by Basu, Kanal
Antonio stirred in his seat.
“Every death reminds you of your mother, doesn’t it? That’s why you hide in your doctor’s chamber when a dying patient is brought to the All Saints. That’s why you never treat syphilis.”
It had taken Antonio more than a few tries to win Ricardo Silva over. First at his friend’s quinta, then at their favorite pastelaria and after several long walks along the Tagus, he was able to convince Ricardo that the heretic was worth at least a throw of the dice, that he’d return from China with or without the Yellow Emperor’s cure before the feast of St. Anthony and seek the saint’s blessings for a solid life, treating patients and fathering babies with a new wife.
Then, reluctantly, and at Antonio’s insistence, his friend had taken him over to meet Bernard Danziger, the English owner of a shipping fleet. He was all set to sail for Macau and promised to take the young doctor along on his run to Little Portugal, reaching the silk fair in time before the “Japs vanished with every silkworm, dead or alive!”
II
PEKING
The Yellow Emperor’s Canon
From the hull of the Santa Cruz, Antonio saw Macau. Rising from the mist like a ghost, it seemed a spitting twin of his very own Lisbon. Lush forests flanked a bald hilltop, and spread an even carpet of green down to the coast. White adobe homes knelt on the beach like grieving widows. “It’s the city of sorrow,” Marcello Valignoni, the Italian artist who lived in Macau, told him. He drew portraits of the city’s hongs, the rich Chinese merchants, and vain foreigners who pretended to be their lords. “You’ll see when we drop anchor.” Antonio spotted a white villa sitting on top of a hill, at the highest point of the island. The Praya Grande wound its way past docks full of European homes with large bay windows and wrought-iron fences. Nearer, they saw steeples rising out of barrios in the market streets and the enormous façade of the São Paulo Church.
“In China it’s called the City of God, but it’s better known as the City of Sad Wives!” Marcello Valignoni chuckled. Passengers of the steamship clapped as Mr. Danziger, the owner, popped a bottle of Monopole to celebrate their arrival. The captain fired a shot into the air to alert the harbor master, and a roaring group of merchants dropped a fistful of coins into the sea to wish themselves luck.
The Italian nudged Antonio. “Coolie traders. They’re here to raid the barracoons. Every able-bodied man they can find will be bought and sent over to goldmines in America.” He smiled at Antonio’s disbelief. “They’ll pay with opium brought from Calcutta.” One of them danced a gig on deck, cheered on by his friends.
“He’s happy because he’ll meet his shore wife soon. They’re all happy, hoping to see the children born while they were away, raised by their sad Chinese mothers.” Bernard Danziger came over and offered them both a drink of the champagne that he had stocked up on before they left Lisbon.
Standing on the gangplanks, Antonio paid close attention to the portraitist as he described the “faces of Macau” on show.
“This one’s Dutch with a drop of Chinese,” Valignoni pointed toward a boy with sunken chest and blue eyes selling crab apples, and his friend, who was “pure Madras, as black as a Malagasy.” Antonio heard him over the din of departing passengers eager to leave the ship, none more so than those who’d spent six weeks on sea from Lisbon to the China coast. He felt lonely in the crowd, without a shore wife or a backslapping officer of the magistracy come to greet him, even a lay brother to show him his way to the nearest mission.
“You’d be staying with the lord, I hear!” preparing to leave with his retinue of servants, Bernard Danziger told Antonio. The coolie traders fell silent as someone pointed out a solitary figure on a Chinese sedan, sitting under a parasol and holding up opera glasses to her eyes.
“Dona Elvira! The lord’s wife!”
Ricardo Silva had made arrangements for Antonio’s stay in Little Portugal.
“You’ll need friends in China, more than you need here. They’ll have to teach you everything, starting with how to speak Chinese. They must find your heretic for you, otherwise you’ll spend your whole life looking for him.”
Antonio had protested. It couldn’t be that hard to learn the Chinese cure if it did in fact exist, he had argued, but Ricardo was quick to refute him. “If it was easy to find, it’d be sold in every whorehouse in the world.” He’d need no less than a Ricardo Silva to pave his way, his friend had boasted, then offered his godmother, Dona Elvira.
