Desert Rhapsody - Chapter 16

Chapter 16

For Jiang Yuan, her brief stay in Baghdad felt instead like the most unreal period of the half year since she had fallen into this era. After sending Abal off, Adnan still had some miscellaneous matters to deal with and could not leave at once. Jiang Yuan asked for his permission and obtained some copper and silver coins, so she was able to lead a little donkey through the streets of the ancient capital in the mornings and evenings.

Baghdad was in summer then, but it was not especially hot. The flamboyant palms along the Tigris River brought abundant moisture, and the wind blowing in from the Mediterranean was cool and pleasant. Fruits and flowers filled the streets and alleys. Vendors competed to hawk their goods. In certain districts, every few steps brought her face-to-face with a peddler carrying a shoulder pole or the owner of a food stall calling out to customers. On days when ships arrived, a trip to the harbor would reveal all manner of goods and rare curios transported from every direction.

Jiang Yuan had little to do. Every day she got up and ate something in Adnan’s home, though more often she could go out to buy food for herself. There was roasted meat everywhere, along with rice, fruit, and yogurt. Ancient or modern, East or West, shopping was always most convenient in the most developed capitals. Jiang Yuan could buy a bowl of vegetable salad and a serving of pilaf sprinkled with nuts and raisins, stroll as she ate, and once she had finished, buy another portion of Baghdad’s most popular local shawarma, kebabs, and lamb skewers. These foods still existed in modern Arabia; they had lasted a thousand years without losing their appeal.

The busiest market in Baghdad had trading houses set up specifically for merchants from different countries. They formed a row of elegant two-story buildings, and if one walked all the way to the innermost end, there was the Great Tang. It was said that the shop displayed many things from the East: porcelain, silk, brushes, ink, paper, inkstones, and books. The Caliph treated the worthy with courtesy and recruited scholars widely, and many classics would be transported farther inside, into the palace, to be translated by those people.

Jiang Yuan stood near the shop entrance for a very long time, not daring to go forward. She watched the man of the Great Tang behind the counter calling in customers. He might have been the shopkeeper, or perhaps a scholar. He had a slightly protruding belly, three long wisps of beard beneath his chin, and his broad robe and wide sleeves gathered up as he wrote on parchment with a carving knife. But she stood there too long. The assistants saw customers in and out, and soon noticed her. One called out loudly in practiced Arabic, “Why has that guest over there been standing for so long? If you are interested, why not come into the shop and take a closer look?”

His accent was already completely that of the people of Arabia, though it seemed to carry another accent as well. That was only to be expected. There was no standard accent here in the first place. Countless peoples had converged here and formed an empire. Jiang Yuan slowly walked over, and the scholar raised his head to look at her. She let go of the lead, allowing someone to take her little donkey, and when she stepped inside, they noticed the Eastern cast of her brows and eyes. Yet she had a black beard stuck to her face, a turban wrapped around her head, and a curved saber at her waist. Of course, facial features could not fool people from one’s homeland. The scholar’s face showed surprise and delight. “Young fellow, you look as though you are from the Great Tang!”

Jiang Yuan held back her tears and said her lie with utmost seriousness. “My mother was from the Great Tang.”

The scholar and the assistant were both overjoyed. They brought out their treasured tea cakes and invited her to drink with them. …To be honest, Jiang Yuan was completely unused to this sort of tea cake boiled with all kinds of seasonings. That, however, made her seem even more consistent with the identity she had fabricated. Her Mandarin was also identified as an outland dialect, for the official speech of the Great Tang was the Shaanxi dialect. Of course, that was not the modern Shaanxi dialect either. They muttered back and forth for a while, but listening proved truly difficult, so in the end they had no choice but to switch back to their respective accented Arabic.

The scholar introduced himself as Li Jie, a Gentleman-in-Attendance attached to the Great Tang envoy’s office in Arabia. He had been ordered to manage this trading house. The assistant was actually the one truly serving as the shopkeeper. He had been the book boy Li Jie brought with him when he first came here, and after many years, he had grown into an adult and become Li Jie’s capable helper.

