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

“I do,” I admitted.

“One day he will thank you for saving his life,” he went on. “He’ll understand the sacrifices you’ve made.”

“I hope so,” I said. But I was thinking that, the way things were going, my son mightn’t have much to thank me for. As for my sacrifices, it looked as if they’d all been for nothing.

The night before, I hadn’t told my family anything about my troubles, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell them anything now. I suppose I was just praying that something would turn up to end the nightmare I was in.

“So did anything good happen today?” he wanted to know. “Did you make any friends?”

“Yes,” I said. “An old palace servant. He told me all sorts of things about the palace, going back to the Ming dynasty.”

“That’s good,” he agreed. “You should always listen to old people. They know so much. What did you do today?”

“Well, actually,” I said, “we worked in the emperor’s kitchen.”

“You saw the emperor?”

“Oh no.” I laughed. He nodded as though he understood, but he looked impressed. “Don’t go boasting to the neighbors,” I said. “We don’t want anyone to know what I do.”

“Of course not,” he said.

After the meal, we all went to bed. My parents and our children all slept on the kang in the main room, but Rose and I had a tiny room to one side that was more private. When I lay beside her, I felt such a surge of gratitude and affection, I wished there was more I could do for her; but at least I could caress her. And she had just started moaning softly with pleasure when suddenly she stopped and sat up.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“There’s a smell,” she said, and she wrinkled up her nose. “Ugh,” she said, “it’s your hands. They smell like garbage.”

“There was an accident at the palace,” I told her. “We had to clean it up.”

“Oh,” she said. And she turned her back to me, which wasn’t very nice, but I couldn’t blame her when I thought of the barrels she must be smelling. So I just lay there feeling ashamed and wondered what I could do.

The next time we cleaned the barrels, I scrubbed my fingers over and under my nails until they almost bled. Rose didn’t say anything more that night.

My fingers soon got so raw that I had to bandage them. Next I started wearing leather gloves. The gloves smelled terrible, but they helped a bit.

The next time I was paid, of course, I got only the bare minimum, which was a pittance, and when I brought it home, my father took me to one side and asked me, “Is that really all you got?” And I said, “Things will get better. We just have to be patient.” But the truth was, I had no idea how to get anything more.

—

Since I had been sent to work with Old Stinker, I had never set eyes on Mr. Chen. I could understand it. He’d been humiliated. There was nothing he could do. I was just an embarrassment to him, and I daresay he wished everyone would forget he had anything to do with me.

But I was growing so desperate that I decided to go see him all the same. After all, he knew everything there was to know about the palace. Perhaps together we could think of some way out of the mess I was in. So I went to his house one evening and knocked at the big door on the street. A servant appeared and took my name. But then he came back and said that his master wasn’t there; then he closed the door in my face.

I wasn’t surprised. But I wasn’t giving up, either. The next day I managed to get away early and I waited by the corner of the street. And after a while, sure enough, I saw him coming.

He wasn’t at all pleased to see me, I can tell you, but I stuck to him like glue, and I could see that he was afraid I’d make a scene, so he hurried me into his house just to get me out of people’s sight.

“I can’t do anything for you,” he said. “If I’d realized Mr. Liu hated me so much, I’d never have helped you in the first place. But I didn’t.”

“Have you got anything on him, sir?” I asked. “Something I could use to blackmail him.”

“No,” he answered. “He’s taken bribes, of course, but then…” He spread his hands as though to say, Haven’t we all?

“That’s a pity,” I said.

“You owe me a lot of money,” he suddenly declared.

“Which I can’t pay,” I replied. But he was just saying that to get rid of me, so I left.

—

After a while I began to think about killing myself. Was I really going to spend the rest of my life with the old man—day after day, month after month, year after year—and then turn into the next Old Stinker? I’d never have enough money to repay Mr. Chen or buy my private parts back. So I’d go into the poor eunuchs’ graveyard, incomplete.

In the meantime, how was I going to keep my family on the pittance I was getting? And once my father was gone, would my little boys even survive?

Everything I’d done had been for nothing. And sooner or later my family was going to discover the truth about what I did at the palace. I didn’t know if I could face the shame of that. I’d sooner have died, to tell the truth, and come back in my next life as a worm.

So that was the choice: a lifetime of shame ahead of me, and maybe not even save my boys; or death, and turn my back on every duty I had.

—

Head eunuch Liu appeared to inspect the kitchen without any warning. One morning I came in to get my overalls, and there he