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

discreetly, in the evening, without telling anyone the true nature of your business. But once alone with him, tell him why you have come, and he can be very helpful to you, both in arranging the operation and in getting you accepted by the palace—without which, of course, the operation would be a most unfortunate waste of time and money. This is the name of the street where he lives in the Inner City. Ask for Mr. Chen, the merchant.” He got up. “Good luck.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

—

When I got home, I didn’t say a word about this conversation. But I had to tell them, of course, that I’d lost my work. I saw my mother’s whole body sag with shock, though she quickly tried to hide it.

Rose put on a very brave face. “I’m sure I can take in work of some kind,” she said calmly. “And I know you will find a position soon.”

As for my father, he didn’t even seem to think there was a problem. “I’ll think of something,” he told us all airily.

“That,” I muttered, “is what worries me.”

—

You’d think in a huge city like Beijing that there would be plenty of opportunities for work, but after ten days of looking, I soon discovered a simple fact: A city is a vast collection of villages. And just like in any village, a craftsman employs his own family or the son of a friend. Nor does a rich man looking for a servant want to employ a stranger who may rob him. He’ll more likely ask a trusted servant he already has, “Do you know of anyone?” And that servant probably has a cousin or a friend he can recommend. In short, most of the good jobs were already spoken for, and strangers could pick up only casual work, the way my father did—which is to say, jobs with no prospects at all.

I also discovered something else: poor people. They were in every street. I’d seen them ever since the first day I came to see Grandfather’s Elder Brother when I was a boy. But I hadn’t really seen them. They were just in the background, nothing to do with me.

Starving people, dressed in rags, barefoot in winter. Sick people with dying children. Once you looked, you saw them everywhere, leaning against walls or peering out from narrow doorways. They reminded me of skinny birds, stripped of their feathers. As for their children, they made me think of fledglings that’ve fallen from their nest to the ground. If they weren’t dead already, you knew they soon would be.

And by the end of the tenth day, I was thinking, What lies between me and them? Not much. The money left from my father’s theft. Whatever work we could find as a family, so long as we kept our health. But with one more sickness—why, even if my father had an accident—we could be begging in the streets like those poor folk. And I’d be standing there, holding my little boy by the hand, watching him get thinner and thinner…

It was as if I were walking along the edge of a great dark abyss into which the whole family could fall. One bit of bad luck—that’s all it would take.

Sometimes I used to watch my father scurrying about the streets, looking so cheerful. Didn’t he realize the danger we were in? Was he just acting cheerful to keep our spirits up? Or maybe he couldn’t face the truth at all. I was never sure.

On the tenth day, I told him: “It’s no good, I’m not finding anything.”

I suppose I was expecting him to tell me to be patient, that something would turn up. But he didn’t say that. He was quiet for a minute. He seemed to be working out a solution of some kind. “You know,” he remarked as if he was sharing a secret, “the best thing one can do is save a rich man’s life.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What does that mean?”

“Well,” he said, “if you see a rich man in trouble, especially if you get the chance to save his life, he’s so grateful he’ll do anything for you. Quite a lot of people have come to fame and fortune that way.”

“You’ve lost your mind!” I shouted, which was no way to talk to one’s father.

“No, really,” he replied, looking offended. “It sometimes happens. You hear all kinds of stories.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” I said.

—

The next day, dusk had fallen when I reached the street the eunuch had told me about and asked for Mr. Chen the merchant. This hutong, as such streets are called, was on the western side of the Inner City, quite a respectable area where a lot of rich merchants and tradespeople lived.

Chen’s place looked like a typical merchant’s courtyard house—with a doorway up a few stone steps, by the southeast corner of the wall on the street.

I’d already learned how to tell somebody’s status in Beijing by the doorway of their house. Royalty and nobles had gateways flanked by stone lions—and you could tell their exact rank by the size of gate they were allowed. As a commoner, Mr. Chen’s doorway was far more modest. Instead of lions, he had a thick disc like a millstone on either side of the double doors, which were dark red. The heavy lintel above the doors, however, suggested his wealth was pretty solid.

A servant came to the doorway. I gave my name and said I’d come to see his master on private business. It took him only a few moments to return and usher me in.

I stepped carefully over the doorsill into the open passageway that ran across the house from right to left. In many houses, the blank wall in front of me would have been enough to stop evil spirits getting into the house, for everyone knows that spirits have difficulty turning corners. Some people have fierce gods painted on their doors as well, to