“You thought she was your mother when you were a boy, didn’t you?” Ricardo had chuckled.
Antonio remembered Dona Elvira. She had lived in sunny Madeira with her husband, Dom Afonso de Oliveira, the island’s governor, and visited her friend, Ricardo’s mother, during the period of Lent. She was the good fairy of every child’s dream, arriving each year laden with gifts, and she had a special corner in her heart for Antonio, the motherless boy. He remembered coming home from Ricardo’s and begging his father to fetch Dona Elvira. He must bring her back, he’d plead with him, from his friend’s house that she’d escaped to from her box under the earth.
“From Madeira’s queen, she has become the empress of Macau!” Dom Afonso, Ricardo said, had been sent, against his wishes, from the island of wine to the island of vice to live out the last years of his magistracy. His wife, though, had relished the change. “She dresses like a Chinese empress, smokes the opium pipe, and knows everything there is to know about China. Might even have a syphilitic or two among her friends!” He had sent word about Antonio’s visit to his godmother and the governor. Looking sadder than ever before, Ricardo had advised him, “She’ll be your ally. Just don’t let her keep you back in Macau.”
Antonio greeted the lady under the parasol and received the heartiest embrace of his life, gushing and full of scents that as a boy had reminded him of his mother. He was overcome with an instant relief from his long journey as Dona Elvira, chatting away merrily, sighed and fawned over her Tino. Leaving the port and the crowded streets behind, it didn’t take long for their sedan to reach the white villa on top of the hill, at the highest point of the island.
Antonio was struck by the governor’s villa, even before he stepped into the large spacious verandas cooled by monsoon breezes, or passed through the tall doors that opened into rooms with high ceilings and shuttered windows. The gardens far surpassed the most sumptuous quintas he’d seen, leading into Moorish arches at the entrance. A herd of baboons, the size of sheep and hairy like lions, sat on the elaborate columns and made faces at him. Dona Elvira called out to them, as if they were her favorite pets. A row of servants greeted them in a jumble of tongues. Dona Elvira clapped her hands for a maid to appear quickly and sprinkle them with rose water, “to keep out the street smells.”
The bell was rung to announce the midday meal, and his hostess led Antonio to a large table covered in plain white cloth set with dishes and glasses, silverware and napkins, behind a brilliantly painted Japanese screen to guard them from the afternoon sun. “In the East you must get used to eating your biggest meal in the middle of the day, then sleep all afternoon to digest it.” Pointing out the dishes – the pies and broths, spiced meats and curried fish – she stopped to reassure Antonio. “We do more than eat and sleep. The evenings are meant for work, when the rain comes to cool the hot heads.” Dona Elvira ate with her hands like a native, rinsing them in a silver bowl at the end of each course. “You’ll get used to things quickly. Most foreigners do, and then they don’t want to leave! But it’ll take you a while to trust your tongue!” She watched him hesitate, examining the bowls. “Your nose might not know what you’re tasting. Might smell a carp while eating birds’ nests, or mushrooms for camels’ feet!”
“What happens to those who don’t get used to things?” Antonio asked cautiously.
Dona Elvira chuckled. “They get used to opium, and forget where they are!”
Antonio rose to greet Dom Afonso, the governor, known commonly as the “lord” among the Macanese. At the age of
fifty, he looked seventy – white haired and hollow cheeked, with a half-contemptuous smile – resembling more a scholar at Lisbon’s Sociedade de Geografia than the protector of his subjects. Returning passengers on the Santa Cruz made fun of Dom Afonso, the lord who slept all day, coming alive only to show off his mastery of seafaring to his friends. His eloquence on the northwesterly monsoon and tropical doldrums far exceeded his interest in taxing the opium farms and policing the vice dens for which Little Portugal was notorious the world over. He was the sleeping giant that made Macau such a safe haven for adventurers.
“Our Tino has come to find a cure for pox.” Dona Elvira seemed amused by the idea even as she presented it to her husband. “How brilliant of him to think of the Chinese, and their smelly herbs. Maybe they can teach him how to suck out the poison with their needles.”
