An Inch of Ashes (33 page)

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 on to 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 before 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 their hair knots, 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, here 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 that 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 fulfil their all-too-human needs. They were lost and they looked lost. Even their guide, the Great Man. He more than any of them.

These thoughts had filled him, darkening his mood. And then, to come upon this...

Ben turned, hearing a noise behind him, but it was only an old man, two pots slung from the yoke that rested on his shoulders, the one balancing the other. As the old man came on he noticed Ben and stopped, his ancient face wrinkling, as if suspicious of Ben’s motives.

Ben stood. ‘Forgive me. I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just looking...’ He smiled. ‘Are you a
ch’a
seller?’

‘
Ch’a
?’ The old man stared back at Ben, puzzled, then looked down at one of the pots he was carrying and gave a cackle of laughter. ‘No, Master. You have it wrong. This...’ He laughed again, showing his broken teeth. ‘This isn’t
ch’a
, Master. This here is ash.’

‘Ash?’

The old man grinned back at him fiercely. ‘Of course. I’m
Lu Nan Jen
for this stack.’

The oven man
! Of course! So the ash... Ben laughed, surprised. ‘And all this?’ he asked, half turning to indicate the shrine, the paper offerings, the bowls of food.

The old man laughed uneasily. ‘You’re a strange one, Master. Don’t you know what day it is? It’s
Sao Mu
, the Feast of the Dead.’

Ben’s eyes widened. Of course! The fifteenth day of the third month of the old calendar.
Ch’ing Ming
, it was, the festival of brightness and purity, when the graves were swept and offerings made to the deceased.

‘Forgive me,’ he offered quickly. ‘I’m a student. My studies... they’ve kept me very busy recently.’

‘Ah, a
student
...’ The old man bowed respectfully, the yoke about his neck bobbing up and down with the movement. Then he looked up, his old eyes twinkling. ‘I’m afraid I can’t offer you any of this ash, Master, but the
ch’a
kettle is on inside if you’d honour me with your presence.’

Ben hesitated a moment, then returned the old man’s bow. ‘I would be honoured,
Lu Nan Jen
.’

The old man grinned back at him, delighted, his head bobbing, then made his way across to a door on the far side of the corridor. Ben followed him in, looking about the tiny room while the old man set down his pots and freed himself from the yoke.

‘I must apologize for the state of things, Master. I have few visitors. Few
live
visitors, if you understand me?’

Ben nodded. There was a second door at the other end of the room with a sign in Mandarin that forbade unauthorized entry. On the wall beside it was a narrow shelf, on which were a meagre dozen or so tape-books – the kind that were touch-operated. Apart from that there was only a bed, a small stool and a low table on which were a
ch’a
kettle and a single bowl. He watched while the old man poured the
ch’a
then turned to him, offering the bowl.

‘You will share with me, I hope?’ he said, meeting the old man’s eyes.

‘I...’ The old man hesitated, then gave a small bow. It was clear he had not expected such a kindness.

Ben sipped at the
ch’a
, then offered the bowl to the old man. Again he hesitated, then, encouraged by Ben’s warm smile, he took the bowl and drank noisily from it.

‘It must be strange, this life of yours,
Lu Nan Jen
.’

The oven man laughed and looked about him, as if considering it for the first time. ‘No stranger than any man’s.’

‘Maybe so. But what kind of life is it?’

The old man sat, then leaned forward on the stool, the
ch’a
bowl held loosely in one hand. ‘You want the job?’ he asked, amused by Ben’s query.

Ben laughed. ‘No. I have enough to do,
lao jen
. But your work... it fascinates me.’

The old man narrowed his eyes slightly. ‘Do you mean my work, or what I work with?’

‘You can separate the two things that easily?’

The oven man looked down, a strange smile on his lips, then he looked up again, offering the
ch’a
bowl to Ben. ‘You seem to know a lot, young Master. What is it that you’re a student of?’

‘Of life,’ Ben answered. ‘At least, so my father says.’

The old man held his eyes a moment, then nodded, impressed by the seriousness he saw in the younger man’s face.

‘This is a solitary life, young Master.’ He gave a small chuckle, then rubbed at his lightly bearded chin. ‘Oh... I see many people, but few who are either able or inclined to talk.’

‘You’ve always been alone?’

‘Always?’ The old man sniffed, his dark eyes suddenly intense. ‘Always is a long time, Master, as any of my clients would tell you if they could. But to answer you... No, there were women – one or two – in the early years.’ He looked up, suddenly more serious. ‘Oh, don’t mistake me, Master, I am like other men in that. Age does not diminish need and a good fuck is a good fuck, neh?’

When Ben didn’t answer, the old man shrugged.

‘Anyway... there were one or two. But they didn’t stay long. Not after they discovered what was in the back room.’

Ben turned, looking at the door, his eyebrows lifted.

‘You want to see?’

‘May I?’

He set the
ch’a
down and followed the old man, not knowing what he would find. A private oven? A room piled high with skulls? Fresh corpses, part dissected? Or something even more gruesome? He felt a small shiver of anticipation run through him. But the reality of what met his eyes was wholly unexpected.

He moved closer, then laughed, delighted. ‘But it’s... beautiful!’

‘
Beautiful?
’ The old man came and stood beside him, trying to see it as Ben saw it, with new eyes.

