The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure (24 page)

Helen Frances laughed politely and asked him why so many Chinese were addicted to opium in the first place, and he answered cheerfully, ‘Poverty, my dear. Everything comes back to poverty. The opium dream's one illusory way of escaping the harshness of living. The opium addict's need is physical and spiritual. In our mission we try to offer medicine for both afflictions.'

‘So the evangelical work goes side by side with the medical treatment?'

‘In theory,' said the doctor. ‘If my masters in the Scottish Missionary Society had their way I'd be spending most of my time handing out tracts. In practice I find it's all I can do to heal the body without worrying about the soul as well. And is that wrong? In my small way I'm bringing the advantages of western civilisation to the heathen. I do with my lancet and potions what Herr Fischer does with his railway, and your father with his chemicals. We're all missionaries in one way or another.'

‘I never thought of my father as a missionary.'

Airton laughed. ‘He's no Septimus Millward, that's for sure, but he's developing new soaps and cleaning processes. I don't know if in your school you were taught that cleanliness is next to godliness, but hygiene has as much of a part to play in the prevention of diseases as any of my medicines. And is it so foolish to suppose that if you cure the body then the cure of the soul will follow in due course?'

‘And railways?'

‘I tell you, my dear, railways will bring more Chinese to Jesus than any preaching by me or my colleagues. They'll transport grain to the starving, they'll bring wealth-producing industries to the poorer provinces, they'll do more than anything else to eliminate poverty and better the life of the common man. And in time this ancient Celestial Kingdom will crumble and be replaced by a striving, modern society, like our own. And then what place will there be for the old superstitions? Bring China closer to the West and the true religion that illuminates and motivates our own world will find its natural place here.'

‘Then you are an evangelist after all, Dr Airton.' Helen Frances smiled.

‘Not a very successful one.' He laughed. ‘Do you know how many, out of all the hundred or so Christians that there are in Shishan, I've personally converted? Two, and you've met both of them. Ah Lee and Ah Sun, my housekeeper and cook. And from the nonsense I get fed back to me through my easily corruptible children I know that they're as filled with heathen superstition and pagan idolatry as they were when I met them twenty years ago. I love them dearly, but they're Rice Christians, the both of them. I'm sure they'd die on the cross if I asked them to, but it wouldn't be for the Faith: it'd be nine parts pride and cussedness and one part loyalty to me. The truth is, my dear, that this Chinese civilisation, heathen and backward as it is, is so entrenched that all our Gospel stories are pinpricks against it.'

‘But you'd have thought that they'd be grateful to be shown the Truth. Or so Mrs Airton was saying last night.'

‘Yes, well, Nellie has strong views on most things. But think what we're up against, Miss Delamere. Ask any white man about a Chinaman, and he'll tell you he's a liar and deceitful. Well, so's a child until you teach it the elements of right and wrong. The trouble is, there isn't a right or wrong in this culture. There's only harmony and the golden mean. We think lying's a sin. The Chinaman thinks it bad-mannered to offend you by telling you something you don't want to hear. They don't have the absolutes we have. You say, show them the Truth. They have a complex society developed over thousands of years where truth is whatever you want it to be. Appearance not substance is what counts.

‘But what a civilisation it is! Cultured, refined, with laws and government and science. Their philosophers two thousand years ago came up with the concept of the virtuous man, not Christian but honourable in every other way.'

‘Except he doesn't tell the truth.'

‘Ah. You're being mischievous, Miss Delamere. Well, perhaps he isn't as scrupulous as you or I would be, but he is virtuous nevertheless. And well educated in the classics. Like the Mandarin, whom you have yet to meet. A thoroughly amiable gentleman. And, more to the point, intelligent and sophisticated, a Confucian scholar, confident in the superiority of his cultural inheritance.

