Chinese Cinderella (8 page)

When the rains pelted down in sheets, and gales howled through the streets, I would grit my teeth as I set about the seemingly endless journey along Avenue Joffre. Arriving drenched at the school gates, I tried not to look at my schoolmates stepping daintily out of rickshaws, pedicabs, and chauffeur‐driven cars. I knew some of them laughed at me behind my back and whispered to each other that I took my own Number 11 Private Tram to school daily, meaning that my legs carried me.

On Sunday afternoons, Niang frequently called out for my siblings to come downstairs to her bedroom (which Third Brother had nicknamed the ‘Holy of Holies’) and pick up their tram fares. Hearing this, I’d feel a stab of anguish because I was the only one always excluded. Big Sister sometimes came back upstairs to show off by laying her coins in a row on my bed and counting them aloud in front of me, one by one.

Chapter Nine

Chinese New Year

W
e had been looking forward to Chinese New Year for weeks. Not only was it a holiday for all the school children in China, but for all the grown‐ups as well. Even Father was taking off three whole days from work to celebrate. For the first time since our departure from Tianjin, a tailor had come to our house to measure everyone for new outfits. In China, new clothes were worn on New Year’s Day to signal a new beginning.

On New Year’s Eve, Father and Niang summoned us down to the Holy of Holies and gave us our new clothes. My three brothers were terribly disappointed to find three identical, loose‐fitting Chinese long gowns made of dark‐blue wool, with traditional mandarin collars and cloth buttons. Big Sister was handed a padded silk Chinese qipao. I got a basic brown smock made of material left over from one of Big Sister’s garments. Fourth Brother, however, received a stylish Western outfit with a Peter Pan collar and matching tie and belt, while Little Sister acquired a fashionable pink knitted dress bedecked with ribbons and bows.

We five stepchildren trooped back upstairs in disgust. My brothers threw their robes on their beds contemptuously. They had been looking forward to Western‐style suits, shirts and ties. Nowadays, this was what their trend‐setting schoolmates were wearing at St John’s.

‘Trash!’ Big Brother declared, tossing his new garment in the air and kicking it. ‘Who wants junk like this? You’d think we’re still living in the Qing Dynasty! As if it’s not bad enough to be called the “three Buddhist monks”! If they see us dressed in these outdated antique clothes, we might as well forget about going to school altogether!’

‘The other day,’ Third Brother complained bitterly, ‘my desk partner asked me when I was going to start growing a pigtail and shave my brow. “Maybe you’re planning to be the new Emperor Pu Yi and live in the Forbidden Palace!” he told me.’

‘What gets me,’ Big Sister said, ‘is the blatant inequality between her children and us. I wouldn’t mind if all seven of us were treated the same way. If they really believed in traditional clothes, then all seven children should be wearing them, not just the five of us.’

‘Aside from the clothes,’ Second Brother interrupted, ‘what about our shaven heads? I don’t see Fourth Brother sporting a Buddhist Monk Special! Why, the little princeling has his hair cut at the most fashionable children’s hair stylist on Nanjing Lu. When he stands next to us, it’s like we’ve stepped out of two different centuries!’

‘Here Father wants to teach us the value of money,’ Big Brother added, ‘yet
her
children can order whatever they desire from the kitchen at any hour of the day or night. We’re supposed to eat only three meals a day with congee and preserved vegetables for breakfast every morning, but I see Cook preparing bacon, eggs and toast, fresh berries and melon for
their
breakfast. Last Sunday, I went into the kitchen and told Cook I wanted a slice of bacon. The idiot won’t even give me a straight answer. “I have my orders,” he told me. “Bacon is reserved for the first floor.” One day, I’m going to sock him in the mouth!’

‘It’s really getting intolerable!’ Big Sister complained, lowering her voice and motioning me to close the door. I obeyed with alacrity, happy to be included. ‘We should be careful though. Niang has her spies. That new tutor/nanny she’s employed for her two children, that Miss Chien, she gives me the creeps. She is so slimy and obsequious, smiling and bowing all the time. Yesterday, she cornered me and invited me to have afternoon tea with Fourth Brother and Little Sister in their nursery. I never saw such a spread – finger sandwiches, toasted buns, chestnut cream cake, sausage rolls. Here we are restricted to breakfast, lunch and dinner and starving between meals, while our half‐siblings are throwing their leftovers from their balcony to Jackie in the garden. It’s so unfair! Anyway, Miss Chien kept quizzing me about Ye Ye, Aunt Baba, all of you and what we think of Niang. Of course I didn’t reveal anything. I’m sure whatever I’d have said would have been reported straight back to our stepmother.’

‘I simply
detest
that sneaky stool‐pigeon Miss Chien,’ Big Brother confessed. ‘Day before yesterday, Father calls the three of us down to the Holy of Holies.
Big
lecture! “Miss Chien says that one of you was playing with the tap of the filtered water tank on the stairway. How many times have I told you not to drink out of that tank? It’s
permanently
out of bounds to you, do you hear? If you want drinking water, you get it from the hot‐water thermos flask in the kitchen. Otherwise you boys have a habit of leaving the tap turned on when there is temporarily no water. Later on, when the tap water percolates through the filter, there is a big pool of water on the stairs. Your mother has had enough of it!” So we deny that we even
touched
the tap. Does he believe us? Of course not! I told Father that I personally observed Miss Chien fiddling around with the tap early that morning. Probably nobody ever warned her about how finicky the water tank is. What’s the end result? Father chooses to believe
her
and we each got two lashes from the dog whip! The liar! I
hate
her!’

