After a moment, Poppy said, “I understand you and your husband live in a separate compound from the Riddells?”
“Yes, though not far away. We see each other every day.”
“So you all get along well then?”
Addie paused before replying, “Quite well, I’d say, considering how very small our circle is here. You must know something of that from your last post.”
“Oh, in Lang-jen there were only the Waverlys and myself, in terms of foreign missionaries. Of course, that’s why I had to leave. When the Waverlys decided to go back to America, the Board wouldn’t let me stay on alone. They closed down the whole operation.”
“I thought they’d kept on some people?”
“Only the local church folks. But how exactly do you expect a mission to continue when the Board has sold off the very place that’s the heart of it? I tried to convince them to let our deacon and his family move into the compound. Between you and me, Mr. Chao was already doing more of the work than Mr. Waverly when it came to both the church and the school. The Board simply wouldn’t have it. They’ll only put a foreigner in the post, and since they wouldn’t let me give it a go—well.” She laughed. “But who knows? Maybe the Christians will flourish there without any help from Boston. It would be a fitting sort of victory.”
They walked on in silence for a minute or two. Addie was trying to determine what to make of this woman, who was vastly unlike anyone she’d ever met. She knew that Poppy had been married and couldn’t imagine her as a widow, much less a wife. The new missionary seemed totally independent, so wholly on her own. Addie ventured to ask how long she had lived in China.
“Sixteen years.”
“And you came here originally as a wife?”
“Ha! Yes, I guess that’s the way to put it.” But Poppy shrugged and didn’t say any more on the subject.
Addie turned toward the Riddells’ house without telling the other woman she was taking her there. It was not far, and they talked of other things—mostly of Lu-cho Fu and how different it looked than Lang-jen, which Poppy said had been in a valley alongside a small river whose name changed with every mile you traveled of it. “Where we were, they called it the Bright River, which was probably the most dishonest name they could have found. If you dipped your finger in, you’d lose sight of it altogether.”
At last they had reached the Riddells’. Addie said she would leave Poppy there. “You’ll come to dinner soon? Tomorrow, how’s that?”
“That sounds fine,” Poppy said, and, raising her fist, knocked firmly on the door. “Get on, now,” she said with a wink at Addie, “before they open up and see you here. I have a corruptible nature, and they might suspect you.”
The plan had been to have the Yangs to dinner one day and Poppy the next, but once the new missionary showed up at the Riddells’ house, the idea of a single large welcome meal quickly developed. It was a Saturday, and the mission held no classes, and this was generally a day that the two families stayed separate. When the message came inviting the family to dinner, Addie was already mixing up dough for dessert. She’d gone back to the market and bought some dried persimmons, and when Li K’ang handed her the note, she looked down at the bowl of flour in which she’d been cutting in soft yellow lard. She told Li K’ang the dinner was canceled. “Lai Taitai”—this was the name Mrs. Riddell went by in Chinese—“invited us to go to her house. No dinner.” She shook her head again with a sharp jerk.
“I’ve already killed the chicken,” Li K’ang said. “Not to worry, we can eat it tomorrow.”
Owen and the boys had gone down to the river, which though often dry was running now after some recent rain, to see if they could catch any frogs. When they returned, Addie told them of the change in plans. “The new missionary has arrived,” she said, “and the Riddells want us all to come for a welcome dinner for her.”
“She’s here? In Lu-cho Fu?” Owen asked.
“Apparently.”
“Mama,” Henry said, “we didn’t catch any frogs at the river.”
“No, but there were birds,” his brother said. “Big ones that had black along the outside of their wings—”
“—and skinny, with a long neck like this.” Henry snaked one arm up in front of him.
“No, they didn’t, either,” Freddie protested. “Their necks weren’t that way at all.”
Henry ignored him. “And they went flying away in front of us and one was as big across as I am tall. That’s what Papa said, anyway.”
