The Concubine's Daughter (17 page)

At last Ah-Jeh turned away. “They are all thieves and cheats, these foreign devils. Barbarians are evil-smelling as the goat and hair grows upon them almost as thickly. Their women paint their faces like the hideous behind of the baboon. They are creatures of foul habit. Many of them do not wash, yet they sweat like a galloping horse.” The superintendent flapped her hand before her nose, shaking her head to be rid of the image she had conjured. “Instead of spitting out their snot and being rid of it like any civilized person, they blow it into a piece of cloth and keep it wrapped in their pocket. Can you imagine such a thing? Yet I have seen them do this with my own eyes.”

Li was startled by the disgust that contorted Ah-Jeh’s face. She had never seen Elder Sister quite so close, and could smell the almond oil in her hair and the cloves she chewed to freshen her breath. “They have the private parts of a donkey that would split a Chinese woman in two. No god can save one who has been mounted by the
gwai-lo
. Only the gutters of Shanghai or the slums of Hong Kong and Macau are home to those infested by their touch.”

Aware of Li’s confusion, the superintendent suddenly smiled, her bitterness seemingly swallowed. “But come now, let us find the golden thread and forget such things. You are made for much gentler hands than those of the
gwai-lo
.” Li felt the superintendent’s fingers grip her upper arm, then slip down to take her hand, to spread her fingers gently and rub her palm with a clever thumb. Ah-Jeh’s voice had changed to one of stiff persuasion.

“I regret striking you in such a way, but my anger was in your defense against the influence of such a fiend. Even the sight of him can harm you. These fingers should not be red as steamed shrimp. These are precious butterfly fingers, soon to be faster and finer even than the rainbow wings of the hummingbird, the fingers, I believe, of a silk weaver.” The pressure of the thumb in the palm of her hand drained all tension from Li. “Soon it will be your fifth year and you are already a woman. Our great lord, Ming-Chou, has asked to see you upon my recommendation. If you please him, you will dwell in the Heavenly House and perhaps be called to his bed. One such as you could rise in his household to take great power, and if this is so, perhaps you will remember the one who chose you.” She shrugged her shoulders. “If you fail to please him, then we shall see if you are to be a sister of
sau-hai
.”

Ah-Jeh lifted Li’s hand, pressing the open palm to her lips; the tip of her tongue wriggled like a worm and was gone. “It would be a pity if he should keep you for himself, leaving you to become an amah when he tires of you.”

The words were sympathetic, the pressure of the supervisor’s fingers strangely comforting.

“If he finds you as pleasing as I do, you will be lost to the loom forever. Perhaps the choice, my Beautiful One, will be yours.”

The sun had almost set as Li-Xia entered the crimson moon gate escorted by Ah-Jeh. The pale yellow ball of the lantern to light their way scattered shadows all about her. She could not tell if there were diamonds tumbling in the fountains in the secret gardens, if the carp silvered by a
rising moon bore scales of pure gold, or if the pathways beneath her slippered feet were set with precious stones. Once inside the Heavenly House, beneath its scarlet roof, such wonders were unfolded that her senses swam and she dared not look to the right or left.

The merchant Ming-Chou was a smaller man than she had imagined, made greater by the gorgeous robes he wore and the splendid divan he reclined upon.

His face was thin and long and his ears large beneath a cap of black silk that displayed a gorgeous peacock feather from a blue glass bead in its crown. It was the hat, Ah-Jeh had told her, of a fourth-class mandarin. He seemed older than Li had expected, and did not look at all dangerous, too old and frail to cause great pain. There were dark pouches beneath his eyes, which were so narrow it was hard to know what he was thinking. She kowtowed three times as she had been told to do, her eyes fixed only on his small slippered feet.

Li remembered Pebble’s advice, given with its customary grin:
Use your hands and your mouth. Do this well and pretend you like it; he will soon be fast asleep.

The merchant beckoned with the raising of a hand, and Ah-Jeh urged her forward. There was a smell about him that instantly stopped her, the sweet, aromatic smell of wine and opium. The smell of her father, Yik-Munn. Ming-Chou’s hands were impatient, grasping her arm to draw her to him—feeling, rubbing, squeezing, pinching through the thin silk of her new robe.

“Is this not the disobedient one from the spice farm, who defied her generous father and refused the lotus slipper, attacked his wives, and ran from her home?”

Ah-Jeh bowed. “This is she, Lo-Yeh. Her name is Li-Xia. But she is older now; her work is good and she gives no trouble. She is of age and ready for your service, if you find her pleasing, or perhaps for the weaving mill if she is not worthy.”

Ming-Chou replied in a high thin voice. “I think you have your eyes on this little hummingbird.” He chortled. “You are certain she has been kept from the
larn-jai
?” Ming-Chou’s hands continued to feel her, his
fingers rough and thorough as if he were fumbling the feathers of a fattened duck to guess its weight and value. Li could not stop the shivering of her limbs or her rising dread; every inch of her shook as though she were naked in a bitter wind. The sallow face, smug and cruel, was smooth as carved ivory, the eyes shifting like oiled olives under their puffy lids. One bony forefinger with its curved golden nail caressed her forehead, cheek, and nose, teasing her tightly closed mouth. He giggled, the point of his fingernail tracing her lips, forcing them apart. “Her teeth, they are sound?”

Ah-Jeh bowed nervously. “As newly opened pearls matched to perfection, Lo-Yeh.”

“She is frightened,” he tittered, the sharp golden nail crawling to her eye. “And stubborn too, I have no doubt.” Without warning the hand slid like a viper into her robe and squeezed her naked breast.

