had committed a capital crime, and that it had been his good fortune to die by his hand. Swish, faster than the wind. Grandma said that when his sword severed my uncle’s head, he heard it say:
“That is my nephew, Elder Brother. Watch over him for me!”
CHAPTER THREE
Xiaojia’s Foolish Talk
My name is Zhao, Zhao Xiaojia. I get up early with a laugh, ha-ha. (Damned fool, aha!) In my dream last night, I saw a white tiger at our house. Wearing a red jacket, tail standing up in the air. (Ha-ha-ha.) Big tail big tail big tail. White Tiger sat across from me, mouth open, white fangs, a great big maw. Big white fangs big white fangs big white fangs. (Ha-ha-ha.) Do you plan to eat me, White Tiger? There are more fat pigs and fat sheep than I can eat, White Tiger said, so why eat you raw? If you’re not going to eat me, why have you come to the house of my Pa? Zhao Xiaojia, White Tiger said, listen to me. I hear you are obsessed with a desire for tiger’s whiskers. So I’ve brought some for you to pluck from my jaw. (Ha-ha-ha, a damned fool, aha!)
—Maoqiang Sandalwood Death. A child’s aria
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Meow, meow, I learned how to sound like a cat before I could talk. My niang said that the longest whisker on a tiger is precious, and that anyone who owns one can carry it on his body and see a person’s true form. All living humans, she said, are reincarnations of animals. If a person gets one of those precious whiskers, what he sees is not people. On the street, in alleyways, in taverns, in a public bath, what he sees are oxen, horses, dogs, cats, and the like. Meow, meow. There was once a man, Niang said, who traveled east of the Shanhai Pass, where he killed a tiger to get one of those precious whiskers. He was afraid of losing it, so he wrapped it in three outer and three inner layers, then sewed it into the lining of his padded jacket. When he returned home, his mother asked him, “Did you make your fortune during all those years you were away up north, son?” “My fortune? No,” he said proudly, “but I did lay my hands on a rare treasure.” He reached inside his jacket, tore open the lining, and removed the bundle, which he unwrapped to show her the whisker. But when he looked up, she’d vanished, her place taken by a nearsighted old dog. The poor man was so frightened by this that he ran outside and collided with an old horse carrying a hoe over its shoulder. The horse was puffing on a pipe and snorting streams of smoke from its flared nostrils. The man nearly died of fright at this encounter, and was about to run away when he heard the horse call out his childhood name: “Aren’t you Xiaobao? Don’t you even recognize your own dieh, you little bastard?” The whisker, that’s what made all this happen. He quickly rewrapped it and put it away. Now he could see that his dieh was not an old horse and his niang was not an old dog.
Getting one of those whiskers has long been a dream of mine. Meow, meow. I make this clear to everyone I know and ask people I meet if they can tell me where I can get one. Someone once said that the forests of the great Northeast are the best place. I was burning to go see, and would have if it hadn’t meant leaving my wife. A precious tiger’s whisker, just think how wonderful that would be! Well, I’d just put up a meat rack on the street when a huge boar in a long robe under a short jacket, wearing a black silk skullcap and carrying a thrush in a birdcage, sauntered up. “Two catties of pork, Xiaojia,” it said. “Give me a good weigh, and make it streaky pork.” There was no question that it was a boar standing in front of me, but the voice was that of Li Shizhai, Elder Li, the father of Graduate Li, a learned local scholar respected by all. If he didn’t get the respect he thought he deserved, he intoned in a loud voice, “A base man cannot be taught!” Who could have guessed that he’d actually be a boar? Even he didn’t know. No one but I knew. But if I told