by Alex Miller
I became aware that they were waiting for me. Gertrude’s leaving now, Lang said. I returned the magazine to her. I’ll look forward to seeing your drawings. I found myself being examined by her. The pupils of her eyes were a deeply polished black. They were extraordinarily clear and steady. It was not an unfriendly examination.
When she’d gone, Lang leaned over and took my glass. He was shivering. Let’s have one more before we go back, Steven. His smell was of wine and cigarettes and an admixture of the rancid and the perfumed. He rested heavily against me as he got up, and he dragged breath into his lungs as if it cost him a great effort.
The roof iron was roaring and shuddering under the blast of the hot wind and the walls of the building were vibrating. There would be grass fires by now. There were always grass fires on days like this. Crazy people went out and lit them. I could imagine the altered light. The red Mallee dust infused with smoke. And the acrid smell of burning vegetation, which I found delicious. I saw little heaps of leaves smouldering by the side of the road. That is how it had been. The smell of burning leaves on autumn afternoons in Kent, where we had lived then. The black limbs of the chestnut trees embracing overhead as we passed beneath them in my father’s family Austin. My mother mounting her dark green bicycle as the impulse took her, and riding away. From me and him, even then. Aching to be alone. Going without a word. He and I at the front door watching her go. Cycling away from us into the slanting sunlight or the slanting rain. And we would not see her again until nightfall, when she returned wind-burned and smelling of fields and hedges and the smoke of burning leaves. My father at the Baring Arms by then. I’m a colonist, she once announced, to me or to the house, inspired by her journey. Standing at the rising stern of the Arcadia as the great ship drove into the grey seas of the Bay of Biscay years later, 1 repeated it to myself. I’m a colonist, I said, in order to reassure myself. To reassure myself that what I was doing was not unprecedented. I’d been unable to explain why I was going. There was something out there in Australia that I needed to reach.
The Chinese understand the Scots, Lang whispered hoarsely as he placed the glass of wine unsteadily beside my hand. He coughed thickly and leaned towards me, We both have clans.
Are you Chinese?
Of course! Yes! I’m Chinese! He was dismayed by my question. You didn’t think I was a Filipino Chinese did you? I’ve been mistaken for a Filipino Chinese before. He gazed gloomily into his wine.
Yes, but I didn’t think you were a Filipino Chinese.
I don’t look Chinese. Even to people who are clear about the differences.
I didn’t say I didn’t think you were Chinese. I was just asking if you were. I didn’t know.
He dragged on his cigarette and took a gulp of wine. There’s something else. Something that’s the same about being Scottish and Chinese for both of us.
… What is it?
He screwed up his murky eyes and pointed his cigarette at me. No matter how hard we try we can never lose it. And no matter what other people do they can’t fake it.
I’m not Scottish. My father was. He never lost it. He didn’t try to lose it. But I’m not Scottish, Lang. Don’t think of me as Scottish. I’ve never been there. I faked the accent.
No you didn’t.
What?
Hunched down in his seat he stared at me, alternately inhaling smoke and sipping from his glass. What are you then?
I’m Australian.
He laughed triumphantly. He’d scored. We’re all Australian, Steven. What are you really?
It’s late, I said. Shouldn’t we be getting back?
If you’re not Australian what are you?
I’m Australian. My mother’s Irish. Or she was. She might be English by now.
He opened his eyes wide, his peculiar right eye opening wider than his left – a pale opening in his face. Your mother’s still alive?
She’s in England.
He murmured wonderingly, Your mother is still alive in England! And you’ve just come back from seeing her haven’t you?
Last month.
Your mother! He sighed and looked into his empty glass. She must miss you very much. Her only child.
She doesn’t miss me at all. And what do you mean, only child?
