THE DEED OF THE DEFT-FOOTED DRAGON

“THE DEED OF THE Deft-Footed Dragon” was published in 1986.

The Chinese laundryman, On Lung, is drawn from Davidson’s sojourn in China at the close of World War II. Avram was in Peking during the Japanese surrender, and he took the opportunity to escape the confines of military life and explore the ancient culture of China. Avram’s fascination with Asia lasted all of his life. His last novel published during his lifetime (which I co-authored due to his ill health) concerns Marco Polo’s travels through China and Asia (Marco Polo and the Sleeping Beauty, Baen Books, 1988).

Michael Kurland, in his introduction to The Redward Edward Papers, described Avram’s sojourn in China: “Davidson served with the Marines in the South Pacific. He ventured as far into northern China as Peiping, whereupon the Chinese immediately changed the name to Peking, and closed the country to all foreigners for twenty-five years.”

—GD

 

It was frightfully hot in the streets. Most of the shops were cooler, particularly since the day was fairly young, but some of the shops were even hotter, and behind the beaded curtain in one of them a man was taking advantage of the concealment thus offered to work stripped to the waist; and even so the sweat poured off his torso and onto his thin cotton trousers. He did not think of complaining about the weather, sent as it was by the inscrutable decree of Heaven. Still, it was necessary to admit that it did slow his work down. Not that he toiled one hour the less at the washtubs, not that he toiled one hour the less at the ironing-board. Man was born to toil, and—brutal though the savages were among whom he toiled—it was almost inevitable that eventually he would have saved one thousand dollars: then he might retire to his native country and live at ease. However, the heat. And the sweat. What slowed his work down was that from time to time he was obliged to wipe his hands dry and carefully fold the garments he had ironed; in order to avoid staining them with his perspiration he was obliged to stand far away as he folded: this slowed the work down. Mei-yo fah-dze, there was nothing to be done about it; he filled his mouth with water and carefully sprayed a small amount onto the garment on the ironing-board; then he picked up a hot iron from the stove and made it hiss upon the cloth.

“It is unfortunate about the girl-child’s absence,” one of his countrymen then present observed.

“So.” The water had evaporated. Another mouthful. Another spray. Another hiss.

“She justified her rice by folding the garments while you ironed.”

“So.”

This countryman was called Wong Cigar Fellow. He rolled the cigars themselves, then he peddled them to others. Sometimes he carried other things for sale from his basket—these varied—but always the cigars; hence his name. “It is said that once you pursued a far more honored craft than this one, far away in the Golden Mountain City.” The man said nothing. The pedlar said, “All men know this is so, despite your great modesty. Do you not regret the change?”

“Mei-yo fah-dze.”

He puffed his cheeks with water, sprayed, ironed.

Wong Cigar Fellow made as though to rise, settled again. “It is too bad about Large Pale Savage Female.”

The name on the shop was On Lung. Sometimes this caused the savage natives to laugh their terrible laugh. “Hey, One Lung,” they would say, in their voices like the barking dogs. “Hey, One Lung, which Lung is it? Hey? No savvy? No tickee, no shirtee, hey?” And, baring huge yellow teeth, would laugh, making a sound like hop, hop, hop.

The wash-man dried his hands, dried his body, quickly packed up the shirt, and, holding it at arms’ length before he could begin to sweat heavily again, deftly folded it around a piece of cardboard.

“Ah, how swiftly the girl-child folded shirts.”

“Mei-yo fah-dze.” He took another shirt and spread it on the ironing board; then asked, indifferently, “What large pale savage female do you refer to?”

“Large Pale Savage Female, so we all call her. Eyes the ugly color of a sky on a bright day.”

“Do not all the savages, male and female, have such ugly eyes?”

Wong Cigar Fellow was inclined to be argumentative. “No, not at all, all. Some have eyes the color of smoke. Some have eyes of mixed colors. And some even have eyes the colors of human beings’ eyes. Ha! Now I know how you will remember! Did she not, as they say, ‘teach a class’? On the morning of the first day of their week, in one of their temple-buildings which they erect with no thought to feng-shui, wind and water and other influences as revealed by geomancy—Yes. The one who taught fairy tales and savage songs to the children of our laundrymen, and did not the girl-child attend?—as why not? it may be that their strange god or gods have authority here in savage territory, so far from the Kingdom in the Middle of the World—besides: girls … one gives them away, merely; after eating one’s rice for many years, they go off and live in another human’s house.…”

On Lung uttered an exclamation. Yes! Now he recognized Large Pale Savage Female. Not in the least pausing or even slowing his pace, he listened while Wong Cigar Fellow spoke on.

