Free The Last Mandarin by Stephen Becker Page B

immediately and bowed.
    â€œI was not fooled,” Burnham said. “And this is kindness indeed, but you must not spend a lifetime thanking me.”
    â€œTo leave the gentleman to others is to sully my family name,” Feng said. “Where would the gentleman go now? To the Willow Wine Shop, perhaps?”
    â€œNot at all. Start for the old Pei-t’ang Cathedral.” Burnham settled into the pedicab and said, “Sooner or later you will have to take money. You will have to eat and sleep.”
    â€œThat is prophecy. Each hour is new and uncertain.” Feng mounted his bicycle.
    The air was cool on Burnham’s face. “You will be cold.”
    Feng turned to make big teeth: “Not for long. The gentleman is large.”
    They rolled off west. Burnham asked, “How did you kill the Japanese?”
    Feng said, “With the knife.”
    â€œWell, you have the look of a fine villain.”
    â€œIt is as the gentleman says.”
    Burnham cursed himself. This man in rags could not return banter for banter, could not afford humor, possibly could not recognize it. To a slave who has been hungry long enough, a rich man’s laugh is one more cold wind. “Have you a knife now?”
    â€œI sold it,” Feng said, “to eat.”
    â€œThen stop at a cutler’s,” Burnham said.
    Now Feng turned. “May I ask, how many years has the gentleman?”
    â€œThirty-five,” said Burnham. “And my horse?”
    â€œTwenty-two. The gentleman is therefore a decade wiser and more, and we shall stop at a cutler’s.”
    â€œPerhaps a cutler who does not cater to emperors.”
    â€œBut to the worm people.”
    It was the old, galling game of the common folk. “To the worm people,” Burnham said.
    â€œA sinister future looms,” Feng said. “I trust the gentleman will see to my enlightenment.”
    â€œThe gentleman himself walks in darkness.”
    Feng groaned into his work. Over his shoulder he asked, “Is it the cathedral that the gentleman wishes?”
    â€œNo,” Burnham said. “It is another sort of religious house. A convent, you might say.”
    Feng cackled. “With a mother superior. Is that it?”
    â€œThat is it.” Burnham made wolf’s teeth in the late light.
    â€œThen perhaps I know the place. It is the only such house so far north. The rest are down south in Whore Street.”
    â€œA row of chapels. There were ninety of them before the war.”
    â€œEvery religion has its truth, and every truth has its religion,” Feng said. “Is the gentleman a Christian?”
    â€œNo. The Christian in me died young.”
    â€œChristians are good people.”
    Burnham was scandalized. “What do I hear?”
    â€œThey give away hot soup.”
    â€œThere is much to be said for that,” Burnham conceded.
    â€œI think perhaps the Christian in the gentleman is not yet dead,” Feng ventured.
    â€œDo not confuse Christianity with decency or goodness,” Burnham said severely. “I am a nice fellow. That does not make me a Christian. Christians have been killing each other and everybody else for two thousand years. They once gathered together thirty-five thousand of their own children for a distant campaign to recover their holy places. They assembled the children in a seaport. They then sold them into slavery.”
    â€œBut who does not? Still, thirty-five thousand is a large number. And who bought these slaves? Other Christians?”
    â€œWell, no,” Burnham said. “Mohammedans.”
    â€œAh, Mohammedans. Here we have many,” Feng said. “From the northwest they come, and they despise dogs and do not eat pork. I carried a rich Mohammedan once.” He paused.
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œThe gentleman does not object to conversation?”
    â€œThe gods have granted me little else this day.” Burnham sighed. “Go