A Concubine for the Family: A Family Saga in China (13 page)

“Oh, I wish my parents will let me go. I can’t understand my parents, especially Mother! She suffered under the old system. She has bound feet. I can’t understand why she still follows those old traditions!”

“Yes, I have noticed how the Chinese gentry are extremely proud of their cultural heritage. Your mother may feel they are betraying their ancestors and selling out their cultural identity when they accept Western values.”

Golden Bell knew that values like democracy and women’s equality arrived in China along with colonialism, so they had become identified with competition and aggression. Since the turn of the century, the Chinese had been humiliated and traumatized by Western invasions. Her own father had protested against the division of important port cities into foreign concessions.

“I suppose there is progress. Nowadays young girls do not have bound feet,” Golden Bell mumbled.

“Oh, yes, I’m sure things are changing. However, democratic ideas are very new and unproved theories here. I’m surprised that your parents did not object when I started teaching Iris.”

“Yes, I was surprised too.”

“Educating the servants is obviously important to your mother. Did you notice how all the women in your household are friendly and can read a little?”

“Oh yes, I never thought of it. Mother sets an example. She has taught Orchid how to read and write.”

“America is a land of immigrants. We are naturally more open to influences from other cultures. I imagine the Chinese, steeped in Confucianism like your parents, are resisting the chaos that may come with new ideas.”

“Oh.” Golden Bell hesitated. She wasn’t sure she understood her teacher, but she knew her parents’ cultural pride was not something she could change, no matter how hard she tried.

“And you?” Golden Bell was dying to ask whether Miss Tyler’s parents considered her an heir, wanted her to marry, or objected to her choice of work. Her Chinese training prevented her from prying. Her mother would admonish her for the impropriety. Quickly, she changed her focus. “What do the women do after university? Are there many great women artists and scholars in America?”

“Most women marry and become enlightened mothers. But there are still very few women artists, novelists, or professionals working outside the home.” Miss Tyler sighed. “Social values change very slowly.”

“That’s just what my parents always say.” Golden Bell brightened. “Did your parents approve of your work?” She just had to ask.

“Missionary work is supposed to be a calling from God,” Miss Tyler answered matter-of-factly. “I’ve always wanted to travel, take pictures and have the adventure of teaching young women. Missionary work spared me the fight against people who might object to my life choices.”

“What people?”

“Well, people in power — those who influence popular opinion, and who can tell you what to do and what not to do.”

“Like parents?”

“Sometimes.”

Iris arrived with the tripod, and Miss Tyler hastened to place her camera onto it.

“Did you hear a calling from God?”

“No, I did not. Look at that moon pavilion reflected in the mirror lake!” Miss Tyler pointed. She moved her tripod to an appropriate vantage point. “It is scenes like these that called me. Of course, working with young women and getting to know your culture have been a constant challenge and delight.” She peered into the viewfinder and clicked the shutter.

“Perfect!” She grinned.

T
HE NEXT AFTERNOON Purple Jade sat with Orchid in the front courtyard, embroidering under the cypress tree by the small pond. She ruminated on Miss Tyler’s gentle, confident ways and began to appreciate Golden Bell’s fascination with the self-reliant woman. She knew Silver Bell also wanted to follow this path of freedom and independence, which only deepened her concern for her family’s need of an heir.

Purple Jade wondered how Righteous Virtue truly felt about concubines and other Chinese traditions. Clearly, he had never shared Golden Bell’s contempt of her bound feet. His attention to her every comfort was complete. She was his precious Jade who needed shelter and protection, not only from the coarse realities of daily life, but also from the “brutal repression of the old system,” as he had said with fire in his voice. In spite of his immersion in the Chinese classics, his total identification with his cultural heritage and his respect for tradition, he not only understood the horror of foot binding, but also wanted to educate his daughters like boys.

Their most cherished moments were their chess games together. Whenever they played, he was a relentless attacker, but she was a worthy adversary. She had been a careful student of Sun Tzu and his treatise on the art of warfare. Under a luminous circle of gaslight, she followed his movements from intersection to intersection, throwing up tiny interferences until Righteous Virtue became confused, distracted and soon fell into entrapment. He acted surprised each time he lost, blaming his lack of concentration and impatience, but she knew he marveled at his quiet, outwardly subservient wife.

In the delirium of their first days together, she could feel him challenged and fascinated by her talent for writing poetry and her thorough immersion in the classics. When finally they made love, he was tender but clumsy, full of fear and guilt at having hurt her. She accepted everything graciously, as a maiden of good breeding should.

With a wicked wink, her mother had given her a pillow book illustrated with many unusual positions of lovemaking. She had intimated that it would be delightful for any man to go through the book with his uninitiated wife. But Righteous Virtue had not found the book amusing. He flipped through its pages and turned crimson. “Such pornography is unworthy of your fine character!” he fumed. He threw the book into the charcoal brazier, scowling. But then, sensing her distress, he said, “You are an ideal wife for my family. My coarser passions have been spent on the turmoil in this country. I have no mind for women.”

Purple Jade wept. She apologized in confusion and fear. She had been taught that all men were sensualists. They loved good food, fine wines, and the gentle ministrations of women. For centuries, it was a challenge for a wife to keep her husband from dallying with the flowers in the willow world. Yet her husband never strayed. When he made love, he did it in haste as if from necessity.

While Purple Jade enjoyed their shared activities of the mind, her panic over their physical challenges drove her to confide in her mother.

