My Splendid Concubine (39 page)

Robert
’s heart felt as if it had been burned. He wanted the girls to understand. They had to learn to rely on each other’s strengths to survive and to depend on each other’s love and kindness. He refused to treat them like his property, because he believed in their good nature and wisdom. He believed that a whip never created true peace.

Robert considered confiding to William Martin, the mini
ster. He wanted someone else to talk to besides Guan-jiah. He had talked to Martin about the meaning of hypocrisy once. The two men agreed that a sinner could not judge others for the same sin, and he had watched Martin pay a prostitute.

However,
he was still reluctant to talk to Martin about his problems. Depressed, he put aside John Donne’s
Love’s Alchemy
and picked up Edgar Allen Poe. He started to read from
The Raven
.

‘
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary—
’

Robert stopped reading. That would not do. He turned to another page and started to read from
The Tell-Tale Heart.

‘TRUE!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will you say that I am mad—’

He slammed the book shut and shuddered. He did not like his dark mood and decided to leave the consulate. With literature like this, he’d stay awake imagining the worst. He wanted to go home.

When he stepped outside the consu
late gate, it was late. A thick, menacing fog had smothered the city filling the streets with a flood of mist that converted the buildings into threatening beasts, which reminded him of Poe’s stories.

His awareness of his surroundings magnifi
ed as he walked away from the safety of the consulate. He held his hand out in front of him. It vanished in the fog. It wasn’t until his fingers were inches from his nose that they were visible again. It was as if he were living inside one of Poe’s stories.

He was sure that Ward had sent the assailant that tried to club him outside his house. There had been a fog then too. What about that sailor who attempted grabbing Ayaou? A night like this was perfect for a thug to att
ack without warning.

Robert struggled to put his paranoia to rest. Then he heard what sounded like someone follo
wing him. When he listened carefully, he discovered the noise was all around him. It must have been an echo created by the fog and the buildings crowding the narrow, crooked street. The place had become an echo chamber.

He
’d never noticed it before. The streets had always been crowded with people when he’d been on his way home. His hand slipped into his coat pocket seeking comfort from the walnut grip of the Colt revolver. He was glad he had the pistol.

He
walked faster. The sound he thought was an echo stayed at the old pace for a few beats. Then it sped up to match his footsteps. Alarmed, he stopped and put his back against a wall and held his breath. The footsteps continued for several more beats. Then they stopped and left a dreadful silence in their wake. A pit full of fear opened inside Robert threatening to spin him into a panic. His heart started to pound. His legs trembled and demanded that he run. He took several calming breaths and stood fast. He pulled the revolver from his coat pocket and slowly, quietly cocked the hammer.

The stranger
took several halting steps then stopped. It was almost impossible to judge distance. A long moment went by without a sound.

Then
a man’s voice said, “Curse it!”

Robert jerked from the shock of the man
’s proximity. He was afraid of being discovered. The stranger was close. If he took one-step forward, he’d bump into the man.

“
Where did that bugger go?” The voice had a British cockney accent.

The pounding of Robert
’s heart accelerated. He started to sweat. He opened his mouth to challenge the man. Then he thought better of it. Speaking would give away his location. Retreat was the better choice. He had walked this way for months. He knew there was a narrow, side street close by.

H
e knelt and silently slipped his boots off. Then he slid along the wall in his stocking feet until something sharp stabbed the bottom of his left foot. He almost cried out in pain but forced his lips to stay sealed. It stung. He took another step. The sharp object was left behind. It must have been a pebble with an edge to it. When he reached the narrow alley he was looking for, he breathed easier.

“
Bert,” the first voice called, “has that bloke reached you yet?”

“
He mucking vanished, Nick. Maybe the place he lives is closer to the consulate than we thought.”

Robert shivered. T
hese two men had set a trap to snare him.

“
No, he always walks more than halfway through Ningpo when he’s going home. If we knew where he lived, we’d break in and take him like we was paid to and have him pressed into that King’s ship. If you didn’t keep losing him in the crowd, we’d know where he lived. Don’t forget we get paid five pounds once we deliver his carcass. All we have to do is whack him on the head and take him to that naval officer we were told to contact. It is easy money. Better than picking pockets.”

“
These crooked streets are confusing, and I didn’t lose him alone,” the man to Robert’s left said. “You’re a bloody mucking fool. You’ve followed him before and lost him.”

