Cloud Mountain

by Aimee E. Liu

  By now Paul was sitting back in his chair with his arms folded and a wavelike motion taking hold of his mouth.

  “Aha!” She pointed. “You’re trying not to smile, but you can’t help it. Admit it, you are a little pleased by this. You must be, Paul, for my sake. Please be proud of me. Please give it your blessing. Then it will belong to both of us.”

  The smile escaped him and he sighed, shaking his head and slapping the desk with his palms. “Hsin-hsin, how I can say no to you? My modern American wife.”

  “Oh, thank you, Paul.” She hopped up and came around the desk. “Dearest, you know I do love you.”

  Still seated, he tipped his head back against her breast. He closed his eyes. “I know.”

  5

  Ta Hsing Hsien Hutung

  December 16, 1915

  Dear Sarah,

  I am lazing shamelessly this morning, still under the spell of the ball Paul and I attended last night. It is going to make a wonderful article for Harper’s, but you must have my first report, as you’ll appreciate both the evening’s extravagance and coincidence.

  The purpose of the occasion was to curry foreign favor for Yüan Shih-k’ai’s monarchical scheme (a subject that dominates all here in Peking, superseding the European War and the boycott against the Japanese and certainly any of the baser issues such as drought, famine, locust plagues, flooding, or national debt). Thus we were invited to one of the old Manchu palaces to view the would-be Emperor amid all the pomp and majesty he so craves. The extensive gardens, alas, were cloaked in drifted snow, but the swept paths, illuminated by blazing torches, led us to a banquet hall big as a barn, with reception rooms winging out to either side. Picture gaudy brocaded ceilings, overlays of gilt and fluted jade, vermilion columns, and silk-tasseled lanterns. A Chinese orchestra played in one corner. And several hundred guests all in Western dress. I wore a cream brocade and ermine, Daisy Tan a royal blue embroidered satin, Paul and William top hats and tails, and our young friend Anna, about whom I’ll tell more in a moment, a particularly resplendent apple green taffeta.

  With the exception of the Germans, the entire Legation Quarter seemed to have been invited, including French and Dutch, Italians and Belgians, Russians, and, of course, the ever-present Japanese. Paul introduced me to Britain’s Ambassador Jordan and Yüan’s public apologist that Harvard Professor Frank Goodnow. The Australian, George Morrison and his wife, Jennie, spent a while talking with us because of Anna, who came to us as a governess by their referral. They are certainly a handsome pair, but Morrison’s unwavering enthusiasm as Yüan’s political advisor makes him suspect in my book.

  There was also, of course, a large contingent of Yüan’s ministers and officers. The most impressive of these was Vice President Li Yüan-hung, the former viceroy of Paul’s native Hupei Province. He is a broad, stern man with a bristling mustache who bears an uncanny resemblance to Field Marshal Hindenburg, but he and Paul seem to be genuinely in each other’s favor—a rarity in the current political climate.

  Yüan made his entrance late, wearing a long velvet coat over ill-fitting khaki trousers that looked slept in. He met everyone with the same opaque expression, as if his smile were nailed to his walrus mustache, and I remembered his admiration of the Germans when I saw how he clicked his heels with each greeting and clutched the hilt of his sword. Then Paul pointed out a grotesquely twisted figure poking his head between the curtains at the end of the room. That was Yüan K’e-ting, the half-paralyzed, half-witted son whom some believe to be the true force behind this monarchy scheme! Reason enough to block the whole business, yet the spectacle marches on.

  At length we took our seats at table. Given the nature of Peking diplomacy, there were many more foreign men than women, which was why we had specifically been instructed to bring our eligible young Anna Van Zyl. (Poor thing found herself seated next to a Russian minister who brutally fondled her left hand while babbling in some hybrid language that no one could understand.) There were endless toasts and even more endless courses—all sumptuous. Curried lotus root and glazed eel, bird’s nest and shark’s fin and dragon’s eye soups, prawns the size of lobsters, crayfish drizzled with shaved ginger, pigeon eggs in broth, smothered pork, whole legs of lamb, cutlets, stews, boiled abalone, glazed Peking duck, and, of course, all those fantastic Oriental delicacies whose origins one mustn’t question. We tasted and marveled as the dishes came and went for nearly four hours. Finally, after that last requisite bowl of rice, we rose with great groans of relief and started toward the reception halls, where two Western orchestras had set up for the ball.

