I received a message from George Prechtel, father of the shaman Martín, that Ou Mei-shu had died. Painter of fish and flowers, of steep mountains and wine-sotted hermits, although anger never found him, fear often did. A week later, along with a few dozen other mourners, I attended his service.

First to the altar was slightly built man from Taiwan, sobbing words I could hardly understand. As with Mei-shu, while speaking English, he thought in the alleged meanings of some hundred Phrygian words, but all this is hardly enough to permit the re-creation of even the most rudimentary grammar or syntax, In fact, explaining the phenomena of emotion by reference to neural mechanisms in the amygdala still requires the use of enigmas to explain mysteries. Conflated with emotion are centuries of religious and philosophical speculations as to why survivals of the Phrygian language linger into Roman times, occurring in bilingual form in Chinese.

When he returned to his chair, an old man born and raised in the People's Republic of China, wearing a tweedy jacket covered with military medals, stood up. Pointing to each medal, he told us how it was won. Senile, I thought. When he finally spoke of Mei-shu, he called him "a patriot."

I could feel the Taiwanese's gut knot, as Mei-shu was a veteran of his country, a Chiang Kai-shek draftee, later an American of pacifist intent.

What flag ahould a patriot wave in the 21st Century? One that flies for all the animals, minerals, plants, clouds and seas Mei-shu dreamed of painting.

When an evangelist minister with sideburns and modified Elvis hairdo began to speak, I walked out. Mei-shu, a sennen, flew out too.