The Cloud Leopard's Daughter

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘You are just in time,’ Chi said in Cantonese.

  ‘What for?’ Kan asked, turning his head though his gaze remained on Ka.

  Bao felt very pleased with herself.

  ‘To meet Miss Chan Ka Yee, who will be starting work with us tomorrow. It is rude to stare, son. Say hello.’

  ‘Pardon me. I am pleased to meet you, Miss Chan.’ The colour of Kan’s face now matched Ka’s.

  ‘And I you, Mr Lau,’ Ka replied in a voice hoarse with embarrassment.

  ‘Do you have lodgings, Miss Chan?’ Lok asked.

  ‘Not yet, Mrs Lau,’ Ka said, ‘but I am sure I will find something.’

  Shut up, Bao thought frantically.

  ‘Nonsense. You will stay with us. We have the room and I do not mind cooking for one more. You will earn more in a day working here than one English lesson’s worth of pay. Your board should be included at the very least.’

  Ka bowed deeply. ‘Thank you very much, Mr and Mrs Lau. I am honoured and very much in your debt. I have a few things I need to collect and then I will return.’

  ‘You are welcome, Miss Chan,’ Chi said. ‘We look forward to having you.’

  On the street, Bao said, ‘See? I told you that he is a very kind man.’

  ‘I liked his wife, too.’

  ‘And his son?’ Bao prompted.

  Ka blushed again, then her expression grew pensive. ‘What will happen to Wing? I feel as though I cannot just leave her.’

  ‘Do not worry about Wing. I have just the job for her.’

  *

  Kai was reading a letter and scowling ferociously when So-Yee ushered Bao into his office. Before the door had even closed behind her he shook the pages at her and exclaimed, ‘You are responsible for this.’

  Bao took a seat and waited for the tirade of bad-tempered accusations, refusals and denials she knew were coming. She knew him well and was familiar with the format of his tantrums.

  ‘This,’ he hissed, ‘is a letter from Yip Chun Kit. It arrived this morning. He is demanding compensation. Compensation!’

  ‘What for?’ Bao asked, though she knew.

  ‘What for? Breach of contract on my behalf, that is what for, because you absconded from Hong Kong and his marriage to you failed to take place.’

  ‘He did not love me, and I certainly did not love him.’

  ‘Do not be so childish. What does that have to do with anything? He was to receive a significant payment from me as your dowry and now he wants twice that amount in compensation.’

  ‘How much were you going to pay him to marry me?’ Bao asked, curious.

  ‘None of your business. You are worth what I say you are worth.’

  ‘I am very fond of you, too, Uncle.’

  ‘What?’

  Bao shook her head. No, he would never change.

  Kai tossed the letter onto his desk. ‘He is also demanding compensation for the loss of his favourite concubine and,’ he leant over the letter to check that he’d read it correctly, ‘one female servant. He claims that they were involved in your escape. Is that true?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Why would they choose to help you? Did you coerce them?’

  Now was the time to start weaving the magic. ‘You have not met Chun. I meant what I said yesterday when I stated that he is neither kind nor handsome. Nevertheless, Lai Wing Yan, the favourite concubine referred to in that letter, loved him, but she carried a heavy burden: she wished to become his wife. And she deserved to be as she is stunningly beautiful, very dainty and refined and with the most charming manners. It is true that in turn Chun adored her, as I suspect most men would, but his sole wife is a termagant who would not allow him to take another.’ Not, of course, quite true, but Kai wasn’t to know that.

  ‘And he lets his wife dictate his personal life?’ Kai was astonished.

  ‘She tried to. She loathed me and did her best to have me sent away. Wing also wanted me gone so she could marry Chun, so she helped me to escape. Her motivations for helping me were, I believe, pure love for, and loyalty to, Chun, even if that loyalty was a little misplaced. She is a very loyal woman. But he turned on her when he discovered that she was involved with my escape, and she and her servant were forced to run for their lives. Wing was utterly heartbroken.’

  ‘How do you know all this if you had already escaped yourself?’

  ‘Because before I left I offered them sanctuary aboard Captain Farrell’s ship, which I knew was berthed at the Victoria wharves, should they need it. And, as it happened, they did.’

