Cloud Mountain

by Aimee E. Liu

  “Shoot them!” shouted one impatient spectator.

  “The garrote!” suggested another.

  “The Empress would have chopped their heads off!” cried an old woman watching from the balcony of a teahouse.

  Nausea, heat, cold, and panic gripped Hope’s body in waves, but she steadied herself and leaned to whisper in Anna’s ear. Then she stooped to Pearl. “We’re going to divide up, love. You hold tight to Anna and Daisy and follow around to the side there. Don’t let go of Anna for anything, hear? I’ll meet you at the cab.”

  “But where are you going, Mama?”

  Hope pressed her bloodless cheek against her daughter’s warm one. “Something I must do. It won’t take long, then we’ll be on our way.”

  She kissed Pearl and gave Anna’s elbow a squeeze, took a step, and they were gone. The noise, crush, and dark stink of the crowd instantly seemed to multiply, but she threaded her way forward to the raised platform of an open-air noodle shop. Though it was already packed with spectators, Hope was the only white woman, and as she moved toward the front, hands pounded backs, fingers pointed, mouths opened—people made way.

  The square appeared from this higher vantage as a field of domed, woven, and fur-flapped caps, all pointed toward the clearing where the prisoners now bowed against a wall not forty feet from Hope. She pulled out her camera. Paul had told her about these men, arrested only yesterday. “Heroes of the Revolution,” he called them. No kidnappers, their actual “crime” had been to spirit documents out of the Presidential Palace that proved Yüan had conceded to the Twenty-one Demands in exchange for Japan’s secret promise to support him as Emperor. Britain’s Ambassador Jordan had used the documents to pressure Japan, at the eleventh hour, to oppose Yüan’s bid for the monarchy. While this hadn’t stopped Yüan, it had weakened his position—and humiliated him. Now that he had caught these heroes, he would martyr them.

  She adjusted focus as she scanned, from the gaping, riveted faces around her to the exploding gold of the dropping sun, the little puffs of dust rising like gunsmoke from between the tightly packed bodies. She aimed over the heads of the soldiers, found the kneeling prisoners. Then the executioner lifted his broad steel crescent. The first young prisoner, lips pinched, eyes staring and hard, had been released from his cangue, spread his hands on his knees. Hope was transfixed by the smoothness of his naked forehead.

  The blade chopped down. The man’s head dipped forward, blood spurting from the neck, but it was still attached to his shuddering body. The roar of the spectators echoed through the square. Everywhere mouths split open in laughter, in cheers and shaming hoots. The dripping sword lifted and fell again. The face, now twisted in agony, rolled from the kneeling man’s shoulders.

  Behind the lens, Hope held her breath against her own body’s revolt and continued by dogged force to capture the dark boil of blood from the gaping neck, the slow, twitching collapse of the torso. The faces of the other prisoners stretched like masks, their eyes stripped by resignation. By horror. By paralysis.

  The leash that had held her, photographing this carnage through some demonic sense of necessity, now broke abruptly and sent her flying down into and through the crush. She didn’t wait for a path to open but shoved with the best of them, forcing her way toward the towering p’ai lou. But these were northerners, many even taller than Paul. She barely reached to their armpits, and they were so engrossed in the execution that they did not even notice the foreigner. As the bloodthirsty clamor rose again, she felt she was going to faint or vomit, or both.

  She fought the sensation by screaming, kicking out like a child in a tantrum. “Pearl!” She swung her fisted arms. “Anna! Daisy!”

  Her brain was closing, the will leaving her limbs, but she was dimly aware of men on either side of her backing away, gaps appearing between their bodies, a pale glint of light. She heard someone call her name.

  Suddenly she saw the carriage, Pearl with outstretched arms, Bald Crow and Anna racing to catch her. Daisy’s face floated like a tranquil petal above the hordes.

  Paul laughed. “The poor fool. He can’t reveal the crime that’s been done so he makes up this story and kills two innocent men!”

  “There were ten men.” Hope spoke in a low, cautious whisper from bed. Her skull felt as if it were being ground between two millstones.

