Remote control
I
Another night. Another inn.
The air had been full of sand that day, and the speed of the jeep had driven a continual spray of grit into his eyes. He leaned back, with the newspaper still held in front of him, and stared upwards at the ceiling.
It was difficult to judge whether it hurt more to hold his eyes open, so that they felt acutely hot and sore from tiredness, or to close them and let the irritated lids complain about grains of sand still trapped somewhere against the sensitive corneas.
Sanzo tried to dissociate himself from the physical discomfort, to concentrate on the article he had been reading, to detach his consciousness from his senses.
Instead of becoming more detached, however, his senses sharpened and his ears told him that someone was coming up the stairs. Footsteps sounded nearer, feet that were a little eager but also slightly reluctant, light but careless – so it must be Goku.
Knock, knock. “Sanzo!” Yes, that was Goku’s voice.
Without moving, Sanzo called, “What do you want?”
The question was mis-translated into, “Come in”, as Sanzo had known that it would be. If the monkey wanted to come in, the monkey wanted to come in and neither question, nor answer, would make any difference.
Sanzo felt Goku looking at him. “Sanzo. I wanna tell you something.”
The priest said coldly, “What makes you think I want to know the something you want to tell me?”
There was a confused, “Mnngh?” and then a fidgeting. “I think you oughta know. It might be important.”
Sanzo said nothing, and, after a pause, in which Goku was not put off but delayed out of a semblance of politeness, the monkey blurted, “I think Hakkai might have a girl-friend!”
Sanzo’s breath caught in his throat and then exploded somewhere between a laugh and a cough. He sat up to give the air a better chance and remarked evenly, “And your evidence?”
“Well. I noticed a while back that he started taking Hakuryu out late at night and then I noticed that Hakkai was writing letters and then I noticed that he takes the letters out and gives them to Hakuryu and Hakuryu flies away with them.”
The priest felt his lips twitching in what might have become amusement, had not his dominant habit of irritation asserted itself.
“Tch! You can’t just “notice” such a long list of things, Goku. You appear to have been conducting a systematic campaign of surveillance.”
Goku blinked. “Huh?”
“Idiot. Have you been spying on Hakkai?”
“No. Well, that is, no but I’ve been watching what he does.”
“And your definition of “spying” is what exactly?”
Sanzo’s eye-brows tightened into a “V” of vexation. “Honestly, Goku – there’s a significant chasm between sending letters and having a girl-friend! I’ve been known to send letters myself,” finished the monk dryly.
“ – but you don’t get a dragon to deliver them for you secretly and – and you don’t do it every week without fail and you’d probably mention who the letters were for –“
“Whom,” corrected Sanzo automatically.
“Huh?”
“Never mind!”
Goku’s feet trampled in agitation. “Listen, Sanzo, when I asked Hakkai about the letters, he just said something about didn’t I know he was always a-spy-ring to be a man of letters and then went “Ah ha ha” like he does when you can’t trust what he just said.”
Sanzo turned round in his chair and levelled a stern, thundery stare at Goku. “Did you question yourself about your own motives for telling me this, saru? Hakkai’s letters and Hakkai’s dragon and any girl-friend which Hakkai may acquire are not my concern, unless and until they get in the way of my mission. I can’t see a good reason for them to be of any concern to you, either.”
The priest hauled himself out of the chair and threw the newspaper onto the bed. He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a box of Marlboros. “Tch! All you have done is demonstrate your mistrust of Hakkai, which is probably unfounded, and a continued misunderstanding of my own role in this whole damn, sorry circus; I may be responsible to the Three Aspects for Hakkai’s good behaviour but I am not his keeper.” The lighter flared and Sanzo took a long pull on the cigarette.
“It’s more than enough bother being your keeper.”
Goku stood with an expression of uncomprehending defiance. “I thought you’d be interested. You’d be more cross if you didn’t know!” He turned away angrily and walked to the door.
Sanzo said quietly, “Goku -”
At once, the monkey looked back, hopeful, responsive, conciliatory. “Goku, I am only trying to get you to think about what you are doing before you do it. Every action has a consequence; every failure to take action has a consequence. You have choices; use them wisely.”
