Addie bent down to examine the writing on the pad of paper. The scent of ink rose up, tangy and metallic, and beneath it the cottony smell of the paper itself. The paper was thick, roughly cut at the edges and flecked with wood splinters. She didn’t remember buying it; it must have been there when they took possession of the house, along with the furniture and linens. The Riddells had thought of everything. She still sometimes felt their hand in the arrangement of the rooms, and she could imagine Mrs. Riddell standing in a doorway, hands on her hips and a scowl on her face, trying to determine the best way to arrange the chairs and tables.
The paper was not the same kind she used to write home—she was still using the stationery she had brought with her from America. This kind seemed like it should belong to a painter or calligraphy artist, the unlined pages sewn together in a little book. But Owen’s script was decidedly amateur, uncertain and halting. And it was not the same character written out again and again as someone practicing their penmanship ought to do, but rather a string of several complete sentences. Of course, it was a Bible verse. Learning the language was a means to an end for Owen—it was the vessel in which faith could be delivered to the unconverted. He had made sure to learn the words for “God” and “Jesus” while they were still in T’ien-chin, and Addie had imagined them riding down into town on their mules, singing out these two words again and again. Somehow, she had already forgotten them. There wasn’t much call to use these terms while she remained ignorant of the language, illiterate and mute. The only words that had stuck with her were more practical ones: bread, water, thank you, good morning.
Owen had set to learning the language with a determination that was simply a part of it all, another way in which he had settled into their new life without any struggle. He went out into town nearly every day, and he carried the place home with him like a scent on his clothes. Sometimes Addie lifted yesterday’s shirt to her nose and she would actually detect it: mixed in with the smell of his skin and sweat was an odor like medicine, sharp and piney. He spent his days walking the streets with Mr. Yang, speaking to the people he met. Turning a corner, he might come upon a man sewing shoes and, putting a hand on Mr. Yang’s shoulder, ask him to translate. He would ask the man about his work, his family. How many children did he have? How many boys? Wouldn’t he like to see his boys get an education? For it was through education that they would reach the greatest number of people. Get the children into a classroom, and you would establish the habit needed for church. And along with mathematics and history they would begin learning religious teachings. It was the children who were the key, Owen told her.
So there it was: he was growing more certain, more knowledgeable, while Addie was a mist hovering over the surface of a lake. She was losing form while he was gaining it. Yet despite his dedication, the results were not very good. Even to her eye, the page on the desk before her looked like a child’s hand had written it. The characters were all different sizes, parts of them either underdeveloped or bulging outside an imaginary box. She pictured her husband as she had seen him that morning, bent over his desk with his brows knitted so tightly he looked like he was in an argument with the paper and brush. She’d almost come into the room and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. But she hadn’t. Instead, she’d watched from outside the door and then slipped away without interrupting his work.
She spent the rest of the morning paging through the dictionary they’d been given in T’ien-chin. It was a new advantage, Mr. Douglas told them, that previous missionaries hadn’t had. She tried to appreciate what felt utterly impenetrable. When Owen returned just before dinnertime and put his head in the doorway, the dictionary was still open on top of her big stomach, but she had given it up. She had quickly exhausted the small store of words she remembered and had turned to looking up new ones she didn’t know, but there were so many, an ocean of vocabulary, and each time she scanned her eyes down the page she found another word she absolutely must learn immediately, one even more important than the word she had intended to look up. She’d set the dictionary down on her lap nearly an hour before, and had spent the time since listening to the rush of wind over the roof. A small stove burned at her feet to keep her warm. At some point she’d closed her eyes but hadn’t fallen asleep.
“You should lie down for a bit,” Owen said from the doorway.
“I’m not tired, not really. It’s only that I got dazed, staring at all these characters.” She held up the dictionary. “I need to put my mind to it in a real and devoted way, not just limp along like I have been doing.”
“You’ve got plenty to focus on right now. Why wear yourself out studying? There’ll be time later for all that.”
“But I don’t, Owen,” she said, sitting up in her chair. The dictionary slid from her lap and, catching it, she set it down on the table beside her. “I don’t have nearly enough to do right now. I’m simply waiting, like a big mama cat curled up in the hay. You can’t think how stupid I feel.”
He leaned against the doorjamb, considering her. “Then of course you should find something to keep you busy and feeling useful.”
“And not knitting sweaters for the baby, either. You’ve seen the drawer; it’s crammed full already. One more stocking and you won’t be able to close it.” She shook her head and glanced over Owen’s shoulder. Wei-p’eng was standing a few feet back, in the shadow of the roof overhang, sweeping the handle of a broom up under the eaves. He performed the work of the house in almost total silence, talking only to Li K’ang. She had heard them arguing once. She’d gone to the kitchen to refill the teakettle, and they hadn’t known she was there. Listening to their voices rise against each other and not understanding a word, she’d felt like a trespasser in her own home. What were they arguing about? Were they unsatisfied with her or the work they were made to do, perhaps even fighting over whose job it should be to refill the very kettle that dangled from her hand? She had tiptoed back to the sitting room without the water. It seemed important that they shouldn’t see her.
