A Concubine for the Family: A Family Saga in China Read online

  “SILVER BELL, WHAT are you doing?” Golden Bell pointed manicured finger at her sister.

  Silver Bell was swinging her legs over the riverbank behind their house, whittling down a piece of bamboo. Dirt and wood chips speckled her clothes, and tousled pigtails framed her round cheeks. Mischief glinted in her long, narrow eyes as she glanced up at her sister.

  “Ouch!” Silver Bell sucked her finger and wiped it on her jacket. She held up the bamboo. “I made a flute.” She blew on it. A shrill sound pierced the morning air. “Maybe only a whistle? For Father’s birthday.”

  “Oh, make up your mind!”

  Silver Bell’s cotton play clothes were a shabby contrast to her sister’s green brocade jacket and dark silk trousers. Golden Bell’s long braids were coiled behind her ears and short bangs fringed her forehead.

  A thin vapor shrouded the river that flowed into West Lake. A pleasure boat glided past a twisted pine, clumps of bamboo, and willow trees lining the banks of the opposite shore. Behind the greenery, a footpath led uphill toward the distant monastery of Tiger Run Spring. Low clouds veiled the wooden pillars of the temple. Only the pinnacles of the incredible roofs floated above the drifting haze.

  “Oh Mei-mei, you are a mess!” Golden Bell stamped her foot; her elegant suit shimmered. “Look at you! You are nearly ten, but you’re worse than a naughty boy! Where is Peony?”

  “Just because you are six years older, you think you can boss Peony and me around.” Silver Bell rose and led her sister around a bend in the river where a young girl of thirteen was pulling a basket from the water.

  “Oh look, look, Jei-jei, Peony picked up so many snails and crabs — a few shrimp too!”

  “Peony, what are you doing? You are going to smell like the fish market!” Golden Bell covered her nose and glared at the maid.

  “Morning peace, elder-young-mistress. I’m checking on the catch.” Peony bowed. She was as disheveled as Silver Bell. “Second young-mistress didn’t finish her morning rice. She wanted me to come and feed it to the fish.” Peony emptied the catch into a bucket. “Cook says we must catch lots of shrimp for your father’s birthday banquet.”

  “That’s right, Jei-jei.” Silver Bell straightened her shoulders. “I asked Peony to come here for Father’s shrimp.”

  Golden Bell ignored her. “Peony, go clean yourself. It is almost seven thirty. We’ll have to pay our morning respect to our parents soon. Before that, I want you to go to the servants’ quarters. The chauffeur has a package for me.”

  “Peony is my maid. You have Iris.”

  “I don’t mind. I’ll go!” Peony called out. The chauffeur had been hired from Shanghai. All the servants wanted to learn his city ways. She quickly lowered the basket back into the water.

  As their eyes followed the basket, they noticed something floating toward them. Silver Bell screamed. In spite of themselves, they stared.

  It was the body of a young woman. Long strands of dark hair slithered, snake-like, in the water around her white and bloated face. Her lips were creased in a grimace; fish eyes bulged up at the sisters.

  Silver Bell continued to shriek.

  “Don’t look, Mei-mei, don’t look,” said Golden Bell, pulling her away. Bodies were found in the river every year, but this was the first time they had seen one.

  Silver Bell buried her head in her sister’s jacket. “Who is she? . . . Who . . .”

  “I don’t know.” Golden Bell’s voice trembled. She hugged her sister and mumbled to herself as much as to the little girl, “Let’s be calm; we must keep calm.”

  “Are the Japanese attacking Shanghai again?” Silver Bell whispered.

  “I don’t know.” Her sister squeezed her closer. “The body could not have come from Shanghai, because the river does not flow from there.”

  Peony stood riveted and ashen-faced. Finally, she averted her eyes. “Young mistresses, we’d better go home.” She turned and ran.

  Golden Bell pulled her sister away. “Peony, wait! Wait for us.”

  Peony slowed to a walk. Clutching her cloth jacket over her heart, she beat her chest, chanting: “Oh-me-to-fo, send her soul to the Jade Emperor. Don’t allow her to haunt me . . . please oh-me-to-fo, oh-me-to-fo.”

  Silver Bell wiped her sweaty brow and stared, open-mouthed, at Peony and her sister.