“Be patient, my child,” her mother counseled. “He has only just returned from his modern education in Shanghai. I hear that in the West, their gods can only be conceived in virginity, so he must think the noblest of human acts unclean. He thinks of you as a goddess still.”

Purple Jade had been pacified then. Often, the sight of her husband sent her insides melting. At other times, she could not understand her feeling of emptiness. Her breeding, those long years devoted to learning propriety and the refinement of manners, made her diffident in this matter. She often wondered if her husband’s Western education and its curious pronouncements on the sins of physical love had deprived her of a male progeny — a crucial Chinese blessing. Now the time for an heir was overdue.

Yes, a concubine for the family. She would ask her husband to take a concubine. Why haven’t I thought of this before? The Huangs must have an heir to preserve the dignity of the clan. The endless wars to establish the Republic had consumed his energies. And now a simple young woman could distract him from his troubles and let him enjoy the rights of his manhood again. With an heir, Righteous Virtue would be made whole. Just as Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists had solved the national problems by following ancient shadows, she too must solve her family needs in the traditional way
. The virtuous wife must provide her family with an heir. Still, the need to share her husband made her heart ache as if stabbed by a thousand needles, but she focused on the pains in her feet instead. She had resolved to do what was necessary.

After all, she herself had been the child of a concubine. Her mother was the daughter of a minor silk tradesman, and was fortunate to have been chosen as a concubine for her father, a prosperous merchant and industrialist. When her father’s favorite concubine, Fragrant Wind, died giving birth to Glorious Dragon, her mother had helped the barren first wife select another concubine for their husband. They had been wise to curb their husband’s roving eyes and keep his interest within the family. Now it was her turn to do the right thing for her family.

She remembered another Tu fu quatrain that seemed to suit her mood:

Silver Bell burst in on her mother’s thoughts. Peony followed.

“Afternoon peace,
M-ma
.” Silver Bell bowed hastily. “
M-ma
, let me recite to you!” Words tumbled out of her mouth all in a rush:

Everyone laughed. No one could resist the pun. “Gou boo chou” (Dogs don’t bark) sounded so close to “Cur boo chou” (If not taught).

“Silver Bell, recite the last couplet to me again.”

Silver Bell laughed with the others, but she obliged.

“That’s better.”

“
M-ma
, I’ve memorized your assignment. Now tell me how you first met Father.”

“Ah, it was more than eighteen years ago!” She always began the same way. “It seems like a story I once read. But I did experience it. My dear little heart-and-liver, one day you will be betrothed and wonder how your husband looks too. It’s the moment all maidens live for.”

“
M-ma
, you said no one is to see the betrothed until the wedding night!”

“Yes, Silver Bell, but my family is famous in the silk trade, and my father was very modern in his way.”

“So Father is just like Grandpa Chou.”

“No, no, Silver Bell, Grandpa Chou was a merchant. Your father comes from generations of scholars. It is a much more noble family. That is why I, your poor mother, cannot understand his modern ideas.”

Silver Bell was about to argue when Orchid whispered, “
Tai-tai
, tell us again how you first saw the master.”

“Oh, yes,” Purple Jade began as she lay down her embroidery. “After I was betrothed, I heard how daring your father had been. He was a member of T’ung Meng Hui and helped Dr. Sun Yat-sen establish the first republican government in 1911. He was beaten and kicked unconscious when he demonstrated against foreign aggression during the May 4th movement in 1919. I wept whenever I thought I was betrothed to a ruffian.”

“What’s the May 4
^th
movement?”

“Oh, let me tell you again! Both Japan and China helped the Allies during the First World War. After the war, the Allies gave the German concessions in our Shantung Province to Japan. That’s how Japan came to occupy our land in the north east and called it Manchuria.”

“Oh . . .”

“Yes, our last emperor was a Manchu. So your father was considered an outlaw against the emperor in the old days.”

“Oh . . .” Silver Bell might have continued her query but Orchid whispered, “
Tai-tai
, tell us why your family pledged you to our lord anyway.”

“We knew, of course, that he was the sole heir to the Huang family’s many bamboo mountains and fine acreage around West Lake. My parents assured me that he was a scholar. Still, I would not be pacified until I had seen him.”

“How exciting!” Silver Bell clapped.

“Yes, that was very daring at the time. My father arranged to reserve the whole second floor of the Louwailou Restaurant, and invited your father to tea. My mother, my personal maid and I went upstairs and peeked through the windows while my father met my master downstairs and toasted to the union of the two families.”

“Did you see him?” Silver Bell asked.

“Oh yes. He came to the restaurant riding on a white horse. He had already cut off his pigtail that marked him as a revolutionary because all Chinese men had to wear a pigtail under the Manchu rule. I found his Western haircut strangely attractive. He had prominent bright eyes. His back was so straight and his chin so square, I knew right away he was a scholar. Of course, I knew my parents wouldn’t betroth me to a ruffian, but after I saw him, I became a willing bride.”

“Father is now in the legislative council!”

“Yes, after the Nationalist government was formed.” Purple Jade smiled in contentment.

“I’ll never marry anyone I don’t like, M-
ma.
”

“Well, marriage brokers and spies can help us find out all about each other’s family background and smooth over the adjustments to each other’s habits.”

“Will Golden Bell choose her own husband in Shanghai?”

Purple Jade groaned, clutching her embroidery to still her agitation.