The Year of Rice and Salt

But the Muslims were in flight, the Indians close on their heels, and the Chinese could only follow the two faster armies across the fields and forests, over canals and through the breaks in bamboo fences and walls, and groups of houses too small even to be called villages, all still and silent, usually burned, and yet slowing them down somehow nevertheless. Dead bodies on the ground in knots, already bloating. The full meaning of embodiment made manifest here by its opposite, diesel bodiment, death – departure of the soul, leaving behind so little: a putrefying mass, stuff like what one found in a sausage. Nothing human about it. Except for here or there, a face undestroyed, even sometimes undisturbed; an Indian man lying there on the ground for instance, staring sideways but utterly still, not moving, not breathing; the statue of what must have been a very impressive man, well built, strong shoulders, capable a commanding, high-foreheaded, moustached face, eyes like fish in the market, round and surprised, but still impressive. Bai had to say a charm to be able to walk by him, and then they were in a zone where the land itself was smoking like the dead zone of Gansu, pools of silvery gassed water reeking in water holes and the air full of smoke and dust, cordite, blood haze. The bardo itself would be looking much like this, crowded now with new arrivals all angry and confused, in agony, the worst possible way to enter the bardo. Here the empty mirror of it, blasted and still. The Chinese army marched through in silence.

Bai found Iwa, and they made their way into the burned ruins of Bodh Gaya, to a park on the west bank of the Phalgu River. This was where the Bodhi Tree had stood, they were told, the old assattha tree, pipal tree, under which the Buddha had received enlightenment so many centuries before. The area had taken as many hits as the peak of Chomolungma, and no trace of tree or park or village or stream remained, only black rendered mud for as far as the eye could see.

A group of Indian officers discussed root fragments someone had found in the mud near what some thought had been the location of the tree. Bai didn't recognize the language. He sat down with a small fragment of bark in his hands. Iwa went over to see what the officers were saying.

Then Kuo stood before Bai. 'Cut is the branch,' he said, offering a small twig from the Bodhi Tree.

Bai took it from him. From his left hand; Kuo's right hand was still missing. 'Kuo,' Bai said, and swallowed. 'I'm surprised to see you.'

Kuo gave him a look.

'So we are in the bardo after all,' Bai said.

Kuo nodded. 'You didn't always believe me, did you, but it's true. Here you see it ' waving his hand at the black smoking plain. 'The floor of the universe. Again.'

'But why?' Bai said. 'I just don't get it.'

'Get what?'

'Get what I'm supposed to be doing. Life after life – I remember them now!' He thought about it, seeing back through the years. 'I remember them now, and I've tried in every one. I keep trying!' Out across the black plain it seemed they could see together the faint afterimages of their previous lives, dancing in the infinite silk of lightly falling rain. 'It doesn't seem to be making any difference. What I do makes no difference.'

'Yes, Bai. Perhaps so. But after all you are a fool. A good natured fucking idiot.'

'Don't, Kuo, I'm not in the mood,' though his face was attempting painfully to smile, pleased to be ribbed again. Iwa and he had tried to do this for each other, but no one could bring it off like Kuo. 'I may not be a great leader like you but I've done some good things, and they haven't made a bit of difference. There seem to be no rules of dharma that actually pertain.'

Kuo sat down next to him, crossed his legs and made himself comfortable. 'Well, who knows? I've been thinking these things over myself, this time out in the bardo. There's been a lot of time, believe me – so many have been tossed out here at once that there's quite a waiting line, it's just like the rest of the war, a logistical nightmare, and I've been watching you all struggle on, bashing against things like moths in a bottle, and I know I did it too, and I've wondered. I've thought sometimes that maybe it went wrong back when I was Kheim and you were Butterfly, a little girl we all loved. Do you remember that one?'

Bai shook his head. 'Tell me.'

'As Kheim I was Annamese, I continued the proud tradition of the great Chinese admirals being foreigners and disreputable, I had been a pirate king for years on the long coast of Annam, and the Chinese made a treaty with me as they would with any great potentate. Struck a deal in which I agreed to lead an invasion of Nippon, at least the sea aspect of it and perhaps more.