The Real Story of Ah-Q (48 page)

‘I never thought he would turn out this badly,’ Shuqi eventually whispered, heaving a pained sigh. ‘An unfilial regicide, not an ounce of humanity in him… The way things are now, we can’t keep eating his food.’

‘What should we do, then?’ Boyi asked.

‘We’d better leave.’

After a brief discussion, the two of them resolved to leave the Old People’s Home at first light the following day; to eat the pancakes of Zhou no longer. Nor would they take anything else with them. They would go together to Mount Hua, and live out the years remaining to them on wild berries and leaves. Fortune favours the good – they might even find birthwort or truffles.

Their course now set, they felt much lighter of heart. Undressing again, Shuqi lay back down. Soon after, he heard Boyi talking in his sleep. His own mood much improved, he too fell deeply asleep, dreaming of the fresh scent of truffles.

The next day, the two brothers woke earlier than usual. Once they had washed, and combed their hair, they walked out of the Old People’s Home, claiming they were going for a stroll. They took nothing with them (in truth, they had almost nothing to take) except for the beloved ancient sheepskin gowns on their backs, their walking sticks and a few leftover pancakes. Realizing they would never return, they both glanced back over their shoulders, feeling twinges of regret.

The roads were deserted except for the occasional sleepy-eyed woman out drawing water at a well. By the time they reached the outskirts of the city, the sun was high in the sky, and the way became busier. Though most of the people they encountered seemed to swagger along, with a robust sense of their own worth, they would give way as soon as they saw the aged brothers, as etiquette demanded. Further along, the trees grew denser: new leaves were sprouting on deciduous species they couldn’t identify, seeming to blur into a light green mist through which appeared the hazy outlines of darker green pines and cypresses.

Surrounded by nature, in all its unfettered beauty, Boyi and Shuqi began to feel younger, freer, more energetic.

On the afternoon of the following day, they encountered a fork in the road. Unable to decide which was the most direct route, they made polite inquiries of an old man approaching in the opposite direction.

‘Now, if you’d just come a bit earlier,’ he said, ‘you could have followed a team of horses that came by this morning. Go this way for now. Further on, you’ll meet another crossroads – best ask someone else when you get to it.’

That noon, Shuqi remembered, they had indeed been overtaken, in fact, almost trampled to death, by a band of invalided soldiers driving a large pack of horses – either old, scrawny, lame or mangy. He took the opportunity to ask the old man where they were going.

‘Haven’t you heard?’ he replied. ‘Now our great king’s carried out the Mandate of Heaven, the army’s being demobilized. He’s sending the horses to the southern foot of Mount Hua, while we graze our cattle on Peach Orchard plain. Peace for all!’

The news hit the brothers like a dousing in cold water. Both shivered, though were careful not to let their dismay show on their faces. Thanking the old man, they advanced in the direction he had indicated. The news had shattered their idyllic hopes for Mount Hua, filling them with misgiving.

They walked on in anxious silence until evening when, approaching a sizeable wooded loess hill topped with a scattering of mud huts, they decided to put up for the night.

Around a dozen paces from the hill, five well-built men darted out of the wood, their heads wrapped in white cloth, their clothes tattered. Their leader wielded a large sword; his followers wooden truncheons. At the foot of the hill, they ranged out in a line and blocked the way forward.

‘Good evening, gentlemen!’ they roared out, nodding courteously.

Alarmed, the two travellers retreated a little way. Boyi set to trembling while Shuqi, the steadier of the two, stepped forward to ask who the men were and what they wanted.

‘Allow me to humbly present myself,’ the one with the sword said. ‘My name is Qiongqi the Younger, King of Mount Hua. These are my brothers, and we were wondering if we might trouble you two esteemed gentlemen for a little toll.’

‘We have no money, O King,’ Shuqi politely responded. ‘We have come from the Old People’s Home.’

