What a motley colored, motley arrayed vehicle that is, the junk moving slowly around the bends of the Yellow River, its construction owing to the destruction of a thousand ships before it. Its sail the cobbled and quilted remains of its forefathers', its many forefathers, and of such an assortment of colors that it becomes a floating carnival.
     It is crowded with an assortment of wares, like a floating curio shop. It is all pots and nets and fish and kettles, with a little bit of cheap green rock (sold as jade) fashioned into trinkets that do not begin to represent the culmination of the pilot's own multi-millennial culture.
     But who ever said the weight of all of that had to sit upon the shoulders of one man?
     The pilot is a seemingly aged man, in greys and slates, with silver pate and beard (and eyes, strangely enough). He stands shortly at the helm and rudder, working and guiding it with the most subtle of motions.
     There follows the smell of tea, of fish, and of something ...herbal... yes, like incense, smoking upward from his long-stemmed pipe...

     My Mandarin is nothing like my Japanese. It barely gets me by. Certainly, conversations over meals are functional, but if I must dicsuss the theories of Lacan, the writing of Xing Cho, or the incunabula of Aldus Manutius, well, I'm going to have problems.
     It's a long way to Paris and to the astronomer that is the center of my life now. How long's it been? Five years? No, maybe four. As I look across the dinge of the holy river, somehow he comes to mind. Perhaps it's in the mountains or the green fields that rise to them that I find him. Or the scents and sounds that speak nothing of him, but in their absolute opposition, I recall him. However it goes, I am thrilled to be here, but miss his love and company at all times.
     Laurent's feet are quiet as he comes up the stairs from below. Behind the old pilot, he makes his presence quite known. Tea in his hand, Laurent Moselle looks more the missionary in his grey gi and wrapped boots. He's cut his hair short, but its still easy to see how he's greying.
     "Good day, friend," he says in the best Mandarin he can muster. Laurent moves around to put himself in view of the pilot without disturbing the junk's full complement of wares and personal effects. Laurent takes a seat near where he sleeps, his pallet, walking stick, and backpack neatly stored for now.

     Silver eyes give a peer, one eye moreso than the other so does that make it a wink? And the mouth would give a smile but for being wrapped around and held together by the pipe he smokes, held fast between his teeth. "Good day it is," the pilot says back in his Mandarin. Pilot. Pirate. What's the difference? "And you... you need transport...? I have tea, fine jade..."
     You can just imagine...
     Hmmm, the pilot seems to think on you as he commands his rudder, slowing, starting to glide toward the bank. A tourist. All the way out here? I should have brought along my chiming good fortune balls.
     "You are heading away from or toward something?" he adroitly asks.

     Why China, the astronomer had asked. What were you looking for...
     He had wanted to go with you. And from where he sits now the world is dark, another night and you are not there. Falcon points his telescope not to Andromeda, but to the East. When the moon looks down at you, it is him. When it is crescenting, he is smiling. When it is full, it is like an embrace. When it is dark, when the moon's face is hidden by the earth's shadow he drinks dark coffee and he longs for you to return.
     Trained eye, trained telescope... but Falcon's heart is travelling...
     Why China?

     "Toward," Laurent responds, "And perhaps tea later," he says, fishing his own metal cup. He slips it back to hang on his backpack, the small metal pot somewhere already inside. Certainly gaijin this one is, but not a simple tourist. Not in those clothes and minimal backpak and pallet. Ascetic, maybe. Priest in the west. Scholar? "And yes. I need to travel...inland. Up the river a week or so. A journey of blessings, perhaps."
     Laurent comes to the edge where he stands, feet near the fouling water. "Your boat...it is in good condition, I see." Well. One must speak the language of those who live here.

     Priest. Scholar. Tinker. Spy. The old man bows his head. But there is no name given. Perhaps it is best on such a river as this, with such a history as this, with such a potential passenger as this, to merely give the polite bow of the head in respect, even though he is older than you, yes? And to look at you. You to tell who you are first.
     The boat has seen as many years upon this river as I have," there is a secretive little smile. "She is my spirit." Cobbled together. Rigged. Reincarnated remnants of former lives.
     The tiny man says nothing more. He waits for introductions. The junk makes a sound as it skims the silt of the bank.

     "My name is Laurent," he says, giving a bow when the junk comes closest. "If you can, I should like transport. To Lao Dang." Far up river, in open country. Now, there is but fields and an overgrown temple that is often flooded. Like much of the Yellow.
     "I will pay," he acknowledges, getting that out of the way.

