The Concubine's Daughter

by null

  “I have been to the temple many times,” the Fish told Li, “to ask all gods to give the master the son he longs for. These things I have bought from the priests.”

  The Fish unwrapped a piece of cloth to reveal a number of talismans: a tiny silver lock to fasten him to life; a silver chicken’s foot, so that he might always scratch a good living; a scrap of fur attached to a thread of red silk, so that he would not be attacked by the dogs that scavenged the void between heaven and earth. Most potent of all was a bracelet fashioned from a copper coffin nail to give him courage in the face of ghosts and restless spirits.

  Li decided not to share these preparations, made precious by the Fish’s heartfelt beliefs, with Ben, who for all his patience and understanding could be forgiven for favoring the advice of Hamish McCallum, whose feet were firmly planted on the ground. There was one thing that the Fish proudly made and gave to her, however, that she showed him with pleasure—a baby sling used by Tanka mothers to carry their infants on their backs while going about their work at sea in all weathers. The sling was strongly made from thin, weatherproof oilskin, and beautifully patterned in tiny colored beads. “You see”—she smiled—“I will go to sea with you, our child upon my back.”

  Li continued to interest herself in Ben’s business and the events affecting its success. Each day, in the Pavilion of Joyful Moments, she studied the English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post, as well as the Chinese daily newspapers. She became increasingly aware of the world around her, at a time of great turmoil that was a warning of things to come.

  The colony was crippled by a strike of engineers and seamen that had tied up normal shipping in one of the world’s busiest harbors, but left the Double Dragon Company to continue trading under its Macao port of registry. The company had fifteen Double Dragon vessels in China waters, mainly in the silk and tea trades, with others on the Grand Canal carrying jade, porcelain, and artifacts from Peking to the Shanghai godowns on Soochow Creek.

  She followed the politics of the civil war that was tearing China in two. It had swiftly spread to Hong Kong, where Communist and Nationalist Kuomintang agitators cooperated with the underground societies to boycott British goods. The Double Dragon took full advantage of the forced trade embargo, and continued to flourish because of it.

  Ben encouraged her interest, amazed at how well she understood the conflict and its effect on international trade, without losing sight of the simple principles of haggling—the giving and taking of face, and the age-old principle of “squeeze,” the basic belief that while one hand washes the other, all will be well with the world.

  She was, Ben insisted, a force to be reckoned with. At this compliment, she scrunched up her nose and frowned quite ferociously, as she did whenever she was solving a new problem—an unconscious habit that he found enchanting. She finally replied, “It is what I think you call ‘common sense,’ and of course being allowed to read and understand the abacus.” Her frown persisted. “It a great pity that Chinese females are not taught these basic necessities as soon as they can talk. We seem to deal with life’s conundrums much better than Chinese men.”

  Ben had given her still another gift—simpler and yet more important than all the others: a diary, neither too large nor too small, its pages stiff and white and waiting to be filled with a lifetime of thoughts and memories. It had a clasp of solid gold and a scarlet leather cover with her name richly embossed in more gold.

  Some of her notes were written in Chinese and others in English. She had developed her skills with the calligrapher’s brush, and carefully decorated each entry with watercolors as exquisitely detailed as she could make them. In the peace and quiet of the pavilion, with Yin and Yang asleep on the cushions beside her, she chose each thought with the intensity of the confidences she had shared with Pai-Ling beneath the peppercorns and beside the river. Without knowing why, she was certain that these pages would be read by a daughter of her own some day.

  On his routine visits, Dr. McCallum found her in excellent health and apparently fine spirits. “It appears to me that if she were any happier and healthier, my dear old chap, you would be hard-pressed to keep up with her.” Mac was speaking to Ben on the balcony, where he shared a customary dram before departing. It was agreed that the child would be delivered in the mother’s own bed—a great relief to Li.

