Wingrove, David - Chung Kuo 02 (70 page)

The young man
stared back at Fan Liang-wei, unperturbed, it seemed, by the hardness
in his voice, undaunted by his reputation.

"I mean
what I said. I've heard enough. I don't have to wait to hear what you
have to say—you've said it all already."

Fan laughed,
astonished. "I see—"

The young man
lifted his arm, pointing beyond Fan at the screen. "That, for
instance. It's crap."

There was a gasp
of astonishment from the tiers, followed by a low murmur of voices.
Fan Liang-wei, however, was smiling now.

"Crap, eh?
That's your considered opinion, is it,
Shih
. . . ?"

The young man
ignored the request for his name, just as he ignored the ripple of
laughter that issued from the benches on all sides. "Yes,"
he answered, taking two slow steps closer to the platform. "It's
dead. Anyone with a pair of eyes can see it. But you . . ." He
shook his head. "Well, to call this lifeless piece of junk one
of the great works of Ming art is an insult to the intelligence."

Fan
straightened, bristling, then gave a short laugh. "You're a
student of painting, then, young Master?"

The young man
shook his head.

"Ah, I see.
Then what are you precisely? You are a member of the College, I
assume?"

There was more
laughter from the tiers, a harder, crueler laughter as the students
warmed to the exchange. The young man had stepped out of line. Now
the Great Man would humiliate him.

"I'm a
scientist."

"A
scientist? Ah, I
see.
"

The laughter was
like a great wave this time, rolling from end to end of the great
lecture hall. Fan Liang-wei smiled, looking about him, sensing
victory.

"Then you
know about things like painting?"

The young man
stood there, the laughter in the hall washing over him, waiting for
it to subside. When it did he answered the Great Man.

"Enough to
know that Tung Ch'i-ch'ang was the dead end of a process of slow
emasculation of a once-vital art form."

The Great Man
nodded. "I see. And Cheng Ro . . . I suppose he
was
a
great painter ... in your estimation?"

There was more
laughter, but it was tenser now. The atmosphere had changed, become
electric with anticipation. They sensed blood.

The young man
looked down. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed. "You know your
trouble, Fan Liang-wei?" He looked up at the older man
challengingly. "You're a slave to convention. To an art that's
not a real art at all, just an unimaginative and imitative craft."

There was a low
murmur of disapproval from the tiers at that. As for Fan himself, he
was still smiling; but it was a tight, tense mask of a smile, behind
which he seethed.

"But to
answer your question," the young man continued. "Yes, Cheng
Ro was a great painter. He had
lueh,
that invaluable quality
of being able to produce something casually, almost uncaringly. His
ink drawing of dragons—"

"Enough!"
Fan roared, shivering with indignation. "How
dare
you
lecture me about art, you know-nothing! How
dare
you stand
there and insult me with your garbled nonsense!"

The young man
stared back defiantly at Fan. "I dare because I'm right. Because
I know when I'm listening to a fool."

The hall had
gone deathly silent. Fan, standing there at the edge of the platform,
was very still. The smile had drained from his face.

"A fool?"
he said finally, his voice chill. "And you think you can do
better?" For a moment the young man hesitated. Then,
astonishingly, he nodded, and his eyes never leaving Fan Liang-wei's
face, began to make his way down to the platform.

* *
*

THE cafe
BURGUNDY was alive with news of what had happened.

At a table near
the edge of the Green, the four friends leaned in close, talking.
Wolf had missed the lecture, but Sergey had been there with Lotte and
had seen the young man mount the platform.

"You should
have seen him," Sergey said, his eyes glinting. "As cool as
anything, he got up and stood at the lectern, as if he'd been meaning
to speak all along."

Wolf shook his
head. "And what did Fan say?"

"What
could
he say? For a moment he was so dumbfounded that he stood there
with his mouth hanging open, like a fish. Then he went a brilliant
red and began to shout at Shepherd to sit down. Oh, it was marvelous.
'It's
my
lecture,' the old boy kept saying, over and over. And
Shepherd, bold as brass, turns to him and says, 'Then you could do us
all the courtesy of talking sense.' "

They all roared
at that; all but Catherine, who looked down. "I've seen him, I
think," she said, "in here."

