China

by Edward Rutherfurd

  She was doubly lucky, because the woman who came from the local town to supervise the procedure was well known throughout the area for her skill. People called her the Binder. “She has bound feet in some of the finest houses in the region,” Mother told them all. “It’s got to be done right, no matter what it costs.”

  A propitious date was carefully chosen: the twenty-fourth day of the eighth moon. But before that, there was much to be done. Weeks ago, Mei-Ling had made a journey to the town with a pair of tiny silk-and-cotton shoes that she had made, hardly two inches tall, but embroidered with a prayer, and placed them on the incense burner in the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy’s temple.

  On that journey she had also bought some of the items that would be needed in the months and years ahead: dozens of rolls of narrow binding cloth, a small bamboo receptacle for fuming the cloth to make it smell sweet, and several kinds of foot powder. Mother had supplied the money for all this, though Mei-Ling wondered where the money had come from. But when she asked, Mother told her. “I managed to collect some of the rents, but I didn’t tell you. I’ve been saving for years.”

  Together she and Mother tried to make a pair of quilted cotton shoes that the child could wear when her feet were initially bound. “I hope we got it right,” said Mother. And the day before the Binder was due, they prepared the kitchen so that they could make balls of sticky rice and red beans. But in spite of all these preparations, Mei-Ling noticed that Mother was quite nervous and ill at ease on the morning the Binder arrived.

  Not that the Binder was so impressive to look at. She was just a peasant woman, aged about fifty, quite short and simply dressed. But her feet were bound, and her face, thanks to the application of lotions, was smooth. Mei-Ling thought that the Binder’s eyes were sharp, like a market woman who knows the price of everything.

  “You must not think that we are unfamiliar with binding feet,” Mother told her. “My elder son’s wife had bound feet, but sadly she has died.”

  “I see you have a big house,” the Binder replied. “Your daughters have no need to work.” She glanced at Mother’s feet.

  “My sister’s feet were bound, and my parents could well afford to bind mine, but for some reason they didn’t,” Mother explained. Mei-Ling had never heard Mother say this before. Then the Binder looked at her feet. “Her parents were poor,” said Mother apologetically.

  “I have known even the poorest parents who borrow money to bind the feet of their eldest daughter,” said the Binder, “especially if she is beautiful. But it can be hard for them, because such girls are supposed to come to their husbands with at least four pairs of silk shoes, one for each season, and often a dozen or more.”

  “The child will have all the shoes she needs,” Mother assured her.

  “She is fortunate then,” said the Binder. “May I see her?”

  “Of course,” cried Mother. “Of course. I’ll fetch her.”

  While Mother was gone, Mei-Ling asked the Binder, “Does it hurt a lot?”

  “There is pain. But it’s worth the result.”

  “Is it true you break the bones in the foot?”

  “Only the toes. The tiny bones in the toes will snap as they are folded under the foot. But they’re so small and soft at that age that it doesn’t hurt much. Hardly counts as a break, really. The rest of the bones are forced to grow a certain way, but we don’t break them.” She paused for a moment. “Have you ever seen the miniature trees that rich people have in their houses? They call them penzai trees. It’s just the same idea. They bind the baby tree with ropes to keep it small. All the energy of the tree, its inner essence, goes into miniature form. The skill of the binder and the force of nature pushing against each other. That’s what we do when we bind a girl’s foot. We make a lily foot. A work of art. They are so beautiful, and when the girl wears her embroidered slippers, people call them golden lotus feet.”

  “I see,” said Mei-Ling unhappily.

  Then Mother came back with the child.

  * * *

  —

  Mei-Ling did not know what reaction she’d expected when the Binder saw Bright Moon. She’d supposed the Binder would say something. But the Binder didn’t say a word. She just stared. Then she walked slowly around the little girl, peered closely at the skin on her neck, stood back, gazed at Bright Moon’s eyes, looked for a chair, and sat down. “I shall need to stay here some time,” she announced. “Maybe a month.”

  “A month?” Mother looked alarmed. What would that cost?

  “A month,” said the Binder firmly. “My fee remains the same, but you’ll have to feed me.”

  “Of course,” said Mother. “Of course.”

  The Binder gazed at Bright Moon. “A work of art,” she murmured. She wasn’t talking to them. She was talking to herself.

  * * *

  —

  When she was ready to begin, the Binder asked the men in the house to go out until the evening. “This is women’s work,” she explained. “No men in the house.”

  Then she instructed Mei-Ling and Mother to prepare a small tub of warm water in the kitchen, and made the little girl sit on a stool with her feet in the water.

  “Do I have to stay here for long?” the little girl asked.

  “We’ll keep the water nice and warm,” the Binder reassured her.

  “What happens next?”

  “I trim your toenails.”

  “Does that hurt?”

  “Of course not. You’ve had your nails cut lots of times. Did it ever hurt?”

  “No.”

  “There you are, then.”

  Bright Moon looked at the two older women doubtfully, then at her mother.

  “That won’t hurt,” said Mei-Ling, and smiled. At least it was true, so far.

