by Basu, Kanal
“The risk of doing nothing is more than the risk of doing something. I’d order evacuation now,” the Hong Kong banker spoke confidently. “Move the families off sharp to Japan.”
The very mention of “move” stirred the crowd, with everyone talking at once. The French minister gave an amused smile, and slapped his Italian counterpart on the back as if they had just scored an easy win over their Anglo-American rivals. Only Ferguson seemed upset with the “family clause,” challenging Pinchback to spell out his plans for saving the “poor singles.” It took Cedric Hart’s brave efforts to restore order, as he prompted his American friend to announce a set of practical tips on behalf of “all ministers.”
John Harris read out the list of dos and don’ts. No woman should leave the Legation unaccompanied, even to visit the silk market or the curio shops on Flower Street and Donkey Alley. The train to Tientsin should be avoided at all costs by those who were planning their own evacuation. There’d be day and night vigil at the Legation, with the names of volunteer guards to be circulated soon. All foreigners would be given sanctuary at the missions, and the allotment of beds and provisions would be overseen by a small committee led by Linda Harris. Men and women would be furnished with service revolvers, the first secretary announced, and a self-defense class would be conducted by Herr Mueller in the grounds of his residence.
“We haven’t reached the point of no return yet,” Mr. Harris stated to general dissatisfaction. Ferguson gave the final tip of the evening: everyone should have a set of Chinese clothes handy for purposes of disguise, if necessary. Western women would need to add lengths to the Manchu robes to cover their legs, and the men to grow beards over their flat cheeks.
“What about our large feet? Wouldn’t that give us away?” Polly giggled at her friend.
“Shh! Decent ladies only bare their feet to their lovers!”
“You are one of us.” Polly tried to persuade Antonio to stay back at the Legation after the briefings. His sedan chair could return empty and bring back his things next morning. “I won’t have Linda “allotting” you to one of her dodgy friends. Ellie would be so relieved if you stayed with us.”
He told her he’d be safe in his pavilion. Why would Boxers attack the dowager’s palace? Who’d expect to find a Portuguese doctor living so close to her anyway? He disappointed Polly by telling her that he couldn’t just abandon his two loyal attendants, or leave his education incomplete.
“You are going back for Fumi, aren’t you?” Polly sounded hurt. “It’s foolish, Tino, and you know that. Risking your life for what? When our troops arrive they’ll once again burn the Summer Palace down, and teach the Old Buddha a lesson. Your Fumi will leave you and run as soon as troubles start.”
She waited for Antonio to change his mind then when he didn’t, offered a diplomat’s compromise. “Why don’t you both come and stay with us for a few days? I’m sure Fumi won’t mind. She was quite a hit at the ball. It’d be safer for her as well.”
“Why would she be safer here?”
“Because the Boxers haven’t been too kind to the Chinese who are close to foreigners. They’ve been killing gardeners and cooks, interpreters, even friends.” She made Antonio promise that he’d discuss the matter with Fumi after he returned to the palace. “Come over whenever you’re ready, come before it’s too late!” Cedric Hart accompanied him to his sedan, and wished him well for his return journey. “You, more than us, will know when the real trouble starts. When you leave and come over, we’ll know the attack on the Legation is soon to begin. As long as you are there, we’ll know we’re safe here!”
He thought about the Legation on his way back. There are serious men there among the clowns. Perhaps the clowns too were only pretending, hiding under their comical manners. It won’t take long for party guests to turn the gardens into trenches and barracks. He wondered what’d happen to those like Joachim Saldanha. What’d happen to him and Fumi if the things that Polly said came to pass? He tried to peek through the curtains, and catch the half moon perched behind the trees, adding a halo to the streetlamps. The bearers seemed to follow a different route back, not a word exchanged between them.
Back in the lodge he drew the naked torsos of a man and a woman on a sheet of paper. He marked them both with spots, and shaded their skin to give them a withered appearance; added oozing sores to the female breasts, and a full moon to crown the male member. Calling his attendants over, he showed them the drawings. They looked away at first then gaped at the syphilitic couple in wonder.
Tian exclaimed, and nudged his uncle. Antonio asked if they had seen anyone who resembled the drawings. The spots could be greater or lesser in number, he explained, but always ripe and oozing or dark like dried blood. The female might show scars around her belly as if it was stretched by childbearing. Wangsheng stared long and hard at the male member then shrugged. They both shuddered as he drew the woman’s head with a few deft strokes, showing a half eaten nose and a mouthful of rotten teeth.
