We let the lid fall before it broke our arms and got down off the altar, ready to examine the rest of the treasures. Lao Jiang seemed impatient to take a look at our find and was the first to remove the cloths and open the chests. The pyramid shapes were piles of little medallions, similar to the weights used on grocery-store scales (although these were made of pure gold), and the chests were filled with priceless jewel-studded pieces. There was an absolute fortune there.
“We've done it,” I murmured.
“Do you know what these figures are made of?” the antiquarian asked as he picked up one of the little soldiers that dotted the altar.
“Jade,” Fernanda replied.
“Yes and no. It is jade, but a magnificent type of jade called yufu that no longer exists. This soldier would be worth between fifteen and twenty thousand Mexican silver dollars.”
“That's wonderful!” I exclaimed. “We've got what we need! We don't have to go any further. We can divide all this up and leave right away!”
It was over. The madness had come to an end. I now had the money I needed to pay Rémy's debts.
“It's not that much once it's divided into six, Elvira.”
“Six?” I asked in surprise.
“You, Wudang Monastery, Paddy Tichborne, the Kuomintang, the Communist Party, and me. After all this effort, I might as well keep a few things for my antiquities shop. Let me warn you as well that the Kuomintang will want to recoup its expenses for our trip.”
Well, Lao Jiang had set his political idealism aside and fallen into the grip of avarice. I could have sworn I saw it written all over his face.
“It's still plenty, even divided into six, Lao Jiang,” I objected. “We have more than enough. Let's get out of here.”
“It might be plenty to you, Elvira, but it's not much for two political parties that are struggling to build a new, modern nation on what's left of one that's famished and all but destroyed. And let's not forget that Wudang has so many mouths to feed and all those repairs that need doing. At least that's what Abbot Xu Benshan told me in the letter he sent with Masters Red Jade and Black Jade when he accepted my offer of a portion of the treasure in exchange for his help. Don't just think about yourself; try to think about everyone else's needs as well. What's more, it's our duty to tear these riches from imperialist claws.”
“But we can't carry everything that's in this tomb!”
“True, but everything we take, which will be much more than just this, will pay for the excavations needed to get the rest. Shi Huang Ti will bring wealth to his people once again!” he exclaimed. Now there was no doubt in my mind that Lao Jiang had gone crazy. He made me so angry at times, especially that nasty, condescending display of generosity: “Don't just think about yourself; try to think about everyone else's needs as well.” We had to keep risking our lives because there wasn't enough on that altar to pay for the rebirth of China. Well, wasn't China lucky? I thought. After all, it had the opportunity for rebirth, but if we died, we certainly wouldn't. And so, given that all those riches were insignificant and worthless, I decided they might as well be put to good use.
“Take cover,” I warned, scooping up gold weights in my cupped hands.
“What are you going to do, Auntie?” my niece asked nervously when she saw the look on my face.
“I said take cover,” I repeated. “Arrows are about to fly.”
They all quickly lay flat on the floor, and, squatting in front of the altar, I threw the medallions against the tiles with all my might. As soon as they touched the floor, a cloud of arrows appeared in the air and slammed into the gold pieces, creating an awful din.
“What are you doing?” Lao Jiang yelled. “Are you crazy?”
“Not at all,” I replied, throwing a second handful even farther. “I want to assure our escape. I'm going to empty the crossbows so there'll be a safe path to the exit. Later you can bend down to pick the treasure up off the floor if you like. Give me a hand, children! Throw the jewels from the chests straight out in front of us!”
Even Master Red enthusiastically joined in the fun of using those ancient treasures to empty the crossbows of arrows. We took big fistfuls of precious stones, earrings, charms, strange hair pendants, barrettes, necklaces, hairpins, bracelets, and more, throwing them on the tiles as if we were tossing stones into a lake. The best thing was when the arrows themselves bounced onto other tiles and set off yet more arrows that bounced, making the path to the doors safer and safer. They finally ceased, at about the same time we began to tire. It had been just like watching a beautiful fireworks display, only a little more dangerous, but now we could run to the exit if we wanted without risking our lives.
Lao Jiang had remained hidden behind the altar, safe from the arrows, and never said another word. He hadn't, of course, participated in the fun, and so he wasn't as jubilant or sweaty as we were, roaring with laughter and congratulating one another. Master Red and I bowed as if it were an affectionate handshake (it wasn't proper to touch, of course), and he looked as pleased as punch. Everyone had had a marvelous time. Everyone but Lao Jiang, who stood up with a face as dark as thunder and threw his dangerous bag over his shoulder with contempt.
A short distance behind the altar was a vertical black stone slab that came down from the ceiling and was about six feet long, lending an imposing, solemn air to the place where a throne should have sat. Magnificent sculptors had carved two powerful tigers standing on their back legs, a whirl of clouds in their muzzles and columns of what might have been steam spilling out. Lao Jiang strode decisively behind the slab and disappeared, the rest of us still laughing and indifferent to his wounded pride, after stuffing big handfuls of precious stones into our bundles (Fernanda and I also took two beautiful bronze mirrors). A trapdoor stood open on the floor behind the slab. Ignoring us, the antiquarian was already climbing down to the bottom of a dark pit on an iron ladder secured to the wall. I knotted the strings on my bag and slung it across my shoulders. Master Red went ahead, and the children came last so I could help them if they slipped or if a rung came loose. I couldn't for the life of me figure how Lao Jiang thought he was going to remove the huge treasures he seemed so willing to take in order to build a new, modern country.