Anger rushed in like a riptide and replaced Robert
’s fear. Someone was willing to pay these scoundrels to press him into the Royal Navy. If they had succeeded, he would have opened his eyes inside the hull of that British frigate that had dropped anchor in the river six days earlier. It was scheduled to sail for the Pacific coast of North America in the morning. He was tempted to confront these rascals. After all, he had the pistol. If they wanted a fight, he’d give it to them.

He shook his head.

No, that was a foolish thought. Two against one in this fog was not a good idea. Robert started moving again. He had an urge to hurry. Ignoring the temptation, he continued to take slow steps. Then a puddle soaked his socks. The puddle smelled of urine. His stomach churned.

He had to
find a different route to his front door. It sounded as if these thugs didn’t know where he lived. He wondered who hired them. It had to be Ward. Who else could it be?

O
nce he was near the house, he hesitated and listened for the longest time. What if they said they didn’t know where he lived to fool him? They could be waiting. The silence in the street was like the inside of a coffin. It was so quiet, Robert was sure he’d hear someone breathing twenty feet away.

“
Thank you, Edgar,” he said in a whisper. If it hadn’t been for the mood Edgar Allan Poe’s
The Raven
and the
Tell Tale Heart
had put him in, he would have walked into their trap. Then he smiled. He should also thank the evil spirits the Chinese kept out of their cities with the maze of narrow streets.

He tried the door and found it wasn
’t locked. That was wrong. It should be locked all the time. All the fear and caution he had felt walking home rushed back. He leveled the revolver and pushed the door open. The door banged against the inside wall. He leaped into the room.

His girls screamed and jumped off the bottom step of the stairs where they
’d been sitting side-by-side holding hands. They were staring at the Colt and not him.

“
Do not kill us,” Shao-mei said. “Give us a chance to talk to our master first. Did he pay you to get rid of—” Her eyes came up, and she saw Robert’s face. He eased the hammer to its safe position and stuffed the weapon into his pocket. He closed the door and locked it. Once they realized who had stepped through the door, they rushed into his arms.

“
You frightened us, Robert,” Shao-mei said. Tears were running down her cheeks.

“
Yes, we thought it was someone coming to murder us or take us to be slaves and prostitutes for foreign devils,” Ayaou said.

“
Then why did you leave the door unlocked?” he asked.

“
We just came in,” Ayaou said.

“
What do you mean? I told both of you not to leave the house.”

“
You told us not to go out alone. We did not. We waited all day for you to send someone to get us. Then the fog came. There were noises outside the downstairs windows as if someone was trying to get inside.”

“
Yes, Robert,” Shao-mei said. “Murderers and rapists were coming for us. We were sure you sent them to punish us.”

“
How did you reach that conclusion from noises at the window?”

“
We talked about it after you left,” Ayaou said, “and decided that your anger would result in the worst punishment.”

“
Which was murder and rape,” Shao-mei said, “so we went outside to hide in the fog.”

“
What? Have you lost your common sense? You went outside to be safe from someone trying to break into the house to rape and kill you. That’s absurd.”

“
No it is not, Robert,” Shao-mei said. “The floor upstairs kept making noises as if someone were walking around. We decided it was not safe, because there was no fog to hide in. We went out but could not lock the door. No one was inside to bar it.”

“
Give us another chance, Robert,” Ayaou said. “We agree to behave.”

“
Yes, Robert,” Shao-mei said. “We were crazy. It won’t happen again.” They buried their faces in his coat.

“
If you felt safer out in the fog, why did you come back inside?”

“
I realized that if we were attacked outside and carried away,” Ayaou’s said, “you would not know what happened to us.”

“
Yes, Robert,” Shao-mei said. “We agreed that you loved us too much to send someone to hurt us, so we came back inside. We were upset and forgot to lock the door.”

He shook his head and held their trembling bodies. He wanted to live the rest of his life like this. Robert had never had even one-woman love him as these two did.

Robert’s mother was a carefree person. She could laugh at almost anything. She allowed him to grow wild in his ways, but she never told him she loved him or hugged him. All he could remember of his father was the time each day the family spent studying scripture.

Father sat with his back straight like a pole. The closest that h
is father ever demonstrated love was the day Robert left for China. His father gave him fifty gold sovereigns. Robert was starved for the love his girls had an abundance of. He couldn’t stay away from it.

The next morning he
stayed home waiting for the fog to burn off. He didn’t go to the consulate until the British frigate was scheduled to sail. Then he went to the river and checked that it was gone. If he’d been pressed into that British man-of-war, his life would’ve been turned into a hellish ordeal. What would have happened to his girls with him gone?