The father of Large Pale Savage Female had formerly been, it was said, a merchant. Next, by cleverly putting his money out at usury, he had gotten a great fortune and owned estates and houses and documents called stocks and bonds which also gained him money. His wife having died, he had taken a concubine. “They call her a wife, but she has had no children, how can she be a wife?” and between concubine and daughter there had grown enmity.…

“Even in our own country one hears similar stories,” chattered Wong Cigar Fellow. “Still—why does the Old Father not adopt, say, a cousin’s son? Marry off the daughter to—”

On Lung said, “Who would marry her? She has such big feet.”

“True. That is true. And even while it is true that the savages never bind the feet of their girl-children and even prevent us from doing so, still, even for a savage, Large Pale Savage Female has big feet. Well!” This time he really got up and grasped the pole of his carrying-basket. “It is said that the second wife so-called is gradually obtaining all the old man’s property and that, not content with this, has made plans to—as they say—make a will in her favor. He is old and when he dies, what will become of Large Pale Savage Female? She must either go and play for trade in a sing-song house, or stay at home at the second wife’s (or concubine’s) beck and call, toiling like a servant. It is to drink bitter tea.—Farewell, Deft-Footed Dragon. It may be cooler by evening.”

On Lung worked on in his steamy back-room. “One Lung,” indeed! The savages had no knowledge that Lung, besides being one of the Hundred Names, also meant Dragon. It was his success as a warrior which had gained him that full name. Ah, the war! Then came a day when the high military council had summoned him to their chamber. “A treaty of peace has been signed,” said the spokesman, “and one of the terms of the treaty—the others of course need not concern you—is that all such warriors are at once to leave the Golden Mountain City and depart for distant places. These august personages would not leave you without means of earning rice money in savage parts, of course. Here is your passage-ticket on the fire-wagon. It is to a town called Stream-by-a-Cataract, in a distant province whose name means nothing and the syllables of which no human mouth can pronounce. Here are fifty silver dollars. The savages are so filthy that they are obliged to make constant changes of clothing, so you will never lack employment in the laundry which it has been arranged for you to assume. Therefore lay down your heart, Deft-Footed Dragon, and never worry about your rice-bowl.”

The girl-child (her mother, being weak, had taken a fever and died quickly) was indeed of great use in folding shirts; the savages called her Lily Long. Indeed, after a while, he had found comfort in the child’s company: perhaps it was not his destiny to have sons. Because she was needed to fold shirts, because she was rather shy, because there were anyway no children nearby to play with, “Lily” (it was, for a marvel, easy to say; often he said it) spent much of her time in the shop. Also she was useful in chattering with the savages, none of whom, of course, could speak, when they came with shirts and other garments. The farthest away she ever went, in fact, was to the so-called “school” held in the worship place in the morning of the first day of their week … as though it were in any way essential to divide the lunar months into smaller quantities.… Sometimes she told him something of the strange tales and stranger songs learned there. Now and then he laughed. She was sometimes very droll. It was a pity she was so weak; her mother, of course, had also been so.

Almost as she entered he had recognized Large Pale Savage Female from the descriptions he had heard. “Lily was not at Sunday School today. Is she ill?” From the rear of the shop came the call of Miss— Miss— In the woman went. “Why, Lily, you are burning up. Let me put my lips to your brow … you have a terrible fever. Wait … wait…” Well did On Lung know a fever. Had the pills from the savages’ apothecary helped? No they had not: therefore he was brewing an infusion of dried pomegranate rind, very good for restoring the proper balance of yin and yang, hot and cold.—In another moment, out rushed Large Pale Savage Female, swinging her mantle over her fleshy shoulders: it seemed but a second before she was back again, and this time she held the mantle in her arms as though she were swaddling a child; curious, he followed her behind the beaded curtain.