We’re all only children, Steven. He appeared surprised I hadn’t known this. You and me and Gertrude. We’re all only children. The myths and legends are all about twins. Have you noticed that? You’re a writer. You should have noticed. The subject should interest you. All the expert studies are of twin behaviour. Science and mythology aren’t interested in us, Steven. They’re not interested in one-offs. Uniqueness is a nuisance for them. They want to derive universal principles from their observations, not to be entertained by them. Uniqueness tells them nothing they wish to know. They look away in embarrassment whenever they come across it. And they only preserve it in a jar of formaldehyde and store it on a dark shelf somewhere in case another one like it ever turns up. But secretly they think the place for it is in a freakshow. Our parents are just as dismayed as the scientists, but they have to pretend to be pleased for the sake of appearances. They have to pretend we’re a blessing to them. But the truth is the only child doesn’t bring them any closer. One child doesn’t make a family. They know it. They know something’s amiss so they make a ridiculous fuss of us to try and cover up the truth. It’s a triangle. The sole offspring divides and rules, it doesn’t draw everyone together into a happy family. You’ve heard of the eternal triangle haven’tyou Steven? As if this reminded him of something, he looked at his watch. We’re late. He got up. It’s not a good idea to keep turning up late for classes.
Come with me after school, he offered, as we hurried from the pub. I’ll cook you some pork Shanghai style. There’s going to be a cool change later. We’ll go to Tom Lindner’s gallery and look at a picture for him. He always offers champagne on a Friday evening. You’ll be impressed with Tom.
Out in the street it was even hotter than it had been earlier. We were forced to turn our faces aside from flying grit. The sky was thick and dark, as if we were close to an ironworks. And the smell of burning grass was strong in the air.
Lang clutched my sleeve and leaned close to me. He shouted into my ear as we stumbled along together, Why do you think real family people always call the only child a spoilt child? The child’s spoilt, they say. And they’re right. It’s a recent elision of despoiled. Everyone knew what despoiled meant not long ago. They knew what they were saying. Now we repeat it without knowing what we’re saying any longer. To despoil is to forcibly seize something that doesn’t rightfully belong to you. Spoil is what has been seized from your enemy by force. He stopped walking abruptly, still hanging on to my shirtsleeve, and blinked at me, the sardonic twist of his features momentarily the face of a precocious child; a child prepared to plead and to cajole and to mystify in the pursuit of its secret desire. The only child belongs to the enemy, Steven. He watched me to see what effect he was having. The only child belongs to Shinje, the Lord of Death. He chuckled and dragged me onward. The only child is a hostile infiltrator Steven.
In the deserted school yard he waved goodbye. I snatched at him, What about Gertrude and her father? She’s an only child but they were happy.
They weren’t a triangle, he said and left me standing by myself. As I turned to go I saw someone at an upstairs window. The window was protected from stones by a grill of weldmesh. A pale oval face observed me. It was unmoving and squared off by the steel wire. A preparatory study for a portrait. I was unable to resist a suggestion that the face at the window was Lang’s. That he’d somehow managed to get up there very quickly. Or that I’d experienced a lapse of attention and more time had passed than I was aware of.
THE LOTUS AND THE PHOENIX
Feng Three tried for eighteen years to have a son. He was twenty-two when he married his first wife. She bore him four healthy daughters and failed to survive the caesarean delivery of the fifth. He did not forget her name:
Hsing, which means apricot. She was the only woman he ever truly loved. His second wife, whose name he soon forgot, bore him three daughters before he divorced her. This wife had given Feng Three no legitimate reason to divorce her, so his friend, the sinister Scotsman Alistair McKenzie, Chief of Police, arranged a little something and she was returned in disgrace to her family.
Feng was a Shanghai capitalist, a banker and dealer in international commodities. He married a third wife. On their first night together he told her, Bear me a son within a year or I shall divorce you. He was impatient, and afraid he might be running out of time.
This wife did as she was required and in nine months a baby boy was born to them. The child was dead at birth. Feng Three looked at the little body, which lay swaddled tightly in a white cotton sheet, and after a moment of deep thought he pronounced his conclusion. There was a note of satisfaction in his tone, which surprised the servants who overheard him murmur, So it is possible then. For, after eighteen years of fathering only female children, he had come to doubt his capacity to father a male child. All was not lost. It seemed he was not flawed. Feng was so preoccupied with this new knowledge about himself that he did not notice the detached judgement with which his young wife had been appraising him since he had come into her room. Three months later he got his third wife with child again. In due time Lien, which means lotus, was once more delivered of a stillborn child. This event caused a great deal of consternation in the household, which had been waiting for the birth with much uncertainty and hope. Once again the dead infant was male.
