Dragon Springs Road

by Janie Chang

  From the land of immortals, it would be possible to look down on China and see my mother. From the land of immortals, it would be possible to find a way to bring my mother through the Door to join me. I still dreamed of my mother even though I had trouble remembering her face now. Mostly I remembered feeling safe and loved.

  After a while, I stopped waiting for the Door to reappear, waiting for it to let me in or Anna to come back out. The Western Residence remained empty. Master Yang spoke no more of renting it out, for after Anna’s disappearance, it was undoubtedly an unlucky place that no one would want.

  ONE AFTERNOON WHEN I couldn’t stop thinking of Anna, I wandered to the back of the Central Residence and pushed aside the bamboo slats in the fence, as we had done when she still lived there. It was a school day and the teachers were away. I peered inside each window at the Eastern Residence, curious to see how these young women lived. In every room, beds were neatly made, a clothes trunk at the foot of each. There was a desk in every room, and low bookcases lined the walls. The floors were immaculately clean.

  Mrs. Shea’s roses grew in the courtyard, well tended. The foreign ladies, Maiyu informed Mrs. Hao, had quite a passion for gardening. The ground beneath the roses was no longer bare and brown. There were flat purple and yellow flowers, their petals like velvet, and small pink blossoms with scalloped edges scented like cloves. Everywhere, as though scattered at random, tiny blue flowers with yellow centers. I gasped in delight. Anna’s seeds had taken.

  Then a hand grabbed my arm and wrenched me around. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Maiyu glared down at me. I wanted to run, but her strong washerwoman’s fingers gripped my shoulder, making me squirm with pain. “You know you’re not supposed to be here. You’re in big trouble now.”

  I nodded, frozen. Her eyes narrowed and then she smirked. “Make yourself useful and I won’t tell anyone.” She handed me a bucket. “Go to the well and fill the water barrels by the kitchen.”

  There were two huge water barrels, holding enough water to wash clothes for a dozen women. I trudged back and forth for what felt like hours, pulling and toting until my arms ached. When the sun cast long shadows on the paving stones, I had to speak up.

  “I must go back,” I said. “The Old Mistress will be awake now and I have to wait on her.”

  Maiyu looked at the full water barrels and grinned. “Go. But come back tomorrow little zazhong, or I’ll tell Master Yang you were sneaking around here.”

  FROM THEN ON, I did my share of chores each day as quickly as possible then ran next door in the afternoon to do Maiyu’s bidding. Once the water barrels were full, she made me mop floors or clean the outhouse. She stood over me, making sure I worked to her satisfaction. Soon the skin on my hands cracked from all the rough work and water, making me wince each time I wrung out the mop.

  I didn’t dare put a single foot wrong. I couldn’t let the Yangs know I’d been caught trespassing in their tenants’ houses. Each night I climbed into bed so tired I fell asleep before Anjuin and I could talk, so tired I couldn’t wake up to answer Fox’s summons to visit her in the Western Residence. Only in my dreams could I visit with Fox.

  I don’t think you need to be so concerned, Fox said. We were in what I now knew was the Western Residence as it had been three hundred years ago. Maiyu is the one who’s wrong to use you this way.

  Fox was a woman today, elegant and serene. The breeze lifted her skirts and she strolled through the courtyard, a slim figure in a drift of transparent silk, an ancient style of dress that goddesses in paintings are depicted wearing. But a large straw hat perched on her head, wide-brimmed, wrapped in ribbons and tulle. I recognized it from one of Third Wife’s foreign fashion journals.

  “It was my fault,” I said, miserable. “I shouldn’t have looked in the windows. I shouldn’t even have been in the Eastern Residence.”

  It’s not as terrible a crime as you think, she said. You’ll see.

  “What are you going to do?” I said, suspicious. “Don’t get me in more trouble.”

  I’m not the sort of common Fox who delights in mischief, she said, looking offended.

  “What sort of Fox are you?” I asked. “I thought all Foxes were the same.”

  She yawned, showing her small white teeth and a bright pink tongue. Not at all. We’re each of us different. Some humans are good at poetry, others at arithmetic. Some have no particular skills at all. It’s the same with Foxes. We’re individuals, each with our talents and likes and dislikes.

