The Yellow Papers

by Dominique Wilson

  Some days they preferred the Huangpu and the Bund, which once had been no more than a muddy towing path but was now a wide, magnificent thoroughfare. They’d wander streets teeming with energy and noise, where the air always smelt of smoke and decomposing rubbish, and they’d watch boats unloading cargo. Other times they searched for streetwalkers known as ‘pheasants’ because of their elaborate, gaudy dress, and xianrou zhuang, or ‘salt pork shops’. Unlike the higher-class changsan brothels, where the women specialised in singing songs from operas and hosted elaborate banquets for rich merchants and officials, and where patrons had to undergo long courtships and pay exorbitant fees before gaining any sexual favour, these lower grade brothels were devoted to instant sexual gratification. And though everyone knew that salt pork was no longer fresh meat, these premises still enjoyed a brisk business catering to the needs of labourers and rickshaw drivers, and sometimes Xi Tang and Chen Mu sneaked into their courtyards only to be chased straight out again.

  But it was the Chinese City, hidden behind its high circular wall pierced by narrow gateways and surrounded by a moat, that Chen Mu loved most because it reminded him of home. Along its dark crowded streets that smelt of rotting rubbish, cooking meats and fried onion pancakes they roamed, exploring alleyways made even narrower by restaurants and tea houses, shops and stalls selling porcelains and bronzes, brocades and embroideries, and stands displaying cooked and raw meats.

  And so days blended into weeks and months, and Chen Mu lost his fear of the barbarians. He understood that their women were not barrel-bodies, but that it was simply the shape of their dress, though he did wonder if the strange shape of their shoe meant that they too practised a type of foot-binding. He was relieved no one seemed interested in skinning him alive, and slowly – ever so slowly – he learned a few words of English.

  And then it was the eve of the examinations.

  Chen Mu barely slept that night. He was sure he would fail English and be sent back to his village in shame. He imagined himself walking back to the schoolmaster’s house, giving back the lotus leaf brush-rest, because someone so stupid would not be worthy of such a gift. But when morning finally arrived he had no trouble with questions on China’s history, nor with recitation. Next came English. The commissioner asked him to translate a sentence, and Chen Mu answered, sure he was wrong. The commissioner looked at the teacher, the teacher looked back, blank-faced. The commissioner asked him for another sentence, then another, and though Chen Mu again did not know the exact words, he answered as best he could.

  ‘That will do,’ the commissioner finally said, and Chen Mu left the room, but before the door closed he thought he heard the commissioner ask the teacher, ‘Was he correct?’

  He waited in the classroom until all the other boys had been tested. Never had a day passed so slowly. Finally the commissioner and the teacher came in. One by one each boy was called to the front of the room and given the much-coveted button of the cadet. The boys bowed, then returned to their seats, proud and confident.

  Soon there was only Chen Mu without a button. He’d been right – he had failed the English examination. They’d left him till last so that he would see what success he could have achieved if he’d applied himself more.

  ‘Chen Mu,’ the commissioner called.

  He rose and walked to the front of the room, fighting tears, head bowed in shame.

  ‘Well done, Chen Mu,’ and the commissioner presented him with the button.

  For a moment Chen Mu stared at the commissioner, not understanding. He looked at the teacher, who smiled and nodded.

  He walked back to his seat, past the smiling faces of his friends. I passed, he thought. I passed! Now Mā won’t think me stupid.

  3

  Chen Mu was thirteen years old when, on the 24th of February 1875, Teacher Yung Wing married Mary Kellogg, a young American woman who had taught some of the boys in her home when they had first arrived in America. From the Chinese Education Mission only two teachers attended the wedding, but late in the afternoon Yung Wing and his bride returned to the college, so that he could formally introduce her as his wife to the boys.

  There was much congratulation and formality at first, but Mary Kellogg was already a favourite with the students, well loved for her cheerfulness and gentle manner, and it didn’t take long for decorum to be replaced by laughter, teasing and games. There were many at the college who disapproved of the union, but the boys thought it a wonderful thing.

