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

While Mother was gone, Mei-Ling asked the Binder, “Does it hurt a lot?”

“There is pain. But it’s worth the result.”

“Is it true you break the bones in the foot?”

“Only the toes. The tiny bones in the toes will snap as they are folded under the foot. But they’re so small and soft at that age that it doesn’t hurt much. Hardly counts as a break, really. The rest of the bones are forced to grow a certain way, but we don’t break them.” She paused for a moment. “Have you ever seen the miniature trees that rich people have in their houses? They call them penzai trees. It’s just the same idea. They bind the baby tree with ropes to keep it small. All the energy of the tree, its inner essence, goes into miniature form. The skill of the binder and the force of nature pushing against each other. That’s what we do when we bind a girl’s foot. We make a lily foot. A work of art. They are so beautiful, and when the girl wears her embroidered slippers, people call them golden lotus feet.”

“I see,” said Mei-Ling unhappily.

Then Mother came back with the child.

—

Mei-Ling did not know what reaction she’d expected when the Binder saw Bright Moon. She’d supposed the Binder would say something. But the Binder didn’t say a word. She just stared. Then she walked slowly around the little girl, peered closely at the skin on her neck, stood back, gazed at Bright Moon’s eyes, looked for a chair, and sat down. “I shall need to stay here some time,” she announced. “Maybe a month.”

“A month?” Mother looked alarmed. What would that cost?

“A month,” said the Binder firmly. “My fee remains the same, but you’ll have to feed me.”

“Of course,” said Mother. “Of course.”

The Binder gazed at Bright Moon. “A work of art,” she murmured. She wasn’t talking to them. She was talking to herself.

—

When she was ready to begin, the Binder asked the men in the house to go out until the evening. “This is women’s work,” she explained. “No men in the house.”

Then she instructed Mei-Ling and Mother to prepare a small tub of warm water in the kitchen, and made the little girl sit on a stool with her feet in the water.

“Do I have to stay here for long?” the little girl asked.

“We’ll keep the water nice and warm,” the Binder reassured her.

“What happens next?”

“I trim your toenails.”

“Does that hurt?”

“Of course not. You’ve had your nails cut lots of times. Did it ever hurt?”

“No.”

“There you are, then.”

Bright Moon looked at the two older women doubtfully, then at her mother.

“That won’t hurt,” said Mei-Ling, and smiled. At least it was true, so far.

“You’ll have such pretty feet when it’s all done,” said Mother.

“So tell me,” said the Binder, “what sort of little girl are you, besides being beautiful? Are you a good girl? Do you try to please your family as you should?”

Bright Moon nodded cautiously.

“She’s a very sweet-natured child,” said Mei-Ling. “Though she has a mind of her own. She learned that from you,” she remarked to Mother.

“That could be,” said Mother, looking quite pleased.

“You are seven years old now,” the Binder told the little girl. “You know what that means, don’t you? It means you become a woman. Not in your body, not yet, but in your mind. You are old enough to understand the things that belong to women. Your hair will be tied in tufts on your head so that everyone will know that you have completed the first seven-year cycle of your life. They will treat you as a responsible person. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Bright Moon. She didn’t sound very happy about it.

“We women grow up faster than boys. That is why a boy’s second cycle of life doesn’t begin until he’s eight. Once you’re thirteen, if you’re going to be a young lady, you’ll have to remain in the house all the time and never be seen by any man outside the family, not even your neighbors. Because you’ll be considered a bride by then. And by the time you complete your second cycle, you’ll be two years more advanced in your understanding than a boy of your age. Did you know that?”

Bright Moon shook her head.

“Well, it’s so,” said the Binder. “The men grow wiser than we are only when they’re older, which is why we obey them.”

Mei-Ling glanced at Mother, whose face suggested that this last wisdom might be open to doubt, though of course she didn’t say so.

—

After half an hour the Binder took a pair of scissors and carefully trimmed Bright Moon’s toenails as short as possible, inspecting each toe and the underside of her feet carefully as she did so. Then she put fresh hot water in the tub. “You’ll have to wait an hour or two,” she said, “to make your feet as soft as can be.”

So to pass the time, she told her the story of Yexian, the good little peasant girl with a cruel stepmother. Yexian was befriended by a magic fish who provided all the clothes she’d need to go to a party with the king. And how she lost her dainty slipper, and the king searched all over the land to find the owner and found Yexian and married her.

—

“You see,” said the Binder after she’d finished her story, “it was Yexian’s beauty and tiny feet that the king liked so much. And that is why all the pretty girls in China bind their feet. Because the fine husbands want wives with lily feet.”

“Maybe you could marry a prince,” Mother chimed in. “Or a great official or a rich man.”

“You’re just as pretty as they are,” the Binder explained. “But without tiny feet as well, nobody will look at you.” She smiled. “And I’m like the magic fish, to make it all possible.”

“Couldn’t I have a plain husband, like Father?” the little girl asked.

“Your father married me despite