He confided in Guan-jiah.

“It wouldn’t be good for that child to lose its father before it is born,” Guan-jiah replied.

“
Yes, Guan-jiah, how could you be an uncle without me?” Robert said. They laughed.

After that,
the eunuch routinely met him in the mornings on the way to the consulate. He also walked with Robert to his house each evening. For the next few weeks they never took the same route to the consulate in the mornings or on the way back to the house at night.

Before spring arrived, the house had become a garden of harmony. Shao-mei was huge with child—by Robert’s estimate, she was at least six months pregnant if not seven. A few weeks remained before the baby was due.

Special days lodged in his memory and doubled as lessons in Ch
inese culture. One example was a day Robert arrived home early to hear Ayaou scolding Shao-mei. They didn’t hear him come in. He stood still and listened thinking they were arguing.

“
You have put too much wood in the stove,” Ayaou said. “The fire is too hot. You are going to ruin the dinner.”

The stove was made of brick and stood out from the wall. Shao-mei fed wood to the flames from behind while Ayaou cooked.

“What are you talking about?” Shao-mei replied. “If I do not keep the fire going, you could not cook.”

Small, meaningless scenes like this endeared the girls to him. If those men had hijacked him, this moment would have been lost.

He arrived home another day to find the girls had been painting. A river cascaded down the length of the chimney and one side of the stove. It wasn’t the greatest art, but it was recognizable. Ayaou had stocked the river with bright-orange trout. There was a waterfall with one trout attempting to fling itself into the pond at the top. Those trout were the ugliest malformed fish he’d ever seen, but he was not going to tell his girls that.

“
Why fish?” he asked. “I mean it’s beautiful and brings this kitchen to life, but why not birds and clouds or trees?”

“
Because
Yu
, fish, when spoken, sounds similar to another word that means
to always have enough in life
,” Ayaou said. “It will bring us luck—we will never go hungry or be without shelter.”

Robert was regularly learning something new about the Chinese culture. His girls were teaching him, and they didn
’t know it. He cherished any knowledge that came his way, however insignificant. Every time he learned something, he came closer to unwrapping the veil from this culture that was so unlike his.

On the eve of the Lantern
Festival, he returned home from the consulate to find Ayaou decorating the front door of the house.

“
What is the significance of this?” he asked, knowing that everything the girls did had some sort of meaning to improve life or offer protection. He turned and looked down the street. For the first time, he noticed lanterns of all shapes and sizes hanging from the trees and buildings.

With a look of silent concentration, Ayaou finished fastening on the door a canvas picture of an old fat man leaning on a walking stick. He had multiple chins, a hunchback and a big bump on his head. He held a leash with a young deer tied to the end.

When she finished, she stepped back to examine it. She pointed at the ugly old man. “This is
Shou,
the god of longevity. On the other side is
Kwan-yin
, the goddess of mercy.”

The goddess of mercy was a beautiful wom
an with long flowing hair. She was sitting on a lily pad. Her calm look reminded Robert of the Virgin Mary except
Kwan-yin
was Chinese.

“
Look above the door and you will see the Chinese symbols for
Kwan-yin, Fu, Lu,
and
Shou.
Fu
means happiness and
Lu
means success.” She turned a beaming smile toward Robert.

“
Did you paint those words above the door?”

She laughed.
“No, Robert. I could never do calligraphy like that. I am still clumsy with a brush. I bought them.”

It was easy to believe. This artwork was of a higher quality than the paintings in the kitch
en. Robert didn’t believe in these superstitions. However, unlike most of his brethren, he was tolerant of them, because it taught him about the Chinese and how they thought.

Robert would always be a Christian, but unlike so many others from Europe and America, he refused to condemn the Chinese for the way they were.
He never attempted to convert them into Christianity or rob them like the opium merchants were doing. To him it was all hypocrisy.

On one
hand, the Europeans and British were shoving Christianity’s message of brotherly love down the Chinese collective throat with the barrel of a rifle. At the same time foreign merchants, mostly British, were selling opium to the populace. No wonder the Chinese were resisting. The Chinese had believed and lived this way for several thousand years. Did anyone have the right to force them to change against their will?

Robert never told his girls any of his true feelings about their superst
itions. If it made them happy, he didn’t want to be a spoiler. It didn’t matter. No one ever visited except Chinese friends and relatives of the sisters.

A few days later Shao-mei hung nine red lanterns in the room where they studied.

“Do we need this many?” Robert asked.

