Cloud Mountain

by Aimee E. Liu

  To this point, everything I’ve told you comes from Paul, but when the case was presented before the magistrate, I was able to watch the shenanigans firsthand from the observation balcony above the courtroom. I suited up in Chinese clothing to attract as little attention as possible. Fortunately, the Chinese press was out in force, including one or two Movement Sect ladies, so I was not the only one with a camera. These poorly lit photos, however, do not do justice to the chaos of the scene. As in a Chinese theater, there was constant chatter, nibbling of nuts, spitting, coughing, yelling, stamping. My fellow observers’ silk brocades and sateen top hats did nothing to polish their behavior.

  The principals all, in turn, gave predictable accounts. Paul’s remarks coming at the end, however, were colored by his own peculiarly vaudevillian humor. He seems to know just how to dig under his adversaries’ skin, to their extreme irritation and his own amusement. Asked to describe what he saw that night at Mr. Wang’s house, he began with a straightforward account, but when he came to the verbal exchanges, he stopped and said to the magistrate, “These ladies and this gentleman were using words which are embarrassing to the decent ear. Will I be going against the law to repeat them?”

  To which the mob in the balcony roared, “No! No!”

  So Paul delivered a string of slang words, and the audience hooted so that even I understood the gist. Within moments the examiner was reprimanding Paul for obscenity. “If Your Honor does not wish to listen,” Paul replied, “I shall not carry on, for to do so would be to go against—”

  Again the balcony erupted, “Let him speak!”

  So you see, Paul maneuvered himself into the hero’s role, telling the truth while treating the proceedings like the circus they really were. How I grinned when I got him home that night. The more because his lighthearted tactic worked, and the case ended in Mr. Kuo’s favor, with a sentence of six months house arrest for Madam Shen and public ridicule and excoriation of Yüan Shih-k’ai. You can see the Woman Minister in that final photograph, tripping down the courthouse steps and braying with outrage. Such are women’s rights and justice, Chinese style.

  Well, there is so much more to tell, of our beautiful home here and the stealthy way this city seduces one with its glorious architecture and energy, as well as this absurd theater. I feel a part of Paul’s life—or at least attached to it—in a way that I haven’t since Berkeley. I can even think and speak now of our sweet baby girl without lapsing into despair. But Pearl’s afternoon lessons are beckoning, and I am invited to tea with our friend Daisy Tan, and the cook needs me to help him make a pound cake, and the children need mistletoe for their Christmas wreath…. How I wish you two could be here with us. Second best, that you are having equally lovely and loving times of your own.

  Always your adoring daughter and friend,

  Hope

  3

  Nothing compares with a Peking blizzard. The snow flutters weightless as talcum, crunching underfoot and filling the recessed pools and streams with rounded pillows of whiteness. The precision of dry snow is such that it exaggerates rather than distorts the shapes that lie beneath it, bestows perfect caps on all the magical spirit creatures that line the city’s rooftops, and renders even more majestic the swooping silhouettes of the architecture as a whole. The effect on the city’s noise is like that of a quilt over a snarling cat. All movement is muffled, all color stayed. Until the Gobi wind picks up.

  When all that talcum takes back to the air, and those foolish or impoverished enough to be outside must walk doubled over like a snail, anyone with an ounce of privilege will stay home. On evenings like these Hope blessed her husband for bringing the Tans to live in their compound, for the two couples would take refuge together and, as the winds outside twisted and howled, they would play bridge or mah-jongg (patiently schooling the poor novice Hope) or simply cluster around the stove and enjoy the comfort of Hope’s overstuffed chairs.

  “You see Yüan soldier parade last week-ah?” Daisy clapped her childlike hands. “Just like German every one!” She hopped up and cocked one forefinger against her upper lip in imitation of the Palace Guard’s handlebar mustaches, swung her other arm rigid by her side, and goose-stepped across the room.

  Paul poured cups of rice wine for William and himself. “You know why Yüan has his military imitate the Kaiser’s troops.”

  William raised his cup in a mock toast. “Kaiser Wilhelm has the greatest, most powerful fighting force in the world!” He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “And he has agreed to recognize Yüan as Emperor if China sides with Germany in the war.”