Goku replied slowly, “But, often, - often, Sanzo, I don’t know how to make a choice -” He smiled happily, “so I come to you”.
Sanzo picked up the newspaper again and waved Goku away. “Go on; get out, you dumb pest!”
The door closed behind a monkey now possessed of a greater peace of mind and Sanzo heaved a sigh. Wasn’t it enough to have enemies? At least, with enemies, you didn’t have to make them feel better about themselves!
He moved towards the window and flicked his ash over the sill. Static, flat, red clouds trailed in the evening sky like fish hanging low in a river; tomorrow would be hot.
He turned his attention back to the newspaper. The article about the discovery of a flock of winged goats somewhere near Mongolia was curious, but probably unreliable. No doubt the animals would prove to be sheep with some rare skeletal defect of a genetic nature.
The next page had a short advice column from Yi Saang Leung Tiu Lei – Doctor DoubleTongue. The sceptic in Sanzo lifted the left side of his top lip in a slight sneer. So which ailment was the good doctor proposing to cure this week?
Sore eyes.
The article was titled, “A sight for sore eyes.” Despite himself, Sanzo read on. The remedy was apparently a solution of cooled, boiled water and salt applied as a wash “to rinse out small pieces of grit and other irritants acquired during the day, for example, when travelling in a hot desert area where there is no escape from sand particles contained in the air.”
The doctor’s advice was peculiarly timely, it seemed.
II
Over the next few days, Goku did not, for fear of the harisen, refer to the Hakkai letter conundrum, although he continued to keep his eyes open – when he remembered.
Sanzo, despite his general inclination to keep himself out of Hakkai’s affairs, performed an experiment mildly aimed at gaining further information. The priest had a genuine need to write to one of the monasteries under his supervision and, so, took the opportunity to ask Hakkai if he had, by chance, any writing-paper which Sanzo could use.
Hakkai had given the usual meaningless smile and gone to his pack of Useful Things. He returned holding a thin packet and offered it for inspection.
“I’m afraid this is all that I have, Sanzo. The quality is not very good so you might prefer to buy something better.”
The paper was indeed cheap and utilitarian, and Sanzo could not believe that the thoughtful and painstaking Hakkai would choose to use it for any purpose close to his heart. The priest wrote his own letter to the monk in charge at Kinzan and dismissed the Hakkai girl-friend theory from his mind.
Moving on through a range of low hills, the group encountered unexpectedly stiff resistance from a youkai tribe exerting control over a steep ravine. The result was never in question but the fighting left them all tired and feeling strained. As they drove away, no-one was in the mood for conversation.
The terrain was covered with boulders and there were no roads to speak of; Hakkai coaxed the jeep along rough animal tracks and down dried up watercourses. When they camped for the night, Sanzo’s back ached miserably from the hours of jarring and lurching. Gojyo, as usual, made a joke of the monk’s creaking joints but, really, it did not feel like a joking matter.
A night spent lying on the hard ground did nothing to improve matters and Sanzo got up, washed and moved away to light a cigarette conscious of the fact that he was in for a day of considerable pain. He didn’t complain, but Hakkai was, occasionally, moved to take his eyes fleetingly away from the driving surface and to glance at the pale face of the front-seat passenger, when a low hiss or sudden body spasm escaped the priest during the particularly bumpy parts of the ride.
As luck would have it, in two days time, they reached a town and found a decent inn for the night. There were only two twin bedrooms on offer, but they were large and clean and very welcome.
They all washed and proceeded to enjoy a leisurely and traditional squabble about laundry and supplies which finished, as it usually did, with Hakkai in command of a shopping expedition (and Sanzo’s credit card) and with the priest calling an abusive reminder after them all not to forget to stock up on Marlboro reds.
Before they left for the market, Hakkai had tried to persuade Sanzo to visit a chiropractor, or to allow Hakkai to try manipulating anything which might be causing discomfort, but, of course, there was Absolutely Nothing At All Wrong with Sanzo, so the suggestions resulted in no more than a display of highly aggrieved scowls and derisive hand-waving.