  ‘So where is this Lai Wing Yan now?’

  ‘Oh, here in Sydney,’ Bao said casually. ‘So you can see why Chun is demanding compensation for breach of contract and loss of his concubine. Beneath his anger he is probably heartbroken himself at losing her.’

  ‘Well, I am not paying him compensation for either, or for his servant. I am not responsible for you running off, especially when members of his own household assisted you.’

  ‘And especially when you have not lost out, have you?’ Bao said. ‘You have what you wanted now anyway.’ She decided to give Kai a fright. ‘Have members of the Yip tong travelled as far as Sydney? I know they were in Ballarat when we were there nine or ten years back.’

  Kai glared at her. ‘Yes, they are here.’

  ‘Then perhaps you had better pay Chun something.’

  ‘Bah!’ Kai swept the letter off his desk with a wild swipe of his hand.

  ‘And speaking of payments, may I please have the receipts we spoke of yesterday?’

  Kai found them and gave them to her.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Kai stood, tugged at the hem of his waistcoat and went to his window. Over his shoulder he said, ‘If I am to pay Chun compensation for this concubine of his I want to meet her. Can you arrange that?’

  Bao smiled to herself.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Katipo arrived at Dunedin on the thirteenth of December and nosed into a berth at the wharf. There was no time to waste so Rian bought tickets for the overnight Cobb and Co to Lawrence, pleased to discover that once again Ned Devine would be their driver. Everyone wanted to make the trip. No one said it aloud but they all knew it would be the last time they’d see Wong Fu alive, and they wanted to say goodbye. Rian understood this and, out of respect for Fu, paid a couple of reasonably trustworthy-looking men to guard the Katipo until they returned.

  They set off at six in the evening, seven of them wedged inside the coach, Haunui and Tahi on the driver’s seat with Ned, and Gideon, Ropata and Hawk balanced on the roof. Five miles out of Dunedin, Ned stopped and Tahi changed places with Gideon, as the black man’s enormous bulk jolting about was affecting the coach’s progression. Gideon happily obliged, his face sheened with terrified sweat.

  ‘It is worse than being in the crow’s nest in a hurricane,’ he confided to Haunui.

  They arrived at Lawrence a little before eight o’clock the next morning, sore, tired, grumpy and hungry, but rather than stopping for breakfast they hired a cart and went straight on to the Chinese Camp.

  At least this time the weather was far more pleasant than it had been during their last visit. The snow had receded to the mountain ranges to the west, the hills were green with summer grasses, and the morning air was still and warm.

  ‘Ow,’ Kitty said, slapping at an enormous mosquito.

  No one came to meet them at the entrance to the camp.

  Bao had already noticed this, and the empty streets, and the eerie silence that draped over the little settlement like a fine silk veil. The ember of dread she’d harboured for so long in her belly flickered into a flame. Were they too late?

  She walked under the archway at the entrance to the camp, then broke into a run. She pelted down the street until she came to the small house she shared with her father, her feet kicking up small puffs of dust. Not stopping to knock, she pushed open the door and burst in.

  Her father lay on his bed as still as stone,
surrounded by six of the camp’s elders, their heads bowed. She was too late.

  Stifling a sob, she walked to the bed on legs she could no longer feel and gazed down. His hair had turned completely white, his face had wasted to the point where his cheekbones jutted like knife edges, and his closed eyelids were tissue thin.

  ‘Oh, my beautiful father.’

  Tam Chong Ho took her shaking hand. ‘Bao,’ he said in Cantonese, ‘you are just in time. He does not have long.’

  ‘He is alive?’

  Wong Fu’s eyes slowly opened. ‘Bao, my child. Is that you?’

  His voice was feeble, and Bao could barely hear him. She collapsed onto her knees and lay her head on his bony chest, tears coursing down her face.

  ‘He cannot see you,’ Chong said. ‘He has lost his sight.’

  ‘Yes, it is me, Father,’ she said in a shaky voice into the sheet drawn up to her father’s chin. ‘I have come home.’

  ‘You are well?’

