The White Mountain Read Free Page B

West. They had to – to make sense of things and keep it all consistent.’
    â€˜So what do they really mean?’
    â€˜â€œ AD ”… That stands for Anno Domini . It’s Latin – Ta Ts’in – for “The Year of our Lord”.’
    â€˜Our Lord?’
    â€˜Jesus Christ. You know, the founder of Christianity.’
    â€˜Ah…’ But Lever looked confused. ‘And BC ? Is that Latin, too?’
    Kim shook his head. ‘That’s “Before Christ”.’
    Lever laughed. ‘But that doesn’t make sense. Why the mixture of languages? And why in the gods’ names would the Han adopt a Christian dating for their calendar?’
    Kim smiled. When one thought about it, it didn’t make a great deal of sense, but that was how it was – how it had been for more than a hundred years before Tsao Ch’un had arrived on the scene. It was the Ko Ming – the Communists – who had adopted the Western calendar, and Tsao Ch’un, in rewriting the history of Chung Kuo, had found it easiest to keep the old measure. After all, it provided his historians with a genuine sense ofcontinuity, especially after he had hit upon the idea of claiming that it dated from the first real Han dynasty, ruled, of course, by his ancestor, Tsao He, ‘the Crane’.
    â€˜Besides…’ Lever added, ‘I don’t understand the importance of this Christ figure. I know you talk of all these wars fought in his name, but if he was so important why didn’t the Han incorporate him into their scheme of things?’
    Kim looked down, taking a long breath. So… they had read it but they had not understood. In truth, their reading of the File was, in its way, every bit as distorted as Tsao Ch’un’s retelling of the world. Like the tapestry, they would put the past together as they wanted it, not as it really was.
    He met Lever’s eyes. ‘You forget. I didn’t invent what’s in the File. That’s how it was. And Christ…’ he sighed. ‘Christ was important to the West, in a way he wasn’t to the Han. To the Han he was merely an irritation. Like the insects, they didn’t want him in their City, so they built a kind of Net to keep him out.’
    Lever shivered. ‘It’s like that term they use for us – T’e an tsan – “innocent Westerners”. All the time they seek to denigrate us. To deny us what’s rightfully ours.’
    â€˜Maybe…’ But Kim was thinking about Li Yuan’s gifts. He, at least, had been given back what was his.
    Ebert strode into the House of the Ninth Ecstasy, smiling broadly, then stopped, looking about him. Why was there no one here to greet him? What in the gods’ names was the woman up to?
    He called out, trying to keep the anger from his voice – ‘Mu Chua! Mu Chua, where are you?’ – then crossed the room, pushing through the beaded curtain.
    His eyes met a scene of total chaos. There was blood everywhere. Wine glasses had been smashed underfoot, trays of sweetmeats overturned and ground into the carpet. On the far side of the room a girl lay face down, as if drunk or sleeping.
    He whirled about, drawing his knife, hearing sudden shrieking from the rooms off to his left. A moment later a man burst into the room. It was Hsiang K’ai Fan.
    Hsiang looked very different from when Ebert had last seen him. His normally placid face was bright – almost incandescent – with excitement; his eyes popping out from the surrounding fat. His clothes, normally so immaculate, were dishevelled, the lavender silks ripped and spattered with blood. He held his ceremonial dagger out before him, the blade slick, shining wetly in the light, while, as if in some obscene parody of the blade, his penis poked out from between the folds of the silk, stiff and wet with blood.
    â€˜Lord Hsiang…’ Ebert began, astonished by