The Yellow Papers (12 page)

And still the boy had wanted to know more, so that Chen Mu dug deep in his memory and told him stories and myths he remembered from so long ago.

Chen Mu finished making the scarecrow then stood it up to face the boy.

‘Shall we paint a face on him?'

Edward nodded. ‘A monkey's face!'

Chen Mu hid a smile. A week earlier Edward had thrown a rock at the hothouse in a fit of temper, and Chen Mu had told him the story of Sūn Wùkōng, the Monkey King – one of Hsuan Tsang's four disciples who accompanied him on his journey to the West. When Chen Mu told Edward how Buddha had pinned Sūn Wùkōng under a mountain for five centuries as a punishment for his bad behaviour, the small boy had run screaming to Winnie, convinced Chen Mu would do the same to him. So Chen Mu then told him the rest of the story, and since then Edward brought up monkeys at every opportunity.

‘And “a monkey” is …?'

‘Yìzhï hizi'

‘Yìzhï
hóu
zi'

‘Yìzhï
hóu
zi
then.'

Chen Mu nodded and went to the shed for paint and a brush.

‘How's that, Master Edward?' he asked when he'd finished painting the face. Edward nodded seriously. ‘You know,' Chen Mu added as he carried the scarecrow to the strawberry patch, ‘there are those in my village who believe the monkey can keep witches and goblins away.'

Not hearing a response, he stopped and looked back. Edward was staring at him round-eyed, his mouth forming an ‘o' of astonishment. Chen Mu continued walking and Edward ran to catch up.

‘Winnie will be looking for you, Master Edward,' he said when the scarecrow was finally positioned, ‘and I have to get cleaned up for lunch.' The boy shrugged and made no move to return to the homestead.

As he made his way to the cottage he and Sahira had occupied since he'd replaced McBain as head-gardener, Chen Mu took in the changes that had occurred since the Great Drought. He would never forget the sound of shrivelled grass crunching under his feet, the cracked flaking clay sucked dry by the sun. Australia's wheat crop had been all but lost, and everywhere dust heaps that had once been pastures had blown away to reveal the tangled roots of trees.

Stock numbers had fallen drastically as only the best of the breeders were kept, and butchers around the country went out of business through lack of meat. Those with cash bought up leaseholds in different regions to reduce risk – they said the Kidman brothers now had land all the way from the Barkly tableland near the Gulf of Carpentaria right through to Maree in South Australia – but for most there was just hopelessness.

Then one day by the creek banks Chen Mu noticed long armies of ants carrying their eggs to higher ground, and the air smelt strongly of eucalyptus oil as the leaves of trees opened their pores and looked to the sky to quench their thirst. Back at the homestead chickens oiled their feathers and cattle bellowed with renewed energy. That night thunder rumbled in the distance for hours on end. Chen Mu and Sahira had sat outside watching the stars disappear behind ever-growing clouds that rolled and billowed until the sky seemed an angry sea. Lightning ripped the sky and great fat drops of rain fell, slowly at first then with more and more intensity until they'd had to shelter inside the cottage.

The rains, however, didn't bring relief. There was still no feed for livestock and many of the animals left simply starved to death. Men cut down leafy branches from trees as well as prickly pear to use as fodder. Now the prickly pear had so infected some properties that they could no longer be used for grazing. But the men had learned their lessons. They realised provision had to be made in these times of plenty, so they'd built fences to restrict access and conserve feed, and they cut and stored hay, and built extra dams to collect runoff. Now Walpinya Station looked green and prosperous once more.

‘Chen Mu! Wait for me!'

Chen Mu pretended not to hear the boy – this had become a daily routine. Edward would lag behind, stopping to watch a beetle crawl by or a bird overhead, then expect Chen Mu to wait. Chen Mu never did. He reached his cottage and poured water into the bowl outside the door, and washed his hands and face, then put the bowl on the ground and washed his feet.

