My Splendid Concubine (43 page)

He knew the truth and realized
he’d fled to China, not to escape his sins as he’d originally thought, but to find a different world. He had found exactly that in these two girls.

Most evenings after the language lessons, Robert played his violin while Ayaou danced and Shao-mei played the
pee pah
, which she preferred over dancing anyway.

“
Tell us a story about growing up in Ireland,” Shao-mei asked one night.

“
It’s no comparison to China,” he replied.

“
How can that be?” Shao-mei said. “If it is where you were born, it must be a wonderful place.” She looked at Robert with doubt as if she suspected he wasn’t being honest.

“
We don’t have time to waste talking about Ireland. It’s on the other side of the world. We live in China, so we read Chinese stories, not Irish.”

“
I agree with Robert,” Ayaou said. “It stinks there. They do not take baths. It is a horrible, smelly place populated by crazy people who want nothing but power over others.”

Shao-mei pouted and didn
’t bring the subject up again.

He was selfish wanting
to keep them the way they were. He didn’t feel they needed anything. They were naturally beautiful, kind and hardworking. What could his culture offer them? They might walk away from him once they learned to read a Bible and listened to a Christian missionary.

To keep them occupied he guided them in adapting songs so the two musical instruments worked together
in harmony. The girls taught him Chinese songs, which they sang together. His favorite was a humorous song called
Sour Grapes
. The girls fell on the floor laughing every time he sang it.

With the love of two women, his longevity was assured. He thanked God every day for bringing them into his
life. If this was living in sin, he wanted to sin to stay alive. He couldn’t imagine living any other way. He had discovered his true God in China. This God showed him that what was natural and universal prevailed.

It was in early May when Shao-mei made her announcement. She came to Robert with both hands spread across her swollen belly. “The baby is going to come soon,” she said.

“
Are you sure? Has your water broken?”

She stared at him with an odd expression of disbelief on her face.
“How can you break water?” she asked.

Robert explained.

She shook her head. “No, there has been no broken water.”

“
So, you have labor pains.”

“
He kicks me all the time.”

Robert told
her what labor pains were. She shook her head again. “Then how do you know?” he asked.

“
I had a dream that told me we were going to have a boy any day. The doctor said so. Do not tell Ayaou. I want it to be a surprise.”

“
Was the doctor in your dreams too?” he asked.

She nodded. Her eyes glowed. She waddled away leaving him speec
hless. After that, he couldn’t concentrate. It wasn’t easy seeing himself as the father of another man’s child—a man he did not like. Shao-mei also expected him to mate with her soon after the baby was born. That was another dilemma Robert had to deal with that he hated to admit he was looking forward to.

Originally,
Robert worried because the pregnancy was taking so long. Before leaving Ningpo for the summer cottage, he’d taken Shao-mei to a Chinese doctor. The man held her wrist, felt her pulse and said everything was fine. She was fit as a buffalo. The baby would be healthy too.

Robert couldn
’t understand how feeling a pulse told the doctor so much. In China, they practiced medicine differently from Britain and Europe. The Chinese had been practicing it for thousands of years, so it had to work.

He
made a mental note to have Master Ping teach him something about Chinese medicine. He wanted to understand. There must be a text he could read.

“First you wanted to learn about Chinese customs. Then you wanted to learn about Chinese women. Now you want to learn about Chinese medicine,” Tee Lee Ping said. He took a deep breath and sighed. “You are a hungry man. I have never had a student like you.”

“
I have a voracious appetite.”

“
I have discovered that.” Ping’s shoulders drooped. He looked tired. “Where do you want to start?” he asked. “I will do my best.”

“
At the beginning.”

Ping was quiet for a moment.
“That means we have to go back before China had a written language to the time of the Yellow Emperor, Huang-ti, about twenty-seven hundred years before your Jesus Christ was born. It has been said that Huang-ti invented traditional Chinese medicine.” Ping looked thoughtful and stared at the ceiling.

When he looked down, he said,
“You could read Li Shizhen’s book, the
Ben Cao Gang Mu
. However, that is a lot to study. He lived three hundred years ago and is considered the greatest physician and pharmacologist in China. There is a famous British man of science who sailed the world to study animals and nature. I heard he referred to Li’s book and that he quoted Li in what he wrote.”

“
Charles Darwin,” Robert said. Darwin had published a book in 1839 titled
Journal and Remarks
about his voyage on the
HMS Beagle
. Robert had read it.

“
Charles Darwin,” Master Ping said. “Yes, I believe that is the name.”

“
Charles Darwin’s voyage of discovery lasted almost five years,” Robert said. “He had enough time to read this
Ben Cao Gang Mu
.”

“
We could spend years on that book. I have seen it, but I have not read it. It is more for men of medicine like this Charles Darwin than for students of literature like us. Li Shizhen spent twenty-seven years writing the
Ben Cao Gang Mu
.”

“
Wait,” Robert said. His mind was spinning. Did he want to do this and abandon the poems and literature he loved to read and discuss? Wasn’t it enough of a struggle to understand Taoism and Buddhism? If he added medicine to the soup, that could all be left behind.

“
Maybe you could explain to me the difference between the way my people practice medicine and the way the Chinese do. That should quench my thirst.”

