Babel, page 35
‘A siege?’ Professor Lovell repeated, looking mildly concerned.
‘Oh, well, it really wasn’t so bad. The Chinese staff went home, which was a trial – I had to do my own washing, and that was a disaster – but otherwise we generally kept our spirits high. Really the only harms were overfeeding and lack of exercise.’ Mr Baylis gave a short, nasty laugh. ‘Happily that’s over with, and now we can stroll around outside as we wish, no harm done. But there must be penalties, Richard. They’ve got to learn they can’t get away with this. Ah – here we are, ladies and gents, here is your home from home.’
Past the southwestern suburbs they came upon a row of thirteen buildings in a line, all visibly Western in design, replete with recessed verandahs, neoclassical ornaments, and European flags. These looked so jarring against the rest of Canton that it seemed as if some giant had dug up a neat strip of France or England and dropped it wholesale onto the city’s edge. These were the Factories, explained Mr Baylis, named not because they were centres of production, but because they were the residences of the factors – the agents of trade. Merchants, missionaries, government officials, and soldiers lived here during trading season.
‘Lovely, aren’t they?’ said Mr Baylis. ‘Quite like a handful of diamonds on top of a heap of old rubbish.’
They were to stay at the New English Factory. Mr Baylis led them quickly through the ground-floor warehouse, past the social room and dining room to the visiting chambers on the upper floors. There were also, he pointed out, a well-stocked library, several rooftop terraces, and even a garden facing the riverside.
‘Now, they’re very strict about keeping foreigners within the foreign enclave, so don’t go exploring by yourselves,’ Mr Baylis warned. ‘Stay within the Factories. There’s a corner in the Imperial Factory – that’s number three – where Markwick & Lane sell all sorts of European goods you might need, though they haven’t got many books apart from nautical charts. Those flower boats are strictly off limits, do you hear me? Our merchant friends can arrange for some women of a more discreet temperament to visit in the evenings if you need some company – no?’
Ramy’s ears had gone bright red. ‘We’ll be fine, sir.’
Mr Baylis chuckled. ‘Suit yourself. You’ll be staying just down this hall.’
Robin and Ramy’s room was quite gloomy. The walls, which must have originally been painted dark green, were now nearly black. The girls’ room was as dark, and considerably smaller; there was barely space to walk between the single bed and the wall. It also had no windows. Robin could not see how they were possibly expected to live there for two weeks.
‘Technically this is a storage unit, but we couldn’t have you too close to the gentlemen.’ Mr Baylis at least made an effort to sound apologetic. ‘You understand.’
‘Of course,’ Letty said, pushing her trunk into the room. ‘Thank you for your accommodations.’
After putting down their things, they congregated in the dining room, which was furnished with one very large table capable of seating at least twenty-five. Over the middle of the table was suspended an immense fan made of a cloth sail stretched over a wooden frame, which was kept in constant motion by a coolie servant who pulled and slackened it without pause throughout the dinner service. Robin found it quite distracting – he felt an odd pang of guilt every time he met the servant’s eyes – but the other residents of the factory seemed to find the coolie invisible.
Dinner that night was one of the most ghastly and uncomfortable affairs Robin had ever endured. The men at the table included both Jardine & Matheson employees and a number of representatives from other shipping companies – Magniac & Co., J. Scott & Co., and others whose names Robin promptly forgot. They were all white men who seemed cut from precisely the same cloth as Mr Baylis – superficially charming and talkative men who, despite their clean-cut attire, seemed to exude an air of intangible dirtiness. Apart from businessmen there was Reverend Karl Gützlaff, a German-born missionary who apparently did more interpreting for the shipping companies than conversion of Chinese souls. Reverend Gützlaff proudly informed them that he was also a member of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China,* and was currently writing a series of articles for a Chinese-language magazine to teach the Chinese about the difficult Western concept of free trade.
‘We’re delighted to have you working with us,’ said Mr Baylis to Robin as the first course – a bland gingery soup – was served. ‘It’s so hard to find good Chinese translators that can string together a full sentence in English. The Western-trained ones are much better. You’ll be interpreting for me during my audience with the Commissioner on Thursday.’
