My Splendid Concubine (64 page)

“
You are a wise man, colonel. At first, when I was struggling to learn Mandarin, I doubted myself. Now, here I am on the threshold of achieving even bigger goals, and I still doubt myself. I thought I would grow out of that.”

“
Men never escape doubt,” the colonel said. “With time and age, one learns how to deal with it.”

“
When I first arrived,” Robert said. “I didn’t plan to stay long. Now, it looks like I must. England will never offer me what China has offered and will continue to offer.” He stopped to drink more tea and focus his eyes. The room was still blurry around the edges.

“
What about you, colonel. If the Chinese offered you one of their armies, would you take it?”

“
I wouldn’t consider it. My regiment is my family, and I go where my orders send me.”

“
I’m envious. You have an entire regiment for a family.”

“
What about you, Hart? Is your family in Britain?”

“
I have two families,” he replied. “One is near Belfast. The other is invisible and my heart aches because of them.” He glanced one last time at the empty doorway Ayaou had not walked through and realized how much he missed her.

After all, Ayaou, Anna and Guan-jiah were his Chinese fam
ily. He now thought of his house manager as more than just a servant. He wondered what his life would have been like in China without them.

Chapter 39

The situation between China and the foreign powers worsened. Emperor Hsien Feng took his family and the imperial court and fled beyond the Great Wall abandoning Peking and the Summer Palace.

Robert
’s knowledge of the history behind the current political crises was limited. He had learned much in Ningpo from his teacher, Tee Lee Ping, but not enough. Determined to discover what was going on, he started asking his Chinese friends questions. What he heard shocked him.

British merchants had bullied the Chinese for dec
ades over opium smuggling and some British merchants had served as British counselor officers.

Since many of these merchants were smuggling opium into China, that was a conflict of interest.
Some had manipulated the situation causing the current Allied invasion of Northern China. Their goal, to remove all restrictions on the opium trade and increase profits.

“Guan-jiah,” he asked, “why can’t the British merchants be satisfied with what they were earning from the opium trade the way it was?” It was early morning and still dark. They were alone in the kitchen sipping tea before he left for work. Even the cook wasn’t up.

“
Master, the answer is simple, the Ch’ing Dynasty levied taxes that were so high that the drug was restricted to a few wealthy Chinese. It was impossible for the foreign merchants to make fortunes from such a small number.”

“
They should have been satisfied with what they had.”

“
Greed holds great power over men,” Guan-jiah replied. “The merchants saw a huge, potential market among the poor. They want to sell opium at a lower price to reach more people, so they bypass the imperial taxes by smuggling the drug into China. That’s why Ayaou’s family is involved in the opium trade. The foreign merchants hire poor people to carry the drugs upriver to reach more peasants.

“
It has become so bad that even eunuchs in the emperor’s household are addicted. Did you know that when Emperor Tao Kuang closed China to the opium trade, a letter was sent to Britain’s Queen Victoria seeking her help to save the Chinese people?”

“
No, I didn’t.” He’d learned from Tee Lee Ping that Tao Kuang had been the current emperor’s father. He died in 1850, shortly before the Taiping Rebellion.

“
Queen Victoria did not respond,” Guan-jiah said. “Her answer arrived when the French and British declared war on China.”

Robert had trouble sleeping that night and thought of his f
ather, a Wesleyan minister, who had raised his children to act morally. Now that Robert worked for China, he felt it was his duty to help end the opium trade. There had to be a way, so he could atone for what he had done for Patridge.

For some reason he could not fathom, he thought of Horatio Lay, who had also been paid to help smuggle opium into China
when he worked for the British consulate. However, thinking of Horatio and his arrogance made Robert feel worse.

“The Emperor appointed Lin Zexu to end the opium problem,” Guan-jiah said, during tea the next morning. “Lin demanded that British subjects in China turn over all opium to him. He destroyed three million pounds of it, which led to Britain invading with a large army from India in 1840. The Opium War ended with a treaty in 1843, which opened China to limited opium trade.”

“
Guan-jiah, I want to see what opium has done to China. Do you know a family that uses it?”

“
No, but I will find one.”

Several days later, Guan-jiah took him to visit a Chinese family where everyone had been addicted to the drug. The house was dark and had a sour smell that came from unwashed bodies. The stench was so bad that Robert had to cover his mouth with a wet cloth scented with jasmine.

“I paid fifty yuan for them to let us into their house,” Guan-jiah said. He lighted a candle. The meager light revealed that the house was filthy. They moved from room to room. Robert saw an army of cockroaches and a few rats. He gasped and staggered back in horror when he discovered that the seven family members had no lips. Before the tour was over, he realized that there were no young children.

Once they were outside breathing fresh air, Guan-jiah said,
“Lin discovered that the only way to stop people from smoking opium was to cut their lips off. That way they could not close their lips around the stem of the opium pipe and suck.”

“
I didn’t see any children. In every Chinese house I’ve visited, there have always been children. Why not here?” He was afraid of the answer.

“
They sold them to buy more opium,” Guan-jiah replied.

Robert swallowed the bile that rushed into his throat and stif
fened his resolve to learn more. He could not turn his back on this tragedy. Because he had helped smuggle opium into China when he worked in Ningpo, he felt responsible. There had to be something he could do. But what?

That night, he sat in the bathtub twice as long and scrubbed his skin with a bristle brush until his flesh glowed pink. Near the end of his bath, he recalled some advice Uncle Bart gave soon after Shao-mei had been murdered.

