Eric van Lustbader - China Maroc 01, page 32
Andrew had grown into a strong, long-limbed young man. He had his father’s ice-blue eyes and his mother’s straw-colored hair. He had towered over Zilin for some years now. He seemed acutely aware of this height difference, for he was always careful to sit in Zilin’s presence. He did this now, pulling a slat-backed wooden chair up to Zilin’s desk. He had not bothered to remove his heavy overcoat. His cheeks were flushed from, Zilin supposed, the winter wind sweeping in off the Bund.
“Excuse me, Elder Uncle, I would not have come to your place of business unless I had no other recourse.”
Andrew Sawyer spoke a better idiomatic Cantonese than even his father did. It was the language in which he invariably chose to engage Zilin.
“Please think nothing of it,” Zilin said, immediately centering his concentration on the young man. “My work is such that interruptions are often welcome. Especially from you, Andrew.” Zilin genuinely liked the fellow. Though he was young and thus prone to making mistakes, he learned from every one and never once repeated them. Too, he did not have the gwai loh‘s usually inherent superior attitude toward the Chinese. He never had to be reminded to whom this country belonged. All the Chinese with whom he came in contact liked him because they were comfortable in his presence.
Andrew nodded his handsome head. “That is most kind of you, Elder Uncle. I know how busy you are during the day.” Here he hesitated like an engine abruptly bereft of steam, though Zilin knew that he had meant to continue the thought.
Zilin thought it was time to help him. “You seem troubled, Andrew. Is there something I can do?”
The young Sawyer sighed in obvious relief, and his wide shoulders sagged a bit. “I was wondering …” Again his voice trailed off. He clasped his hands together, rubbed his palms as if they itched him. “That is, Elder Uncle … I was wondering … I know this is a terrible imposition, but I …” His head came up, and Zilin was startled to see the amount of pain in the young man’s eyes. Carefully he buried his astonishment. “Would it be convenient if I came by to see you tonight … at home … privately?”
“Is it all right with your father?”
“My father knows nothing about this, Elder Uncle,” Andrew said quickly. In his tone there was pleading. “It must be kept that way.”
For a moment Zilin did nothing but watch the young man. But this attitude so upset Andrew that he began to tremble in anticipation.
“Of course, of course,” Zilin said, smiling. “You are always welcome in my house, Andrew.” Again, relief was apparent on the other’s face. “Would nine o’clock suit you?”
“Oh, yes. Yes indeed, Elder Uncle.” Andrew jumped up. “Thank you.” He forgot himself for a moment and grasped Zilin’s hand. “My apologies for intruding on your busy day.”
Zilin watched him hurrying down the wharf, toward the Western structures ranged along the Bund.
Sleety rain the color of lead rattled against the shutters of Zilin’s study as Athena led Andrew in. Zilin was hunched over his private papers, busily toting up the Shi brothers’ assets in an attempt to make some sense of what to do with them during the impending military storm.
He turned around in his chair when he heard Athena’s cadence in the room. He stood and bowed, smiling. He had changed out of his Western work clothes. He wore a night-blue quilted silk coat over traditional Chinese blouse and trousers. “So good of you to come, Andrew,” he said, just as if it was he who had issued the invitation. He spread an arm outward in an arc. “Come, let us be comfortable over here. Athena already has tea brewing.”
They sat on Zilin’s hand-carved dragon chairs. The bamboo shutters were drawn against the inclement weather. At their side was a lacquer screen on which a pair of tigers, lords of the earth, leapt over lush foliage. Above their heads, unconcerned by their power, a brace of herons spread their wings, moving through white, curling clouds.
Athena returned in a moment, carrying their tea on a small, exquisitely wrought red lacquer tray. She did not stay and they did not ask her to.
In honor of the occasion, Zilin had called for Black Dragon tea instead of the usual winter jasmine. This did not go unnoticed by Andrew; nor did the fact that because this was she, the Hour of the Snake, they sat facing southeast. He was now more grateful than ever that his Elder Uncle had agreed to receive him.
The hard rain rattled the bamboo shutters, moving them minutely as if wishing entry into this sanctuary. Zilin had had his study built in the rear of the house. During the day, it had the best view of the water; at night, it was the quietest, insulated as it was from the other rooms by a long hall with two right-hand turnings.
