The Real Story of Ah-Q (47 page)

‘Our pancakes do seem to have been getting smaller recently,’ Boyi remarked thoughtfully. ‘Maybe something is about to happen. Best keep out of it, though. Stay at home and keep on with your t’ai chi.’

‘I’m sure you’re right…’ Shuqi murmured in deference to his senior.

‘Think about it,’ Boyi went on, knowing full well his brother was unconvinced. ‘We are guests here, living off the charity of the King of Zhou, a great respecter of old age. We’ve no right to complain: either if the pancakes get smaller, or if something worse happens.’

‘In other words, we should just concentrate on getting old.’

‘Best say as little as possible. I don’t even have the energy to listen to any more.’

He started coughing; Shuqi said no more. Once the coughing had subsided, silence descended, the two white beards glinting in the evening sun of late autumn.

But the effects of the absence of peace began to ripple outwards, the pancakes growing not only smaller in size but also coarser in quality. The residents of the Old People’s Home spent longer and longer in huddled conference. Outside on the street, there was much noisy coming and going of horses and carts. Shuqi grew ever fonder of going out. Though he never said much on his return, his uneasy expression robbed Boyi of his own sense of calm. Their platter of pancakes, he sensed, was about to be upset.

One morning towards the end of the eleventh month, Shuqi got up to practise his t’ai chi as usual. But when he walked out into the courtyard, he paused to listen, then dashed out of the main gate. In about the time that it would have taken to bake ten pancakes, he rushed back in, his nose bright red from the cold, his breath billowing in white clouds.

‘Brother! Get up!’ he urged in a voice roughened by agitation, standing by Boyi’s bed, hands respectfully down by his sides. ‘They’ve declared war!’

Though Boyi was most reluctant to expose himself to the dawn cold, concern for his brother obliged him to sit up, drape a fur-lined robe over his shoulders, and slowly tug on his trousers under his quilt.

‘I was just about to start my t’ai chi,’ Shuqi reported while he waited, ‘when I heard people and horses outside. When I rushed out to the road to look, my worst fears were confirmed. At their head went a large sedan chair, decorated in white, with eighty-one bearers, carrying a wooden commemorative tablet marked “King Wen of the Great Zhou”. A retinue of soldiers followed behind. They must be marching against Shang, I thought. He’s filial enough, the present incumbent. He carries his father’s shrine before him at the start of any great enterprise. Then, when I turned to go back inside, I found a notice on the wall outside the Old People’s Home…’

Once Boyi was fully dressed, the two brothers ventured out into the cold air, shrinking back at the chill. The view beyond the main gate presented a refreshing novelty to Boyi, who rarely ventured far beyond the home. A few steps from the gate, Shuqi pointed to a large placard on the wall:

Neither spoke as they made silently for the main road, both sides of which were packed so tightly with humanity that not even a drop of water would have seeped through. A single ‘excuse me’ from the two old gentlemen at the back turned the heads of the crowd towards them. In compliance with the late King Wen’s order to respect the aged, the throng quickly parted to allow them forward. By this point, the ancestral tablet at the head of the procession had disappeared into the distance, succeeded by row upon row of armoured warriors. After about the length of time it would have taken to bake three hundred and fifty-two large pancakes, the brothers saw a long phalanx of soldiers pass by, hoisting nine-streamered banners that floated above their heads like multicoloured clouds. Yet more soldiers followed, with civil and military officials bringing up the rear, mounted on mighty stallions, and clustered around their formidable king – Wu of Zhou, setting off to carry out the mandate of heaven, his tanned cheeks bristling with beard, a bronze axe in his left hand, a white oxtail in his right.

The silent crowds on both sides of the road were transfixed by the spectacle. Imagine the amazement, then, when amid the quiet Shuqi rushed forward, dragging Boyi behind him, and wove through the file of horses to tug on the king’s own bridle.

‘Call yourself a filial son?’ he yelled. ‘Making war before you’ve even buried your father? What kind of a man plots to murder his own sovereign?’

For a few seconds, terrified spectators and officers held their breath. Even the white oxtail clutched by the Zhou ruler sagged in astonishment. But by the time Shuqi’s piece had been said, procession and crowds were in uproar, as a lattice of broadswords closed in over the brothers’ heads.

‘Stop!’

Everyone paused to listen, recognizing the voice of the Grand Patriarch, Jiang Shang. Their blades halted in mid-air, the king’s loyal retinue turned to gaze upon the patriarch’s plump face, fringed with white hair.

‘Let them go. These are honourable men.’

Withdrawing their swords, the men of war placed them back at their waists. Four armoured soldiers now stood politely to attention before Boyi and Shuqi, took each by an arm and strode off with them to the side of the road. Again, the crowds smartly gave way.

Once at the back, the brothers’ armoured guard straightened up again, released their arms and gave both a push from behind. Yelping with pain and surprise, the two men stumbled forward several yards then collapsed to the ground. Shuqi fortunately fell on his hands, coming away with nothing worse than a face-full of mud. Older, frailer, Boyi knocked his head against a stone and fainted right away.

Once the spectacle of the great army had passed by, everyone turned back to surround the prostrate Boyi and the seated Shuqi. A number of the better-informed members of the audience told the rest that they were the sons of Lord Guzhu of Liaoxi, and that they had fled to Zhou, and entered the Old People’s Home founded by the late King Wen, on jointly abdicating their claim to the throne. Gasps of wonder rippled through the crowd. A few kneeled to get a better look at Shuqi, while others scurried home to warm some ginger soup. Others again went off to inform the Old People’s Home and have them send a door plank to take them home.

