Chapter Seventeen
Quae caret ora cruore nostro?
What coast knows not our blood?
HORACE, Odes
Ayear ago, after overhearing Colin and the Sharp brothers loudly discussing it in the common room, Robin had gone alone to London over a weekend to see the celebrated Afong Moy. Advertised as the ‘Chinese Lady’, Afong Moy had been brought out of China by a pair of American traders who’d initially hoped to use an Oriental lady to showcase goods acquired overseas, but who quickly realized they could instead make a fortune exhibiting her person across the eastern seaboard. This was her first tour to England.
Robin had read somewhere that she was also from Canton. He wasn’t sure what he’d hoped for other than a glimpse of, perhaps a moment of connection with, someone who shared his motherland. His ticket granted him admission to a garish stage room advertised as a ‘Chinese Saloon’, decorated with randomly placed ceramics, shoddy imitations of Chinese paintings, and a suffocating quantity of gold and red damask illuminated by cheap paper lanterns. The Chinese Lady herself was seated on a chair at the front of the room. She wore a blue silk buttoned shirt, and her feet, bound conspicuously in linen, were propped up on a small cushion before her. She looked very small. The pamphlet he’d been handed at the ticket booth claimed she was somewhere in her twenties, but she could have easily been as young as twelve.
The room was loud and packed with an audience of mostly men. They hushed when, slowly, she reached down to unbind her feet.
The story of her feet was also explained in the pamphlet. Like many young Chinese women, Afong Moy’s feet had been broken and bound when she was young to restrict their growth and to leave them curved in an unnatural arch that gave her a tottering, unstable gait. As she walked across the stage, the men around Robin pushed forward, trying to get a closer look. But Robin could not understand the appeal. The sight of her feet seemed neither erotic nor fascinating, but rather a great invasion of intimacy. Standing there, watching her, he felt as embarrassed as if she’d just pulled down her trousers before him.
Afong May returned to her chair. Her eyes locked suddenly on Robin’s; she seemed to have scanned the room and found kinship in his face. Cheeks flushing, he averted his eyes. When she started to sing – a lilting, haunting melody that he did not recognize and could not understand – he pushed his way through the crowd and left the room.
Apart from Griffin, he had not seen any Chinese people since.
As they sailed inland, he noticed that Letty kept looking at his face, then at the dockworkers’ faces, as if comparing them. Perhaps she was trying to determine precisely how Chinese he looked, or to see if he was experiencing some great emotional catharsis. But nothing stirred in his chest. Standing on the deck, minutes from stepping foot in his motherland after a lifetime away, all Robin felt was empty.
They made anchor and disembarked at Whampoa, where they boarded smaller boats to continue up Canton’s riverfront. Here, the city became a wash of noise, of the ongoing rumbling and humming of gongs, firecrackers, and shouting boatmen moving their craft up and down the river. It was unbearably loud. Robin did not remember such a din from his childhood; either Canton had grown much busier, or his ears had grown unaccustomed to its sounds.
They stepped ashore at Jackass Point, where they were met by Mr Baylis, their liaison with Jardine, Matheson & Co. Mr Baylis was a short, well-dressed man with dark, clever eyes who spoke with astonishing animation. ‘You couldn’t have arrived at a better time,’ he said, pumping Professor Lovell’s hand, then Robin’s, and then Ramy’s. The girls he ignored. ‘It’s a disaster here – the Chinese are getting bolder and bolder by the day. They’ve broken up the distribution rings – they bombed one of the fast crabs to bits in the harbour just the other day, thank God no one was on board – and the crackdowns will make trade impossible if this keeps up.’
‘What about the European smuggling boats?’ asked Professor Lovell as they walked.
‘That was a workaround, but only for a bit. Then the Viceroy started sending his people door to door on house searches. The whole city’s terrified. You’ll scare a man off just by mentioning the name of the drug. It’s all the fault of that new Imperial Commissioner the Emperor has sent down. Lin Zexu. You’ll meet him soon; he’s the one we’ll have to deal with.’ Mr Baylis spoke so quickly as they walked that Robin was astonished he never ran out of breath. ‘So he comes in and demands the immediate surrender of all opium brought to China. This was last March. Of course we said no, so he suspended trade and told us we’re not to leave the Factories until we’re ready to play by the rules. Can you imagine? He put us under siege.’
‘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?’