“You’ve seen her, haven’t you?” Antonio asked them.
“A mad woman,” Wangsheng said, “lives at the village of the insect festival, resembling the Hungry Ghost or a kuei-shen, a demon born of the scorched earth. Elders know her as a whore who traveled with soldiers and bore their children, but the wounds she carried were much worse than a knife’s gash or bullet holes.”
“Can you take me to see her?”
The eunuch mentioned something about Xu.
“No, no, we don’t need to ask his permission. Just the three of us can go to the village of insects.” Wangsheng looked uncertain then nodded, disappearing quickly with a fearful glance back at the syphilitic couple.
The Hungry Ghost might be his savior, Antonio thought, if she was indeed a pox victim. She might tell him a thing or two about the Chinese treatment, more than what his teacher was prepared to. Perhaps the poor woman could lead him to other ghosts like her, his own investigations prove more successful than four seasons of Nei ching.
He missed Fumi. The royals kept her busy and he saw her for just a few hours before she left him alone in the lodge and disappeared. There were days when she didn’t come at all, sending word through his attendants of an urgent call to attend to the empress. Their routine of daily lessons had all but ended. Might Xu send off his assistant and take it upon himself to teach him now? On his return from the Legation he was anxious at the thought of losing Fumi before the rebels stormed Peking.
Polly had kept her word and arranged for Antonio to meet Yohan at the old monastery of the Tartar city. He’d go there with Helga to have the chief abbot of the brotherhood of Buddhist monks bless her and her child before she gave birth. “You can ask him all you want but beware, in the end he might get more out of you than you of him!”
For a consummate gossip, Polly had been curiously tight lipped when it came to Yohan. His wife had had a colorful past, she told Antonio. Her German first husband was an agent for Krupp, the makers of the Krupp cannon that the Chinese loved, and the couple’s reputation as social butterflies had wafted in from Shanghai to Peking, along with rumors of debauchery.
“What kind of debauchery?” Antonio had asked.
“You know … couples indulging themselves with other couples; hurting and punishing each other in the name of love, even forcing their housemaids to join them. The kind that shocks normal people.” The Krupp agent was the meek one, rumor went, Helga the greedier of the two, and he didn’t mind it a bit when she left him for his business partner, “our Chinese spy!” and moved to Peking.
“Did Yohan know all about her?”
“Everyone knew! She was our juiciest gossip before you smacked the King of Bubbly!”
“I thought the Chinese wanted their wives to be as chaste as daisies.”
Polly corrected him. “Our Yohan is really an American with a Chinese face. Don’t forget that he wasn’t born here in this country and hadn’t lived in China till his parents brought him back from San Francisco. Some say he ha
d to be taught to speak Chinese the hard way by spending a whole year among poor and illiterate orphans. His brain though is the brain of a genius. He can read people’s minds, predict accidents, find gold without digging an inch. He’s what you’d call ‘pure intelligence’!”
Waiting for Yohan at the monastery, Antonio remembered Polly’s words. Why would “pure intelligence” choose to spy on bumbling foreigners, whose secrets were common knowledge among their domestics? He wondered too about meeting his debauched wife among the white pines that circled the monastery’s inner courtyard like a candelabra.
“She’s all changed now,” Polly had told him, “as pure as a hausfrau.”
Imposing walls guarded the exquisite pagoda and the monastery from the dusty streets. At the entrance, stone tablets from the Ming announced the abode of Buddhist scholars. The garden path led to the austere pagoda and the monks’ residences shrouded in stern secrecy. It was built at a time, Antonio remembered his friend Joachim Saldanha telling him, when “men were willing to spend money on God instead of on themselves.”
Yohan in a European suit and Helga dressed as a proper Chinese wife in a jade gown were kneeling before the chief abbot on the pagoda’s steps. He was blessing them with a chant, holding joss sticks over their heads. A flock of doves observed the ceremony from the pine branches, descending every now and then to peck at the offerings brought by the kneeling couple.
A junior priest led Helga to a private chamber for an audience with the chief, and Yohan sauntered over to Antonio, holding out a cigar for him.