‘I am?’ Robin was startled. ‘Why me?’ This was a fair question, he thought; he’d never interpreted professionally before, and it seemed odd to choose him for an audience with the greatest authority in Canton. ‘Why not Reverend Gützlaff? Or Professor Lovell?’
‘Because we are Caucasian men,’ Professor Lovell said wryly. ‘And therefore, barbarians.’
‘And they won’t speak to barbarians, of course,’ said Mr Baylis.
‘Karl looks rather Chinese, though,’ said Professor Lovell. ‘Aren’t they still convinced you’re at least part Oriental?’
‘Only when I introduce myself as Ai Han Zhe,’* said Reverend Gützlaff. ‘Though I think Commissioner Lin will not be too enamoured with the title.’
The company men all chuckled, though Robin couldn’t see what was so funny. A certain smugness underwrote this entire exchange, an air of brotherly fraternity, of shared access to some long-running joke the rest of them didn’t understand. It reminded Robin of Professor Lovell’s gatherings in Hampstead, as he’d never been able to tell what the joke was back then either, or what the men had to be so satisfied about.
No one was drinking much of their soup. Servants cleared their bowls away and replaced them with both the main course and dessert at once. The main course was potatoes with some sort of grey, sauce-covered lump – either beef or pork, Robin couldn’t tell. Dessert was even more mysterious, a violently orange thing that looked a bit like a sponge.
‘What’s this?’ Ramy asked, prodding his dessert.
Victoire sliced off a piece with her fork and examined it. ‘It’s sticky toffee pudding, I think.’
‘It’s orange,’ said Robin.
‘It’s burnt.’ Letty licked her thumb. ‘And it’s made with carrots, I think?’
The other guests were chuckling again.
‘The kitchen staff are all Chinks,’ explained Mr Baylis. ‘They’ve never been to England. We keep describing the foods we’d like, and of course they have no idea how it tastes or how to make it, but it’s still funny to see them try. Afternoon tea is better. They understand the point of sweet treats, and we’ve got our own English cows here to supply the milk.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Robin. ‘Why don’t you just have them cook Cantonese dishes?’
‘Because English cuisine reminds one of home,’ said Reverend Gützlaff. ‘One appreciates such creature comforts on faraway journeys.’
‘But it tastes like rubbish,’ said Ramy.
‘And nothing could be more English,’ said Reverend Gützlaff, cutting vigorously into his grey meat.
‘Anyhow,’ said Mr Baylis, ‘the Commissioner is going to be devilishly difficult to work with. Rumours are he’s very strict, extremely uptight. He thinks Canton is a cesspool of corruption, and that all Western traders are nefarious villains intent on swindling his government.’
‘Astute one, that,’ said Reverend Gützlaff, to more self-satisfied chuckles.
‘I do prefer when they underestimate us,’ Mr Baylis agreed. ‘Now, Robin Swift, the issue at hand is the opium bond, which would make all foreign ships assume responsibility before Chinese law for any opium they may smuggle in. It used to be that this ban existed on paper only. We’d dock our ships at – how shall we call them? – outer anchorages, like Lintin and Camsingmoon and such, where we’d distribute cargo for resale with local partners. But that’s all changed under Commissioner Lin. His arrival, as I’ve told you, was quite the shake-up. Captain Elliot – good man, but he’s a coward where it matters – defused the situation by letting them confiscate all the opium we had in our possession.’ Here Mr Baylis clutched his chest as if physically pained. ‘Over twenty thousand chests. Do you know how much that’s worth? Nearly two and a half million pounds. That’s unjust seizure of British property, I tell you. Surely that’s grounds for war. Captain Elliot thinks he saved us from starvation and violence, but he’s only shown the Chinese that they can walk all over us.’ Mr Baylis pointed his fork at Robin. ‘So that’s what we’ll need you for. Richard’s caught you up on what we want in this round of negotiations, yes?’
‘I’ve read through the proposal drafts,’ Robin said. ‘But I’m a bit confused on the priorities . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, it seems the ultimatum on opium is a bit extreme,’ said Robin. ‘I don’t see why you couldn’t break it into some more piecemeal deals. I mean, certainly you could still negotiate on all the other exports—’
‘There are no other exports,’ said Mr Baylis. ‘None that matter.’