  But first President Yüan struck a pose on the dais. His henchmen cleared a wide swath, and Paul whispered into my ear, “Show time.” Sure enough, Yüan’s chief lackey started a roll call of names like an old royal herald. For the next hour Yüan the Benevolent doled out titles and medals and ribbons to every man in Peking whose favor could help him. This ceremony, the translator announced in four languages, would fulfill the President’s promise to see titles of nobility, which had been stolen by the Manchus, restored to Han Chinese. I wish you could have seen the look on Paul’s and William Tan’s faces as they came up from their bows.

  After a single telling glance at each other they seemed to pour all their energy into keeping their mouths on straight. Fortunately, as mere “marquises,” they were only second-rank nobility. The title of Prince of the Realm was reserved for poor Li Yüan-hung. Considering Yüan’s affection for assassination as a disciplining tool, I’d have thought Li might pretend to play along with this charade, but he refused even to bow.

  At length the “show” was over, and I was able to admire the gold medallion and tricolored ribbon that decorated Paul’s chest. I managed neither to laugh out loud nor throw my arms around him, but when the band struck up again, I did persuade him to dance. Anna Van Zyl, an expert dancer, had spent the previous afternoon instructing our whole family in the waltz and fox-trot and grand march. We were a sight to behold, you can imagine, with Pearl and Morris arm and arm, Paul and me tripping over each other’s toes. But Anna is an immensely patient and tolerant young woman. As a result we were now able, if not to glide, at least to make the circuit of the ballroom without conspicuously embarrassing ourselves. Anna, of course, was belle of the ball.

  I should tell you about Anna. She is adorable. Fine-boned, fresh-faced, high-spirited. She wears her gingery hair in a great, soft pile and has one of those murmuring South African voices—like white chocolate melted to a gloss. Her nose turns up pertly, and especially in a ball gown, her figure seems all perfectly crafted curves. She has a light in her that seems untouched by her many disappointments, as if she believes each setback will lead, however indirectly, to a reward she cannot quite envision. Barely twenty-one, she still has that faith in the infinity of life. I love her for this, as I envy her. She is as irresistible to me as to the men who poured around her, vying for a dance. So, after Paul abandoned me to go off and confer with William and Vice President Li, I willingly served as accomplice to these hankering men. They would dance me once around the floor to Anna, then cut in, switching her abandoned partner off to me.

  But you may remember, pages ago, I mentioned a coincidence that would amuse you. Well, here it is. I’d just been abandoned for the umpteenth time and was hunting for Paul to take me home, when a grave voice asked me to dance. I looked up to find myself arm in arm with—can you guess? Yes, our old friend Dr. Mann! He looked splendid, if a little sparer than I remembered, with that same thoughtful seriousness about him. He’d noticed me earlier, he said, after the banquet, but I was so thronged by admirers he dared not approach. I laughed aloud at that, pointing to Anna, and informed him that in approximately fifteen seconds he should thank me and ask her to dance. He glanced at her appreciatively but said she was too young for him. I explained that he could dance with her without marrying her, to which he replied that he thought her young men might disagree. So I told him it was only a matter of time before Anna’s British
fiancé returned from the war and, if he wasn’t going to cut me loose, then he might at least tell me what had become of him since he left Shanghai.

  Sarah, your doctor does have an adventurous soul! He didn’t last long at the hospital where he was headed when last you heard of him—more sparks with the head surgeons, I surmise—but spent several months going up the Yangtze to Chungking. Then he traveled overland to the Yellow River and followed that up through Mongolia and all the way back to the coast. He slept in abandoned temples and visited with Chinese, missionary, even some Muslim doctors along the way, keeping notes for a medical journal he’s writing—a sort of catalogue of Eastern medical practices, including many, he claims, “of inexplicable effectiveness.” Now, for the moment, he has taken over an infirmary in Tientsin. He is using some of the Chinese medicines he’s studied and has traditional Chinese doctors on staff, which has made him extremely popular with the locals.