Sergey nodded.
"You can't really miss him. He's an ostentatious little sod. Do
you know what he does?" He looked about the table, then leaned
back, lifting his glass. "He comes in at the busiest time of day
and has a table to himself. He actually pays for all five places. And
then he sits there, drinking coffee, not touching a bite of food, a
pocket comset on the table in front of him." Sergey lifted his
nose in a gesture of disdain, then drained his glass.

Wolf leaned
forward. "Yes, but what happened? What did Fan say?"

Sergey gave a
sharp little laugh. "Well, it was strange. It was as if Shepherd
had challenged him. I don't know. I suppose it had become a matter of
face . . . Anyway, instead of just sending for the stewards and
having him thrown out, Fan told him to go ahead."

"I bet that
shut him up!"

"No. And
that's the most amazing part of it. You see, Shepherd actually began
to lecture us."

"No!"
Wolf said, his eyes wide with astonishment. Beside him, Catherine
stared down into her glass.

"Yes... he
droned on for ages. A lot of nonsense about the artist and the
object, and about there being two kinds of vision. Oh, a lot of
high-sounding mumbo-jumbo."

"He didn't
drone, Sergey. And he was good. Very good."

Sergey laughed
and leaned across the table, smiling at the red-haired girl who had
been his lover for almost two years. "Who told you that? Lotte
here?" He laughed. "Well, whoever it was, they were wrong.
It's a pity you missed it, Catherine. Shepherd was quite impressive,
in a bullshitting sort of way, but . . ." He shrugged, lifting
his free hand, the fingers wide open. "Well, that's all it was,
really. Bullshit."

Catherine
glanced up at him, as ever slightly intimidated by his manner. She
picked up her glass and cradled it against her cheek, the chill red
wine casting a roseate shadow across her face. "I didn't just
hear
about it. I was there. At the back of the hall. I got
there late, that's all."

"Then you
know it was crap."

She hesitated,
embarrassed. She didn't like to contradict him, but in this he was
wrong. "I ... I don't agree . . ." He laughed. "You
don't agree?" She wanted to leave it at that, but he insisted.
"What do you mean?"

She took a
breath. "I mean that he was right. There is more to it than Fan
Liang-wei claims. The Six Principles . . . they strangle art. Because
it isn't simply a matter of selection and interpretation. As Shepherd
said, it has to do with other factors, with things unseen."
Sergey snorted.

She shivered,
irritated by his manner. "I knew you'd do that. You're just like
Fan Liang-wei, sneering at anything you disagree with. And both of
you . . . well, you see only the material aspect of the art, its
structure and its plastic elements. You don't see—"

Sergey had been
shaking his head, a patient, condescending smile fixed on his lips,
but now he interrupted her.

"What else
is there? There's only light and shadow, texture and color. That's
all you can put on a canvas. It's a two-dimensional thing. And all
this business about things unseen, it's . . ." He waved it away
lightly with his hand.

She shook her
head violently, for once really angry with him. "No! What you're
talking about is great design, not great art. Shepherd was right.
That painting, for instance—the Tung Ch'i ch'ang. It
was
crap."

Sergey snorted
again. "So you say. But it has nothing to do with art, really,
has it?" He smiled, sitting back in his chair. "You fancy
the fellow, don't you?"

She set her
glass down angrily. Wine splashed and spilled across the dark green
cloth. "Now
you're
talking bullshit!"

He shook his
head, talking over her protestations. "My friend Amandsun tells
me that the man's not even a member of the Arts Faculty. He really is
a scientist of some kind. A
technician.
"

He emphasized
each syllable of the final word, giving it a distinctly unwholesome
flavor.

Catherine glared
at him a moment, then turned away, facing the aviary and its colorful
occupants. On one of the higher perches a great golden bird fluffed
out its wings as if to stretch into flight. The long, silken
underfeathers were as black as night. It opened its beak, then
settled again, making no sound.

Sergey watched
the girl a moment, his eyes half lidded; then, sensing victory, he
pushed home with his taunts.

"Yes, I bet
our dear Catherine wouldn't mind
him
tinkering with her things
unseen."