After dinner, Hakkai and Gojyo went out round the town for a walk (with drinking potential) whilst Goku amused himself by playing cards with the inn-keeper’s children. Sanzo saw a newspaper lying on the bar and took it upstairs to the bedroom which he and Hakkai would be sharing that night.
Sanzo was torn between sitting in the window with a cigarette and lying on the bed to read the newspaper. Another twinge in the lumbar region decided the matter for him in favour of the bed, and he gratefully kicked off his sandals and took the weight off his spine. He put one leg over the other knee and propped the paper up against it.
Engrossed as he was in the news, he did not even notice that his hands had reached for a cigarette packet and lighter, until he needed to stretch for the ash-tray – when the stretch made the ache in his back hurt far more acutely.
Through the open window came the ignorable babble of the street: voices, carts, the clatter of feet, animals, the occasional bell. Sanzo shifted onto his side in an attempt to find relief from the insistent ache and forced his mind to follow the newsprint. He was, indeed, genuinely interested in several of the reports.
When he reached Doctor DoubleTongue’s column and saw the title “A pain in the butt”, his alertness increased.
This time, the doctor referred to the high incidence in recent years of lower back pain, which could be aggravated by a number of things, from sleeping on too soft a bed (Sanzo thought of his nights camping out on stony ground and let out a “huh!” of irony at this point), to habitually lifting or carrying things incorrectly, to “the damage occasioned by long hours of travel where there is no opportunity to change position and where the body is jarred by poor suspension and an uneven surface”.
Now Sanzo had no wish to criticize Hakuryu, but the jeep’s suspension was not in a class which could be called sophisticated.
The doctor recommended a series of gentle exercises - rotations and pushes based on the Qi Gong tradition - to reverse the impact damage of the day and to increase resistance to strain. In addition, the doctor advocated relaxation, and specifically massage to relieve spasms and associated muscle pain; failing that, a bowl of green tea prepared with rue should assist.
Sanzo frowned. He wasn’t about to let anyone put their hands on him but tea ought to be possible. Meanwhile, the exercises were at least free of charge and didn’t necessitate a trip to the medicine shop or any other quackery.
The priest gingerly eased himself off the bed and ground out the end of his cigarette in the ash-tray. So, he should stand with his feet shoulder width apart and support the lower back with the flat of both hands just below the kidneys; “use the hands to tilt the pelvis forward and up” – ouch! There was a dull clunk and then the movement felt easier.
And? He squinted back at the paper; “straighten the back and use the hands to rotate the hips slowly, first in one direction and then the other”.
Sanzo stood in the middle of the room, moving as the doctor recommended and feeling a little less painful as he did so. He closed his eyes and permitted his consciousness to follow the pull of his weight on the various muscle sets as he gyrated experimentally.
He didn’t like to think what this must look like! He was, at least, alone. Even if he felt like a fool, circling his hips like a dancer without a dance, at least he didn’t have to feel like a fool in front of anyone.
There followed one or two other exercises which involved assuming a position on all fours and arching the back like a cat, and then standing up and twisting with the feet and hips at different angles to the body. It was all very strange and distinctly undignified. Clerical robes were hardly designed for this sort of thing but – hell! – if he could fight in the robes, he could act like a cat in the robes.
By the time that Hakkai returned, Sanzo could admit to himself that he was once again moving more like a jointed, vertebrate life-form. His grunted, “Pleasant evening?” was a coded acknowledgement that he had rejoined the human race.
“Very pleasant indeed, thank you,” replied Hakkai with his brand smile. “How about you?” he asked, as the priest untied his belt and began to strip off his robes.
Sanzo might feel more human now but he was still Sanzo. “Never mind,” he muttered darkly, pulling the covers over him. “We leave early, so get some sleep while you can.”
III
A few more days went by. The journey continued in its accustomed format: travel, demon attacks (always accompanied by the ritual shrieks of “Die! Die! Give us the sutra!”), dinner together and then early mornings of fan strikes and gun shots and Sanzo’s introductory signature tune of “Up, up! Get onto the road, you idle bastards!”
