Yellow Emperor's Cure (9781590208823)

by Basu, Kanal

  He had been called over to the Legation, not to yet another garden party, but to tend to Cedric’s grumbling tummy. It had turned out to be nothing more than a swollen liver, and Antonio had calmed him with cold compresses and a single dose of medicine to ease the flow of bile. With her husband resting, Polly had seized upon Antonio’s company to go shopping, offering to teach him her superior bargaining skills.

  “It’s a pity not to go to the shops.” She scolded Antonio for “hiding like a eunuch in the palace.” Where else would you meet the Chinese? she asked. “You won’t find them among our domestics that we’ve trained to behave like butlers and manor maids. Not their officials either, who’d rather we disappeared like jinn into thin air. Only shopkeepers love us and our purses.”

  “The feeling is mutual, I thought,” Antonio said wryly, watching a hawker wink at him as he held up a jar of ginseng roots and made a rude gesture with his fingers. “The foreigner cares less about China than her products and the Chinese have no option but to put up with us.”

  Polly looked surprised. “You can say so. But it doesn’t have to be that way, does it?” She knitted her brows as if thinking of something important. “What’s the use having us here then, better to station a battalion instead.”

  “Yes, better. Then we don’t have to pretend we’re friends. It’ll save our backs too from their spirit army.”

  Polly leaned over and patted Antonio. “Come, Dr. Maria, you must be more hopeful. Couldn’t we still be friendly with the Chinese, if we try?”

  They had reached the end of a dark lane, and Polly opened an old rusty gate to enter a building that resembled a barrack. Generous layers of moss covered the cracks on the walls, and white linen curtains fluttered from the windows like a row of sails.

  “It’s the best shop in Peking, the most expensive,” Polly whispered, entering the modest gardens that led up to the front entrance.

  “Shop?” Antonio looked around unable to spot a sign or a hawker loudly announcing his wares.

  “This is the Ladies Society’s home for the elderly, the place where they give shelter to those nobody wants.”

  They stepped into a hallway leading to a largish room with many windows that gave Antonio the feeling of being out in the garden. Despite the breeze blowing in, the room was still, set out like a ship’s deck with the Society’s residents sitting on chairs. Each had the appearance of a statue carved out of translucent jade, faces marked with wrinkles; each frozen in their own posture. Eyes followed him as Antonio walked around the chairs, but he didn’t hear a shuffle or a whisper. A pair of hands held up a glass bottle with a dead butterfly inside. He drew in a sharp breath catching sight of a set of stone eyes bent over an abacus. They all seemed alive yet unmoved by his presence, like a forest of ancient trees lit by cones of light from the windows.

  Polly spoke to a young attendant and passed on an envelope to her, receiving a flurry of grateful bows in return.

  They rode back on the sedan, reaching the Hart villa just in time for afternoon tea. Cedric had recovered sufficiently to go out for a game of cards with Monsieur Darmon, and they settled down in the parlor with their favorite padre souchong. Antonio wanted Polly to tell him more about the Ladies Society, when her maid brought in something for her.

  “Ah, a letter from Dr. Alexander Maria to Dr. Antonio Maria!” She exclaimed, then eyed Rosa Escobar’s scrawl on the envelope. “But it isn’t a man’s hand. Maybe he asked a friend to send it over to you?”

  Antonio kept silent with Polly probing away gently between sips of tea. “Perhaps a good friend who takes his letters and … it’s always the same hand on the envelope, isn’t it?”

  “Not a friend, his nurse,” Antonio spoke abruptly.

  “Nurse! Is your father sick? You must be anxious …” She edged closer to him on the sofa. “Shouldn’t you be home looking after him?” Then she relaxed, unable to prise out an answer. “How silly of me. Perhaps your father is simply convalescing, well on his way to recovery.”

  He kept his eyes down and peeled the envelope. His jaws hardened as he read the letter, face turning red. His lips started to quiver.

  “What is it … what’s wrong?”