‘Ah!’ Qiongqi the Younger exclaimed, his manner newly reverent. ‘Two revered elders. Let me assure you that we, too, presume to call ourselves disciples of the teachings of the ancient kings, and also venerate the aged. I therefore beg you to leave us a small souvenir in token of our fellow feeling.’ When Shuqi said nothing, he raised his sword and his voice. ‘If our two revered visitors insist on being so diffident, you leave us no alternative but to carry out the Mandate of Heaven by conducting a thorough search of your venerable persons.’

Boyi and Shuqi promptly put their hands in the air, while a man with a wooden truncheon removed their sheepskin gowns, padded jackets and shirts and undertook a full investigation.

‘Nothing!’ he turned, thoroughly disappointed, to inform Qiongqi.

Noticing how Boyi was trembling, Qiongqi approached and clapped him respectfully on the shoulder.

‘You have nothing to fear from us, dear sirs. Shanghai bandits would have flayed you like pigs, but we – we are no barbarians. We would not stoop so low. It’s our own bad luck that you are so bereft of souvenirs. Now, with respect, beat it!’

Finding no response to make, without even waiting to do his clothes up properly again, Boyi fled with Shuqi close behind, keeping their eyes cast downwards. Their five interlocutors stepped to one side to let them through.

‘Leaving so soon?’ they chorused, arms back by their sides, once the two brothers had passed them. ‘No time for tea?’

‘No. Thank you, but no…’ Boyi and Shuqi replied, nodding away as they made off.

The news about pasturing horses at the foot of Mount Hua, and their encounter with its self-appointed king, seeded grave reservations about the area in our two righteous brothers. After fresh discussion, they turned north, begging for food, walking by day and sleeping at night, until eventually they reached Mount Shouyang in the north-west.

Now this – this was a mountain of delights: its summit not too high, its ravines not too deep, without threat of tigers or wolves, or marauding robbers; a perfect retreat. The two of them looked happily about the base of the mountain: at the fresh, delicately emerald leaves; at the golden earth; at the tiny red and white flowers blooming among the wild grasses. Up they went, tapping out the paths with their walking sticks, until a sudden outcrop of stone indicated the presence of a cave in the cliff-face. Panting for breath, they sat down and wiped the sweat from their faces.

By this point in the day, the sun was slanting down to the west. Now the weary birds were twittering away in their woodland roosts, the brothers’ surroundings were no longer as tranquil as they had been when they had begun their ascent; but everything still had a refreshing novelty to it. After they had spread out their sheepskin robes, ready for sleep, Shuqi produced two large rice-balls, which the brothers devoured. This was the last of the food they had begged along the way. Although they had sworn to eat the grain of Zhou no longer, this vow could be put into practice only after reaching Mount Shouyang. From tomorrow, they would hold unbendingly to their pledge.

Woken at first light by crows, they soon went back to sleep, deep into the morning. Since Boyi was complaining that his back and legs ached, Shuqi went off in search of food on his own. After some exploration, he discovered that the mountain’s moderate dimensions, and its lack of tigers, wolves and robbers brought their own drawbacks. The village of Shouyang lay at the foot of the mountain, from which old men and women often set out to cut firewood, and children to play. There were no wild berries: presumably long picked by other wanderers.

He thought first of truffles. Though there were pine trees on the mountain, they looked too young to have any at their roots. And even if they did, he had no way of getting at them, as he had no hoe. He moved on to birthwort: but as he had only ever seen its roots, he was incapable of identifying it by its leaves alone. It could be growing right in front of his nose, and he wouldn’t even know – he might have to pull out all the grass on the mountain before he found any. He scratched at his head, his face growing hot with vexation.

He was calmed by another idea. Walking over to a pine tree, he picked a pocketful of pine needles, found two stones by a stream, smashed off the needles’ green outer skin, washed them, then crushed the lot into a thin dough. Placing it on another, shallow, flat stone, he carried it back to the cave.

‘Any luck?’ Boyi asked as soon as he saw him. ‘My stomach has been rumbling for hours.’

‘Not much. But let’s try this, at least.’