Li Jie sighed and said, “I have been here for many years, and the sounds of home have long since blurred in my memory! This deserves a great cup of wine. A great cup indeed!”

Jiang Yuan smiled and said, “In the finest scenery south of the river, I meet you again in the season of falling blossoms!” Although they were both in a foreign land, speaking in foreign tongues. He stroked his beard and laughed. “A poem by Du Fu, used here, is truly marvelous beyond words!”

That Jiang Yuan, though living among foreigners, still cared about Eastern literature and had studied hard until she mastered it won great praise from Li Jie. So she told him the background that she and Adnan had carefully worked out. War and separation had always been the root of people seeking their homeland and tracing their ancestors. The Battle of Talas and the An Lushan Rebellion had scattered countless drifting duckweeds. A young lady from a scholarly family had been captured and then carried along by the current of fate, giving birth to a mixed-blood child before finally being buried in a faraway foreign land. Jiang Yuan pretended to be calm and let them examine her appearance. Li Jie said, “It seems you take after your mother more. You look more like someone of Tang.”

Since she resembled her mother more, a somewhat feminine appearance could be explained perfectly well. A full beard was already enough to prove her male identity. Jiang Yuan nodded and said, “Yes. My mother often said I took after her more.”

Just then, the entrance darkened as someone came in, and the shopkeeper rose to greet him. But the newcomer’s voice was familiar, so Jiang Yuan also looked up. Adnan happened to be gazing at her in astonishment as he cried, “Jia Nan! My child, you truly surprise me. I parted with you at home this morning, and at noon I meet you here again!”

Only then did Jiang Yuan realize that the “channel” Adnan had found was connected to the Great Tang. After the Battle of Talas, many people of the Great Tang had been displaced by war and ended up in foreign lands. The warriors of Arabia had captured numerous craftsmen, as well as all sorts of laborers and soldiers, and the papermaking techniques of the East had finally begun to flow into Baghdad. In the past few years, a few small, dubious workshops had been established in Persia, and the Caliph had also been committed to building papermaking workshops. It was only after the An Lushan Rebellion, when diplomatic relations with the Black-Clad Caliphate were restored, that the Tang emperor finally allowed the Arabs to exchange a great quantity of precious treasures for the complete papermaking techniques held by the government-run workshops.
Adnan had indeed been thinking of entering the papermaking business, but not because he wanted to obtain the state-run technique. The nature of papermaking meant it could only ever become an official industry; not even the wealthiest merchants in Baghdad could hope to lay a finger on it. And so merchants represented by Adnan had set their sights on the middle market: the half-true, half-false knowledge of papermaking that had once circulated among the common folk before the official exchange of the craft.

That knowledge had once shone brightly in its own right. Even coarse paper was useful enough. Tang paper sold very well here, and as more and more classics, talent, and knowledge poured in, the shortage of paper grew severe. Parchment made from sheepskin or deerskin could not keep up with demand and was inconvenient besides. Even inferior semi-finished products had no lack of buyers.

Needless to say, the shrewd merchants would never let such a business slip by. Many had poured great sums into the exchange, hoping for even a single hint. After the art of papermaking was carried into the Caliph’s palace on golden trays and in jade boxes, the buying frenzy for paper became even more intense. Everyone wanted to drink with Li Jie and befriend him. Was Adnan not one of them?

Jiang Yuan thought of this and rose to her feet. Perhaps she had obstructed Adnan’s plan and caused him to be seen as someone playing tricks. Adnan, however, bowed to Li Jie with ease and admitted that he was Jiang Yuan’s adoptive father. Smiling at Jiang Yuan, he recited, “No matter where a little horse may roam, it will always look back toward its homeland. I should have known that once you settled in Baghdad, you would come here sooner or later.”

