City of God

by Swerling, Beverly

  She wanted to remain until she saw him safely on the ground again, but it was growing dark and she could not linger. The next afternoon she went back and was disturbed when at first he did not seem to be there. Then she rounded a corner and came face to face with him. “You survived,” she blurted. “I am so glad.”

  “I also.” He grinned at her. “But exactly what?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “What did I survive?”

  “Yesterday. I saw you walking up there on the rim. It looked to be frightfully dangerous.”

  “It is not. The walkway is quite broad, though you can’t see that from here. I am sorry not to be the daredevil you thought me, only an apprentice civil engineer. But also I am very glad that finally you have spoken. Often I wanted to, but how I could not think.” He had already removed his hat, now he bowed. “Fritz Heinz, mistress. I am delighted to make your acquaintance. May I know your name?”

  “Linda Di.” Mistress was a quaint old-fashioned sort of formality, and to her accent-tuned ear his English had a foreign tinge. “Miss Linda Di,” she added.

  His grin broadened. “Then you are unmarried, that is what Miss means, no?”

  “Yes. I am engaged, however. I shall be married soon.” She felt honor bound to say so. Besides, a young lady talking to a strange man in an isolated place like this, whatever the reason…Mother Stevenson would be appalled. Saying she was engaged seemed at least to confirm her respectability. Mr. Heinz, however, looked disappointed. “You are not from New York, are you?” she asked.

  “Nein, I mean no. From Munich in Bavaria. That is where I attended the polytechnic. Mr. Roebling, my employer, he is from Mühlhausen in Prussia. But he is very pleased to take on apprentice engineers who speak German as well as English.”

  “So Mr. Roebling built this magnificent reservoir?”

  “No. Many Irishmen, I am told. Only Mr. Roebling is charged with the upkeep. Right now he builds an aqueduct in high New York. So I am left to—”

  “High? Oh, you mean upstate. North of New York City.”

  He said that was indeed what he meant and that he would be very grateful if whenever she heard him make an error in English she would correct him. “That way soon I will be perfect. That is, if there is enough time before you are married.”

  “Who giveth this woman to be wed?”

  “I do,” Zac said, and released his mother’s hand, grinning so broadly all the while that it was clear he was quite elated, not just with the fact of the marriage but also his role in it. “With enormous pride and pleasure,” he added. “Truly.”

  That was not in the order of service, but no one minded. Nick and Carolina smiled. So did Mr. Beecher. Josh also smiled, betraying two missing front teeth. At seven he was too young to be a legal witness, though he stood in that position beside his father, looking like a miniature Nicholas, with hair the same fiery red and the same sort of grin and line of jaw. As for Ben Klein, Nick’s official best man, he laughed out loud.

  Mr. Beecher cleared his throat. Bella Klein took the sheaf of spring flowers from Carolina’s hands.

  You won’t mind awfully, darling, a woman you’ve not yet met to be your matron of honor? Carolina said she would not. And at the meeting Nick arranged in the Devrey offices for the sake of privacy and discretion the two women had seemed to him to become friends almost at once. For years Nick had told Ben he was sure that would be the case if the ladies could ever meet, though given the irregularities, he understood it was impossible.

  When they got to the part about loving and honoring and obeying, Carolina’s voice was strong and true. And when Nick slipped the ring on her finger, she almost could not keep herself from melting there and then into his arms.

  There was, however, more in the way of benediction and reminders of obligation, until finally Mr. Beecher said, “I pronounce you man and wife.”

  Carolina, dressed in cream-colored lace with pink roses in her hair, had not worn a veil. It had become the custom of late for American brides to do themselves up in white wedding gowns, Queen Victoria had surprised everyone in 1840 when she chose white instead of blue, the color of purity, and naturally after that white became le dernier cri for brides. Godey’s, however, advised remarrying widows to wear ecru or perhaps rose-beige and said that the veil, the ultimate symbol of maidenhood, was perhaps best dispensed with. Maidenhood, even by implication, was more than absurd, Carolina thought, with her five children in attendance. Her daughters, wearing matching pink frocks and pink ribbons in their hair (Goldie the blonde beaming with delight at being allowed to dress exactly like her adored big sister Ceci the raven-haired beauty), stood either side of baby Simon, each holding tight to one of his hands lest he fling himself at his mama at some inappropriate moment.