‘You didn't stop.' This wasn't a complaint – simply a statement of fact.

Chen Mu entered the cottage and the boy followed.

‘Wait here, Master Edward.' He went into the bedroom to change his shirt.

When he came back to the front room he saw the boy sitting on the floor, looking up at the objects on the shelf above the fireplace. This too was routine. Chen Mu made a show of deciding which objects to pick up this time – a pottery jar, two small bowls, a Chinese coin. Then his hand made to reach for the little brush-rest. Withdrew. Reached again. He heard a whispered
yes!
and smiled.

‘What is this?' he asked, sitting cross-legged on the floor opposite the boy, and pointing at the jar now on the floor between them.

‘A jar,' Edward mumbled, looking at the brush-rest.

‘What sort of jar?'

‘A clay one.'

Chen Mu waited. He knew the boy was not interested in the Chinese pickling jar, and only slightly more so in the rice crockery and coin – it was always the brush-rest that held his attention. But to get to the brush-rest, he would first have to go through the other items. At last Edward looked away. He gave an exaggerated sigh, then took a deep breath and pointed to the objects in front of him.

‘That's-made-of-clay-you-put-vegetables-in-it-with-salt-or-they'll-go-bad-the-drawing-is-bamboos-and-that's-a-
yíge-wăn-and-that's-a-yíge-wăn-too-to-eat-rice-in-and-that-
drawing-is-double-happiness-and-that-one-is-four-flowers-oh-yes-I-forgot-and-that's-made-of-porcelain-and-that's-made-of-porcelain-too.'

Chen Mu stared out of the cottage doorway, keeping a straight face.
‘He who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions,'
he reminded himself, quoting Confucius. He heard Winnie near the homestead calling for her charge. Edward heard her too and looked at Chen Mu, alarmed – he hadn't held the brush-rest yet.

‘We have time,' Chen Mu said, choosing to ignore the fact that Edward had said nothing about the Chinese coin. ‘Tell me quickly, what does the
Daodejing
say about clay vessels?'

Edward looked at Chen Mu, horrified. He didn't want to quote this classic Chinese text; he simple wanted to hold the brush-rest. He heard Winnie calling again, but Chen Mu simply sat calmly on the floor, his hands resting on his lap. Edward breathed a long sigh of surrender.

‘We turn clay to make a vessel; but it is … it is … nothing?'

‘But it is on the space where there is—'

‘… on the space where there is nothing that depends!'

‘… on the space where there is nothing that
the usefulness of the vessel
depends
. Now say it properly with me all the way through.'

‘We turn clay to make a vessel; but it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the vessel depends,'
Edward recited with Chen Mu.

‘And what does that mean?'

‘Things that aren't there are important too.'

‘That will have to do, for now …' Chen Mu knew that the boy was probably too young to be learning from this ancient philosophical text that dated back to the 4
^th
Century BC, and he doubted Edward understood much of its meaning – to Edward, Chen Mu realised, these sayings were nothing more than words to be learned and regurgitated, parrot fashion, so as to be allowed to hold the brush-rest as a reward. But he hoped that if he quoted and explained these saying often enough, Edward would absorb them by osmosis, and they would be there for him later in life.

He picked up the jade brush-rest and gently placed it in Edward's cupped hands. The boy spent a moment just staring at it, then carefully lifted it to the light of the open window, smiling.

He lowered his hand and with one small finger gently stroked each segment, each individual seed head, then traced the edge of the leaf.

‘One day,' he whispered, ‘I'm going to have lots of these …'

PART
Two

10

Edward stopped his car outside the tiny cottage Chen Mu had bought with a small bequest from Matthew Dawson, and turned off the engine. It coughed once, twice, and not for the first time Edward wished he could buy the car of his dreams. He was driving a brand new, just released 1929 Model A Ford, but the car of his dreams was a Stutz Black Hawk Speedster, from the US. It reportedly had the ability to reach speeds of over 100 miles per hour, as opposed to the Ford, which had a top speed of just over sixty. How he would love to experience that speed! But with the Stutz priced at over six thousand US dollars, the Ford, priced at just over a hundred pounds – about the equivalent of two hundred US dollars – was deemed more acceptable. He'd never hear the end of it, from both Julia
and
his mother, were he to spend so much on the Black Hawk.

