by Janie Chang
“A Christian president for China!” exclaimed Miss Mason. She gave us a copy of the Shanghai Daily News to pass around. “You’ll remember this day forever. I feel so privileged to be in China on the day it became a democracy.”
At home that evening, Master Yang assembled the household, servants and all, in the formal reception hall. All the newspapers had printed the abdication decree, and his voice trembled as he read it out loud.
The Whole Country is tending toward a republican form of government. It is the Will of Heaven, and it is certain that we couldn’t reject the people’s desire for the sake of one family’s honor and glory.
We, the Emperor, hand over sovereignty to the people. We decide the form of government to be a constitutional republic.
In this time of transition, in order to unite the South and the North, We appoint Yuan Shikai to organize a provisional government, consulting the people’s army regarding the union of the five peoples: Manchus, Han Chinese, Mongolians, Mohammedans and Tibetans. These peoples jointly constitute the great State of the Republic of China.
We now retire to a peaceful life and will enjoy the respectful treatment of the nation.
Weeping, Grandmother Yang retired to her room, followed by First Wife.
Out on Dragon Springs Road, Dajuin and Master Yang joined the neighbors who had collected outside to debate what this meant for China. Even the women were out on the street, Old Mistress Shen leaning on her cane and interrupting her husband.
Dajuin was thrilled, Master Yang skeptical and gloomy. I saw Fox in human form weaving through the street, pausing at each of the small gatherings. She shifted through different shapes: an elderly man, a stout female servant, a curious child. No one would remember her.
“China should be proud,” Dajuin said. “This change of government has been a peaceful transfer of power.”
“What, are you forgetting all that went on before?” old Master Shen exclaimed. His goatee fairly wobbled with indignation. “The Taiping Rebellion, the Boxers, the Wuchang Uprising?”
“What I meant was that the handover from empire to republic was politically negotiated,” Dajuin said, bowing to the elderly man. “It happened through legal means instead of civil war. There’s much to celebrate. A man of great integrity leads as interim president until our new government can hold a formal election.”
Dajuin and Kejuin went out to Chung San Road, where a joyous mob thronged the streets late into the night. Kejuin returned shouting, “Sanmin zhuyi! Sanmin zhuyi!” He was so excited he even grabbed my hands and swung me around before running up to Third Wife’s rooms.
“What does it mean?” I asked Anjuin. “Sanmin zhuyi?”
“The Three People’s Principles,” she replied, pointing to an essay in the newspaper. “Nationalism, democracy, and livelihood.”
The next day, Grandmother Yang called me to her room. I was no longer a bond servant. The new government had abolished the practice. I didn’t have to buy back my contract anymore. Grandmother Yang’s bargain with Miss Morris ended on the day of my graduation from the mission school, and the Yangs would carry no further responsibility for me.
In reality, I was still a bond servant in every other way. What else do you call a servant who is wholly dependent upon her employers?
MISS MASON’S JUBILATION WAS short lived. Dr. Sun Yat-sen lost the presidency. Without military backing, he couldn’t hold on to power. To avert a potential civil war, he ceded leadership to the only man in China who could keep order. The powerful general Yuan Shikai was sworn in as our provisional president until the new government could hold formal elections.
“This is terrible,” Dajuin said, throwing down the newspaper. “Yuan is exactly the wrong sort of man. He cares nothing for democracy.”
Uncertainty is bad for business, and for months, the cotton mill suffered. The household suffered with it, and I was glad to be at school all day, away from Grandmother Yang’s irate impatience and First Wife’s sharp tongue.
THE LIVELIEST PLACE in the Central Residence was the nursery, where Third Wife’s new baby son slept and played. Third Wife was now mother to three children, two sons and a daughter. Anjuin spent as much time as she could there. Between Anjuin, Amah Wu, and the wet nurse, Third Wife hardly had to care for her own children.
“You’ll make such a good wife and mother,” Third Wife said to Anjuin.
Anjuin, who was holding the baby on her lap, looked up and smiled. “I’m lucky to have younger brothers and sisters to practice on.”
