The Phantom of the Temple

VII

Ma Joong had put on a pair of wide trousers and a patched jacket of faded blue cotton, and bound up his hair with a red rag. In that disreputable attire he would attract no undue attention in the north-west city ward, the quarter assigned to the Tartars, Indians, Uigurs and other foreign barbarians.

It was a long walk, but he made good progress, for most of the shops were closed for the afternoon siesta and there were few people about. After he had passed the Drum Tower, however, the narrow streets became more lively: having hurriedly gobbled down their noodles at noon, the poor people living there had at once to set to work again, to scrape together the few coppers for their even­ing meal.

Picking his way through the motley crowd of Central-Asian coolies and Chinese hawkers jostling one another in the smelly back streets, he at last reached the alley where Tulbee had established her soup kitchen. He saw her from afar, standing in front of the oven and scolding her elder boy, who was stirring the fire under the huge iron cauldron. Her other boy was clinging to her skirt. It was too early yet for customers. He sauntered up to her.

'Ma Joong!’ she cried out happily. 'How nice to see you again! But you look like nothing on earth! Has your boss kicked you out? I always told you that you are far too good a man to serve as thief-catcher. You should—'

'Hush!’ he interrupted. 'I am dressed up like this be­cause I am on a job.'

'Let go, you small devil!’ she shouted, boxing the ears of the younger boy, who obstinately clung to her skirt. He promptly began to bawl at the top of his voice. His brother gave Ma Joong a scornful look, then spat into the fire. Ma Joong noticed the all too familiar smell of rancid butter, and he saw that her nose wasn't clean. She was getting fat too. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks to the merciful Heaven for having spared him all this! He groped in his sleeve and brought out a string of cop­pers. 'This—' he began. But she raised her hand and said, pouting:

'Shame on you, Ma Joong! You offering me money for it, you of all people!' But she put the coppers in her sleeve anyway, and went on: 'My husband is away for the day, so we can have a nice long chat up in my room. The boys'll mind the shop and—'

'I told you I am out on a job!’ he said quickly. "The money is for information received, as they say! Let's sit down on that bench there.'

'Come along up!’ she said, grabbing his hand with a determined expression. 'You'll get your information, garnished! It's nice to be out of the business, of course, but ... well, there's something in variety too. And you know how I feel about you, Ma Joong!’ She cast a meaningful look at the door.

He pressed her down on the bench and took a seat close by her.

'Next time, dear. I am in a hurry, honestly! I am supposed to find out about a quarrel some of your people had with Seng-san, that's a bully from the quarter near the east gate. A real bad quarrel, you know. Seng-san got his head chopped off.'

'Our boys don't mix with Chinese riff-raff,' she said sullenly. 'How could they, not understanding each other's language?' Brightening up, she asked, 'You remember how you used to teach me Chinese, Ma Joong?'

'I certainly do!’ he said, grinning in spite of himself. 'Well, I am not saying your people did anything bad, mind you. My boss just wants to prevent further trouble; he likes to keep an orderly house, as they say in the busi­ness. Come on, think girl! Didn't you overhear your customers mention a fight in the old temple, outside the east gate?'

She pensively picked her nose. Then she said, slowly, 'The only big thing I heard of recently is the killing of a Tartar chieftain, over the border. In settlement of a blood-feud.' She gave him a sidelong glance and added, 'Your mentioning a temple reminded me of something. Four streets down lives a weird woman, a Tartar sorceress. Tala, her name is. A real witch, knows past and future. If ever one of our people wants to start something big, he consults her first. She knows everything, Ma Joong, absolutely everything! But that doesn't mean she tells what she knows! The people are getting sour with her, nowadays. They maintain she gives out wrong advice, perhaps on purpose. If they weren't so afraid of her, they'd... .' She slit her forefinger across her throat.

'How do I get there?'

'Stop meddling with that oven!’ Tulbee shouted at her eldest son. 'Take Mr Ma to Tala!’ As Ma Joong rose she whispered, quickly: 'Look sharp, Ma Joong! It's a bad neighbourhood!'

MA JOONG MEETS AN OLD GIRL FRIEND

'I'll take good care of myself! Thanks ever so much!’

The crooked alley the boy took him to was lined by one-storeyed houses with sagging mud walls and roughly-made thatched roofs. After he had pointed out a some­what larger house half-way down that had a pointed roof vaguely reminiscent of a Tartar tent, the boy scurried away. The only people about were three Tartars, squat­ting with their backs against the wall opposite the house of the sorceress. They wore baggy leather trousers with broad belts; their muscular torsos were bare. The mid­day sun shone on their round heads, closely shaven but for one long lock of hair at the back. When Ma Joong passed them, one said in broken Chinese to his com­panions, 'She even receives Chinese scum nowadays!’