  “You can’t go running into the house like this,” said Golden Bell. “You’ll get a whipping if you awaken M-ma with such horrible news. Go get the gardener. Ask him to” — Golden Bell swallowed hard — “to fish the body out.”

  “I’ll go.” Peony ran.

  “Wait, Peony! After you’ve told the gardener, go to the chauffeur — get my package; bring it to my room. I’m taking Silver Bell there.” Golden Bell waved her hand to dismiss her. “Come, Mei-mei, I’ll ask Iris to wash you.”

  “Why can’t you ask Iris to get your package?” Silver Bell asked.

  “M-ma promised Iris a thrashing the next time she bothered the chauffeur again.”

  “Why?”

  “Chauffeur bragged about the many fashionable foreigners in Shanghai. Their days begin in the late afternoon. After dressing in fancy gowns and tuxedos, they enjoy their dinners with free-flowing wine, songs, dance and maybe also opium. The parties last until the wee hours of the morning. He told Iris there was no place on earth that offers such freedom and pleasure.”

  “M-ma wouldn’t like that. But aren’t the foreigners afraid of the Japanese bombs?”

  “Chauffeur said the Japanese fired only into the Chinese sections and left the International Concessions in peace. Many foreigners love to come out of their nightclubs dressed in their evening fineries to watch the bombs fall on Chaipei and enjoy the fireworks from the burning buildings.” Golden Bell winced, even though she was secretly intrigued by the glamour and excitements.

  Silver Bell kicked a pebble away. She sensed something was wrong with the fancy people but could not understand the full implications of what they were doing.

  “Anyway, lots of other interesting people come to Shanghai. Miss Tyler told me George Bernard Shaw, the famous author, had visited Shanghai,” she added. “Remember last December, the king of England abdicated to marry a Mrs. Simpson? Chauffeur said she also came to Shanghai to sample the gaiety.”

  Silver Bell had no interest in the famous people. “I wonder why the girl drowned?” she began again. “That light blue gown . . . don’t they wear them in the missionary school?”

  “You can’t tell . . . when she is like that. Why would a girl from the missionary school . . .”

  “Let’s go wake up Father!”

  “No. Pretend we never went near the river.”

  “Why should we lie? Can’t we go and tell him?”

  Golden Bell grabbed her sister’s arm. “You’re going to get us all into trouble. Weren’t you supposed to be studying your classics?”

  Silver Bell did not respond. She followed like a maid tailing her young mistress. They had climbed from the riverbank, passing the higher ground of their back garden. Now they mounted the seven brick steps that led to the main buildings. The rooms of the house were built around a series of landscaped courtyards. The arrangement of the buildings was the same in each square of open space. The girls passed the moon-gate leading to their parents’ compound. The south-facing center hall was used for entertaining intimate friends. A suite of rooms abutting the hall belonged to their father, and on the opposite side, directly across from their father’s suite, were their mother’s quarters. On sunny days, the roof and trees cast crisp shadows in the brilliant golden light of the open courtyards, visible from every room.

  As they neared their parents’ compound, they could hear the bump and scrape of furniture, and Orchid sweeping her bedroom behind their mother’s private sitting area with a bamboo broom.

  “M-ma must already know what’s happened.”

  “Ssh . . .” Golden Bell put a finger to her lips. “Not so loud! Orchid tells M-ma everything.”

&nbs
p; “Orchid can’t hear. She’s working.”

  “Maybe not. M-ma says she never needs to summon other servants into the inner court because Orchid cleans every corner,” Golden Bell whispered. “Please don’t tell M-ma what we saw by the river.”

  “Why?”

  “You know M-ma wants us to study in the morning. There are too many servants in the house wasting mouth water.” She held her sister’s hand. “The chauffeur will bring me new magazines of American movie stars. You may look at them if you behave.”

  “All right, I won’t tell if you’ll teach me the English words in your magazines.” Silver Bell brushed a stray hair from her eyes, leaving a black smudge across her forehead.

  “Oh, look at you — you’re messier than ever!” Golden Bell shook her upturned hands in exasperation. “M-ma won’t let you study English because she wants to bring you up like a proper Chinese lady. Instead, you are turning into a wild animal.”

  “M-ma says Father is bringing you up like the son they don’t have, but you’re really a fussy old woman!”