     "Zhang Zu-Zu," he says, "To Lao Dang," Zu-Zu says, voice opening up even as his eyebrows do, but just slightly. He lifts a hand, he rubs the small, thin beard just at his chin and he nods. "Lao Dang," he confirms and he motions to the junk as he takes in his hands a great bamboo staff. He half buries it in the sediment. He will use it to push off from the bank.
     The mention of payment is not discussed. It may not even be requested or accepted. When you approach him, the pipe is back in his mouth and curling serpentine from the little bowl, blueish grey.
     Bells chime, small bells and cow bells, the clink and clank and clunk like a delapidated temple on-the-go.
     It would be too much for you to ask, Laurent, to have normal transport. There is nothing normal about the junk you are one once your feet touch the wood. "No payment needed," he says in sudden Italian. "It is not my river."
     Beneath the illusion of the junk is a further illusion of a gilded gondola. Beneath that is another illusion, but you'd have to be a Master Magician to catch it. The old man is both old Zu-Zu and young Paolo Polo. Ancient Chinese and youthful Venetian adventurer. "If you're looking for Kubla Khan, you're going to be sorely disappointed..."

     He is no mage. Nothing happens when Laurent steps aboard the junk after picking up his pack and roll with his stick. No lights of recognition at his pilot, no tingly feeling of magical ability. However, at the Italian, he looks at you rather curiously. "Spend time in Italy?" he wonders gently, his presence a calming swirl. "You have travelled much," he smiles, steadying himself. Left foot on, then right. "And no, Sir, I am not looking for the great Khan. We met once, though. Nice man," Laurent says with humor. He looks around and sets his pack down, roll attached beneath it. "Thank you, Sir. You do me a kindness."
     "How old are you, Father Zu-Zu," the westerner asks.

     "Kindnesses are the art at the grasp of every man. A high art, respect. Kindness." The pole of the gondolier, the bamboo shaft of the old chinese man gives push and the waters of the Yellow River draws the boat slowly outward. The pilot guides the helm and rudder with one hand, he holds the shaft in his other. "I have been to Italy many times," he smiles, Mandarin returning. The language, normally so formal, so simple, takes on a lush sweep of sound. "It is my second home."
     The river carries, such that the old man has little to do but guide it occasionally and puff upon his pipe. "I am as old as I look, and as young as my laughter, Xiansheng Laurent... but younger than the Khan, if this helps you..." He laughs.

     "It does," Laurent says, angling to look ahead at the front of the junk and up the river. Keeping you at his side, he glances over once again. "How is it that you have gone to Italy, if I may ask, Father Zu-Zu?"

     "All rivers are the same river, each one goes to the sea. All seas are the same seas, pooling into two great oceans. The two great oceans are but one body of water," is all he says.
     The bells chime and clink, clank and clunk and the junk rolls over the waters of the Yellow River. It is reminiscent of riding upon the back of a yak or water buffalo. Graceless. Simple. Suddenly his hands are taking the pole again, steering away from a sunken silt island, mostly submerged after the last flood. He steers you clear and calmly, the twists and turns of the dragon river ahead of you.
     "Lao Dang... an interesting destination. Strange the journey that must take you to so remote a country Xiansheng Laurent..."

     "Journeys take me anywhere," Laurent says, eyes eager to see the vistas of the land provided by the boat. "Isn't all life a journey? That is not a phrase solitary to my own people," he grins, looking to the pilot. "I am no longer surprised where I go..." Though, someone somewhere else is.
     I think sometimes it was a mistake, leaving without him. Maybe I am still used to travelling alone when I am off to experience...well, whatever it is I expect to experience. I should have allowed him to come.
     "Do you have children, Father Zu-Zu?"

     "I have fourteen children," he preens proudly, standing erect on the deck of the junk. "Ten boys and four girls. Two beautiful wives..." And he grins around his ever-smoking pipe. "...who are much younger than I. My youngest child, a son, is only fourteen months old." And he looks like he's anywhere from 80 to 800!
     "I also have a duck." The pilot gestures with his pole to one of the many baskets in the junk, wherein sits a beautiful crested drake. "And you Xiansheng Laurent? Do you have children? You make your life's journey, but where is your family?"

     You know your Falcon de Ventadorn. As much as his spirit is adventurous for the comets and the stars, the galaxies and universes, when it comes to travelling on terra firma, he is a real homebody. He rarely leaves France except to go to London or Italy...
     But he always regrets it. He always sighs when you leave, when he does not follow. It saddens him, the astronomer. When you are not there, his only solace is the sky. Not even the violin can soothe him then.

     "A grand family and a fine duck," Laurent affirms politely, the smile ever-affixed to his face. "As for me? My family...is at home in Paris. I am not so fortunate as to have children as you, Father!" But I have one. He is all that I have now, save students and paper. Are those children? If so, then I am prolix. But, they do not count.
     "I have the one who loves me, and that is enough."