  “Surely the Kaiser is busy enough at home without playing footsie with Yüan Shih-k’ai!” Hope said. “Anyway, between George Morrison and Ambassador Jordan I thought Yüan was already tied to the Allies.” George Morrison was an Australian newspaperman who had insinuated himself into Yüan’s inner circle and had recently been appointed “political advisor” to the President. Jordan was Britain’s ambassador, a good man by Paul’s account, who had helped to negotiate the surrender of the Manchus in 1911 and remained in Yüan’s favor ever since. Hope, who had met the two men only fleetingly at a Legation tea, considered them both opportunists, but in a city ruled by opportunists, they seemed the least predatory of the lot.

  “I believe the English tell a story about a goose that lays golden eggs,” said William. “Well, the foreign powers see China as just such a goose, golden with trade and mining and other riches. They will not share it willingly, nor will any one give it up to another. But now this goose is for sale. Price is Yüan’s enthronement. So they bid, thinking the bird can have only one master. Only Yüan does not agree. His scheme is to take all offers and still keep the gold for himself.”

  “Yes,” said Paul. “But Hope is right. Jordan and Morrison are working hard to persuade Yüan to refuse Germany. They claim the Allies will reward him by pressuring Japan to return Shantung to China.”

  Daisy curled herself into the love seat across from her husband. “I hear Japanese ambassador visit to Mr. Yüan palace yesterday. I hear he bring very big paper, demand Yüan give to Japan many territory, many power. If Yüan will not sign, maybe Japan will start another war with China. But maybe Yüan will sign, then Japan make Yüan as Emperor, and England, France, Germany—all other foreign powers in China must bow down before Japan.”

  Hope braced herself for the men’s reaction. It did not surprise her that Daisy would have gossip from the palace. Tan Taitai chose her household staff less for their quality of service than for their network of informants, and William endorsed this practice, relied on it politically. Paul claimed that once it had even saved William’s life. But now, while William’s expression remained guarded, Paul got up and began pacing the room.

  “So,” said William, “it is just as you and Dr. Sun predicted.”

  “No. Worse.” Paul shook his head. “I predicted the Japanese would try bribery, but Yüan’s flirtation with Germany has pushed the price too high. No matter their promises, neither the Allies nor the Germans can afford to defend China while they must also fight in Europe, and Yüan’s feudal armies alone are no match for Japan’s gunboats. So the Japanese make these demands with impunity. Yüan will have no choice but to yield. And you and I, p’eng yu, we will be expected to coat this kou dan with syrup and encourage the people to swallow it.”

  In the worried silence that followed, Daisy leaned over and plucked at Hope’s sleeve. With a look she beckoned Hope away from the men and into the bedroom. As soon as the door shut, she dropped onto the bed, lifting her gown with a flourish. “See, Hop-ah!”

  From beneath her pipe-stem trousers poked two black leather slippers. Hope recognized them as a pair she and Daisy had bought together in Shanghai. But at the time, Hope considered them merely symbolic. Daisy had barely begun the process of unbinding her feet, could not even try them on. Now, though her white stockinged insteps bulged over the straps and the black kid gapped and stretched, her foot almost filled the length of th
e shoe.

  “Every day I soak feet. No bandage.” Daisy made massaging and prying motions with her hands. “I know, I can do. I do!”

  Hope winced at the thought of the pain this must entail, yet heroic as Daisy’s accomplishment would have seemed just minutes ago, it now struck her as trivial—the very announcement mystifying. Hadn’t Daisy heard what Paul was saying?

  “Congratulations,” Hope said, but before she could think how to continue, Daisy was tugging at her hand to sit down, come closer.

  “You know how I hear this news in palace?” Daisy asked in a conspiratorial whisper. “My sister Suyun have lover!”

  “Oh,” Hope said. “I’m sorry to hear that… Or should I be glad?”

  Daisy covered her mouth and giggled. “Lover is official to Yüan!”

  “I see.” Hope knew instinctively that she was not going to like what was coming, but there was no way, short of clapping her own hand over Daisy’s mouth, to stop the rest of the story.

