"Ah, a student." The old man bowed respectfully, the yoke about his neck bobbing up and down with the movement. Then he looked up, his old eyes twinkling. "I'm afraid I can't offer you any of this ash, Master, but the ch'a kettle is on inside if you'd honor me with your presence."
Ben hesitated a moment, then returned the old man's bow. "I would be honored, Lu Nan Jen."
The old man grinned back at him, delighted, his head bobbing, then made his way to a door on the far side of the corridor. Ben followed him in, looking about the tiny room while the old man set down his pots and freed himself from the yoke.
"I must apologize for the state of things, Master. I have few visitors. Few live visitors, if you understand me?"
Ben nodded. There was a second door at the other end of the room with a sign in Mandarin that forbade unauthorized entry. On the wall beside it was a narrow shelf, on which were a meager dozen or so tape-books—the kind that were touch-operated. Apart from that there was only a bed, a small stool, and a low table on which were a ch'a kettle and a single bowl. He watched while the old man poured the ch'a then turned to him, offering the bowl.
"You will share with me, I hope?" he said, meeting the old man's eyes. "I . . ." The old man hesitated, then gave a small bow. It was clear he had not expected such a kindness.
Ben sipped at the ch'a, then offered the bowl to the old man. Again he hesitated; then, encouraged by Ben's warm smile, he took the bowl and drank noisily from it.
"It must be strange, this life of yours, Lu Nan Jen."
The Oven Man laughed and looked about him, as if considering it for the first time. "No stranger than any man's."
"Maybe so. But what kind of life is it?"
The old man sat, then leaned forward on the stool, the ch'a bowl held loosely in one hand. "You want the job?" he asked, amused by Ben's query.
Ben laughed. "No. I have enough to do, loo jen. But your work—it fascinates me."
The old man narrowed his eyes slightly. "Do you mean my work, or what I work with?"
"You can separate the two things that easily?"
The Oven Man looked down, a strange smile on his lips, then he looked up again, offering the ch'a bowl to Ben. "You seem to know a lot, young Master. What is it that you're a student of?"
"Of life," Ben answered. "At least, so my father says."
The old man held his eyes a moment, then nodded, impressed by the seriousness he saw in the younger man's face.
"This is a solitary life, young Master." He gave a small chuckle, then rubbed at his lightly bearded chin. "Oh, I see many people, but few who are either able or inclined to talk."
"You've always been alone?"
"Always?" The old man sniffed, his dark eyes suddenly intense. "Always is a long time, Master, as any of my clients would tell you if they could. But to answer you— no, there were women, one or two, in the early years." He looked up, suddenly more serious. "Oh, don't mistake me, Master, 1 am like other men in that. Age does not diminish need and a good fuck is a good fuck, neh?"
When Ben didn't answer, the old man shrugged.
"Anyway . . . there were one or two. But they didn't stay long. Not after they discovered what was in the back room."
Ben turned, looking at the door, his eyebrows lifted.
"You want to see?"
"May I?"
Ben set the ch'a down and followed the old man, not knowing what he would find. A private oven? A room piled high with skulls? Fresh corpses, partly dissected? Or something even more gruesome? He felt a small shiver of anticipation run through him, but the reality of what met his eyes was wholly unexpected.
He moved closer, then laughed, delighted. "But it's—beautiful!"
"Beautiful?" The old man came and stood beside him, trying to see it as Ben saw it, with new eyes.
"Yes," Ben said, reaching out to touch one of the tiny figures next to the tree.
Then he drew his finger back and touched it to his tongue. The taste was strange and yet familiar. "What did you use?"
The old man pointed to one side. There, on a small table were his brushes and paints and beside the paint pots a bowl like the two he had been carrying when Ben had first met him. A bowl filled with ashes.
"I see," said Ben. 'And you mix the ash with dyes?" The old man nodded.
Ben looked back at the mural. It almost filled the end wall. Only a few white spaces here and there, at the edges and the top left of the painting, revealed where the composition was unfinished. Ben stared and stared, then remembered suddenly what the old man had said.
"How long did you say you've been working at this?"
The old man crouched down, inspecting something at the bottom of the painting. "I didn't."
"But—" Ben turned slightly, looking at him, seeing things in his face that he had failed to notice earlier. "I mean, what you said about the women, when you were younger. Was this here then?"
"This?" The old man laughed. "No, not this. At least, not all of it. Just a small part. This here . . ." He sketched out a tiny portion of the composition, at the bottom center of the wall.
"Yes. Of course." Ben could see it now. The figures there were much cruder than the others. Now that his attention had been drawn to it, he could see how the composition had grown, from the center out. The Oven Man had learned his art slowly, patiently, year by year adding to it, extending the range of his expression. Until. . .
Ben stood back, taking in the whole of the composition for the first time. It was the dance of death. To the far left, a giant figure—huge compared to the other, much smaller figures—led the dance. It was a tall, emaciated figure, its skin glass-pale, its body like that of an ill-fed fighter, the bare arms lithely muscled, the long legs stretched taut like a runner's. Its body was facing to the left—to the west and the darkness beyond—but its horselike, shaven head was turned unnaturally on its long neck, staring back dispassionately at the naked host that followed, hand in hand, down the path through the trees.
In its long, thin hands Death held a flute, the reed placed to its lipless mouth. From the tapered mouth of the flute spilled a flock of tiny birds, dark like ravens, yet cruel, their round eyes like tiny beads of milky white as they fell onto the host below, pecking at eye and limb.
The trees were to the right. Willow and ash and mulberry. Beneath them and to their left, in the center of the mural, a stream fell between rocks, heavy with the yellow earth of Northern China. These were the Yellow Springs, beneath which, it was said, the dead had their domain, ti yu, the "earth prison." He saw how several among that host—Han and Hung Moo alike—looked up at that golden spill of water as they passed, despairing, seeing nothing of its shining beauty.
It was a scene of torment, yet there was compassion there, too. Beneath one of the trees the two figures he had first noticed embraced one final time before they joined the dance. They were a mother and her child, the mother conquering her fear to comfort her tearful daughter. And, further on, beneath the biggest of the willows, two lovers pressed their faces close in one last, desperate kiss, knowing they must part forever.
He looked and looked, drinking it in, then nodded, recognizing the style. It was shanshui—mountains and water. But this was nothing like the lifeless perfection Tung Ch'i-ch'ang had painted. These mountains were alive, in motion, the flow of water was turbulent, disturbed by the fall of rock from above.
It was a vision of last things. Of the death not of a single man but of a world. Of Chung Kuo itself.
He stood back, shivering. It was some time since he had been moved so profoundly by anything. The Oven Man was not a great painter—at least, not technically—yet what he lacked in skill he more than made up for in vision. For this was real. This had Ch'i—vitality. Had it in excess.