  “Ssh . . . I’m thinking.”

  They passed another moon gate as they crossed from their parents’ courtyard into their own compound. The same arrangement of buildings surrounded their square courtyard — a center hall, and on two sides flanking the hall rooms for the girls and their maids.

  In her room, Golden Bell whispered their morning trauma to Iris, her eighteen-year-old maid, and ordered a wash for Silver Bell.

  “Perhaps Miss Tyler knows this girl!” Silver Bell said.

  “Perhaps.” Golden Bell trudged into the schoolroom where Miss Tyler, the American missionary, had come daily for the past five years to teach Golden Bell English and science. “Please, don’t talk about it anymore.” Golden Bell sank down by her desk, and buried her head in her arms. She would have to find out more about what happened later on.

  Silver Bell picked up an old American magazine and looked at the pictures, waiting for Iris to wash her.

  When Iris came in with the warm water, Silver Bell scurried to her sister. “Jei-jei, come and watch Iris wash me.”

  Iris scrubbed off the smudge on Silver Bell’s forehead. She tried to distract the girls: “It feels so warm today. Did you notice any leaves on the mulberry tree when you passed the back garden?” She helped Silver Bell out of her play clothes.

  “No, I think the tree is still bare,” answered Silver Bell.

  “I hope the silkworm eggs don’t hatch. They will have nothing to eat.” Iris instructed Silver Bell to wash her hands before helping her into a peach-colored silk jacket and brown trousers.

  “It’s only the second month — too early in the year,” Golden Bell added.

  Iris handed her a copy of Life magazine. “Remember this New Year’s special issue? You liked the spring fashions of the Western year 1937.”

  Silver Bell peered over her sister’s shoulder. “The West Ocean Devils are so strange! Look at that woman — her shoulders and arms are all bare. I wonder what’s holding up her dress?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask Miss Tyler.” Golden Bell tried to close the magazine.

  Silver Bell forced it open with her index finger. “Look at all that bloated white flesh. Doesn’t it remind you of that . . . that corpse?”

  Iris snatched the magazine away. “We’re not to speak of this anymore.”

  Peony rushed in and gave Golden Bell her package, buzzing: “Iris, we saw . . .”

  “I know,” Iris pressed a finger over her closed lips. “I heard everything when I fetched your young mistress’s warm water. Peony, get me the wood-shaving water from second young mistress’s room. I am doing her hair today. You’d better go and clean yourself.” Iris’s lips quivered as she spoke, but her voice was firm. “You’d better hurry. It is almost time for the young mistresses to pay their morning respects to their parents.”

  PURPLE JADE fidgeted. New worries were nagging at her. The dread of war was her constant companion, and this tragedy near her home added to her apprehension. For a long while she sat, fretting. She tapped her fingers on the desk to calm herself.

  Finally, she decided to recalculate her priorities. Her husband would have to handle the details of the drowning. She hoped things would become clearer in a few days. In the meantime, she must carry on her household duties. She dipped her sable-hair brush into a small porcelain cup full of water and shook a few droplets onto the inkstone. She placed the brush on the edge of the stone. Every morning, she checked the accountant’s report of her household’s expenses, and wrote out her instructions for the kitchen staff. Today she would meet with Lao Wang the accountant, and make plans for her husband’s birthday feast. The courts of the house must be prepared for days of celebratory activities: mahjong, games of chance, chess, pantomime, magic shows, music played on the Chinese mandolins — pi-pa, the two string violin — erhu and the bamboo flute. A troupe of Shanghai opera singers should perform every night, she thought. The band that played in the Tai Wha Restaurant was exceptionally good; perhaps they could be hired as strolling minstrels. Lao Wang probably had more ideas about other troupes of singers, comics, jugglers and dancers they could engage. Now she must compile the guest list.

  “Morning peace, M-ma.” Her daughters bowed, and their personal maids followed.

  “Morning peace, girls. Have you eaten your morning rice?”

  “Oh, M-ma, let me grind the ink for you.” Silver Bell ran to the desk. She picked up the ink stick and rubbed it around and around in the water on the inkstone. “M-ma, did you hear what they found in the river?”

  “Of course! Orchid said the kitchen was in an uproar when she went to fetch my hot water this morning.” She composed herself as her voice turned metallic. “This shouldn’t be your concern. Who told you so early in the morning?”