It was horrifying to climb down in absolute darkness, listening to Fernanda and Biao huff and puff above me. My breathing was soon labored as well. Fortunately, the arduous descent didn't take long, and we were soon at the bottom, in what seemed like a cubicle with no exit.
“Why don't you light the torch, Lao Jiang?” I asked.
“Because the jiance forbids it, don't you remember?” he barked.
“We have to move about in the dark?” Master Red asked in disbelief.
“Sai Wu said, ‘I know even less about the second level, but do not use fire to light the way. Move forward in darkness, or you will die.’ ”
“There must be some sort of door,” Biao murmured as he moved around that hovel, feeling his way along the walls. “Here! There's something here!”
We all turned around, bumping into one another, as we let Lao Jiang through and heard him struggle with some sort of bolt. After a good deal of wrestling, the door finally opened with the most unpleasant creaking of hinges.
“Well, I don't know how we're going to get through this second level if we can't light the torch. Who knows where we go down to the third.”
I was the one who made this optimistic comment, but it didn't arouse any response from the others. They were all crossing through the invisible door Lao Jiang had opened. So this is what it must be like to be completely blind, I thought, extending my arms so I wouldn't run into anyone. I thought back on Sunday mornings in the park when I was little and used to play Blind Man's Bluff with my friends. I told myself to look at this the same way, to find the fun in it, as if it were a challenge—provided, of course, that the dangers awaiting us on the other side weren't so terrible that profound darkness became a hellish nightmare.
There was nothing on the other
side of that door. The only thing we felt was absolute emptiness. Since it wouldn't do to just randomly wander about and wind up lost and disoriented, I had the idea that one of us should tie one end of Lao Jiang's long line around his or her waist and explore a little while the rest of us stayed where we were near the exit. Everyone agreed, and Biao quickly offered to be the one to explore, because he was quick and had good reflexes. He could react in an instant, he said, if he came up against anything or noticed a hole opening up under his feet.
“True,” I commented. “Don't ever let anyone say it was you who fell to the bottom of that shaft where we came into the mausoleum.”
“But that's how I survived!” he protested. “I quickly jumped onto the wall when the ground gave way!”
“That's exactly why you're not going to be the one to tie the line around your waist. That and because I can't take any more scares. I'll do it.”
“No, Elvira, you won't,” Lao Jiang's resonant voice declared emphatically. “Master Red Jade or I will go, not you.”
“Why not?” I asked, offended. “Because you are a woman.”
So we were back to that, were we? Men seemed to think that being a woman meant you were crippled or maimed, even if they wrapped it in the guise of male gallantry.
“Don't I have arms and legs, too?”
“Don't insist. I'll go.” We could hear him open his bag and close it again. “Please hold on to this line, Master Red Jade.”
“What sort of line is this?” Master Red murmured. “It's not made of twine.”
“Hold on tight,” Lao Jiang said as he walked away. “It could slip out of your hands if I fall.”
“Don't worry. I'm tying it around my wrist.”
“Anything out there, Lao Jiang?” I asked, raising my voice. “Not yet.”
We all remained quiet, waiting for news. After a while Master Red told us that the antiquarian had gone as far as the line would allow and was tracing a sort of semicircle, like a compass, to see what he might find along the way. Unfortunately, he found me: I suddenly felt something touch my stomach, screamed, and jumped back. Though the shock had made me yell loudly, it came back as a faint, strange echo, as if we were in a cathedral of unimaginable proportions.
“Did you scream, Elvira?” the antiquarian asked.
“Yes,” I admitted, a little embarrassed. “You scared the daylights out of me.”
“Everyone please sit down on the floor and lower your heads so I can finish examining this area.”
“How long is your line?” I asked as I sat cross-legged, noticing that Fernanda and Biao sat next to me. The floor felt like a mirror, cold and polished smooth, though it wasn't slippery.
“About eighty feet.”
“Is that all? It seems like you're much farther away. In any event, it's too bad you didn't think to bring a longer one.”
“Would you be so kind as to be quiet? You're distracting me.”
“Oh, of course! Sorry.”
The children, on the other hand, continued whispering. The pitch black made them nervous, and talking made them forget their fear a little. I was scared, too, though there was no logical reason to be: The foreman hadn't spoken of any special danger in this room. He had simply recommended that his son not use fire to find his way, because he'd die if he lit a torch.
Why? I suddenly asked myself. “Move forward in darkness, or you will die.” It didn't make any sense, unless … Coal miners died from gas explosions. The gas would detonate when it came into contact with the flames on their lamps. What kind of gas? Methane, the very gas the Chinese had been using for thousands of years to illuminate their big cities or make torches like the one Lao Jiang was carrying. He had proudly assured us that Celestials had known how to use methane ever since the time of the First Emperor. So were we breathing methane? Nearly every day there was an article in our papers about a coal-mine explosion. Although there'd been great technological advances such as security lamps, methane didn't smell. Sometimes miners would be chipping at a wall and gas would suddenly escape from a great pocket, exploding when it came into contact even with a nearly cold lamp wick.
