A Concubine for the Family: A Family Saga in China (2 page)

“Yes,
Tai-tai
.” Orchid touched her mouth, deciding not to mention the uproar in the kitchen where all the servants were discussing the drowning of a girl in the river. To announce bad news first thing in the morning would mean bad luck for the rest of the day.

She pushed aside the embroidered silk panels hanging from the intricately carved wooden valence edging the canopy. With her other hand she led her mistress out of the enclosure.

Purple Jade leaned heavily on Orchid’s arm as her foot, wrapped in silk bindings and stockings, touched the ground. She wobbled unsteadily toward her rosewood armchair.

A washcloth, a towel and a porcelain soap dish were assembled on the bedside table. Purple Jade sat expectantly as Orchid moved the basin of water closer. Her sure hands slipped off Purple Jade’s silk night tunic and laid it on the bed. Lines of concentration etched Orchid’s round, dewy face. She dipped the washcloth in the basin and lathered it. Then she gently rubbed her mistress’s face, chest, breasts and armpits. She tackled each task like an artist and handled the details with care. The rustle of leaves outside the window accompanied the swish of bathwater as Orchid rinsed her mistress’s supple upper body three times. At thirty-nine, Purple Jade’s creamy skin was still unblemished. Her flesh shone like a silken chemise. Orchid did not seem to notice the sensual gleam. She had served her mistress since she was five years old and performed the same task for almost eighteen years. Orchid’s experienced fingers dried Purple Jade with the towel and then dressed her in a fresh silk undershirt. She was now ready to wash her mistress’s lower body.

The early morning light cast somber shadows on the walls. Purple Jade saw herself reflected in the mirror and turned away. Her inbred modesty forbade her to gaze at her naked and still sinuous torso, but she took note of her sagging breasts. She lowered her eyes. Her lips lifted to smile, and for one instant she beamed with pleasure at Orchid’s gentle message and the clean, fresh feel of soft silk.

Purple Jade tilted her head toward the ceiling, examining the shifting shadows, while her maid helped her to stand. Orchid washed her hips, her legs and her private parts. She repeated the rinsing and drying routines and finally helped her mistress into fresh undergarments. She directed her mistress to sit, and then handed her her embroidery. She left to fetch hot water.

Although Orchid was not quite five feet tall, her big feet made a soft putt-putt sound as she walked in again with a pitcher of hot water. Carefully, she set it down. She emptied the bathwater outside the window, and refilled the basin from the pitcher.

Without a word, Orchid knelt to remove Purple Jade’s silk socks and unwind the yards of silk bindings. A musty stench filled her nostrils and her nose twitched in spite of the familiar smell. Purple Jade’s club-like feet were arched and small. The last two toes on each foot had been bent under the soles and the toe bones crushed when Purple Jade was only three years old.

Orchid placed the feet in the basin and Purple Jade sighed with relief.

“Sorry this is taking so long,
Tai-tai
.” Orchid lowered her head — time to inform her mistress. “Everyone in the kitchen is talking about a body found in the river.”

“The river brings such horrors!” Purple Jade’s arched brows pulled her long eyes into dark pools of anxiety, distorting her oval face.

“Do you think the East Ocean Devils are killing people upstream?” Orchid asked.

“No, they have not occupied the land there.” Purple Jade answered in a flat tone.

Anxiety about war hung like a shroud over Purple Jade. She was proud the Chinese had repelled several Japanese attacks on Shanghai but was still alarmed by reports of the enemy extending their control from Manchuria to the neighboring provinces and using local slave labor to cultivate opium on all the arable land. The dribble of news about cheap opium flooding all corners of China set her insides quivering. Now, even the poorest rickshaw puller could afford a smoke to soothe his aching muscles. She had warned her household staff to avoid the drug or to risk dismissal. Good news would not come. This drowned girl felt like the harbinger of more devastation. She took a deep breath. She must concentrate on her family affairs, and her words must sound casual. She proceeded to talk about her old pains — her bound feet.

“Ah, last night you left the bandages so loose, my feet felt like lost ships tossing in the ocean.”

Orchid added more hot water to the bath. “Are your feet hurting you again?
Tai-tai
, in a few months you’ll get used to the looser binding.”

“No one calls them golden lilies anymore. Now they are only tiny feet, and worse than your big feet.”

Orchid looked at her mistress; her round eyes glistened. She quickly lowered them. It would not do for her mistress to know that she pitied her. Gently, she massaged Purple Jade’s feet.

“Li
tai-tai
told me that after soaking and loosening her bindings, she could wear the modern high-heeled shoes!” Purple Jade said. “I don’t know how she can tolerate the pain.”

“Today, I’ll have to leave the bindings very loose and try to bring out one toe from under your feet.” Orchid carefully lifted one bent toe.

“Better leave them alone. The last time you tried, I was up all night with the pain.” Their eyes met in a shared memory. Long ago Purple Jade had told Orchid that when she was two, her mother had wept while ordering her nursemaid to bind her feet. She did not dare to leave Purple Jade’s feet unbound. In a family of their stature, it would be a disgrace to bring up a daughter with big feet — as if the family had to prepare her for menial labor.