  The only absent persons truly dear to Carolina were of course long-dead Papa, and Aunt Lucy, dead three years. All the rest stood beneath the rose arbor that overlooked the river—“like a chuppa it is, Benjamin,” Bella had whispered, “I did not know that was a custom among Christians”—and broke into spontaneous applause when Nick kissed her with a fierce joy apparent to all old enough to recognize the emotion.

  Nothing like Attila the Hun, Carolina had promised, and when Nick and Mr. Beecher stood together drinking champagne in the warm spring sunshine, Nick had to agree. Beecher was in fact quite charming and erudite, even a bit bookish. It was hard to connect him with mock slave auctions that raised thousands for the abolitionist cause and fiery antislavery sermons that packed his Brooklyn church even as they enraged nearly every New York businessman, not to mention the Southerners, who were said to have burned Reverend Beecher in effigy on a dozen occasions. “Thank you for coming, sir. And for performing the ceremony. My wife and I were very gratified when you agreed to do so.”

  “It is my pleasure, Dr. Turner. Would that all of society’s mistakes and wrong turnings could so easily be put right.”

  “Yes, well, I am nonetheless grateful to you. Carolina and I do agree with your stand, Reverend, even if we have not found it possible to be among those active in your cause.”

  Beecher took a large swallow of his wine and nodded at the children chasing each other across the grass in some game of their own devising, the girls’ ribbons streaming in the breeze and baby Simon toddling after his brothers. “Charming,” he pronounced, “absolutely charming.”

  Three ke into the hour of Zi on the fifth day of Plum Flower month of this Metal Dragon year. In this yang gwei zih place that translated into fifteen minutes before midnight on Friday, May 21, 1852. That was the absolutely sure-thing best-auspicious time, according to all the divination systems Hor Taste Bad had consulted.

  Mei-hua had sent for him to help choose the date and the hour of the wedding and was gratified when the Lord Kurt agreed. He, she had learned, relied entirely on the I-ching, which was something she knew about only in vague terms. No one on the sampans of Di Short Neck, even among the numbers of special teachers brought to prepare her to come to this place, had been knowledgeable about ancient and honorable very much hard to understand I-ching. So very good thing that I-ching way and Taste Bad way say the same thing. Very too terrific auspicious.

  “I have never heard of such a thing,” Mei Lin said. “A wedding in the middle of the night. Why?”

  “Because that is right time. Everything say so.”

  “What everything, Mamee? All this silly business with birds’ eggs and coins and—”

  “Close mouth. Close. You very stupid girl call things silly when everything done to make things good for you. You think I sell you for three chests of ya-p’ien maybe? No sell. No sell. Not like honorable father.”

  Mei Lin, who did not know the details of what had happened on the deck of her grandfather’s pirate junk back in the Middle Kingdom, did, however, know the outlines of the story. Now, hearing Mei-hua speak of it in this tone that betrayed an anguish she never realized her mother felt, she hung her head in shame and apologized. “Truly sorry, Mamee. T
ruly. If you believe midnight best time, I agree. Agree to everything.”

  “Mei wen ti, mei-mei.” No problem, little sister. Spoken with her hands cupping her daughter’s face and thinking of the long and painful journey that those odd but beautiful features represented. Grateful for the child’s gift of endurance, which, like her own, had brought them both to this place, which was in Mei-hua’s eyes so much better than the one before. She had long since lost and mourned the Lord Samuel she’d once loved. He had disappeared many years before the body of the man who remained behind had been put into the earth. “Safe now,” she said. “Fu Qing promise but not so. Not so.”

  It was the first time Mei Lin had ever heard her mother refer to Baba as Fu Qing, the formal word for father. It was a kind of distancing. In those words she saw a recognition of all that had not been said before and would probably not be said again.