Studiously ignoring the insult, Ma Joong pulled the greasy door-curtain aside. In the dark interior he vaguely discerned two shapes huddled over a small fire that was burning in a hole in the floor of stamped earth. Since they didn't pay the slightest attention to him, he sat down on a low stool just inside the door opening. He couldn't see much, for his eyes had not yet adjusted them­selves after the glare of the sun outside. The cool air was scented with an outlandish incense that reminded him of a pharmacy; he thought it might be camphor wood. The hooded figure squatting with her back towards him kept up a long monologue in a foreign, guttural tongue. It was an old crone, clad in a Tartar felt coat. The woman facing her on the other side of the fire seemed to be seated on a low chair. He couldn't make out her shape, for she was entirely enveloped in a long, shapeless cloak that hung from her shoulders down to the floor. Her head was bare; a mass of long, black hair cascaded down over her shoulders and half screened her downcast face. The sorceress was listening to the voice of the old crone, which droned on and on.

Ma Joong folded his arms. Settling down for a long wait, he surveyed the scanty furnishings. Against the wall behind the sorceress stood a low, roughly-made plank bed, flanked by two bamboo tabourets. On one stood a brass hand-bell with a long, elaborately moulded handle. From the wall above the bed two large rolling eyes stared down at him. They belonged to a more than lifesize pic­ture of a fierce god, painted in full colours. His long hair stood on end, forming a kind of nimbus round the large head. One arm brandished a strange-looking ritual weapon; in his left hand he held a cup made of a human skull. The obese red body was naked but for a tiger skin wound round the loins. A writhing snake hung round his shoulders. Was it the effect of the flickering fire, or did the gaping mouth with the lolling tongue move in a derisive sneer? He got a fleeting impression that it wasn't a picture at all, but a statue. He couldn't be sure, for behind the monstrous deity there were only dark shadows.

Annoyed, he averted his eyes from the repulsive sight and scanned the rest of the room. In the far corner lay a heap of rubbish. Animal skins were piled up against, the side wall, beside it stood a large water container of beaten brass. Feeling increasingly ill at ease, he drew his jacket closer round his shoulders, for it was actually getting chilly now. Trying to think of other, more pleasant, things, he reflected that Tulbee wasn't so bad, after all. He ought to look her up some day and take her a few presents. Then he thought of the woman called Jade, and of her mysterious message which they had found in the ebony box. Had she been saved after all, and where could she be now? Jade was a beautiful name, suggesting cool, aloof beauty. ... He had a feeling that she was a most desirable woman. ... He looked up. The voice of the old crone had ceased at last.

A white hand appeared from the folds of the cloak enveloping the sorceress. She stirred up the fire with a thin stick, then drew with the red-glowing tip a few diagrams in the ashes, whispering to the crone. The old woman nodded eagerly. She laid a few greasy coppers beside the fire, scrambled up with a grunt and disappeared through the felt door-curtain.

Ma Joong went to get up to introduce himself, but the sorceress lifted her head, and he sat down again abruptly. Two large, burning eyes were staring at him. The same eyes that had glared at him that morning in the street. She had a very beautiful but cold face, and her bloodless lips were curved in a disdainful sneer.

'Did you come to inquire whether your girl still loves you, Mr Official?' she asked in a deep throaty voice. 'Or did your boss send you to find out whether I am practis­ing witchcraft, forbidden by your laws?' She spoke faultless Chinese. As Ma Joong stared at her, dumb­founded, she continued: 'I saw you, Mr Official, all dressed up. This morning, when you were following your boss, the bearded judge.'

'You have sharp eyes!’ Ma Joong muttered. He drew his stool up closer to the fire which was burning low. He was at a loss how to begin.

'Speak up, what brought you here? I haven't been receiving stolen goods. See for yourself!’

She stirred up the fire, and pointed with the stick at the corner.

Ma Joong gasped. What he had taken for a heap of rub­bish now turned out to be a pile of human bones. Two skulls seemed to grin at him with their toothy mouths.

On top of the skins lay a row of human thighbones beside a broken pelvis, blackened by age.

'A blasted cemetery!’ he exclaimed, horrified.

'Aren't we living in a cemetery, everywhere and always?' Tala scoffed. 'The living are outnumbered by the dead by uncounted myriads. We, the living, are here on sufferance. Better keep on good terms with the dead, Mr Official! Now, what is your business?'

Ma Joong took a deep breath. There was no need to beat about the bush with this extraordinary woman. So he said curtly: 'A vagabond named Seng-san was mur­dered last night, outside the east gate. He—'

'You are wasting your time,' she interrupted. 'I only know what is happening here in this quarter. And across the border. I know nothing about what happens at the other end of the city. If, however, you want to know about the girl you were thinking of just now, I might be able to help you.' Seeing his bewildered look, she went on quickly: 'Not the little strumpet called Tulbee, Mr Offi­cial. I mean the other one, named after a precious stone.'