  We shared several dances before Paul found his way back to me, and I was glad for the chance to introduce him to the doctor. I did not make the remark you would have wished about Dr. Mann’s being present for the birth of Paul’s son when Paul himself was not. I explained instead that Dr. Mann was very kind to me during the madness surrounding Sung Chiao-jen’s assassination, at which Paul bowed gravely and expressed his deep gratitude to the doctor for seeing to my safety. Then Paul suggested a banquet in the doctor’s honor, but Dr. Mann seemed peculiarly disconcerted by this and said he must return to his clinic. Paul laughed, gave him one of those overly hearty claps on the back, and pumped his hand like the seasoned politician he has become. And we parted.

  I’ve come to the end of the story, Sarah. Perhaps you’ve been to enough Chinese extravaganzas that this all seems trifling, but I thought you would appreciate the personalities involved. I wish you had been here, sure you would have added unexpected spice and perhaps caused a few more fireworks than the sparkling rockets and twizzlers Yüan had set off in the snow as we dispersed.

  I also wish I’d been a better correspondent over this past year. Seeing Dr. Mann brought back such fond thoughts of our times together in Shanghai. I have no equal friends here, and I wouldn’t dare to guess when we might return south. Part of me doesn’t want to, this city is so beautiful, has such a sense of history and magic.

  And it is even more lovely to be safely away from Paul’s mother than it is sad to be so far from our baby’s grave.

  But I do miss you and Jin. And Jed. Please tell Jed, by the way, that I’ve bought myself a Graflex camera and a pocket Premo, and when I do return to Shanghai I expect him to continue my instruction in darkroom skills.

  So know that you have my fondest wishes, Sarah, and give a kiss to your Gerry for me. But I must get up and dress. The children are calling for me to come out and see their snowmen!

  Love,

  Hope

  Toward the end of January, when the last traces of snow had blown away and the winds temporarily died down, Daisy Tan invited Hope and Anna and Pearl for an outing to Lung Fo market. Suyun was not mentioned, which meant, Hope assumed, that the girl would have a rare afternoon alone with her son. More for this reason than to spend these hours shopping, Hope agreed to the plan. Pearl and Anna were both delighted to escape their lessons, and after a rushed tiffin of soup and cold lamb, they joined Daisy at the gate, with Bald Crow coming along to carry packages. As the five of them squeezed into a single horse-drawn cab, it occurred to Hope that Yen and Paul would never have permitted this excursion without a male escort. But both men had gone off with William to meet with the students orchestrating Peking’s massive and ongoing anti-Japanese boycott. Sun Yat-sen wanted the boycott called off, since the Japanese had finally come out in opposition to Yüan’s monarchy.

  At the gateway to the main market square the women left the mafoo to wait with the cab, and set off by foot. But just inside the cedar p’ai lou, or archway, they met an itinerant dentist whose signage, lettered in English as testimony to the man’s advanced education, read INSERTION FALSE TEETH AND EYES, LATEST METHODISTS.

  “Don’t laugh,” said Hope under her breath, clasping both Pearl and Anna firmly by the wrist as all three nodded to the bowing dentist. “I must have this.” Showing her camera, she persuaded the man and one of his onlookers to pose as if in mid-extraction.

  “But I don’t understand, Mama,” Pearl said when they were safely out of earshot. “Why does he only insert the eyes and teeth into Methodists?”

  The question was so naive, so plaintive and utterly bewildered that Hope and Anna dissolved into laughter. Daisy gave them an impatient look and explained to Pearl in sharp Mandarin that the dentist was a low-class, ignorant laborer who did not deserve this attention.

  “God bless the child,” Anna said. “What innocence!”

  They proceeded, jostling their way along narrow canopied passageways that teemed with every imaginable form of humanity, from beggars whose rag clothes were tied on with string, to fortune-tellers shaking rhythmic cans of sticks, to blind storytellers and children beating drums, to flocks of silk-robed gentry walking their caged birds. Daisy, who had distinct opinions about every merchant in the market, led Hope and Anna to her favorite shops while Pearl and Bald Crow trailed behind watching the street acrobats and puppet shows.