He had once been captured by bandits together with Jiang Yuan, and they had supported each other along the way. Seeing that she had no one to rely on, he had taken her in as his own. He said, “I have long admired the splendor of the Tang Empire. I would never dare use mere gold, pearls, and jewels to steal your skills. Knowledge is the most precious wealth; nothing can compare with it. I came here only because I wished to personally choose a few gifts for this beloved adopted son of mine. I thought him as clever and outstanding as his mother, and perhaps he might even offer me a little guidance!”

Then he stretched out both hands and recited with heartfelt sincerity, “Fate brought us together. What great fortune this is for me! I only hope this fortune will not create any obstacle for my child. My lord of the Tang Empire, if you harbor even the slightest doubt, I will turn and leave at once. I only beg you not to misunderstand the child’s good intentions. If he is made to shed tears in sorrow, then all the fault is mine!”

But Li Jie had not misunderstood. He raised a hand and invited Adnan to sit. “Honorable old sir, I am not so muddleheaded as to suspect such a clever and filial child.” How could it be easy to find someone like Jiang Yuan? Every gesture she made carried the bearing of a Tang person: gentle, composed, neither servile nor overbearing. Li Jie stroked his beard and smiled. He believed she had been born in a foreign land and had never once set foot on the soil of the Great Tang.

“It is easy to deceive people, but look at him.” Li Jie reached out and lightly pressed Jiang Yuan’s shoulder, his sleeve falling over her. He said, “Your mother taught you very well.” This was what it meant for a gentleman to be more than a mere vessel.

Jiang Yuan blinked, and tears suddenly brimmed in her eyes.

Their gains were unexpectedly abundant. Li Jie gave them several reams of paper and wrote a letter of introduction so Adnan could visit the Tang craftsmen currently serving in the palace workshops. He saw them to the street corner and said, “Consider this my gift to a junior.” Jiang Yuan was deeply grateful. But she was about to leave Baghdad with Adnan, and perhaps it would be very difficult to ever return. Li Jie laughed heartily. “An ancient worthy once said: when the pleasure is spent, one returns-why insist on meeting?” With a wave of his sleeve, he turned and went back.

The shopkeeper was perceptive and led Jiang Yuan in bowing. Jiang Yuan knelt and kowtowed. She only heard him beat time and sing, “After half a life away and all storms gone, the one who returns home is still a young lad!” His broad sleeves drifted up with the song. Before the last notes had faded, he had already entered the shop.

She raised her head. Before her, only the blue-brick road remained. A banner hung above the door, the ink of the single word “Tang” still bold upon it. It rustled in the wind, as if about to break through the sky and fly away.

Jiang Yuan only regretted that she did not know how to sing and could not open her mouth.

On the way back, Jiang Yuan asked Adnan, “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to study papermaking?”

Adnan smiled with a trace of slyness. “Were you not bound to go there anyway?”

Jiang Yuan could not help laughing. She said, “Actually, I may know a little about papermaking.” If she went back and thought hard, she might be able to recall something useful. Adnan laughed. “Then, my dear child, you must never make the paper from that packet of medicine, or you will certainly be snatched away by the great officials.”

Jiang Yuan laughed too. She could not make ibuprofen, and besides, those paper scraps had already been torn apart by Abal and buried in the yellow sand. A thousand years later, they would probably have rotted away into decay. She helped Adnan lead his donkey, as well as her own little donkey, and they strolled slowly along the street. The cries of vendors rang endlessly in their ears. The sunlight was fierce, and the palm trees on both sides of the road cast cool shade.

But those were all trees in other people’s homes. They would have to go back home before they could enjoy the shade. She asked, “Where are we moving to?”

“I think, most likely Taif,” Adnan said. “So that you know, your father’s father, and your grandfather’s grandfather before him, once made their fortune there. Our ancestors traded fruit and glassware, bringing dates and apricots to Baghdad, then carrying cups and plates back to Taif. In the end, he grew rich, settled in Baghdad, and never returned. But…”

Adnan paused, then said, “It is said he became wealthy because he happened to stumble upon the treasure hoard of some bandit gang.”

Jiang Yuan thought for a long while.

“Could that ancestor’s name have been Ali Baba?”