  “For show.” Paul sat at the dressing table, watching without seeming to see her. “It is easy torture to force men to watch an execution thinking they will be next to die. And it creates a larger spectacle to have these extra prisoners.”

  Hope groaned. “How can you speak like this? As if the murder of innocent men were nothing!”

  “But the heroes—the men who committed the real crime of leaking those documents—they were freed shortly after the execution. Surely you see this is good news. Yüan’s hands are tied.”

  “His executioner’s aren’t.” Hope started to rise, but the pain and nausea spun her back into the pillow.

  “You and Daisy should not go to market without Yen or me.”

  “I suppose the execution would have been canceled if you or Yen had been there!”

  “Ah, Hope. Even in pain you show your anger.”

  They were interrupted by a knock on the door, and the children trooped in to say their good nights. Hope took them in her arms. Pearl claimed to have seen nothing, but Hope could tell by the dazed widening of her eyes that she was lying. More, what she had seen would stay with her, would mark her in some inexpressible way for the rest of her life. Hope didn’t blame herself for leaving the child. She doubted she could have stopped her seeing, nor could she have softened the view. What she did regret was the fact of the execution itself, what it told of this place, these people—Paul. She had forced herself to take those photographs, but she was not sure she could bear to look at them.

  “Ch’eng-yü!” Paul waggled his hand for his son and swung him over his shoulder, then commanded Pearl to sing the Moon Lady’s ballad, which Joy had taught her in Shanghai. Paul and Morris strutted around the room while Pearl sang in a high, excited voice. The noise was excruciating to Hope, and the instant Pearl had finished, she called for Ah-nie to take the children to bed.

  “You are angry,” Paul said, rubbing her feet through the bedclothes.

  “I watched a man die stupidly, viciously, and needlessly today and I have the worst headache of my life, and you can’t seem to comprehend either of these simple facts.” She yanked her feet away from him.

  “Should I leave you?”

  They stared at each other as in a standoff.

  “No.”

  He drew her legs back and slowly worked his hand up and down the length of her calf.

  “Perhaps you are less innocent than they were.”

  He smiled at his moving hands. “That is why I could not have been one of them.”

  She raised herself on her elbows, motioning him to stop. She felt swollen and throbbing and nauseous, but it was not the shock of the day that made her so. For four weeks she had been resisting this malaise—and denying its implications.

  “We have two small children, Paul… and another coming.”

  As this news took hold, she could see each thought rippling through his mind: memory of their lost son and daughter; the prospect of another bout of grief, if this child, too, went wrong; concern at Hope’s ability to hold up; but then, the old paternal pride at the chance for another son; the inevitable swagger of masculine conceit; and finally, curiosity.

  She gave him a wan smile. “I suppose we have Yüan to thank for this. Remember our lazy morning after the ball when we celebrated your marquis-ship?”

  His eyes widened, amused, fingers dawdled on her ear, and she slipped an arm around his neck. “So you see,” she whispered, “You have a wife and family who can’t live without you.”

  Los Angeles

  February 27, 1916

  Dearest Dolly,

  I am sorry for the time it has taken me to write, but perhaps you c
an understand and forgive if I tell you that I can hardly bear to write these words even now. Mary Jane passed away on the eighth of this month. She was taken by scarlet fever, so quick, a fire it seemed to consume her soul. You would not have recognized her at the end, my poor, beloved wife—oh, daughter, believe me when I tell you I loved our Mary Jane.

  Perhaps it will give some solace if you know, I was not alone. There was abundance of flowers and hosts of friends to say their farewells. But she did so wish to see you and the children and I do wish you were here with me now.

  Dolly dear, you are all I have ever more.

  I love you.

  Dad

  VIII

  FLIGHT

  TIENTSIN

  (1916)

  1

  Sun Yat-sen finally agreed to command a full-scale revolt against Yüan. However, other rebel leaders had preceded him with weaponry and muscle of their own. In January one of Sun’s former allies in Canton, the warlord Ch’en Chiung-ming, had launched his own rebellion, and other generals were proclaiming independence in the southwestern provinces. Beleaguered and beset by defections from both his bureaucracy and military staffs, Yüan canceled his monarchy in March, saying that he had been urged only reluctantly to the throne and was now reclaiming the presidency at the will of the people. Paul and William decided the time had come for Sun to strike. They evolved their plans with the collusion of the American and Japanese Legations and prepared to launch them the first week in April.