  “Fu Qing promise I will be a princess. Not princess. Not. But you, mei-mei, will have everything this old tai-tai did not have. Everything good. That’s why pick most auspicious too good perfect day for the wedding.”

  Most auspicious as well the great gong that had been carried into Mei-hua’s front parlor and that was struck with great force at the precise moment when Mei Lin was to come downstairs wearing her red bridal garments and Phoenix Crown. Ah Chee helped her put on the red pagoda-shaped headdress encrusted with jewels—because of its weight, and because of the curtain of tassels that hung in front of her face—but she did not help when Mai Lin tried to slip into the red shoes that completed the wedding clothes. “No shoes,” she insisted. “Not until downstairs. No touch the floor now. This old woman carry you.”

  “Ah Chee can not carry me. Very silly idea.” These days Ah Chee was bent almost double, and frequently had difficulty catching her breath.

  “Big mouth little bud understand nothing. Nothing.” Ah Chee took the silk slippers in one hand and grabbed at Mei Lin with the other. “Put young hand here. On old shoulder. Good. Good. Now we go. This old woman carrying little bud so everything auspicious good.” And with this symbolic carrying of the bride they descended the stairs.

  The gong sounded a second time, announcing the moment that the bride should be brought to the home of the groom. Four civilized men—Mei Lin recognized them as among those frequently in the retinue of Mr. Chambers, though she had never learned their names—arrived with a small red throne chair fixed to two poles. Mei Lin took her place in the chair. The men lifted it up and carried it out the door, following another man with a flute and yet another with a drum. They played so loudly Mei Lin almost did not hear the sobs of her mother and Ah Chee, which, she supposed, were more traditional than real.

  The litter was carried across the small space between the houses and across the threshold of the one next door. The men put down the chair and pulled aside the curtain. Mei Lin stepped out and Kurt Chambers took her hand.

  It was done. That was the essential part of the Chinese wedding ceremony, as Mei Lin knew because it had been explained to her by both her mother and her husband-to-be. She was now Woman Chambers, exactly as he had said she was to be. Fiat, as the Sacred Heart nuns who had taught her Latin might have said. Or perhaps not, not until after the bed part, the idea of which terrified her so much she did not want to think about it.

  So far everything had happened exactly as she’d been told to expect; the inside of Mr. Chambers’ house, however, was an enormous surprise. Because to cross his threshold was to become his wife, Mei Lin had not been allowed to visit the home of her betrothed these past months. She had presumed it would be like the house he’d prepared for Mei-hua. Had Kurt Chambers not told her he was Chinese on the inside? Instead it was entirely Western and modern, and more luxurious than anything she had ever seen. She found the surprise a bit unnerving, but at least he was wearing a red silk robe embroidered with gold dragons.

  He led her into a room at the back. It was different from the rest of the house and appeared to have been brought intact from the Middle Kingdom that was for her at once so mysterious and so familiar. The walls were covered in red and gold symbols and the ceiling draped in red silk. There was an altar and tablets representing his ancestors, and, as custom demanded, the newlyweds both kowtowed and lit incense. It’s nothing to do with religion, Mei Lin told herself. It’s a tradition for showing respect, that’s all. That was how she had gotten through the funeral rites for her father without feeling she was damned to eternal hellfire. She would get through this wedding the same way. At least this part of it.

  The bed part came next.

  Not the open privates part that Mei-hua had discussed with her in detail, most of which anyway Mei Lin already knew or had guessed. This was the ritual bed part, where she would show her ability to sit in harmony. Kurt brought her to a room upstairs where there was a heavy, red-lacquered bedstead and a single matching table, above which hung a scroll depicting the goddess of fertility, Chuan Yin. He left her there after lighting a large candle and telling her he would return when it had burned all the way down. “You must sit on the bed. Yes, like that. I see first tai-tai has prepared you well.” Mei Lin had crossed her legs beneath her and folded her hands in her lap. “You are not to move until I come back.”

  She had protested to Mei-hua that she could not maintain such a position for the length of time required, as long as it took for her new husband to go downstairs and eat a banquet meal with all the other men. What are you, stupid girl? Very stupid? Only hold this position until husband leave the room. Then move around. When you hear him returning you get back in harmony position on bed.