  ‘Yes, I am very well.’

  Bao felt her father’s bird-like hand pat her head as he said, ‘That is good.’

  She knew that would be enough. She wouldn’t have to tell him the long story of her abduction at the hands of Lo Fang, her incarceration in Chun’s house and how Wing helped her escape, and everything else that had happened. He understood that she was back, that she was fit and healthy, and that was enough.

  ‘Father, there are some people who would like to see you. To say goodbye.’

  ‘Rian?’

  ‘Yes, and the crew.’

  ‘I do not think that is wise,’ Chong said. ‘They will tire him.’

  Bao shot him a sharp look: meddling old devil – Rian and the crew were his friends.

  ‘Do not fuss, Chong,’ Fu said. ‘I will see them.’

  So out trooped the elders and in came the crew of the Katipo, but two at a time, hats in hand. Kitty and Rian went first, followed by Amber and Tahi, then Pierre and Simon. Pierre wept copiously and emerged with a damp moustache, and by the time they’d all spent a few precious minutes with Fu, they all felt morose. Chong took them off for a meal in the camp’s dining room, though Bao refused food and settled in beside her father. Tsun Hin, the camp’s resident herbalist and physician, told her that he expected Fu to pass at any time, and that in fact he’d lived longer than the course of his disease had led everyone to predict.

  ‘Now that you have come,’ he warned, ‘he may go very quickly.’

  ‘Is he in pain?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, but the opium helps.’

  ‘May I have some time with him in private?’

  ‘Of course,’ Tsun Hin said, and left quietly.

  The room was almost silent now. Her father’s breathing was laboured and tiny beads of sweat stood out on his brow.

  ‘Are you too hot?’ she asked.

  ‘No. I am cold.’

  She unfolded a blanket and laid it over him, tucking the sides beneath the thin mattress.

  Time passed. She watched, waited and listened.

  ‘Are you ready, my child?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘Yes.’ And she was, though not for what he imagined. She felt immeasurably sad at the thought of letting him down.

  More silence. Then: ‘Do you want the responsibility?’

  ‘No, I do not. Did you?’

  ‘No. Sometimes I wish you had been born a boy. Life might have been easier for you. But you have been the best daughter a father could have wanted, Bao.’

  She found his hand and squeezed it. ‘And you have been the best father.’

  Fu sighed, a long, stoical letting go of breath. ‘You may choose not to take on the office of Cloud Leopard, Bao. There is always a choice. You must do as your heart desires.’

  Relief washed across Bao like a tidal wave. Nevertheless a great pain swelled in her chest and she lay her cheek against her father’s hand.

  ‘The world is changing,’ Fu said. ‘The family may want someone like Kai at its head. I have been accused of being old-fashioned.’ A pause while he caught his breath. ‘Perhaps I am. Perhaps my time has passed.’

  Bao knew he was talking about more than just his physical life: he was referring to the traditional lifestyles and culture of China. ‘Father, no.’

  ‘Everything must change, child. Nothing stays the same. In any case, you must choose.’

  *

  Fu died the following morning at five minutes past three o’clock, having slipped gently into a coma the evening before. The grief throughout the camp was muted as his death was expected, but it was genuine, even among those who no longer supported him as head of the Wong family. As the camp organised his funeral, his body lay in state until the afternoon to allow mourners to pay their respects, then he was taken by cart into Lawrence to be prepared for burial by one of the few Chinese businessmen there, the undertaker Kwan Siu Hong. The funeral would be held the following day and Fu buried in the Lawrence cemetery – in the non-consecrated section for heathens, suicides and unbaptised babies – and there was much to do.

  The camp butcher had slaughtered and dressed two pigs and purchased and wrung the necks of three dozen chickens and one and a half dozen ducks; the camp vegetable garden was denuded of produce and a party was sent into Lawrence to buy extra supplies of rice, eggs, cooking oil and spices, and to exchange pound notes for silver coin; and the shelves of the camp’s general grocer were raided of spirits for the mourners and for the funeral rituals, and of candles, writing pads (with which to make imitation paper money) and playing cards (to suppress evil spirits). Some preparations had already been made in advance, however: a coffin had been ordered weeks earlier and a new suit of white burial clothes had been made for Fu.