“In China there’s a ceremony for everything! Even one for getting well after a cold! The priests are better than merchants in squeezing the people.”
“Better even than a Krupp agent?”
“Ah! You’ve done your homework on me! What else have you learned?”
“That your talents are wasted in your current occupation, which is a mystery to most.”
Yohan laughed, scattering the doves and drawing out a young head or two from the monastery’s windows. “But isn’t it a doctor’s job to solve mysteries?” They sat under a giant catalpa tree revered on account of its size, providing the perfect shade for the peonies that would bloom under it in spring and dazzle the visitors.
“I won’t tell you everything I know about you, except that your friends consider you an even better gambler at the bullring than a doctor.” Antonio smiled noticing the trace of Ricardo Silva in Yohan’s words, wondering what else his friend had told the Chinese spy. It didn’t take long for Yohan to come to the point, like a real agent interested in closing a deal.
“You’d like to know more about Dr. Xu, wouldn’t you?”
Antonio nodded, privately rehearsing the answer he’d give if asked why.
“Would you like me to tell you what he does to remain in the empress’s favor, or do you know that already?”
“He’s a eunuch maker, and a killer of unwanted babies.”
“Good!” Yohan gave him a look of genuine regard. “He’s rumored to have done more than that, although we’d never know for sure.”
“Done what?”
“Got rid of her palace rivals by serving them top-grade poison as medicine. Some even claim he’s the ‘cause’ behind the emperor’s sickness.”
Antonio recalled Fumi’s vigorous defense of his teacher: he’s a Nei ching master who follows the empress’s orders – nothing more, nothing less. He wanted to ask Yohan if it was true that the empress kept a stable of “false eunuchs” for her private pleasure, then decided to hold back, reminded of rumors about his pregnant wife.
“He’s what you’d call a loyal man, loyal to his ruler and friends.”
“And rebels too?”
Yohan shook his head. “It’s hard for foreigners to understand what that word means.” He seemed distracted by the cooing doves, and glanced at the closed chamber with Helga inside before continuing. “If you think being critical of foreigners for what they’ve done to China makes one a rebel, then most Chinese are rebels. I’m a rebel too! A rebel is born every time a foreigner spits on a Chinese shopkeeper for failing to win a bargaining match, or when he pokes his servant in the ribs with his umbrella. Who isn’t a rebel? One can’t simply blame Xu.”
“I didn’t mean just any rebel, I meant the Boxers.”
“That’s different. Supporting the spirit army has nothing to do with hating foreigners. It’s about being confused.”
“Confused about what?”
“Which way the empress will go. If she sides with Boxers and they win, then everyone would want to be a Boxer! No one wants to be on the losing side, do they?”
It’ll be hard to get anything out of Yohan, Antonio thought, hearing him lecture on the subtlety of court politics. Perhaps he should drop the rebels and ask him about personal matters, ask him about Xu’s boyhood in the North.
“You can call him a self-made man.” Yohan seemed happier talking about Xu than Boxers and foreigners. “His American friends loved him, the Locke Mission doctors who took him on as guide for their trips to far flung places. In many ways he’s an ordinary man, but his mystery is not as easy to solve as yours or mine.”
“Mystery?” Antonio pricked up his ears.
“Why did he betray the mission and put his American friends in danger? Why does he frequently disappear from sight, why doesn’t he live with his wife, why has he never come to the monastery to be blessed for a son?”
He hadn’t noticed a wife in Xu’s home. “A wife?” Antonio asked cautiously.
Yohan nodded and rose from his seat under the catalpa tree. “He’s rumored to have one, but never takes her name or appears with her in public. The secret of his wife makes our Xu a mysterious man!”
As they reached the pagoda’s steps, Antonio knew his investigations had reached a dead end. The spy had given nothing away. He felt frustrated by Yohan’s answers and cut him short when he started to tell him about the many difficulties of sifting the truth from rumors.
“It’s no use then. If you, whom Polly considers to be nothing but ‘pure intelligence,’ know nothing about Xu, then he’s probably best left alone as mystery unsolved.” Helga, looking serene, emerged from the private chamber and waved at them.
“Did Polly really say that about me?” Yohan looked pleased and surprised. Antonio nodded.