The father of the dead baby, Feng Chien-hsing, the third Phoenix, who had westernised his name and was known as C.H. Feng, came into his wife’s room and stood by the bed and gazed at his second dead son. His wife’s servant was silent. She did not move. She did not look at him. For three minutes Feng stood there gazing down at the little wrinkly face of his dead son, whose unopened features were the colour of slate. Feng longed to breath life into the motionless body, which seemed to wait at the door of time and reality for a sign from him. Finally, the father’s gaze left his child and came to rest upon his wife.
From the moment he had entered her room Lien had been watching Feng. Each with an image of the dead infant in their minds, husband and wife now looked at each other. Feng was forty. He was in the first rank among Chinese businessmen in Shanghai. Physically he was sound. For a price there was little he could not arrange. He was conscious of being at the peak of his powers. Lien was eighteen. She was the only child of Huang Yu-hua, the old literary painter of Hangzhou. She was without power or property of her own. For her position in society and for her personal welfare she was dependent on the goodwill of her husband. As they looked into each other’s eyes a heavy rain shower bore down on the house. The sturdy window frames shook and the glass trembled. When the violent squall had passed the silence was broken by the dripping of rainwater.
Feng’s longing for a son was great but he did not know what to do now. The rainwater tapped loudly on the iron pipe under the window, the sound pressing in upon his thoughts, pressing in upon his doubts and his anxieties and his suspicions. Pang, pang, pang, sending him a coded message for which he did not yet possess the cipher. With a slight movement of his hand he directed the servant to remove the body of the child. Then, cautiously, he seated himself in the gold brocaded French tub chair which stood beside Lien’s bed and he looked at his wife in a way he had never looked at her before. He asked himself, What does this woman want? Not a matter to which he had given any serious thought until now. What does she want? he asked himself, and felt he would be prepared to concede to her almost any reward she might ask of him. He noticed then for the first time the unusual colouring of her eyes for a Chinese of unmixed descent. The dark pupils were incised with tiny flecks of bronze. This discovery came to him with a shock. Could this woman be the girl from the provincial capital whom he’d married? He found the unwavering intensity of her regard distracting and he looked away. Apart from the colour of her eyes, what he had seen in them troubled him. He had seen that she was not ashamed. Even more disturbing, he had detected in her no fear of himself.
He became aware that he was leaning forward anxiously, in a position that might be a little ridiculous, his buttocks painfully tight, poised on the extreme rim of the chair. He coughed and adjusted his position and sought to reassure himself that women can only suffer. But the platitude did not satisfy him. Clearly it was not so for Lien. He was puzzled. He had not been prepared for any of this. He was conscious that she had achieved a certain advantage over him. How great it was he could not yet say. For another minute or two he sat on. Then, without a word, he rose and inclined his head to her in a formal acknowledgement and left her room.
A moment after the door had closed softly behind the departing Feng, the servant re-entered. When she saw who had come in Lien turned her head on the pillow and looked out of the window. From where she lay she could see the blue spring sky framed by the pink cabbage roses of the curtains. You see, I said it would be no more than a shower, she said, as if, before being interrupted by Feng’s visit, they had been discussing the unlikely prospects of the weather. The servant sat on the bed and began to brush Lien’s hair and to sing to her in a soft voice an old Chinese song from Sikong Tu’s The Twenty Four Modes of Poetry. The piece she chose was from ‘The Pregnant Mode’. It began, Not a word said outright, Yet the whole beauty revealed.
Almost half a year passed and nothing was decided. Divorce was not mentioned. Feng was preoccupied. It was the summer of 1926, and in July Chiang Kai-shek’s army began marching north from Canton. It was rumoured the Japanese had given the warlord Chang Tso-lin ten million dollars to fight the southern armies of the Guomindang. The French, the English, the Germans and the Americans, with whom Feng transacted most of his business, were certain to help Chiang against the North, or so many believed. It was a time when old alliances could not be relied upon to hold steady. There were openings for the well-placed and the astute, and, therefore, also hazards. It was a time of crisis, a time of dangerous opportunities.