  Paul did not discuss these plans with Hope. In part, he held back out of concern for her and the children’s safety, but more, he dreaded her reaction. Doc’s news of Mary Jane’s death had caused Hope to withdraw once more into that familiar ghostly sadness. Paul had tried to comfort her, brought enticing teas, English novels and butterscotch from the British Legation, even a new Remington typewriter with the thought that work on her articles might raise her from this shadow. Mary Jane had been his friend also and he had a clearer understanding of this grief than he had for Hope’s mourning of the lost babies. But he also accepted the inevitability of death in a way that his wife apparently could not. To despair over a loss that could not be reversed seemed to Paul a waste of life. When Hope descended into this state he was torn between anger over her withdrawal from him and fear that her depression would persist and worsen. Since he could find no words that would lift her mood, he took to saying nothing at all.

  But on the night of his departure, he could delay no longer. It was late. Hope sat by the stove with a book lying open in her lap, her eyes listlessly traveling the same page over and over again. The children and most of the servants were asleep, and though the parched winds stirred as usual outside, the house felt abnormally still. That morning Daisy had removed her entire household to Taiyüan, where she planned to show off the baby to relatives. Paul had considered prevailing on Daisy to postpone her trip until his and William’s return, but Hope’s continuing anger toward Daisy warned him against interfering. If his wife would not understand the ways of Chinese families, if she would jeopardize a valued friendship for the sake of that unwed Suyun, then perhaps it was just as well that the third court stood empty in his absence. After all, Yen would watch over her and the children. And Anna Van Zyl came almost every day. In the state she was in, Hope would hardly miss him.

  He stubbed out his cigarette and laid a hand on her shoulder. “I must go to Tientsin tonight.” She did not look up. “If all goes well, this will be the end of Yüan.”

  She shut the book, and he saw that it was an edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin given to her by Mary Jane in the first years of their friendship. “How long?” she said in a dull voice.

  “Two weeks. Maybe three.” The volume slid from her lap and he stooped to catch it, placed it on the small inlaid table beside her. “Not long, Hope.”

  She looked at him, hard. “I wish that weren’t my name.”

  Shaking his head, he moved to pick up a hobbyhorse from the floor. The red paint was worn off the long stick body, the leather ears fingered to satin from affection. The horsehair mane was tangled and one glass eye had come loose. Prancer, Ch’eng-yü called the toy.

  “Love comes so naturally to children,” Hope said. “Why is it so difficult for grown-ups?”

  He tried to screw in the dangling eye. “We are not children, Hope. We must heed our minds as well as hearts.” The glass eye fell back into his palm.

  Hope got up and took the broken pieces from him. “Children, too, play at being bandits and spies.”

  There was a soft knock, and the door slid open. Yen dropped his eyes. “Master Tan is waiting, Laoyeh.”

  “Moment,” said Paul, and the door glided shut.

  Hope had found some glue in a drawer and was restoring the glass eye to its socket, her preoccupation a clear rebuke, but Paul did his best to ignore it. He stood at her back with one hand to the early rounding of her belly, the other to her shoulder. He softly kissed the side of her neck, expecting her to turn. She did not move.

  “Just come back to us, Paul,” she whispered.

  Two nights later she dreamt of San Francisco—a brilliant sea-blue day, brimming with life and enterprise. Suddenly the tide surges over the far hill and down in a glassy wash. Up over the second hill, and again, down the closest rise. The street is a black glistening line in its wake, and she is far enough removed that she cannot see the submerged faces, believes that life will resume, only freshly bathed. Then another wave comes. She sees a shadow. A black whale flings itself into the air, shimmers in the sun. He brushes a tower on the highest hill. Cornices fall. Windows shatter. His body crushes the drowned. Only then does she think of the damage, families destroyed, homes lost forever. Up to the moment of the black whale’s death, all she could see was his magic …

  Yen stood over Hope’s bed, shaking her awake. Paul had sent a messenger from Tsinan. She was to gather up the children, pack only essentials, and travel with Yen by cart, not train, to Tientsin, and from there by British steamer to Shanghai. Paul would meet them or leave further instructions at the Nantao house.