When, in about the time it would take to bake one hundred and three, or perhaps one hundred and four, large pancakes, it seemed there would be no further major developments, the audience gradually fell away. After another while, two old men finally limped over – carrying between them a door plank covered in a layer of rice straw (in strict accordance with the directives of King Wen to respect the comfort of the aged). The resounding thump the plank made against the ground startled Boyi back into life. Exclaiming with joy, Shuqi helped the two other men lift his brother gently on to the plank, then walked alongside as the stretcher set off for the Old People’s Home, holding the hemp rope attached to the door.

‘Hey! Wait!’ someone shouted, after they had advanced sixty or seventy paces. ‘Your ginger soup!’ A young married woman was advancing towards them at a measured trot, carrying a clay pot whose contents she seemed afraid might spill.

Everyone stopped and waited for her to catch up, at which Shuqi thanked her for her kindness. She seemed rather disappointed to discover that Boyi had regained consciousness, but managed to recover her spirits sufficiently to urge the soup on him – something to warm his stomach. Boyi wanted nothing to do with it; he had a terror of spicy things.

‘Well, what am I going to do with this, then?’ she seemed rather piqued. ‘This ginger’s been steeping for eight years. You won’t taste anything better. No one in my family likes spicy things, either.’

And so Shuqi felt he had no choice but to take the pot and somehow force a sip and a half upon Boyi. Seeing that almost all of it was left, he claimed that his own stomach needed medicating and gulped the lot down. His eyes bright red with the strain of it all, he commended the soup for its potency and thanked the lady for her kindness, thereby resolving the situation.

No serious ill effects made themselves felt after their return to the Old People’s Home. Within three days Boyi was out of bed again, although the lump on his forehead remained; and he had no appetite.

But still they had no peace: disturbing news was forever reaching their ears, whether in the form of official reports or rumour. At the end of the twelfth month, it was put about that the great army had crossed the Yellow River at Mengjin, and that all the other feudal princes had rallied under the Zhou banner. Not long after, a copy of King Wu’s ‘Great Pledge’ arrived, rendered in especially large script – each character as big as a walnut – for the dim-sighted residents of the Old People’s Home. Not bothering to read it himself, Boyi let Shuqi recite it to him, passing no comment except at the phrase ‘he has desecrated the ancestral sacrifices, estranging himself from family and country’, which, taken out of context, seemed to wound him particularly.

And still the rumours kept coming: that Zhou forces had reached Muye, that they had joined battle with the Shang army, that the corpses of the latter had lain strewn over the plain, that blood had flowed in rivers, with sticks floating along the surface like grass; that all seven hundred thousand of the Shang troops had refused to fight: as soon as they saw Jiang Shang approach at the head of his vast army, they turned and fled, leaving the way open to King Wu.

Although the rumours diverged on points of detail, they agreed on outcome: that a great Zhou victory had been won. Later stories were told of the contents of the Stag Tower treasury and of the Great Bridge imperial granary being transported back – further proof of conquest. Wounded soldiers streamed steadily back from the front – all of them, it seemed, veterans of epic battles. The walking wounded would gather in teahouses, taverns, barbershops, under eaves or in gateways, telling stories of the war, captivating audiences wherever they went. Now that the mild spring evenings had arrived, such recitations would often go on late into the night.

Troubled by indigestion, Boyi and Shuqi never succeeded in eating their share of pancakes at each mealtime. And though they kept to their usual bedtime – retiring as soon as darkness fell – they never managed to fall asleep. Boyi tossed and turned, while an agitated Shuqi listened until – as often as not – he ended up putting his clothes back on and taking a turn around the courtyard, or practising some t’ai chi.

One moonless, starry night, when everyone else in the home was fast asleep, Shuqi heard voices chattering outside the gate. Though he’d never eavesdropped before, this time – for some reason – he stopped what he was doing and listened.

‘The King of Shang fled to the Stag Tower as soon as the battle was lost.’ The speaker, Shuqi surmised, was a returned soldier. ‘Then the bastard piled up his treasures, sat himself down in the middle, and set fire to the lot. Damn him!’

‘What a waste!’ another voice – the gatekeeper’s – broke in.

‘Not so fast! He only managed to burn himself to death – the treasures weren’t touched. When our great king led the feudal princes into the kingdom of Shang, everyone came out of the capital to meet them. “Peace be with you!” he told his officers to say to them. Then everyone kowtowed. When they entered the city, they found two words pasted on every gate: “We Obey”. The king drove up in his carriage to the Stag Tower, found the King of Shang’s body and shot three arrows at him – ’

‘Why? Was he afraid he wasn’t really dead?’ someone else asked.

‘Who knows? But after that, he sliced at him with a light sword,
then
got out his bronze axe and whoosh! Off with his head. Then he stuck it up on a big white flag.’

Shuqi shuddered in horror.

‘
Then
he went looking for the king’s two concubines. They were stone cold, swinging on their own nooses, but he still shot another three arrows, and took a slice at them first with his sword and then with his black axe this time. Off came their heads, which he stuck on little white flags. So – ’

‘Were they as beautiful as everyone says?’ the gatekeeper interrupted.

‘Couldn’t say. The flagpole was too tall, and there were too many people trying to look. My wound was hurting me too much to get close enough to see.’

‘I heard Da Ji was a vixen fairy – that she had paws for feet, so she always kept them bound in strips of cloth. Is that true?’

‘Couldn’t say. I didn’t see them myself. A lot of the women round those parts do funny things to their feet – bind them like pig’s trotters.’

Shuqi was a man with a keen sense of decorum: a deep frown wrinkled his brow as he heard them move from the severed head of the king to the feet of his women. Determined to hear no more, he went back inside. Boyi was still not asleep.

‘Practising your t’ai chi again?’ he softly asked.

Shuqi slowly made his way over to Boyi’s bed, sat down and leaned in. After he had told his older brother what he had just heard, the two of them fell silent.