Curiosity gave way almost to alarm: Large Pale Savage Female at once set the mantle on a table and, picking up a cold iron, proceeded to strike it repeatedly upon the garment and its contents. Very nearly, it sounded as though bones were being cracked.

“Desist, ‘Miss-Miss,’” he exclaimed. “That is clearly a costly garment as befits the daughter of a respected usurer and rack-rent landlord, and I fear it may be damaged, and the blame laid on me; desist!”

Smack! Smack! Smack!

In a moment the mantle was flung open, inside lay a mass of crushed ice, quicker than he could move to prevent it she had snatched from the pile first one clean wrinkled shirt and then another, tumbled the crushed ice into each and wrapped it up like a sausage; then she set one on each side of the small, feverish body.

“Doesn’t that feel better now?”

The female child murmured something very low, but she smiled as she reached up and took the large pale paw in her tiny golden hand.

Large Pale Savage Female came often, came quite often, came several times a day; Large Pale Savage Female brought more ice and more ice; she bathed the wasted little frame in cooled water many times, she brought a savage witch-doctor with the devil-thing one end of which goes in the ears and the other end upon the breast; also he administered more pills. Large Pale Savage Female fed broth to the sick child—in short, she could not have done more if she were caring for a husband’s grandfather.

Afterward, Wong Cigar Fellow commented, “Needless to say that I would have gone had it been a boy; although Buddhists have said that even the death of a son is no more than the passage of a bird across the empty sky, who can go quite that far? Forget the matter in much toil and eventually you will have accumulated the thousand dollars which will enable you to return to the Kingdom in the Middle of the World and live at ease forever.”

Only On Lung himself had been present at the burial of the girl-child. He, that is, and Large Pale Savage Female whose much care had not prevailed, plus the priest-savage she had brought along. It was a wet, chill autumn day; the bitter wind had scattered rain and leaves … golden leaves … henceforth the tiny ghost would sip in solitude of the Yellow Springs beneath the earth. It was astonishing how very painful the absence of the small person was found. One would not indeed have thought it possible.

The heat had become intolerable; he thought of that sudden illness which was compared to the tightening of a red-hot band about the head: nonsense: he was still upright; merely the place seemed very odd, suddenly. Seemed without meaning, suddenly. Its shapes seemed to shift. It had no purpose. No wonder he was no longer there, was outside, was moving silently from one silent alley to another, on his shoulder the carrying pole of the two laundry-baskets, one at each end. No one was about, and, if anyone were, no one would have noted his presence: merely a Chinaman, which is to say a laundryman, picking up and leaving off shirts. No one. Everything was very sudden, now. He had hidden pole and baskets behind a bush. He had slipped through a space where a board was missing from a fence. He was in a place where wood was stored and split. He had a glimpse of someone whom he knew. He must avoid such a one—indeed all others. Silently his slippered feet flew up the stairs. A voice droned in a room. Droned on and on. And on. “…come when I call you, hey, miss? Miss, Miss Elizabeth? Beneath you, is it? We’ll see if you’ll come when I call you pretty soon,” the voice droned on. “I say, ‘We’ll see if you’ll come when I call you pretty soon, miss.’ Wun’t call me, ‘Mother,’ hey, miss? Well, even if I be Mr. Borden’s second wife, I be his lawful-wedded wife, him and me has got some business at the bank and the lawyer’s pretty soon today, you may lay to that, yes, miss, you may lay to that; we’ll see if you ain’t a-going to come when I call you after that, and come at my very beck and call and do as I tell you must do, for if you don’t you may go somewheres else and you may git your vittles somewheres else, too, though darned if I know where that may be, I have got your father wrapped around my little finger, miss, miss, yes, I say yes, I shall lower your proud head, miss,” the hateful, nasal voice droned on.

So! This was she: the childless concubine of the father of Large Pale Savage Female! She, the one who planned to assume the rule of family property and cast out the daughter of the first wife? In this heat-stricken, insane, and savage world only the practice of fidelity and the preservation of virtue could keep a man’s heart from being crushed by pain. He who had been known (and rightfully known) as The Deft-Footed Dragon, the once-renowned and most-renowned hatchet-man of the great Ten Tongs, hefted his weapon and slipped silently into the room.…