Cloud Mountain

by Aimee E. Liu

  “My precious Pearl!” He set her down and brought from his pocket a silver-wrapped parcel. Her small fingers shredded the paper.

  “A fan! Look, Mama. Papa brought me a fan with roses just like the ones on our house in America!” Pearl spread the ribs wide and fanned her face in broad guileless sweeps.

  “Did you really?” said Hope, doing her best to remain stern against the glee of Paul’s entrance.

  “Actually,” he said, coming to stand below her, “I believe they are camellias.”

  “Papa?” Morris held tight to Hope’s skirt, but having watched Pearl receive her gift, his sense of sibling justice was clearly piqued.

  “My son.” Paul extended his arms and waggled his hands. The two-year-old advanced solemnly, casting Hope a dramatic glance, and let go of her fingers the way a clinging drop lets go a melting icicle. But in an instant all this tragedy dissolved in gales of effulgent laughter as Paul’s arms clamped shut and drew the child into a gobbling bear hug. When Paul threw him into the air, Morrie let out such raucous, uncontrollable squeals that Hope was sure the Manchus in the rear court must be plugging their ears, but just as she was about to lodge her own protest, Paul flipped the boy into his arms like an infant and crooned him a song.

  Morrie gasped for breath and begged, “Present?”

  “Ah, Ch’eng-yü.” Paul grinned down at him. “And I thought I could make you forget.” Morrie’s gift was wrapped in lucky red. He was even swifter than his sister in unwrapping, and it was a miracle he didn’t destroy the fragile toy inside: a wire monkey strung between two long sticks, which spun when the sticks were pulled apart just so.

  Hope stood alone on the gallery watching Paul watch their children. “And where have you been?” she said finally, putting her hands on her hips for effect.

  He turned, his smile suspended as if he had no control over it. “The day before you arrive Yüan sent me to Tientsin to meet with the Japanese ambassador. I could not say no.”

  “Tientsin!” She wavered. “But we came right through there, Paul. You must have known …”

  He summoned Ah-nie to look to the children, who had stopped playing with their gifts to listen. Then with a single high step he was up on the gallery nodding Hope into the bedroom. He slid the door closed and drew her down onto the bed, his voice abruptly grave. “Last week in Hangchow, Yüan’s forces raided the Chinese Revolutionary Party. Twenty people were arrested and shot on suspicion plotting against government. Right now Yüan will take any sign of disloyalty very badly. He needs my help, but also he knows my old friends. I make this trip to Tientsin in secret, Hope. For this reason I cannot meet you.”

  “But I thought his Vice President was your old friend.”

  “Yes, yes. But Li’s position also is tenuous. The Japanese are putting tremendous pressure on Yüan. He is like the cornered rat, too weak to strike at the large, waiting cat, so he pounces on every midge that will cross his path.”

  “Was it wise to bring your family into the rat’s corner?”

  Paul sighed and let her hands go, but he did not rise or move away from her. His lips formed a taut line, and she braced herself for anger as she sought his eyes, but the expression waiting there was something else. Tenderness. Concern. Fatigue and confusion. She realized with a start that Paul’s youth was fading. There were creases gently laddering his forehead, shallow pouches beneath his eyes, and that new pinched set of his mouth, more disappointed than disapproving, but barely. He still had sufficient grace and vigor that a smile or rage could restore his physical presence to full and irresistible vitality, but in contemplation the change was pronounced.

  She stretched a hand to his cheek. “Your life would be so much simpler if the children and I just disappeared.”

  “If simplicity were important to me,” he said, drawing each word for clarity, “I would never have married you, Hope.”