  … you have left me to die in the company of a whore. He read his father’s letter slowly. She torments me with purges, leeches and enemas, eating me away with her rotten teeth. I am a prisoner in my own house. I shall kill her and kill myself soon. … Bring me a gun when you come Tino.

  “It’s bad news, isn’t it?” Polly touched his face. “Shall I call Cedric back?”

  He passed on the letter to her without a word, and shut his eyes. She read the pages quickly, then hugged Antonio, drawing his head into her arms. “Poor Tino … Your father is sick, very sick. These are not his words. You mustn’t take them to heart.” She stroked his head, and comforted him like a child. “He’ll recover soon, you’ll see.”

  “He’ll never recover. He’ll die before I return.”

  “A bout of delusion won’t kill him surely.” Polly spoke calmly. “Sooner or later he’s bound to return to his senses.”

  “Not delusion.” Antonio spoke between sobs. “It’s syphilis. It has turned him mad.”

  “Syphilis?” Polly sounded stunned. She turned around to take a look at the letter, eyeing it with suspicion. Then her eyes lit up, as if the shroud of a mystery had lifted finally. “That’s why you’ve come here. You’ve come to save your father, haven’t you?” Her face clouded over once again. “But isn’t it too late already?”

  “Too late to save his life, you mean?”

  “Will he last that long, till you’ve found the Chinese cure?”

  “He’ll die before that.” Antonio spoke grimly. “The disease has already spread beyond repair. It has damaged his body and his mind. There’s no hope for him.”

  “Then why …?” Polly fidgeted with her cup, unable to find the parloursing piece of the puzzle. Pouring Antonio some more tea, she tried to comfort him one last time. “Why don’t you ask Rosa to take him to an asylum? Maybe he can find some peace there.”

  Cedric sent word that he’d be late returning from Monsieur Darmon’s, and the domestics set the table for the two of them. Polly had the windows opened to let in the refreshing breeze, making the candles dance over their wicks. Antonio felt relieved at having told Polly about his father. He mustn’t let his letters upset him anymore, he thought; it was only a matter of time before the secret would be out. He wished to return to the Ladies Society, ask Polly if she knew about a certain Miss de Graff. Stirring her soup, his hostess seemed to have no appetite left for dinner, brooding over an unanswered question.

  “Whatever be your reasons to stay back in China, how can you be sure that your teachers are telling you the truth?”

  “Teachers?” He noted the plural.

  “The Horseman and his young assistant.” Polly spoke with a straight face. “What if they are simply leading you on?”

  “What would they gain from a Portuguese doctor?”

  “One never knows with the Chinese, the games they play with foreigners, blowing hot and cold all the time. Maybe they’re holding you hostage to use as a pawn.”

  “Tell me about the Horseman. Is he really what gossip makes him out to be?”

  Polly shook her head. “There isn’t much that’s known about him. The American doctors thought him strange. They knew he was keeping an eye on them. He’s the dowager’s confidant. There are rumors about him doing her dirty work. He’s known for his sudden disappearing tricks, and skill in turning boys into eunuchs.” Polly grinned. “if you can call that a skill!” She stopped to gather her thoughts then stared into her soup. “I’d worry more about his assistant, if I were you?”

  “Fumi, you mean?” Did Polly know about him and Fumi, he wondered.

  “She’s not unknown to the Legation. But we know nothing about her doctoring and teaching, how she became what she is now from what she was. How did she manage to find her way into the palace? There ar
e those who think she’s the real master and Xu her assistant.

  Does she know that the young assistant has become my lover …?

  “You’re wondering about all this gossip, aren’t you?” Polly smirked. “Wherever there’s life, there’ll be gossip!”

  He woke early and heard the attendants sweeping the courtyard and talking rapidly. Tian came to his door and asked Antonio to excuse the two of them for the day. They’d be off to celebrate the Qixi festival that fell on the seventh day of the seventh lunar moon on the Chinese calendar.

  “It’s the festival of love.” Tian smiled impishly. They’d be off to watch newly married couples sing songs and make offerings to the gods.

  “The festival of domestic skills,” Wangsheng corrected him. “Skills to find a suitable match and keep the marriage happy.” The kitchen would serve him his meals while they were away, he assured Antonio, pointing to a row of bowls.