  She patted me on the head, and before I could say anything, there was a flash of tawny fur, a rustle in the hydrangea shrubs, then silence.

  IF I HADN’T been so tired, I would’ve heard Maiyu in the kitchen speaking with someone. I would’ve looked up in time to see her glare at me, her frown telling me to stay away. Instead I plodded to the kitchen door, head down, bucket sloshing.

  “Who’s this?” A friendly voice, perfect Chinese accents. “Why it’s the Yangs’ little maid.”

  I looked up to see the foreign headmistress.

  “What are you doing, carrying water for us, little one?” she asked.

  “She offered to help,” Maiyu said. “Such a good child. You can go home now.” Her tone betrayed anxiety.

  For the first time I realized that perhaps she was as much in the wrong as I’d been, at least in the eyes of her mistress.

  “How long have you been helping?” Miss Morris asked.

  “Two months,” I said.

  “Just today,” Maiyu said, at the same time.

  “I see,” said the foreign woman. “Thank you, my dear. I’m sure you have your own work to do. There’s no need to help us here anymore.”

  I glanced up at Maiyu, but she shrugged without any sign of rancor.

  THE NEXT DAY my worst fear came true. Miss Morris came to call on Grandmother Yang. Undoubtedly Maiyu had betrayed me and the foreign woman was here to complain. I busied myself sweeping out the rooms in Dajuin’s erfang, wishing there was some place to hide. As I came out of the erfang, Mrs. Hao waved at me from the kitchen door.

  “Take more hot water to the Old Mistress and the foreign lady,” she hissed as I hurried over. “And when you get there, tell Ah-Jien to come back. And wipe your face before you go in.”

  I had to weave past most of the household to take Grandmother Yang the hot water kettle. First Wife, normally aloof, was in the chair beside Grandmother Yang, openly staring at the visitor. Beside her, Third Wife was barely holding back nervous giggles. Anjuin had an arm firmly around her half sister, a toddler who was gazing in fascination at the feather ornaments on Miss Morris’s hat. I refilled the teapot and whispered to Ah-Jien that Mrs. Hao wanted her.

  After Ah-Jien left, I crouched just outside the door, balanced on the balls of my feet.

  “Is it true your foreign schools employ men to teach girls?” Grandmother Yang was saying.

  “Yes, it’s true in some schools,” the headmistress replied. “At our girls’ schools in China, however, all the teachers are women. At the boys’ schools, all the teachers are men. We find this makes families more willing to send their children to us.”

  So far, it didn’t seem as though Miss Morris had brought up my snooping around the Eastern Residence.

  “I’ve heard there’s a foreign hospital with women doctors,” Grandmother Yang said.

  “Yes, the Shanghai West Gate Women and Children’s Hospital. All the doctors and nurses there are women. Both foreign and Chinese.” She smiled, and despite her long nose and thin face, I thought she looked very kind.

  There was murmuring at the notion of women as doctors.

  “Honored Madame,” the foreign woman said, “would you consider sending the girls in your household to our school? Our school prepares students for careers. Some go on to be governesses, even teachers and nurses. Others learn enough English to work in foreign households.”

  “My granddaughter won’t need to work,” Grandmother Yang said stiffly
. “We arranged her marriage long ago.”

  Miss Morris inhaled the steam from her teacup and sighed, showing appreciation for the delicate vapors. “I do apologize. I didn’t mean your granddaughter. I meant your orphan girl.”

  Grandmother Yang shook her head. “She’s a bond servant and not worth educating.”

  “I would like to hire her from you,” Miss Morris said. “Five days a week.”

  Was she hiring me to work for Maiyu? I almost crumpled to the floor in despair.

  “Ah. For cleaning?” Grandmother Yang inquired, her expression alert.

  “No. To attend the mission school. Until she graduates.”

  I lost my balance and sprawled to the ground.

  CHAPTER 7

  Even at that age, I knew my life was about to change.