“I think ‘pure wisdom’ will be more useful to you than ‘pure intelligence,’” Yohan smiled. “I am prepared to take you to see Oscar Franklin if you’ll take a look at my wife and tell us if it’ll be a boy or a girl.”
“You mean I should meet yet another Chinese-American spy? How do I know your Oscar won’t serve me one more dose of ‘unsolved mysteries’?” Antonio started to walk away toward the monastery’s gate.
“No, no … if anyone knows the real story about Xu, it’s Oscar. And he’s American American. He’s a Locke Mission doctor who married Chinese and stayed back in China, unlike his younger compatriots. He’s not the type to sit around and “chew the fat”, as Americans say. He was the Horseman’s best friend and almost died saving him.”
“Who died saving whom?”
“You’ll soon find out!” Yohan patted Antonio on the back on his way out of the monastery, an arm around his wife.
Tian was in tears. “He was attacked,” Wangsheng said. Antonio heard a commotion and coming out into the courtyard, found the older eunuch cradling his nephew like a child. Between sobs, Tian was telling his uncle about his troubles during his usual morning rounds at the market. A big crowd had gathered before a makeshift stage, with shopkeepers abandoning their wares to flock around it. A group of young men were swirling about, raising supernatural cries and calling on the gods to descend and possess them. The crowd cheered them on as they danced with sticks and naked swords then dropped down, one by one, strewn in a heap like dead soldiers. Everyone held their tongue, Tian recounted, and children had started to cry. “The real drama got going then. The dead men started to twitch and stir, born again as gods!�
�� A roll of drums greeted Lei Gong. The god of thunder rose and banged his feet on the stage and let out a fearsome yell. The celestial Monkey King turned somersaults, lifted up his comrades and threw them onto a bed of burning coals. Led by their gods the crowd left the stage and went around the market, drawing everyone out into an open field with a bamboo cross planted in the middle. A live pig was hung from it, and torches lit all around. Kuan-Ti, the God of War, appeared next with his friend, the God of Archery. Together they had danced a war dance then shot arrows killing the animal, and made fun of the Christian god that was no better than a rotten pig.
He had tried to escape the Boxers, the young eunuch said in a frightened voice. But a few shopkeepers caught him and tugged at his robe. “Show us what you’ve got!” They had taunted him, “All Chinese men should be soldiers!” The watermelon seller grabbed him and threatened to wring his neck; the pig farmer raised a mallet to smash his head, while a band of Red Lantern girls – the female Boxers – made cruel fun of his stutter.
“Boxers at the market?” Antonio gave Tian a look of disbelief. “I thought they were doing their drills in Tungchow.”
He was saved by none other than Dr. Xu. Chased by the mob, he had slipped on a banana skin and smashed his head against a rock. They were all over him in a flash like a hunting pack, and started to spit and piss on him before the doctor who was on his way to the palace stopped them with a yell no less ferocious than the gods.
Wangsheng shook his head. “Not just in Tungchow, the Boxers are everywhere, maybe even inside the palace.” He glanced fearfully at the courtyard from the kitchen window. “They haven’t killed a eunuch yet, but things might change quickly if their gods tell them to.”
They decided to leave a scared Tian behind and travel to the village of insects, with Antonio on his sedan chair and Wangsheng running behind, begging the bearers to slow down for him to keep pace. The morning’s events had discouraged the elder eunuch, and he tried to dissuade Antonio with dire prophesies as the year of the rat was upon them. From his chair Antonio saw a China that was unlike the one he’d seen on the Yangtze: a barren land, scarred by winter and waiting for spring; shriveled fields and empty rivers with boats stuck to the banks like dead crocodiles. It was as if a great storm had blown over, flattening the thatched roofs of the villages, smearing the dung of their cattle on the walls. There wasn’t a dog or pig in sight, not even the cackling geese that followed the passing chairs out of habit, like orphans. The smell of rotting leaves had scented the breeze from whichever direction it blew, and gathered force as it swirled around corpses of mules that had died of thirst and were too old to serve as meat even to the starving. This was the land of beggars and robbers, broad smiles replaced by furtive and fearful looks. Few had braved the gusty winds to search for edible roots and brackish wells that still held the promise of water, hearts poisoned by the betrayal of nature. He understood why the dowager and the royals hid behind the walls of the Summer Palace in winter to escape the worst of China, to rest while the world was in mourning.