  “You’ll have such pretty feet when it’s all done,” said Mother.

  “So tell me,” said the Binder, “what sort of little girl are you, besides being beautiful? Are you a good girl? Do you try to please your family as you should?”

  Bright Moon nodded cautiously.

  “She’s a very sweet-natured child,” said Mei-Ling. “Though she has a mind of her own. She learned that from you,” she remarked to Mother.

  “That could be,” said Mother, looking quite pleased.

  “You are seven years old now,” the Binder told the little girl. “You know what that means, don’t you? It means you become a woman. Not in your body, not yet, but in your mind. You are old enough to understand the things that belong to women. Your hair will be tied in tufts on your head so that everyone will know that you have completed the first seven-year cycle of your life. They will treat you as a responsible person. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” said Bright Moon. She didn’t sound very happy about it.

  “We women grow up faster than boys. That is why a boy’s second cycle of life doesn’t begin until he’s eight. Once you’re thirteen, if you’re going to be a young lady, you’ll have to remain in the house all the time and never be seen by any man outside the family, not even your neighbors. Because you’ll be considered a bride by then. And by the time you complete your second cycle, you’ll be two years more advanced in your understanding than a boy of your age. Did you know that?”

  Bright Moon shook her head.

  “Well, it’s so,” said the Binder. “The men grow wiser than we are only when they’re older, which is why we obey them.”

  Mei-Ling glanced at Mother, whose face suggested that this last wisdom might be open to doubt, though of course she didn’t say so.

  * * *

  —

  After half an hour the Binder took a pair of scissors and carefully trimmed Bright Moon’s toenails as short as possible, inspecting each toe and the underside of her feet carefully as she did so. Then she put fresh hot water in the tub. “You’ll have to wait an hour or tw
o,” she said, “to make your feet as soft as can be.”

  So to pass the time, she told her the story of Yexian, the good little peasant girl with a cruel stepmother. Yexian was befriended by a magic fish who provided all the clothes she’d need to go to a party with the king. And how she lost her dainty slipper, and the king searched all over the land to find the owner and found Yexian and married her.

  * * *

  —

  “You see,” said the Binder after she’d finished her story, “it was Yexian’s beauty and tiny feet that the king liked so much. And that is why all the pretty girls in China bind their feet. Because the fine husbands want wives with lily feet.”

  “Maybe you could marry a prince,” Mother chimed in. “Or a great official or a rich man.”

  “You’re just as pretty as they are,” the Binder explained. “But without tiny feet as well, nobody will look at you.” She smiled. “And I’m like the magic fish, to make it all possible.”

  “Couldn’t I have a plain husband, like Father?” the little girl asked.

  “Your father married me despite my feet,” said Mei-Ling, with a glance at Mother, “but you might not be so lucky.”

  “You can help your father and all your family by marrying a rich man,” said Mother. “Then he wouldn’t have to go away to work.”

  “Really?” asked Bright Moon.

  “Yes,” said Mother quickly. “You’re doing it for him and all your family. Then he will come back and say you were a dutiful daughter who loved him.”

  “Oh,” said Bright Moon.

  “And you will have a rich husband who loves you, and beautiful clothes, and all your family will be grateful.”

  “Is it so good to be rich?” the little girl asked Mei-Ling.

  “It is not good to be poor,” Mother answered for her.

  Then they put some more hot water in the tub, and the Binder massaged the little girl’s feet for a while. Bright Moon was sleepy, so Mother sat beside her and let the girl’s head rest on her, and Bright Moon slept for another hour while her feet continued to soften in the tub.

  “She’s the most beautiful child I have ever seen,” the Binder told Mei-Ling, as they drank tea together. “That’s why I’m staying for so long. I want to give her special care. She was born in the Year of the Horse, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes,” said Mei-Ling.

  “They are always the most beautiful ones. But she is truly exceptional. You will do very well with her. And she’ll be a credit to me, too, I don’t mind saying.”

  * * *

  —

  When the Binder began that afternoon, she first put a powder on the little girl’s feet to protect against infection. Then she took a long strip of binding cloth that had been soaked in water, and leaving the big toe free, she wrapped it around the four small toes of Bright Moon’s left foot, folding them carefully under the pad. When she was satisfied that they were correctly and neatly in place, she pulled the cloth tighter, quickly wrapped it around the sole of the girl’s foot, and gave it a sharp tug. Bright Moon uttered a little cry, but the Binder said soothingly, “That’s all right. That’s all right.”

  Then she drew the binding cloth around the big toe again, and then right around the little girl’s instep, then back around the ankle, then around the back of the heel, then to the front of the foot, under the instep, and around the heel again—embalming the foot, as it were. Then she pulled harder and harder until the little girl screamed. “That’s all right,” said the Binder, and wrapped the cloth around her ankle and tied it off.

  Then she did the same thing with the right foot.

  “Rest now, my little princess,” she said.

  So they took Bright Moon and let her rest on her bed, and Mei-Ling remained with her while Mother and the Binder sat down together in the yard in the autumn sun.