'If you know ... who Jade is, and where ...' Ma Joong stammered.

'I don't. But I shall ask my husband.'

She rose and shook the cloak from her shoulders. Ma Joong got another shock. Her tall, perfect body was stark naked.

He gaped at her, paralysed by a deep-rooted, nameless terror. For the pale, completely hairless shape seemed so unreal, so far remote from ordinary life that its generous curves, far from rousing his desire, made him shrink with fear, the abject fear of the unknown. When, with a tremendous effort he succeeded in averting his eyes, he saw that she had not been sitting on a chair, but on a small pyramid of skulls.

'Yes,' she said, in her cold, impersonal voice, 'this is the beginning. Shorn of all your stupid day-dreams, of all your cherished illusions.' Pointing at the heap of skulls, she added: 'And this is the end, shorn of all empty promises and all fond hope.' She kicked the pile over with her bare foot. The skulls rolled rattling over the floor.

For a while she stood looking down at him with in­finite scorn, her arms akimbo, her legs spread. Cold sweat broke out all over him as he sat cowering there. As if in a dream, he watched her as she turned round abruptly and undid a cord from an iron hook in the wall. A screen of painted cloth that had been fastened to the blackened rafters slowly descended. It divided the room into two compartments. She shook her hair and disappeared be­hind the screen.

The fire seemed to be dying out. He had not under­stood the full meaning of her words, but they filled him with a terrible feeling of utter loneliness. He stared fixedly at the strange symbols depicted on the screen, his mind frozen. Suddenly the sharp tinkling of the brass bell roused him from his mental stupor. Tala began to intone a monotonous chant in a strange language. First it rose, then it died out, to be revived again by the tinkling of the bell. It grew warmer in the room, and at the same time a nauseating smell of decay drowned the clean fragrance of the camphor wood. Gradually it be­came hot; sweat was streaming down his back, drenching his jacket. Suddenly the chant changed into a low moan­ing sound. The tinkling of the bell ceased. He balled his large fists in impotent rage, his nails cutting his calloused palms. His stomach was turning.

Just when he thought he was going to be violently sick, the air suddenly cleared. The clean smell of camphor superseded the foul stench and it grew less hot in the room. For some time all was quiet as the grave. Then her voice came from behind the screen, utterly weary:

'Raise the screen and fasten the cord.'

THE CONSORT OF A GOD

He rose stiffly and did as she had said, not daring to look at her. When he had tied the cord to the hook and turned round, he saw her lying stretched out on the plank bed, her head on her arm, her eyes closed. Her long hair hung down to the floor.

'Come here!’ she ordered without opening her eyes.

He sat down on the bamboo stool at the foot of the bed. He saw that her body was covered with a thin film of sweat. Her lower lip was bleeding.

'Your girl Jade was born twenty years ago, on the fourth day of the fifth month of the year of the Mouse. She died last year on the tenth day of the ninth month. The year of the Snake. Of a broken neck.'

'How ... who did ...?' Ma Joong began.

'That was all I was told. I was told also about myself. Unasked for. Go away!’

With an effort he mustered his courage.

'I must order you to give me more details. Otherwise I shall have to take you to the tribunal, to ...'

She languidly stretched out her hand, still without looking at him.

'Show me your warrant!’

As Ma Joong did not answer, she suddenly raised her drooping eyelids. He saw that her eyes were bloodshot, they looked broken, dead.

Ma Joong retched. He jumped up and made for the door. Half-blinded by the sun, he bumped into a lean shape. It was one of the Tartars. The three were standing in the street now, barring his way. The tallest gave him a push.

'Watch out, son of a dog! Did you have a good time with the witch?'

All his pent-up fear and frustration burst out. He felled the Tartar with a blow to his chin so ferocious that the man pitched over like a log of wood. The two others ran away as fast as they could: they had recognized in Ma Joong's blazing eyes the killer's look. He ran after them, in a blind rage. The people in the street further on quickly made way for the cursing giant. Then he stepped into a hole and fell down flat on his face. When he had slowly scrambled to his feet again, he saw that he was in Tulbee's street.

She was standing in front of her kitchen, stirring the cauldron with a long ladle. Looking over her shoulder, she was cursing in a strident voice her eldest boy, who was pulling the hair of his shrieking small brother.

Ma Joong's rage ebbed away. That homely, common­place scene made a warm, comfortable feeling rise in his breast. He saw from the position of the sun that it was still early in the afternoon. First a bowl of hot soup, to settle his stomach. ... He quickly wiped the mud from his face and walked up to her with a broad smile.