A Mind of Winter (7 page)

I nodded dumbly. I had seen the street children often enough, with their scabby pox and dirt-caked skin. The idea of taking one in seemed a worthy task: cleaning her up, giving her a home.

“Tonight might be a good time to begin,” he said as I rose.

“It’s better to work at night, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

I had skipped dinner again. As the evening wore on, I became aware of that insectlike crawling in my belly. A drink, I thought, might settle my stomach.

The back of the house was in darkness. I passed through the hallway and down the stairs, feeling my way along the walls. In the kitchen, I filled my cup from the pitcher of cold tea and took a rice biscuit from the tin in the cupboard. I trained my ears on the darkness but, aside from a faint creaking and a low mechanical hum, heard nothing.

I left by way of the door leading to the front of the house. As I approached the main stairway, I heard voices: dim, at first, they grew louder with each step. And then the sound of the green door swinging. I ducked into the schoolroom.

What was that? A man’s voice? Followed by the calm, steady reply of a girl speaking broken but confident English. The stairs creaked. I pushed the door gently with one finger and peered through the crack. I glimpsed only the girl’s back, so it was hard to tell who it was. Behind her was the man, portly, of medium height, a Westerner with a full head of wavy light-brown hair. He said something inaudible; the girl laughed. His hand darted out as the two of them mounted the stairs, and patted—no, grasped—the girl’s small behind. Then he laughed as well: a deep-throated male rumble. He had lowered his hand immediately, but I fancied I saw it still, a ghostly white imprint on the back of the girl’s emerald taffeta dress.

I let the door close and retreated to the kitchen. Better return the way I came, I thought, letting the image of the white hand on shiny green fabric slip from my mind like the thinning of blue smoke into air. Something Archibald used to say wafted to mind: there’s knowing and there’s
knowing
. Then this, too, went the way of smoke as I climbed the back stairs, my mind a singular dart of concentration aimed solely at my cloisonné pipe.

I’m on a mission of mercy, I thought, as I stepped into the muggy gloaming.

Though the existence at Han Shu’s was simple, I knew that to a child accustomed to scavenging for food and spending nights under leaky eaves, Han Shu’s provision of clothing, hot meals, and a bed would seem nothing short of bountiful.

I had no idea where I was going, yet I felt more sure than I had felt in a long time. I looked up, almost expecting to see a burning North Star, but all I saw was pregnant cloud dragging the sky earthward. I could not have explained it, but as I turned the corner and headed toward what the foreigners of the bar and café crowd called the Rat Quarter, I had the feeling that I was homeward bound, that I was going back, finally, to where I belonged.

To a Westerner newly landed, this was all just poverty—a uniformity of filth and want and disrepair. But I had been in Shanghai for long enough to register the changing nuances of the districts I passed through: thin poles strung with tatty clothes appearing here and there from a window frame in one area but wholly absent further on—a sign of owning more than one set of clothes and of some measure of hygiene. The occasional squawk of a hen, or hiss of a fat meaty snake, the sounds of women with humor enough to laugh, the mingled scents of pickled cabbage and steaming rice, of glazed duck sizzling in grease or the charred salt smell of fish baking among hot coals: the emblems, hereabouts, of relative plenty. And then, stepping across an invisible divide, such smells were extinguished, replaced by the stench of a hundred stagnant puddles festering with mosquitoes, of unwashed bodies and open rivulets of human sewerage. The animal life here did not hiss or squawk but was beady-eyed and mute, making itself known in wretched gnawings and scuttlings. The occasional sickening odor of singed fur and putrid cooked flesh were evidence that these vermin were being put to use as food.

Several times, I passed children who stopped what they were doing to watch as the white woman in the floral dress passed by. It was my light hair they looked at most; I could see their dark eyes fly there and settle. I took the children in with a quick sweep of my eyes: the ankles like twigs poking up from the ground, the firm straight posture, the item or two of clothing that each of them wore, the dark matted hair and alert gaze. Once, the look of a child almost made me stop: the intelligent stillness of the face, the soft, thoughtful set of the mouth. When I realized it was a boy, I kept on, with a twinge of regret.