Pecking at the dishes, Dom Afonso seemed cold to the idea. “Why would the Chinese care? Why worry about a cure when they could simply chop off the rotten part and solve the problem?”
“You mean turn the syphilitic into a eunuch?” Dona Elvira exclaimed.
“That won’t help.” Antonio spoke quietly. “Syphilis is known to spread quickly from the genitals to the whole body. They’d have to chop off the victim’s neck to solve the problem.”
Dom Afonso shrugged. “What’s stopping them from doing just that? Men are killed for smaller crimes here.” His eyes roved around the table till they found laranja da China – sweet oranges that smelled like roses. Dona Elvira pressed on with Antonio’s idea, slicing and serving fruit, while a servant cleared the table for desserts.
“But they do know more about curing diseases than us, don’t they? Fewer women die of childbirth here than back home. The bazaars swarm with fleas and yet none die from the plague. Maybe he can learn from them how to cure the pox, the ‘Portuguese disease’ as they call it.”
Antonio sipped the Chinese tea, poured by Dona Elvira. She claimed it had the power to digest even the most robust of tables, but he choked at the bitter taste. He too had heard about the miracle cures of Chinese doctors from his fellow passengers, but doubted them.
“If our Tino masters syphilis, they’ll build his statue in every whorehouse in Europe!” Dona Elvira wasn’t prepared to give in to her husband’s coldness. “We’d be famous too, for having helped the brilliant Portuguese doctor!”
Dom Afonso gave her the sad look of a fatalist. He didn’t share his wife’s exuberance. An idea was simply an idea, not a fact, like gold till it was discovered in the New World, or Vasco da Gama’s journey on the Carriera da India for spices a mere four centuries ago. After years in the colonies he was used to adventurers, and to his wife, who was to him the greatest adventurer of all.
“You must introduce him to the mandarins in Peking, those who can help him find a good Chinese doctor. He’ll need a guide too who can take him there.”
“He should stay here, before he goes anywhere.” Dom Afonso rose from the table, taking over from his wife and giving Antonio a glimpse of his magisterial side. “And spend the whole of autumn and winter before he’s ready. He must go every day to the Jesuit College and learn to speak Chinese.”
Dona Elvira’s mouth fell open. “You mean our Tino must become a casado before he becomes a pox doctor?”
Dom Afonso shook his head. “He doesn’t have to go native, take a Chinese girl and all that. Simply know their tongue well enough”–he smiled cynically–“to understand the secret when it’s spoken into his ear.”
“Two full seasons …?” Antonio asked. Would it take that long to master Chinese? His host seemed to read his mind.
“It takes much longer, but our wizard at the Jesuit College can help you learn faster.”
Dona Elvira’s face lit up. “You mean Joachim Saldanha?”
“He’s a christãos-novos,” Dona Elvira told Antonio, when he asked her to tell him more about his Chinese teacher. “Well, not him, his forefathers really. They were Jews who had converted and become Christians to save their skins during the Inquisition. Most were shipped off to the colonies along with lepers and convicts, but luck had spared his lot. He grew up in Lisbon’s Judiarias cleansed of Jews and their synagogues. Then he joined the Brotherhood and traveled the world.”
“A christãos-novos speaking Chinese?” Antonio searched for the missing pieces of the puzzle.
“Like all Jesuits, he went first to the Dark Continent, but had to return on account of poor health. Then he enrolled at the Oratorio of St. Martin, and surprised everyone by learning to speak the most difficult tongue in the world.” The padre was a much sought after teacher, Dona Elvira said, popular among officers and merchants. “He knows our colonies of Estado da India like the back of his hand. Name it and he has sailed everywhere: Goa to Malacca with cotton for spices; Malacca to Macau for silk; Macau to Nagasaki for swords and silver. He has fought against the trade too, to stop the smuggling of coolies, and has a scar on his neck for going against both the Chinese and the Portuguese.”
“He’s what you’d call a real character,” Dona Elvira said, as she strolled with Antonio on the Praya Grande. “Like Marcello the artist, and Gutzlaff the German phrenologist, who’s the only one to have touched the heads of the superstitious hongs.”
