China

by Edward Rutherfurd

  The world was a big place. Letters sent from India in the fastest ships still took months to get to England. It could take them years to find him, even if they tried.

  And what would he do? Wander the world, like Read perhaps. He could pick up employment here and there. He might go to America. Who knows, he might make a fortune.

  How strange: A short time ago he’d been dreaming of settling down with Agnes on a Scottish estate. Now the thought of a rootless life, without ties, almost without identity, suddenly seemed attractive. Free of obligation. Free to do what he liked. Free to find women, come to that, in any corner of the world. Many a young man’s dream.

  Read seemed to like living that way. Perhaps they could travel together for a while.

  Several days passed. The British were all gone now. Dr. Parker the missionary was remaining at his makeshift hospital, but the factories were closing down. Finally, Read told Trader that he, too, was off to Macao, and that he’d better come with him.

  “But first, young Trader,” he added, “you’re going to join me and some friends for a day out.”

  “All right,” said John. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  * * *

  ◦

  The sun was shining on the waters of the gulf as Shi-Rong stood proudly beside Commissioner Lin to watch the destruction.

  With every day that passed, his admiration for the commissioner had grown greater. It wasn’t just his moral strength, for Lin certainly lived up to his reputation for Confucian propriety. Single-handedly, without shedding blood, he had brought the barbarians to surrender. But just as impressive was his thoroughness. He was an awe-inspiring administrator.

  “Stopping these barbarian drug dealers is only a first step,” he’d explained to Shi-Rong. “We must break our people’s evil habit.” The opium dens were being raided all over the province. In Guangzhou itself, there were piles of confiscated opium pipes a dozen feet high. “Even this is not enough,” Lin declared. “We must find ways to help the addicts lose their desire for the drug. They say there are medicines made with plums or willow and peach blossom that work. Make inquiries,” he ordered, “and see if you can discover what they are.” Failing that, addicts could be put in prison and denied the drug until they were cured.

  Lin’s dramatic moves had already reached the ears of the court. One day, Shi-Rong saw a present arrive from Beijing. It came in a magnificent container, and he watched Lin first make the nine kowtows to the container, since it came from the royal hand, and then open it, letting out an “Ah…” of joy when he saw it.

  “It is meat,” he told Shi-Rong. “Venison. You know what that means.”

  The Chinese might write in ideograms, which expressed an idea rather than a sound, but in their spoken language, they made endless puns. In spoken Mandarin, the word for venison sounded the same as the word for promotion.

  “Congratulations, Excellency,” Shi-Rong said quietly. “Promotion is assured.”

  Lin nodded and, just that once, was too overcome to speak.

  Lin’s arrangements for the destruction of twenty thousand chests of opium were a masterpiece. The site he had chosen was beside a creek that flowed into the Pearl River system. There was already a massive shed there, in which the chests of opium were stacked in long rows. Closer to the waterside, he had begun to build.

  Or more precisely, to dig—a huge basin, twenty-five yards by fifty. Then a second and a third. The basins were quite shallow, only a few feet deep. Day after day, a small army of workmen laid flagstones over the bottom of each pit. Then they timbered the sides. There were pipes to carry fresh water from the creek and sluices to allow the contents of each basin to flow out through channels into the river, where each day the tide would carry them out to sea. Across each basin Lin made his men construct broad wooden walkways.

  At the same time, carts appeared, laden with sacks of salt and lime, which were stacked under shelters. Lastly he had them make him a small raised platform from which the operation could be supervised. By early June, he was ready to begin.

  But before he did, there was one essential duty to perform, which showed so well, Shi-Rong noted, his master’s essential piety and reverence. Accompanied by his staff, Lin went to the local temple that the fishermen used and, making his offerings with deep apologies, warned the sea god that he was obliged to empty large quantities of opium waste into the ocean there. He begged the sea god to tell all the fish to leave.

  The men had already been at work for an hour that morning when the Americans appeared. They had requested the visit a couple of days ago and it had been granted.

  “The American barbarians may come,” Lin had decided. “With the exception of some, like Delano, they are less engaged in drug smuggling than the English barbarians. They may be less evil.”

  Shi-Rong had brought Mr. Singapore with him in case the commissioner wished to speak to the visitors.

  They were standing on the platform overlooking the basins. Lin was not wearing his official dress and insignia, but was dressed in a simple tunic with a plain conical hat. A servant held a sunshade on a long bamboo pole high over his head.

  On the walkways across the basins, the workmen were stamping the black balls of opium to break them down before sweeping the powdery mess into the water below. They had already disposed of the contents of twenty chests, and Lin intended to destroy eight times that amount during this single day.

  As the visitors picked their way through the debris of broken chests littering the area, Commissioner Lin frowned. “I gave permission for three visitors. There are four,” he said sharply.

  Shi-Rong looked towards them. For a moment, the glare of the harsh morning light made it difficult to see their faces. Then he recognized Trader. “Excellency, the fourth man is the English scholar I told you about. Do you wish me to send him away?”