‘It just seems that the Chinese have a rather good point,’ Robin said helplessly. ‘Given it’s such a harmful drug.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Mr Baylis smiled a wide, practised smile. ‘Smoking opium is the safest and most gentleman-like speculation I am aware of.’
This was such an obvious lie that Robin blinked at him, astounded. ‘The Chinese memorandums call it one of the greatest vices ever to plague their country.’
‘Oh, opium’s not as harmful as all that,’ said Reverend Gützlaff. ‘Indeed, it’s prescribed as laudanum in Britain all the time. Little old ladies regularly use it to go to sleep. It’s no more a vice than tobacco or brandy. I often recommend it to members of my congregation.’
‘But isn’t pipe opium a great deal stronger?’ Ramy cut in. ‘It really doesn’t seem like sleep aids are the issue here.’
‘That’s missing the point,’ said Mr Baylis with a touch of impatience. ‘The point is free trade between nations. We’re all liberals, aren’t we? There should be no restrictions between those who have goods and those who want to purchase them. That’s justice.’
‘A curious defence,’ said Ramy, ‘to justify a vice with virtue.’
Mr Baylis scoffed. ‘Oh, the Qing Emperor doesn’t care about vices. He’s stingy about his silver, that’s all. But trade only works when there’s give and take, and currently we’re sitting at a deficit. There’s nothing we have that those Chinamen want, apparently, except opium. They can’t get enough of the stuff. They’ll pay anything for it. And if I had my way, every man, woman, and child in this country would be puffing opium smoke until they couldn’t think straight.’
He concluded by slamming his hand against the table. The noise was perhaps louder than he intended; it cracked like a gunshot. Victoire and Letty flinched back. Ramy looked too amazed to reply.
‘But that’s cruel,’ said Robin. ‘That’s – that’s terribly cruel.’
‘It’s their free choice, isn’t it?’ Mr Baylis said. ‘You can’t fault business. Chinamen are simply filthy, lazy, and easily addicted. And you certainly can’t blame England for the foibles of an inferior race. Not where there’s money to be made.’
‘Mr Baylis.’ Robin’s fingers tingled with a strange and urgent energy; he didn’t know whether he wanted to bolt or to hit the man. ‘Mr Baylis, I’m a Chinaman.’
Mr Baylis, for once, fell silent. His eyes roved over Robin’s face, as if trying to detect the truth of this statement in his features. Then, to Robin’s great surprise, he burst out laughing.
‘No, you’re not.’ He leaned back and clasped his hands over his chest, still guffawing. ‘Good Lord. That’s hilarious. No, you’re not.’
Professor Lovell said nothing.
Translation work began promptly the next day. Good linguists were always in heavy demand at Canton, and were pulled in a dozen different directions whenever they did show up. Western traders did not like using the government-licensed native Chinese linguists because their language skills were so often subpar.
‘Forget English,’ complained Mr Baylis to Professor Lovell, ‘half of them aren’t even fluent in Mandarin. And you can’t trust them to represent your interests besides. You can always tell when they’re not giving you the truth – I once had a man lie to my face about the customs rates when the Arabic numerals were right there.’
The trading companies occasionally employed Westerners fluent in Chinese, but they were hard to find. Officially, teaching Chinese to a foreigner was a crime punishable by death. Now, as China’s borders were slightly more porous, this law was impossible to enforce, but it did mean skilled translators were often missionaries like Reverend Gützlaff with little spare time. The upshot was that people like Robin and Professor Lovell were worth their weight in gold. Ramy, Letty, and Victoire, poor things, would be shuttled from factory to factory all day doing silver-work maintenance, but Robin and Professor Lovell’s itineraries were crammed with meetings starting from eight in the morning.
Promptly after breakfast, Robin accompanied Mr Baylis to the harbour to go over shipping manifests with Chinese customs officials. The customs office had supplied their own translator, a reedy, bespectacled man named Meng who uttered each English word with slow, timid deliberateness, as if terrified of mispronouncing anything.