“Oh dear,” sighed Third Wife. “What will we do when you are married and gone? I supposed I’ll have to be more diligent about the housekeeping. Unless First Wife comes out of her melancholy.”
First Wife had become increasingly eccentric. She had come to the nursery only once to congratulate Third Wife on the birth of her son. Although it was her right as First Wife to run the household, she withdrew more and more from the family. She spent her waking hours embroidering obsessively on a huge altar cloth of heavy red silk but never seemed content with her work, for each time she completed a section of embroidery she would pick it apart to start over again until the heavy red silk was perforated with tiny needle holes. The embroidered figures she stitched were of little boys, each dressed differently, each in a different pose. One played with a ball, another chased a small dog, one napped under a tree.
“She’s making a ‘hundred boys altar cloth’ for the temple,” Anjuin replied when I first thought to ask.
Between the servants and Third Wife, it had been easy enough to learn First Wife’s story.
First Wife was barren. Despite the herbal remedies and nourishing broths she consumed to balance her body’s energies, all her efforts were futile. Because of this, Master Yang took a second wife, the woman who had been Dajuin and Anjuin’s mother. After Second Wife died in childbirth, Master Yang married Third Wife, and the cheerful young woman had become pregnant almost immediately with Kejuin.
After Kejuin was born, First Wife began making weekly visits to the temple, where she burned incense and prayed with fanatical fervor. Master Yang had suggested she adopt one of their many nephews.
“My duty is to give you a son of my own body,” she wept, when he made the suggestion. It was no shame for childless women to adopt a child from another branch of the clan, but she refused. This was the first sign that she wasn’t behaving normally.
Then a nun at the temple gave her some advice. If First Wife embroidered an altar cloth with the images of one hundred baby boys and made an offering of the cloth, she would bear a son. First Wife began this needlework in Ningpo and was still working on it when the Yangs came to Dragon Springs Road. She picked apart what she stitched, working and reworking, as if afraid to complete the cloth.
First Wife’s despair made her bad tempered. Only Mrs. Hao could soothe her. Without sons, First Wife’s position meant little. Master Yang was too kind to put her aside, but she had less status than Third Wife, and even the servants were sometimes slow to do her bidding. I was one of the few she could bully. Whatever I did was less than adequate. First Wife’s criticisms were loud and frequent, and never louder than when in front of Grandmother Yang.
“You dawdle too much, girl. By the time you bring the hot water, it’s only lukewarm,” was one of her frequent complaints. “This never happened when I waited on your mistress.”
How First Wife, on her tiny bound feet, could’ve run any faster from the kitchen to Grandmother Yang’s rooms was beyond me.
“She could’ve finished that altar cloth years ago,” I said to Fox, “if she didn’t pick out the stitches all the time.”
Fox raised one perfect eyebrow. If she finished the cloth, she would have to produce a son.
MARY WAS LEAVING our school. Now eighteen, she stood with her classmates under a banner that read CONGRATULATIONS TO THE CLASS OF 1914. She had been accepted to the mission’s training college. When she converted to Christianity two years ago and announced her intent to become a
missionary, I’d been tempted to do so as well because our teachers had made such a fuss over her. Her elevated status after her baptism seemed to have faded the taint of being hun xue. After lunch and during her free hours, she and the other girls who were going on to college would study together in the library. Without abandoning us, she had managed to enter a different circle.
“Some of them convert out of gratitude,” she said, of other orphans. “Some think they have to or else be forced to leave the orphanage.”
Now, watching her say her farewells, I still couldn’t be sure of Mary’s sincerity. Was it for the sake of a livelihood? To remain within the safety of the missionary community? Yet knowing her, her sober nature, I couldn’t imagine her taking up rice Christianity.
“Good-bye, Jialing,” Mary said. “Study hard. Girls like us must keep as many doors open as possible. You may need college one day.”
She said this even though she knew my test scores would never win me a place in college, let alone a scholarship. She gave Grace a quick hug, Leah a longer one. Then she joined the others on the donkey cart, and they rode off to the train station. The other girls’ expressions were excited, hopeful; Mary’s impassive.
