Dreams of the Red Phoenix (4 page)

T
he screen door wheezed shut, and Shirley paused in the
front hall, her pulse still thrumming in her ears and her
thoughts addled. One of the thick muslin curtains in the dining
room wafted, though there was no breeze. She let out a gasp, but
it was only Charles. He slipped out from his favorite childhood
hiding place and scurried after her as she moved unsteadily into
the parlor.

“Bravo!” he whispered. “You were wonderful, Mother. But is
it true? You aren't really a spy, are you?”

“Please, darling, I need a moment to collect myself. How long
were you there at the window? You really shouldn't eavesdrop
like that. I've told you before.”

Her hands were shaking as she gave her maid, Lian, the
broom. The older, dignified woman offered to bring tea, and Shir
ley thanked her, then tossed herself down onto the wicker sofa. It
creaked and complained as she settled into the silk pillows.

“Mother must rest now,” Lian said. “Ladies' Choir very big
effort. Leave her be, Charles-Boy.”

For the first time in many weeks, Shirley said, “It's all right,
Lian; he isn't bothering me.”

Charles ignored his amah, anyway, and knelt down before
the sofa. Shirley tousled his thick red hair, so like his father's, she
thought with a sigh. Then she leaned back again and shut her eyes.

“Brilliant tactic, sweeping that old goat off the porch. I almost
let out a cheer when he left.”

“That wasn't a tactic, son. That was complete idiocy on my
part. I'm far too impulsive, and you are, too. You get it from me.
Tell me you didn't actually spit on a Japanese soldier.”

Charles sat higher on his haunches. “In one of his sermons,
Reverend Wells said we should do all that we can. So I did.”

Shirley swung her legs around, placed her oxfords on the car
pet, and patted the spot beside her. Charles hopped up to join her.
His long legs stretched out past hers, reaching the coral-colored
cherry blossoms in a sea of blue on the Chinese rug. She noticed
for the first time that not only his socks showed above his too-
short trouser legs but his bare and surprisingly hairy calves as
well. She turned to get a better look at him. What used to be pale
peach fuzz above his upper lip had sprouted into actual coarse
dark-red hairs. They had appeared below his bottom lip as well.
Her son seemed to be growing a rudimentary goatee. His bony
wrists protruded from his rumpled linen jacket, and his shirttails
were out. Shirley thought that the young man seated beside her
wasn't unattractive. He just appeared un-cared-for, like someone
who had no parents and must survive by his wits alone.

“This is serious, my boy. You could have been arrested. Or
worse, gotten Han arrested.”

He patted her knee. “I know, Mother, but I think Father
would have been proud of us.”

Shirley slumped back against the pillows.

“Father was no coward,” Charles continued. “Remember
how he used to put on that fake British accent and say, ‘Don't fire
till you see the whites of their eyes'? He was kidding, of course,
but he wanted me to be brave and stand up for what I believed in.
It's a manly thing, but you did swell just now, too.”

“Charles, you're as wrong-headed as you could possibly be.
Your father did not believe in fighting. He wanted everyone to
cooperate and trust one another and work as one. And he abso
lutely understood that women can be as brave as men and, in fact,
must be. Such foolishness, my darling.”

Shirley smoothed his wild hair again and realized that with
his irrepressible grin, her son was trying to buck her up, not the
other way around. Charles had always had a buoyant personality.
A chuckling baby, a toddler who raced forward on stocky legs,
then an angular little boy covered in freckles and grins from ear
to ear. But a sensitive soul, too, whose sunny disposition could
quickly cloud over when criticized or corrected. So she simply
hadn't. It was too painful to see him crumple into self-doubt. He
had run wild and carefree throughout the compound, without
oversight or direction. All had been grand for him for so long. He
must have been completely floored when word had come of his
father's accident, Shirley thought. Nothing remotely like it had
ever happened to him before.

“How are you, Charles?” she asked. “Without Father, I
mean.”

The smile on his face evaporated, and he appeared baffled by
the question.

“I'm so sorry that I've neglected you,” she said softly.

Her son's large, angular Adam's apple rose and fell. She sensed
he had no idea how to respond.

“I suppose, though,” she said, attempting a smile, “it's good
that you're feeling strong enough to take on the Japanese Im
perial Army.” Then she added more firmly, “But I believe you
need to be put to some purpose this summer instead of strutting
about like a useless rooster. We'll begin a new regimen tomorrow
morning.”

Charles's shoulders sagged, but Shirley thought she had final
ly hit the right note: he needed rules to butt up against in order to
regain his fiery gumption.

“I intend to keep a closer watch over you. There will be duties
for you to perform around the house.”

“Chores, Mother? When the country is practically at war, you
want me to clean my room?”

“Discipline begins at home,” she said and couldn't help re
membering the Japanese officer's words.

Charles scrambled to his feet and stood far above her. When
had he gotten so tall? she wondered.

“Han lives on his own now,” he said. “No one tells him what
to do anymore.”

