Six Agarwood Records · Part IV: Crossing East and Wandering West

Six Agarwood Records · Part IV: Crossing East and Wandering West

1 · [Nara · Shōsōin · Modern Era]

Liu Zhiqiang was descending from the plane as the rain poured down over Nara.

Wang Wanshu walked half a step ahead of him, a stack of printed papers in her hand. This trip had been realized thanks to her: it was an exchange study between the Palace Museum and the Nara National Museum on "Painting and Calligraphy of the Song and Yuan Eras and Agarwood Culture," and she had registered the research topic and added Liu Zhiqiang to the list of accompanying persons under the title "Inheritor of Folk Incense Craft."

— We have only forty minutes — she said. The special exhibition at Shōsōin is held once a year, and only a few pieces are shown each time. This year, the Ranjatai is among them. And this is the longest time I could obtain. — It's enough — said Liu Zhiqiang.

He took the jade piece from his breast. Half a piece, with six facets, three characters carved on its inner face — the Ranjatai. He had flown it three thousand kilometers to bring it a little closer to that piece of agarwood.

The exhibition hall was dim. The lamps illuminated only the display case.

In the case was a massive piece of agarwood. One hundred and fifty-six centimeters — longer than a man's outstretched arm — the color of aged ivory, its surface marked by spiral folds of varying depth and several clear cut marks — those were the parts that had been cut away over the centuries, piece after piece. Ashikaga Yoshimitsu took from it, Oda Nobunaga took from it, and the Meiji Emperor took from it as well.

The Ranjatai. The first fragrance in the world.

Liu Zhiqiang stopped before the glass.

And smelled it.

Not one scent, but six.

Pine needles after rain, and the pages of old books — this is its own scent: solemn, pure, like a book whose pages have been turned for many years. But beneath this layer of scent other things stirred: a grasp of moss and unripe fruit, a stench of sandalwood mixed with iron rust, sea salt and sun-dried orange peel, a scorch of smoked leather, and meltwater of ice, almost without scent.

Six. All six are within.

Liu Zhiqiang placed the jade in his palm against the glass.

The scent of the massive agarwood inside the case shifted to one side, suddenly.

As if someone had lightly moved a string stretched long ago, by half a degree.

Wang Wanshu stood beside him, holding her breath. She looked at that line in her printed papers — it was a photographic copy of the surviving portion of the "Record of the Six Defects" preserved in Japan, and she had compared it three times in the Palace Museum storerooms before daring to confirm it: the Ranjatai is not one of the Six Defects; and by the Ranjatai the Six Defects are verified.

— It is not one of the Six Defects — said Liu Zhiqiang.

— I know — said Wang Wanshu in a very low voice. — But what is it? — It is the thing that calibrates — Liu Zhiqiang's eyes remained on the agarwood in the case. — The Six Defects do not recognize one another — they light up only when they come near. It is... — and his search was long before he found the word.

— It is the measure. — And from behind him, someone clapped three times. The claps were soft, and very slow.

— Master Liu. — Liu Zhiqiang turned. Liu Shengjingma was standing in the gloom of the exhibition hall, in a dark gray suit, his cuffs immaculately clean, a slender wooden cane in his hand carved with a nine-petaled chrysanthemum.

— I knew you would come — said Liu Shengjingma — and your father, on that day, came here first. — Liu Zhiqiang's heart sank.

— My father? — In the year two thousand, autumn — said Liu Shengjingma slowly — he changed trains in Kyoto and came to Nara, and stood in this hall for a long time. I was young then, standing three steps behind him. He asked me one question. — What question? — He asked me: "If all six pieces were found, would people not stop fighting?" — Liu Shengjingma paused a moment — I answered him that day. He did not accept my answer. And in the winter of that year, he did not appear again. — Liu Zhiqiang's fingers tightened. The year two thousand, the Gengchen year, autumn. It was written in the blood ledger: did not return. And it was not an accident.

— Where is he? — asked Liu Zhiqiang.

Liu Shengjingma did not answer the question. He walked to the display case and stood beside Liu Zhiqiang, and the shadows of the two men overlapped on the same glass panel.

— Master Liu, you have seen it — said Liu Shengjingma — so you too have seen: your ancestors were wrong. — Wrong in what? — Wrong in separating the measure from the lock — Liu Shengjingma spoke slowly, each word firmly in its place — Shennong left six defects, and also left this mother fragrance. And what is the function of the mother fragrance? It is for verification, for opening, for returning the Six Defects to a single whole. Your ancestors treated the mother fragrance as "the thing that must not be touched," and treated the Six Defects as "the things that must be kept apart" — and so, for a thousand years, the measure has been in our hands, and we never measure with it; and the lock has been in our hands, and we never open it. — And what if it were opened? — The world's pain would stop. — Liu Shengjingma turned to him. The hall was dim, and his face was half lit and half dark.