     "A grand family, a fine duck," he echoes in agreement, teeth clicking on his pipe. "They will wonder where I am tonight," he smiles. "I will tell them of my adventure beside the warmth of a fire." How is it a man with such children travels as he does? That is, if he does. He might just be mad.

     The one who loves you. It is enough. And it is true that, despite himself, he travels with you. You carry him wherever you go, don't you? Around the bend of the Yellow River now, with the flats and slopes of China all around you.
     He will sail upon the Seine, reading a book on one of the touring ships. He will read something of the history of the place that holds you, he will hold you by extension. He will drink his coffee and wonder upon the things you are seeing.
     He will wish you had taken a camera...

~*~     ~*~

     His steps are slow. Laurent's hands are in his pockets as he surveys the column nearest him, marvelling at the red with inlaid gold. He glances about to see who else may be about, then smiles at you.
     "What do you think?" Laurent asks, speaking French. Since your arrival in China, he has been careful in public to keep his hands to himself. Pockets are convenient that way. "A bit much?" Laurent smiles, the most familiar thing he's done today. "It always amazes me how elaborate court art and decor was. I think it's a shading of our expectations of China today."
     Laurent pauses, peering around the column to you. The room here is quite small, a side chamber of one of the large reception areas.

     Country life is beginning to agree with him, morning walks have become morning jogs, giving him a healthy bookishness, rather than simply the cloistered bookishness he had had when you first met. His dark curly hair is cut short, tamed, and his attire is the comfortable attire of a touring professor. Brown eyes peer behind the spectacles, he takes in each thing with an academic detachment.
     Except of course for you, though he tries to pay more attention to the architecture...
     "Everything is very measured and exact," he says in French, even his French is somewhat academic. "The lines and patterns are all very regular. Very scientific. Very structured. Like the art and the poetry. It seems to be by the emperor's rule... and somewhat bureaucratic." Falcon de Ventadorn looks to you, eyebrows lifting to see what you will say to it. In a way, these debates are a kind of foreplay. He speaks of science instead of holding your hand. He wonders upon the Chinese culture of bureaucracy rather than saying I love you.
     Ah, professors in love...
     "... Yet even for its obvious structure and edifice in artiface, it is beautiful." This is his first trip to China. When you asked him to come, of course he would. He was hoping you would call. For you, he would even leave a Chinon summer.

     You're beautiful, you know.
     "Did you notice the textiles?" Laurent asks, his elbows his hands now. They sway and move as he does, seeming to float in their expressiveness. A don walking his corridor. He twists and points out a few pillows on a high-drawered table. Tassels hang still from corners, out of the range of tourists' hands. Laurent brushes one of the red velvet ropes, looking down at it when it touches his side.
     "You haven't told me what you want to see," Laurent reminds. "The city was on my list of things to do..."

     "It is very opulent..." He doesn't understand opulence. Does it seem wasteful to the provincial Provencal? He is not sure, himself. The culture that is at once opulent and at once embraced in the poverty of farmers. But in its way it is no less a paradox or contradiction than Paris, the city of great beauty and great ugliness. That occurs to Falcon and he looks to you, smiling. "Gold thread and silk. I should be afraid to be used to that kind of living. I was never meant to be an emperor. I think I would be in augury." That amuses him, the smile is warm and bright, brilliant.
     "Ah, Laurent," a soft brush of your name, like the brush of a hand, the way he says it here is the way he says it in your arms. "... I am open to whatever you wish to do or to show me. I have never been here." Falcon's eyes widen a touch, "I would not know where to start!" Apart from the hotel. Shame on him.
     "I should like to have a formal tea, if possible, while we are here. I hear that the ceremony is amazing in its complexity. A walk through a formal garden. I hear Beijing has many such formal gardens again." Again. Restored after many years of communism and neglect.

     "Great ideas, both," Laurent nods and beams. "Hadn't crossed my mind. A tea and formal gardens of several sorts. I think we can arrange that." Laurent's words trail away, but his gaze lingers on you a little too long. He chuckles and shakes his head, continuing on the way.
     "I'm not sure what I would be. I'm not an emperor either," Laurent confesses, looking to the ceiling, "...but, perhaps a physician?" No, that is not it either. "Augury?" That seems closer, but not quite it as well. He exhales and drifts, actually pondering his role in the imperial court.

     "Scholar or philosopher. The sage of the court," Falcon offers quietly as he walks beside you. He, too, keeps his hands in his pockets. He has to resist the physical familiarity you may have in France, particularly Paris. This is a different place. Even a different time.
     Falcon pivots slightly as he looks at you, smiling, "I could see you offering advice to the emperor and his generals. When they seek the wisdom of their forefathers, there you would be. I would be trying to divine the will of the ancestors in the stars, in the position of pebbles at the feet of the emperor, or the divining rods." He laughs a little at that.
     "Is there anything you would wish to do?" Apart from kissing me in a quiet corner somewhere. You would think we had not seen one another in weeks! Falcon blushes at the thought and turns his eyes to the floor to watch the rhythm of his steps.