  That night, after Yung Wing and his new bride had left, the boys ate supper and retired to their dormitories, still full of excitement. Chen Mu was undressing when Xi Tang crept up behind him and grabbed his queue.

  ‘Your turn, Mouse!’ he said, brandishing scissors. Chen Mu pulled back, anxious. Though some had been quick to cut their queues and discard their Chinese robes for Western-style clothes, others, like Chen Mu, were reluctant – Director Ngen had lectured them on the importance of remaining Chinese in every way.

  ‘Cutting your queue,’ he’d said, ‘is a sign you are no longer loyal to Confucian ideals.’

  ‘I don’t know …’ Chen Mu said, but Xi Tang laughed.

  ‘Come on! If it’s okay for Yung Wing to marry Miss Kellogg, why do we have to still wear our hair in a queue? Why do you love this mouse’s tail so much, hey?’

  ‘Cut the tail!’ one of the boys called out. The others in the room took up the chant: Cut the tail! Cut the tail!

  ‘Alright,’ Chen Mu laughed, ‘cut the tail.’

  He sat late into the night copying the historical text that was his punishment for cutting his queue. He didn’t mind – his punishment was mild, and he liked his hair short. It was the same with the Western clothes Xi Tang had lent him until he could buy his own – they too had felt strange for the first couple of days, but now he liked the way trousers gave his legs more freedom than the robes. He chewed on the end of his pen and wondered what his mother would say if she saw him now – would she even recognise him? When he thought back to the boy he had been, there were times when even he didn’t recognise himself …

  The door of the classroom opened and a tutor came in. Chen Mu rose and bowed.

  ‘Sit down, Chen Mu, sit down …’ he said as he pulled a chair to Chen Mu’s desk.

  Chen Mu frowned – this was not normal protocol.

  ‘Have you nearly finished this task?’

  Chen Mu nodded.

  ‘Good. Good. You are a good student, Chen Mu. Director Ngen – well, all of us, really – we’re pleased with your progress …’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Yes, very pleased. Your mother would have been proud …’

  ‘She says she is. I received a letter last week—’

  ‘Yes, yes, we know. Chen Mu, about your mother – I believe she hadn’t been well for some time …’

  Chen Mu stared at the tutor. Hadn’t been well? Would have been proud?

  ‘My mother is dead?’

  The tutor looked away, and the silence between them grew. Then Chen Mu remembered the pus and blood in the shit-pot, and knew that deep inside he had been expecting this news for some time.

  ‘I need to go home. I have to perform my duties as her son.’

  The tutor shook his head. ‘Young Chen, such a trip would cost a lot of money. I don’t think it possible …’

  Under the desk Chen Mu clenched his fists in an attempt to control his growing anger and frustration. They couldn’t stop him. They had to let him go; there was no question about it.

  ‘And who would accompany you? You cannot travel alone.’

  ‘Yes I can. I’m thirteen – a man already. I have to go.’

  ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘I have to!’ Chen Mu stood, knocking his chair backwards. The tutor raised a hand to calm him but Chen Mu felt tears forming and knew he couldn’t let the tutor see these. He ran out of the room.

  He curled up beneath the blankets of his bed and cried, as much from frustration as from grief, but when
the tutor came to check on him he pretended to be asleep so as not to lose face.

  When the tutor left he pulled the blankets off his head and stared at the shadows on the ceiling. He hadn’t even been told if the Imperial Almanac had been consulted – if his mother had died on a lucky or unlucky day. Had her soul been brought back from the temple of T’u-ti Lao-yeh? Who had burnt the papers to the ten kings of Hades, and to the god of the dragon chariot to help her soul on its journey through the nether world? Without these pieces of yellow paper from the priests, how could her soul find safe passage to the gates of Paradise?

  Then he had another thought which frightened him even as it shamed him – tradition had it that the children of a deceased person should not cut their hair for forty-nine days after the death. He hadn’t been told the exact day his mother died, but he had to have cut his queue after his mother’s death. So now it was more important than ever that he perform his duties for her soul.