  The next weeks remained warm and clear, and Paul eased back from his official duties to play host and husband and father. He took the children boating on Pei Hai Lake, treated them to lunch at a floating restaurant in Nan Hai and to a moving picture at the New Peking Cinema. He escorted Hope to a tea for foreign wives at the Dutch Legation, where, though she remained the sole American, she enjoyed a far more cordial reception than she had ever known in Shanghai. One weekend they took a picnic to the Western Hills and visited the giant “Sleeping Buddha,” the Temple of the Azure Clouds, and, much to the children’s fascinated horror, the upright, staring, and smooth-skinned mummy in the Monastery of Exalted Heaven. A few days later, as they peered through the tunnel of Tien An Men into the Imperial Palace grounds, Paul told of the three days he had once spent inside, sealed in a five-foot cell with nothing but a stool, a table, and writing materials while he completed his Imperial Examination. Pearl and Morris clamored to go see, but as this was not permitted, Paul suggested instead an outing to the Summer Palace, which had just been opened to the public a few weeks earlier. There they viewed the bricked-in hall where the Empress Dowager Tz’u-hsi had imprisoned her nephew the Emperor when he threatened her claim to power. They walked the zigzag galleries through her pleasure gardens, and stepped aboard the marble boat on which she had squandered the funds that might have saved her Imperial Navy during the war with the Japanese. Finally, as if to complete his family’s tour of Imperial China’s ignominious past, Paul suggested that the time had come for their excursion to the Great Wall.

  They traveled by train to Nankow, then rode the remaining seven miles by cart under a frozen white sun. There were few villages, no landmarks, and the earth was dry and barren, unremarkable until they lurched over the final ridge, and the wall unfurled before them. Hope remembered the dream she had had before the San Francisco Quake, that high and gateless, snaking wall. She had seen pictures of the Great Wall, of course, and it was doubtless they that had fueled her dream, yet she was jolted now by the vehemence with which she recognized the scene before her.

  The cart pulled nearer and finally disgorged them amid the carnival of vendors and performers who camped along the base of the wall and hawked their goods to tourists. For once the children were immune to the cries of the food sellers. They took the narrow steps to the rampart like two intrepid goats, with Yen chasing after them and Paul and Hope following at their own pace. Many of the stones were out of place or missing, and when they reached the top they could see that sections of the parapet had fallen away. Some of the distant inclines were so littered with loose stones and debris that they were impassable, yet still the wall seemed timeless, indestructible in a way that went beyond its physical dimensions.

  Hope pulled the Kodak from her carpetbag and fixed the lens on Morris, who was riding Yen’s shoulders as Pearl skipped alongside. To the left a Chinese father and his children stood dispassionately watching, while behind, the wall seemed to snap its tail. When she lowered the camera she found Paul leaning against the battlement, watching her.

  “It is good to see,” he said, indicating the camera.

  “Yes.” She stepped out of the way of a Western couple who nodded and thanked her in French. “Yes, you were right to get us out of Shanghai.”

  “I try, Hope.”

  There was a plaintive note in his voice that jarred her. She put the camera away and came beside him. “I know you do.”

  He turned so that they were both looking out toward the west. It was only a little after noon, but the sky was purled with metallic clouds, and below it the landscape of violet hills had a cold oceanic quality. Hope shivered and pulled her jacket collar up around her neck, then tentatively drew against Paul’s shoulder.

  “Always this fear of the foreigner.” He rapped his knuckles against the stone. “This gathering inward, hiding behind walls. It has been China’s gravest mistake.”

  “Yet the wall still stands.”

  His fingertips skimmed across her wrist as he moved his hands to his pockets. He found her eyes. “Yes,” he said, “but for this moment, we stand on top of it.”
>
  In early November Yen ordered the house outfitted for the cold months. Thick woven mats were suspended from rafters to cover the thin wooden walls, and others were joined into carpeting. Then, in place of the asphyxiating braziers used in most Chinese homes, Hope instructed Yen to find two coal-burning stoves with proper stovepipes, one for the living room, and one for Paul’s office. When set up on bricks, the stove created a warm zone where she could read, Pearl could have her lessons, Morris could play. The warmth did not extend into their sleeping quarters, but there the thick camel’s hair comforters were as good as heating pads at night.

