My Splendid Concubine (54 page)

On Tuesday, he left the protection of Canton with Parkes and six armed men. As they rode through one of the city gates into the countryside, Parkes said, “This is the northeast gate where Captain Bate was killed reconnoitering the walls after the capture of Lin’s Fort. A bloody mess.”

Bate had died when a combined allied military force of Bri
tish and French soldiers took the city from the Imperial Chinese army. Hostilities had not ceased. The rebels and elements of the imperial army continued to resist and make life difficult. Canton was a dangerous place. It was worse outside the city’s walls.

He wrote a letter to Ayaou and sent money. In the note, he told her to have Guan-jiah pack and purchase passage for Canton. He could not wait to be reunited. He hoped he wasn’t making a mistake.

A few days later, Robert questioned why he
’d done that. He’d been selfish. He knew the answer—there was a deep, dull ache inside that wouldn’t go away. Only Ayaou could dispel that ache.

He would have Ayaou and Guan-jiah find a house close to his military quarters. He
’d slip out in the night and spend a few hours with her before returning to the cold, unfriendly bed at the commission. The broken window had not been fixed.

One Friday afternoon, Robert left the city with Captain Pym, the commander of a hundred-man police force armed with swords and revolvers. They rode to a house outside the city walls where spies said rebels were hiding concealed weapons.

When the hundred-man column arrived, there were no people in the street. It was almost as if they had been expected. Robert felt exposed. Had they ridden into a trap? He hoped he would survive to spend another night with Ayaou.

“I don’t like this,” Pym said. He turned the horses over to a few men and put his back against a wall to study the rooftops. Everyone looked nervous. That didn’t help how Robert felt. Pym ordered some men to climb on the roofs to keep watch. He directed most of his force to fan out and set up a perimeter. They quickly searched and secured the empty houses on both sides of the street.

“
We’re spread too thin,” Robert said.

“
I agree,” Pym replied. “We should have come with twice as many men. I don’t like this.”

Robert felt as if hidden eyes were watching but every time he looked, nobody was there. He hoped the others would not see his nervousness.

The house they’d come to inspect was locked. After Pym’s men broke in, they searched and found no weapons. They shoved furniture aside, broke table legs with their roughness and pounded on tiles, cracking some, looking for hollow spaces below the floor.

Once the search was finished, Robert followed Pym outside.

The captain spread his legs wide and put his hands on his hips. He stared at the rooftops where his men were on guard. “It makes my back crawl,” he said. “If the cowards are going to attack, I wished they’d get it over with. I hate this waiting.”

Robert knew exactly how he felt. It was a relief to return to the city. Later, they discovered the street had been abandoned for weeks.

Chapter 31

On the last day in May, three armed British soldiers escor
ted a Chinese boy into the commission. The soldiers did not look friendly, and the boy’s eyes were filled with fear.

“
He was asking to see you, Mr. Hart,” one of the soldiers said. “We were going to knock him upside the head if he didn’t leave, but he insisted.”

“
That’s okay. You may go.”

The soldiers didn
’t move.

Robert knelt and spoke in Cantonese.
“Did someone send a message?” The boy nodded. It was obvious he was too scared to talk.

The guards glare
d at the boy. Robert said, “This boy weighs less than forty pounds. Do you insult me by insinuating I cannot defend myself against a child? Go.”

They left.

Parkes wasn’t around, and Robert knew no one in the room spoke the language. “What is the message?” he asked. His heart was pounding and he held his breath. The boy handed him a folded note. It was from Ayaou. Robert’s hand trembled. She was in Canton. It took an effort to keep his voice calm and his features composed. His legs and feet wanted to run—to find her. Instead, he forced himself to breathe.

He took a yuan out of his pocket and held it for the boy to see. A co
mmon Chinese laborer had to work a sixteen-hour day to earn two or three yuan. The boy couldn’t take his eyes off the coin. He reached for the money.

“
Not so fast,” Robert said, and held the money out of reach. “Show me where the boat is first.”

The boy guided him to the river and pointed at a junk a
nchored a hundred yards from shore. Robert put the coin in the boy’s palm, and the child stared at it as if it were a precious jewel. Then he popped it in his mouth. With the coin safely hidden, he looked to see if anyone had noticed.

“
Kui loh, Kui loh, Kui loh.” Robert stared at a group of adolescent boys on the other side of the street. They had called him a foreign devil. He was the only Westerner on the street and considering the state of affairs in Canton, he’d just put himself into a dangerous, life threatening situation. He remembered the murdered British sailor.

He glanced at the spot where the messenger boy had stood and disco
vered he was gone.

The pistol
was not in Robert’s pocket. A ball of fear blossomed inside his gut. Ayaou’s letter had so excited him that he hadn’t thought to get his revolver and bring it with him. What a stupid thing to do?

With his stomach churning, he walked toward the river. He was not going to show his fear by running. His back felt as if it were crawling with wasps. He examined all the beached sampans and was careful to pick a boat person. He hoped that a boat person would not be connected to the rebel
s because of their low status.

He heard a noise and looked over his shoulder. The boys were picking up rocks. Robert slipped his hand into a pocket and lifted that corner of his jacket as if a weapon were there and his finger the barrel. He put a menacing look on his face and took two steps toward the gang. The five adolescents looked from his face to the pocket as if a pistol were inside. They dropped their rocks and ran.

Robert stepped into the sampan.

He knew Ayaou when he saw her. She was standing near the junk’s stern in the shadow of one of the masts. It was the way she tilted her head and her posture, which was tattooed in his memory. The only difference was that she was dressed like everyone else in the baggy, threadbare rags of a boat person. It was smart that she had not dressed in the clothing he’d bought her in Ningpo.

