Black Dragon, Black Cat Page 7

  One hot miserable day, Mao was returning from the willow trees at the edge of the pond when she placed a bare foot to the ground and felt a movement beneath it. She immediately lifted her foot and looked downward, only to see a rustling movement in the tall grass that sped away from her toward the old shed. She chased after it, with a strong desire to learn what this tiny creature must be, whether a reptile or rodent, and what type. The tiny creature moved very quickly, and she pursued it as fast as she could, looking for the swaying of the grass left in its wake. Shortly the creature reached the shed, and disappeared down a hole underneath it just as Mao arrived, but she was unable to catch a glimpse of it. She knelt on the ground and peered into the hole, but could see only darkness.

  Mao searched the ground for several moments until she located a small stick, about the length of her lower arm. With this, she gently probed the inside of the hole, hoping to stir the creature from its haven. However, she could not reach the bottom of the hole, and she spent many minutes there trying to penetrate the hole deeper by jamming her arm ever further into it.

  “There are no secrets remaining to be found in that hole, Hei Mao.”

  Mao was startled by the voice of the old man, and immediately dropped the stick and stood up to face Jai-tien.

  “All the demons that dwelled there were expelled many years ago,” the old man continued. He then clasped his hands behind his back, and walked very slowly back toward the house, leaning heavily on his stick.

  Mao had been very surprised to find her master standing behind her, and had no idea that he had been observing her. She wondered what he had meant by his strange statement about demons. Surely this small creature that rushed down the hole was no demon; that would be completely ridiculous. After several minutes of contemplating this strange event, Mao shrugged her shoulders and followed the old man toward the house, but not until she cast one more puzzled look at the hole beneath the shed.

  During this intense heat, the black cat suffered horribly, experiencing great difficulty breathing. Mao would take it with her to the shady banks of the pond, and wet her hands before stroking it. This would provide some relief to cool the cat to a more comfortable temperature. It was apparent that the black cat was becoming frailer very quickly in the intense heat, and Mao felt very sorry for it. The poor creature could barely walk by the end of summer, and was losing weight from a lack of interest in food. Its eyesight was deteriorating rapidly, and it could not find its way around the house without aid. Mao devoted much of her time in the afternoons to tending to its needs, but it was becoming increasingly clear that the cat would probably not see another winter.

  On perhaps the hottest day of the year, Mao left the exhausted cat lying on the floor near her bed mat, and covered it with a wet cloth to keep it cool. In a fit of boredom, she walked gloomily over to the green pond and sat down on the ground in the shade of the willows. She stared out over the surface of the water, lost in her thoughts, blindly reaching down to pick up pebbles by her side and fling them into the water. She watched the ripples expand over the surface, leaving bobbing dust and insects in their wakes.

  This continued for several minutes, and Mao was forced to reach further and further from her body to find more stones with her outstretched hand. Still staring over the pond, she felt around in the dirt for more pebbles, but abruptly set her fingers on something warm and soft. Startled, she leapt off the ground to look at what she had just touched. It was a mouse, and it was dead. She looked at it closely to be certain that it was dead, and then she touched it again and picked it up by its tail. It was still warm and limp, and had apparently just died as it had not yet become cold and stiff. Mao wondered how it had come to die right there beside her. “Perhaps a snake killed it but I frightened it away before it could eat the mouse when I came,” she thought.

  She turned the dangling mouse around by the tail to stare at it from all angles, when a thought came to her mind. For the first time in forever, a small amount of excitement swelled up within her, and she ran off toward the house, still carrying the dead mouse by the tail. She ran through the door of the house, and pulled a long piece of thread from the chest where the sewing materials were stored. She tied one end of the string very loosely to the mouse’s tail, and the other end she held in her free hand.

