My Splendid Concubine (3 page)

He spoke clumsy English but understood more. He was a bony, short man with a turned-up nose and eyes set far apart. He kept his skull shaved except for a tail of hair called a
queue
growing from the back of his head. He had long ear lobes, which he was proud of because they resembled Buddha’s ear lobes.

The Chinese believed this was a sign that a person was born to be kind-natured, and he was sometimes too agreeable. He demo
nstrated a deep desire for knowledge and proved to have an excellent memory.

“
This servant of yours is an odd lot,” Hollister said in a low voice when Guan-jiah was doing chores outside, “but maybe that’s because he applied to become a servant inside the Forbidden City when he turned thirteen.”

“
What do you mean?” Robert asked. “How does applying for a job make you odd?”

Guan-jiah was hard working and seemed honest. His beha
vior had not marked him as strange. His voice sounded like a girl’s, but what was strange about that? He was still young and hadn’t grown into his man’s voice yet.

Hollister smirked.
“You have much to learn, Hart. You can’t apply for a job inside the Forbidden City unless you’re a eunuch.”

“
No!” he said, shocked. How could Hollister say something so vicious? “Do you mean Guan-jiah had his testicles removed?” Robert did not want to believe it was true.

Hollister nodded.
“He lost more than that. They chopped off his member too. He’s flat as a woman down there. He didn’t get the job, so he came home and learned English instead and started working as a servant for foreign merchants. This job is a move up for him—more pay.”

“
Why would a man castrate himself to get a job? That’s madness!”

“
Live here long enough and you’ll see many crazy things that make no sense. I have better things to do than talk about your servant. He is odd, because he chopped his member off before he turned thirteen. One thing to learn is that you should never trust the Chinese. What kind of person in his right mind would do something like that?”

Robert later learned that what Guan-jiah had done for his fam
ily was a sign of
piety
and respect for his elders. He’d sacrificed his manhood to help his family survive. When he failed to get the job in the Forbidden City, he’d gone to work for foreigners. What he was doing to help his grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts and siblings caused him to
gain face
for the sacrifice but
lose face
, because he worked for foreigners.

At first, he found this strange, but once he learned the true mea
ning behind
piety
and
gaining
or
losing face
, it was easier to accept. Guan-jiah was willing to sacrifice for his family. Robert respected that.

“
Look, Master,” Guan-jiah said, before Robert’s first month in Ningpo ended, “if you want to go out and buy anything, I will help you save money. Tell me what it is you want and let me go to the shop and buy it for the Chinese price. If you try, they will charge you as much as ten times what I will pay.” He smiled a pleasant smile that reminded Robert of one lass he had seduced in Belfast.

Robert stared at Guan-jiah thinking that he wasn
’t exactly a man but was closer to being like a woman without breasts. If Guan-jiah had let his hair grow long instead of shaving his head almost bald, he would have been cute.

The eunuch
’s skin was smooth like a woman’s and his eyelashes appeared feminine. Robert found this thinking strange and made it a point to avoid his servant as much as possible for the next few days. Eventually, he forgot that for an instant he’d thought the young man oddly attractive.

He decided to test Guan-jiah to make sure he was honest. He went to the shop without telling his servant and found out what the asking price was for a foreigner. Then he sent Guan-jiah.

After the servant proved himself, he let the eunuch do the shopping. If Guan-jiah made a small profit for himself, that was acceptable.

As the years went by, Guan-jiah proved his loyalty and worth many times. He stayed with Robert to the end.

On rare occasions, when Hollister had someone in for di
nner, usually one of the merchants such as the American that looked like Ichabod Crane, the visitor often arrived with a concubine.

This reminded Robert of the easy pleasures this alien land o
ffered—thoughts that bothered him. It didn’t help that his Mandarin teacher suggested several times that a concubine would help him learn the language faster.

This triggered wild, erotic dreams where he had two or more of the delicate, dark-haired women in his bed. Having such dreams made him think he was about to lose control and left him feeling as if he were a carpet that had the dirt beat out of it in Ireland only to be walked on and soiled once in China.

He didn’t want others to see him as one who was into lasciviousness even in his youth’s worst agony. He wanted others to see him as a God loving man who worked hard by day and treated others with respect and courtesy.

However, his nature, as he understood later, wanted to believe in love like Shakespeare
’s
Romeo and Juliet
but without the tragedy. To old China hands, such as Captain Patridge, such thinking made Robert into an old-fashioned nut, or to the Chinese a
cooked seed
, meaning someone who lived in a fantasy world.

In time, his perspective underwent a gradual change. Eventua
lly, when he saw a pair of love-ducks idling in the waterweeds in spring, he admired them for what they had.

On one snowy night, he saw by the light of the moon the refle
ction of a white mountain sandwiched between clouds making it look transparent, and he was moved almost to tears believing it was God’s way to show him love—nature was man’s best mentor, as the Chinese said. It just took a practiced eye to see it.

Robert
often walked alone in the evenings along the muddy boat-trackers’ footpath beside the river. Western ships sat at anchor with lanterns glowing from aft windows.

Those lights floating above the water created a scene that was poetica
lly beautiful—almost as if the world had turned into a setting full of quiet and passionate people and the boats into fairy tale castles.