  I was only a child with no special skills, so Miss Morris didn’t pay the Yangs very much for my time. But as Grandmother Yang pointed out, some cash was better than no income at all. More important, for the five days I attended school, the Yangs didn’t have to feed me. The school provided breakfast, lunch, and an early supper. The school day ran much longer than at Anna’s school, which finished in the early afternoon so that foreign children, unaccustomed to Shanghai’s climate, could go home before the day grew too hot.

  “You’re earning your keep sooner than expected, Jialing,” Grandmother Yang said, patting me on the head. “Make sure that foreign headmistress keeps her promise not to force their religion on you.”

  Anjuin was pleased for me. She also admitted to being envious.

  “But Dajuin says he will show me how to do accounts,” she said, “and he gave me his dictionary to help me read the newspaper. That’s as much education as Grandmother thinks I need.”

  THE VERY NEXT morning I found myself in a donkey cart, seated between a half-dozen young women. Even though they pelted me with questions, their smiles were strained. Only one seemed genuinely friendly.

  “How old are you?”

  “Have you always lived with the Yangs?”

  “Can you read or write at all?”

  I replied in mumbles. Through the opening of the donkey cart’s canvas cover I saw unfamiliar streets, glimpses of fields plowed in readiness for sowing, and a funeral procession entering a cemetery. The cart came to a halt outside a large open gate. One of the teachers, a sweet-faced young woman who told me to call her Teacher Lin, helped me off the cart and took my hand.

  “I’ll take you to Miss Morris,” she said. “Our headmistress arrives earlier than anyone.”

  Teacher Lin led me through the front courtyard, where the smell of cooking oil and steamed rice indicated the school kitchen was nearby. She pointed out the classrooms to me, four long buildings arranged in a quadrangle around a large courtyard of hard-packed dirt, the playground. The main house at the far end was huge, five bays wide and two stories high, the library and teachers’ offices. We entered through the center bay, a deep hall with a staircase. Upstairs, Teacher Lin knocked on a door.

  “Come in,” Miss Morris’s voice called out.

  Inside, a room that was utterly foreign. I stood on a strange, thick woven cloth. The windows were covered with curtains in a stiff, striped fabric and instead of being whitewashed, the walls were pale blue. The chairs were high-backed, and a long seat completely covered with padded fabric was pushed against one wall. Against the wall opposite stood a chest of drawers with brass handles. The pictures on the wall were very odd, their backgrounds dark and murky instead of white. I was so busy staring I didn’t realize the teacher was no longer in the room and I was alone with the foreign headmistress.

  Miss Morris opened one of the brass-handled drawers.

  “Come over here, Jialing,” she said, holding out what looked like a length of blue cloth.

  Did she want me to sew for her? Sewing wasn’t my best skill.

  She held it against my shoulders and I realized it was a tunic. Then she pulled out a pair of dark blue trousers and a white blouse. “Try these on.”

  The tunic was warmly padded and came just below my knees. The clothes were new, so new the musty scent of indigo still clung to the cloth. These were the first new clothes I’d ever worn, not made over from other garments or hand-me-downs from Anjuin.

  “Come,” she said and held out her hand. “I will introduce you to your classmates.”

  When we entered the dining hall, every head turned. So many girls. They all stood up.

  “Good morning, Headmistress,” they chorused, and sat down again.

  “Good morning, girls,” she replied. “This is your new classmate, Zhu Jialing. Please make her welcome.”

  She guided me to where Teacher Lin sat at the head of a table. Without being told, all the girls shuffled along the bench to make room for me. An older girl deposited chopsticks and a bowl of boiled rice congee in front of me. The girl beside me poured a cup of soy milk and set it down by the bowl. I looked at the teacher.

  “Eat while it’s hot, Jialing.”

  The congee was delicious. It had been cooked in chicken broth and was full of chopped green vegetables, more like soup than porridge. Before I finished eating, Teacher Lin stood up and addressed the girl beside me.

  “Classes begin in five minutes. Little Ning, take our new student with you to the classroom.”

  The girls stood up as the teachers left the dining room. There was silence again as they looked at me. I realized we all wore the same uniform and felt pride rush over me. For the first time, I felt as though I belonged. I smiled at Little Ning, but before I could say anything, she spoke.