  The black cat had awoken, and had raised itself to a sitting position after pushing off the wet cloth. It looked dejected and miserable, and stared blankly at nothing in particular with its failing eyesight. Mao placed the mouse on the floor, and crept noiselessly past the cat, which barely seemed to notice her passing. She then began to pull the mouse by the thread toward the cat, moving it in little bursts and then shaking it a little to attract the cat’s attention. After a few moments, the motion was noticed by the black cat, and it sniffed the air and recognized the object as a mouse. The cat immediately perked up somewhat, and reached out a paw toward the slowly moving mouse. Mao gave a slight jerk on the string, and the mouse squirted just out of the cat’s reach.

  The black cat rose to its feet with a stir of excitement, and reached again for the mouse. Mao jerked the string again, and the mouse squirted away. This time, however, the cat gathered itself and tried to spring at the mouse, but its feeble body did not fully cooperate and it fell flat on the floor. Again it reached for the mouse, and Mao pulled the string another time. The cat gathered itself once more and lunged at the mouse as best it could, and Mao did not move it this time. The cat caught it in its paws and pulled the mouse toward its mouth. Mao gave the thread a little slack and her slipknot came apart, leaving the mouse in the clutches of the cat. She smiled brightly as the cat stood upright and walked proudly away with the mouse in its mouth, as if several years had been taken from its age.

  The black cat wobbled outside and sat down beside the table where Jai-tien was preparing dinner. It dropped the dead mouse at his feet, and brushed up against his legs and meowed up at him expectantly. Jai-tien looked downward at the cat, and immediately realized that the proffered mouse could not have been caught by the cat. He turned his head toward the doorway of the house in time to catch Mao, who was secretly watching, yank her head back inside so as not to be seen.

  Jai-tien bent down to stroke the cat, and praised its power as a great hunter. The cat rubbed up against the side of his leg with pleasure, and began to purr audibly. “My dear old friend,” Jai-tien said in his soothing tone, “it has been many years since you have brought me a mouse. You have once again found the strength to contribute to our humble household. I am very proud of you!” He scratched the cat behind the ears for several minutes to the great delight of the old creature. Then the black cat lay down in the shade under the table near Jai-tien’s feet, exhausted from its exertion in the stifling, mid-afternoon heat.

  After dinner, Jai-tien and Mao made the long, slow climb up the hill to Lu-chin’s house for the tea ceremony. The old woman awaited them in her chair, and smiled slightly as they entered. Jai-tien took his seat to her right, and Mao served the tea then sat cross-legged on the floor. She thought at length about the black cat during this time, smiling to herself at the pleasure that the cat had displayed this afternoon at its accomplishment. At the appropriate time, she cleaned up the tea service and they bowed to Mother Lu-chin and departed. Then they made the slow walk back down to their house near the green pond.

  As they entered the house, the black cat greeted them at the door, purring and rubbing against their legs. Mao had never before seen it in such a happy mood or appearing so lively. Jai-tien reached down to scratch beneath the cat’s chin, and said, “What spirit you have today, my fierce tiger! It has been a long time since you have greeted me at the door. Come! Let us have some milk together.” Then he walked into the house and poured the last of the day’s milk from the bucket into a saucer and set it before the cat. It began purring noisily and lapped up the milk.

  Jai-tien went to his bed in the back room, and Mao unrolled her sleeping mat on the floor near the iron stove. As she l
ay down, the black cat came over and assumed its position on the pillow near Mao’s head, close to the stove. Mao reached over and pulled the cat closer to her body. She rubbed the cat gently under its chin and behind its ears as it purred, and the two fell asleep together.

  Mao awoke the next morning at sunrise with sleet in her eyes and a desire to fall back to sleep. Nevertheless, she put one hand to the mat to push herself up into a sitting position, but her hand felt a strange, rigid roll beneath it. She rubbed the salt from her eyes and peered down with glazed eyes at the object, then let out a gasp of air when she realized that it was the black cat. It had closed its eyes for the last time during the night, and had become cold and stiff in death.

