Their men took interest in a little more than that, some of them, though not much more. However, they felt ill at ease with her. They knew her for the chosen of the Master and accorded her respect, in a clumsy fashion. Yet they also knew her for a woman; and she was soon taken for granted, sacred but a part of everyday life, like Tu Shan; and women did not sit in the councils of men. Li gathered that this was no great loss to her.
One day of that winter stood forth in memory, an island at the middle of an abyss that swallowed all the rest. The door swung open on dazzlingly sunlit, blue-shadowed drifts. A wave of chill poured through. Tu Shan’s bulk blotted the light. He entered and closed the door. Gloom clapped down again. “Hoo!” he whinnied, stamping the snow off his boots. “Cold enough to freeze a fire solid and the anvil with it.” She must have heard him say that a hundred times, and a few other favorite expressions.
Li looked up from the mat on which she knelt. Bright spots danced before her. They were due to reflection off the brass chest, which the disciples worshipfully kept polished. She had been staring at it for—an hour? two hours?—while sunken in the half-doze that was her retreat from these empty months.
A thought smote. The suddenness of it made her catch her breath. Next she wondered why it had not occurred to her before, then supposed that was because the newness of this life had driven everything else out of her mind until the life went stale, and she was saying: “Horseshoe,” the pet name she had given him, “I have never looked in yonder box.”
His mouth was open, he had been about to speak. He left it hanging thus for a moment before he replied slowly, “Why, uh, those are the books. And, uh, scrolls, yes, scrolls. The holy writings.”
Eagerness thrilled through her. “May I see them?”
“They’re not for, uh, ordinary eyes.”
She rose and told him fiercely, “I too am immortal. Have you forgotten?”
“Oh, no, no.” He waved his hands, a vague gesture. “But you’re a woman. You can’t read them.”
Li’s mind leaped back across centuries. Ladies of the court in Heian-kyo were literate in the vernacular but seldom in Chinese.’That was the classical language, which only men could properly comprehend. Nevertheless she had contrived to study the writing, and sometimes in China had found a chance, a span of rest in a tranquil place, to refresh that knowledge. Moreover, these texts were most likely Buddhist; that faith had intermingled here with Taoism and primitive animism. She would recognize passages.
“I can,” she said.
He gaped. “You can?” He shook his head. “Well, the gods have singled you out… Yes, look at them if you want. But handle them carefully. They’re quite old.”
Joyful, she went to the chest and opened it. At first she saw it only full of shadow. She fetched the lamp and held it above. Wan light nickered and fell.
The chest gaped across rot, mildew, and fungus.
She moaned. Barely did she keep from letting hot grease spill onto the corruption. With her free hand she groped, caught hold of something, lifted a gray tatter up to view.
Tu Shan bent over. “Well, well,” he muttered. “Water must have gotten in. How sad.”
She dropped the shred, replaced the lamp, rose to confront him. “When did you last look into that box?” she demanded most quietly.
His glance shifted elsewhere. “I don’t know. No reason to.”
“You never read the sacred texts? You have them perfectly by heart?”
“They were gifts from pilgrims. What are they to me?” He summoned bluster. “I don’t need writings. I am the Master. That’s enough.”
“You cannot read or write,” she said.
“They, well, they suppose I can, and— What harm? What harm, I ask you?” He turned on her. “Stop nagging me. Go. Go into the other rooms. Leave me be.”
Pity overcame her. He was, after all, so vulnerable—a simple man, a common man, whom karma or the gods or the demons or blind accident had made ageless for no know-able reason. With peasant shrewdness he had survived. He had acquired the sonorous phrases that a saint should utter. And he had not abused his position here; he was a god-figure that required little and returned much, assurance, protection, oneness. But the unchanging cycle of season after season after season, world without end, had dulled his wits and even, she saw, sapped his courage.