Then at other times, he heard the pirates and the war junks in the river firing cannons at one another, and the violence shattered his tra
nquil mood.

Early in March 1855, Hollister moved from the consulate. “I built a thirty-eight-foot sloop for a price I could never get outside China,” he said, “so I’m going to live on it.”

Robert wondered what it was going to be like living alone in the cons
ulate. Of course, he had Guan-jiah and Hollister during the days, but at night there was only silence. Robert grew up in a house full of people and even at college he had his fellow students as company.

“
Have you christened your boat?” Robert asked.

“
And waste a good bottle of wine.” Hollister laughed. “There’s no need for that. It’s called
The Dawn.
I will keep my sloop anchored in the river with the rest of them. It’s the only way to escape Ningpo—its stench, its smothering walls and prying eyes.”

It was the way Hollister said those last two words that caused Robert to suspect he knew what the missionaries were saying about him behind his back.

“He’s going to hell living with that whore.” Robert heard one pastor say.

“
If he gives her up and asks Christ for forgiveness, he still has a chance for redemption,” another replied. “But nothing can save her. She’s doomed.”

“
I disagree,” a third pastor said. “If she takes Christ into her life, she will be forgiven.”

Robert
’s father was a pastor, so he wasn’t sure what he should think. He believed that Christ was not as judgmental as some of the ministers thought. After all, He’d said,
‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone’
when he’d defended a woman accused of adultery.

Robert had trouble sleeping. During the long nights, every sound in the empty consulate woke him. Even the silence bothered him. He lay on his bed staring at the ceiling for hours. Noisy crickets would have been better than this.

At times, he saw things in the dark. When he got up to co
nfront the phantoms, they evaporated. He wondered if he were going insane.

In desperation, he convinced Hollister to play chess with him in the early evenings and attempted to lead their convers
ations away from China and the topics the missionaries usually brought up. His goal was to keep Hollister there so the nights wouldn’t seem so long.

“
Have you read any Dickens?” Robert asked one rainy night. “
Oliver Twist
is an interesting story about the workhouse and child labor and the recruitment of children as criminals. I was wondering what you think of the hypocrisy it reveals through Dickens’ sarcasm and dark humor?”

“
Do you find it wrong that the children should be used as criminals?” Hollister asked in a challenging tone.

Robert didn
’t understand why Hollister was so upset. “Isn’t it obvious?” he replied. “Children should be raised properly and be taught the virtues and the word of God. They shouldn’t be slaves risking their lives for the betterment of some rogue.”

“
Well, I haven’t read
Oliver Twist,
but I believe it’s better to be working for thieves than driven to an honest death in the workhouse where you never get enough to eat. I should know. My mother died soon after my birth, and my father died when I was six. I spent several months in a workhouse before I found my auntie.”

“
You were in the workhouse?” Robert replied, shocked. “You’re fortunate you had a loving aunt to rescue you from such a horror.”

“
She didn’t rescue me. I escaped and found her. She was my father’s sister. Until I knocked on her door, I’d never seen her before. My father didn’t approve of her. He believed in God, and she didn’t. She was kind enough to take me in. After I finished my education, she arranged this position in the British consulate through an acquaintance. She was good to me—better than my father was. He taught me nothing but verses from the Bible and when I didn’t learn fast enough, I’d feel the back of his boney hand.”

Robert attempted getting the conversation back to books.
“You should read
Oliver Twist
, but since you haven’t, what books have you read?”

Hollister snorted.
“I read
The North China Herald
and the
London Times
when it comes in,” he replied. “I don’t have time for books. However, I do have time for a good game of cards or chess, and our games would be more entertaining if we wagered money. I’ll match you five yuan for each game.”

“
Five!” Robert said. He’d never gambled before. “Let’s start with one yuan.” He was willing to risk that small amount. After all, he beat Hollister three out of four games.

After they started gambling, Hollister paid more attention to what he was doing, and he won half the games. Once money was involved, the conversation dried up but Hollister stayed later.

When he won, Hollister scraped the money off the table with a cackle of glee. “I’m going to take all your money,” he said. “That last move of yours was stupid. Now I’ve got you.”

Hollister had a few traits in common with one of Dickens
’ other characters, Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge from the
Christmas Carol
. When he lost, he cast dark glances at Robert as if he were cheating. That made Robert feel uncomfortable, but it didn’t stop him from playing his best. Besides, he found the man’s disagreeable character better than being alone.

Several times over the next few months, Hollister sailed away for days at a time. When he did this, Robert had conflicting emotions. On one hand, he envied Hollister for living as he wanted—something he was sure he’d never copy.

However, it
bothered him when Hollister left without letting him know, and the empty nights grew longer.

When mornings arrived, it was a treat to have Guan-jiah walk through the gate to start his workday. Robert taught him how to play chess and occasionally managed to get him to stay late for a game.

Since all but one of the missionaries lived across the river and seldom came into Ningpo, days passed where he didn’t see one English soul. He spent his evenings reading the old letters, which turned into a dull ache that took away his energy and enthusiasm for the next day’s work.

He didn
’t think he could have felt lonelier if he’d been the last penguin in Antarctica. He reconsidered Patridge’s invitation to spend the summer on Zhoushan Island. The opium merchant’s noxious laugh and endless chatter would be better than this.