Six Agarwood Records · Tale One: The Cedar Frame

Six Agarwood Records · Tale One: The Cedar Frame

I. Biaobei Alley

The first autumn rain fell on Biaobei Alley. Liu Zhiqiang had already taken half the shop's door off its hinges; the damp rushed in, and the smell of old wood overwhelmed the smoke from the street's coal stoves. Wang Wanshu was settling accounts in the back room, the beads of the abacus clicking at wide intervals.

The man who came was a picture hanger, surnamed Ji, nearly sixty, in a blue cotton jacket washed so often by his wife it had faded, and in his arms a package of oiled paper, wrapped square. He stood outside the threshold a moment, then finally rubbed his soles clean on the stone step before entering.

"Master Liu, shopkeeper. This painting has been with me three years; its owner never came to collect it. The address he left is this alley, but the house number doesn't match." The hanger Ji set the package on the counter. "I asked half the street; they said this shop belongs to the Liu family and hasn't moved in generations." Liu Zhiqiang unwrapped the package. It was an old painting, on silk, dark in the middle, its corners moth-eaten. It depicted a cedar, in rough, bold strokes — not the hand of a famous artist. And in the inscription spot only two characters remained, dissolved by water beyond recognition.

"What was the owner's surname?" "No full name remains. He said only that his surname was Wen." The abacus in the back room stopped. Wang Wanshu came out and stood half a step behind Liu Zhiqiang, looking at the painting bent forward, without a word.

The hanger Ji said: "Behind the center of the painting there's a hidden layer. I lifted a corner of it; the backing is old paper. I didn't dare do more. With this old silk, one lift and it crumbles. If you know its owner, best to tell him face to face."

II. The Hidden Layer

After the hanger Ji left, the shop was quiet for a long while.

Wang Wanshu spread the painting on the table, and brought the bamboo spatula, the tweezers, and a basin of warm water. Her hands were very steady; the craft of mounting and lifting she had learned from her father. Liu Zhiqiang carried the lamp to her side, the wick very low, the light falling only on a square inch at the center of the painting.

"The backing paper is Song paper," she said. "Fine weave lines, bamboo paper. Not from this painting's era." "The painting is Ming." "The painting is Ming, the backing is Song. Someone put Song paper beneath a Ming painting, and re-mounted it." She worked from the corner with the bamboo spatula, separating it inch by inch. The old paste had gone brittle, falling like scattered snow. And in the third layer there was indeed paper in the hidden space, folded four times, yellowed to brown, its edges stuck with paste.

Opened, it was a page of a record. Vertical columns, written in ink, the column lines drawn by hand and uneven. And at the top three characters: "Record of the Six Fragrances."

Liu Zhiqiang's fingers stopped at the edge of the paper; he did not touch it.

The record listed six notes: orchid, green, purple, black, yellow, and white rangan-tai. Beneath each note small characters recorded the origin, the color of the tongue, and the method of discrimination. The script was fine and firm, the presses elongated — in the manner of Huang Tingjian's school.

After the six notes, there was another line. That line was covered with dense ink, very densely, the ink darker than the body text, as if by a later hand. Looked at slantwise under the lamp, the columns of strokes showed from beneath the ink layer, resembling the upper half of the character "tong."

"The seventh note," said Wang Wanshu.

"Whoever covered it did not want it seen." "With this density, he was afraid it would be seen — and afraid he himself would forget." She turned the paper over; in the blank back a line of small characters, written so lightly it was almost as if recorded with a worn brush dipped in thin ink: "If you see the seventh note, ask who drew it."

III. The Night the Record Was Copied, Northern Song

Yuanyou era, Bianliang.

That night two lamps were lit in the back hall of the Liu family's agarwood and sandalwood shop. Huang Tingjian sat at the table copying the record, and the Liu family head sat opposite grinding ink. The draft was shared between the two families; the six notes had been recorded, but the page of the seventh note — the Liu head had pulled it and pressed it under the ink stone in the table's corner.

"Why not record it," asked Huang Tingjian.

"The record must not be complete," said the Liu head. "The six notes are a record of distribution and preservation. Completed, they become a map for gathering fragrances. If later followers search by the complete record, they will find their way — sooner or later — to one place." Huang Tingjian's brush hung over the paper, hung a long while. The ink gathered at the brush tip into a drop, about to fall and not falling. In the end he set the brush down and did not write.

"Rangan-tai is the mother fragrance, and this I state clearly," he said. "The six notes are distributed and preserved, and this I write clearly. But this seventh note... if you do not record it, followers will not know it exists." "Not knowing is better than knowing." "Not knowing, and someone will invent a name for it." Huang Tingjian looked at the paper under the ink stone. "An invented name is harder to guard than a true one." The Liu head did not answer. He moved the ink stone aside, pulled that paper, and burned it on the lamp flame. And when the flames rose, Huang Tingjian reached out and snatched a corner of the paper from the side of the fire; nothing remained on it but half a character.

He folded that half of the paper and put it in his sleeve.

"I will not write it," he said. "But I leave a thread. If anyone ever sees the seventh note, there must be a place to ask."

IV. Half a Character

The present. The lamp is still lit.

Liu Zhiqiang turned the remaining page of the record toward the light. The ink of the seventh-note line showed layers under the light: beneath a layer of original ink, another had been applied on top; whoever applied it pressed with weight, and at the closing point of the stroke a pause mark, as if he wrote and then paused a moment.

"This ink is not Song ink," said Wang Wanshu. "Ash-based — later. Applied by a Ming or Qing hand." "Whoever covered it saw this page." "Saw it, and wanted it gone. But he did not burn it." She spread the remaining page. "Burned, it would be finished. But covering it means what he feared was not this paper, but that this paper be understood." Liu Zhiqiang looked at the small line on the back. "Who drew it," he repeated. "Who drew this cedar." "The painting is Ming, the backing is Song, the record is Song, the ink applied later." Wang Wanshu arranged the sequence. "Hands from three eras pressed onto one sheet of paper. The first left the record, the middle mounted the painting, the last covered it with ink." "The mounter put Song paper beneath a Ming painting — left it on purpose." "Hid the record inside the painting, and sent the painting to this alley." She paused a moment. "He knew the Liu family was still here."

Outside, the rain had lightened. In the alley a bicycle bell rang once, then moved away.

Liu Zhiqiang put the remaining page of the record into a silk box, its bottom lined with cedar shavings — old wood kept in the shop. And when the box closed, he caught a very faint scent: neither agarwood nor sandalwood, but the smell of the cedar frame itself — dry, astringent, like an old paper shop.

"Tomorrow I'll trace the origin of this painting," he said. "Its owner, surnamed Wen — is there any other trace from the hanger Ji's side?" "I'll go," said Wang Wanshu. "The mounting craft I know well. You go to the cultural relics office and register the remaining page. And the Wen Yi side should be told as well." Liu Zhiqiang nodded. He closed the shop door, dropped the bolt, and cast a look behind him at the cedar image on the table. The cedar in the painting was drawn roughly, a crack in its trunk — as if split by lightning, as if cut by a blade.

The place of the crack corresponds exactly to the place of the seventh note in the record hidden in the layer.

— *Six Agarwood Records* · Tale One · End · Next: Tale Two

> This is a serialized fictional work of "Six Agarwood Records"; the characters and plot are invented. The knowledge of agarwood and defects herein is gathered from public sources and does not constitute investment or medical advice.