When Lien informed Feng in August that she was pregnant for the third time and wished to discuss certain matters with him, he cancelled immediately an important meeting with certain foreign bankers and accepted at very short notice her request for an appointment with him.
She wore a dark green tailored suit, which had been made for her by her English dressmaker. She stood at one of the tall windows in the first floor drawing room and waited for him. While she waited she watched the nannies in the English park across the road. Along the shining paths they confidently stepped in their blue dresses and their grey stockings. Nannies pushing babies in big-wheeled perambulators and nannies with toddlers clasped by the hand and nannies with small children who ran ahead of them bowling hoops. At two o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, the world outside Feng’s white villa was filled with the cries of children.
In profile against the light it was observable that Lien possessed the long features characteristic of the northern Chinese. When the clock struck the hour she turned from the window and walked across the room. She was tall and moved with the tutored, slightly self-conscious manner of someone who might once have been a dancer. She sat in a straight-backed Carolean chair. She felt more comfortable, more alert and more able, on the hard oak and black hide than she did on down-filled cushions. And while she waited she smoked a cigarette, tapping the soft American packet repeatedly against the intarsia surface of the small circular table before her. The ivory scenes on the table were Italian, men with javelins hunting deer and bear on horseback. Her repeated tapping at last dislodged a tiny piece of hoof from one of the leaping deer. She attempted to press the piece back into its place, and when it wouldn’t go, but stuck to her finger, she impatiently flicked it to the carpet. A moment later she consulted her watch. The time was approaching three minutes past two.
The resemblance this fine large room bore to a European drawing room was just that, a re
semblance. Though there were a number of English pieces the room was not English. And despite a richly decorated French vitrine with marquetry panels and ormolu mountings, which stood between two of the windows, its shelves filled with lustrous pieces of a Sevres coffee service, the room was not French either. The room was ‘European’ in the sense that a room in Sydney or London might be said to be ‘Chinese’. That is it reflected the desire of its owner for a certain effect. To a genuine European there might have seemed to be something incongruous about the furnishings, something possibly to cause amusement, especially among the English who often found themselves amused by the Chinese. They might have detected an element of burlesque, of unintentional parody, in the resolute elaboration of the ‘European’ theme which was set forth in the furnishing of the room. For there was no object in this room, nor indeed in the entire house, that was Chinese. Not even one or two of the chinoiseries one might confidently expect to find in a real European room. And although this omission might have been considered by an observant English visitor to the house to exemplify the unintentional parody, it was not an oversight, but was by design.
C.H. Feng, to whose design the furnishings of this room and of all the other rooms in the house conformed, was accustomed to express his commitment to internationalism with a degree of purity that was considered, by those who knew him, to be eccentric. The English looked for no explanation of his behaviour beyond their own assumed superiority. That a native of a country they had exploited successfully for more than a century, a country which had never offered them any serious opposition, should mimic them seemed only natural.
Feng had long meditated upon an aversion to the traditional cultures of China and was contemptuous of those who wished to preserve them and the memory of them. Though many thought this no more than the affectation of a powerful man seeking to impress upon his peers the uniqueness of his own character, Feng was in fact not without good reasons for his attitude. He had not furnished his home in order to please anyone but himself, however, so despite the unkind comments of certain members of the International community, no grey-glazed stoneware bowls from the Northern Song, or pear-shaped porcelain vases from the kilns of the Ming, and no exquisite turquoise bronzes from the tombs of the Western Chou stood about in these elegant rooms to impress visitors with his fastidious connoisseurship of the ancient arts. Feng was not a connoisseur. He was a disappointment to those of his Western guests who anticipated viewing something more exotic in this Chinese banker’s home than Bow shepherds and shepherdesses. And in their disappointment they often found it diverting, when among their own countrymen, to ridicule what they took to be Feng’s imitation Europeanness. It never occurred to them that it was they and not he who had misread the situation, and Feng himself was too certain of a natural endowment of equality to ever attempt to enlighten them by explaining his view of history in justification of his behaviour.