One particular evening, Sanzo was sitting hunched over a cup of cold tea at the dinner table, his bony fingers clasped edgily round the porcelain. His bowl was still clean, untouched, on the table, and his hooded purple eyes glowered warily at a distant horizon, way beyond the others of his party.
Gojyo paused in downing some fine loh mai gai to wave his chopsticks at the reticent monk. “Hey, priest. You should eat more.”
There was no reaction from Sanzo but Goku said, “How can he eat “more” when he hasn’t eaten anything at all yet, stupid?”
Over the turmoil of whirling fists and bickering mouths which inevitably ensued, Hakkai chipped in, “At your weight, Sanzo, you can’t afford to let your nutrition slip. You’d hate to fall sick.”
There was an uninterested grunt from their leader.
Goku broke free from Gojyo’s tentacles and pushed a plate of rice rolls towards Sanzo. “Here, Sanzo! These are one of your favourites – cheung faan with red vinegar. Take some, before the snotty kappa wolfs the lot!”
Over the turmoil of whirling fists and bickering mouths which inevitably ensued, Hakkai added, “You really did ought to eat something, Sanzo. If only to keep Goku quiet.”
Sanzo took a sip of tea. The thought of vinegar playing havoc with his mouth ulcers just didn’t bear thinking about. “I’ll be fine,” he growled, with a grimace in Hakkai’s direction.
For the next couple of days, it was obvious that Sanzo was not eating, was drinking his tea cold, was speaking only when essential and was feeling abnormally unhappy with life. Even so, Goku took the risk of sidling up to him and saying in a low voice, “He’s still doing it, Sanzo.”
When the monk looked up and stared at him with a frozen, blank expression, Goku first said, “Hakkai. The letters. Still sending Hakuryu out with the letters,” and then skipped away fast as a priestly hand flashed into a sleeve to lay its grasp on an appropriate instrument of retribution.
Sanzo ground his teeth, or ground them in so far as his mouth ulcers allowed. The damned ulcers seemed to be taking an age to heal, and one of them was right on the side of his tongue, where he couldn’t even smoke or clean his teeth without touching it and making it shriek with pain.
The others had more-or-less given up asking him what was wrong as he had made it more than abundantly clear – by frowns, by fans and by guns – that there was Absolutely Nothing At All Wrong with him.
Damn it all to hell! Why couldn’t they concentrate on their own affairs? He had a hard enough job ignoring the pain as it was, without them bringing the subject up all the time. “What’s wrong, Sanzo? Are you alright, Sanzo?” Tch! If they really wanted to know what was wrong with him, it was constant goddam ear-ache.
IV
Having spent the last two nights camping out, they were all relieved to drive into a small town as the light faded, and to see a hotel on the muddy patch of open space which passed as a market square.
“Cool! At least we get to choose dinner,” came the voice of the glutton from the back-seat.
“You mean at least we might find some nightlife other than moths and glow-worms,” replied Gojyo.
In fact, the nightlife seemed to find them: later on in the evening, after they had taken possession of a table for dinner, the inn’s tiny bar and restaurant was crowded with villagers celebrating the harvest. There was dancing and music, and a general din of shouted conversation and drunken geniality, which drew Gojyo like a wasp to jam.
Goku wanted to join in with the dancing, which involved a great deal of stamping and the vigorous clapping of hands, so Hakkai kindly offered to stay as well, ostensibly to keep an eye on Goku but, Sanzo knew well enough, really to keep at least half an eye on the easily-led kappa.
The monk stood up, his chopsticks unused and his bowl of tea still half-full. The noise was intolerable. The others didn’t even notice him move to the door and head for the stairs, grabbing a newspaper from the hall-stand as he passed.
Fortunately, Sanzo’s room was at the opposite end of the building from the bar and he could hardly hear anything of the din below, even with the window wide open.
He breathed in deeply and heaved a sigh. His hands reached automatically for a cigarette but – really – the mouth ulcers made smoking entirely unenjoyable, so he closed the packet and threw it onto the table. He was conscious of his hands shaking and of feeling slightly dizzy; spirituality only went so far as an effective replacement for food.
Sanzo sat on the edge of the bed and flapped open the newspaper. So what was going on in this two-horse hole, apart from the party downstairs?