I sniffed the air. It didn't smell of anything, of course. After one had inhaled methane for a certain amount time, it caused symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, headache, lack of coordination, loss of consciousness, and asphyxia. What I didn't know was how long it took for any of that to begin.
The darkness drove me crazy. My old neuroses were back. How could there be methane in an emperor's tomb? This wasn't a coal mine. Either Lao Jiang got back with news soon, however bad it might be, or my sick thoughts were going to consume me in that gloom. My heart was pounding, and my hands were beginning to sweat. Calm down, Elvira. Calm down. The last thing I wanted was to have a severe attack of panic in there.
“You're on your way back, Da Teh?” I heard Master Red ask.
“Yes.”
“Did you find anything?”
“No.”
“Well, there has to be something,” Fernanda declared.
“The only thing I can think of is to move along the walls until we find the exit,” Lao Jiang said.
“But what if it's another trapdoor in the middle of the floor somewhere in here?”
“In that case, young Fernanda, it will take us a little longer, but we'll find it.”
I did everything I could to force myself not to think about the ridiculous idea of death by methane.
“Let's start at the door and go clockwise around the room,” I said, to scare off any other thoughts.
“And what direction is that?” Master Red inquired curiously.
“You speak French perfectly, and yet you've never seen a Western clock?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“There were none at the mission where my brother and I studied.”
“Well, the hands turn in a circle from right to left.”
“So we'll start where I'm standing,” he observed, as if we could see him.
“We should leave something at this door so we recognize it on our way back,” I suggested, always worried about the way back.
“What do you propose?”
“I'll leave one of my pencils.”
We began walking. I ran my left hand along the surface of the wall, which, unlike the floor, was rough and uneven. Then I began grazing just my fingertips so as not to set my teeth on edge and, toward the end, using only my index finger. After a while I came to the conclusion that it was a much larger room than the funeral palace on the floor above. It must have been the size of the plastered walls on that level. By the time we turned the first corner, I was sure of it and prepared for a long, boring walk. Why not make it a little more pleasant? I could walk wherever I wanted. Since I couldn't see anything, I was free to imagine anywhere in the world, and I chose the Left Bank of the Seine in Paris, with its secondhand-book stalls and amateur painters. I pictured the lovely bridges, the water, the sun…. I could hear the sound of the cars and buses, the shouts of the sweet vendors…. My house! I saw my house, the gate, the stairs, the door…. And inside, my living room, my bedroom, my kitchen, my studio…. Oh, the smell of my house! I had forgotten what the wood furniture smelled like, the flowers I always had in vases, the burners I cooked on, the starched clothes in my drawers, and of course the brand-new, unused canvases, the oil paints, the turpentine…. It had been so long since I left home! I became desperately homesick, and I wanted to cry. I was too old for such silliness.
It might have been the sadness that made me feel a bit dizzy, as if the wall or the floor were moving, like on the André Lebon. It couldn't be much farther until we were back at the beginning. We'd already turned four corners, so the door where I'd left a pencil had to be nearby. Perhaps the rocking sensation was simply because I was hungry. You shouldn't walk long distances on an empty stomach. I didn't want to think of the other possibility.
Ten minutes later I had my pencil back in my hand.
“I don't think we got very far,” Fernanda said sulkily. ?
??We're back where we started.”
“Yes, but we've also eliminated one possibility. Now we have to try others.”
“I'm feeling a little dizzy,” my niece protested, alarming me. “What about you, Biao?”
“I'm also dizzy, tai-tai. But it's not too bad.”
“What about you two?” There was no need for me to say their names; they simply responded.
“I'm fine,” Lao Jiang said. “We've just been groping around in the dark for too long, that's all.”
“I'm also fine,” Master Red said. “What about you, madame?”
“Yes, fine,” I lied. Either we found our way down to the third level right away or I was hurrying the children back up to the funeral palace. “Does anyone have any quick ideas?”
“We should examine the floor.” Master Red hesitated. “But if the children aren't feeling well—”
“We know we're in a big rectangular space,” Lao Jiang interrupted. “Let's divide it into strips that we'll mark using Elvira's pencils and then search the floor for the trapdoor.”
That would take forever, and we didn't have that long.
“I propose we go up to the palace and eat. There's light up there, and we need to recover a bit of energy. Then we can come back down and check the floor. What do you say?”
“Not yet,” Lao Jiang disapproved. “Let's do at least one section before we go up.”
“One section's too much,” I protested, without knowing exactly how big a piece the antiquarian was referring to, but he ignored me.
“Biao, take five big steps forward and stay there while the rest of us search the floor between the wall and the line you represent. If we get lost, we'll call out so you can guide us with your voice. Understood?”
“Yes, Lao Jiang, but may I say something?”
“Don't tell me again that you're not feeling well,” the antiquarian warned.