  Mao was overcome with a wave of emotion, and began to cry. She arose from her mat and ran into the main room to find Jai-tien meditating cross-legged in front of his shrine. “Master,” she sobbed, “the black cat has died!”

  Jai-tien did not appear to show any reaction. “Come sit with me,” he said to Mao. “We can pray for its spirit to our ancestors.”

  Mao joined him on the floor, and they sat in silence for many minutes. Her mind raced with emotions and memories of the cat, and many times she was unsuccessful at fighting back her tears. She felt that she was to blame for the cat’s death. Her guilt became very depressing, and she felt as if she had killed the cat herself.

  “Master,” she sobbed, “I am so sorry! It is my fault the cat has died. If I had not provoked it to exert itself so heavily yesterday, it would still be alive. I am so ashamed!”

  Jai-tien remained seated, but opened his eyes and looked at Mao. “Why do feel saddened and ashamed? You made our old cat happy again, and gave it purpose. You made it feel useful again. Our cat had one last glorious day before it died, which is better than another hundred of doing nothing and feeling useless. I am proud of you for showing compassion to this humble creature.”

  Mao buried her face in her hands and began to cry. Her guilt and shame began to fade, but she still felt a deep loss in her soul.

  Jai-tien rose to his feet and helped Mao to hers. “Do not be sad for the passing of the cat; it had a fine life. It was time for it to go. Its spirit is now on the east wind, where it can visit us each spring.”

  He then picked up the broom and handed it to Mao. “There remain chores to be done, and there are other creatures to tend to that depend on us. We will finish our tasks, and then we will honor our black cat.”

  After the morning duties were performed, Jai-tien and Mao took stones from the banks of the pond and laid them out in a small area on the ground. They gathered sticks and twigs and placed them on top of the stones. Wood from the iron stove was placed on top of this, and stacked up with an empty space in the middle. Into this space, they placed the body of the black cat, wrapped in a swath of white silk. Jai-tien handed a flint and a gritty stone to Mao, and she cried as she set fire to the twigs. They watched as the fire consumed the wood and the black cat. With time, Mao’s tears of sorrow changed to tears of joy as she thought of her time with the black cat.

  Many hours later, the fire had died down and the black cat had been consumed. Jai-tien reached into the heart of the stone pier and gathered a handful of ashes. These he gave to Mao, and then he reached back in for another handful. “Let us give our cat to the wind now,” he said. With this, he threw his hand up in the air and released the ashes, which were caught by the east breeze and carried off skyward. “There now,” he said, “she can visit us whenever she wishes.”

  Mao was not sure that she wanted to release her ashes. After a few moments of deliberation, she asked the old man, “Master, must I release the ashes to the wind?”

  “No,” Jai-tien replied. “you may find your own way to honor our black cat.” He picked up his stick and started off toward the house.

  Mao stood for several minutes looking around trying to decide what to do. Finally, she made a decision and walked carefully over to the willows on the west bank of the pond where she and the cat had shared so many afternoons together in the shade. She dug a small hole, and released the ashes into it. She placed a flat stone from the pond on top of the hole, and patted it down firmly. “There!” she said to herself. “Now I can visit you whenever I wish!”

  That evening after dinner, the old man and the young girl began the long ascent to the house of Lu-chin. The heat that day had not been so unbearable, and the walk up the hillside grew cooler with each step as a westerly breeze brought a freshness to the stale air of summer. Halfway to the top, Mao noticed that Jai-tien appeared to be more spirited than usual, and seemed to be walking at a brisker pace than in recent memory. He leaned less on his stick than the night before, and paused less frequently and for shorter periods than he had been of late. After they arrived at the old woman’s house, it seemed to her that the journey had taken only half its usual duration this night.

  The two entered the house to find Lu-chin seated in her chair in the middle of the room, as any other night. Jai-tien took his seat to the right of his mother, and Mao crossed the room to prepare the tea service. She took the kettle from the stove where it heated, and turned to pour the water into the teacups. Then a short breath of air passed between her lips, and she almost spilled some of the hot water from the kettle onto herself. Was she seeing correctly? She closed and opened her eyes deliberately, and stared back down at the tea service. Yes, it was true: there were three cups, not just the usual two!

