| IT was not going to be easy to get out of that place. The estate was circled by parallel walls about fifty feet apart, and the corridor was patrolled by armed guards during the day and packs of savage dogs at night. But Henpecked Ho might know of some exit, so one night I slipped out and made my way to his dingy workroom. |
1 |
| Ho had one joy left in life. He had discovered a pile of ancient clay tablets - shattered, scattered, and illegible - and he had set himself the impossible task of piecing them together. After sixteen years of unremitting labor he had gone far enough to guess that the tablets told some sort of folk tale, and if he lasted another sixteen years he hoped to decipher the first sentence. So much for the joys of scholarship. |
2 |
| For once he was not working with microscopic fragments of clay. Henpecked Ho was holding a cheap silver comb in his hands, and he was weeping. His grief was really terrible to see. I began backing out the door but he held up his hand and stopped me, and eventually he recovered enough to tell me his story. He needed to share it with someone, and we had become good friends. |
3 |
| "A few years ago," said Henpecked Ho, "I managed to please the Ancestress in some way, and she graciously allowed me to take a concubine. I am only a poor scholar with no money of my own so I could not aspire to a lady of quality, or even the maid of a lady of quality. I chose a dancing girl from Hangchow. Her name was Bright Star, and she was very brave and very beautiful, and I loved her with all my heart. |
4 |
| She did not love me, or course, since I am old and ugly and something of a worm, but I was kind to her and I believe that I made her reasonably happy. I bought her this silver comb as a token of my love - as you can see it is not a very good comb, but it was all I could afford - and she wore it in her hair to please me. I had never been in love before, and in my foolishness I thought that my joy would last forever." |
5 |
| Henpecked Ho paused to wipe his eyes again. |
6 |
| "Do you know anything about the Sword Dance?" he asked me. |
7 |
| "I have tried it a few times," I said. |
8 |
| "Bright Star had become a legend in Hangchow because of her genius at the Sword Dance," said Henpecked Ho. "One night the Ancestress entertained some officers from the fort, and among them was a young captain who came from a family so distinguished that it was common knowledge that the Ancestress would choose him to wed Fainting Maid. He was a very famous swordsman. He had heard about Bright Star in Hangchow, and he said that he would give anything to meet such an opponent, so the Ancestress ordered Bright Star to perform. I could not bear to see my beautiful dancing girl displayed like a piece of meat for the soldiers to leer at - sword dancers wear nothing but loincloths, of course - so I did not attend. I know only that the judges refused to declare a winner, saying that only gods had the right to choose between gods, and that their Sword Dance is talked about to this day with awe. I also know that Bright Star fell in love. |
9 |
| "Late that night I listened to her sobs. She was only a dancing girl, and the captain was the second son of a very great family, and it was unthinkable for a man of his rank to take a dancing girl for a wife, or even for a concubine. I told you that I loved Bright Star with all my heart? Well, the next morning I went to the fort to see the captain. I found that he had not slept all night because whenever he closed his eyes he saw the face of Bright Star, and when I returned I brought with me a beautiful pendant of jade upon a golden chain. It was the token of the captain's love. |
10 |
| "Was I not a worm to play panderer for the woman I loved?" said Henpecked Ho. "All that mattered was Bright Star's happiness, and I had discovered that there was a period at sunset and again at dawn when the corridor between the walls was empty. At sunset when the guards went off duty the men in the kennels waited for a minute before releasing the dogs, and at sunrise the guards refused to enter the corridor until they were positive that the dogs had been locked up. There used to be a door in the inner wall at the north end of the estate. I stole the key and gave it to Bright Star, and that night at sunset I gave the signal when the corridor was clear. The captain scaled the outer wall and raced across, and Bright Star opened the door. At sunrise he returned the same way, and for a month Bright Star and her captain lived in Heaven. I lived in Hell, of course, but that was not important." |
11 |
| Henpecked Ho fiddled nervously with the comb in his hands. He appeared to be reliving a terrible moment. |
12 |