  When he was alone, he thought about Polly’s words. I’d worry more about his assistant. … It was true that he knew nothing about Fumi beyond what she’d told him. She’s spoken about Jacob but not Xu. He knew how the abandoned wife had ended up at the Dutchman’s printing press, but who had brought her to the palace? He was surprised that not even Polly had answers to her questions about Fumi.

  He’d need her to prepare him for the hospital visit, Antonio thought. Maybe she could come along with him and observe the treatment herself, prompt him even to ask Xu the hard questions. When she came to the pavilion in the afternoon to share his early rice, Antonio passed her a drawing of a syphilitic man, his face covered in spots.

  “What do you know about Canton rash, even though you might not know how to cure it?” He asked Fumi.

  She looked a bit surprised. “It’s the plague, Jacob said, that afflicts sinners.”

  “Sinners?”

  “Yes. Soldiers, sailors, fallen men and women. They deserve their punishment, he told me, but their suffering is hard to watch.”

  “So why didn’t you learn to cure their suffering?”

  “Because …” Fumi seemed taken aback by the question, searching for an answer. “Our Nei ching describes ten thousand diseases and their cures. A Chinese doctor doesn’t know all ten thousand, but only those that he treats frequently.” Working at the palace she had no reason to worry about Canton rash, she said, no reason to ask Xu to teach her the treatment.

  “Xu?” Antonio feigned surprise. “Who’s Xu? You haven’t told me anything about him yet.”

  She smiled. “You’re angry with him, aren’t you, for making you wait?” She passed the drawing back to him. “You must learn everything. You can’t become a Chinese doctor who knows how to cure just a single disease, even if it’s something as terrible as Canton rash.”

  “Does he himself know how to?” Antonio pushed his plate away and spoke bitterly. “How can I trust him when you’ve told me nothing? How did you meet him? Was it he who taught you and made you his assistant? Did he bring you to the palace?”

  She stopped eating and knitted her brows. “And how will the answers to your questions help you learn the canons?” Finished with her meal, she crossed over to the kitchen, speaking loudly as if she was scolding Antonio. “Your friends must be spreading lies about him.”

  He came up to the kitchen and faced her across the brick oven. “Tell me, what does he actually do for the empress? He can’t be her personal physician if he disappears so frequently, can he?” He waited for Fumi to answer, then brought his mouth close to her ear: “Let me help you remember. He’s a eunuch maker, that much we know, maiming little boys and ruining their lives forever. And a baby killer. What else?”

  She made no effort to move away, set her plate down and spoke in an even voice, “He’s a Nei ching master who follows the empress’s orders, nothing more nothing less.”

  “A doctor following orders to kill?” He mocked her.

  “Why not!” she shot back. “Better than some of your friends who kill for profit.” She stared hard at him, then stepped out into the courtyard to pick up her wicker hat and walked out through the open gate, leaving him alone inside the kitchen humming with flies.

  Antonio fretted in his lodge after Fumi had left. She doesn’t want to talk about Xu, or tell me about her past beyond Jacob. He wondered why. Who was she protecting, Xu or herself? Why didn’t she answer his questions? Why hadn’t she pressed Xu to take him to a hospital, even after he had confided in her about his dying father?

  As the evening progressed, he began to feel bitter about having quarrelled with Fumi on the festival of love. It was wrong of him to have hurt her, and insulted Xu. Polly would’ve reproved him for his bluntness. There were better, sweeter ways of finding out the truth, she’d have said. He regretted losing his chance to tell Fumi about the Ladies Society, and ask her about the elderly residents. The late rice tasted stale, and he retired early with a bottle of plum wine, hoping to make up with Fumi when he saw her next.

  The sound of laughter woke Antonio, and he thought he was dreaming of a garden party. Loud shrieks and the patter of running feet made it seem as if a game was being played outside. Tumbling out of bed, he peered out of the rice paper panes. Tian and Wangsheng were running around the courtyard, plucking plums from the fruit tree and throwing them at each other. Both were bare-chested, with Tian wearing a pig mask and squealing like one as he chased his uncle. They looked drunk, swaying on their feet and making gurgling noises that made Antonio laugh.

