Sandalwood Death: A Novel (Chinese Literature Today Book Series)

whatever you are supposed to do.”
    “Your humble servant may not leave.” The words slithered out of his oily mouth like loaches. “We dare not leave.”
    “Has His Eminence your master the County Magistrate told you to stay?”
    “Not His Eminence, but His Excellency Governor Yuan, who ordered us to stay for your protection. You have become a living treasure, sir.”
    He stuck out his paw, picked up an oil fritter, and stuffed it into his mouth. As I stared at his greasy lips, I said silently: I am not the treasure, you bastards; it is that which I carry with me. I reached under my clothes and took out the sandalwood prayer beads given to me by the wise and august Empress Dowager Cixi, and began fingering them, closing my eyes and striking the calming pose of a meditating monk to keep those bastards from knowing what was on my mind. I could have crushed them into pulp without their ever guessing what I was thinking.
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    4
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Old Zhao Jia sits by the shed, his state of mind a mass of tangles. (What are you thinking, Dieh?) Images of earlier days float past his eyes from all angles. (What images?) The benevolent Yuan Shikai had not forgotten his old friend, and that is how father and son have reached this day. (What day is this?)
    — Maoqiang Sandalwood Death. A father and son duet
    After completing the slicing death on the brave Qian Xiongfei, I picked up my tools and, along with my apprentices, planned to return overnight to Peking. People say that one should avoid crowded, hectic places and not linger where disputes arise. With our belongings on our backs, we were about to set out when our way was blocked by one of Excellency Yuan’s most loyal retainers, a fierce-looking man who gazed up into the sky and said:
    “Do not leave, Slay-master. Excellency Yuan wants to see you.”
    After getting my apprentices settled in a tiny inn, I fell in behind the retainer. We passed through a series of sentry posts before I was kneeling in front of Excellency Yuan. Sweat dripped from my back, and I was out of breath. I banged my head loudly on the floor, managing between kowtows to sneak a look at his corpulent image. Over the previous twenty-three years, as I well knew, thousands of high officials and talented individuals had passed in front of the great man’s eyes like a running-horse lantern, so what chance was there that he would remember someone as insignificant as me? But I remembered him, remembered him well. Twenty-three years earlier, as a handsome young man who could not even grow a moustache, he had spent much of his time in the yamen with his uncle, Yuan Baoheng, Vice President of the Board of Punishments. Bristling at his enforced idleness, he had come to the Eastern Compound, where we executioners lived, and struck up a conversation with me. Excellency, you were fascinated by our profession—putting people to death—and said to Grandma Yu, who was still healthy and active, “Take me on as your apprentice, Grandma!” Seized with terror at the request, Grandma Yu said, “Young scion, are you toying with us?” With a straight face, Excellency, you replied, “I am serious. Great men appear in chaotic times, and if the seal of authority is beyond their reach, the knife is not!”
    “You did your job well, Grandma Zhao.” The great man’s comment brought my reveries to an abrupt end. His words seemed to come from the depths of a bell, like deeply moving chimes.
    I admit that I had carried out my duty in a manner that did nothing to undermine the Board of Punishment’s reputation, and I was confident that I was the only person in the Great Qing Empire who could have performed the slicing death to such a high standard. But that was not the attitude I could assume in the presence of Excellency Yuan. I might be a man of little importance, but I knew that Excellency Yuan, who commanded an elite modern army, was a prominent figure in the Imperial Court. “It was not an effort I can be proud of,” I said humbly, “and I can only beg forgiveness for disappointing Your Excellency.”
    “Grandma Zhao, you sound like an educated man.”
    “I respectfully confess that Excellency Yuan’s humble servant can neither read nor write.”
    “I see,” he said with a smile. Then he abruptly switched to his native Hunan dialect, as if swapping his official clothing for a jacket of homespun cloth: “If you raise a dog in an official yamen, in ten years it will speak like a classical