  “A scholar?” Lin considered. “Let him come.”

  Having made their low bows, the four men were allowed to stand a few feet away from the commissioner to watch the work. After dumping a mass of opium into the nearest of the huge pits, the workmen began to add lime and salt. As they did so, other workmen jumped down into the pit and began to stir the watery sludge with paddles. A pungent stink arose. Shi-Rong watched with amusement as the visitors covered their noses and puckered their faces. Even the commissioner allowed himself a wry smile. He and his party were used to the smell.

  “Now the barbarians wish they hadn’t come,” he remarked. And then, as soon as the visitors had started to recover: “Bring the English scholar to me.”

  * * *

  —

  Mr. Singapore translated. Shi-Rong watched. The commissioner was quite kindly. “Commissioner Lin has heard about you. Although you are a merchant, you have taken your country’s examinations. You are a scholar. You know something of Confucius.”

  “This is true,” Trader responded with a polite bow.

  “The commissioner believes that you are not without morals. You see that the evil drug that your countrymen have brought here to poison our people is being utterly destroyed, and he hopes that they have learned a lesson. The commissioner asks if you feel ashamed of what they have done.”

  Trader did not answer at once. He looked thoughtful. “I am ashamed,” he said at last.

  “The commissioner is pleased to hear you say it. It shows that you have a good heart and morals. He asks if you remember the letter he has composed to your queen.”

  “I do.”

  “The letter is even better now. The commissioner has sent out two copies, but he does not know if they will be given to your queen. He does not have trust.”

  “I expect she will see it. But how can I know?”

  “The commissioner asks if you know honest scholars in your country.”

  “Certainly. My teachers at Oxford are all honest m
en.”

  “The commissioner desires you to take a copy of his letter now, and to send it to honest scholars of your acquaintance, asking them to lay it before your queen. Will you do this?”

  Again Trader hesitated a little, but then answered firmly: “I shall be honored, and will do all in my power to ensure that it reaches the queen.” Trader bowed his head. “You have my word.”

  Commissioner Lin looked very pleased and indicated to Shi-Rong that he should give Trader a copy of the letter. The interview was over.

  After a little time, the barbarians left.

  “Do you think he truly repented?” Lin asked Shi-Rong.

  “It is hard to tell, Excellency, but I think so.”

  Lin nodded. Shi-Rong could see that his master was moved, and he loved him for it.

  “It seems,” Lin said reflectively, “that the Lord of Ten Thousand Years can teach virtue even to barbarians.”

  * * *

  ◦

  The following day, when Trader and Read set out for Macao and their boat passed the place where the opium sludge was being washed into the gulf, Read turned to his young friend and quietly remarked, “You realize that you gave Lin your word that you’d send that letter.”

  “I was afraid that he might not let me out of Canton if I didn’t agree to everything he said,” Trader confessed.

  “Right. All the same, you gave your word.”

  * * *

  ◦

  One hour later, the baby was born. The village midwife had been in the Lungs’ house since the night before. Willow’s labor had been long. Mei-Ling and Mother had been helping, and when at last the baby came, the midwife handed it to Mother for inspection. The baby cried, not very loudly. Nobody spoke. Willow, pale with exhaustion, looked up at her mother-in-law and then her head fell back. Her eyes went blank.

  Willow had given birth to a second girl.

  The household was very quiet that afternoon. No one came by. Everyone in the hamlet knew, of course. People who might have come by on business feared to encounter the wrathful face of the lady of the house. The servants went about their tasks with heads down. Nobody discussed whether or not this was a lucky day; no calculations about the baby’s character were made.

  Being quite tired herself, Mei-Ling asked Mother if she might rest a little and was told she could. She’d become big with her own pregnancy during the last month, and Mother had been more solicitous than ever, hardly letting her work at all and not even scolding her if she did something wrong.

  After resting awhile, Mei-Ling went in to see Willow. Her sister-in-law was awake, but she looked pale and dispirited. The baby, wrapped in the traditional white cloth that Willow’s mother had sent, was in a little bamboo cot beside her, sleeping. Mei-Ling inspected the baby. It had a little hair. Perhaps the baby looked like Willow. It was hard to judge.

  “You have two days to rest and be quiet, Sister,” she remarked with a smile. After that, it would be time for Willow’s mother to arrive with baby clothes and presents.

  But her sister-in-law hardly seemed to hear her. “Now I know what it’s like to be you,” Willow said at last.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I married into the family, I was treated with honor because my father’s rich. They weren’t so nice to you.”

  “I didn’t expect anything else. I was lucky to marry Second Son. He’s very good to me.”

  “Was I kind to you?”

  “You were quite kind.”

  “I’m sure I wasn’t kind enough. Forgive me, Sister.” She sighed. “Well, now I know how it feels myself. No son. Two daughters. When Mother came in a little while ago, she hardly even spoke to me. Looked at me as if I were dirt. Once I’ve recovered, next time I do anything wrong, she’ll give me a beating. You’ll see.”

  After a little while, Willow said she was tired, and Mei-Ling left her.

