by Janie Chang
“I’ve finished, Teacher Lin,” I said. “Is there anything else you’d like me to do?”
“No, Jialing,” she said. “But you seem worried today. What’s troubling you?”
I hesitated, looking down at my cloth shoes. New, black, provided by the school. I didn’t even know how to express my confusion. She took my hand, which was dusty with chalk.
“It’s about Mary,” I finally said. “Her auntie’s husband made them work at a factory.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Why didn’t her auntie refuse to work at the factory?” I asked.
She sighed. “For many reasons, Jialing, but the main one is that her husband was in debt and needed the bond money to pay off his creditors. Her auntie was raised to believe that women must always obey their husbands, even if they are selfish or unkind.”
As Anjuin had been raised. Anjuin, whose main hope was that her future husband would be a kind and sensible man. Now I suspected that whatever her worries, she couldn’t begin to imagine the cruelties my classmates had survived.
I had heard of sisters sold off so that fathers could fill their opium pipes one more time. Like Mary, some had worked in factories to pay family debts. Many had begged on the streets. Too many had seen parents and siblings die.
My days of sweeping, emptying chamber pots, and washing diapers were light work compared to what others had survived. If not for the mission, if not for the Yangs, I would’ve starved. Worse, I could’ve ended up in a factory.
I looked up from my shoes and saw Teacher Lin regarding me with a sad smile. “You may not need to worry about marriage at all. Perhaps that’s not a bad thing, so long as you have a livelihood. Study hard and get into the mission’s college for teachers.”
EACH DAY, RIDING to and from school, I learned more about my teachers.
At first I just listened. I never dared speak unless spoken to. I could tell they were being careful, conscientious even, to discuss only topics they felt suitable for my young and inquisitive ears, so their conversation tended to the ordinary, never any gossip about my classmates or other teachers. They spoke English if there was anything they really wanted to keep secret, but as the years went by, they grew accustomed to my presence and I understood more of their English.
I learned that Miss Morris was an American heiress whose private money funded nearly all the school and orphanage’s expenses. The school and orphanage were part of Unity Mission, the missionary arm of an American church. Miss Morris was headmistress, orphanage supervisor, and patron. There were a number of other girls like me, whose families she paid to let them attend school.
Teacher Lin hoped I would convert to the foreign religion when I was older, but it was the one thing I couldn’t do. Wouldn’t do. Even though it prevented me from attending the Mission’s college for teachers.
Grandmother Yang had refused Miss Morris’s offer at first. She didn’t want me to attend the mission school. I was her good deed. By taking me in, she was earning merit for her next reincarnation. If she allowed foreigners to convert me to their religion, it might harm her prospects for the next life.
“We don’t force religion on our students,” Miss Morris had replied, very patiently. “If we did, families would never send us their children. We want the girls to get an education, to have a better future. It’s up to them whether they convert.”
“Well, then,” Grandmother Yang had said after a long pause. “Then she can go. I don’t mind you having a different god, Miss Morris. But I hear he doesn’t allow his followers to worship other gods. How can a god have such a narrow heart?”
After Miss Morris left, Grandmother Yang beckoned to me. “Jialing, if they make you swallow the flesh and blood of their god, run back home right away.”
The Yangs’ goodwill mattered more to my survival than the mission school, so I obeyed. And true to her word, neither Miss Morris nor the teachers pressured me to adopt their religion. They urged me, along with all the girls whose families didn’t want them to become Christians, to be open-minded and to convert once we truly felt we understood what it meant to love their god.
Every so often, Grandmother Yang would quiz me just to make sure I wasn’t feeling tempted to throw in my lot with the Christian god.
“What’s another god, more or less?” she’d say, shaking her head. “It hardly matters, there are so many already. I’m sure Miss Morris’s temple would gain more followers if they weren’t so stubborn on this point.”
The only time I felt any real pressure was when Teacher Lin spoke to me before her wedding. Once she married, she would join her missionary husband in Soochow. I couldn’t imagine a school day without her, without her kind words or the way she looked as me as though I was no different from any other.