‘This just can’t go on,’ Big Sister declared. ‘Let’s get organised! If we unite together and protest in one voice, they won’t ignore us. What about a hunger strike? That’s sure to get their attention! Are you ready to join us, Fifth Younger Sister?’

I was thrilled that Big Sister was addressing me personally. ‘Of course I am!’ I exclaimed ardently. ‘But I don’t think a hunger strike will work. They’ll probably be very happy that we’re not eating. Five less mouths to feed, that’s all. For a hunger strike to succeed, they’ve got to care whether we lived or died.’

‘I’m for a revolution!’ Second Brother exclaimed. ‘Out and out war! We go to the kitchen, open the refrigerator, eat what we want and face the consequences. What can they do? The food’s already in our stomachs being digested. Won’t be so easy to get it back out.’

‘You’re always so impulsive and volatile!’ Big Brother exclaimed critically. ‘Just like that rash general Zhang Fei (
) in the Three Countries War. We’ve got to be more subtle and patient. Diplomacy and subterfuge are always superior to confrontation. Let’s ask for a private conference with Father and point out the inequities in a calm, logical fashion.’

‘It won’t work!’ Third Brother counselled. ‘Father’ll never come to the table without Niang. What about an anonymous letter written in Chinese sent to Father through the mail? Niang doesn’t read any Chinese. Big Sister could write it with brush and ink. Her handwriting is excellent and could pass for that of an adult!’

‘Brilliant idea!’ exclaimed Big Sister. ‘Let’s draft the letter now!’ We hunched over the table muttering suggestions, becoming more and more excited at our escapade. Third Brother decided he might as well go to the bathroom and relieve himself while the letter was being written. He yanked open the door, stepped outside, and, to his horror, almost collided with Niang – who was standing immediately behind the portal with her ear glued against it.

Ashen‐faced and petrified, he stared dumbly at our stepmother without fully closing the door while she looked down at him disdainfully. There was a deathly silence as they regarded each other. Third Brother started to tremble with terror.

Slowly, Niang raised her right index finger against her lips, warning him not to make a sound. She then waved him on with her open left hand.

In the bathroom, Third Brother locked the door carefully behind him. Recalling Niang’s intimidating stare, sphinx‐like immobility, and expression of distinctive menace, he was seized by a surge of nausea. How long had she been listening? What had she heard? Was everyone still plotting? Would they send him away from home? Where could he go? He vomited again and again, rinsing his mouth out over and over at the tap, dreading the moment of truth. If only he could postpone his return indefinitely and stay here forever! Alone. Uninvolved. Away from everyone. Behind a locked door . . .

A thought suddenly hit him like a blow. What if Niang was still waiting for him to go back? Could his absence be construed as a deliberate warning to the others that something was afoot? How long had he been away? He felt his mouth go dry as he quickly flushed the toilet and stumbled out. His legs seemed to keep buckling under in an extraordinary way.

He hurried back and noticed at once that no one was standing outside his bedroom door. A wave of relief washed over him. True, the door was still slightly ajar, the way he’d left it. But Niang was no longer there. He could clearly hear the murmur of Big Sister’s voice, tinged with purpose and excitement, drifting down the corridor. Niang must have caught every word.

He returned and collapsed in his seat, absolutely drained. ‘It’s over! We’re doomed!’ he cried tremulously, quaking with fear. In a leaden voice, he related his encounter with Niang outside the bedroom door.

A profound and uneasy silence came over us. We stared at each other, dumbfounded. Slowly but methodically, we set about destroying all the draft copies of the incriminating ‘anonymous’ letter of appeal to Father. Big Sister tore the paper into shreds while muttering, ‘Deny everything!’ over and over. Big Brother lit a match and reduced the whole lot to ashes that we scattered outside the window. When the dinner‐bell rang, we trooped downstairs stoically to face the music, telling each other we were in this together and would resist with a united front.

We were prepared for confrontation but dinner came and went without incident. In fact, Niang seemed more cordial than usual, reminding us that the next day was Chinese New Year’s. We should dress in our new clothes. As a special treat, we would first be served a salted duck egg for breakfast, then Father would take us for a drive in his motor car along the Bund, the grand embankment along the river, ending with a visit to our Grand Aunt’s bank at 480 Nanjing Lu, where we had all been invited to lunch.

When we returned upstairs after dinner and still nothing had been mentioned, we could hardly believe our good luck. Then we began to question Third Brother’s sanity, but he stuck to his story. ‘Perhaps,’ he suggested darkly, ‘we’re being deliberately kept in a state of uncertainty because that’s what Niang most enjoys. The cat‐and‐mouse game.’ Once again, we began to feel sick with apprehension but there was nothing we could do but wait.

What Niang decided to do was to divide our loyalty towards each other by recruiting our leader, Big Sister, over to ‘their’ side.

The next day, as we rose from the table after a festive New Year’s dinner, Niang smiled at Big Sister and invited her to move downstairs into a spare bedroom on the first floor,
their
floor.

Her offer aroused a number of disturbing emotions among us.

After Big Sister moved down to the first floor, she started assuming airs and distancing herself from those of us left on the floor above. She yearned to gain Niang’s favour and gradually came to realise the importance of being on good terms with Miss Chien. The latter shared a room with Niang’s two children and catered to their every wish, particularly those of Fourth Brother, Niang’s favourite darling. As the days went by, Big Sister’s attitude towards Miss Chien underwent a profound change. The two became friends, bound by a mutual aptitude and appetite for intrigue. Big Sister would scurry around to Niang at every opportunity to list her grievances against her former allies, fawning on those in favour and gossiping about those fallen from grace. She vaunted her newfound power to instil fear and Niang rewarded her with special favours: gifts, pocket‐money, outings with friends.