  The more she learned about the world outside the walls of the Villa Formosa, the more it worried her. She was concerned not for herself, but for the pride and the dignity of the man she had learned to love more than she could find the words to say. She did not need to be told that since their marriage, those he had thought of as friends no longer sought him out. The men among them treated her politely with due respect to Ben, but could scarcely hide the awkwardness in their eyes. Some clearly admired her but for all the wrong reasons. The grand opening of the Villa Formosa, and the dinner parties he had thrown so lavishly to introduce her, had been uncomfortable failures. The Western wives or escorts among the guests could think of nothing to say to her, and the tai-tais of his Chinese associates conveyed all they had to say with coldly glittering eyes and either silent distaste or cunning hostility.

  The doctor’s wife, an overweight lady known for her generous charity work, clearly spoke for them all when she said, “Ben’s such a fool. He could have taken her as a concubine, even his mistress, and got away with it. Why on earth did he have to marry the poor little creature? He will regret it, mark my words.”

  Li overheard these comments and many like them, either because tongues were loosened and voices raised by too many cocktails, or because they did not know or care that the “poor little creature” spoke English remarkably well, and understood all too clearly the meaning of words such as “hypocrisy,” “intolerance,” “snobbery,” and “bigotry.” Since her pregnancy, there had been no more dinners and they had not been invited to any social gatherings. Li was thankful for the respite, and Ben did not seem to miss the company. He kept his working days short, returning in time to watch the sun dip beneath the horizon over a drink in the pavilion and dinner in the grand dining room.

  If he was aware of her position in the eyes of his friends and important acquaintances, he said nothing of it. Content as he appeared to be, Li recognized that this social isolation could become increasingly difficult for him. Determined to make herself a tai-tai to be proud of, she doubled her studies, learning to think and speak as others did. If she could not make them like her, she would make them respect her … but they would no longer ignore her.

  The Pavilion of Joyful Moments had become Li’s private sanctuary. Each morning at daybreak she awakened and bathed, a habit from her life beneath the willows that she had no wish to change. She walked with Yin and Yang through the Ti-Yuan gardens to help Ah-Kin feed the fish, where dragonflies were already busy among opening lotus. She passed through moon gates and over scarlet bridges, to the five-bar gate and into the spinney of silver birch, where she waded among patches of bluebells before the dew had fallen from the leaves.

  She took her breakfast with Ben on his balcony, or with the Fish if he had left early. Then she rested and read, exchanging letters with Winifred Bramble, who always sent snapshots of her garden and the cottage in the village of Sparrows Green. Seeing Li’s pleasure in receiving the photographs, Ben bought her the latest-model Kodak, and soon she was sending pictures of her own to England.

  In the little Temple of Pai-Ling, she spoke with her mother and her ancestors, returning each evening to fill the cup with special wine and burn incense with her prayers. She was overjoyed when a package arrived, containing the ivory tablet bearing her mother’s family name and a framed photograph in which she could see Pai-Ling’s proud but lonely smile. With it were the tablets of her forefathers, faded and dimmed by generations of joss-stick smoke, that now graced the altar at the golden feet of Kuan-Yin, beside the box of shells and its precious contents.

  Number-Three Wife had sent the package, along with a letter sayin
g the Ling family had not been hard to find and were not sorry to part with these memories of one who had caused them so much trouble. The letter also bore welcome news from the House of the Kindly Moon. The little house by the river and its gardens continued to be blessed, and the mung-cha-cha prospered. Even Little Pebble, who had been fitted with spectacles that gave her back her sight, had grown strong again, singing her songs, filling her basket, and supervising the family’s business ventures as briskly and fairly as ever before.

  Turtle had needles of steel and spools of silk in every color, and taught local girls to stitch until they had mastered the art of embroidery and supplied several happiness silks every week. Mugwort and Monkey Nut oversaw a small team of older peasants producing several pairs of sandals a day. Garlic made many kinds of bamboo flutes, from small pocket-size ones for playing merry tunes to those as long as her arm that played mellow folk songs. Giant Yun tended his thriving market garden, and had also strung a row of dip nets along the banks, and set up racks for drying fish. He taught a group of eager children how to gather fruit and dig vegetables.