“I know how hard it is for you and the others, Jialing,” she said. “I hope you can forgive the girls who’ve been harsh to you. Some have lived terrible lives and seen much cruelty. All I ask is that when you’re older, when you’re no longer dependent on the Yangs, to think about putting your life in the hands of our Lord. Do it from the heart and your own free will.”
I wanted so much to please her, this young woman with the earnest eyes and sweet voice. But all I could do was nod.
“Only from the heart, Jialing,” she said. “I don’t want you to be a rice Christian.”
She saw my puzzled look. “There are poor folk who convert to Christianity because they want the church to feed them and find them work. In times of hunger, their numbers swell. In times of prosperity, they melt away and return to the gods they’ve always known.”
“But I’ve seen many wealthy Chinese at church.” Sometimes Miss Morris took the school’s music class to sing at churches, where audiences included Chinese Christians. They didn’t seem poor to me.
“That’s more recent.” Teacher Lin was silent for a moment. “When foreign missionaries first came to China, many resented them because it was foreigners who forced us to buy their opium, foreigners who occupied the Forbidden City, and foreigners who made our emperor open treaty ports. Good families wanted nothing to do with them. But now, students are returning from Europe and America filled with Western knowledge and the word of God. Perhaps it will be easier from now on.”
There were many things about the foreign god I found difficult to understand. For one thing, I’d always believed every god had a special responsibility. Women who wanted sons prayed to the Goddess of Mercy at the Temple of the City God. Those who wanted a good reincarnation for loved ones prayed to the statue of the Buddha at Jing’an Temple on Bubbling Well Road. How could a single god find the time to answer the prayers of every single supplicant?
“BUT THE GIRLS who convert, they’re no different afterwards,” I said to Fox.
She was in her animal shape. We were sitting on the roof of the main house in the Western Residence, looking across a landscape from three hundred years ago. There was no Chung San Road, no shops, no other houses, just a few farm cottages scattered amid fields crisscrossed by irrigation ditches. A crescent moon glowed from behind a curtain of cloud, and an owl patrolled the countryside, its shadow moving swift and dark across the frosted ground.
“The girls who were nice before are still nice,” I continued. “The ones who were mean are still mean when the teachers aren’t around. And now Mary is converting because she wants to attend the mission college.”
Ah. Is it from the heart? Does she truly believe?
I paused to consider. “I think she believes she will truly believe one day. She says she has no hope of a decent life if the mission doesn’t help her.”
What about you, Jialing? And suddenly Fox’s eyes glowed green. In the distance, the owl swooped. It came up in a glide, hooting in triumph.
“Their god is mistaken,” I said, confident. “How can there be no other gods or immortals or spirits? Here you are to prove them wrong. Fox, if you showed yourself to Teacher Lin or Miss Morris, they would see how wrong they are.”
She shook her head. Th
ey wouldn’t be able to see me because they truly believe in their own, exclusive god.
“Master Yang prays at the Buddhist temple because it pleases his mother,” I said, “and at the start of each New Year, he hires Daoist priests to cleanse his home and factory of evil influences. Why doesn’t he pray to Foxes?”
Perhaps he doesn’t feel it’s proper to pray to a Fox, she said. We’re an odd sort of spirit, not deity, not demon. Not human, not fox. Perhaps that’s why I like you, little hun xue. Neither one of us is fully one thing or another.
A bat dipped past us, so close I could see the outline of its ears. I could only see it so clearly because Fox was sharing her sharp vision with me.
Thousand of years ago, she said, Foxes were omens of good fortune. Since then we’ve have been called celestial beings, sorcerers, and demons. Some Foxes strive to attain enlightenment, to become true deities. Others enjoy the companionship of humans and remain common animal spirits.
“Most of the stories I’ve read are about Foxes who bewitch men.”