  To this point Hope had resisted Chinese dress for herself or the children. In part she was following Paul’s lead, as even he held to Western clothing, except when attending traditional functions—from which she was routinely excluded both as a woman and a foreigner. She was also still a little mindful of Sarah’s East-West advice, but most of all, she had been acting on her own biases dating back to her youth, when other children used to taunt her by costuming themselves in feathered headdresses and war paint, mimicking native dances and whooping, fawning, and dancing backward as they begged her to “be our squaw girl.” She had seen more than her fill of the “trinkets”—beaded belts, fringed buckskins, moccasins, painted pipes, and buffalo robes—sported like trophies by the Fort Dodge cavalry. In the same spirit, the San Francisco police and other scavengers who had picked over the rubble of Chinatown after the Quake would pose for pictures sucking opium pipes (scrubbed clean of all coolie germs, one presumed) or leaning hunchbacked on the dragon handle of an ivory walking stick. While it was clearly a show of respect for men like Paul to adopt the fashion of Western culture, she had decided long ago that whites who “dressed native,” as the British were so fond of saying, only did so as a means of ridiculing the conquered.

  Her resolve broke down one night when she lay in bed fully clothed with both children huddled against her and all their teeth chattering like castanets. Outside, the wind howled. Yellow loess dust scratched against the roof and oil-paper windows. Their hair crackled with static electricity, and sparks flew with each touch to their heavy woolen sweaters. The tweeds, gabardines, and muslins from which Hope made their clothes would be no match for the winter Peking promised.

  Yen, of course, knew a tailor who was delighted by the prospect of outfitting a foreign family. He came to the house, calculated the list of garments to be furnished, and named a price that Hope thought embarrassingly low. Yen brought it down by half. Within the week the man arrived back with armfuls of wrapped paper packages out of which tumbled apple green silk pajamas, satin underpinnings, padded socks, felt puttees, brocade vestments lined with squirrel and rabbit fur, and black velvet boots lined with camel’s hair.

  Paul, who had ordered his own winter wardrobe to be brought from Wuchang, was at home the afternoon the new garments arrived and insisted on a fashion show. Pearl was excused from her lessons. Morris’s nap was delayed. Paul enthroned himself in Hope’s upholstered armchair while Ah-nie and the other female servants instructed on the proper order of garments, working from tight to loose, silk to satin to fur-lined brocade and velvet. Hope imagined this must be how a swaddled baby felt—surprisingly comfortable!

  “Next time,” Paul said when the children had gone off, “order ermine. Much warmer than squirrel or rabbit.”

  “Ermine!”

  “Or mink,” he said blandly.

  “I hardly see how the trim can make that much difference.”

  “No trim.” He turned up the hem of her vest. “See, Chinese put fur inside. This way the warmth is next to your skin. Only Westerners are foolish to wear fur outside.”

  “I’m sorry. I think that would be a terrible waste of ermine or mink.” She tilted her face coquettishly.

  He let go of her vest and patted it smooth. “I forget to tell you. I have arranged a post for William Tan in my department. He and Daisy will move into the third court next week.”

  “Why, that’s wonderful news, Paul! I confess, I could use some company—”

  He stood up and went to the stove with his hands outstretched, a tic working his left cheek. Hope felt an instinctive flash of alarm at his distraction, but running a quick inventory, she noted that his hands were steady, his shoulders relaxed. If another dire political turn were taking place, his mood would be much darker. “What is it?” she asked.

  “You remember,” he said slowly, “when we meet Madam Shen outside Yüan’s palace few weeks ago and you take our picture?”

  “That woman you said was the palace procuress?” She could hardly forget. Madam Shen was as gaudy as a Chinese opera star, with her ruby lips and white powder mask, and as saucy as a Toulouse-Lautrec harlot in her ostrich plumes and frills. East had never before met West with such a resounding bang. As a lark, Hope had taken Paul’s picture with this vision against one of the dragon friezes that ran along the palace wall. The madam pouted for the camera, while Paul struck a Napoleonic pose. It was a frame for the books, and Hope had had such a good time taking it that only after they’d bid their goodbyes did it occur to her to ask how Paul was acquainted with Madam Shen. That was when he explained that she directed an “agency” that served all Yüan’s high officials, though he was quick to add that he had never availed himself of her services.

  “Well?” Hope folded her hands in her lap. “What about her?”

  By the time Paul finished his story, she was laughing so hard she was weeping. “Oh, it’s too incredible. Just wait till I write Mary Jane about this. No one back home will believe it!”