Unlike foreign ladies who always appeared in public on their sedans, Dona Elvira chose frequently to go about on foot with her attendants and urged Antonio to do the same if he wished to be truly fascinated by the sights of Little Portugal. Following her around, he saw more to fascinate him in a day than he’d seen in six weeks during his fifteen- thousand-mile journey on the Santa Cruz. Even more than the blind fortune-teller or sellers of singing birds, the butchers who imitated screaming pigs to attract customers or the tiny shops that sold offerings of dough animals for the gods, he was struck by the black raven, even blacker than those on Lisbon’s coat of arms, fighting with the baboons, stabbing their eyes and stealing their crumbs.
“Foreign gentleman mustn’t forget to taste the Eastern fruits,” Dona Elvira smiled, as she caught Antonio eyeing the mestizhinas – the Eurasian women who flaunted their black hair and magnolia skin, dressed like princesses in silk jackets and embroidered shawls, eyes heavy with mascara and lips reddened by betel juice. “Come, I’ll show you what the Chinese prize even more than their women.” She took him past the shops of Rua do Bazarihno to see the “traveling women” – inflatable leather dolls made for the comfort of Macanese men who wished to spend a pleasurable evening without their wives.
“You must taste the golden lilies before you go. Then tell me why Western men find them so tempting?” Dona Elvira gave Antonio a naughty look. “Unless, of course, you’re saving yourself for your one and only one back home.”
Has Ricardo told her about Arees? He wondered if his friend was relying on his godmother to talk him into marrying his little sister.
“You can do whatever you want in Macau.” Dona Elvira spoke like a confidant. “Then go home and be the perfect husband! Your secret will stay secure here.” She laid her hand on her bosom and winked at Antonio.
Back to the villa for their afternoon tea, Antonio met Joachim Saldanha. He had come to see Dom Afonso to seek his help for the reconstruction of São Paulo Church after it had been vandalized, yet again, by miscreants who claimed the Portuguese were kidnapping Chinese babies to sell as slaves to ships’ captains. The governor took snuff from his bottle and blew his nose. The padres were far too lenient with their flocks, he complained. There were reasons to believe that the crime had been committed by a native Christian who was unhappy with the church’s prohibition of ancestor worship. He’ll confess with just a light whipping, the governor thought, and willingly bear the expenses.
“Ever since Francis Xavier resolved to enter China in the sixteenth century and Father Metteo Ricci began his splendid work of building the mission, there’s been trouble over accepting Chinese rites into Christian practices.” Dom Afonso lectured the padre, who was busy writing up a detailed list of items
damaged by the incident. “Why not accept their rites? A pig’s head on the altar won’t worry our Blessed Virgin, will it?”
With his pale face and unblinking eyes, beaklike nose and curly hair, the master linguist resembled a seller of magical potions in the old bazaars of Lisbon. Barely looking up from his notes, Joachim Saldanha answered Dom Afonso’s complaint. “It’s different this time. Now they’re blaming us for a lot more than banning ancestor worship.”
“You mean for employing Chinese men as sedan bearers?” Dona Elvira thought the padre was referring to the objections raised by mandarins over “white devils” riding on the backs of natives.
Joachim Saldanha shook his head. “Now they are blaming us for poisoning their rivers, for diverting clouds from their fields, for running our railways over lakes and trapping their ancestors’ spirits with our telegraph lines.”
“That’s silly!” Antonio blurted out. He thought Joachim Saldanha was joking. Dom Afonso introduced the two of them, then asked the padre if he knew of a Chinese remedy for the pox. “Out of a million sinners, you must know at least one who’s been forgiven and cured?”
With his pen up in the air, Joachim Saldanha thought for a while then spoke cheerfully. “No one has yet asked if the Chinese can treat syphilis. No foreigner, that is. A Nei ching master will have the answer to that question.”
“Who?” Dona Elvira cupped her ear.
“A Chinese doctor who’s mastered the Yellow Emperor’s Canon, the book that describes all their medical laws,” Joachim Saldanha explained.
“And why would a Chinese doctor be ready to share his secret with foreigners?” Dom Afonso quizzed the padre like a true officer.
“Because it’d cure the white devils who they blame for infecting the Chinese.”