FOX NEVER SPOKE of my mother even though she must’ve been watching us for all the years we lived here. Nor would she talk about the world beyond the Door where Anna had vanished. In Fox’s presence, most of my questions melted out of my mind.
There’s only so much you need to know for now, she would say.
I did try to overcome her influence. Once I wrote down several questions, thinking that if they were on paper, I could read them out to her the next time I went to the Western Residence. All that happened was that I forgot the list was in my pocket. After that, I gave up. Obviously there were questions she didn’t want to answer and I couldn’t prevail against her will.
She did answer some questions though. “Fox, how many human husbands have you had?”
Just the one, she said. She cleaned her muzzle with a neat black paw. The trouble is that some of the younger Fox spirits take human husbands for fun. They do it to test their skills and to make a little mischief. It gives us a bad reputation.
She finished grooming and sat up straight on her haunches, head cocked slightly to one side. It was a familiar pose, one that signaled readiness to talk about herself. I settled down on the veranda steps. Just because we were only meeting in a dream didn’t mean I shouldn’t make myself comfortable.
Most humans believe there’s no more to Foxes than tricks and seduction. When such humans burn incense and make offerings to Fox spirits, they want to flatter us into bringing them wealth.
The more educated humans, those who bother studying the ancient texts, know better. They know some Foxes aspire to become immortal xian. But as every human is different, so it is with Foxes. Not all retire to remote places to meditate, for not all are ascetic or intellectual. Most are content to live close to mortals, amusing themselves by dipping in and out of human society. The less scrupulous stir up trouble.
A very old Fox once told me Foxes used to be attendants to the goddess Queen Mother of the West, she said. But we’ve fallen down the hierarchy since then. The best hope for lesser Foxes who want the Door to the land of immortals to open for them is to live a virtuous life. We avoid crime and offer our help to the unfortunate: the poor who have been cheated, women who’ve been shunted aside, the disfigured and maimed, the ostracized.
“Am I one of those?” I asked, hoping to learn more. Did Fox have a plan for me? “Are you here to help me?”
But instead, I found myself in an unfamiliar landscape. I sighed in frustration. This was one of Fox’s favorite ways of deflecting my questions. I could almost see her smirk.
. . . a lake gleams blue and purple, the water so clear that when I dip my muzzle in to drink it tastes of green leaves and the faint tang of minerals from faraway glaciers. Red maples edge the banks and I trot along the pebbled shores of the lake to where it cascades over a cliff, splitting into dozens of waterfalls. The falls create smaller lakes, each tinted a different color by accumulations of glacial silt. Blue, green, and violet, the colors so pure it’s hard to believe they share the same water source. I look around for the dragons that used to nest here, but they have long since departed this region. All that’s left are autumn leaves of gold and rust curved like dragon scales floating on the lakes . . .
When I woke up, moonlight glowed through the lattice windows. My hearing still retained some animal acuity, and I could hear the high-pitched squeaking of bats outside. Why did Fox have to be so evasive? Her tutelage lacked the thoroughness of my school lessons, and she offered up her knowledge at erratic intervals. I thumped my pillow in frustration.
CHAPTER 11
February 1916, Year of the Dragon
Master Shen’s New Year greetings were subdued. Only three years after becoming president, President Yuan had declared himself emperor at the end of 1915. Our fledgling republic was no more.
Even during this festive time, talk swung away quickly from good wishes to gossip about Yuan—his nine wives and concubines, his thirty children, the forty-thousand-piece porcelain set he had ordered from the imperial kilns for his upcoming coronation. I hung around the front gate with the other servants, listening in on the conversations as neighbors strolled up and down the street.
Dajuin predicted the military governors Yuan had appointed to each province while president would now turn against him.
“Why? Because they’ve become used to ruling their provinces like feudal lords,” he said, in reply to a neighbor’s query. “Yuan has given them an excuse to break away from the central government and to do it in the name of patriotism.”