     It had been a couple of weeks. After his own arrival and trip up and down the Yellow, Laurent's need to see you had intensified. Leaving you at home was a mistake. Perhaps you would enjoy Asia. And so, he called, asking would you forgive him and join him in Beijing.
     Last night, then, was a revelation.
     Live and learn, Laurent said, cradling you as he stared at the hotel's ceiling. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Even the most academic trips seem less without you around.
     "Tea. Gardens. Any shopping?" Laurent opines, smiling askance to you. "As for a sage, well, I guess," he grins. "Wisdom of the ancestors versus the future?" Laurent nods, pondering upon it. "As usual, I think you are right..." Something he realizes more and more.

     He would enjoy Asia with you. Alone, probably not. But with you here to show him around, to be with him, to love him, to share in this. Asia becomes approachable. Enjoyable. You called, and forgiveness was easy.
     The truth is, he likes to share in your academic adventures. He takes pleasure in your accomplishments -- what lover would not -- and it is no sacrifice to his own, on sabbatical for research as he is. He, in truth, needed the break. You know how he works. Like Newton, he can forget to eat if there's not someone there to bring him back down to earth. You are his anchor.
     Falcon smiles as you accept the mantle of the Sage. "Yes... I think I am right about this too. And shopping... I would like to see if we could find a tea table, perhaps even authentic. An elmwood bureau might be nice also." He likes antiques, your Falcon. "I would love to go shopping. I like souvenirs," he smiles to you, blushes again. Some things never change. Your blushing astronomer.

     "Sage and augurist." Laurent's brows arch in good humor. He likes it. "And shopping is definitely on the list then -- but where would the bureau go?" Laurent thinks about it, trying to imagine the empty space. Granted, the apartments in Chinon are of good size, but many alcoves and hall nooks are taken up with shelves of books. "Let alone a tea table?" Laurent quirks, looking at you.
     "One thing though...if you are to buy furniture," my love would normally follow, "...then buy much. For the shipping will be problematic, if there is one table or twenty. In fact, it'll be cheaper with twenty..."
     Uh oh. Laurent frowns, then lifts a brow at you. He shouldn't have said that.

     He has already done the math in his head and he is already smiling by the time you get a look of dread. "The bureau could go in the bedroom, the tea table is small... we could use it for those times we eat in bed," again he goes red, "... and in truth it would be nice to replace some of my things from Paris." It is all old and.... so university. He smiles suddenly, then laughs. "Very well... maybe a tea table, it will be small, like a lap table. I can put it on the plane. No more furniture." A pause. "Maybe some robes..." Falcon in silk?
     Oh my lord...
     He seems to think of the implications as soon as he says it and flushes. Falcon does not look at you but looks straight ahead. He does not think of himself so libidinous, although he knows he has his moments (frequent). It's always the bookish ones, as they say! "I would also love to go to a very nice restaurant. I hear there is good cuisine to be found, even very fine French restaurants." Falcon finally looks at you again and smiles, "But you should not let me distract you from your studies! You are here to work," he reminds himself.

     Laurent grins, the blue bright against the salt and pepper of his hair. "Get whatever you like," he affirms. The bank can only break once. "I'll add restaurant to the list. We'll ask the concierge to recommend something."
     "And," Laurent stops, turning to face you, "...if I didn't want to be distracted, I wouldn't have asked you to come." Nowdays, distractions are necessity.

     Falcon stops with you, he glances around. If only I could...
     But he just smiles and nods. "Yes, I know..." he whispers it. Remember how he used to whisper in the rooms with you in Paris, when both of your were so careful, so discreet. After a while, that began to relax. Now the two of you have an easy intimacy.
     But not in China...
     In China, things must be hidden. So, they become as they once were. Falcon takes a breath, holds it a moment and exhales it away with a smile. "I am glad you called. I am happy to distract you, ami..." Ami, friend. Lover. He looks to the textiles again, to the surroundings as he begins to walk. "Yes, that would be good. A lovely meal. You can tell me more of your work here. I am always interested..." That has never changed. Your work has always intrigued him.

     Laurent moves from his fixed position, nodding as he looks up at the sun. "Where to next?" he eventually asks, picking up his walk again, you beside him. Laurent's hands leave his pockets, and his left one gently reaches out to pick up yours.
     "I may be in China, but," Laurent places your palm to his lips, "....I am everywhere French."
     His kiss is much like the sun, bright, sweet, and lingering.

Posted by rowan at September 21, 2003 04:14 PM