  * * *

  —

  They had been chatting for a while when Mei-Ling came out and said the girl was crying. “It’s the bandages,” said the Binder. “I put them on wet. As they dry, they get tighter.”

  “I think her toe bones may have broken,” said Mei-Ling.

  “That could be,” said the Binder.

  So they all went in to look at Bright Moon, and the Binder felt her feet and Bright Moon cried out.

  “Don’t worry, my sweet,” said the Binder. “There’s pain in everything that’s good.” She smiled. “One day you’ll have a baby, and that pain will be greater than this, but we all go through it. And we do it gladly.” She turned to Mother. “That’s our lot, being a woman, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” Mother agreed.

  “I’ll unwrap the bandages in the morning,” the Binder said. “Then we’ll see. Everything’s as it should be,” she assured them.

  “One thing I forgot to ask,” Mother said to the Binder when the two of them were outside again. “Is it true that sometimes the toes develop gangrene and drop off?”

  “It is true,” said the Binder. “And some people think that is better, because then the foot will be even smaller. But often those girls get infected and die. So I don’t let that happen. Not a single girl whose feet I have bound has died. Not even one.”

  “That is good.” Mother nodded. “That is good.”

  * * *

  —

  “Will the pain be over soon?” Mei-Ling asked as the three women ate together in the early evening. As her mouth was full of rice and beans, their visitor couldn’t answer, but Mother did. She was glad to show that she knew about these things.

  “You must be patient,” Mother said. “You don’t only bind the toes. You have to rotate the heel bone until the back of the heel is flat on the ground. That’s a much bigger task. Takes longer.”

  “So the whole foot gets completely distorted by the binding.”

  “Of course. The foot gets squeezed heel to toe, breaking the arch under the foot until it’s like a little hoof. That takes two or three years.” Mother turned to the Binder. “Am I right?”

  “It’s not only the bandages that do it,” the Binder answered. “Tomorrow I’ll show you how to make training shoes. It’s a bit like our flat platform shoes—which raise the foot above the mud—except that the platform is only under the heel. So the girls get used to walking with their feet pointing down into their toes. High heels are very helpful in crushing the toes and in breaking down the arch of the foot.”

  “And the pain continues all those years?”

  Mother looked at the Binder.

  “Maybe not all the time,” said the Binder.

  “My poor little girl,” moaned Mei-Ling.

  “Don’t encourage her to complain,” said Mother. “You’ll only make it worse.”

  * * *

  —

  The two men returned at dusk. They were hungry. Mei-Ling could see that her brother-in-law had drunk a little wine in the village. Not too much, but enough to give him a slightly absent air.

  Had her son also been drinking? Hardly at all. He never did. He smiled at them all in his usual quiet way. He looked so exactly like his father at the same age. Kind, even-tempered, thinking of others. But there was something else, a tension in him, that he hid.

  He should have been married years ago. They’d had offers. But like his father before him, he’d been strangely obstinate about the whole business. She had an idea why.

  “How’s my little sister?” he wanted to know at once. “Can I see her?”

  “Not now,” Mei-Ling said. “She’s asleep.”

  “Did everything go all right?”

  “No problems at all,” Mother cut in. “Sit down and eat.”

  After the two men had eaten, Elder Son went to fetch his father’s best opium pipe and prepared to smoke it.

  The Binder stared at it. “That’s a fine pipe,” she said.

 
“My late husband’s. Cost a lot of money,” said Mother.

  “Most of the opium pipes in the town were confiscated and destroyed back in the time of Commissioner Lin,” the Binder remarked. “You were lucky.”

  “We hid it. He had another one, too,” Mother added with satisfaction. “But Lin’s men never came here.”

  The Binder looked pensive. She’s probably thinking she should have charged us more money, Mei-Ling thought.

  “You know,” said the Binder after a pause, “if you’re going to secure a fine husband for Bright Moon—and I think you can—you need to make sure that she’s expert at embroidery. Before she marries, besides making her trousseau, she’ll be expected to make presents of embroidered shoes and other things for every one of the bridegroom’s family. The satin and silk will cost money, of course, but most important of all will be the quality of her embroidery. She’ll be judged by her future family entirely on that. If she wants to be respected, her needlework will need to be highest quality. Otherwise, she’ll have a bad time.”

  “Ah,” said Mother a little uncertainly.

  “There’s a woman in the town, a cousin of mine, who could teach her what she needs to know.”

  “I’ll remember that,” said Mother.

  * * *

  —

  The next day, when they unbound Bright Moon’s feet, they discovered the four small toes of each foot were already neatly broken. “That’s a very good start,” said the Binder. She started to wash the little girl’s feet.

  “Everyone needs to wash their feet to keep them clean and smelling nice,” she said, “but you have to be especially careful with bound feet because of all the crevices. The big crevice will be between the folded heel and the ball of the foot. Sweat and dirt can start infections in there, which can smell bad.” She smiled at the little girl. “Your lily feet will be your greatest asset in life, so you must take care of them and always keep them clean.”