He propped up the flat stone – the pine-needle cake on top of it still – on two other stones, gathered together a few dry twigs, and lit a fire beneath. Eventually, the dough began to crackle, emitting a fresh, mouth-watering fragrance. Shuqi began to smile happily: it was a recipe he had learnt while paying his respects at Patriarch Jiang Shang’s eighty-fourth birthday banquet.

It rose, then gradually sank back again – just like a real cake. Gloving his hands in his sheepskin sleeves, Shuqi smilingly carried the stone slab over to Boyi. Blowing on it, his brother broke off a corner and popped it into his mouth.

He chewed, frowned, took a few effortful swallows then spat the rest out.

‘Coarse and bitter,’ he pronounced, gazing resentfully at Shuqi.

Trembling with despair, Shuqi also broke a corner off and set about chewing it – quite inedible.

Shuqi slumped with dejection, his head hanging down on to his chest. But still his brain was working away to pull him out of the abyss – onwards and upwards, upwards and outwards. He travelled back in his memory to his childhood – as the son of Lord Guzhu. He was sitting on the knee of his nanny, a simple peasant woman, listening to her tell him stories of the Yellow Emperor fighting the giant Chi You, of Yu catching the flood demon Wu Zhiqi, of the famine that the people survived by eating ferns.

He had asked what ferns looked like, he recalled; he had seen them earlier on the mountainside. Feeling his strength return, he stood up and strode out through the grass.

His memory had served him well: they were growing in abundance. Within half a mile, he had gathered a good half pocketful of them.

Again, he first washed them by the stream, then brought them back and roasted them on the same stone slab as before, the leaves darkening when they were cooked. This time, however, he tried a stalk himself before daring to offer it to his brother. Placing it in his mouth, he closed his eyes and chewed.

‘How is it?’ Boyi asked anxiously.

‘Delicious!’

The two of them set joyfully upon the roast ferns, Boyi taking two extra stalks because he was the elder.

Every day, they ate ferns. To begin with, Shuqi did the harvesting while Boyi cooked. Later, as Boyi felt his strength returning, he too went out to gather them. Their repertoire of recipes also expanded: to fern soup, fern broth, fern sauce, stewed fern, braised fern, sun-dried baby-fern leaves…

But the supply of ferns near by gradually dwindled. Though the roots remained, the leaves were slow to grow back, and every day they had to travel further. They tried moving, but the same problem always returned. And it wasn’t that easy to find new campsites: they needed a place both where the ferns grew plentifully and there was running water – not easy to come by on Mount Shouyang. Worrying that Boyi might have a stroke if he didn’t look after himself, Shuqi urged him to stay at home and take care of the cooking while he concentrated on foraging.

After an initial show of reluctance Boyi agreed and began to take things more easily. But there was a lot of coming and going about the mountain, and as he had nothing better to do, he took to chatting to children and woodcutters. One day, in a fit of exuberance, or perhaps because someone called him a beggar, he revealed that the two of them were the eldest and third sons of Lord Guzhu of Liaoxi. When deciding the succession, their father had decreed that the throne pass to his third son who, in turn, resolved after their father’s death to pass it back to his eldest brother. Respecting his father’s wishes, Boyi had fled the realm to avoid further troubles; his brother responded by fleeing also. Meeting in their self-imposed exile, the two of them went together in search of King Wen of Zhou and were accommodated in his Old People’s Home. Appalled by the regicide committed by the present king – Wen’s son – the two of them had resolved to eat the grain of Zhou no longer and fled to Mount Shouyang to live off wild herbs. By the time Shuqi had rebuked him for his indiscretion, there was nothing to be done – their secret was out. He refrained from grumbling further at his elder brother, keeping his critical thoughts to himself. Father had eyes in his head, he mused, when he cut Boyi out of the succession.

Shuqi was right to be worried. Village gossip soon generated crowds of tourists. Some treated the brothers like celebrities, others like freaks, or relics from a bygone era. Some of their visitors even followed them around as they harvested ferns, then stood over them as they ate, pointing, commenting, asking questions, until the two of them were worn out by the attention. But they couldn’t allow themselves to indulge in the faintest touch of irritation, for fear their visitors might accuse them of temper tantrums.