  Mao felt tears swell up in the corners of her eyes, but she wiped them away with her sleeve. She poured the water into the teacups filled with tiny brittle leaves, and carried the tray over to her elders. After serving them, she sat down cross-legged on the floor and warmed her hands around her own tiny cup, savoring the smell of the vapors. She sipped the tea with her eyes closed, remembering the sensations she had felt in the past, realizing just how much she had missed taking part in this ceremony. Many other thoughts flashed through her mind, but foremost was the sense of peace. The turmoil that normally flooded her senses during the daily routine had vanished, and the soothing effects of the tea brightened her mood.

  At length it was time to return home for the evening, but Mao was reluctant to leave. Nevertheless, she cleaned up the tea service and then she and Jai-tien made their final bows to Lu-chin and began the long descent to their house. Again, Jai-tien moved much more freely than normal, and appeared to be years younger than the night before. As the sun slowly dropped below Shai-lae Mountain to the west, Jai-tien began to speak in his raspy, whispery voice. “Maome, when you take honor from another, you take honor from yourself. But when you restore honor to another, you restore it to yourself as well.”

  Had she heard that correctly? Had Master Jai-tien just called her ‘Maome’? He had not called her that in many months, always using the formal ‘Hei Mao’ when addressing her.

  Jai-tien continued, “When you took honor from Xieng-gui, you stole it from yourself, but by restoring the honor of an old black cat, you have regained it for yourself. Your treatment of this humble creature during the last years of its life has made me very proud, and has demonstrated that you possess uncommon humility. It is a great virtue of man that he can humble himself to care for creatures that have no use to him.”

  Jai-tien stopped his downward motion and turned backward to look at the following girl. “You have now demonstrated that you possess the sixth and seventh of the virtues of kung fu, honor and humility. However, you must discover the eighth virtue for yourself. It does not appear in the virtues of other styles of kung fu, but it is the most important. This is why you must discover it for yourself: that which matters most is that which you find out for yourself, not that which you are told.”

  As his eyes left the girl’s, they drifted toward the sky and a surprised gasp escaped the lips of Jai-tien. “It is a teardrop of the moon! I had not noticed it until the sun had set.”

  Mao stared in the direction of Jai-tien’s eyes, but did not see anything resembling a teardrop. She turned he
r face toward the old man with a questioning glance on her face. “What do you mean by that, Master?”

  “The alignment of the quarter-moon and the bright star that lies just below it. If you imagine the face of a woman in the moon, then the star is positioned just below the eye, as if a teardrop has been shed and is falling toward the earth. This alignment only occurs once every ten years!”

  Mao looked hard at the moon and star, but had to stretch her imagination to its limit to picture a vague outline of a woman’s face in the quarter-moon.

  “When I was a small child, the Grand Master of the Shailan Monastery told me that the star was actually another world, similar to ours, but I did not believe him. I could never see it.” Jai-tien continued to stare at the formation in a contemplative fashion. Then he suddenly burst out with a simple verse:

  The moon will shed a teardrop

  when her eyes see fate unkind;

  No sorrows shall be written

  in the poetry of time.

  Mao tilted her head slightly and looked at Jai-tien with a quizzical expression on her face. “What does this mean, Master?”

  Jai-tien gave a little chuckle, and said “I know what it means to me, my Maome. You must find your own interpretation. It was Mother Lu-chin who taught it to me, when I was about your age. I am sure that those lines meant something very special to her.”

  The old man continued to stare at the moon and star for several minutes before speaking once more; he had sensed that Mao wanted to hear his explanation. “It is said that the moon sheds her teardrop once each decade to soak up all the sorrows and miseries from the memory of mankind. Once the teardrop falls below the horizon, it should begin to rain.”