It was instinct that told me, suddenly, to come to a halt and listen. Cocking my head, I located the sound of the scrambling and turned, finding myself in a closed-off alley. In the far corner, a sheet of corrugated tin with jagged holes was propped up by brick fragments and sticks. Beneath this, a group of children played. A few yards away, several older ones combed through a mound of garbage, calling to each other in street slang. They noticed me collectively, as if linked by invisible antennae: stopped as one in their movements and fixed me with intense and calculating stares. I could feel what had been a bolt of vigilance melt into simple curiosity. I took two steps forward. From beneath the tin roofing, and from atop the hill of peelings and rotting fish heads, the children’s eyes followed me.

Slowly, I approached the corner and peered under the roofing. I did not even register the look of two of the children there, could not have said whether they were female or male, so blinded was I by the third, a girl. Her eyes were somber and yet crinkled at the edges with humor; unexpectedly, she smiled. The grime on her face made her teeth seem especially white. I reached out my hand and the girl raised herself on her haunches as a cat might, regarding me with chocolate eyes.

“Come,” I said softly, using the slang I had learned from Han Shu’s girls, and she stepped over the packed-down dirt that was the floor of the dwelling and offered me her greasy warm hand. As we walked the length of the alley, the girl stole a look at me, then again, every few minutes, as we climbed over the sty and made our way back along the narrow, winding street. It was only when we rounded the corner more than an hour later, onto the street where Manor House stood, that I realized the girl, whom I had already named Ma Ling (“No name,” the girl had insisted when I asked. “My name is no name.”), had uttered no word of farewell to her playmates, had not so much as given a backward glance in the direction of the world she now left.

Han Shu was wearing a white silk smoking jacket; his black hair was slicked back, showing the broad flattened shape of his skull and emitting the familiar floral and musky scent. Gingerly, he approached the girl. Ma Ling eyed him steadily. A sliver in her dirt-caked cheek marked the site of a dimple.

“Well, well, and who do we have here?” he said. “Why, Christine. I do believe we have ourselves a beauty.” He switched to street slang: “Your name, child, what is it?”

“No name,” the girl replied as before, with the same determined set of her jaw.

“I’ve called her Ma Ling,” I said.

“Ma Ling. Yes, that’s fine.” Han Shu took her hand and led her to the couch. “I’d like the two of us to have a little talk.”

Ma Ling walked with Han Shu and sat beside him on the white couch. He told her about the house, about the other girls, about the three meals a day, the bed of her own, and the lessons from me. The child listened attentively, for all the world as if she regularly sat through such briefings. Han Shu patted her shoulder and helped her to her feet.

“Now,” he said. “You go along with Christine. She’ll clean you up and show you to your room, and tomorrow you’ll have a pretty new dress.”

Ma Ling did have a pretty new dress the next morning. It was draped over the foot of her bed when she awoke: a blue satin gown reaching almost to the ground, with lace at the sleeves and throat. After heating several cauldrons of water and then washing the girl gently with a washcloth, I had stayed up most of the night refashioning the dress I had chosen from the walnut chest Han Shu kept in the attic.

While the other girls slept, I helped Ma Ling into the dress and showed her how to brush her hair, which still smelled of the lye I’d used to remove the lice. Fully dressed, Ma Ling stood before me with that same matter-of-fact air she had displayed the previous night, and it was clear that Han Shu had been right; she was a natural beauty. Ma Ling could not have been more than fourteen, and looked both older and younger than her years: still childlike in stature, but with an uncannily poised and mature bearing.

In all the time I had been at Manor House, Han Shu had never joined us for breakfast. So when, as I was bringing the steaming rice to the table, I heard the clatter of a rickshaw from the street, followed by the click of heels in the hall, I realized he must be even more pleased about the new resident than he had let on.

As the girls filed in, each curtsied to Han Shu before taking her seat. Having observed the others, Ma Ling plucked up the sides of her skirt and executed a competent dip. Han Shu let out a delighted laugh. He motioned for Ma Ling to come toward him. I saw shyness in her face as she moved into his outstretched arm.

“I see you’ve already met the daughters of the house. They will teach you about the life here. We have happy times and many comforts, as you can see.” Han Shu swept his arm toward the table to indicate the rice and puffy white buns.