“
Go around to the other side,” he said, afraid someone onshore might notice that a foreign devil had gone aboard this junk. The sampan moved around to the far side and bumped against the larger boat’s hull. He was so nervous he almost fell in the water when he missed the knotted rope tossed down.

His legs were shaky and weak from anticipation. He ma
naged to take hold of the rope and climb. Tempted to look down, he closed his eyes instead, reached for the next knot in the rope, and pulled himself toward the deck.

“
Master.” It was Guan-jiah’s voice. Robert opened his eyes. The eunuch’s smiling face hung above him. The servant took his hand and pulled him aboard. Robert shrugged off a desire to throw his arms around the eunuch. Another man, looking like a younger Uncle Bark, stood next to Guan-jiah.

“
This is Cousin Weed, Uncle Bark’s only surviving son,” Guan-jiah said.

Robert nodded to Weed, who nodded back.
“How is your father’s health?” Robert asked.

“
He is well. He’s waiting to see you.”

Robert forced an iron band around his heart in an effort to be p
olite. He was trying to see Ayaou without looking obvious. She wasn’t where he’d first spotted her from the sampan.

No matter how eager he was to be with her, he felt it only pro
per to see Uncle Bark first and pay his respects. After all, the old man had been instrumental in helping Robert survive his darkest hours.

He was ushered into a large cabin at the stern of the junk where Uncle Bark waited. He still looked like the old toothless man Robert had first met in Ningpo. Bark’s skin was the color of dried leather and looked as if it had shrunk to fit against the bones of his skull making his head look like a shriveled apple. He was close to eighty, yet Robert knew this old man was strong. He remembered how easily Bark had killed men half his age during the fight that saved Ayaou’s life.

Guan-jiah had already steeped the chrysanthemum tea. The cabin was filled with the flowery scent. There was also a bowl of Shan-tung red dates.
“Sit,” Uncle Bark said. He held out a hand to guide Robert to the floor mat in the center of the cabin. A serving tray with the tea and dates sat between them.

Robert reached for the teapot. Uncle Bark said,
“Allow me.” The old man poured the tea into two cups without spilling a drop. His hands looked like dried roots but did not tremble.

“
I see you are in good health,” Robert said.

“
Early in the morning when I open my eyes, I stare at the stars before the sun chases them from the sky and feel as I did when I was a young man. Then I move, and the stiffness reminds me how long I have been eating bitterness.” He shrugged and studied Robert’s face with shrewd eyes. “How have you been?”

“
My days are busy. The rebels make life challenging. I do not have much time to think.”

“
But when you try to sleep, you feel an emptiness,” Uncle Bark said. “Do you remember when you were sitting at your kitchen table in Ningpo with the loaded pistol between your hands?”

“
Yes, it was after Shao-mei’s funeral. It was a dark moment and you took the pistol away before I made a horrible mistake. I was desperate. Ward’s laughter haunted me.”

“
And what did I say?”

“
You told me about the five women and twenty-two children you lost during your life. You said that Ayaou was going to be a living, dead thing if I didn’t go to her. I had to be the rock she could cling to while the river of life flowed around us.”

Uncle Bark nodded.
“I often think of Shao-mei’s burial ceremony. Do you remember what I said about the incense I gave you?”

“
That I could say anything I wished.”

“
I left before I could hear your words. What did you say?”

Robert recited the poem he had taught Shao-mei—the one she had memorized.
“Like molten gold appears the setting sun. Clouds at evening like jade-blocks pieced into one. Where is the one close and dear to my heart from whom without mental pain, I cannot part?” He felt a twinge of agony but managed to keep it from showing. Why was Uncle Bark dredging up memoires Robert wanted to bury?

The old man studied him.
“You have recovered better than Ayaou. She has been deeply wounded as the land after a typhoon uproots trees and blows houses away. It takes a great effort to rebuild. For Ayaou to heal, you must be the manure and water that her roots need. It is the only way. She fears the future.”

“
I still love her,” Robert said. “How could she doubt that?”

“
When you were working at the consulate, Shao-mei and Ayaou were inseparable. For Ayaou to heal she must find a balance where she is yin and you are yang like a pair of Mandarin love ducks. She will recover knowing you are always there.”

“
She has doubts?”

“
When you left for Canton, she was not ready for the separation. Be patient. When her tongue tests you, remember the good times before Ward murdered Shao-mei. It is the only way that the darkness might be pushed back and for her light to shine again.” Uncle Bark waved a hand. “Go to her. We can sip tea another time.”

Instead of speaking, Robert grasped Uncle Bark
’s hand in a warm embrace. He didn’t trust his tongue to say what he was thinking. He blushed and cursed himself for this sign of weakness.

Once he was outside, Guan-jiah said,
“Go down that ladder, Master.” The eunuch indicated a rectangular, black hole in the deck. “Ayaou is waiting.”

He hurried to the hole and remembered the first time he had been intimate with Ayaou. He
’d dropped into a similar opening not knowing what to expect. This time he didn’t feel the same misgivings. In his rush, he half slipped on the ladder and almost ended in a pile at the bottom. It was gloomy and musty like Ward’s cellar the first time he’d been with her. He squinted to see.

Then he saw
her and stepped forward. He couldn’t describe how it felt holding her again. His throat swelled with emotion. His eyes watered. He could have missed this moment if he’d been killed on shore. He did not want to let go. He smelled the warm, ocean scent clinging to her hair, and Uncle Bark’s warning was forgotten—for now.