  But even as he thought this he knew that there was nothing he could do. Xi Tang had nicknamed him well – he felt like a mouse in a trap, and slowly grief turned to anger. He swore never to forgive the Mission for not allowing him to return home.

  When he woke next morning he found someone had placed the white clothes of mourning at the foot of his bed. He threw them across the room – if he couldn’t go home, he wouldn’t wear them. He put on his American clothes.

  4

  Chen Mu stared through the train window at the vastness of the prairies. He knew he was in trouble, but no matter what the consequences, he didn’t regret his decision. If they had to go back to China after just nine years instead of the promised twenty, he would only do so after seeing the Venus flytrap. Otherwise, he would be no better than that scared and helpless little mouse that had arrived here so many years ago. He thought of the small boy who had been so afraid to leave his village, yet who now, at seventeen, felt more American than Chinese. How different had he really become?

  Outside, the late afternoon sunlight contrasted with the cool dimness of the wagon, and the monotony of the landscape combined with the rocking of the steam train to create a hypnotic effect. He leaned back and closed his eyes, and images of these past years flickered across his memory. The faces of his many tutors. His schoolmates, and their awe at discovering the workings of machines and Mr Bell’s telephone. But Chen Mu had never been interested in machines, and though he studied what was required, his one love was botany, and he had borrowed every book he could find to educate himself in this subject. He had been lucky that Teacher Yung had encouraged him in this, and had even introduced him to the writer Samuel Clemens, whose wife also loved plants. It was at her suggestion that he had started a notebook where he would draw the plants he learned about, then detail their growing requirements and how to propagate and cultivate them. He now had two such notebooks, which he took everywhere with him.

  Teacher Yung Wing – how disapproving the other Chinese tutors had been when he married an American woman! Would Teacher Yung now be just as disapproving of what Chen Mu had done? He knew he would not be given permission for this trip, just as he had never been given permission to attend his mother’s funeral, so he hadn’t bothered asking. He’d simply decided that before heading back to China he would see for himself the plant Charles Darwin described as ‘the most wonderful in the world’.

  He was going to the Green Swamps of North Carolina – the only place, according to Darwin, that the Venus flytrap grew – where the bog was so thick thorny vines were said to grow to the size of broom handles, and give shelter to rattlesnakes, copperheads and alligators. But the dangers of the Green Swamps didn’t worry Chen Mu. The thought of a plant that actually ate insects was too extraordinary to dismiss, no matter what the dangers, no matter what the penalty. Though he’d left a note at the College, he knew the tutors would be angry, but this too didn’t matter – he’d deal with the consequences when the time came.

  It was almost dark when Chen Mu finally reached his destination, too late to look for the flytrap. He had to find lodgings for the night, but first he needed to eat. Carrying his small case in which he’d packed, along with a change of clothes, his notebooks, the jade brush-rest, and his signed copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, he headed for the centre of town. These items were his most prized possessions and always the first thing he packed, even if only for an overnight trip.

  The night air was moisture laden, hot and sticky. Mosquitoes hovered around his face and his stiff cellulose collar chafed. He wished he could remove his jacket, but being a stranger here he didn’t want to offend by being incorrectly dressed. He walked along the main street lost in thought, unaware of the chorus of frogs-calls filling the air, of the moonlight so bright it cast long shadows in the street; unaware of people glancing at him suspiciously as he passed.

  He came to a tavern. At a long table by the window men sat talking amongst themselves, drinks in hand, waiting for their supper. On the bar was a hogshead of rum, and behind it were shelves stocked with Lisbon wine and decanters of brandy and Holland Gin. The walls of the room were covered with a profusion of messages, advertisements and legal notices. A placard of stagecoach routes, a woodcut of an enormous stallion rearing, and directly beside the bar the front page of that week’s broadsheet lamented the shooting of President Garfield in Washington. By barrels of strong beer and hard cider, four men sat at a smaller table playing poker. The tavern keeper stood behind the bar, watching Chen Mu.

  Chen Mu approached him.

