The Journeyer

them. Hui-sheng and I both started in astonishment when, after a moment, the warmth of our hands seemed to confer life on the little gold objects, as if they had been eggs about to hatch, and they began quivering and twitching all by themselves.

That new and improved kind of mata ling, said Arun, contained some never-dying tiny creature or substance—the old women never would reveal what it was—which ordinarily slept quietly in its little gold shell underneath a man’s kwe skin. But when his kwe was inserted in a woman’s hii, the secret sleeper came awake and active and—she solemnly asserted—the man and woman could lie together unmoving, totally still, and yet enjoy, through the agency of that busy little love bell, all the sensations and the mounting excitement and finally the bursting pleasure of consummation. In other words, they could perform aukan, and over and over again, without the least exertion on their part.

When Arun had concluded, quite out of breath from her own exertions of explaining, I found her and Hui- sheng regarding me speculatively. I said loudly, “No!” I said it several times and in several different languages, including that of emphatic gestures. The idea of utilizing the mata ling in aukan was an intriguing one, but I was not going to sneak to some back door in some Pagan back alley and let some hag sorceress meddle with my person, and I made that as plain as I knew how.

Hui-sheng and Arun pretended to look at me with disappointment and disdain, but really they were trying not to laugh at the vehemence of my refusal. Next, they exchanged a glance, as if to say to each other, “Which of us should speak?” and Arun gave a slight nod, as if to say that Hui-sheng could more easily communicate with me. So Hui-sheng did, pointing out that the only function of the mata ling was to be put inside the female hii with the male kwe, not necessarily as part of it. Would I care to try the experience, she inquired with great delicacy (and no small amusement), by doing only what we did normally, but allowing herself and Arun to put the little love bells inside themselves beforehand?

Well, of course I could have no objection to that, and before the night was out I had developed a great fondness and enthusiasm for the mata ling, and so had Hui-sheng and Arun. But again I will draw the curtain of privacy here. I will confide only that I found the love bells such a worthwhile contrivance—and Hui-sheng and Arun concurred in my opinion—that I naturally thought of making those things the “unique gift” I would carry back to Kubilai. But I hesitated to decide definitely on that. One can hardly approach the Khan of All Khans, the most puissant sovereign in all the world, and he a dignified elderly gentleman besides, with the suggestion that he submit to an “improvement” of his venerable organ … .

No, I really could not think of any way to present the gift of mata ling that would not cause instant affront, resentment and perhaps an outraged reprisal. However, the very next day, I was relieved to receive an alternative idea, a most appealing one, and I proceeded to act upon it straightaway. A thing unique is one of a kind, and therefore it is an impossibility for anything to be “more unique” than something else. But if the durian fruit was unique in its way, and so was a white elephant, and so were the mata ling love bells, then this new idea was unique among uniquities.

It was the aged palace pongyi who put the idea in my head. He and I and Hui-sheng and Yissun were again strolling about Pagan, while he expatiated on this and that sight we saw. On this day, he led us to the most substantial and holiest and highest regarded p’hra in all of Ava. It was not just one of those hand-bell-shaped affairs, but an enormous and beautiful and really magnificent temple, dazzlingly white, like an edifice built of foam, if it is possible to imagine a pile of foam as big as the Basilica of San Marco, and intricately carved and roofed with gold. It was called Ananda, a word meaning “Endless Bliss,” which also had been the name of one of the Buddha’s disciples during his lifetime. Indeed, said the pongyi as he showed us around the temple’s interior, Ananda had been the Buddha’s best-beloved disciple, as John was Jesus’s.

“This was the reliquary of the Buddha’s tooth,” said the pongyi, as we passed a golden casket on an ivory stand. “And here is a statue of the dancing deity Nataraji. The sculpture was originally so perfectly made that it began dancing, and when a god dances the earth shudders. Our city was nearly shaken asunder, until the dancing image chipped off a finger in its cavorting, at which it quieted and became only a statue again. Therefore, to this day, all religious images are made with a single deliberate flaw. It will be so trivial that you may never see it, but it is there—just for safety’s sake.”

“Excuse me, Reverend Pongyi,” I said. “But did you, in passing, say that the casket yonder held the Buddha’s tooth?”

“It used to,” he said sadly.

“A real tooth? Of the Buddha himself? A tooth preserved for seventeen centuries?”

“Yes,” he said, and opened the casket to show us the velvet socket where it had lain. “A pilgrim pongyi from the island of Srihalam brought it here, some two hundred years ago, for the dedication of this Ananda temple. It was our most treasured relic.”

Hui-sheng expressed surprise at the large size of the tooth’s vacated resting place, and conveyed to me that the tooth must have been of a size to occupy the Buddha’s whole head. I relayed that rather irreverent remark to Yissun and he to the pongyi.

“Ame, yes, a mighty tooth,” said the old gentleman. “Why not? The Buddha was a mighty man. On that same island of Srihalam is still to be seen a footprint he made in a rock. From his foot size, the Buddha is calculated to have been nine forearms tall.”

“Ame,” I echoed. “That is forty hands. Thirteen feet and a half. The Buddha must have been of the race of Goliath.”

“Ah, well, when he comes to earth again, in seven or eight thousand years, we expect him to be eighty forearms tall.”

“His devotees should have no trouble recognizing him, as we might with Jesus,” I said. “But what became of this sacred tooth?”

The pongyi sniffled slightly. “The King Who Ran Away purloined it as he went, and absconded with it. An execrable sacrilege. No one knows why he did it. He was presumed to be fleeing to India, and in India the Buddha is no longer worshiped.”

“But the king got only as far as Akyab, and died there,” I murmured. “So the tooth might still be among his effects.”

The pongyi gave a shrug of hopeful resignation, and went on to show us some more of the Ananda’s admirable treasures. But I had already conceived my idea and, as soon as I could politely do so, I terminated our tour for the day, and thanked the pongyi for his kind attentions, and hurried Hui-sheng and Yissun back to the palace, telling them of my idea as we went. At the palace, I asked an immediate audience with the Wang Bayan, and told him, too.

“If I can retrieve the tooth, that will be my gift to Kubilai. Though the Buddha is not a god he reveres, still the tooth of a god ought to be a keepsake no other monarch has ever owned. Even in Christendom, though various relics exist—bits of the True Cross, the Holy Nails, the Holy Sudarium—nothing remains of the Corpus Christi except some drops of the Holy Blood. The Khakhan should be most pleased and proud to have the Buddha’s very own tooth.”

“If you can retrieve it,” said Bayan. “Me, I never even got any of my own back, or I would not have to wear this torture device in my mouth. How do you intend to go about it?”

“With your permission, Wang Bayan, I shall proceed from here to the seaport of Akyab, and examine the place where the late king died, go through his belongings, interrogate any surviving family. It ought to be there somewhere. Meanwhile, I should like to leave Hui-sheng here, under your protection. I know now that travel through these lands is arduous, and I will not subject her to any more of that until we are ready to return to Khanbalik. She is well attended by her maid and our other servants, if you will give her leave to stay in residence here. I should like to ask the further favor of keeping Yissun with me as my interpreter still. I need only him, and a horse for each of us. I will ride light, that I may ride swiftly.”

“You know you need not have asked, Marco, for you carry the Khakhan’s pai-tzu plaque, which is all the authority you need. But I thank you for the courtesy of asking, and of course you have my permission, and my promise to see that no harm comes to your lady, and my best wishes for your success in your quest.” He concluded with the traditional Mongol farewell: “A good horse to you, and a wide plain, until we meet again.”

4

MY quest turned out to be not easily or quickly accomplished, although I enjoyed generally good fortune and