Zilin held his porcelain cup in both hands, feeling the heat penetrating his flesh. He sipped, savoring the tea’s special flavor, before allowing its warmth to steal through his insides.
Covertly he watched Andrew. The handsome Western face, so much an amalgam of his father and his mother, was slightly drawn. The flickering lamplight picked out growing circles beneath the young man’s eyes.
“I saw Wiqin last week,” Zilin said. “I was up north for a few days and ran into him. He sends his best regards and hopes he will be able to travel south in the spring to see you.”
Andrew nodded. The mention of his old school friend had failed to rouse him out of his morose mood.
“Your mother is well?”
“Yes,” Andrew said. And a moment later, “Thank you for asking, Elder Uncle.”
“One needs always a strong and united family.” He sipped at the Black Dragon tea. “Such a network is what makes an individual strong, Andrew. Without family, a man sinks to a level below that of the animals. A man can survive without a family, but he can do nothing more. He cannot live according to the tenets of Buddha.”
Zilin put his hands in his lap. “This storm. It is already li chun, the Beginning of Spring. In just over a month, jing zhe, the Waking of Insects.” He shook his head. “This violent weather does not seem right.”
“Elder Uncle …” Andrew lifted his head. He put his teacup aside, having sipped but a little. “I am in a terrible dilemma.” It came out all at once, like the first burst from a cannon.
And he has come to me, Zilin thought. Why did he not go to his father? He recalled Andrew’s words of this afternoon: My father knows nothing about this. Elder Uncle. It must be kept that way.
Zilin also now put his teacup aside. The time for serious talk was at hand. But he said nothing, knowing that prompting would only increase the young man’s embarrassment.
“For some time, Elder Uncle,” Andrew began, “I have been seeing a girl.” He wrung his hands as he spoke; his eyes were lowered. “I am not … I am not a promiscuous person. I saw this girl in good faith. I had feelings for her. Genuine feelings. But all the time I … well, I suppose I was unsure. No one knew I was seeing her. That is to say, no one within the family. Some of the servants—no doubt Ah Xip was one—may have known or suspected.” Here Andrew paused to take a gulp of tepid tea.
All this was fairly standard, Zilin thought, assuming he had divined the ending to Andrew’s sad little adolescent adventure.
With a trembling hand, the young man set down the cup. It clattered noisily in the still room. “Now the girl has told me that she is pregnant.” He looked up. “Elder Uncle, I have searched inside myself for the aspects of love. They are not there. I do not love her. I do not want to get married.”
Zilin tapped his arched fingertips together in an internal rhythm. “Pardon me for voicing the obvious, Andrew. But it seems to me that this is a problem that is easily solved. Go to your father and—”
“No!” Andrew fairly shouted it out. “My father—no one in my family, for that matter—must ever know any of this happened. Elder Uncle, my ascension to tai pan is at stake.”
“You must tell me why, Andrew.”
“Because,” the young man said, averting his head, “the girl is Chinese.”
Buddha! Zilin thought. “I take it, then, there is a family involved.”
“Very much so. Yes.”
Zilin took several deep breaths to calm himself. It was one thing for a gwai loh to visit a brothel, he knew, and feel the clouds and the rain with a Chinese courtesan. It was quite another to have a clandestine affair with a Chinese girl of the mandarin class. Especially for the scion of one of the leading tai pan houses in Shanghai. The family had stature, money, influence. Perhaps Barton Sawyer dealt with the father in business. Perhaps he was a distributor. Whatever the case, he would demand retribution. Andrew would have to marry the girl. And Andrew was quite correct. If Barton Sawyer then handed over the title of tai pan to Andrew, the house would be put into the bride’s family’s debt. That the elder Sawyer would never allow. Reluctantly he would come to the conclusion that Andrew had already reached and that Zilin was reaching now: the new tai pan of Sawyer & Sons would have to be one of the younger brothers. Zilin knew them both well; neither was Andrew’s equal in courage or business acumen. Neither, in short, were tai pan.
“What is the family name?”
“Jiu.”
“Jiu Ximin?”