  Every member of the camp was busy doing something, so when Bao slipped off into Lawrence for an hour to visit Mr Kwan after dark, no one even noticed.

  Very late that night Fu’s body was brought back to the camp, on the same cart but in a solid rimu coffin. He was carried into his little house and the coffin placed on a stand, which creaked under its weight. Bao refused to allow the lid to be opened as she no longer wished to see her father’s body in death, despite the appropriate cloths draped over him, and no one complained. A white sheet was hung over the door, candles and incense were lit, and Bao began a vigil so that her father would not be alone during his final night. Mourners drifted in and out to make their last visits, but by two o’clock in the morning, and for the last time, Bao finally had her father to herself.

  *

  The next morning, at exactly ten o’clock, Wong Fu began his penultimate journey. If the family could afford the expense, after seven years or perhaps even sooner, his body would be exhumed and sent back to lie for eternity in the soil of his beloved village in China, but for now a New Zealand resting place would have to do. The procession from the Chinese Camp to the cemetery was long as, together with the Chinese and everyone from the Kapito, about fifty of Lawrence’s European inhabitants also attended. These people were mostly shopkeepers and miners, and women who’d bought vegetables from the camp garden, all of whom had met Fu and liked him, plus a few who were merely attracted by the spectacle.

  Fu was transported on the cart near the front of the procession, Bao sitting on the seat beside the driver. She wore white, while others wore a strip of white cloth around their hats. Ahead of the cart walked an elder, tossing small pieces of imitation money. At the cemetery, before Fu’s coffin was lowered into the ground, the white hatbands were removed, collected in a pile at the foot of the grave and set alight. Apples and biscuits were handed around to the mourners, then wine and spirits from tiny cups were poured onto the ground three times. At last the coffin was lowered.

  ‘Goodbye, father,’ Bao murmured.

  ‘Be strong,’ Kitty said.

  ‘I will. Thank you.’

  ‘I can’t believe he’s not allowed to be buried in the consecrated section,’ Kitty then said, loud enough for the Lawrence contingent to hear.

  �
�Father will not mind,’ Bao replied.

  At the cemetery gate every mourner was given a little paper packet containing a one-shilling coin, even the white people. Bao thought her father would approve.

  *

  That night, Bao formally advised Tam Chong Ho that she didn’t wish to be the next Cloud Leopard. He was not displeased.

  ‘I think you have made a wise choice, my dear. Your father was a very good tong master in his time, and he has trained you in accordance with his values and beliefs, but that time has passed. It is time for change.’

  ‘So you have been one of those undermining my father and lobbying for Kai to take over?’

  ‘I would not say that, but I believe I have the family’s best interests at heart.’

  ‘The family’s, or your pocket’s?’

  ‘There is no need to behave in a churlish manner, Bao. We must all stand aside for change.’

  ‘Then why not you? You must be at least fifty-five by now. Why are you still on the tong committee?’

  Chong’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am repeatedly voted on by the men here in the camp.’

  ‘After you have bribed them. With their own money.’

  Sighing, Chong sat back. ‘Why do you care, Bao? You just said yourself you do not wish to be Cloud Leopard.’

  ‘I have said that, and I mean it, but I do care about the family. What does it matter who sits at the head of the table as long as we prosper and work together cohesively and happily, and everyone receives their share? Kai can take my place, if it means an end to all this disharmony.’

  ‘It is what the people want.’

  ‘A greedy and manipulative tong master?’

  ‘A tong master who can use our money to its greatest potential.’

  Bao stared at him. ‘Well, then they will get what they deserve.’

  ‘You have definitely made up your mind?’

  ‘I have.’

  Chong slid a document across the table towards her. ‘Sign this.’

  Bao took up a pen, dipped it into the ink pot and wrote her name and then the date across the bottom.

  ‘Thank you,’ Chong said.

  *

  The next morning Bao stood with the others outside the Oasis Hotel, waiting for the Cobb and Co driver (who wasn’t Ned Devine this time) to finish loading luggage onto the coach.