Well, of course. She laughed, a sharp yipping sound. Since it’s men who write the tales. If you believed only what the stories say, you’d think we do nothing but wreak mischief.
BY THIS TIME, my mother’s face had grown indistinct in my memory. Recollections of our life in the Western Residence had settled into the depths of my mind like leaves drifting to the silt at the bottom of a pond. After a while, I could remember only a few meager details. A tiny shoe I used to play with. How my mother had loved the color green and that persimmons were her favorite fruit. I held on to an image of pale slim hands rubbing a cream made from powdered pearls into her skin. I could recall separate features, her small nose and the mole just beside her lower lip, eyebrows curved so perfectly above deep brown eyes, the span of her cheekbones, and the whiteness of her forehead. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t assemble them into a whole.
The emerald-green tunic had been too small for years, but I refused to part with it. It stayed at the bottom of a wooden box that served as my trunk. Once, when Third Wife unwrapped a bar of soap scented with orange blossom, I couldn’t explain why I burst into tears.
I learned that if I didn’t disturb those dark waters, I could almost convince myself that my life began on the day Anjuin found me. It was just easier to live that way until I had the means to search for my mother.
As for Anna, her freckles and smiles remained vivid in my memories. My little garden had bloomed with small, exotic flowers. Purple and yellow, fragrant and pink, a scatter of blue.
“You can collect the seeds later,” Anjuin said, showing me the tiny pods. “Or take cuttings. I’m not familiar with these plants. But we can try to grow more.”
When Anjuin and I stood hand in hand beside the small patch of ground, admiring Anna’s flowers, those were my moments of perfect contentment. I forgot about my mother, about the bullies at school, about my uncertain future.
FOX ENJOYED SCHOOL even if I didn’t.
From time to time in the playground, I would catch glimpses of a girl who always gave me a wink as she ran past. I saw her laughing in games of tag or chanting rhymes with her playmates as she skipped rope, pigtails flying. I didn’t think anyone else saw the Fox shadow romping behind her. During classes, if I looked from the corner of my eye, I would see her at the back of the room, head bent industriously over a book, pink tongue thoughtfully licking the end of a yellow pencil.
She especially enjoyed it when the kitchen served our monthly Western-style meals, which we ate from plates using foreign cutlery so that we could learn foreign table manners. She giggled at the table, using her fork to stab at a soft mound of potatoes.
But afterward, no one could ever recall seeing such a girl.
I slipped away only occasionally now to visit Fox in the Western Residence, on nights when a full moon lit the pebbled paths and I could make my way there without a lamp. I would tiptoe out of the house and slip through the door under the garden shed. Anjuin never woke up, nor was I ever discovered coming or going, even by First Wife, who was a light sleeper. That was probably Fox’s doing.
More often these days, we met while I was asleep. It was easier. She appeared frequently as a woman. She rarely wore ancient garb now and tried out clothing more familiar to my eyes. She was fond of a Manchu-style tunic in dark brown worn over black trousers, the sleeves embroidered with bands of yellow chrysanthemums.
Fox obviously studied the teachers next door because for several months she materialized in a long tunic over a fashionable paneled skirt. Sometimes she even appeared in foreign clothing, a white blouse with long puffy sleeves and lace around the collar, a plain dark skirt just long enough to hide the laces of her leather boots.
When she took over my dreams, we might walk through nearby fields or through memories of her travels. If she brought me to the Western Residence, we would chat and she would tell me what it was like to be a Fox.
There has been a Fox in residence in this spot for the past thousand years. I am but the latest.
“Why do you stay?” I asked. “You could live anywhere, see any place in China.”
. . . and suddenly I’m stretched out in the den behind the white hydrangeas, looking out. We’re still in the Western Residence and the purple wisteria is still in bloom, but there is a lived-in look about the courtyard. A pair of carved stools on the veranda, the sound of footfalls from the main house, the smell of roasting meat.