  By Daisy’s third jade shop Hope was lagging as well, and paused to rest with Pearl in front of two animal trainers. The first was a tall one-eyed man holding a stripped-down umbrella. From each naked spoke swung a string tied to a miniature pagoda, ladder, or other trinket, while a white mouse raced up and down the strings from toy to toy. The second trainer beat a gong and barked out the legend of an ancient hermit, which his rather mangy blue-jacketed monkey pantomimed. The louder the audience cheered for the mouse, the louder beat the gong.

  After several minutes, Hope realized that everyone was looking to her and Pearl to choose the winning act. “What do we do?” she wondered aloud.

  “Best give both same and away before they count.” Daisy, who had come out to see what was keeping Hope, ducked back into the shop and returned with two envelopes. She had Bald Crow deliver these to the animal trainers while she and the others slipped around the corner. Moments later a roar went up and Hope half expected an irate mob to follow. But only Bald Crow appeared.

  “People say the foreign ladies must be Christians,” she reported, shame-faced. “They cannot tell good from bad.”

  Hope hushed Pearl’s indignant protests that she knew perfectly well the mouse was the better act. “I see Solomon has no place in this country,” she said to Anna.

  Daisy beckoned Bald Crow to pass her folding bamboo walking stick. The uneven pavement and brittle cold were hard on her tortured feet. But she insisted on one last stop. More grandly appointed than the other stalls, this one sported glass cases and electric lights and a counter with cane-backed chairs where they could rest and sip tea while the elderly merchant brought out diamond necklaces and sapphire brooches and emerald and opal pendants. Hope bought Pearl a tiger-eye charm, which Daisy said would keep evil spirits away, and Daisy bought two teardrop necklaces, which she promptly presented, the star sapphire to Hope and the turquoise to Anna. Of course, both protested that this was too generous. Both were adamant—and overruled. “These stone like you eyes. So pretty.” Daisy clenched her right hand and struck her heart. “Yui. Friendship. We remember this day always, yes?”

  Hope and Anna exchanged glances. There was no point trying to reciprocate, as that would only compound their shame at not having made the gesture first. Both were now obligated to express their gratitude in equally clever fashion in the future. Possibly, Hope thought cynically, by presenting Daisy with some celebratory gift on her “son’s” first birthday, when Suyun was to return to her parents in Hupei.

  It was nearly four. Paul and William would be home soon, and the shadows were growing long. But as they started back toward the main square, a cry went up and the street filled with running boys and men braying harangues and cur
ses. At the end of the alley two government soldiers appeared with raised bayonets.

  Pearl clutched Hope’s hand on one side, Anna’s on the other. “It’s all right,” Hope said with more confidence than she felt. “We’ll wait this out.”

  Bald Crow cocked her head like a listening parrot, then brightened. “No, Taitai. No problem. Execution. Kidnappers. Soldiers want everyone come this side.”

  Daisy tapped her walking stick. “No danger at execution. Come. You no need look.”

  But Hope was worried about Pearl. Her daughter’s silence did not mean she’d missed a word of this exchange, and her studious examination of her feet did not hide her curiosity. “Come, sweet love,” she said softly. “We’ll be fine.”

  They joined hands and pushed into the throng, but just as Hope spotted the p’ai lou, a line of soldiers roughly pushed them aside, wielding their rifle butts as prods. Behind came another line of men pulling five crude carts of the kind normally used for hauling wood. Today each cart held two men, hands and necks locked into the wooden stocks called cangues.

  “Jang luil” the soldiers shouted. The crowd packed together so tightly that the women could not take another step. Hope lifted her elbows out to the sides to prevent Pearl from being crushed—and to gain enough air to stop herself from fainting. At the same time she sifted through the dialects for recognizable phrases. These men, it seemed, included certain high officials and members of the Hsinhua Palace Guard who were accused of concealing themselves in the palace and conspiring to kidnap Emperor Yüan. Their supposed motive was to collapse the monarchy and reinstate the Republic. This was deemed a capital crime.