Dajuin’s predictions proved true. By the New Year, nine provinces had broken away, their military governors now effectively warlords.
“You, zazhong girl! Get over here!” A sharp voice cut through the air, and I hurried back into the main courtyard.
Of more direct consequence to my small world was Dajuin’s wife. Her name was Yun Na, and the two had been married the previous summer. We servants had enjoyed a week of liberty while the Yangs were away at the wedding, held in their ancestral town of Ningpo. The highlight of the ceremonies was a lavish banquet that had lasted six hours, which the family talked about for days after they returned.
At first we thought Yun Na was shy. Anjuin and Third Wife went out of their way to make the newcomer feel welcome. All too soon we realized she wasn’t interested in sharing any of the household work with the other women. Thus Anjuin and Third Wife continued managing the household. This really meant it was Anjuin who kept the accounts and showed them to Grandmother Yang, Anjuin who took note when anything needed repair, and Anjuin who planned the meals with Mrs. Hao.
Short and imperious, Yun Na was proving a difficult addition to the family. Her shrill words disturbed quiet afternoons and a perpetual scowl dragged down her round face. With plump lips and clear skin, she was pretty enough, but that frown hardly ever left her face.
“Young Master qualifies for divine transcendence,” Lao-er said, shaking his head. “His bride is more trouble than three maiden aunts.”
IN MARCH, YUAN Shikai stepped off the throne. He had misjudged the mood of the country as well as the support of his foreign allies. He never had a coronation. He died in June, whether of illness or poison, we would never know.
The fate of our country meant nothing to Yun Na; she was more concerned about her parents’ first visit to her new home. Anxious to make a good impression, Yun Na stirred into action. Her work consisted of pointing out which corners were dusty and which surfaces needed polishing. Fortunately this burst of activity didn’t last long because she was pregnant now and tired easily.
Now fifteen, I had been helping in the kitchen for years. I was slicing cucumber for a salad while Anjuin arranged candied fruit and lotus seeds on the bottom of a shallow bowl. Mrs. Hao was making up the sweet sticky rice mixture for the eight treasu
res pudding that would cover the fruit. Even Third Wife was in the kitchen, scoring pieces of squid so that they would curl up in neat tubes when cooked.
We all looked up when Yun Na came sweeping into the kitchen.
“You useless creature,” she said, peering at my chopping board. “Remember, it’s my parents who are the guests. Those slices should be paper thin, not thick as roof tiles.”
“You’re very knowledgeable about cuisine, Sister-in-Law,” Anjuin said, going back to her work.
“Yes, yes,” Yun Na replied. “Our kitchen at home has very high standards. It was something my mother insisted on when she trained me.”
“Well, perhaps you’d like to prepare the eel to make sure it’s to your parents’ liking,” Anjuin said. “Mrs. Hao has some right here in this bucket. They’re still fresh and wriggling from the rice fields.”
“I’m sure Mrs. Hao is perfectly competent to cook eels in the style she does best,” said Yun Na, and she flounced out the kitchen door.
Mrs. Hao and Third Wife stifled their laughter, but the incident only reminded me how defenseless I would be once Anjuin married. I might join her husband’s household, but how would his family treat me?
“Your Young Master Chen is a fortunate man,” Third Wife said to Anjuin. “You’re already so wise. At your age I was rather short on judgment. Your husband’s family will love you.”
“To be treated well is all I hope for,” she said. “If my husband doesn’t gamble or take opium, if his parents are reasonable people, what more could I expect?”
Third Wife sighed. “I’ll miss you. We’ll just have to make the most of our time together for the next six months.”
Six months. So close.
AS THE DATE of Anjuin’s wedding drew near, I worried about the promises we had made to each other. I knew I owed the Yangs much, but I longed to be free of my dependence on them. To be free of them all except Anjuin, even though the prospect of being a maid, even one in a house where Anjuin was mistress, didn’t comfort me the way it had when we were children. I didn’t know what a life outside Dragon Springs Road might be like, but between school and Fox, my horizons had stretched wider than I had ever imagined possible.