  “Listen carefully, little zazhong.” She almost spit out the words. “Follow me to class like Teacher said. After that, don’t come near me again. You stick with them.”

  She pointed at the corner, and my eyes followed.

  There were three of them. One was like me, with dark brown hair and very pale skin. She was the youngest of the three. The tallest one had black hair, a broad forehead that jutted out over her eyes, and a square, mannish jaw. Most unusual looking of all was the girl with light brown hair whose skin was as golden as bamboo shoots. There was a sprinkling of freckles across her nose that made me think of Anna.

  Zazhong.

  Little Ning left me at the door of a classroom. I hesitated, then the youngest of the three girls, the one with pale skin, ran up and tugged me by the hand. She pulled me to a seat at the back of the room.

  “Don’t talk in class unless the teacher asks you a question,” she whispered. “I’ll introduce you to the others at recess.” She flashed me a smile, but her friendliness wasn’t enough to reassure me. I was still shaken by Little Ning’s hostility.

  THE THREE LIVED at the mission’s orphanage next door to the school. They had been given foreign names. Mary, Leah, Grace. Names that felt strange on my tongue. A part of me wanted to shun their company, to show the rest of the girls that I wasn’t like them, that I wasn’t one of them. At the same time I recognized that if I didn’t accept their friendship, I would have no one.

  “Zazhong is an ugly word,” said Mary, who was the oldest, the one with the square chin. She was fourteen, a year younger than Anjuin. “None of us are supposed to use it. The teachers say we are hun xue, mixed race.”

  The one who reminded me of Anna was Leah, who was eleven years old. The one named Grace was nine, my age.

  At lunch, we sat by ourselves at the end of a table. The older students took turns serving meals, and our bowls held less rice, our soup fewer pieces of meat. At the playground, balls were snatched away from us, skipping ropes snaked out to trip us.

  “Teacher Lin made a small speech once, telling our classmates to be kind to everyone, especially the more unfortunate,” Grace said. “It only made things worse when the teachers’ backs were turned.”

  “The teachers don’t really like us either,” Leah said. “You can tell because they try too hard to be nice. We make them uncomfortable. Both the foreign teachers and the Chinese ones. Miss Morr
is and Teacher Lin are the only ones who truly don’t mind that we’re hun xue.”

  Mary, the oldest, had no name before coming to the orphanage. She had been called “Girl” by the woman who raised her, a woman she had called Auntie, now dead.

  Leah had been left at the orphanage door three years ago. Her mother was dead. That’s all she would say. She showed no interest in any of our lessons except for English.

  Grace wasn’t an orphan. Her mother paid for her to attend the school and live at the orphanage. Her mother had been a prostitute, but now ran a food stall by the wharves on the Huangpu River. She came every month to pay school fees and visit Grace. Grace spoke of her mother without any embarrassment. Many of the orphans were daughters of prostitutes.

  “You’re so lucky,” I said to Grace. To have a mother. To be wanted. What did it matter if her mother had worked in a brothel?

  “You’re lucky too,” Mary said. “You may be a servant, but you live with a family. And your friend Anjuin sounds nice. They’re not really unkind to you, are they?”

  “And your mother is probably still alive,” Grace added kindly. “When you’re older, you can look for her.”

  She was only trying to be helpful.

  CHAPTER 8

  February 1911, Year of the Pig

  At the start of the New Year, Master Yang and Dajuin returned from the barber, each carrying a brown paper package. Rather sheepishly, they handed the bundles to Grandmother Yang, who gazed at them both in shock. The men had cut off their queues, and the packages contained their pigtails, each neatly tied at the ends. Grandmother Yang wept at the sight of their shorn locks and wouldn’t speak to them for the rest of the day.

  The imperial government had decreed all men must cut their queues by the end of the year. They didn’t want the rest of the world to regard China as backward. Influenced by the West, some men had cut off their hair even before the edict became official.

  “I didn’t do it because of the law or to be in fashion,” Dajuin said. “With all the machinery at the mill, it’s just safer to have short hair.”