughter, my little woman, my brothers, even if that sounds foolish. I can't leave Pawlu under two dangers. Your troops: will they follow orders?”

“Not for long. Until today there was … mutual need. More: loyalty. They came here expecting to resupply, move out and when practicable go their own ways.”

“With you or without you?”

“Without me. I was mysterious but not deceptive. I have now abdicated and they know it. Although …”

“Well?”

“They probably expect me to
do
something for them. Make these Wild Wa go away, provide an escort into Burma, something.”

“Failing which, they'll turn to the colonel.”

“That or disperse.”

“They can't disperse,” Greenwood said. “The Wild Wa would take thirty-two heads. And Naung won't let them into Pawlu.”

General Yang bowed his head.

Naung said, “We should have killed all three in silence and attacked the Chinese immediately.”

“You talk like a barbarian,” the Sawbwa said, lucid tonight and even stern.

Wan spat betal juice. The fire hissed. Half a ten of grim captains, cold sober now, were trying to recall past lessons and forestall present dangers. Kin-tan and Shwe had seen a bearded vulture coast across the red sunset.

Kin-tan said, “We must narrow the heart here, and slip between two fires. The Wild Wa never edged so close; and these cursed Chinese are real soldiers.”

“Survivors, they are,” Wan said. “The boys fled; the men stood.”

“It is the Chinese who will be scorched,” Naung said. “They want Pawlu, I tell you. We shall pin them down and let the Wild Wa play among them.”

This lightened the council's spirits.

“You would violate the laws of your ancestors,” said the Sawbwa. “Would you cease to be Shan?”

“Bugger!” Naung said. “Never again admit a foreigner. Shoot them on sight.”

“Green Wood and Yang want only to leave,” Kin-tan said.

“Now that they have brought these plagues upon us!” Naung flared. “Running out! Well, let who will, leave Pawlu; let none enter.”

“That is sound,” Wan said. “How painful is life. Green Wood is one of us.”

“Green Wood is not one of us,” Naung said. “Green Wood's is a world of machines and paper money and women for sale. It is a world I know. He is a buggering sightseer and no more.”

“He has his tattoo.”

“And his general and his footlockers—and what are those to us? Worse than nothing: danger. Green Woods come and go like the black flies in the tiger heat.”

“They destroyed a whole Japanese village with one bomb.”

“A town.”

“Bigger than Kunlong.”

“This one is no black fly,” said Kin-tan, “and no destroyer of towns. After the war I rode with him to Kunlong and he grieved for that Japanese village. He wept for his own woman and child, and cried out for the Japanese women and children.”

“That is long past and of no importance,” Mong said. “It is time now to speak of seeds and not rind.”

“Naung was a long time away,” said Wan.

“Green Wood has a claim on Pawlu.”

“Green Wood was more Sawbwa than the Sawbwa,” said the Sawbwa.

“Green Wood has killed his Wild Wa.”

“Green Wood, Green Wood, Green Wood!” Naung exploded. “Perhaps I should restore Loi-mae to this god!”

They smoked in silence.

“It is not for any other man to say,” the Sawbwa declared. “But it is not contrary to custom or law, and generosity is in order and would please the gods.”

“He could be useful tomorrow,” Kin-tan said.

“He fights like a tiger.”

“He did five years ago. Now he is a schoolmaster and seeks eminence.”

“For eminence what would a man not do?” asked Mong.

They pondered this foolishness.

“He will run out,” Naung repeated.

“We had better talk to them.”

“Yes,” Naung said bitterly, “and I must fetch them myself. One does not
send for
a former First Rifle.”

At the Chinese camp Olevskoy too had summoned a council, every man of his command. In the gathering dusk he had traced upon the ground what his soldier's eye had seen of Pawlu, the valley, the slopes, the upper stream and the lower, the great field, the Sawbwa's house. He sat between Majors Wei and Ho, and the men made a half-moon before them. “I warn you all,” he said, “we have been abandoned. The general and the American have plans of their own. We will not see Yang Yu-lin again.”

“Forgive me, Colonel,” said Wei. “After so many years with the general I cannot immediately believe in this casual defection.”

“It is not casual,” Olevskoy said. “It was planned. And it is no defection because there is no China. There is consequently no Chinese army. He is not a general and I am not a colonel and you are not majors and sergeants and corporals. We are a band of homeless men who have done our job with some honor and are fighting our way across a border; and who is not our friend is our enemy.” Matthew. An aged priest rose before him, and an ikon of Saint Matthew—he who is not with me is against me—an aged priest at Sobolyevo. An image of the girl blotted him out: Lola, budding. He drew in a deliberate, therapeutic breath of mountain air.

“We have posted no sentries,” Major Ho observed.

“We are better off by the fire,” Olevskoy said. “Sentries would be gutted one by one. Whatever is out there moves like the night itself. Do not wander. Even for the relief of nature, go two by two at least.” Into the ark, two and two of all flesh, that is the breath of life, and why these echoes, why these warnings? Should he begin again to cross himself?

“I propose one day's delay before judgment,” said Major Wei.

Olevskoy hardly heard him. The girl had distracted him again. “Yes, yes, one day, all right. Night watches close in, by the eight points of the wind. But remember this. We must act together. We cannot survive in ones and twos. We can fight our way down this road to God knows where, living on God knows what; or we can rule Pawlu.”

“By force,” said Major Wei.

“Of course.”

“Villages are better ruled by consent.”

Olevskoy emitted a vomitous gutteral. “Another Communist.”

“Hardly,” said Major Wei. “But you have seen what happens: the women and children grow sad and hostile, the men disappear, the police are picked off one by one, there are shots in the night, stabbings, accidents—”

“You have not seen what rules them now,” Olevskoy said. “I have. A dim-witted old man and a religious moron with a shaven head. But you
have
seen that poppy field, and I tell you there is a richness in Pawlu: opium and paddy, livestock and tobacco, silver and jade, even a good fat woman for Major Ho.”

The men made manly laughter, Major Ho smiled modestly.

Major Wei did not smile. “Twelve years have I been a soldier,” he said. “Not for this.”

Olevskoy soothed him. “We shall see what tomorrow brings.” Her legs, beneath the longyi, would be slim, childish, barely downy. Taut, smooth thighs, and the long hair wrapped about her budding breasts and narrow waist, floating and fringing to her knees. The others vanished, thirty-five years of them. So it always proved; to princely hot blood each woman was the first woman and the rest had never existed; fat peasants; voracious army whores; Red women raped unyielding, biting and shouting, bludgeoned; European sluts in cities like Harbin, European courtesans in cities like Shanghai; thousands of nameless Oriental cunts; the wife of a British attaché; Siberian animals little more than Stone Age tribeswomen; past, vanished, annihilated by an imp.