“Yes, it is cruel,” Orchid said, as if she, too, remembered the pain. She rubbed her mistress’s feet in the hot water.

“At first, it didn’t hurt much,” Purple Jade continued. “Of course, she wound the bandages a little bit tighter each day to get me accustomed to it.” Purple Jade rambled on as if she were telling Orchid the story for the very first time. “Later, when I was three, they brought in a professional foot binder and she broke the bones and bent the last two little toes under my feet. I screamed and cried every night.”

Orchid knew the next step was to force the heels under the instep to meet the toes.

Purple Jade moaned, reliving the torture. “I became delirious. My mother and my nursemaid stayed up night after night weeping with me. Finally, they could no longer stand to see me suffer. They loosened the bandages somewhat, so that at least my ankles and heels were not completely deformed.” She grimaced. “There is never a day when I am not in pain.”

Orchid looked at the clublike feet in her hands and smelled again the odor of compressed flesh. Her hands shook, and she massaged Purple Jade’s feet more vigorously.

“My mother berated herself and the nursemaid for allowing my feet to grow almost six inches long, instead of the ideal three-inches.” Purple Jade clutched her embroidery to her heart. “Father took pity on me, and promised Mother that my dowry would be so handsome that any smart family would overlook my oversized feet!”

“Yes, I remember old master Chou was always kind and thoughtful.” Orchid could not express her outrage and disgust.
Why did they impose such suffering in a home that had never known hunger and cold?

“We were supposed to be seductive, stir up men’s desires with our undulating lily walk.’ Who could imagine things would change so . . . Now big feet are in fashion, and I have to suffer again to straighten my feet.”

Orchid nodded. She said, “I wonder what does stir men’s desires?”

Purple Jade blushed. Restraint and reciprocal affection dominated her relationship with her husband after seventeen years of marriage. She shifted in her seat, too embarrassed to answer. She had long accepted her bound feet as her fate. She had buried her anger, tolerated indignities, and accepted her deformity; now they were barriers to a modern life in which she had no desire to participate. She returned to her embroidery and began stitching; her hand looked like a small bird pecking at the cloth.

Orchid had often noticed how her mistress’s and the lord’s eyes gleamed and their cheeks flushed after a game of chess. Another time, she had noticed the lord’s trembling hands as he bade his wife good night. Her mistress had never spoken of desire, so it must be something that was not talked about. She pressed and squeezed her mistress’s feet. “No one should have to suffer like this just to please men.”

Purple Jade stirred to attention. This uneducated girl had voiced a truth she herself did not dare contemplate. She looked into her maid’s unusually large round eyes.
Ah, those cow eyes have seen my sorrow
.

“Orchid, you’re almost twenty-three. Soon I must find you a husband.”

“
Tai-tai
, you’ve been like a mother to me. I don’t wish to leave your side.” She continued to manipulate her mistress’s feet. Remembering the fiery eyes of the male servants in the house, she trembled.

“Because you’re like a daughter to me, I must find you the right husband. Ah, how will I manage without you?”

“Then I shall stay.” Orchid added more hot water to the footbath.

Orchid went behind her mistress and loosened her chignon. Thick and dark long hair tumbled loose. Orchid began combing. “Aiya, here are two more white hairs!”

“Don’t fuss about hiding them. Pull them out!” Purple Jade winced as Orchid yanked the hairs out.
I’m already thirty-nine. My two daughters were difficult births, and still we have no sons. Who will carry on the Huang family name and perform the necessary ancestral rites?

A son would mean the continuation of the family. Her half-brother, Chou Glorious Dragon, was the savior of her maiden family—the Chous. Her father took a concubine, who gave birth to Glorious Dragon when Purple Jade was thirteen years old. She had been an only child for a long time. Her father had educated her as if she were a son, but the Chou family could not maintain its social standing without a boy in the family. Now she managed the Chou silk factory books and supervised the Chou family homestead next door, and her brother lived in Shanghai and managed the business there. Though Dragon consulted her on all aspects of Chou family welfare, she directed everything in his name. She shivered.
Who else would want to take business advice from a woman with bound-feet? And now, with only two daughters, who would save the Huang family?

“Dragon is always so busy with his own pleasures in Shanghai,” she said aloud. “I hope he will come to check on our Hangzhou factory today.” Totally immersed now in her household concerns, and feeling refreshed from her morning routine, she felt she had walked out from a fog into a shaft of sunlight.

“
Tai-tai
, the water must be getting cold.” Orchid finished setting the chignon and quickly brought out fresh bindings. She dried her mistress’s feet and loosely bound each foot.

Without another word, she knelt and put on her mistress’s tiny silk brocade shoes. She had embroidered tiny plum blossoms near the tips. Since a maid could embroider only under poor light when the day’s work was done, it would never equal the fine stitching of a lady. It was a great honor that her mistress had accepted the new shoes at the New Year and begun wearing them.

Orchid dressed Purple Jade in a dark silk skirt and a blue and silver brocade jacket.

“Orchid, tell Golden Bell and Silver Bell we must go boating on the West Lake when the weather clears.”

After completing the cleansing rite, in the dim comfort of her mistress’s bedroom, Orchid smiled and proceeded to tidy up.

“S
ILVER 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.