  Wangsheng came up to the lodge’s door and knelt before Antonio, carrying Tian on his shoulders. Both at once started to tell him about the festival, jumbling up their words and making fun of each other. There had been a contest at the end of the evening, Tian said, to test which among the young unmarried girls would make the best wife. “The best cook, the best singer, the best gardener, best everything.” They were told to float their sewing needles on a bowl of water. A floating needle would mark the one who’d make a skilled seamstress.

  “Every girl tried and every one of them lost, their needles sinking as soon as they were dropped into water,” Wangsheng announced gravely. The contest was then opened to the public. “Even eunuchs were allowed to join, with the winner rewarded with a pig mask.” Tian held aloft his needle proudly and danced around Wangsheng.

  “Your needle won?” Antonio asked, unable to hide his surprise. Wangsheng nodded and patted his nephew on the back. “He knew about the contest and had kept his needle ready.” He made Tian show Antonio the winning item – a twig from the plum tree, polished to resemble a needle.

  Maybe his mother was right after all – about her gifted son, turned out later to be a gifted eunuch!

  “You’re lucky there weren’t any Boxers at the festival, otherwise they’d have sunk you both in a boiling pot!” It was well known that the spirit soldiers despised eunuchs for being cowards, hiding inside palaces and doing the work of women. But the talk of Boxers failed to dampen the spirits of a usually nervous Wangsheng.

  “If the Boxers come we’ll be prepared,” he said, flexing his muscles.

  “Prepared to fight them?” Antonio looked on amused.

  “No, to become Boxers ourselves.” Wangsheng said proudly.

  “But …” Antonio hesitated before blurting out, “I thought they hated men who’re incomplete, those who’ve had their …”

  “We won’t be incomplete when we join them,” Wangsheng interrupted him. He made a private sign to his nephew, the two ran back to the kitchen and emerged moments later, each carrying a clear glass jar which they brought over to Antonio. Wangsheng nudged him to take a look at them, “When Boxers see us with these, they’ll know we are complete like any other man.”

  Antonio gazed in wonder into the jars, each holding a severed male member. He remembered Polly telling him about the precious part that every eunuch guarded zealously and took to his grave in order to become a “whole man” in his next life.

  “It’s better to live among rebels than to die with the dow
ager.” Wangsheng clapped his hands, urging Tian to join him as he leaped in the air like a flying Boxer, landing on the ground with a thud, crushing a pile of fruits underneath him.

  His mood lifted after his eunuch friends had left, and it was too late to fall back to sleep. Despite arguing with Xu and Fumi, he was comforted by the thought of the hospital visit, longing to become a doctor again. He could see himself at a patient’s bedside, checking pulse and examining the symptoms, just as his teacher had taught him to do. His thoughts strayed, and he remembered the troubled face of Rosa Escobar nursing his father. She has suffered the most. … He must bring Rosa back to Lisbon after his father’s death, he resolved, have her look after his children after they were born.

  Sipping plum wine, he began composing a letter to Ricardo Silva then changed his mind and started one instead for Arees. She had wished him a speedy return after his “adventure.” The adventure was about to begin, he wrote … to solve the mystery of Morbus Gallicus.

  Wangsheng woke him. He looked frightened. A message had come from Joachim Saldanha, urging Antonio to come at once to Fengtai’s Marco Polo Bridge, where he had been injured in an accident.

  Splashing water on his face, he jumped onto his sedan chair and rushed to Peking’s railway terminus. Fengtai was only an hour’s ride away and he thanked the Belgian engineers for opening the line in such a short time, as it would’ve taken him at least half a day on a mule cart to reach the Marco Polo Bridge. Chris Campbell, the young Times correspondent, met him at Fengtai’s station, standing all of six feet and six inches, visibly shaken. Antonio remembered meeting him at Polly’s, among the big, blond and bearlike rugby boys. He hurried Antonio off the coach and into a covered mule cart.