  ‘You’d best just turn around and get out of here, boy.’

  Chen Mu looked at the tavern keeper, confused. Had he offended in some way? He noticed for the first time the uncomfortable silence in the room. No one looked his way, except for the poker-playing men who stared and smirked.

  ‘Did you hear me, boy? I said go. Now.’

  ‘I’d like a meal first, if you please.’ He spoke formally – English was not his language and he was conscious of the need to be polite. ‘I’ve been travelling for two days and I’m hungry. I’d like a meal. I do have money to pay …’ and he dug into his pocket, but the tavern keeper grabbed his arm and led him outside.

  ‘Just go, lad. It’s for the best,’ he said quietly before turning away.

  Chen Mu felt embarrassed, yet didn’t understand why he’d been told to leave. His manner had been modest and polite, so why should he be refused service?

  Well, so be it. He’d come this far and had no intention of leaving without seeing the plant. He’d find lodgings and at first light hire a guide, and insist they leave for the swamps there and then. He’d sketch in his notebook the plant in minute detail, then pick a number of flowers and leaves in different stages of development to press. When back in China he intended making a painting of them, to send to the Clemens of Connecticut, as a ‘thank you’ for the friendship they had shown towards him.

  He was so immersed in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the two men and the woman following him, whispering and laughing, careful to keep a safe distance.

  In the window of a house he saw the sign ‘Rooms’ and knocked on the door. A woman answered, but when she saw Chen Mu she simply closed the door without asking him his business.

  Suddenly it all made sense. The sudden silence in the tavern, the tavern keeper’s refusal to serve him, and now this woman – he was not welcome in this town. He’d heard, of course, that Chinese people often met with prejudice and even violence, especially in the South, but as he’d never encountered such treatment in Connecticut he’d dismissed these stories as rumours. Anger replaced embarrassment and he considered returning to the tavern to demand service the same as any man, but then he remembered the smirk on the poker players’ faces, and that the tavern had been packed, whereas he was here alone.

  Behind him the two men gave the woman a small push forward, snickered and waved her on. She giggled, then straightened to her full height and raised her nose into what she believed to be an aristocratic expression. She patted her
bonnet into place and removed her drawstring bag from the chatelaine at her waist. As she walked toward Chen Mu she swung her hips provocatively, the ruffles and bows above her bustle bouncing, the tassels on her bag swaying to and fro. She came abreast of Chen Mu and bumped into him, dropping her bag.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ Chen Mu said as he picked up the bag and tried to hand it to her, but the woman stepped back.

  ‘Help! Thief! He stole my bag!’

  Chen Mu looked at her, bewildered. Saw the two men running towards him.

  ‘I—’ but he saw the expression on the woman’s face and instantly understood. He threw the bag at her and ran. Others joined the chase and Chen Mu could hear calls of Stop the thief! Stop the Chink! and he forced his legs to pump faster. His small leather case beat against his leg as he ran, bruising his leg, but he wasn’t about to drop his treasures. His ears roared and he ran faster still, not knowing where to go. He heard a gunshot and panic overtook reason. He dived into an alleyway, crawled into an empty crate and curled up. He strained to hear the mob not far behind, but all he could hear was the rush of blood in his ears and his heavy breathing. He forced himself to breathe slowly, quietly. The pounding of running feet drew closer. Passed the alley. Grew weaker and died away. He crawled out of the crate and stood up.

  The first punch hit him squarely in the face and broke his nose, followed by a second that split his lip. He fell back against the crates, dazed. Gagged at the blood trickling down the back of his throat. But the man who had followed him here and waited in this alley for his prey was on him before he could react. He fought back but the fighting he knew was the boxing they had been taught at the College – gentlemen’s boxing – and of no use in an alley. The man’s hands encircled his throat and his celluloid collar crackled as he felt consciousness ebbing and he knew he had to do something now or die. He groped the ground around him, hoping for something – anything – to help him defend himself. Fighting for breath, fighting the ringing in his ears. His hand gripped something long and hard. With all his strength he pounded his attacker’s temple.