  When the donkey cart was full, Ah-Su wrote, he loaded the sampan, and the mung-cha-cha puttered upriver to deliver their cocoons to Ten Willows and on to the markets where they had opened a stall to display their wares. Everyone was paid a fair wage and their rice bowls overflowed. I have taught Little Pebble to use the abacus; no one thinks her a fool anymore and no one cheats her. And every evening when work is done and bellies are full, I teach them all to read and write and understand figures. No one speaks in whispers, and laughter is as constant as the turning of the waterwheel.

  Because of you, the letter concluded, the House of the Kindly Moon is filled with happiness and harmony, and each day I have shared their joy.

  The package also included a precious bundle of papers tied with a plaited reed. The letters of the mung-cha-cha were addressed to Crabapple, difficult but joyful to read, the words scratched as though by hungry hens. Each was signed with the name of the sender and said that Li-Xia was in every prayer.

  They also sent a gift that they promised would watch over her forever. It was a fat-bellied, gaudily painted effigy—a laughing Buddha, to be found for sale in every country market, said to keep away all forms of trouble, inviting only merriment and everlasting health.

  Li focused her energy on the child that grew stronger every day, allowing only thoughts of perfection and grand plans for the future to occupy her mind. She looked forward to taking her baby aboard Golden Sky, to visit her cherished family on the banks of the river. She thought that Number Three might make a splendid amah for her baby now that the mung-cha-cha were becoming self-sufficient. And Miss Bramble, of course, would return in time to be the child’s governess. Her life seemed perfect, except for a problem as yet unsolved: Ah-Ho. Li chose to take her meals on her own balcony or with Ben on his. With much of her day spent in her sunlit study, in the pavilion, or in strolling the gardens with the chow puppies that grew more delightful with each day, there was little need to encounter the amah. But knowing that this total separation could not continue indefinitely cast a shadow not easily ignored. The closer Li came to her confinement, the more this preyed upon her mind. In avoiding any contact with her, the amah’s malice seemed even more pronounced.

  Life beneath the willows and the cane of Ah-Jeh had not completely left her. Even the thought of Ah-Ho, or the sound of her voice, recalled the threat of the sau-hai. It always began as a small thought, remote until the strident voice of Ah-Ho came clearly from the high-walled courtyard and through the French windows. When Li opened them, the Fish would scold her and close them again, insisting that no breeze must be allowed to chill her.

  The Fish sensed Li’s fear and did everything she could to drive it from her. She believed that evil spirits were responsible for all misfortune and had carefully hidden protective charms throughout the rooms. When the master found one in Li’s pillowcase, a simple slip of peach wood, he was amused at first, and replaced it respectfully.

  But a few days later, when he found a similar slip in his shoe and the bedsheets scattered with dried petals of peach blossom, he became impatient and threw the slip into the garden. He had no use for such superstitions, Ben said firmly. He tore down the paper image of Chang-Tien-Shih, the master of heaven, riding a tiger and brandishing his demon-vanquishing sword, and ripped it into pieces.

  When he also threw out the scrap of raw ginger that hung beside it and smashed the protective mirror placed above the door to drive off the evil ones with their own hideous image, the Fish dropped to her knees to pray. In a loud voice the master threatened that unless this nonsense was stopped she would be sent back to the scullery. It was he and the Western doctor who would see to it that no harm came to Li and her unborn child, not joss sticks and paper gods.

  After he had left, the Fish picked up the pieces of the Chang-Tien-Shih image and burned them with her prayers, begging the eight immortals to spare her mistress from the dangers to come. To both Li-Xia and the Fish, Ben’s actions invited the punishment of angry gods. The women purified the room with incense and prayed for forgiveness. They must be doubly cautious now.