— Master Liu, my sister died in Kosovo, at nineteen. When she went, her bag was full of bandages and antibiotics. And when she died, she looked exactly like those she had gone out to save — neither Japanese, nor Serb. People were originally one thing, and it is memory that divided them. — He paused a moment.

— And what has the Liu family preserved for a thousand years? Memory. That people continue to remember where they are from, whom they hated, and who hated them. Is this not a cruelty of another kind? — Liu Zhiqiang did not contradict him at once.

He stood there, looking through the glass at the piece of agarwood that had been cut away over a thousand years, and suddenly understood where the most frightening thing about Liu Shengjingma lay — every sentence this man said was true.

— Master Liu Shengjingma — he said — I have one question. — Go ahead. — If the Six Defects were gathered and ignited, and there remained in the world no difference, no memory — Liu Zhiqiang looked at him — then what of your sister? — Liu Shengjingma was silent for a long time.

The hall's lamps cast their light on that massive piece, mark after mark of the cuts, like growth rings.

— ...She too would not remain — Liu Shengjingma said at last. And this was the first time his voice did not slow.

— Exactly — said Liu Zhiqiang — you want to put an end to war, and the price is that she never existed. And the people you want to save, and the reason you save them, both vanish together. — Liu Shengjingma looked at him.

And after a long time, he bowed slightly — a very upright Japanese bow.

— Master Liu — he said — we will talk again. — Then he turned and went. And at the door of the hall he stopped once more, and said without turning: — Your father did not listen on that day. Will you not listen too? — And the sound of his footsteps receded.

Wang Wanshu stood beside Liu Zhiqiang, and said nothing the whole time. Only then did she open her mouth, and her voice was a little dry: — He thinks he is saving people. — Mm. — His argument, I cannot refute. — Nor can I — said Liu Zhiqiang — that is why I did not refute the argument. I asked him about his sister.

2 · [Northern Song · Third Year of Yuanfu (1100) · Changzhou · Winter]

In the winter when the ship reached Changzhou, Su Dongpo had reached sixty-four, and was ill.

He had returned north from Danzhou on a journey lasting more than half a year. He crossed the sea, passed over the mountains, and descended with the river; old friends waited for him along the road, and he met all he could meet, and sent word to those he could not through others. Some advised him not to go farther, and to settle in Changzhou, and he said: — Very well.

Liu Jiulang arrived in early November.

He was forty-seven, half his hair white, and had come south from Bianliang on a journey of thirty-nine days. When he arrived, Dongpo was leaning on his couch, a charcoal brazier in the room, and beside it a small censer giving off fragrance.

— Jiulang. — Dongpo smiled — if your father were alive he would scold me — for I have summoned his son from Bianliang to Changzhou. — For the scholar has a word he wants — said Liu Jiulang, kneeling — and my father said on his deathbed too: if the scholar speaks, the Liu family must come even from a thousand li. — Dongpo looked at him a long time.

— All my life — he said — I was banished to Huangzhou, banished to Huizhou, banished to Danzhou, banishment after banishment. But the fragrance of your shop never changed. — Fragrance does not change — said Liu Jiulang — but people do. — True. — Dongpo laughed, then coughed a long cough. When the cough subsided, he took a cloth bundle from beside his pillow and opened it, and within was half a piece of jade.

Round, with six facets, and the character at its break jagged.

Liu Jiulang's breath stopped — the other half was in his house, at that moment, lying in the secret pocket in Bianliang.

— This half is called "Recording" — said Dongpo — and your half is called "Preserving." The preserving half is inherited from eldest son to eldest through the generations; the recording half is entrusted through the generations to those who are trusted. In my generation, it was entrusted to me, more than twenty years ago. — Master scholar... — I have reached sixty-four — Dongpo placed the jade in Liu Jiulang's palm — and I return it to you. — Liu Jiulang held it with both hands, and his hands trembled.

— Master scholar, if the two pieces were gathered in one place... — They do not gather in one place — Dongpo interrupted.

He leaned on the couch and sat more upright, word by word: — Preserving in one place, recording in another. And do not let anyone join the two pieces into one. — Then to whom do I deliver this recording half? — Dongpo thought a moment, then said: — To your wife's people on her mother's side. — The Wang family? — The Wang family know the hundred herbs — said Dongpo — and those who know the hundred herbs know what may be put with what, and what dies if put together. This half, the Wang family are capable of preserving. — Liu Jiulang bowed his head and looked at the half jade in his palm. The jade was cold, and at the break there was a very fine line, which was supposed to fit without gap against the break of the other half in his house.

— Master scholar — he asked — why must there be separation? — Dongpo did not answer at once. He reached out and stirred the charcoal a little, and the fragrance of the censer in the room stirred.

— Jiulang, in my youth I wrote a phrase: "This fragrance is like an old friend. I was banished again and again, and it did not change a little." — He said, slowing his speech — then later I understood: fragrance does not change because it does not remember. If a person does not remember, he does not suffer;