THAT AUTUMN, we harvested bumper crops of barley and, later in the season, corn.
Prior to that, First Young Master was always saying, “Just wait and see. We planted so late, the frost will arrive before the corn is ready.”
That was what worried the chieftain and everyone else. Waiting for news of the northern chieftains had delayed the planting for more than ten days.
But I told Father that my brother’s prediction would not come true.
Father said, “He sounded as if he were cursing his own family.”
Luck was with Chieftain Maichi during those years. The autumn weather was warmer than in previous years, so the frost didn’t arrive as early as usual. We watched the corn ripen. People were saying that a mild frost would be nice because it adds sweetness to the corn. For people who had little to go with their meals, it was important to have that sweetness in their corn. With it, they could feel that life wasn’t all bad and that the chieftain was still worthy of their support.
Father told Monpa Lama to employ his magic and bring a frost, but the lama said that some of the corn on the mountain had yet to ripen. Sure enough, as soon as the corn around the higher fortresses ripened, stars twinkled in the clear sky, and a frost arrived toward dawn. It was a winter frost that hardened the ground, with icy flakes that crunched beneath our feet.
We already had some stored grain and hardly had room for the bountiful harvest of that year; grain-bearing porters lined the roads to the estate. Our crippled steward took up his station in the yard and had the servants weigh the grain before entering the amount in his account book. Suddenly the servants cheered, as the seams of an overflowing storage room gave way, sending golden kernels of corn cascading to the ground like a waterfall.
My brother said, “Before long, all this corn will swamp the estate.” I didn’t know why, but he’d been speaking in that tone more often lately. We’d thought he spoke in such a cavalier manner only for the girls’ sake.
Father said, “Maybe my sons can come up with an ingenious idea about what to do.”
My brother merely snorted.
The chieftain turned to me. “Don’t keep quiet because you think you’re an idiot or because people say you are.”
So I made a startling yet simple suggestion. I said we could exempt people from paying taxes for a year. As soon as the words were out, I saw the historian’s eyes light up, while Mother looked at me with deep concern. Father didn’t say a word for a long time; my heart was in my throat.
As he toyed with the coral ring on his finger, Father said, “Don’t you want the Maichi family to become even more powerful?”
I said, “This should be enough for any chieftain. A chieftain is a chieftain; he can never be a king.”
The historian copied down my words, so I knew I hadn’t said anything wrong. The Maichi family had waged several wars against other chieftains and had grown powerful in the process. If that continued, one day there would be only one chieftain left in the world, which would not escape the attention of Lhasa or Nanking, and neither would be happy with that. But in the valleys beneath the snow mountains, one could not be too weak either, or his neighbors would take turns picking him apart. A bite here, another bite there, and pretty soon he would be nothing but a skeleton. Then, as one of our sayings goes, you could not even find your mouth to drink water. So the Maichi family had to be powerful only to the extent that other chieftains hated us but could do nothing about it. Yet none of this seemed to register with my brother, who should have known that throughout history not a single chieftain had ever succeeded in inheriting the title through wars. In my family, he alone sought constant warfare, since war was the only way he could show he was the chieftain’s worthy heir. “Before the other chieftains grow strong,” he’d say, “we should gobble them up and everything will be fine.”
“Gobbling them up is easy,” Father said. “But if we can’t shit them out, we’re done for.”
There was once a chieftain who had tried to gobble up all his neighbors. So the Han emperor sent an army to squash him, and in the end he wasn’t even chieftain of his own land. The lack of decent roads to the Han territory made some chieftains forget where their titles came from, and when their brains heated up they forgot all about reality. The Han area, ruled by an emperor in the past and a president now, wasn’t simply a place that produced our favorite tea, china, and silk. My brother had been there, but he seemed to be ignorant of the fact that our land was part of a joint defense district overseen by an army commander. He even forgot where our powerful weapons came from.