‘We will now go over the inventory,’ he told Robin. His deferential, upwards-trailing tone made it sound as if he were asking a question; Robin could not tell if he was asking him for permission or not.
‘Er – yes.’ He cleared his throat, then enunciated in his best Mandarin, ‘Proceed.’
Meng began reading off the inventory list, glancing up after every item so that Mr Baylis could confirm in which boxes those goods had been stored. ‘One hundred twenty-five pounds copper. Seventy-eight pounds ginseng crude. Twenty-four boxes be . . . beetle—’
‘Betel nuts,’ corrected Mr Baylis.
‘Betel?’
‘You know, betel,’ said Mr Baylis. ‘Or areca nuts, if you will. For chewing.’ He pointed to his jaw and mimed the act. ‘No?’
Meng, still baffled, looked to Robin for help. Robin swiftly translated into Chinese, and Meng nodded. ‘Beetle nuts.’
‘Oh, enough of this,’ snapped Mr Baylis. ‘Let Robin do it – you can translate the whole list, can’t you, Robin? It would save us a good deal of time. They’re hopeless, I told you, all of them – a whole country, and not a single competent English speaker among them.’
Meng seemed to understand this perfectly. He cast Robin a scathing look, and Robin bent his head over the manifest to avoid his eye.
It went on like this all morning: Mr Baylis met with a procession of Chinese agents, all of whom he treated with incredible rudeness, and then looked to Robin as if expecting him to translate not only his words but his utter contempt for his interlocutors.
By the time they adjourned for lunch, Robin had developed a painful, throbbing headache. He could not take another moment of Mr Baylis’s company. Even supper, which was served back in the English Factory, was no respite; Mr Baylis spent the whole time recounting silly claims the customs officials had made, and kept casting his stories in a way that made Robin sound like he’d verbally slapped the Chinese at every turn. Ramy, Victoire, and Letty looked very confused. Robin scarcely spoke. He scarfed down his food – this time a more tolerable, if flavourless, dish of beef over rice – and then announced that he was heading back out.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Mr Baylis.
‘I want to go and see the city.’ Robin’s irritation made him bold. ‘We’re done for the day, aren’t we?’
‘Foreigners aren’t allowed in the city,’ said Mr Baylis.
‘I’m not a foreigner. I was born here.’
Mr Baylis had no rejoinder. Robin took his silence as assent. He snatched up his coat and strode towards the door.
Ramy hurried after him. ‘Suppose I come with you?’
Please, Robin almost said, but hesitated. ‘I’m not sure if you can.’
Robin saw Victoire and Letty glancing their way. Letty made as if to rise, but Victoire put an arm on her shoulder.
‘I’ll be fine,’ said Ramy, pulling on his coat. ‘I’ll be with you.’
They walked out the front door and down the length of the Thirteen Factories. When they crossed from the foreign enclave into the Cantonese suburbs, no one stopped them; no one seized them by the arm and insisted they return to where they belonged. Even Ramy’s face attracted no peculiar comment; Indian lascars were a common sight in Canton, and they attracted less attention than white foreigners. It was, strangely, a complete reversal of their situation in England.
Robin led them through the streets of downtown Canton at random. He didn’t know what he was looking for. Childhood haunts? Familiar landmarks? He had no destination in mind; no place he thought would bring catharsis. All he felt was a deep urgency, a need to walk over as much territory as he could before the sun went down.
‘Does it feel like home?’ Ramy asked – lightly, neutrally, as if tiptoeing on eggshells.
‘Not in the least,’ Robin said. He felt so deeply confused. ‘This is – I’m not sure what this is.’
Canton was wildly different from the way he’d left it. The construction on the docks, which had been going on since Robin could remember, had exploded into entire complexes of new buildings – warehouses, company offices, inns, restaurants, and teahouses. But what else had he expected? Canton had always been a shifting, dynamic city, sucking in what the sea delivered and digesting it all into its own peculiar hybridity. How could he ever assume it might remain rooted in the past?
Still, this transformation felt like a betrayal. It felt like the city had closed off any possible path home.
