“Of my visits,” Fong said aloud. Xian and the Island of the Half-wits – Dr. Roung the archeologist from Xian, and whoever was buried in this grave.
As he reached out to touch the head stone, a foot kicked his hand aside. “Don’t touch that!” The command’s sharp nasal tones broke the silence.
“I intended no . . .”
“Do you want her dug up again?” There was something odd in the voice. Fong caught a glint in the young man’s eyes that he’d seen before in violent men. A madness. A spiralling; anger that had no floor. Fong marked him closely. He looked like the other islanders, but there was something different about him. Something to be feared.
Fong stepped back. He didn’t want to fight this man.
“Jiajia!”
Both Fong and the younger man looked up. Iman strode briskly toward them. “This man is a guest on our island, Jiajia.”
There was a tick of silence. Jiajia gave Fong a hatefilled look then said, “Yes, Iman,” and stomped away.
Iman turned to Fong then glanced at the grave. “Her name was Chu Shi. She was Jiajia’s wife.” Fong nodded. “Death is hard on the young.” Iman made his face into a rough approximation of a smile then returned to the others who were lowering the crimson-sheeted Hesheng into the ground.
Fong watched Iman move – lope was the word that came to him. “When I get old, I want to be that healthy,” he thought.
Fong took a last look at Chu Shi’s headstone, and then at Hesheng’s. Hesheng’s name was on his and the date of his passing, but no other dates. There were no dates at all on Chu Shi’s grave marker.
Fong began down the terraced mountain, suddenly anxious to be alone with his thoughts.
As he approached the waiting boat he didn’t know which was worse – the shocking possibilities he’d found by Chu Shi’s grave or his imminent lake voyage back to Ching.
Dr. Roung stood on the shore of the great lake and watched the sun set. In the distance he could just make out the figure of a lone worker in an upper paddy on the Island of the Half-wits. Well, not really the worker. Just the glint of the fading light off his broad trench-hewer. Then the glint faded. Like everything else on the island. A brightness, a hope, and then no more.
The island. The place that had changed his life. Lifted his eyes from his concentration on small pieces. Showed him new possibilities. Great possibilities. The chance not to recreate but to create – to create something that could last and last. Not for as long as the terra-cotta warriors, but long. Long and alive. Something that was his and could very well carry his identity, his very self, forward through time. As he thought the word – time - he elongated the vowels.
Far to his right was the shoal that had first brought him to this place. The shoal was also the structure on which the luxury boat had floundered and from which it had eventually entered, ice-covered and scorched, into the inky winter water. A lone fisherman with two cormorants on the gunwhales of his boat glided directly toward him. How did he always know? Everything.
This fisherman had discovered the artifact. One of his cormorants had returned to the boat with something caught in its throat. The fisherman had stuck his hand all the way down its lengthy gullet. What he came up with, after considerable tugging and much cursing, was a moss-encrusted object that he would have tossed back into the water, accompanied by the appropriate obscenity for wasted effort, had he not noted the dull sheen of metal. It was no doubt that hint of brightness that had first attracted the bird.
The old schemer pocketed the object and took it home. There he carefully chipped away the growth then polished the object which, after much attention, revealed itself to be a startlingly accurate depiction of a horse’s hindquarters and rear legs rendered in bronze. It was just over three inches in length and beautifully done – a fact that escaped the fisherman.
What didn’t escape him was the possibility that the thing might be worth something.
It took him several months of judicious asking around before he found out about Dr. Roung, the archeologist in Xian, and another few months before he made his way to the ancient capital. He’d never left the environs of the lake before. But profit was a powerful motivator.
One chilly morning, the smelly man was ushered through Dr. Roung’s office door. The archeologist had been examining the medieval Italian’s book about China that had so long puzzled him. He didn’t like puzzles he couldn’t solve. But he never considered conceding defeat. He took a last look at the book and returned it to the shelf. Without turning to face the fisherman he said, “My assistant tells me that you have something to show me?”
The fisherman looked around, not sure what to say or do.
The archeologist looked at the old man.
“Would you like a drink?”
The fisherman’s eyes widened. Dr. Roung never drank himself, but had found strong Chinese wine a useful enticement with the locals. He poured a glass. The man sat down.
Two glasses later, the man was ready to talk. “Excellency. Do you purchase ancient things? Small, ancient things?”
“From time to time I do.”
“It’s small, though,” the man said tentatively.
“Size is seldom an issue.”
The fisherman smiled then screwed up his face as if what he was about to say would cause him great pain. “What if it’s broken?” There was anxiety in the fisherman’s voice.
A brightness flashed for a moment across Dr. Roung’s face, then was gone. He took a breath. Then, with his anticipation concealed safely behind his eyes, he asked, “Cracked, you mean?”
“No, Excellency, broken – as if in half.”
The archeologist looked away from the fisherman. A few months earlier, he and his team had begun the third phase of the reclamation of the terra-cotta warriors. During the dig he had come across six small half-sculptures. All horses. All the front end – the emperor’s end. “Is it of a horse?” he asked as casually as he could manage.
The fisherman emitted a hiss.
“It is of a horse, isn’t it?”
The fisherman stumbled to his feet. “He thinks I’m a witch,” Dr. Roung thought. “Good.” He took a breath then said, “It’s worthless, old man.” He unlocked a drawer to his desk and took out the six half-horses and put them on the desk. “Worthless,” he repeated.
But the fisherman was canny. Over his many years he had done much bartering for fish and on occasion for cormorant chicks. “If they were worthless, why keep them under lock and key?” he thought. But he said nothing. Just bent his shoulders and turned toward the door.
“Show me your find, old man.”
“Why, Excellency?” The old fisherman locked eyes with the archeologist. “It has no value.”
“Show it to me.” Dr. Roung allowed a threatening tone into his voice. The fisherman heard it and backed off. Slowly he reached into his pocket and pulled out a dirty rag. Holding it in the palm of his left hand, he unwrapped the tiny thing.
The archeologist had to control his excitement. The perfect hindquarters were the first he had ever seen. His fingers itched to fit it together with one of the six frontquarters he had. His keen eye quickly eliminated the chance of a match with the first three of his horses. But horses four and six were real possibilities.
“Are there more where this came from, old man?”
The man scratched his neck, but didn’t answer.
“If you know where this came from, and are willing to show me, I’ll pay you handsomely.”
“How handsomely?” snapped back the old fisherman.