Fortunately Father had a better understanding of the world we lived in. What puzzled him were his two sons. The smart one loved war and women; obsessed with power, he was short on judgment where important matters were concerned. The idiot son conceived amid drunken passion actually seemed smarter than anyone. Before other chieftains began worrying about their heirs, Father’s face was already clouded by concerns. People always said how great it was to be a chieftain, but I thought that was because they didn’t know how difficult it was. In my opinion, it was best to be a member of a chieftain’s family, not the chieftain himself.
And if you happened to be an idiot, that was even better.
Take me, for instance. Sometimes I offered my views on things. If I was wrong, it was as if I had said nothing. But if I was right, people treated me with respect. So far, I hadn’t been wrong on anything important. Mother even said to me, “Son, I shouldn’t smoke so much opium. Instead, I should stay alert to help you with your ideas.”
I’d rather she stayed with her opium if that was what she had in mind. We had plenty of the stuff, which was the color of cow dung. But I knew I’d upset and disappoint her if I said so. With her, it was always “You hurt my feelings.” Father had said, “Your feelings aren’t in other people’s hands. We can’t hurt them whenever we feel like it.” My brother said that women liked to say things like that. After sleeping with so many women, he thought he understood them. And after he’d been to the Han area a time or two, he started to say, “Han people like to say things like that,” as if he knew them well.
In any case, the chieftain exempted the people from paying taxes for a year. They were so happy that they pooled enough money to hire a drama troupe, which put on four or five days of exciting performances on the estate. The first young master, being a talented man, mingled with the troupe members and satisfied his passion for acting.
Another important decision was made during his absence.
The chieftain said, “Anyone who wants to watch the performances, go ahead.”
Then he said, “Let the serfs watch the show. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
The “you” included Mother, me, and the crippled steward. While outside the air rang with the sound of drums and gongs, the chieftain informed us of his decision, which we all considered an excellent one. The first young master wasn’t there to hear it.
The performances finally ended.
Father told my brother to set out with a headman from the southern border to carry out the decision he’d made during the performances. The chieftain wanted him to pick a piece of land near the main thoroughfare to build a structure; it must face the water and be flat, for horses. My brother asked what the building was for. The chieftain said if he didn’t know yet, he’d know by the time it was finished.
“Give it some thought while you’re building it,” the chieftain said. “How else are you going to be able to maintain the family empire?”
My brother was visibly thinner when he returned to report the completion of the building. He told the chieftain how responsible he’d been and how splendid the building looked. The chieftain interrupted him: “I know all about it. I know you picked an excellent site and I know you weren’t with women all the time. I’m pleased with you, but tell me if you’ve come up with an answer.”
His response made me shout inside, Oh, no, First Young Master!
He said, “I know that war is out of the question, since the Republican Government won’t allow us to annex other chieftains’ territory. So we need to make friends with them. The building will be the Maichi border palace, where we can invite other chieftains to spend the summer hunting.”
The chieftain’s concern that his smart son would come up with the wrong answer was confirmed. But there was nothing he could do about it. All he could say was, “Now I want you to travel to the north and construct another building. While you’re at it, keep thinking about what it might be used for.”
My brother sat up till midnight playing his flute. By breakfast the following morning, he’d already left for the north. My poor brother. I’d wanted to reveal the purpose of the building to him, but he’d left before I’d had a chance. In our family, I should have been the one who liked the things he loved, and he should have spent his time observing what the chieftain did and said. In the time of the chieftains, no one ever thought of actually teaching the art of governing, even though lessons were arduous, and only those born with remarkable talent were freed from working hard at them. My brother believed he was one of those, but he wasn’t. Battle skills were one thing, as was the charm to attract women. But it was a different matter altogether to be a chieftain, a good chieftain.
Once again it was time for him to return, and Father eagerly anticipated his arrival. He went up to the veranda platform every day to gaze along the northbound road, whose surface sparkled under the winter sun. Birches, their leaves gone, lined the roadside; Father must have felt just as bare as the trees.
On this particular day, he rose early, because the day before Monpa Lama had predicted that visitors would be coming down the northbound road.
The chieftain had said, “It must be my son.”
Monpa Lama had responded, “It’s a close family member, but it doesn’t appear to be the first young master.”