Andrew was grasping his ears with his fists. His voice was but a whisper. “Yes, Elder Uncle.”
Oh, oh, oh, Zilin thought. Jiu Ximin was a worker organizer. Fully seventy percent of the Chinese labor force employed by Sawyer & Sons came under his influence. He could, if provoked, cripple the company.
“It’s a mess, Elder Uncle. I admit it.” Andrew was rubbing at eyes squeezed shut. “An irretrievable mess.”
Zilin watched the minute tremors of the bamboo shutters, pelted by the howling winter storm. This seemed to him to be the last straw, the embodiment of the creeping dread he had been feeling during the buildup of what he knew to be the coming war. He had sensed all along that this holocaust would in some way irrevocably change his country. Andrew’s crisis had brought his fears for his country to the forefront. He recalled Athena saying, It is you and I who are helpless. At that moment he knew that she was wrong.
He returned his gaze to the young man weeping before him. His mind was running at full speed. “Come, come, Andrew,” he snapped in the harshest tone he could muster, “that is no way for a future tai pan to act! One must be strong always, even in the face of blackest adversity. One must never show one’s fear. A tai pan cannot be thought to be weak; he has too many enemies who would seek to take advantage of that weakness. After all, a tai pan has an entire house to think of, a history of growth and expansion that is sacred.”
“Yes, Elder Uncle.” Andrew took one last swipe at his teary eyes.
“Lift your head up.”
“Yes, Elder Uncle.”
“The master of a noble house must never be seen to lower his head. It is a sign of defeat. There will be no defeats for you, Andrew. Not if you hope to take your father’s place one day.”
“I understand, Elder Uncle.”
“Good,” Zilin said. “Now to Jiu Ximin’s daughter. You do not love her?”
“No, Elder Uncle.”
“Then a marriage is out of the question. And rest assured, Andrew, marriage is what Jiu will demand of you.” He gave the young man a penetrating stare. “Rightfully so.”
Andrew swallowed hard, but he did not take his eyes off Zilin.
Zilin thought, What an opportunity this young man has presented me with! He has put in my path a chink in the gwai loh armor. I must be careful as I insert my blade to open it further. Such a gap may only come to a man once in a lifetime. Be careful, he cautioned himself, not to squander such a treasure!
Holding his mounting exhilaration in check, he began to think of Jiu Ximin, a black-eyed dragon of a man, inflexible and greedy to a fault. Greed, Zilin thought. Perhaps, yes, perhaps we can trap him there. He has coveted my Huang Cheng godowns for years. Why, every time he passes them, he almost drools. A prudent, forward-looking businessman such as myself would want no part of Shanghai real estate these days. But there are few who understand this as yet. Yes, the Huang Cheng godowns might be the answer. But I must be careful. Jiu Ximin is a difficult and clever man. He will surely make us pay dearly for what Andrew has done to his daughter.
Giving no hint of these thoughts, he said, “There are always ways around such difficult situations, however. It is a matter of careful negotiation. And money, of course.”
“I haven’t enough money. Elder Uncle.”
“Nor do you yet have the ability for such subtle negotiation. But you shall accompany me on all meetings. Your posture will be one of abject humility. Jiu Ximin will like that. It will give him a sense of power over your father.”
“That must not happen, Elder Uncle!”
“Of course not, Andrew. Set your mind at ease on that score. I will deal with Jiu Ximin, and while I do so, you will be gaining invaluable insight into conducting negotiations. But”—Zilin held up a finger—“such extraordinary lessons as these do not come without a price.”
“I will pay you whatever you—”
Zilin’s upheld hand gave him pause. “Never transact business in such a crude fashion, Andrew. Besides, I do not want money. I rather desire a pledge from you.”
“I will give you anything, Elder Uncle.”
“Anything,” Zilin smiled, “but not everything. Remember, you must think of Sawyer and Sons first now.”
Andrew nodded.
“Your pledge is for future services. There may come a time in the future when I will come to you—or contact you by messenger. You will know him because he will carry the rest of a token, a piece of which I will give you. At that time you will remember this moment and will do whatever is asked of you.”
“Anything, Elder Uncle?”
“That was your word to me, Andrew. Anything.”