  As she lay next to Paul a few hours later, with the snow crackling against the paper windows and her icy feet sliding under his knees for warmth, she asked for his interpretation.

  “I do not understand what you ask,” he said, and she recognized in his voice the same impatience she had felt at Daisy’s coy revelation.

  “I guess I’m asking how I’m supposed to respond,” said Hope. “Here is this young girl, presumably in love with a man who is already married and she won’t be his concubine, and he claims he can’t divorce his wife, and now the poor thing is pregnant—”

  “And Daisy will take this baby because she has not her own. Daisy and William take Suyun in. They are very generous.”

  “So you condone this!”

  Paul turned on his side, pulling her knees up against him and rubbing the cold from her feet. “Other way is for this girl to swallow gold. You think this will be better?”

  “The other way might be for her to keep her own child, for this man to support them even if he won’t marry her. And for Daisy and William to help her without stealing her child out from under her!”

  “Too much face lost,” he said simply.

  “Ach! Face. It’s the same as Yüan Shih-k’ai trading the country for a coronation! It’s selfish and shameful and cruel.”

  Paul squeezed her feet hard and pushed her legs back down. “It is not the same, Hope.”

  The Twenty-one Demands, as Japan’s bid for sovereignty over China came to be called, were so outrageous that Paul’s worst fears were not, in fact, born out. Yüan did not capitulate immediately, but sent Paul and William covertly scurrying for support from the other foreign consuls and ambassadors to oppose the Japanese. Meanwhile, Yüan’s negotiators attempted, with only marginal success, to chip away the worst of the demands, which gave Japan authority over China’s munitions, railways, mines, and security. The bargaining took almost as long as Suyun’s baby did to be born.

  The winds and snows passed, fruit trees burst into luxuriant bloom, April’s dust storms erupted and ebbed. Suyun, a small, still girl with clear eyes and a startlingly direct gaze, spent these months of her confinement in the Tans’ court sewing, playing with Pearl and Morris, begging stories from Hope about America. By June, Yüan Shih-k’ai had submitted to the Japanese. Ambassador Jordan and the other European and American diplomats finally conceded, as Paul had predicted they would, that their governments were preoccupied with the salvation of Europe, and could not help the Chinese against Japan. Hope felt that Daisy was placing her in a position very nearly as distasteful as Ambassador Jordan’s.

  Young Suyun reminded Hope of Li-li back home. How could she possibly, then, condone this scheme of Daisy’s to take the girl’s child for her own! It seemed the Tans had brought Suyun to Peking, and Hope suspected, though Paul refused to confirm it, that William was responsible for introducing her to her ministerial lover. But Paul made it clear that William was one of the few men in Peking who had his wholehearted trust. By interfering in this matter at all, much less taking Suyun’s side, Hope would betray this trust, upsetting the peace of their extended household and possibly jeopardizing Paul in some way that she could not imagine.

  This is none of your business, she told herself firmly the morning Daisy’s maid came running to announce the birth—a son.

  “Can I go see, Mama?” Pearl pleaded.

  “Babies are fragile creatures, sweet pea. Let the poor thing gather its strength before we subject it to your steamy kisses.”

  “But I’ll be good. I just want to see.”

  “You saw your—” But Hope could not complete the thought. The last newborn any of them had seen was now buried in Shanghai. “I said no,” she said, too sharply.

  Pearl’s face crumpled.

  Hope gathered up the tiger shoes Pearl had helped her select. “I’ll tell the baby these are from you, and soon as Suyun says he’s strong enough, I’ll take you over.”

  “You mean Daisy.” Pearl thrust out her chin. “It’s Daisy’s baby.”

  Daisy had made a point in these last weeks of treating Pearl to bits of sugared melon and sesame candy. Now Hope understood why. “Be good.” She smoothed her daughter’s heavy black hair. “Find your Stevenson poems, and later we’ll read the one about the shadow.”

  “But, Mama, I’m not too little!” whined Pearl.

  “Just so. And this is why you must obey without complaining.”