“Wait for an opportunity to surface,” Uncle Bart had said. “Then you will get what you want. Even if years or decades must pass, it is the Chinese way.”

The next day, before work, Guan-jiah continued the lesson. “After the Opium War in 1842, the emperor was forced to sign a treaty allowing the foreign devils to open five treaty ports to trade.”

“
I know that much,” Robert said. “And now, the American, French and British are demanding that the treaty from the Opium War be renegotiated.

He was aware that a combined English and French expeditio
nary force was marching on Peking to force the emperor to ratify the new treaty, which would open more of China to Christian missionaries and opium and explained why the emperor had fled beyond the Great Wall into Mongolia.

The fact that Britain and France were linking opium and Chri
stianity in the same treaty upset Robert. How could any true Christian be part of such a horrible thing? No wonder a Chinese Christian convert had started the Taiping rebellion and wanted to rid China of opium too.

He felt helpless. If the emperor could not stop the opium trade due to smuggling and the military superiority of Britain and France, what could Robert do from Canton?

Two days later, he was ready to learn more.
“How many Chinese lost their lips like that family?”

“
Thousands,” Guan-jiah replied. “Commissioner Lin was desperate to stop the spread of opium addiction. The emperor was concerned. Since the family is China’s foundation, if enough families are ruined, China is doomed. The culture will collapse.”

He couldn
’t sleep that night. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the grotesque, lipless faces of that Chinese family. Before morning, he vowed to do whatever he could to end or restrict the opium trade in China.

On a Saturday in February, he was busy at work when Guan-jiah came to the custom’s building to report that Chow Luk had arrived unexpectedly. Ayaou wanted him home as soon as possible. Worried, he put his paperwork away. Another tragedy must have struck Ayaou’s family. That usually meant it was going to cost money.

Before he left the office, he took his pistol from a desk dra
wer and slipped it into his jacket pocket. No matter what his sympathies were regarding China and the opium trade, he still looked like a man with a big nose and the wrong color skin.

There were Chinese, especial
ly among the Christian Taiping rebels that hated everything foreign because of the opium trade. No wonder so many Chinese called foreigners devils, he thought. After he reached the house, he had to be patient and listen to Chou Luk while he talked in circles before discovering the reason for the visit.

“
Cousin Weed was taken by the Longhaired Bandits,” Chou Luk finally said. “They are holding him for ransom. If they are not paid by the end of this month, they will behead him.”

Robert did not ask the expected question. How much was this g
oing to cost him? It was easy to guess what was coming. Ayaou and her family saw him as a river of silver taels that could solve their financial problems. After all, he was already paying for the crucial repairs to the family junk.

Ayaou cleared her throat. She was staring at h
im with her lips pressed tight and her eyes looked glassy. The pressure he felt stirred up a nest of resentful hornets inside his head. The Taipings were sure to ask for a huge ransom, which might be more than he could pay. At the same time, he did not see how he could borrow the money without going to Captain Patridge, which he refused to do. He would not help smuggle more opium into China, not after witnessing the horror of that family without lips.

“
The Longhaired Bandits demand five thousand yuan to release Weed,” Chow Luk said. “I have come to borrow the money.”

Knowing the Chinese as well as he did, he was sure that Chow Luk had been waiting for him to offer first. A son-in-law with r
esources was expected to do that without question. By not making the offer without being asked, he was not showing proper respect to Ayaou’s father.

Robert fought back the harsh words that climbed his throat. He cast a sideways glance at Ayaou—afraid that she would guess what he wa
s thinking. She was sitting in a chair staring at the floor with her hands folded on her lap.

Her head came up. She saw him watching her. The look in her face changed, and her eyes started to give dangerous flashes of light. He frowned and looked away. If she had used a softer approach instead of looking so judgmental, he might have tried to reason with her and Chou Luk.

“I don’t have that kind of money,” he replied, controlling both his voice and the expression on his face. How could he tell Chow Luk and Ayaou that he could not help because of the opium trade? He would not save one man while destroying the lives of thousands. He knew Ayaou and Chou Luk would never understand his reasoning. A banker he’d known in Ningpo had once offered advice that explained everything. The banker had said, “After all, in China whom can you trust except family?” That translated into family comes first and was more important than a bunch of strangers.

“
Ayaou told me that you have an account in Hong Kong,” Chou Luk said, and his eyes darted to Ayaou for support. She made an aggressive noise in her throat that said she was angry.

This stiffened Robert
’s resolve not to yield. Despite his earlier desire to stay calm, he became upset and the angry hornets spewed from his mouth. “The household expenses are great,” he said, trying to infer that his money was none of Chou Luk’s business. “I have other financial obligations. My family in Ireland also needs my support. I send money to them regularly, which means I don’t have that much on hand.”

Why couldn
’t he say what the real reason was? He knew the answer immediately. Chou Luk and his family had been involved in the opium trade for decades. They would not understand Robert’s moral dilemma. In fact, far too many Chinese were involved in the opium trade and saw nothing wrong.

“
You are a man of growing influence,” Chou Luk said. “I heard that your pay increased by one thousand pounds a year? In China, that makes you a very wealthy man. Certainly, you can go to the moneylenders.”

Robert placed his elbows on his knees and leaned toward Chow Luk in a menacing gesture
. His hands curled into fists, and his eyebrows lowered into storm clouds. “I won’t borrow!” he said. He cast a dark glance at Ayaou. He felt his upper lip curl into a sneer. He focused his attention back on her father. She should not have told Chou Luk how much he earned. It was none of the old man’s business.