“How did she arrive so early?” Owen inquired, giving his sons a stern look for interrupting. “We weren’t expecting her for another few days—I’d have thought she’d send word ahead from T’ai-yüan. She was going there first from her last post, was my understanding.”
Addie thought of what Poppy had said about coming to town in secret, how she didn’t want to have her impressions of Lu-cho Fu formed by the missionaries already here. She meant Addie and Owen, in addition to the Riddells. She had reason to mistrust them, simply because they had all been here so long.
Henry suggested that the new missionary might have flown into town on the back of one of those birds, and that was why they didn’t know when she came.
“But—,” Freddie said.
“It could be,” Addie said. “You might be right, Henry.”
Freddie glowered and turned away.
“I look forward to meeting her,” Owen said. “A new face will liven up our group.”
Addie didn’t tell him that this was exactly what she had been thinking.
“But don’t you think it’s as well for Christianity to settle in through the body as it is through the heart? And more likely to stick, too. For myself, I wouldn’t be likely to trust a funny-looking foreigner sailing into my town with a stack of dusty books, and explaining how wrong all my age-old beliefs really are. But give me a vial of medicine, and I’m much more likely to listen. Turn the tables around, and it looks like a very different situation altogether, Mr. Bell.”
Silence had descended around the dining table. There were eight of them altogether; the children had been served and dismissed, all except the Riddells’ second-oldest son, who was fifteen and already a young man and expected to make conversation with the adults. He’d been seated next to the new missionary and had, over the past half hour, been looking more and more alarmed by the way she kept turning to him as she spoke, as if he might have something to contribute to the discussion. The current subject was the refuge for opium addicts that Poppy had helped to set up in another town in China—not Lang-jen, where she had been living before coming to Lu-cho Fu, but another place, farther east. It seemed she had lived in a number of towns and stayed at a number of missions in the sixteen years since she first came to China.
“Opium is certainly a great scourge upon this land—,” Owen began.
“And you know it’s as much our fault as it is the Chinese’s,” Poppy said, nodding.
“—but I don’t know that it serves our purpose to take in every addict sitting glassy-eyed against the city wall.”
Owen’s mouth had tightened when Poppy interrupted him. For the past several minutes, the Riddells had been asking the new missionary questions about herself and the work she’d done, and Poppy had proven herself an eager speaker. She was enthusiastic about everything: the Chinese temperament, the work of the missions, the colorful idioms she’d made a habit of learning, the many dishes the Riddells’ cook had served them this evening (all on the American model; Mrs. Riddell considered the Chinese diet unwholesome), the weather, the town, the bedroom she’d been given, which was comfort itself, she declared. She congratulated her hosts on the good work they had done in Lu-cho Fu and on the wonderful work that had continued since the Bells joined them. It seemed to Addie that her compliments were genuine. But once she began on the subject of the opium refuge, Owen had seemed ready to contradict her. It was clear to Addie that her husband was frustrated at the woman’s loud voice and strong opinions, especiall
y those that didn’t coincide with his own.
“Of course we can’t save every last one of them,” Poppy said, “but I don’t see why that means we shouldn’t try to save some. Surely, Yang Hsien-sheng, you agree.” She leaned forward to glance down the table, where the Chinese couple was seated. “Or Yang Taitai, you must feel the same,” she added in Chinese. “Isn’t it true that opium is one of the greatest problems your people face?”
Mr. Yang replied in English, “Opium has had many terrible results for the Chinese people.”
“If you could see up close the misery of the addict’s existence—”
“I assure you, Mrs. McBride, that we have,” Owen said. “The populace in Lu-cho Fu is no less touched by this affliction than elsewhere in China.”
“Indeed,” Julia Riddell put in, with a sad shake of her head. She glanced at Addie with something like reproof, perhaps for not having shown her agreement as well. “It’s as bad here as anywhere.”
“But you don’t choose to treat it?”
Mr. Yang explained that they had adopted a policy of refusing medical treatment to opium smokers, since it only encouraged use of the drug.