“Here, we will equip you for life. Discipline, whole-hearted application to all of your tasks. The art of being a young lady.” He passed his gaze down the length of the table. “Girls, I’d like you to welcome Ma Ling to Manor House.”

The girls chimed their welcome in unison. Ma Ling took her seat to the right of Han Shu and the meal began.

After breakfast, Han Shu lingered to enjoy a cigarette.

As I stood to take my leave, he said through the smoke: “Christine, come to my room this evening for a nightcap. I’d like to thank you for your marvelous work. Ma Ling is a find; I have a feeling she’s going to bring honor and good fortune to this house.”

All that day, I was aware of the spark of pride in my chest and of a growing anticipation as the evening approached. At dinner, I had no appetite, just picked with my chopsticks at the food in my bowl. The meal over, I retired to the bathing room where I took a long time over my toilette. Refreshed, every pore tingling, I returned to my room where I dabbed perfumed oil behind my ears and on my wrists. The three dresses I’d retrieved from my lodgings—which, along with a few smaller items were the only things my landlord had not sold—were beginning to look shabby. I chose the pink. Standing before the small mirror by my cot, I held up a lavender handkerchief I had bargained down to almost nothing at the market the previous week, then twisted it into a flower and pinned it to the neck of my dress. I examined myself for a moment in the glass, aware of my thinness, but pleased with the effect of the knotted handkerchief.

I hesitated outside Han Shu’s door, then reached up and knocked twice.

“Come in,” he said.

The room seemed changed, patterned by wavering shadows flung out onto the ceiling and walls by a row of candles along the windowsill. I sat across from Han Shu in the wicker armchair. A decanter of whiskey stood on the table between us, and two crystal goblets from which flashed a splinter of light. Han Shu, in his ivory smoking jacket, filled first my glass and then his own.

“You have had a real impact on Manor House,” he said, lifting his glass and motioning for me to do the same. “I’d like especially to toast your effort of last evening. Two or three more finds like that would usher in a whole new era here.”

Han Shu tapped his glass against mine, took a long sip, then slid something across the table.

“For your efforts,” he said.

I saw it was a blue velvet pouch of considerable size and could easily guess what it contained. I dropped the pouch into my purse.

“I don’t want to jump the gun,” Han Shu continued, “but I did want to mention one other thing. Some time ago when we were, how might I put it, on somewhat different terms, I made plain to you the financial realities of Manor House—that the establishment is not exactly a money-making venture. However, the fact is, with the two of us working hand-in-hand, we could turn it around. I believe we could make this organization quite profitable. If you are able to maintain the level of your contribution, we might begin to think about some sort of limited partnership. I leave the opportunity in your hands.”

I tried to attend to Han Shu’s words but my mind was on the pouch I had just slipped into my purse—on the square weight of it, the soft human give of the fabric as it briefly made contact with my hand.

Han Shu took a cigar from the wooden box on his desk, struck a match, and frowned thoughtfully as he waited for the flame to set it alight.

“Let’s see how things progress,” he said. “I can be harsh, I know that, but I believe in acknowledging work well done.”

A flake of ash drifted to the waist of his smoking jacket; carefully, he flicked it away.

“I know!” his face brightened. “You appreciate photography, I am sure, a cultured woman like yourself. How would you like to sample my slide collection? We’ll kill two birds with one stone!” He jumped from his chair. “Entertainment—and at the same time the history of Manor House!”

Han Shu disappeared behind a red curtain at the back of the room and returned carrying a black leather case. He placed it on his desk and unsnapped the clasp. Inside was a cumbersome goggle-like viewing device and hundreds of slides arranged in velveteen slots.

“Let’s see, where shall we begin.” He held a slide above one of the candles and examined it briefly. “This was taken before the war, just after I established Manor House.”

Han Shu placed the slide along with another he took from an adjoining slot into the viewer and handed me the device. I held it to my eyes and found myself suddenly surrounded by the greenery of a large estate; in the foreground stood an assemblage of British officers in uniform, several men in helmets and riding clothes, and a younger, slimmer Han Shu in a white morning suit, all holding still for an instant to allow the photograph to be taken. It looked as though the men would at any moment resume ambling across the lawn. The effect was so vivid, so real, it was if I had stepped into another place, another time.