Andrew Sawyer bowed deeply from the waist. “It is as you wish, Elder Uncle. I so swear to you on my honor as future tai pan and on the honor of my ancestors in Sawyer and Sons.”
All gods bear witness, Zilin said to himself, I will make this boy into one of China’s great tai pan. I am bound to him as closely as he is now bound to me. Because of his blunder I have been liberated from the inaction that was threatening to destroy me. By ail the gods great and small, he has given me my bridge to the West.
Great Buddha, I may yet ascend to the role of Celestial Guardian of China. Today I have begun a lifelong struggle to lift China up from the mud into which the foreign devil and her own insular stupidity have dragged her.
Jiu Ximin was an immense mountain of a man, dour in countenance, with smoldering button eyes. By turns taciturn and fiery in his responses, he sought continually to catch Zilin off guard by these apparently contradictory moods.
However, his intense traditionalism soon made itself manifest to Zilin’s searching mind. Lianhua, the girl whom Andrew had made pregnant, was his child and he was properly angry about her situation. But, after all, she was a daughter and therefore not particularly important to him. His sons were his life; their future would continue the Jiu line.
Cleverly, Zilin had selected a suitable Chinese whose family were clearly delighted to have their son enter into marriage with the illustrious Jiu. Their own wealth was sufficient for Jiu Ximin to feel immediate relief at the mention of their name. He would not show it, of course—and Zilin had seen no reason to inform Andrew of this, feeling that the scare would serve him better in the long run—but despite all his bluster about Andrew having to marry his daughter, he would never have allowed such a thing. A gwai loh, even one on the exalted level of a future tai pan, was anathema to Jiu Ximin. It was enough that he had to deal with them on a day-to-day basis. Taking their money assuaged much of his anger. But allow one to enter the family? Never.
Jiu Ximin saw gwai loh not only as barbarians but as cultural children. The Chinese had been cultured for more than four thousand years. In the face of that, what were two or three hundred? He wanted no part of them.
He wanted the Huang Cheng godowns.
On the fourth day of their meetings, when he at last allowed a thawing note to enter the negotiating session, they were served jasmine tea by a young woman. She could not have been more than nineteen or twenty, a year or two older than Lianhua.
Zilin watched her carefully because she was the only other person of the household whom Jiu Ximin had allowed them to meet in all their time at his house. By definition, that made her important. Zilin felt certain that she was not here by accident.
His suspicions were confirmed when the girl did not leave after she had served them, but rather knelt by the side of the low table with her hands in her lap and her head bowed.
“This is Sheng Li,” Jiu Ximin said casually. “She is a friend of Lianhua’s. A childhood friend.” Deliberately he took a sip of his tea. His eyes never touched her. “Now that my daughter is a grown woman”—his gaze bored into Andrew with an almost palpable venom—“she must put aside childish needs.” It occurred to Zilin that Jiu Ximin had ordered Sheng Li to remain simply in order to shame her. He spoke of her as if she were no more than his daughter’s dog-eared stuffed animal, which now must be consigned to the pyre.
“Lianhua will have far too much to do and to learn in her new life, her new family, for her to carry any excess baggage. Therefore, as part of our arrangement, Shi Zilin, I suggest that you take her. Do with her what you will, it does not matter to me. I will tell my daughter that you have offered Sheng Li employment at a rate of salary above what I am willing to pay her. That will be the end of it.”
Zilin, feeling that the girl would be better off as far away from this man as possible, agreed.
It was not until sometime later, after he had installed Sheng Li in the home of a Chinese friend of his, that he came to understand Jiu Ximin’s true motives in wanting to be rid of the girl.
“I came to the Jiu household with my mother,” Sheng Li told him one afternoon when he came to see her. “In those days I was too young to do much of anything in the way of real work, so I became Lianhua’s companion.” She wore a brocaded silk robe that flattered her slim-hipped figure. Her thick, night-black hair was pulled back in a ponytail that cascaded down her back. When Zilin had come to the door, she had met him there and kowtowed. When she spoke his name, she always used “Shi zhu ren” which meant Shi, the man in charge, and used the nin form of “you” that one used in addressing a person of clearly superior rank.