  Golden Bell glared at her sister. She brushed a finger over her compressed lips. “Oh, M-ma, everyone knows because there are so many servants in the house!”

  “Tai-tai.” Iris addressed the mistress of the house but gave Golden Bell a conspiratorial look. “The weather is so warm today, do you think the silkworm eggs will hatch?”

  “They’d better not.” Golden Bell had caught on immediately. “I don’t think any mulberry leaves are out yet.”

  “Orchid,” Purple Jade responded, “go fetch the sheets of silkworm eggs from the workroom and place them on the rafters of the cold house. That should keep them cool until the mulberry leaves are out.”

  Every winter, large chunks of ice were hauled into a thatched hut north of the kitchen, where they remained through August.

  “M-ma, oh, M-ma . . .” Silver Bell tugged on her mother’s sleeve. “I want to help Orchid. I promise I won’t climb. Peony will climb to the rafters for Orchid.” She splattered ink onto her hand.

  “Aiya, my little heart-and-liver.” Purple Jade grabbed her daughter’s hand. “You are so careless. Orchid, fetch me some fresh water.” She noticed the cut on her daughter’s finger. “Where did your young mistress get that nasty cut?” she asked Peony.

  “Uh, uh . . .” Peony twisted the corner of her cotton tunic. “Young mistress was making a bamboo whistle by the back garden.”

  “Why weren’t you studying the Three Character Book I assigned you?”

  Silver Bell felt her cheeks burn. Golden Bell hastened to comment: “M-ma, you really must send Silver Bell to the school room. She’s running wild like an animal.”

  “I suppose you’ve been studying the Five Classics and the Four Books all morning?” her mother responded with a sidelong glance. “You know I don’t like your Western learning in the school room. Your father promised to tutor you in the classics. When did you have your last lesson?”

  “Last Wednesday, I think. He’s been so busy in the council.”

  Orchid brought in a basin of water and placed it on the rosewood night table. She then took out her mistress’s box of Chinese medicines. Purple Jade always took an interest in the ancient arts of acupuncture and herb
al medicines. Everyone in the household went to her for their ailments: headaches, menstrual cramps, muscle strains, stomachaches and various cuts and bruises. Leaning on Orchid, Purple Jade wobbled over and took out some alcohol to rinse Silver Bell’s finger.

  “Ouch, ouch! It hurts!”

  “A Western education may be useful in the West, but it is courting disaster to have a Western mind and a Chinese body! Who would marry such a girl?” Purple Jade lapsed into her usual complaint.

  “Miss Tyler is not married,” Golden Bell said. “She doesn’t need approval from any man!”

  “But you’re Chinese!” She rubbed Silver Bell’s finger with more alcohol.

  “Ouch!”

  “Never forget who you are. We have no sons! Your first duty is toward your family. If no one wants to marry you and take our name . . .” The thought was too repugnant; she took a deep breath. “Without an heir, who will burn incense and make monthly offerings before our ancestral tablets at home and in our village temple? This family will be the laughingstock of the whole region. Hai, the West Ocean barbarians are so strange.” Purple Jade looked up from the basin to collect her thoughts. “When I first met your Miss Tai . . . Tai . . .” She could not pronounce the name.

  “Tai-lar!” Orchid offered.

  “Oh yes, Tai-Lar, ‘Spicy-Too-Hot!’” Purple Jade smiled as she translated Miss Tyler’s name into Chinese. Everyone laughed except Golden Bell.

  “Your Miss Spicy-Too-Hot was such a frightful sight. With that red curly hair, blue eyes and enormous nose, she looked like the devil herself!”

  “Oh M-ma, Miss Tyler is so kind! She has taught Iris at no extra charge,” Golden Bell said.

  “Iris is good company for you.” Purple Jade wiped Silver Bell’s hand. She turned toward Iris. “Don’t let your fancy education turn your head. There are plenty of sing-song girls who know English and are working in the Shanghai bars.”

  Orchid brought a clean strip of silk, and Purple Jade wrapped it around her daughter’s finger.

  “Orchid, take Peony and her mistress to fetch the silkworm eggs. Make sure you don’t go out the back door!” She wagged a finger at the two maids and Silver Bell.