China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

I had been patient. I’d been there ten days when the master appeared around noon and said to me severely: “I’ve let you learn here. But I’m quite sure you lied to me about who you are. So you’d better tell me the truth now, or you can get out and never come back.”

I was really glad that he gave me a chance like that. I confessed everything. I told him who my family was, how I’d wanted to learn to read, how my father had made the boots for my teacher and got me thrown out, and how I’d gone on learning for myself and bothering the teacher as much as I dared.

“But wait,” he said, “you’re the boy whose mother knows my wife. You were supposed to come and see me.”

“Yes, master,” I said, “but how could I expect you to take an interest when I had nothing to recommend me?”

“It’s quite true that your father’s reputation goes against you,” he said. “He’s not a good worker. Never takes enough trouble.”

“I honor my father,” I said quietly, with a low bow.

“Very proper. But you’re determined not to be like him, all the same. You want to be a real craftsman. Isn’t that true?”

I nodded.

“Well then, you can start here tomorrow,” he said suddenly. “An apprentice gets paid only a pittance, you know.”

I didn’t care about that. Not then. I was so excited.

—

I worked hard and learned fast. In less than two years I was as good as the thin man, and I worked with the fat man, too. But I was still the apprentice and I was always deferential to everyone. People should know their place.

I also came to understand how lucky I was. They say that the art of lacquer-making goes back to the days of the Han dynasty. For a long time lacquer goods came mostly from the southern provinces, where the ingredients for the lacquer are to be found and the climate is suitably humid. But gradually the craftsmen came north, and in the reign of the great Manchu emperor Qianlong, there was a huge royal works in Beijing. But with the troubles from the barbarians and the Taiping, and the court’s being so short of money, the art and industry were in decline. My master was one of the few small works still going, supplying a little to the court and any other rich persons he could find—for the lacquer takes so long to make that it cannot possibly be sold at a price any modest person can afford. My master could have found any number of out-of-work craftsmen in the capital. But hardly any young persons wanted to enter the craft. That was why he had been intrigued by me. That, and my persistence.

I loved that lacquer works. The finished stock was stored on racks in one of the closed sheds. I’d go in there and look at the rows of boxes, bowls, and vases. Sometimes we even produced furniture, too. Some of the work was in black lacquer, but mostly it was red. There were beautiful fans of lacquered bamboo, and a big black screen, with a flying stork and a distant mountain painted on it, that was going to the port to be sold to a rich barbarian. The master would hire in artists to do the painting.

I could have gazed at them for hours. Sometimes I’d let my fingers gently touch the intricate carving on the boxes. The patterns were so deep and tight, it was like feeling a little world under your hand.

One day—it was the start of my second winter there—the master found me in the storeroom. I was still a bit afraid of him. He hardly ever smiled, and that great cliff face of a head he had was quite intimidating. “You love the goods we sell, don’t you?” he said to me.

“Yes, master,” I answered. “I’ve always liked the finer things in life.”

“Well, you’ll never be rich enough to own most of the things in here,” he told me, “but the joy of the craftsman is greater than the pleasure of the owner.”

That impressed me very much, I have to say.

Then he smiled and gave me my pay packet and told me to check it.

“I think there’s a mistake, master,” I said. “There seems to be too much.”

“Those last two little boxes you lacquered, they were plain but perfect,” he said. “So I’m paying you for those at the full rate—for a junior craftsman, of course.”

I bowed very low. The truth was, I couldn’t speak for a moment.

—

It was a month later that we thought we were going to die.

We’d become used to the Taiping ruling down in Nanjing. But one morning I arrived at work and found everyone with long faces, and the master told me, “Those devils are on the move again. They’re sending a great horde up here to take Beijing.” And we were right in their path, of course. “If this Taiping Brother of Jesus were a real king, it mightn’t be so bad,” the master said. “Real kings don’t kill craftsmen. We’re too valuable. But with this rabble, who knows?”

That night in our village, everyone was discussing: Should we stay put and hope for the best? Or should we put our possessions in a cart and get behind the great walls of Beijing? Surely the Taiping couldn’t get into Beijing, people said. But I wasn’t so sure. No one had thought they could take Nanjing, either.

Then word came that the horde was camped by the mouth of the Peiho River, about sixty miles down the canal to the south. I daresay they could have reached us in three days.

If I saw clouds on the southern horizon, I’d think: They could be on the move under those clouds right now. Once, on a clear winter night, I remember gazing down the canal to see if I could make out any faint glow from the horde’s campfires in the distance. But