  Hope pushed herself to the edge of the mattress, neither blinking nor breathing, but violently alert. “What’s happened?”

  Yen lifted his hands in a pretense of ignorance.

  Over the years Hope had learned to be judicious in challenging her head man’s authority. She no longer questioned the running of the household, the minor disputes with other servants, even Paul’s willingness to confide in Yen plans he would not reveal to her. But when Yen’s jurisdiction overlapped her own and he still tried to withhold information, she could be every bit as hardheaded as he was. “We don’t leave this house unless you tell me what danger we’re in and why.”

  “Master’s plan has gone wrong,” he said simply.

  “And what was the plan!” But Yen’s contorted face gave her pause. If Paul had sworn him to secrecy, then she was severely compromising his loyalty. “I insist you tell me,” she said, more softly. “And if he asks, I will tell him you refused to speak. I will tell him I left you no choice. Now hurry, I must know if we are in danger. And I must know why.”

  So, as best he could, Yen poured out the botched plot. Paul and William had arranged for Vice President Li Yüan-hung to escape from Peking under protection of American and Japanese troops. He was to travel secretly to meet Dr. Sun, already en route from Japan, and establish a new revolutionary government based in the south. Given the support of the foreign powers, Sun and Li believed they could coerce Yüan to step down without firing a shot. But Li had failed to appear at the designated time and place. Now Paul and William feared that Yüan had uncovered the scheme. Hope and the children were not likely in danger, but they must leave right away to be sure.

  “Where is my husband now?”

  He shook his head. “The messenger will say only that he is safe.”

  Safe, she thought. Overhead, the ceiling’s painted vines and lotus petals writhed in the flare of Yen’s lantern.

  “
Please, Taitai. The cart is outside.”

  “Yes.” She sighed, still unable to move. Her throat felt strange. If it weren’t for the children … She flinched with a sudden cramp as Yen stooped to light the oil lamp by her bed.

  He gestured insistently toward her wardrobe. “Western dress is better,” he said. “Take only clothing and valuables for the journey. We leave Ah-nie to attend the rest and meet us in Shanghai.”

  Better because bandits would think twice about kidnaping a white woman and children in Western clothing, or because Yüan would be more likely to leave them alone? Hope grimaced as she pulled the first layer of her Chinese silk underwear up over her roiling belly. Within its band she secreted her jewelry, including the necklace Paul had given her before the first inaugural ball and his marquis medal, which he had left with her for safekeeping.

  Safekeeping. The word seemed to dangle over her as she breathed against another onslaught of nausea. She thought of the withered baby girl they had buried in Shanghai, the blue skin of her stillborn boy in Berkeley. Of Li-li and her baby. Of Mary Jane and Hope’s mother and grandmother before her. Safekeeping was a nonsense word, she thought, and her stomach quieted abruptly at the certain knowledge that followed.

  She would not survive the loss of another child.

  She entered the nursery to find Ah-nie piling clothes and the children’s most cherished stuffed and carved animals into a single wicker suitcase. Pearl and Morris, on either side of the room, were curled deeply into their pillows, rosy-cheeked, tousled, hands fisted as if for a fight. As Hope bent over her daughter she was suddenly overwhelmed by the brutality of what she was doing, what was being done to her.

  “Missy?” Ah-nie dangled a handkerchief.

  Hope took it and scrubbed her hot face. “Pearl.” She tested her voice. “Wake up, my sweet. We’re going to Shanghai.”

  Pearl’s eyelids fluttered. She yawned and stretched. “It’s dark out.”

  “I know. That’s what makes it—” She searched. “An adventure. Yen’s taking us on an adventure. Come. Put on your warm clothes and your good gray smocked wool over.”