“
Oh, Robert,” Ayaou replied. “This is simple. I am surprised you do not know the significance of these nine lanterns.” Ayaou talked to him as if he were a child. He didn’t mind. He liked it. “The Imperial lucky number is nine, which means to develop everything to its potential without over spilling. That is why the Forbidden City has nine hundred and ninety-nine buildings inside its walls. Only the Emperor can get that close to heaven. The rest of us have to be satisfied with the number nine.”

“
Why not eight or ten or eight hundred or a thousand?” he asked.

“
Because ten is too much,” she said. “Only God can do a ten. Nine means to be humble and acknowledge God as perfect.”

Shao-mei handed Robert a necklace and asked him to put it on. He held it close to his eyes. The beads looked familiar. Ther
e were nine on the string. They turned out to be olive pits.

“
This will protect you, Robert,” Shao-mei said. “We spent hours sanding off the pointed ends of the pits and then drilling holes in them with little needles. Look,” she held up a hand, “see where I grew a callus from all the rubbing. I poked myself more than once with the needle.”

Robert reached f
or the hand and pulled it to his lips. He kissed the callus. This little dull looking, nothing necklace was full of love from Ayaou and Shao-mei.

“
Not only that,” Ayaou said, “wear it so you will have peace.”

Robert saw that they wore olive pit necklaces too. He took the necklace, slipped it over his head and settled it around his neck.

Eventually, Ayaou added red colored woodcarvings to the walls just inside the fron
t door. The images were characters in various calligraphy styles. Robert recognized them immediately. No one had to explain the significance. They represented the six relationships and the mandate of heaven—the basis of all social connections between people in China. They were all variations of
xiao,
or piety. This time he understood and asked no questions. Living with his girls was teaching him more about the Chinese culture than any number of books or teachers could.

Robert pulled the girls into his arms. He stood there and stu
died the carvings. “Do you like it?” They asked as if they were one voice.

With a serious express
ion on his face, he stood for a moment in silence and stared at the carvings a bit longer as if he might not approve of them. He sensed the girls fidgeting nervously. They cast looks of inquiry at him and at each other.

“
Yes,” he finally said, and smiled. “I like this. It’s the right touch to greet me when I come home. It shows what kind of family we are and the harmony that fills our house.”

He managed to convince himself that life would go on like this without end. He forgot Ward and relaxed his vigilance against an assault. The accusing note
—the one he had a habit of rubbing with his thumb and index finger—was forgotten too. The note was turned to pulp when he didn’t remove it from the pocket, and the shirt was washed. He stopped thinking of his family back in Ireland and even erased the Christian missionaries from his thoughts.

It was fortunate that Guan-jiah had not forgotten. His servant a
rrived every morning and accompanied him to work. The eunuch carried a sturdy walking stick that doubled as a club. Guan-jiah said nothing and became doubly alert to make up for Robert’s lack of vigilance. He saw that his master was happy, and he realized happiness was fleeting. He decided not to remind Robert of the dangers. There was no need to spoil things.

There were performances throughout the city on the day of the Lantern Festival. Robert watched the dragon lantern dance, a lion dance, and a land boat dance. He saw men walking on stilts and beating drums. At night, he walked the streets with his girls. They read the riddles that were written on the lanterns. They guessed the answers; then knocked on the doors to ask the owners of the houses if they were right.

They ate a feast that started with small dumpling balls made of glutinous rice flour with rose petals, sesame, bean paste, jujube paste, walnut meat, and dried fruit. Robert couldn
’t identify some fillings. The dumplings tasted sweet, and he liked the texture in his mouth. He realized that in the West quantity counted and taste and texture took second place. It wasn’t like that in China.

When Robert asked Master Ping about the dumplings, his teacher replied,
“The name for the dumplings sounds the same as the Chinese word that means reunion. People eat them for harmony and happiness in the family.” Master Ping wrote the Chinese symbols for both words on a piece of rice paper and showed Robert what they looked like. He pronounced them. He then had Robert pronounce them until he was proficient. The difference between the words was a slight variation in tone.

“
There, you have just added two more words to your knowledge of Chinese,” his teacher said, looking pleased.

Each day was a lucky day and a celebration. He was convinced he’d become something more than just a foreign devil. To most men from both the West and East, women were for pleasure and to be breeding machines—each culture just went about it differently. On the other hand, he had transcended both cultures.

Instead of
using his girls like objects, he treated them as individuals. They still read together each night and discussed poems. When plays came to Ningpo, they went. Robert and the girls grew closer.