Everything that Li had ever learned through Pai-Ling, every warning Pebble had given her, every word Ah-Jeh had spoken, was suddenly wrenched from her by a cold hand that squeezed her heart and tried to take it. Fear turned to fury in a blinding flash as she spat roundly into his watery eye, swinging her hand with all its force across his horrified face. Ming recoiled from the blow with a strident squeal, dislodging his mandarin’s hat and kicking his legs like a child. So absurd did he look, she heard herself howl with laughter. The fox fairy turned and ran for the door. In the wake of her flight, a great vase crashed to the marble floor, smashing into a thousand pieces. All Li could see was her father, and the happiness tile shattered in pieces at his feet. She kicked off the silken slippers to run like the fox they saw in her, her feet flying upon the jeweled path, through the moon gate to the packed earth of the towpath along the river’s edge. The only sound was the echo of her own mad laughter.

All sense of time and place deserted the fox fairy. She felt the pounding of her bare feet, stretched over tufted grass and stony ground, her heart beating like a temple drum, strong and indestructible within her … while the
larn-jai
with their loping yellow dogs bawled and yapped with evil joy, in no hurry to end the chase. She led them baying
with their hounds, over fields, through hedgerows, and across streams. There was no thought of how far she ran, for how long or where her feet might take her. Her flying feet felt no pain, only the glory of escape.

The dogs finally brought her down in the bed of a ditch, clawing at her clothes, tearing at her arms and legs, covering her in the slime of their toothless jaws. The
larn-jai
circled her, dancing to the chorus of their savage snarls, encouraged by her kicking feet, as her naked flesh was revealed before they pulled the dogs off. Vicious hands forced her face into the mud and slime of the ditch; a knee rammed into her spine.

When it seemed she must drown in the sludge, her head was wrenched back by the hair, while the
larn-jai
cursed her with vile oaths. She was turned over like a goat about to be slaughtered and skinned.

Their leader was kneeling between her flailing legs, his pants around his knees, the thing protruding red as a sore from his jerking fist, his thighs skinny as a child’s. He ordered the others to step aside as he drew back his fist, his narrow chest heaving for breath. Only then did he pause, blinking foolishly at the the hook of steel protruding from the fox fairy’s closed fist. She held it close to her chest, bright in the moonlight as the talon of an ea gle.

“I am promised to Lo-Yeh. He has chosen me for his bed. If you take me, he will not want the leavings of
larn-jai
scum like you.” The face of the boy astride her held its savage leer, but she saw his stupid smile grow thin as her words hung in the cold silver air above the yelping of the dogs. “Ah-Jeh will lose all face. There will be no commission. She will flog you at the triangle until you weep for an early death.”

Li gave the
larn-jai
no time for further thought, seeing the hesitation of ignorance in their eyes. “Ming-Chou paid much for my
sung-tip
—more than he has paid for all of you. Think upon his punishment while you can … and if you still want more of my blood, it will mix with yours.” She raised the blade as Pebble had shown her.

There were seconds of silence as they looked from one to the other, the leader still pinning her down. Finally, he snorted his disgust. “I would not stick this in a stinking fox fairy. I would rather fuck a pig.”

An hour later, Li stood upon the threshold of the superintendent’s private quarters, the two senior
larn-jai
gripping her arms on either side. Her hands were trussed with grass rope, her ankles bound so that she could stand and walk but not run. Each of the
larn-jai
bore bloodied scratches on face and neck and was streaked with mud. Still, she felt no great fear, only exhaustion from the chase and a ringing sense of triumph at the power of thoughts and words over fools.

The
larn-jai
rapped loudly on Ah-Jeh’s door with grimy bloodstained knuckles, taunting Li with whispered details of how they would take revenge when Lo-Yeh had finished with her.

The door was opened to the powdered face and red lips of Elder Sister, the hint of a smile reaching her wary eyes as she stepped back, allowing Li to be shoved inside. She ordered the
larn-jai
to move away. “Have you touched her?” The question was abrupt as a threat. The leader protested their innocence, the difficulty in subduing the demons the fox fairy had summoned to defend her. “They must have been many, if it took five of you and a pack of dogs to bring back one girl. Go now, and if I find you are lying, you will cry for the mothers you do not have.”

The room was small and crowded. A bed with a quilted cover was partly hidden by a red curtain; papers and record books were scattered on a large table beneath a hanging oil lamp of green glass. Another table and some stools stood on a square of carpet in the room’s center. By the door, in a tall china vase, was an assortment of willow canes.

Li-Xia had an uneasy sense of being stared at in her bedraggled state, until she realized one wall was filled with framed portraits surrounding a small shrine lit by dragon candles. The unsmiling faces of Ah-Jeh’s ancestors gazed through a drift of sandalwood incense. The superintendent looked her up and down, a smile slowly twisting her mouth.

“You were wise to reject the attentions of the master, but not to do it quite so violently. He is greatly angered and has ordered me to punish you severely. He expects me to flay you within an inch of your life and put you in the rings for a week. But he trusts my judgment and will not
wish to see evidence of this. Lo-Yeh does not set foot in the world of the
mui-mui
.”

Her eyes glistened in the greenish light, like the ashes of a fire blown upon and rekindled.

Though suddenly struck by fear, Li-Xia was determined to speak bravely. “I have been chased by beasts who are worse than the dogs they run with. They have stripped me and would have used me as a cockerel uses a hen. When I can, I will kill them to restore my dignity and avenge my mother, whom they cursed and insulted.”