The standard of reporting wasn’t bad. The town of Pingdong was building a new bridge and inviting subscriptions for the cost. The ancient tower on Kicking Goose Mountain had finally collapsed and the local residents were granted dispensation to use the stone for their own purposes.
Well, well; crusty old Lung Fu Mun was chief monk of Yingxan, now, was he? That would keep the place on its toes.
Sanzo ran an eye over coverage of the harvest yields and random accounts of petty crime. There didn’t seem to be much youkai activity in the area, although the regional youkai-human liaison officer had apparently been called in to mediate over the disputed ownership of a well. Hardly a major threat to world peace, thought Sanzo.
He closed the paper and folded it in half. The pages were not correctly aligned and the haphazard, ragged aspect offended the orderly priest, who shook the pages straight, and was just about to fold the paper up again, when a column at the bottom of the back page caught his eye: “Don’t be down in the mouth” by – it couldn’t be! – not Doctor DoubleTongue again? It certainly was - the man was everywhere!
Not only was the man everywhere but his choice of topic was uncannily – well, topical. The article with the title “Don’t be down in the mouth” continued with the question “Are mouth ulcers making your life a misery?”
Sanzo scowled, as though he had been somehow caught out, but was still intrigued to read on: if there was a cure for his sore mouth, he wanted to know about it – especially if it was a cure which didn’t involve the sorts of things that got noticed by Nosy Interfering People, like visiting doctors or buying brightly coloured packets from medicine shops.
So, what was the remedy? “A glance in the kitchen cupboard might show you the humble clove. This spice is not merely a cooking ingredient; it is also a powerful antiseptic. In fact, the essential oil of the clove is so powerfully medicinal as to be positively dangerous if mis-used. However, a simple decoction will produce a liquid which can be, safely, treated as a mouthwash to reduce the pain of mouth ulcers and to encourage better healing. The antiseptic effect should also deter a recurrence of the infection.”
Clove. Kitchen, eh? He decided to wait until the harvest guests had either left or retired for the night (or fallen unconscious into a corner if that was their choice) and then to take a trip to the staff area behind the restaurant. They had eaten dinner here – well, the others had eaten dinner here – which meant cooking here and a kitchen here.
V
The unusual noises - being the cupboard door banging and then a heavy iron wok, which had been leaned too precariously and far too near the edge of the draining-board, falling onto the floor – brought the others rushing into the kitchen.
“Sanzo!” exclaimed Goku accusingly, as though the monk had no right to be in the building at all.
“What are you doing in the kitchen?” demanded Gojyo, in a tone comprised of curiosity and suspicion.
The priest folded his arms angrily and snapped back, “What would anyone be doing in a kitchen?”
There was an untidy chorus of three voices all speaking at once:
“Looking for food?”
“Baking a cake?”
“Getting to know the washing-up girl?”
Sanzo gave the wok a savage kick towards Gojyo and roared, “Wrong! Minding their own goddam business!”
Even as they heard themselves say the words, the others had realized that Sanzo didn’t forage out of hours and Sanzo did not cook and Sanzo quite definitely did not harass women in the staff quarters.
Gojyo smacked Goku cheerily on the head and dragged him towards the door. “Come on, chimp features! Sanzo-sama wants to do something private in the kitchen so let’s leave him to get his kicks.”
Goku shoved Gojyo’s arm off. “You’re just a big, red pervert! Perhaps he’s fresh out of joss-sticks and needs to cook up some more, huh?”
Hakkai gently pushed the other two out into the corridor and then stepped back into the room with an expansive smile. “If that is the case, Sanzo, you should find that cinnamon and clove will do very well, - and here they are.” He took a couple of jars from a shelf rather hidden behind the door and put them on the table.
Clove. Despite his eyeballs remaining static in the fixed glare of Defence Against Those Not Technically Classed As Foes, Sanzo shot a mental glance upwards to the heavens. What the hell was going on here? The coincidence seemed just too damn fortunate to be an accident; there had to be a limit on how clever luck got before it stopped being luck and became plain, calculated strategy.