“
I hope so,” Ping said. “I understand foreign medicine is designed to fix a person after he is broken, but Chinese medicine focuses on how a person should live his life so he avoids getting sick. To do this you must balance your life by eating good food, exercising in moderation and having a balanced attitude. This is the foundation of health in China. Most foreigners do none of these things. They eat anything, which means bad food. They consume too much alcohol. They do not exercise, and when the body breaks, they run to a doctor and say fix me.” He tilted his head at an angle and looked at Robert with expectation.

“
What about an example? I don’t understand what you mean by eating right.”

“
Hmm, you want an example.” Tee Lee Ping rubbed his chin in thought. His thick, bushy eyebrows lowered and almost covered his eyes. “Ah yes, I have one. Adapting to the seasons is the foundation of good health and healthy aging. Maybe you have noticed as the seasons change, what your concubines put on the table also changes. In the spring and summer, there should be more fruit or vegetables. In the fall and winter, you should see more grain than fruits and vegetables.”

“
Yes, I’ve noticed that. Anything else?”

“
Where foreign doctors sometimes let blood out of a person when he is sick, Chinese doctors practice
Gua-Sha
, which means they scrape an area of skin near where the suffering takes place. They do this to stimulate the circulation of the blood in that area believing that stimulating the blood will lead to healing. Chinese doctors do not drain blood out of the body as foreign doctors do.”

Master Ping threw up his arms and looked frustrated. Ro
bert had never seen him like this before. “I’m sorry,” Master Ping said. “I am not a doctor. I teach people how to read and speak Mandarin. I teach Chinese literature. If you want to know more about Chinese medicine, I suggest you read Li Shizhen’s book, but do it on your time. I do not feel it would benefit your education regarding the Chinese language or its literature or its people.”

That was the end of his education about the difference b
etween Chinese and Western medicine. The next day, they were back to studying Taoism.

To avoid thinking about what fatherhood would do to his life, Robert buried himself deeper in the language lessons and the work at the British consulate. He added hours to his workday and returned home later in the evenings. Most days, when Uncle Bark tied his sampan to the rebuilt dock below the cottage, it was dark as tar out, and Robert expected to hear a baby crying.

He
knew the importance the Chinese gave to the birth of a son. If the baby was a boy, he was sure Ayaou would be happy, crushed and threatened at the same time. He felt as if he were sitting on a powder keg, and the fuse was burning slowly toward an explosion.

He decided to start making love to Ay
aou more often in the hope she’d get pregnant. The herbs Guan-jiah had found for him to feed Ayaou hadn’t worked their magic yet. He prayed that Shao-mei was wrong, and her baby would be a girl. This would help keep harmony in the house. If Guan-jiah was right, it should be a girl. Robert had fed her double doses of the herbs for the last few weeks to insure it.

He
worried about providing for two children. He also didn’t want to think about how his family in Ireland was going to react when they learned he had a family.

His womanizing and drinking at college was tame compared to having children with two
Chinese women. With a sinking feeling in the center of his stomach, he realized he already knew the answer. It would break their hearts. His family would turn their backs on him.

As long as he was with Shao-mei and Ayaou, he
could never return home. This truth thrust him into a depression that he managed to hide from his concubines. Another deadline was looming. After the child was born, Shao-mei expected to have intercourse with him. There was going to be an increased risk of more babies. What was he to do? Maybe he should become a eunuch. Guan-jiah knew what to do.

It was late on a Tuesday afternoon, and Robert was working at his desk in the consulate.

“
Bob,” Captain Patridge said, as he walked into the room.

Robert was surprised to see the captain. It would be three weeks before another scheduled shipment was to pass through Ningpo, and a few months remained until the end of their one-year agreement. Robert was looking forward to that
day.

What could be important enough to bring Patridge from his su
mmer home on Zhoushan Island? They shook hands and Robert offered tea, which Patridge declined. He took a newspaper from his back pocket and spread it on Robert’s desk.

“
I was in Shanghai on business, and I saw this.” Tapping an article on the front page of the
North China Herald
, he said, “Take a look.”

When Robert saw the subject of the story, his throat constric
ted. The mercenary general, Fredrick Townsend Ward, was back.

“
I knew Ward had returned before the
Herald
wrote about it,” Patridge said. “It wasn’t until I talked to him that I realized I had to warn you.”

A tomb
opened inside Robert as if death were approaching. His fear of losing Ayaou to Ward had finally turned into reality. She had no idea that Ward still owned her. He dreaded the day she found out. He should have told her. She trusted him and keeping this a secret was a betrayal of that trust.

Patridge reached up and drew a line with a finger through one side of his face down toward his mouth.
“As well as a dreadful scar here, Ward lost some of his teeth and part of his tongue. His behavior has turned rancid, and Boss Takee is having trouble controlling him.” Patridge paused. The expression in his eyes turned to pity. “I’ll stop now if you want me to,” he said. “You may not want to hear what I have to say next.”

“
You might as well tell me everything,” Robert replied.

Patridge took a long breath then
said, “Ward made some powerful accusations against you. He said you stole Ayaou from him, and that a horse thief should be hanged.”

“
That’s a lie!” Anger pushed out the fear. He hated liars. “We had an agreement. I was to pay him the five hundred pounds. She was to be mine. I never had a chance to pay him. He disappeared after he was wounded at Tsingpu. Didn’t you tell him I borrowed the money from you? The fact that I did is proof that Ward and I had an agreement.”