‘So think how our earnest missionaries go down. In we come, all smug and holier-than-thou, doling out our translations of the Bible. We know that what we're offering is the ultimate salvation. To the Chinaman, it's another book, and a rather queer one at that. Remember, this is topsy-turvy land. Black's white. Left's right. They don't think as we do. And they look in the Bible and read about the Dragon Satan. A dragon for them's a symbol of virtue. It's the emblem of the Emperor. Are we telling them the Emperor's evil? And then there are all the references to sheep and shepherds. Half the people in this country have never seen a sheep; the ones who have think a herdsman's the scum of society. And we say to them, “Come like lambs to the Good Shepherd and He'll forgive your sins”. They don't even have a concept of sin: if something bad happens to them it's some god's fault not theirs.

‘And then in the same breath we tell them to stop worshipping their ancestors, as if filial piety's a crime, and turn their backs on graven images because it's idolatrous. The upshot is that Christian families don't pay the temple dues any more. That's fine, as far as it goes, but in this society that's how villages fund their communal activities. So Christians immediately become antisocial elements. Others have to foot the bill for the travelling opera troupes, and what-have-you. So there's resentment against the converts. At best they're dog-in-the-manger, at worst they're seditious. Come a drought or a famine, as we have in various parts of Shantung and Chih-li, it's not surprising stories start spreading that it's Christians poisoning the wells, or it's doctors in the missions like me cutting out people's hearts for magic ceremonies, or it's telegraph wires bringing evil spirits. Resentments breed superstitions, and superstitions breed resentments. It all comes from going about things the wrong way.'

‘Is that what's behind the Boxer movement? You're painting a depressing picture, Doctor.'

‘Well, my view's a minority one. Most of the Protestant missionaries believe they're doing fine work and are enthused that the trickle of conversions will one day break the dam, and bring millions of souls to Jesus. It doesn't seem to worry most of them that they don't understand the first thing about the society they've come to. They don't realise how offensive their good intentions really are. They're blindly doing the Lord's work, and He will provide. End of story. Well, I believe we've got to be a bit more subtle about it. It isn't good enough to bludgeon the Chinese with the Bible, in bad Chinese to boot. We're not going to get anywhere till we get the Mandarin class on our side, and we won't do that by patronising them or criticising their customs. That's why I think it's better to open hospitals and build railways. If we can show them the advantages of our way of life, then Christianity will follow in the baggage car.'

What a splendid discussion, thought the doctor, although, now he came to think of it, he had been doing more of the talking than she. They were just about to leave the opium ward to go to the chapel when his major-domo, Zhang Erhao, brought in the messenger from the
yamen,
and the doctor's day fell apart.

To the Estimable Ai Dun Daifu, [the letter read] On behalf of His Excellency the Mandarin Liu Daguang. Please be informed that the bandits Zhang Nankai, Xu Boren and Zhang Hongna, having confessed to the murder of the foreign youth, Hailun Meilewude, in the Black Hills, have been sentenced by the
yamen
and will be executed this afternoon in penalty for this crime and others involving banditry and robbery and sundry murders. There can be no issue of compensation because the three culprits, despite their previous record of robberies and larcenies, were discovered to be intestate and without possessions at the time of their apprehension. We trust that this satisfies your enquiries on this subject and we authorise you to inform the relatives of the murdered victim of the justice which has been meted on their behalf.

It was stamped with the official
yamen
chop.

‘Whatever is the matter, Dr Airton?' Helen Frances cried.

The doctor weakly waved out the
yamen
messenger and Zhang Erhao, and slumped onto one of the beds in the ward, tears welling in his eyes. ‘The poor, poor boy,' he murmured. ‘It's everything I feared. What shall I tell his parents?'

And then the curt callousness of the official letter hit him. ‘Monstrous,' he cried. ‘It's monstrous. “We trust that this satisfies your enquiries.” They're writing to me as if I'd made a complaint about lost property to the municipal council. What compensation can there be for a human life? And why wasn't I informed of the trial? This is monstrous. They're nothing but a race of savages.'

Helen Frances, the doctor's lecture on the sophistication of Chinese culture fresh in her ears, evidently knew when to keep silent.