“I know at other missions,” Mr. Riddell put in, “they’ve chosen an opposite path. Direct engagement with the addict is supposed to lead to eventual conversion. Or so they claim.”
“Not necessarily,” Poppy said. “Those of us who have treated the poor souls have other concerns when it comes to what’s good for them—more immediate concerns. The former addict might recognize God’s grace in his recovery, but of course, Mr. Riddell, you understand that the word ‘former’ is the key one. When they’re on the drug, they can’t be convinced of anything, because nothing matters—it’s all sounds and movement, everything slowed down to where it can be beautiful. Nothing matters, everything is as clear as ice. Clarity, beauty—that’s the appeal of it.”
“You give a sound description,” Owen said doubtfully.
“I tried it, of course, long ago.” She glanced at the Riddells’ son, whose eyes had grown wide at this revelation. “Look, now I’ve startled the young man.”
Addie couldn’t help but laugh, too; it was such a strange idea. The rest of the table looked at her—coldly, it seemed, except for Poppy, who caught her eye briefly and went on to explain why she’d taken the drug. She’d wanted to know what they were fighting, she said. It’s easier to trick the devil when you know what he looks like.
Mr. Yang cleared his throat. “I hope you did not try it alone,” he said.
Poppy shook her head. “My husband was with me.”
A general hush fell over the table. The new missionary hadn’t mentioned her husband before now, and it seemed necessary to offer a moment of silence in his memory, though none of them had ever met the man—he’d been dead, Addie believed, for at least a decade, perhaps since before any of them had ever arrived in China. She glanced at Owen and saw that his face was impassive.
“We went together to an opium den,” Poppy went on. “This was in P’ing-yao, I think, if memory serves me correctly. Yes, it was, because there was a bank house around the corner, and I remember thinking how odd it was that this town known for its banking should also have a great many addicts. And in fact, the man who ran the place said that several of the money men would come by on their way home after they had finished the day’s work. We might have been there together with them, I don’t know. By that point, I was no longer fully in command of my senses. Would you pass that basket of rolls, young man?” The Riddells’ son complied, and then with a shrinking air glanced at his mother, perhaps afraid he had done something wrong.
Mrs. Riddell was smiling frostily at their guest. From down the table, Mr. Yang spoke up again. “You were in China a long time before you went there?”
“Thank you, Yang Hsien-sheng, no,” Poppy replied. “Not very long—perhaps six months. I was still a—”
“That place is not good for a foreign lady,” he said.
“Your husband,” Mr. Riddell said with an ironic smile, “must have been an unconventional sort, I think.”
Poppy laughed. “Oh, yes. He had this wild hair on his head, and would you believe, he was six and a half feet tall. With the hair, probably seven. When we buried him, the funeral procession was the loudest I’ve ever heard, banging drums and hollering and all—it was a mixture of Chinese and Christian traditions, which was what he’d have wanted. But so loud! A large number of people turned out in order to take a look at the coffin, you see.” She paused to take a bite of the roll, and then went on. “He’d been a doctor back home in Delaware—that’s why the opium habit intrigued him. The drug can be quite useful in easing physical pain, and he recognized its usefulness in that area. Of course, useful becomes something else when you take it to excess. He became an addict himself, ultimately.”
Everyone at the table was leaning forward, and it seemed to Addie that none of them were breathing. She had never heard someone speak this openly before, particularly upon meeting a group of people for the first time. It was not that they were unaware of the opium problem in China, but they’d taken the approach of ignoring it. Addie hoped this wasn’t for selfish purposes; they really did think it was better not to encourage people by helping them when they were on the drug. What they did was provide an alternative to the opium den: they’d started a school and a church and a medical dispensary. If opium was a way for people to escape the difficulties and discomforts of their lives, how much better to offer the greater solace of Christian faith—it was ministering to the spirit instead of to the body.