Now, catching sight of Wei-p’eng cleaning under the eaves, she understood that this situation was the reverse of that other one; he was tuning his ear to the tone of their conversation without understanding the words. She and Owen were not arguing, exactly, but her exasperation was evident enough. The servant kept on with his task, his elbows raising and lowering as he swept the broom handle along the underside of the roof. She looked back at Owen and said, “I need to do something useful. I want to feel part of what we came here to do.”
Owen stepped forward into the room and crossed over to her chair, pausing a moment before kneeling down. She could see his uncertainty as to how to handle her. He had come home full of his experiences in town and had not expected to be confronted with an irritable wife. This was what marriage was, a sort of tug-of-war, because it was never only what you were feeling but what your spouse felt, too. When you were both happy, it was like you were running in the same direction, the rope held loosely between you. But when you were feeling differently, it was the opposite; you were both terribly stuck. It wasn’t anything to do with Owen now, or what he was saying, exactly, that made her so irritable. It was simply the fact that she was alone in this house day after day. They had come across the ocean, crossing a wide world to get here, but now her world was smaller than ever. And it would stay that way until the baby came.
At last he knelt down and put his hand on her knee. “We’ll get you a tutor to come in. Will that do?”
She nodded. “You’ll be happy with me when I’m making some progress. When I’m doing something instead of sitting here stewing and growing duller by the day.”
“I’m happy with you now.”
“You’ll be happier.” She looked over his shoulder as he leaned in to embrace her. Wei-p’eng had lowered the broom and was watching them. When he saw her take notice, he turned and passed out of sight.
3
When the first labor pains came, she was standing in the doorway of the kit
chen, trying to talk to Li K’ang. She spent most of her time in the front of the house—the back was where the food was prepared, the laundry was washed, and somehow Addie didn’t feel welcome there. But it was her house, and she would go where she pleased, and besides, she wanted to be friends with those who worked for her. So she had made a new ritual of talking to the cook during that part of the morning that preceded the arrival of the tutor.
She stood in the doorway of the kitchen now, asking questions. “What do you call this?” picking up a bowl from the row of them laid out on the table next to the stove. “What do you call this?” pointing to the lettuce piled limply in a basket on the floor. Che ke chiao shenme? Again and again she recited this same sentence, and Li K’ang patiently responded with the word she’d requested, but it touched her brain lightly and then flew off, forgotten. She hoped there was a place where these words were all congregating, a flock of ducks settled on a lake, and once she’d reached a certain level of proficiency in the language she would suddenly come upon them all together, preening and clucking, too voluble to be tamed.
Her back had been hurting for days, but she hadn’t thought much of it. So when the first labor pain came, low in her stomach and deep inside, she grasped the doorframe and stood slightly bent over, swaying, and felt more surprise than pain. Li K’ang didn’t notice. He was turned away, mixing dough in a large bowl. At last he turned to see why she had fallen silent, and she looked at him and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, he had set down the spoon and was standing with his hands pressed together and his eyes wide. He spoke and the hands came forward, she reached out and squeezed, and they stood swaying like dancers as they waited for the first wave to pass.
When the pain subsided, she asked Li K’ang to help her into the other room. He couldn’t have understood the words, but he led her to the sitting room, supporting her weight on his arm and pointing out the steps as if she were a newcomer to the house who might trip over unfamiliar ground. Then he arranged some pillows on the sofa and left her there. She was not sure whether she was glad he’d gone. He should not witness anything like this, it was true, and yet it would have been better to have someone with her. She must have miscalculated somehow; another month was supposed to pass before she needed to worry. She thought about this as she waited for the next wave of pain, as Li K’ang went out and a half hour passed and still he did not return.
Owen came at last, and he was breathing heavily. “I ran all the way here. Tell me, are you all right? Is everything going as it should?” Li K’ang came in after him. He had found Owen and brought him to her.
“I’m not sure.” She took a shaky breath and attempted a smile. “I’ve never done this before.”
Owen came up to her and, kneeling, put his hands on hers, which were folded on top of the blanket covering her stomach. She was seated sideways on the sofa with both legs straight out on the cushions and a few pillows arranged under her back. Her stomach rose before her. She had never got used to this shape, and now soon it would be gone. The thought terrified her.
Owen raised one hand to her forehead, and she closed her eyes. She was glad of being touched; it made her feel less afraid. For so long she had been tranquil about the thought of giving birth, but now all serenity had fled. Owen’s touch stilled the wildness swirling around in her. She felt as a horse must when its eyes are covered to calm it in a storm. “Help me to the bedroom,” she said when he took his hand from her head, “and then go get Julia, if you would.”
In the bedroom, she lay with pillows piled up all around while Owen left to fetch Mrs. Riddell. She stared out the window at the small patch of sky visible from that angle. It was a bald blue plate, clean and cloudless. An innocent sky that cared nothing for what was going on under it. There wasn’t much of a wind, for once, but from the courtyard came the sound of Wei-p’eng pulling a bucket over the stone tiles. He would be mopping now, going from room to room, pulling furniture back from the walls in order to clean behind it. He did his job well. That should mean that he liked her and Owen, but she knew that he didn’t.