Edward got out of the car and, leaning against the bonnet, lit a cigarette. Though nearly the end of spring, it had snowed again during the night, and the whole township of Macoomba was hushed. A timid sun glowed white in a grey sky, and deep in a valley beside the road plumes of fog rose and twirled and shrouded snow gums and massive tree ferns. The air was crisp, smelling of eucalypt, rich wet soil and burning wood from smoke escaping chimneys. In the sudden quiet, from deep in a misty glade of the forest surrounding the township came the distinctive
pilick pilick
call of a lyrebird.

This was the part of the country Edward loved most – this little township cradled by the Snowy Mountains, surrounded by deep orange cliffs and lush green foliage. It had a peaceful, almost mythical feel, and seemed to whisper that here a man could relax, and not be afraid to be alone with his thoughts …

But just then Edward heard the cottage door open. He threw his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his boot.

‘Master Edward! Come in, come in! It's good to see you again.'

‘And you too, my old friend.'

‘Here, let me take these. Come sit by the fire.'

‘How are you, Chen Mu? You look well.'

‘I can't complain. These poor joints are starting to stiffen, but I suppose I have to expect it. But you, Master Edward – you look like a man of the world!'

Edward laughed. It was true that he felt different, but did it show? Life in Shanghai had proven very different from the life he'd known in the Australian bush, or from the cloistered existence he'd lived as an Oxford scholar. Different even from his life in Sydney, where he'd established himself as a married man and an expert in Chinese antiquities.

There had been a time when he thought his life as a student to have been the most exciting, the most decadent – wrapped in the languid lifestyle of the privileged, money no object, he'd quickly come to understand that simply
attending
Oxford was just as important as actually attaining a degree, and so he'd immersed himself fully in the student lifestyle – with long philosophical discussions on the problems of the world, discussions that would last long into the night, fuelled by huge brandies, after which he'd sneak back to his room, drunk, and long after curfew. A brief foray into a relationship with one of the boys, only to fall back into the arms of the cute little brunette who worked at the local tavern – he would quote Milton and Shelley to her, and did not correct her belief that he'd made up these poems just for her, right there on the spot. It had been an intoxicating time, filled with parties and dance clubs, alcohol and eager women. Winning accolades in rugby and cricket, applause for his roles in the Dramatic Society's latest productions, and praise for the articles he'd had published in
Cherwell
, the radical student newspaper. But compared to Shanghai, Oxford had been pretty tame …

This first visit to China had only lasted a month, but he felt he'd lived more in that one short month than in all of the previous twenty-four years of his life. Is that what Chen Mu could see? But Edward didn't want to tell Chen Mu the details of this past month. He didn't think the old man would approve …

‘I'll make us a pot of tea, then I want to hear everything,' Chen Mu said, interrupting his thoughts. ‘Did you get to my village? And Shanghai – what did you think of Shanghai? Did you go to the Old Town?'

‘No, not your village. I didn't get out of Shanghai – maybe next trip.' He followed Chen Mu into the small kitchen. ‘I did get to Old Town, as you call it. It's changed a lot, I'm told. The moat and wall are gone—'

‘Gone?'

Edward nodded. ‘Back in 1911 – soon after Sun Yat-sen's Revolution. Shanghai's a very different place now, compared to when you were there, I'd imagine. Crowded with Westerners, all making their fortunes. The Yanks are there too – Victor Sassoon's pouring millions into the place. Putting up buildings everywhere. Just finished Sassoon House – twenty storeys high! It's a hotel, shops, offices, all in one.'