  There were sweet cakes and candies on the table, but Mei Lin knew they were offerings to Chuan Yin and she was not to touch them. Anyway, she was too nervous to eat anything. Knowing about the open privates was not the same as actually having it done to one. Hurts a lot first time, Mei-hua had said. Never mind. Later feels good. First time you bleed a lot. Very important good sign. Scream loud, say how much it hurts, say very too big thing he trying to put in there. Make husband feel like tiger. Then let the blood come on the sheet. Don’t try to clean up until later.

  She had wanted to bring her rosary beads with her, but she had not dared. Now, pacing back and forth in the room that contained only the table and the bed and watching the candle burn down and hearing the noises of the banquet below, Mei Lin could only recite Hail Marys in her mind and count the decades of the rosary on her fingers.

  In the first light of dawn her husband stood over her and threw back the sheets. He spread her legs with his two hands, then leaned over to inspect the result of his act of possession. “A fair amount of bleeding,” he said. “Is it honest?”

  “What? I don’t understand.” Nothing Mei-hua had said prepared Mei Lin for such a question.

  “Ah Chee,” he said. “Shoving a pig bladder full of blood up inside you would be just her style.” With that he thrust his fingers into her and probed. It hurt and Mei Lin yelped. “Good,” he said. “There’s nothing there.”

  “I don’t…Kurt, what is it?” He had told her weeks ago that she must call him by his given name and not Mr. Chambers. “Why would you think—”

  “The Bavarian engineer you have spent so much time with up by the reservoir,” he said. “I had to be sure he hadn’t had you first.”

  She’d had absolutely no idea he knew anything about Fritz Heinz or their afternoon walks and talks. Those visits had always been so isolated and so innocent. “You had me followed,” she whispered. “You spied on me.”

  “I protected what is mine. You can be sure that I will always do so. There’s something else you should know.” He took hold of her chin and held it so she had to look directly at him when he spoke. “If it had turned out you were not a virgin, I would have killed you myself. Then I would have had the Bavarian killed as well.”

  The day after the wedding Mei-hua woke earlier than usual. At least she thought it must be so, since Ah Chee had not yet come with her morning tea. Very much too big excitem
ent yesterday. And now, today, too much on her mind. Too much thinking about what had happened to her Mei Lin the night before. She had lit twenty joss sticks in honor of Chuan Yin: asking that the Lord Kurt be gentle with her little bud, that their bed be a place of happiness and pleasure. Hard to say if that was the best ask. Bed very good for her and Lord Samuel. Didn’t prevent his putting her in inferior house, having big ugly yellow hair concubine, swallowing so many clouds his mind went away and his empty body die a too-soon death, so she was a white widow, not a red one as she would have been if he’d been over eighty years and thus entitled to a happiness-red funeral.

  Never mind. Pretty soon Ah Chee come and bring her tea. Then they would go peek out the window. Wait for first look-see of their little bud, who was now the supreme first lady tai-tai of a powerful lord.

  When she calculated that another three or four ke had passed and Ah Chee still had not come, Mei-hua, who was already quite sure she knew why, got up and dressed herself. She chose the same happiness-red garments she had worn the day before for the wedding. Ah Chee after all was very old. For sure older than eighty years.

  Ah Chee had been given a proper bedroom in this big and fancy house where Mei-hua was now first tai-tai. The old woman almost never slept there. She preferred a mattress beside the kitchen stove, much as she’d had for all those years on Cherry Street. That was where Mei-hua found her, lying peacefully with a joss stick clutched in her gnarled old fingers, indicating that she had been about to get up and make an offering to the kitchen god.

  Mei-hua closed the old woman’s eyes, then she took the incense out of her hand and carried it to the altar of Zao Shen and performed a solemn kowtow and completed the offering Ah Chee had intended. “You make very happy everything for her. Wonderful old woman. Wonderful good to me and my little bud.”

  Next she threw open the kitchen window so the men who were always around the place would hear her when she began the ritual wailing and come to see what had happened.