  “This business is not finished yet,” Paul warned. “There is to be a trial and I will be called as key witness.”

  “A trial!” Hope leaned forward. “How fascinating. Are spectators allowed? I should say, are women allowed?”

  Paul strutted toward her with an air of comical menace, arms folded tight across his chest. “And why do you ask this thing, my wife?”

  “Because I’ve few enough chances to watch you in action, and this sounds like one I’d be a fool to miss.”

  He placed his hands firmly on her shoulders and gave her forehead a smacking kiss. “As usual, dearest, you are right. I only wish I, too, could be fool enough to miss it.”

  Ta Hsing Hsien Hutung

  Peking

  December 5, 1914

  Dear Mary Jane and Dad,

  Paul is embroiled in such a delicious, utterly absurd affair that I cannot resist writing the juicy details. You especially will appreciate this piquant view of women’s “emancipated” role in politics here, though I must preface by stating that there are a surprising number of genuinely modern-thinking women in China, including several Paul knew as revolutionary students in Japan who now call themselves the Movement Sect. Unfortunately, it is still the women who apply more traditional keys to power who make the biggest waves. In Peking, these latter “ladies” are known as the Vagabond Sect. Our story concerns the Vagabonds’ leader, Madam Shen P’ei-chen, who is posed with Paul, in the first of the enclosed photos, outside Yüan Shih-k’ai’s palace.

  How does Paul know Madam Shen? Well, this “madam” has made it her business to know every influential man in Peking, beginning with Yüan’s top henchmen! Family ties being the primary source of strength and allegiance among the Chinese, she has “adopted” the General Supervisor of the Palace Guard for her godfather, and Minister of the Army, General Tuan Ch’i-jui, for her uncle. She won over the rest of the President’s men by providing them with “women volunteers,” and ultimately gained the favor of Yüan Shih-k’ai himself. Being both too ambitious and too modern for concubine status, Madam Shen persuaded Yüan—who boldly claims that he is eradicating vice!—to appoint her Woman Minister of a General Palace Agency in charge of “entertaining” officials and their guests. Her office is around the corner from Paul’s.

  Well, last month, Madam Shen was entertaining her “godfather’s” Palace Guards at a brothel called the House of Wakening Sexual Desires (!)
when the guests—well into their cups—started playing a wager game of smelling feet, akin to poker, but with a uniquely Chinese emphasis on that most incomprehensibly erotic of private parts, the bound foot. This game continued for three days. Word leaked out, and soon the story was splashed all over the anti-Yüan newspaper Shen Chow Daily. Madam Shen immediately demanded that the paper’s editor, an old friend of Paul’s named Wang, issue a retraction. Mr. Wang responded with a profile of Madam Shen in which he detailed her manufactured kinships and described the true mission of her Palace Agency. He then wisely fled the city.

  Within hours of his departure Madam Shen arrived at his house with a battalion of Vagabonds and Palace Guards. Though the gates were locked, Madam ordered the guards to break in and smash the contents of the receiving halls. She then sat down to wait for Wang. The house was not wholly unoccupied, however. A friend of Mr. Wang’s, one Mr. Kuo, was staying in a rear court. When he came out to reason with the women, they smashed up his quarters, too. Then they swarmed around him, tearing his hair and ripping his clothes. Finally, with a great shout, the ladies tossed him into the courtyard, where he landed square on a pomegranate bush.

  Paul was driving home from a banquet when he saw scores of police and hundreds of spectators crowding around Wang’s gate. As a friend of Wang’s, Paul pushed through to find poor Kuo covered with mud, holding his trousers by one hand and threatening the women with the other. Madam Shen waved Paul forward. “You are a gentleman. You tell this man. We have been slandered!” The leader of the Guards said his men would not leave until Wang returned.

  Poor Paul was surrounded by lunatics, but he held sway. “Remember,” he said to the soldier, “you are in uniform. If the President learns of this incident, your superior must be punished.” So, too, he implied, must this man himself. Then Paul offered his own carriage to take Madam Shen and her ladies home. A few days later Mr. Kuo filed an official complaint listing Paul as witness.