The fortune-teller was one Cheng, had used for ten years. He was an old man with thin wispy grey hair and a facial mole like Cheng's father had.
He wore traditional robes and a mandarin cap and sat cross-legged in his curtained cubicle with his paraphernalia around him.
Cheng greeted him respectfully and at his invitation squatted facing him.
I have not seen you for a long time, the old man accused him, and Cheng apologised. I have been away from Taiwan.
They discussed the fee and the divination that Cheng required. I am about to undertake a task, Cheng explained. I wish to have spirit guidance. The old man nodded and consulted his almanacs and star guides, nodding and mumbling to himself. Finally he handed Cheng a ceramic cup filled with bamboo rods.
Cheng shook this vigorously and then spilled the rods on to the mat between them. Each rod was painted with characters and emblems and the old man studied the pattern in which they had fallen. This task will not be undertaken here in Taiwan, but in a land across the ocean, he said, and Cheng relaxed a little. The old man had not lost his touch.
He nodded encouragement. it is a task of great complexity and there are many people involved. Foreigners, foreign devils.
Again Cheng nodded. I see powerful allies, but also powerful enemies who will oppose you. I know my allies, but I do not know who will be my enemies, Cheng interjected.
You already know your enemy. He has opposed you before.
On that occasion you overcame him. Can you describe him? The fortune-teller shook his head. You will know him when you see him again.
When will that be? You should not travel during the ghost month.
You must prepare yourself here in Taiwan. Leave only on the first day of the eighth lunar month. 'Very well. That suited Cheng's plans.
Will I overcome this enemy once again? To answer that question it will be necessary to make a further divination, the old man whispered, and Cheng grimaced at this device for doubling the fee. Very well' he agreed, and the fortune-teller replaced the bamboo sticks in the bowl and Cheng shook them out on to the mat. There are two enemies now.
The fortune-teller picked two rods out of the pile. One is the man that you know, the other is a woman whom you have not yet met.
Together they will oppose your endeavours. Will I overcome them?
Cheng asked anxiously, and the old man examined the fall of the bamboo rods minutely.
I see a snow-capped mountain and a great forest. These will be the battleground. There will be evil spirits and demons The old man's voice trailed away, and he lifted one of the bamboo sticks from the pile. What else do you see? Cheng insisted, but the old man coughed and spat and would not look up at him. The bamboo sliver was painted white, the colour of death and disaster.
That is all. I can see no more, he mumbled.
Cheng took a new thousand Taiwan dollar note from his top pocket and laid it beside the pile of bamboo rods. Will I overcome my enemies?
Cheng asked, and the note disappeared like a conjuring trick under the old man's bony fingers. You will have great face, he promised, but still he would not look directly at his client, and Cheng left the cubicle with some of his good feelings dissipated by the ambiguous reply.
More than ever now he needed solace, but it was still only a little after eight o'clock. She had told him not to come before ten.
It was only a short walk to Snake Alley, but on his way Cheng paused in the forecourt of the Dragon Mountain Temple and burned a pile of ghost money in one of the gaudy pyramid furnaces to placate the ancestral ghosts who would be prowling the night around him.
He left the temple and cut through the night market where the stall-holders offered a bewildering array of wares and the prostitutes plied their trade in flimsy wooden sheds in the back areas of the market. Both storekeepers and painted ladies haggled loudly with their potential customers, and the spectators joined in with comment and suggestion and laughter. It was good renao, and Cheng's spirits revived.
He entered -Snake Alley down which the shops were crowded closely together. Outside each stall were piled snake baskets of steel mesh and the front windows were filled with the largest and most spectacularly coloured of the serpents which gave the alley its name.
Many of the shops had a live mongoose tethered outside the front door.
Cheng stopped to watch an arranged contest between one of these sleek little predators and a four-foot cobra.
The cobra reared up as it confronted the mongoose, and the crowd gathered quickly and shrieked with delight. With its striped hood fully extended, the cobra revolved and swayed like a flower on its stalk to watch the circling mongoose with unblinking bright eyes while its feathery black tongue tasted the scent of its adversary on the air.
The mongoose danced in and then leapt back as the cobra struck. For an instant the snake was off balance and fully extended and the mongoose darted in for the kill. It seized the back of the glistening scaled head and its needle teeth crunched into bone. The snake's body whipped and coiled in its death throes and the proprietor of the shop separated the mongoose from its victim and carried the writhing reptile into his shop, followed by two or three eager male customers.
Cheng did not join them. He had his own special shop, and he wanted a particular type of snake, the rarest, the most expensive, the most effective.
The snake-doctor recognized Cheng over the heads of the crowd that thronged the alley. His shop was famous. He did not have to stage mongoose fights to attract his customers. He beamed and bowed, and ushered Cheng through to the back room which was curtained off from the public gaze.
It was not necessary for Cheng to state his requirements. The shop owner knew him well, over many years. it was Cheng who had arranged his supply of the most virulently poisonous reptiles from Africa. It was Cheng who had introduced him to Chetti Singh, and made the first consignments of snakes through the diplomatic bag. Of