| "One evening at sunset I heard a scream," he whispered. "I ran to the door in the wall and discovered Bright Star frantically pounding on it. She had opened the door as usual, but then someone had approached and she had been forced to hide, and when she returned the door was closed and locked and the key was gone. I raced toward the kennels to try to stop the men from releasing the dogs, but I was too late. The young captain was trapped in the corridor, and while he killed a great many dogs he could not kill them all. Bright Star was forced to listen to the death of her lover, and when I returned I found that she had taken her own life. There was an old well beside the door, and I found the body of my beautiful dancing girl floating in the water. |
13 |
| "Who could have done such a thing? It had been impossible to keep the affair secret. People knew that the captain was crossing the corridor. Who could have been so cruel as to lock the door and take the key? It was crueler than death for Bright Star." |
14 |
| Henpecked Ho wiped his eyes and looked at me shyly. |
15 |
| "Dear boy, have you been taught how to see ghosts?" |
16 |
| "I am willing to learn," I said. |
17 |
| He led the way to the north end of the estate. The moon was very bright, and I could see that the old well which had claimed the life of Bright Star had been covered by heavy planks, and that the door which had claimed the life of her captain had been ripped out and the hole had been bricked up solid. Faint in the distance I could hear the watchman's wooden knocker rap three times: midnight, the third watch. |
18 |
| "Li Kao, I want you to look very carefully at the patch in the wall where the door used to be," said Henpecked Ho. "I want you to try to see something which you should not see." |
19 |
| After a few puzzled moments I said: |
20 |
| "Ho, I may be crazy but I think I am looking at a shadow which should not be there. It cannot possibly be caused by the moonlight shining through the leaves, or the stars, or anything else." |
21 |
| "Yes. That is a ghost shadow," said Henpecked Ho. He placed a hand on my shoulder and said, "Li Kao, what I am about to say will sound silly, but it is not. Whenever you see a ghost shadow you must try to think of it as a blanket. A soft comfortable blanket. You must empty your mind of everything but that blanket. Then you must imagine that you want to cover yourself with that blanket. It is easy to do. Be totally relaxed. Calm your heartbeat and breathe slowly and easily. Simply reach out with your mind and pull the blanket gently...gently...gently..." |
22 |
| "Ho, the patch is gone and I see the door!" I cried. "It is standing open. The old well is now uncovered, and I see someone moving through the trees. And I hear music. It is a flute, but it is not like any flute I have ever heard before." |
23 |
| Henpecked Ho sat down on the grass and motioned for me to sit beside him. |
24 |
| "Now you are going to see something very beautiful, but it is beauty that will break your heart," he said quietly. |
25 |
| A ghost was dancing toward us through the trees. I gasped out loud at her beauty. She wore a long white robe embroidered with blue flowers, and every step, every gesture, every subtle swirl of the robe gave meaning to the word perfection. I cannot describe the grace and delicacy of her slow stately dance, yet even then I sensed that something was wrong. It was perfection but it was mechanical. She was doing something magnificent, but she was doing it without pride or joy, and as she danced closer I could see that her lovely face was anguished, and that her haunted eyes were fixed on the wall behind me. I turned my head and my heart sank to my sandals as I saw that the door was closing. Closing very slowly, but just slightly faster than the steady music of the flute. Bright Star was trying to reach her captain, but she was not going to make it. |
26 |
| "Faster!" I prayed. "You must dance faster, Bright Star!" |
27 |
| But she could not. Her ghost was chained to the rhythm of the flute. It was many minutes before she reached the wall. Her hands reached out eagerly, desperately, and too late. An inch in front of Bright Star's fingers the door closed shut. For a moment the beautiful dancing girl stood gazing at a cruelly closed and locked door that had no key, and I felt a wave of anguish blow across the grass like a gust of winter wind. Then the ghost faded, the door faded, and I was gazing at a bricked up patch in a wall. The flute played one last slow note, and then all was silent. |
28 |
| "She dances every night at the third watch," Henpecked Ho said quietly. "Every night I pray that she will dance through the door before it closes, but she never does. She cannot dance faster than the flute. What can I do, Li Kao? What can anyone do?" |
29 |
"You can steal a drum and a couple of swords," I said.
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30 |