Hakkai dutifully retreated in the face of the glare and closed the door after him. Sanzo picked up the bottle of cloves and looked at the small and dry, dark brown spears inside. A decoction, eh? First bash ‘em and then boil them. It shouldn’t be beyond the wit of Man.
VI
Now, Sanzo made allowances for Hakkai looking smug, much in the same way as the healer made allowances for the priest appearing at the breakfast table scowling as though the Whole Wide World Was Against Him – just because he had woken up and found that he was still alive.
Sanzo’s mouth did soon feel much easier, as became evident from the return to his usual frequency of quality verbal abuse, but Sanzo wished that Hakkai didn’t look quite so shamelessly smug about it. After all, it wasn’t as though Hakkai’d had anything to do with it.
Although…
Although it was Hakkai who had given him the cloves. And it was Hakkai who had given him the cloves, almost as though he had known that Sanzo would not be in the kitchen for any reason other than to look for cloves.
Sanzo’s eyes began to glitter with interest, and, after a while, there appeared a twist to his lips which, on a lesser man, might be termed a “smirk”.
VII
“Goku.” The monk’s voice was quiet but purposeful and the boy looked up immediately. “Goku, do you still have that box of paints which Hakkai – foolishly – gave you?” Sanzo shuddered at the recollection of turning round to find Goku standing behind him, wielding a loaded paintbrush and about to add some “missing” words to the sutra that Sanzo was wearing.
Goku wrinkled his forehead. “Um. Sort of. That is no.”
Sanzo felt exasperation almost lift him out of his seat. “Goku! Unparalleled moron! Talk sense!”
Goku blurted desperately. “I don’t want to make you cross. ‘Cause I’ve only got the red left. And no box.” He peered anxiously at the priest, eyes wide and lined with apprehension.
Sanzo relaxed imperceptibly. “I’m not one bit cross, saru. Red will do just fine.”
VIII
The following day was exceptionally airless and hot. Heat distorted the stones, the trees, the towns, turning every outline into a demon horde, and, by the end of the day, their nerves were ragged with strain. Even Goku was on edge.
They camped out. In the relative cool of the twilight, they all stripped down to their jeans. Gojyo helped Hakkai cook something simple with dried tofu and mushrooms, and Goku helped Sanzo.
After dinner, Sanzo and Hakkai looked at the map together.
The monk scratched irritably at his neck and muttered, “Damn this heat! Makes my skin feel as though it’s been wearing sand-paper all day.” Hakkai put his finger on the map and said, “That looks like the best place to cross,” but his eye raked slyly over Sanzo as the priest leaned forward to look where Hakkai was pointing, and, in the flickering lamplight, Hakkai saw a nasty rash on the pale skin under the wrist and another area of red spots mostly hidden under the blond hair at the back of the monk’s neck.
“Yes,” agreed Sanzo gruffly. “Doesn’t look at though we’ve got any choice. The other route would lose us at least a day and a half. As it is, we won’t hit a town for another three days.”
So it proved. Three days later, Jeep pulled up in front of a small inn in a medium-sized town near to nowhere.
They all piled into the bar gratefully, in anticipation of food and drink, baths, beds and a change of company. As luck would have it, the inn was fairly empty and the four were able to take a room each. Even so, Goku, of course, headed determinedly to join Sanzo.
The priest had bathed and changed his clothes and, when Goku entered the room, was leaning on the window-ledge with a tell-tale wisp of smoke rising behind him. The curve of his back and the soft angle of his jawline told the monkey that this was Sanzo in a state of relaxation, content and almost amused.
“Did you get to the bathroom?” Sanzo asked without turning round.
“Sure did!” replied Goku, moving closer. “You wanna see?” He stuck his hands behind his ears and waggled them at the monk.
“Like hell! I’ll leave it to Hakkai to tell me when you start failing in personal hygiene. In fact -” He broke off and slowly turned to look at Goku, a strange light of amusement flickering in his eyes. “In fact, saru, I’d like you to go to Hakkai right now - to show him your grubby little ears and to let him know that I asked you to paint those red spots on me last week.”