Yet opium was central to life in this part of China, and no less in Lu-cho Fu than anywhere. Blank-eyed men lolled on tiny stools, barely able to keep their heads upright. Their skin seemed to take on a slick appearance when they’d been smoking. That and the eyes were both indications of an opium habit, though there were easier ways to tell. Only the other day, Addie had seen a mother, perhaps thirty years old, and thus a mother many times over, holding a baby. She was leaning against the wall outside the door of her home, and was very unsteady. Her feet were planted on the ground, and Addie had got the feeling that she couldn’t unstick them. The upper part of her body was swaying, eyes roaming vacantly in every direction, very slowly, which was another habit of the opium smoker. Addie wondered about Poppy’s description of time slowing down. What would that feel like? If a fly went by your head, would it seem to move as if through sludge? Seeing that mother’s unsteady stance, Addie had gone and taken the infant right out of her arms. She was terrified the woman would drop it. The mother didn’t even seem to notice, only giving her a look like her eyes were made of marble. Addie had stepped over the threshold into the family courtyard without knocking, which might have been rude under other circumstances, but with such a clear indication that no one was in charge, she wasn’t too much afraid of violating the customs of the place. There was a young girl inside the entrance, sorting through a basket of pitiful-looking potatoes. She was ten or eleven years old, one of the other unfortunate daughters, and Addie handed her the baby and told her that her mama wasn’t well. The girl had been shocked at the sight of a white woman abruptly delivering her baby sister into her arms. But the shock lasted only a moment, and then the forlorn look of the abandoned child came back over her face. She’d looked down at the baby without any love, but Addie knew she would take care of it, and had probably been doing so ever since it was born. What else could Addie have done? One couldn’t save the world. One couldn’t save even the smallest part of it.
But here Poppy was saying that they shouldn’t give up on the addicts in delivering their message of Christian charity. She was talking now of the first refuge they’d set up, in the town near P’ing-yao where she and her husband were originally sent when they arrived in China in 1883. There hadn’t been a mission there at all when they arrived, and they’d had to make it up as they went along. “As you all have done here,” Poppy acknowledged to her hosts, and she turned to take in Owen and A
ddie with a nod. One of their earliest converts at the mission, she said, was a man whose two brothers had both become terrible addicts. They spent their days smoking while their wives took in sewing work to make a little money, and several of their children had died from sickness and infection. The convert was helping to support the families, but he and his own family had little enough money. “This is the dilemma, you see,” Poppy said. “They lead miserable lives and therefore take opium to escape them. And the opium only makes their lives that much worse. It’s a vicious cycle.” She paused to ask Mr. Yang if he’d understood the term.
“I believe I do,” he said with a nod.
Poppy smiled and translated the phrase into Chinese, anyway. To the rest of the table, she said, “It’s really from the Chinese that we get this idea in the first place, you know. ‘Virtuous cycles’ and ‘vicious cycles’—it’s Buddhist theory.”
Owen cleared his throat. “Actually, I believe it’s from the Latin.”
“Oh, no, circulus vitiosus really isn’t the same thing. That’s a question of logic, of argumentation. I’m talking about behavior and its repercussions—this is why rebirth is a useful concept, though we don’t happen to believe in it.” She paused to smile brightly at Owen, who nodded stiffly in return. “In any case,” she went on, “the man wanted to pull his brothers out of the mire, so to speak, and he asked for our help. So we pushed some beds together in a room and some blankets and such, and on our opening day, we took in three men. One was that man’s brother—the younger one refused to come. The other two were individuals we’d found down the street from our home. Really, it was that close. From the courtyard, I would sometimes smell that nasty odor—of course, you recognize it right away when it wafts by.”
“I’ve always thought of it as a mixture of incense and tar,” Addie put in, “with a hint of pickle.”
Poppy laughed. “Yes, that’s it, exactly. Your wife”—she turned to Owen—“has a way with words, doesn’t she?”
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