  But something Mei-Ling saw that evening made her think that Willow might be wrong about Mother. The sun was setting when the baby awoke and made some little cries. Mei-Ling was sitting in the shadows just behind the little orange tree when she saw Mother come out with the baby. She walked up and down the yard, gently rocking the baby in her arms, and Mei-Ling heard her murmuring: “There, my pretty one. Sleep now, poor little thing.”

  And it seemed to her that Mother’s voice was so tender towards her tiny granddaughter that it wouldn’t be long before she’d forgive Willow for having another girl. The baby soon went to sleep, and Mei-Ling saw Mother go back towards Willow’s room. Soon after that, she went in to lie beside her husband and sink into sleep herself.

  She was surprised when she woke in the early morning to see Second Son standing beside the bed looking distressed. “The baby died during the night,” he said.

  “Died? What do you mean?”

  “It must have stopped breathing. It happens sometimes.”

  She rose and hurried to Willow. The baby had vanished. There were tears on Willow’s cheeks.

  “What’s happened?” Mei-Ling cried. “How?”

  The look that Willow gave her was so terrible. It was anguished, bitter, helpless, all at once. “Perhaps Mother will like me better,” she said dully, “now the baby’s dead.”

  * * *

  —

  Mei-Ling had been due to go see her parents that day. She had wondered what she should do, but Mother had said, “You may as well go.” She’d arrived at her parents at noon and stayed a couple of hours before returning.

  When she got back, she found Mother sitting alone on a bench under the orange tree in the middle of the empty courtyard. The older woman looked gloomy. She motioned Mei-Ling to a smaller bench opposite her. Mei-Ling sat down, and Mother gazed at her in silence for a while.

  “Tell me what they’re saying in the village,” Mother finally asked. Mei-Ling hesitated. “Tell me the truth,” Mother commanded. “Everything.”

  “They’re saying we killed the baby.”

  “We?”

  “The family.”

  Mei-Ling had heard the stories: baby girls born into poor families who couldn’t feed them or who had too many girls already. Babies who quietly disappeared. Had they been exposed, drowned, smothered, or just died of natural causes, as babies often did? Who knew? And she supposed that those who knew probably didn’t say. She’d never heard of such a thing in her own village. Maybe it was one of those tales that happen in another village or province rather than one’s own.

  But people still talked about it.

  “You mean they’re saying I did it,” Mother stated flatly.

  Mei-Ling didn’t answer. There was no need. Mother sighed. “They fear me,” she remarked. “Do you think I did it?”

  Mei-Ling thought of the expression she’d seen on Mother’s face when she was cradling the baby girl. “No, Mother,” she said.

  “Good.” Mother nodded. “Well, I didn’t.”

  And that should have been the end of the matter.

  * * *

  —

  But during the night that followed, Mei-Ling suddenly awoke with such a start that it woke Second Son as well.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “A nightmare. It was terrible.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I had the baby. It wasn’t a boy. It was a girl.” She stared ahead in desperation. “Then Mother took it…” She clasped her hands in front of her belly as if she could protect the child within. “She took it and killed it.”

  “She would never do that. You know she wouldn’t.”

  “I know.” Mei-Ling shook her head. But she didn’t know. That was the trouble.

  “When people have nightmares,” said Second Son, “it’s often just the worst thing they can think of. It’s natural. But it doesn’t make it true.”

  “Everyone in the village
thinks…”

  “I know. It’s stupid. It’s just because they’re afraid of her.”

  “So am I.”

  Second Son put his arm protectively around her shoulders. “I won’t let anything happen to our baby. I promise. Go back to sleep.”

  But she couldn’t.

  June 1839

  Read had a woman in Macao. That’s to say, he lodged in her house and there were no other lodgers. Her husband, a Dutch sea captain, had been dead for years.

  Read had found his lodgings almost as soon as he arrived. After a while, he’d gone up the coast with McBride and Trader, returned to the widow, then left again to go to Canton. Of course, he hadn’t expected to be trapped in Canton for so long, but the widow had not taken any other lodgers, and his berth was still available when he got back.

  Just before he’d gone to Canton, a well-meaning but nosy member of the community approached him in the street and suggested it was unseemly to be openly living in sin with a local woman. A moment later, he regretted his words.

  Read turned on him. His voice was loud enough for other people in the street to hear. “Are you suggesting, sir, that an honest widow who to make ends meet lets lodgings to a respectable man is to be accused of lewdness? Do you say that about every landlady?”

  “No indeed, sir,” the gentleman protested, “but you are her only lodger, and you must allow—”

  “I allow nothing, sir! If she had six lodgers, would you go about the town saying she’d committed the act of fornication with all six of them?”

  “By no means…”

  “Are you aware of the laws of slander, sir? Must I go to law to defend an innocent woman’s name? Or shall I horsewhip you?” Read shouted fiercely.

  At this, the well-meaning gentleman hastened away, and within the hour the whole of Macao was laughing. Nobody troubled Read about his woman after that.