“That's not something to envy. Your friend's father has gone
missing. I'm sure his uncle and grandmother and other relatives
are keeping a close eye on him. Chinese families are terribly
close-knit.”

“I know, but it's pretty keen that he gets to come and go as he
pleases.”

“That's enough, now. Get ready for bed.”

Charles bent low and kissed the air near her cheek. It wasn't
until he had turned and walked from the room that she real
ized she had meant to offer him a good-night hug. His footfalls
struck firmly on the stairs, and Shirley realized that the moment
for comforting her boy had passed. He was practically a young
man now.

Lian appeared at the door to the parlor with the black lac
quered tray, bamboo-handled teapot, and lidded cup. As Caleb
had instructed their maid, she did not bow but nonetheless en
tered quietly. That seemed to be how all the Chinese women
walked in their thin slippers, although Shirley's husband had en
joined Lian to speak up and rattle the dishes however she liked.
He was forever encouraging the Chinese to be themselves in his
presence, though Shirley had often wondered how a foreigner
would know the difference.

Lian set the tray on the teak side table, poured tea, and, after
allowing it to steep, handed a cup to Shirley. Although Lian was a
bulky woman, she settled delicately into the wicker rocking chair
opposite the sofa and tucked her long tunic under her. Out of re
spect for the formality of the setting, she had removed her apron
before entering. It wasn't customary for servants to sit with their
masters in the living quarters, and Shirley knew it made Lian un
comfortable, but Caleb had insisted on it.
We are all congregants
,
he had said,
each the same in God's eyes
.

Since her husband's passing, Shirley had been grateful for his
eccentric demands on their servants—essentially, that they all be
have as equals under this roof. Lian and even the young and silent
girl, Dao-Ming, had offered Shirley kindness and comfort. Lian
had become a true friend, Shirley thought, or as true a friend as
their dissimilar circumstances would allow.

“Does my son seem all right to you, Lian?” she asked now.
“You have brothers. Were they this difficult when they were his
age?”

“He is American boy, nothing like Chinese. Our boys behave,
or else.”

“Or else what?”

“My father beat them every week whether they deserve it or
not.”

“That's terrible.”

They are responsible men now.”

“And you would do the same if you had a son?”

“I have no son.”

Lian touched a finger to the simple cross she wore around her
neck. Shirley couldn't envision her maid raising a belt to a child,
but Lian had no children of her own, so it was a moot point—or,
more accurately, a sore point. A barren woman here seemed to be
of a lower status, marking a stain upon her for her loss. Shirley
undid the laces of her oxfords and slipped them off. Lian pulled
her seat closer, lifted one of Shirley's feet into her lap, and began
to rub.

“As young man, Charles needs father more than ever,” Lian
said, “but now he has none!” She let out a forceful laugh.

Shirley tried not to be affronted. Her maid meant well. She
was blunt, that was all, not unlike Shirley's mother, another
older woman with a decidedly ungracious manner. Though in
Shirley's mother's case, the sourness went all the way through.
As Lian continued to rub, Shirley recalled how her mother was
accustomed to being waited on hand and foot. The irony that she
thought of this while her maid was waiting on her was not lost
on Shirley, and yet she felt certain that she and her mother were
utterly unalike. Her mother complained about her servants con
stantly. Shirley was uneasy with her servants at best and had ac
companied her husband to China in part to help ensure that she
didn't inherit her mother's selfishness. Performing good works,
as Caleb called the efforts here, was the best antidote to such up
per-class self-preoccupation and snobbery.

“You must find new uncle here in mission,” Lian suggested.
“Other ministers do good job with boy.”

Shirley leaned forward and whispered, “Not a single one
of the other reverends is half the man Caleb was. They're fine
people, but they lack character. Charles would hoodwink them.
They'd wind up doing his bidding. My son is a thoroughbred—
good-natured, high in spirits, perhaps too cocky, but with awful
ly thin skin.”

Lian looked up from her rubbing. “What is trouble with boy's
skin?”

“An expression. He bruises easily.”

“Ah, yes, Charles-Boy is baby! I know this. You should con
sider the belt.”

Shirley put down her cup. “Can you imagine? A boy who's
never heard a raised voice in his life. He'd be shocked out of his
wits.” She placed her stocking feet on the carpet. “Honestly, go
ing forward, I mean to do better by him.”

A phlegmy cough sounded from the hallway, followed by the
tap of a cane. Old Tupan Feng stood teetering in the doorway,
waiting to be announced.

Lian rolled her eyes and said in a teasing tone, “Ancient War
lord Feng enters!”

He cleared his throat again and spoke in fine, British-accented
English. “No need to bow,” he said as he hobbled in. “In the mod
ern fashion, I no longer require that of my subjects.”

Lian stood, slapped her skirt, and began to clear the tea set.
Back when Tupan Feng had been an active warlord, he had pun
ished any servants who weren't silent at their tasks, so Lian made
as much racket as possible now. She stood before him, and he
blinked at the tray in her hands.