  Hope gave her daughter a hurried kiss and set off down the outside path to Daisy’s court. But her own words sickened her. Was this truly the burden of maturity—to accept without complaint whatever fate doled out? Back home, under Mary Jane’s watchful eye and ear, she would never have dreamed such a thing. She might well have raised her daughter with precisely the opposite exhortation. Yet now … mei fatse. Nothing to be done. As Yen had explained in one of their occasional philosophical debates, “Some winds bring good luck, some winds bring bad. Sometimes two together. No one can stop the wind.”

  Sometimes two together, Hope thought. She had so much to be thankful for, so much to mourn. The two were as inextricably bound together as these two sisters and the baby now awaiting her visit.

  The elderly maid whom they called Bald Crow ushered Hope into a narrow space partitioned off Daisy’s bedroom, where a pale and empty-armed Suyun lay on a small square bed. As Hope approached, her eyes darted left.

  “Hop-ah!” Daisy cried, beckoning. She was enthroned on a huge blackwood settee festooned with scarlet pillows, the baby in her lap.

  He was still pink and wrinkled from birth, the tiny mouth working into a yawn, a full head of bristling hair, and eyes that seemed filled with questions as they quivered this way and that.

  “My mother,” said Daisy, “she write give milk name Meiling, bad spirits think this baby worthless girl, but William too modern, say no. Already he say Kuochang, this mean Glory of State. Some day big official, this boy.”

  Such a small child, Hope thought, and such a heavy burden. She could feel Suyun’s eyes boring into her back, the weight of the gift in her arms. Oblivious, Daisy chucked the baby under his chin and sang a high-pitched tune. “Sit! Please. I have Bald Crow bring some tea.”

  “No, Daisy.” Hope suddenly felt suffocated. “Pearl is waiting. I can’t stay, but I did want to pay my respects to you both.” She looked at Suyun’s downcast face. “To tell you how glad I am that you are healthy and the child is strong.” She went to the bed and placed the parcel into the girl’s arms. “Maybe these will help keep the evil spirits away.”

  Suyun stared at the package. Without lifting her eyes either to Hope or Daisy, she slowly undid the silk ribbon, pulled open the flame-colored wrapping to reveal the tiny tiger-faced shoes. Now Hope wished she had had the sense to choose something different, less traditional and predictable. Something Suyun might have a chance of keeping.

  Though when Hope glanced back and saw the angry burn in Daisy’s cheeks, she understood that this unwed sister would be allowed to keep nothing.

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nbsp; 4

  That summer, while Yüan Shih-k’ai cranked up support for his installation as China’s first “constitutional monarch,” and Suyun silently yielded to her role as wet nurse to her own baby, Paul arranged for Hope and the children to escape to Peitaho, where he had rented a cottage for July and August. Just six hours from Peking by train, this summer beach resort on the Gulf of Chihli used to be a favorite retreat of the Empress Dowager Tz’u-hsi. More recently it had been taken over by foreigners. German bakeries and beer halls had sprung up, French cafés and pastry shops, British tea rooms and playgrounds, American hotels and bars. Above all, there were wonderful beaches. The children had plenty of playmates, the diplomats’ and Standard Oil wives exchanged pleasantries with Hope, and every weekend Paul came out, complaining of the baking city heat and luring Hope for leisurely walks along the flattened rock coast.

  At the end of July Hope decided to hold a proper birthday party for Pearl. Between the distractions of babies and moving and the insufficiency of playmates, the child had never had more than a family party, and now she was seven and very much excited about this celebration. Together she and Hope hand-painted invitations and lettered the envelopes in gold leaf. They bought balloons and party hats and poppers. Hope rolled up her sleeves, pushed the servants aside, and made a Lady Baltimore cake with frothy whipped icing and raisins, walnuts, and figs, and a wreath of candied cherries and violets—a confection not even Mother Wayland could have surpassed. They festooned the bare plaster walls of the cottage with streamers of red and gold, arranged bouquets of purple iris and tiger lilies from their own little yard, and set up seats for musical chairs and a target donkey for Pin-the-Tail. Hope made Pearl and Morrie special party clothes—for Pearl, a white organza dress with Belgian lace at the throat and knife pleats all around the skirt, and for Morrie, a blouse with a sailor collar and short white pants—and both received Lord Fauntleroy haircuts.