10. It Was a Grand Funeral
Li Kao was delighted that he had been able to murder somebody who thoroughly deserved it, and his reason for murder was that the Ancestress, in her own inimitable way, was deeply religious. An example of her piety was the immense mausoleum that she had erected for herself, assuming that someday she would condescend to join the gods. It was a giant iron pillar more than a hundred feet high, with the burial chamber in the center and the message that she wished to preserve for posterity engraved in huge characters above the entrance. If the history of the Ancestress is lost in the passage of time, I imagine that the scholars of the future will be rather puzzled by her epitaph.
HEAVEN PRODUCES MYRIADS OF THINGS TO NOURISH MAN;
MAN NEVER DOES ONE GOOD TO RECOMPENSE HEAVEN.
KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!
Another example of her piety was her fondness for lohans. I don't mean the statues of Buddhist saints, such as the 142,289 that can be found in Lung-men. I mean real lohans.
A real lohan is a saintly monk who has given up the ghost while seated in the meditative mudra. This is considered to be a sign from Heaven, and when the deceased is discovered contemplating his navel, with his legs crossed, the soles of his feet turned up, and his hands lying limply upon his lap with the palms up, his body is carefully wrapped in layers of burlap. The burlap is treated with successive coats of lacquer and the finished product is a real saint whose preserved body will last for centuries, (If the lacquer is properly applied and the body is placed in water, it will last forever.) Such lacquered lohans are extremely rare, but the Ancestress possessed no less than twelve of them. Those with nasty minds suspected that more than one of the saints had been peacefully contemplating when an agent of the Ancestress slipped a knife between his ribs. This may or may not have been true, but the Ancestress was unquestionably proud of them and brought them out for all great ceremonial occasions.
In the days that followed the demise of Fainting Maid mourners gathered from all over, and the most illustrious erected sacrificial tents along the road that the funeral procession would take to the cemetery. They brought private orchestras, and even troupes of actors and acrobats, and there was a great deal of socializing among the nobility. More and more people poured into the estate, including countless bonzes who were employed by the Ancestress to pray day and night for her soul, and the affair rather resembled a festival.
The great day dawned with a drizzle. Clouds hovered overhead throughout the morning and early afternoon, and it was hot and humid with a sulphurous smell in the air. Henpecked Ho, who had willingly agreed to help us, muttered grim warnings about evil signs as he walked from count to marquis to duke. Shaggy black beasts with eyes like fire had been seen in the woods, said Henpecked Ho. Servants had seen two ominous ghosts—“A woman in white and a woman in green!”—who had warned of demons, and when a search was made of the pleasure pavilions the carving of a demon had indeed been found, with an iron band around its head and a chain around its neck. A bronze candelabrum had floated through the air beside the Lake of the Fifth Fragrance: “With seven flames!” hissed Henpecked Ho, and I hope that no one will judge that sweet old man rashly when I report that at the funeral of his daughter he was having the time of his life.
A great roll of drums signaled the approach of the funeral procession. First came outriders in double rows, followed by servants waving phoenix banners and musicians playing mournful music. They were followed by long lines of priests who swung lighted censers of gold, and then by the coffin with the sixty-four bearers that designated a princess. As the bereaved fiance I had the place of honor, wailing and tearing my hair as I walked beside the coffin. Next came soldiers from the army of the Ancestress who carried an immense canopy of phoenix-embroidered yellow silk, and beneath the canopy were bonzes who pulled twelve bejeweled carts. In each cart, seated in the meditative mudra, was a lacquered lohan.
The saints were looking down approvingly at the visible signs of the piety and grief of the Ancestress. She had opened her treasure chambers to provide suitable offerings to the spirit of the departed, and items of immense value were placed at the lohans’ feet. Of course everyone understood that the Ancestress had no intention of burying her wealth with Fainting Maid, but the display was customary, and it was also designed to make lesser mortals turn green with envy. After the burial gifts came four soldiers who were carrying the state umbrella of the Ancestress, and beneath the umbrella marched her chief eunuch, who was carrying the great crown of the Sui Dynasty upon a silken pillow. Then came the great lady herself. An army of servants groaned beneath the crushing weight as they carried her sedan chair, which was covered with a canopy of phoenix-embroidered yellow silk, with silver bells at the sides and a golden knob in back.
In case anyone wonders why she used the phoenix symbols of an imperial consort rather than the dragon symbols of an emperor, the answer is simple. The imperial dragons were embroidered all over a large silken pillow, and the Ancestress was sitting on it.
I will not describe the ceremony of the burial in detail because I would have to begin with the 3,300 rules of chu etiquette, which would send my readers screaming into the night, but I will mention that the body of my beloved had been covered with quicksilver and “Dragon's Brains,” and that I had been quite disappointed when I had discovered that the latter was merely Borneo camphor.
Fainting Maid could not presume to share the mausoleum with the Ancestress. Like all other family members, she was buried in the common dirt, in order to spend eternity at the great lady's feet, and I was required to pour handfuls of dirt over my head and wail like a man demented as I flung myself upon the grave, while the aristocracy made critical comments concerning the artistry of my performance. Hooded monks surrounded the grave, banging bells and gongs and spraying incense in all directions. Their leader had his hands clasped piously in prayer, or so I thought until his real hands slipped slyly from his robe and neatly picked the pockets of the Marquis of Tzu.
Henpecked Ho ran around with wild eyes, babbling about evil spirits and demons, and who could doubt it? Lightning flickered evily in the distance, and terrible things began to happen. Prince Han Li, for example, was engrossed in a profound theological discussion with one of the hooded monks, and when the prince was next seen he was lying in a ditch with a large bump on his head, divested of his purse, jewelry, red leather belt studded with emeralds, silver-winged cap with white tassels, and knife-pleated white mourning garment with a gold-threaded design of five-clawed dragons. Screams and roars of rage were lifting from the pavilions of the wealthy, whose valuable funeral gifts had miraculously disappeared. Lady Wu, whose beauty was said to rival that of the semilegendary Queen Feiyen, was carried into the bushes by a creature who had no ears or nose, and whose eyes were as yellow as his teeth.
We all have our little weaknesses, but I must question the judgment of Cut-Off-Their-Balls Wang when he abandoned his fellow hooded monks to disport in the bushes with Lady Wu. He missed a great deal of excitement.
It was obvious that Henpecked Ho's warnings had been correct, and that the funeral of Fainting Maid had been attacked by demons. Only an immediate exorcism could save the lives of one and all, and Henpecked Ho was nothing less than magnificent as he led the Grand Master Wizard and the forty-nine assistants—who had fortuitously arrived with the hooded monks—and soon the cemetery was shrouded by rolling clouds of incense. Henpecked Ho bravely waved the banners that represented the five directions of Heaven, while wizards who wore cosmological mantles and seven-starred tiaras sprayed the graves with holy water. Drums nearly deafened us as Ho and the wizards grappled with invisible demons, swinging peachwood whips and swords that were engraved with the Eight Diagrams and the Nine Heavenly Spheres. They stuffed the nasty demons into jars and bottles, which were stoppered and sealed and stamped with closure decrees that forbade them to be opened throughout all eternity.
In the middle of all this a miracle occurred that could have converted the most stubborn atheist in the whole world.
An exceptionally saintly lacquered lohan was admiring the diamond-encrusted imperial sceptre that the Ancestress had placed at his feet, and apparently he feared that the other funeral gifts might be defiled by demons. So he stood up from the meditative mudra and began making a tour of inspection. Bonzes screamed and fainted in