It was too early for the birth, and she feared that meant something was wrong. The child might have feeble, stumbling limbs, or lungs that were not yet ready to breathe, or a heart that was too weak to pump blood to all his tiny little fingers and toes. Or the birth could be the problem. The baby could strangle himself on the cord or be positioned incorrectly inside the womb. Addie had heard of this happening, the baby turned sideways or feet-side down. Sometimes it came out all right, but often it didn’t. There was a long, tortured struggle and in the end the mother died, or the baby did, or sometimes both.
Not that, she thought. Something must come of this. Then the next contraction swept over her and she clutched a pillow in each hand and squeezed her eyes shut. There was the sharp squeeze and then the pain building as it dug in with its claws. She waited for it to let go. Behind her closed eyes was a molasses darkness, and in her hands were the sheets, balled-up and damp from her sweating palms, and all this was the pain, and it was the silence in the room, too, her shallow breaths. It went on and on until it was done. Then she opened her eyes and she was still there, and the room was exactly the same as it had been before.
Twenty minutes passed, and then the door opened to Owen ushering in Julia Riddell. She walked swiftly over the floor and stood beside the bed. “We called in on the midwife on the way and she’s coming directly,” she said.
Addie nodded. She had never met the midwife, but she had an image in her head of a tiny woman with long white hair swept up in a bun, and bright black eyes, and a bag swinging from her side filled with Chinese herbs and medicines. She didn’t know whether she would be comforted or made afraid by her presence. She had never imagined her child being delivered by Chinese hands. And yet Mrs. Riddell had done it, and with the help of this same woman.
“How will I know what to do?” she asked.
“You’ll know,” Mrs. Riddell said firmly. “We’re not women for nothing.” She glanced over at Owen, who stood at the foot of the bed, watching the two of them with his hands folded behind him like an officer of the law. “We’ll be all right once she gets here,” Mrs. Riddell said to him. “There’s nothing for you to do now but wait. I’ll come out every now and then and let you know how we’re getting on.”
Owen cleared his throat and pushed his sleeves up to his elbows, then pulled them back down again. Addie fixed her eyes on him and said, “It’ll be all right.”
“If I send someone now,” he said, taking a step forward, “we might have the doctor down from T’ai-yüan in a few days.”
Addie shook her head. A few days? If it were still going on then, there was nothing a doctor could do. “No,” she said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
“I should have had him come down sooner. It’s only that I didn’t know it would happen so soon.”
“It will be all right, Owen, I promise.”
Mrs. Riddell stood. “Come over now,” she said, “and pray together.”
Owen took her place and, grasping Addie’s hands in his, bowed his head and said, “Dear merciful Father, watch over us and bless us with Your grace and goodness. Lead my beloved wife through this struggle and deliver to us another servant in Your name. Amen.”
It was the shortest prayer she had ever heard him give. He raised her hands to his lips and then left the room.
Hours after the first pain came, little had changed. The contractions were still no less than half an hour apart, and in the time between them she simply lay in the bed feeling the energy drain from her body. “Rest your eyes, and don’t try to talk,” Mrs. Riddell told her. “You need to save your strength.”
The midwife had arrived, and she looked nothing like Addie had pictured. She was so young it was hard to imagine she had ever delivered a baby before. Her face was as smooth as the cap of a mushroom, with a spot of deep red on each cheek, and she had coarse hair, more brown than black, pulled back from her face in a braid
. She wore small earrings, but her clothes were those of a peasant, plain cotton worn thin at the elbows and knees. She looked exactly like all the other women Addie had seen when she was still able to go into town, but somehow more concrete, more visible. There was something disappearing about those other women, a way of being soaked up by the scenery of the marketplace, like water disappearing into wood. They stood behind their husbands with arms folded behind their backs; they bent their faces to the piles of vegetables and wares being sold, and when she did manage to focus on one of them for a moment or two, she was never able to meet her eye.
The midwife, on the other hand, entered the room and, from the doorway, immediately fixed her attention on Addie. Then she turned to place her bag on the floor and retrieve a cloth from inside it. Mrs. Riddell greeted her, and the woman came over. Her eyes met Addie’s again and quickly ran over her face, examining it. What was she looking for? Addie was aware of being studied rather than seen, studied in the way a pianist considers a sheet of music, reading the notes and hearing them in her head, imagining the position her hands will take on the keyboard to play the difficult passages. In another situation, she might have turned away from such study, but she was tired and frightened, and it was comforting to stare into the face of the midwife and know that she was being read, assessed, that there were signs in the creases around her mouth, in the tone of her skin and the squint of her eyes, signs that could tell the future.
After a time the midwife took her hand and flipped it upward. She traced the deep lines on the palm and then placed two fingers over the blue vein on the wrist. Her hands were cool and dry. Addie felt the blood ticking beneath her own skin, and she waited as the Chinese woman held her fingers there, eyes turned to the ceiling as she counted aloud. She spoke and gestured to Addie’s stomach. The next moment, she was bending Addie’s knees, and she reached a hand up between her legs, but it was only for a moment. Then she withdrew her hand and wiped it on a cloth.
Rebellion Page 6