Excerpt of Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan
(Page 4 of 15)
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Then, when a newly rich farmer started construction of a
miniature golf course to adjoin his family's two-story Swiss-style villa, the
shed was unearthed. Amazingly, the coffin had only superficial rot and not much
cracking from shrinkage; such is the quality of paulownia, which, though
lightweight, is more durable than many harder woods. The exterior had more than
fifty coats of black lacquer, as did its short four-legged stand. Beneath the
grime, one could see that the lacquer bore whimsically painted carvings of
sprites and gods and mythical beasts, as well as other magical motifs, and these
were continued on the interior lid of the coffin as well. My favorite detail was
a playful Tibetan spaniel on the portion of the lid that would have been
opposite the corpse's face. Having been protected from sunlight, the interior
art on the lid was still exquisitely colored against the black lacquer. Neat
bundles of paper lined the bottom, and I determined them to be a short history
of the intended tenant of the coffin and the same man's unpublished poems,
tributes to nature, beauty, and—most intriguing—romantic love for a lady
from her youth through premature death. Well, I presume it was a lady, though
one never knows with some Chinese names, does one? The coffin contained two
other objects: a smaller lacquer urn with the name of the eunuch's dog, the
Tibetan spaniel, and a small ivory-rimmed box in which three calcified peas
rattled about, said to be the eunuch's manhood and its two accompaniments.
I could immediately see the coffin was both a millstone and a
treasure. I had a few clients—people in the film industry—who might have
liked this sort of odd decorative piece, particularly if it still held the
petrified peas. But the proportions were awkward. The top extended beyond the
length of the coffin like the duck-billed prow of a ship. And it was monstrously
heavy.
I asked the farmer to name his price, and he spit out a number
that was a tenth of what I was mentally willing to pay. "Ridiculous," I said,
and started to leave. "Hey, hey, hey!" he shouted, and I turned back and uttered
a sum that was one-third his initial offer. He doubled that, and I retorted that
if he was so enamored of a dead man's house, he should keep it. I then split
the difference and said I wanted the infernal box only to store some surplus
items I had bought, after which I would chop up the coffin for firewood. "It has
lots of room for storage," the farmer boasted, and upped the ante a wee bit. I
heaved the biggest sigh I could muster, then countered that he should make
arrangements for his men to deliver it to Wuhan harbor for shipment with the
rest of my brilliant bargains. Done! Voilá tout!
Back in San Francisco, once the coffin arrived, I put it in the
back room of my shop and did indeed use it to store antique textiles woven by
Hmong, Karen, and Lawa hill tribes. Soon after, I had guests over for the
tea-tasting. We were sampling different pu-erh tuo cha—which is, by the way,
the only tea that improves over time; anything else, after six months, you may
as well use for kitty-cat litter. With the fifth tasting round, we had come to
the gold standard of aged teas, a twenty-year-old vintage of the aptly named "camel
breath" variety, which is especially pungent but excellent for lowering
cholesterol and extending the life span. "But should I die sooner than later," I
jokingly said, "then this"—and I patted the enormous funerary box—"this
magnificent vessel to the afterworld, the Cadillac of coffins, is what I wish to
be buried in, and with the top raised at my funeral so that all can admire the
interior artistry as well. . . ."
After I died, more than a few from that tea-tasting soiree
recalled my quirky remark. What I said as a witticism was described as "prescient,"
tantamount to a "last wish that must be honored," et cetera, ad nauseam. And so
I was made to lie in that shipwrecked coffin, not, fortunately, with the
shriveled parts of the eunuch. The ivory-rimmed box with the ghoulish relics
disappeared, as did the container with the bones of the eunuch's beloved
Tibetan spaniel—although why anyone would want to steal those sad contents as
souvenirs is beyond my imagination.
From Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan. Copyright Amy Tan 2005. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of Putnam Publishing. No part of this book maybe reproduced without written permission from the publisher.