  Ben soon felt guilty for his intolerance, and showed his regret by bringing home a red-painted shrine to replace the paper one he had destroyed. “Forgive me for the fool that I am. There must be no place for anger between us.”

  The Fish had never before seen the image of a god destroyed and flung to the ground to be stepped upon. In her mind it spelled disaster, and all her prayers and offerings could not appease Lei-Kung, the god of thunder.

  CHAPTER 17

  The Ginger Field

  Chinese New Year was little more than a week away. As the household staff prepared for their annual holiday, Li decided that the time had come to approach Ah-Ho. She did not want to begin another year with such an impossible situation, which was not only causing the Fish to sometimes take to her bed, but fraying her own nerves. As there seemed no hope that the head amah would come bearing a peace offering, Li would go to her.

  Steeling her resolve, Li entered the kitchen to ask for peppermint tea to ease her nausea. Ah-Ho appeared instantly at the sound of her voice. Grim-faced, she neither looked at nor spoke to Li, but addressed the most ju nior kitchen maid “Where is old dog bones, that her illustrious mistress should soil her silken slippers on the floor of this humble kitchen?” Suddenly, as surely as pointing a blade, she stared directly at Li. “Tell old dog bones to fetch her tea.”

  Li heard tittering from the scullery and saw the cook smirking over her stove. The mooi-jai stood frozen, looking from one to the other. Li stared back at Ah-Ho, wanting to challenge her but acutely conscious that to do so would end badly. “The old one is resting. Please have hot peppermint tea sent to my sitting room.”

  Ah-Ho let seconds tick by before answering, “I do not believe we have peppermint. I shall send the mooi-jai to buy some. It may take some time.”

  “Then I shall have raspberry,” Li replied instantly.

  Ah-Ho put a finger to her lips in an insolent manner. “Let me see.” She shook her head in mock regret. “I am sorry. Raspberry is never used in this house.”

  “Very well, I shall have ginger tea. Surely you have ginger in your storeroom. If you do not, I shall have to ask your master to review the ordering of such simple supplies.” Li turned and left the kitchen without another word.

  When the tea arrived an hour later, it was stone cold. Li lifted the lid from the cup to find a large cockroach floating beneath it, heavy with the pod of its eggs. Li saw it as the test she had always known would come, a reminder of who she really was. Even Ben’s care, love, and protection, even carrying his child, could not change the truth: She was a farm girl of no breeding who had been denounced as a fiend by her own people. In daring to rise above her station, she had committed the unforgivable sin of challenging and offending those around her.

  The pregnant cockroach, dead in her cup, said all of this. As she
stared at it, the fear and humiliation that had followed her for so long froze to an icy core that left no room for hesitation. She returned to the kitchen. Ah-Ho was seated at her special table with the cracked marble top, a jar of green tea halfway to her lips.

  “There is a cockroach in my tea. I thought of keeping it until the master returns, so that he may see how filthy his new kitchen has become, and how careless those in his service are from their weeks of idleness in Macao. But I think the cockroach found its own way into my cup without your notice. Could this be so?”

  Li’s words met with a silence so hostile that only the hens clucking in the courtyard could be heard. All work in the kitchen had stopped dead. Ah-Ho’s wide white face showed no response. The big kitchen clock ticked away the long seconds, as two red blotches slowly colored Ah-Ho’s cheeks.

  When there was no reply, Li spoke again, her words clear and unhurried. “You will stand on your feet when I am speaking to you.” She waited for an agonizing moment as the spots of color spread, and slowly, her eyes murderous with hate, Ah-Ho rose to her feet. “I will have a tray of hot peppermint tea with two cups brought to my room by your own hands without delay. You may then take away the cockroach, and nothing more will be said about it. I do not wish to trouble the master with such small matters, but there are things that you and I must speak of before he returns.”

  Li turned abruptly and left the kitchen, feeling strangely calm. Within moments Ah-Ho appeared with the tray of tea. Setting it down, she straightened up to confront Li with naked hostility in her eyes.