A young man and woman stroll into the courtyard. From their features I can tell they are brother and sister, the family resemblance is so strong. They’re not handsome, but they’re pleasing to look at, kindness and contentment in their smiles. From their clothing and Fox’s nudges in my mind, I know I am seeing her earliest memories of the Western Residence, three hundred years ago.
I listen to the young man recite the classics. He’s here at the family’s seldom-used country estate to study for the imperial exams. He reads out loud the essays he’s composed. He’s talented but inattentive. His sister, who is more accomplished but ineligible for the imperial exams, tries to help him memorize the lessons, but verses and quotes slip out of his mind like minnows escaping a net.
Finally, Fox can’t stand his bumbling efforts anymore. I’m still Fox but I’m also watching Fox as she comes out from the kitchen carrying an iron teapot. She wears the garb of a maidservant and enters the study. She bows slightly to the siblings, exchanges their cold tea for a fresh pot. The young man gazes after her, color rising in his cheeks.
“The new maid, Brother,” the young woman says, laughing. “Don’t let her distract you. The imperial examinations are why we’re here.”
But of course he falls under Fox’s influence. With her help he studies more conscientiously, his mind guided to concentration. He remembers everything in his books. His infatuation with Fox is not surprising to me; it’s an essential part of every story about relationships between Foxes and young men. The young man is besotted with Fox, oblivious to her true nature.
What’s not expected is that Fox and his sister become close friends. The sister, wiser than her sibling, discerns Fox’s true identity.
The young man returns from the imperial examinations, which he has passed with great distinction. He takes Fox into the family as his concubine, the best he can do, given the difference in their stations, but he treats her with all the honor due a Second Wife. He divides his time between his ancestral home, with his clan, and the country estate where Fox lives. His beloved but unmarried sister moves here to live with Fox. Fox’s husband frequently brings his First Wife and their children when he visits. Many happy and harmonious years go by.
Then the inevitable happens. The First Wife grows jealous of Fox. While the human woman’s figure is shapeless as a sack from childbearing and the skin below her cheeks has sagged, Fox has not aged one bit in all this time.
When their husband is away, the First Wife comes to the Western Residence bringing with her a Daoist priest. The p
riest’s spells force Fox back into her animal shape and he gives chase. He would have killed her, but the sister opens the secret door, which in those days was not secret but just a side door opening to the fields. Fox runs out and doesn’t come back. Even after the jealous wife dies, Fox doesn’t come back, no matter how much incense her husband burns to win her attention.
Decades pass, and there comes a time of great lawlessness. The clan retreats to their country estate and builds a high wall to enclose the entire property. Huge gates on brick piers protect the entrance to the strip of ground that is now Dragon Springs Road. Tenant farmers come inside to defend against the bandits.
A premonition of danger brings Fox back. Bandits are scaling the walls. Her now-elderly husband is wounded and his sons are outside getting slaughtered. Fox comes into the Western Residence just as her sister-in-law begs the gods to intervene.
The Door appears. It’s the first time Fox has ever seen such a thing.
The sounds of battle, the clash of metal and screams of dying men fade away. There is music and the scent of peach blossom and a soft breeze that pushes away smoke from burning houses. Brother and sister drag themselves through. Fox runs to follow, but the Door closes too quickly and shuts in her face.
Fox lies on the paving stones. Rain like needles, sharp and cold, falls on her thick fur until she is soaked through, her delicate bones visible beneath the wet pelt. . . .
You’ve asked why I stay here. Fox’s voice echoed in my mind as I rolled over on my cot. I stay because I know of no other place in China where a Door to the land of immortals still exists. I’m waiting for the Door to open again so I can rejoin the humans I love.
CHAPTER 10
February 1912, Year of the Rat
Our young emperor abdicated.
We heard the news at school. Our teachers didn’t bother keeping order but talked excitedly among themselves. The Qing Dynasty was no more. General Yuan Shikai was to organize a new government, and in the interim, Dr. Sun Yat-sen would be our president. Our foreign teachers were jubilant.