That did it. She
turned and took her glass, then threw its contents into his face. He
swore and started to get up, wiping at his eyes, but Wolf leaned
across, holding his arm firmly. "Too far, Sergey. Just a bit too
far . . ." he said, looking across at Catherine as he spoke.

Catherine stood
there a moment longer, her head held back, fierce, proud, her face
lit with anger; then she took five coins from her purse and threw
them down onto the table. "For the meal," she said. Then
she was gone, was walking out into the Mainway, ignoring the turned
heads at other tables.

Sergey wiped the
wine from his eyes with the edge of the tablecloth. "It stings!
It fucking well stings!"

"It serves
you right," said Lotte, watching her friend go, her eyes
uncharacteristically thoughtful. "You always have to push it
beyond the limits, don't you?"

Sergey glared at
her, then relented. The front of his hair was slick with wine, his
collar stained. After a moment he laughed. "But I was right,
wasn't I? It hit home. Dead center!"

Beside him Wolf
laughed, looking across at his sister and meeting her eyes. "Yes,"
he said, smiling, seeing his smile mirrored back. "I've never
seen her so angry. But who is this Shepherd? I mean, what's his
background?"

Sergey shrugged.
"No one seems to know. He's not from one of the known families.
And he doesn't make friends, that's for sure."

"An
upstart, do you think?" Lotte leaned across, collecting the
coins and stacking them up in a neat pile.

"I guess
so." Sergey wiped at his hair with his fingers, then licked
them. "Hmm. It might be interesting to find out, don't you
think? To try to unearth something about him?"

Wolf laughed.
"Unearth. I like that. Do you think . . . ?"

Sergey wrinkled
his nose, then shook his head. "No. He's too big to have come
from the Clay. You can spot those runts from ten
li
off. No,
Mid-Levels, I'd say."

Lotte looked up,
smiling. "Well, wherever he comes from, he has nerve, I'll say
that for him."

Sergey
considered, then grudgingly agreed. "Yes. He's impressive in a
sort of gauche, unpolished way. No manners, though. I mean, poor old
Fan was completely at a loss. You can be sure
he
won't rest
until he's found a way of getting even with our friend."

Wolf nodded.
"That's the trouble with the lower levels," he said,
watching his sister's hands as they stacked and unstacked the coins,
"they've no sense of what's right. No sense of Li. Of
propriety."

"Or of
art," Sergey added.

"No . . ."
And their laughter carried across the tables.

* *
*

ben DREW BACK
into the shadows, watching. The two old men had gone down onto their
knees before the makeshift shrine, the paper offerings and the bowls
of food laid out in front of them. As he watched they bowed in
unison, mumbling a prayer to the spirits of the departed. Then, while
one of them stood and stepped back, his head still bowed, the other
took a small brush from his inside jacket pocket and lifting the
bowls one at a time, swept the space in front of the tablets.

The two men were
no more than ten or fifteen paces from Ben, yet it seemed as if a
vast gulf separated them from him—an abyss of comprehension. He
noted the paper money they had laid down for the dead, the sprigs of
plastic "willow" each wore hanging from his hair knot, and
frowned, not understanding.

When they were
gone he went across and stood there, looking at the wall and at the
offerings laid out before it. It was a simple square of wall, the end
of one of the many cul-de-sacs that led from Main, yet it had been
transformed. Where one expected blankness, one came upon a hundred
tiny tablets, each inscribed with the names and dates of the
deceased. He looked, reading several of them, then bent down, picking
up one of the paper notes of money. It was beautifully made, like the
other presents here, but none of it was real. These were things for
the dead.

For the last
hour he had simply walked in the lowest levels of Oxford stack,
trying to understand the events in the lecture hall; had drifted
through the corridors like a ghost, purposeless.

Or so he'd
thought.

Their laughter
had not touched him. It had been an empty, meaningless noise, a
braying to fill the void within. No, but the emptiness itself—that
unease he had seen behind every eye as he was speaking—that
worried him. It had been like speaking to the dead. To the hordes of
hungry ghosts who, so the Han believed, had no roots to tie them to
this world, no living descendants to fulfill their all-too-human
needs. They were lost and they looked lost. Even their guide, the
Great Man. He more than any of them.