‘Yes...’ Ben said, reaching out to touch one of the tiny figures by the tree. Then he drew his finger back and touched it to his tongue. The taste was strange and yet familiar. ‘What did you use?’

The old man pointed to one side. There, on a small table, were his brushes and paints and beside the paint pots a bowl like the two he had been carrying when Ben had first met him. A bowl filled with ashes.

‘I see,’ said Ben. ‘And you mix the ash with dyes?’

The old man nodded.

Ben looked back at the mural. It almost filled the end wall, only a few white spaces here and there, at the edges and the top left of the painting, revealing where the composition was unfinished. Ben stared and stared, then remembered suddenly what the old man had said.

‘How long did you say you’ve been working at this?’

The old man crouched down, inspecting something at the bottom of the painting. ‘I didn’t.’

‘But...’ Ben turned slightly, looking at him, seeing things there in his face that he had failed to notice earlier. ‘I mean, what you said about the women, when you were younger. Was this here then?’

‘This?’ The old man laughed. ‘No, not this. At least, not all of it. Just a small part. This here...’ He sketched out a tiny portion of the composition, at the bottom centre of the wall.

‘Yes. Of course.’ Ben could see it now. The figures there were much cruder than the others. Now that his attention had been drawn to it, he could see how the composition had grown, from the centre out. The Oven Man had learned his art slowly, patiently, year by year adding to it, extending the range of his expression. Until...

Ben stood back, taking in the whole of the composition for the first time.

It was the dance of death. To the far left, a giant figure – huge, that was, compared to the other, much smaller figures – led the dance. It was a tall, emaciated figure, its skin glass-pale, its body like that of an ill-fed fighter, the bare arms lithely muscled, the long legs stretched taut like a runner’s. Its body was facing to the left – to the west and the darkness beyond – but its horse-like, shaven head was turned unnaturally on its long neck, staring back dispassionately at the naked host that followed, hand in hand, down the path through the trees.

In its long, thin hands Death held a flute, the reed placed to its lipless mouth. From the tapered mouth of the flute spilled a flock of tiny birds, dark like ravens, yet cruel, their round eyes like tiny beads of milky white as they fell on to the host below, pecking at eye and limb.

The trees were to the right. Willow and ash and mulberry. Beneath them and to their left, in the centre of the mural, a stream fell between rocks, heavy with the yellow earth of northern China. These were the Yellow Springs, beneath which, it was said, the dead had their domain,
ti yu
, the ‘earth prison’. He saw how several among that host – Han and
Hung Mao
alike – looked up at that golden spill of water as they passed, despairing, seeing nothing of its shining beauty.

It was a scene of torment, yet there was compassion there, too. Beneath one of the trees the two figures he had first noticed embraced one final time before they joined the dance. It was a mother and her child, the mother conquering her fear to comfort her tearful daughter. And, further on, beneath the biggest of the willows, two lovers pressed their faces close in one last, desperate kiss, knowing they must part for ever.

He looked and looked, drinking it in, then nodded, recognizing the style. It was
shanshui
– mountains and water. But this was nothing like the lifeless perfection Tung Ch’i-ch’ang had painted. These mountains were alive, in motion, the flow of water turbulent, disturbed by the fall of rock from above.

It was a vision of last things. Of the death not of a single man, but of a world. Of Chung Kuo itself.

He stood back, shivering. It was some while since he had been moved so profoundly by anything. The oven man was not a great painter – at least, not technically – yet what he lacked in skill he more than made up for in vision. For this was real. This had
ch’i
– vitality. Had it in excess.

‘I can see why they left you,
Lu Nan Jen
. Was this a dream?’

The old man turned, looking at Ben, his whole manner changed. There was no mistaking him now for a simple
ch’a
seller.

‘You understand, then?’

Ben met his eyes. ‘When did it come?’

‘When I was ten. My life...’ He shrugged, then looked away. ‘I guess there was nothing I could be after that but
Lu Nan Jen
. There was no other school for me.’

‘Yes...’ Ben turned, looking at it again, awed by its simple power. ‘All this... your work ... it must keep you busy.’

‘Busy?’ The old man laughed. ‘There is no busier person in the Seven Cities than the oven man, unless it is the Midwife. They say eight hundred million die each year. Eight hundred million, and more each year. Always more. There is no room for such numbers in the earth. And so they come to my ovens.’ He laughed, a strangely thoughtful expression on his face. ‘Does that disturb you, young Master?’

‘No,’ Ben answered honestly, yet it made him think of his father. How long would it be before Hal too was dead – alive in memory alone? Yet he, at least, would lie at rest in the earth. Ben frowned. ‘Your vision is marvellous,
Lu Nan Jen
. And yet, when you talk, you make it all sound so... so prosaic. So meaningless.’

‘From nothing they come. To nothing they return.’

‘Is that what you believe?’

The old man shrugged, his eyes going to the darkness at the far left of the mural, beyond the figure of Death. ‘To believe in nothing, is that a belief? If so, I believe.’

Ben smiled. There was more sense, more wisdom, in this old man than in a thousand Fan Liang-weis. And himself? What did he believe? Did he believe in nothing? Was the darkness simply darkness? Or was there something there, within it? Just as there seemed to be a force behind the light, was there not also a force behind the dark? Maybe even the same force?