There was no help for it. He had to go to the Millwards immediately to break the news. He offered to escort Helen Frances back to her hotel first, but she asked if she could accompany him to the Millwards. He thanked her. This was an interview he dreaded and he was glad of her companionship. So the two of them walked down the rural path leading from the mission to the south gate, down the main street and into the poorer section in the northwest of the town where the Millwards lived.

The doctor was afraid that Helen Frances would be shocked by the squalor of the Millwards' compound. If she was she did not show it, beyond pressing a small handkerchief to her nose when stepping over the open sewer that ran outside their gate. He kept a grip on the stout stick he had brought with him, but the mongrels scavenging on the rubbish tip at the other end of the lane kept their distance. He used it now to bang on the peeling wooden door. A surly child, one of the waifs whom the Millwards had ‘saved', wearing ragged pyjama bottoms and no top, the prettiness of her face obscured by the dirt that caked it, opened the door. ‘Thank you, my dear,' said the doctor quietly, as he entered, fumbling at the same time in his pocket for a coin to give her. She tucked it listlessly into her waistband, and led them through the courtyard.

The Millwards were eating lunch. They were seated in a semicircle round a charcoal stove. The bowls of gruel they were holding contained more water than millet. The hopeless poverty of it all depressed Airton, and the shadowed eyes in the pale, starved faces of the children seemed to glare at him accusingly. He asked if he could speak to Septimus and Laetitia alone, but Septimus, not rising from his stool, told him to say what he had to say. So the doctor told him about the letter. Laetitia gasped and covered her face with her hands. Septimus bowed his head. The children continued to stare blankly at him, eating their gruel. A dog barked outside in the yard.

‘Of course I will go to the
yamen
and find out more,' stumbled Airton. ‘This isn't satisfactory. The Legations in Peking should be informed. There must be procedures, an investigation. If there is anything I can do…'

Septimus raised his head. The blue eyes behind his spectacles were brilliant in the shaft of sunlight that came through a hole in the roof. ‘My son is not dead, Doctor,' he said.

‘Of course not. Of course not,' muttered Airton. ‘He is in a happier land. That must be our comfort. Yes. Eternal life is now his. Of course.'

The blue eyes did not waver. ‘He has not left this world, Doctor. He still lives among men.'

‘His soul. Yes. Forever. In our memories. Always.'

‘You misunderstand me, Doctor. I know that my son was not murdered. The Devil has deceived you with a tissue of lies.'

Airton cleared his throat. ‘But the letter?'

‘Words, Doctor, words. What are the words of men in the face of the truth of God? I know that my son is alive and well. I have seen him.'

‘You've seen him? I don't understand.'

‘Yesterday, Doctor. The Lord revealed Hiram to me in a vision. He spoke to me, saying unto me, “Father, forgive me for the anguish I have brought upon you. Know that there is a purpose to all things. And I will come to you when it is time. As the Prodigal returned so will I. And there will be joy where there was sorrow.”'

‘Hallelujah,' said Laetitia, echoed by her children somewhat mutedly.

‘But—but where is he, then?' said Airton.

‘That the Lord did not reveal.'

‘Ah,' said Airton.

Septimus stood up and put his arm round the doctor's shoulders. ‘You are a good man, Doctor, and I thank you for coming to me with this important news. I know now what I must do.'

‘Mr Millward. Septimus. I know how much you wish to believe that this tragedy could have been prevented—'

‘It is to prevent a tragedy that the Lord is now calling me, and through your good graces, Doctor. There are innocent men to be saved and there is little time. Leave us, for we must pray.'

The doctor felt a strong arm turning him and propelling him towards the door. ‘Mr Millward, I must—'

‘There is little time,' said Septimus. ‘Go now. The Lord is calling me.'

And Airton and Helen Frances found themselves in the courtyard, the door closed in their faces.

‘He's mad, my dear,' said Airton.

‘Obviously,' said Helen Frances.

‘The tragedy's quite unhinged him. The pity of it. What are we to do?'

‘Is there anything we can do?'

‘I suppose not,' said Airton. ‘Perhaps this madness is a godsend. The poor, poor family. I'll—I'll call again tomorrow to see how they are.'