“Huh?” Sanzo was accustomed to Goku blinking at him but, really, these ridiculously large blinks were like someone opening and closing a pair of barn doors.
“Don’t look so vacant, you idiot! You can say that I’ve been acting strange – asked you to paint my arms and neck with red spots.”
“Uh-huh. And then what?”
“Then nothing. Just watch how he reacts and then come back and tell me.”
Goku nodded seriously and headed for the door, still watching that hint of mischief in his keeper’s eyes. “Uh-huh. You know, Sanzo – you know, you sure are acting strange.” Sanzo was mid-inhale and waved him leisurely away with his free hand.
As the door closed and Goku’s footsteps began to fade, the monk picked up the paper which he had borrowed from the reception desk.
This time, Doctor DoubleTongue’s article had been headed, “Feeling the heat?” and it began, “We all know the expression “if you can’t stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen” but what can you do when you are no longer in the kitchen and the heat still causes you a problem? A common problem at this time of year is heat-rash, characterized by itchy red spots on sensitive areas of the skin, such as the neck and the underside of the wrists. This rash is particularly likely to occur in wearers of heavy and restrictive clothing -”
“Tch!” Sanzo threw the paper down in disgust. “I’m surprised he didn’t refer to the cloves being in the kitchen as well!” He flicked the cigarette butt out of the window and reached into his pack for a comb.
It seemed no time at all before the monkey was back.
“Well?” asked Sanzo. “Did you tell Hakkai that you painted those spots on me?”
Goku grinned. “Yeah, yeah.”
“And what was his reaction?”
“Well, he just stopped dead. And then screwed up his eyes and put his arms behind his head and said, “Oh my.” And then he kept his eyes closed and went “Ha ha ha ha”, only not as if it was anything really funny. If you know what I mean?” Goku looked eagerly at the monk, who was nodding slightly, as if in satisfaction.
Then Sanzo straightened up and said, “Let me check that I’ve got this right: Oh my. Ha ha ha ha?”
And Goku confirmed, “Oh my. Ha ha ha ha,” and Sanzo rejoined, “Oh my. Ha ha ha ha.” His eyes narrowed. “Hah!”
“Um. No “hah!” at the end,” said Goku.
IX
At dinner that evening, Sanzo had been almost entirely silent, as was his habit.
Hakkai had talked about this and that with Gojyo, whilst Goku had eaten solidly for the whole duration. His eating was not tidy and the area round his bowl was scattered with pieces of food, which he had either dropped on the way up or let fall from his mouth.
“Why can’t you learn to chew, you damned ape?” snarled Gojyo, as a particularly loud swallow drowned out Hakkai’s views on the paintings on the restaurant wall in front of them.
Goku’s mouth was too busy to reply, so he used chopsticks to gesture his defiance by taking a shrimp dumpling from Gojyo’s plate. Physical violence was unavoidable and a fight began as Gojyo yelled, “I’m surprised you haven’t grown another right hand, you greedy dumb animal: one for your own bowl and another for the bowl next door!”
At this point, they both fell backwards off the bench and took their wrestling to the floor. Hakkai shrugged benignly at Sanzo, who looked back at him with a level, and uncomfortable, focus.
“Talking of growing an extra body part, Hakkai, have you heard of a condition where a person grows a second tongue?” The raised eyebrow which arched over one of Sanzo’s insistent purple eyes was as sharply pointed as an arrowhead.
Hakkai reached for the teapot to fill Sanzo’s cup and said quietly, “I think I am familiar with that particular – ah, affliction.” The healer lifted his feet as Goku thumped the floor (and Gojyo’s head) under Hakkai’s seat.
“I thought you might be,” commented Sanzo tightly. “After all, you know a thing or two about medicine.” The priest landed a hard kick on a pair of jeans which were too actively where they shouldn’t be.
“Ah,” said Hakkai, over the screams and howls from beneath the table.
“It’s a distinctly serious complaint,” continued the monk. And then added in an ominously informed tone, “and one which could get the sufferer shot, if there’s no other cure.”
“Oh my,” said Hakkai weakly, and, from that day on, Doctor DoubleTongue’s column gave advice only on the common ailments of very small children.
