Threads of Silk Read online

  Threads of Silk

  Amanda Roberts

  Contents

  1. Rural Hunan, 1846

  2. Rural Hunan, 1847

  3. Rural Hunan, 1849

  4. Changsha, Hunan, 1850

  5. Changsha, Hunan, 1854

  6. Changsha, Hunan, 1856

  7. On the Road to Peking, 1856

  8. Peking, 1856

  9. The Forbidden City, 1856-1857

  10. The Forbidden City, 1858

  11. The Forbidden City, 1860

  12. Fleeing the Forbidden City, 1860

  13. Jehol, 1861

  14. Peking, 1862-1863

  15. Peking, 1864

  16. Changsha, 1864-1865

  17. The Forbidden City, 1865-1868

  18. The Forbidden City, 1869

  19. The Forbidden City, 1872

  20. The Forbidden City, 1875

  21. The Forbidden City, 1875 – 1884

  22. The Forbidden City, 1885

  23. The Forbidden City, 1889

  24. The Summer Palace, 1889-1894

  25. The Forbidden City, 1894

  26. Prince Gong’s Mansion, 1898

  27. The Summer Palace, 1898

  28. Fleeing the Forbidden City, 1900-1901

  29. Peking, 1908

  30. The Forbidden City, 1908

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  About The Publisher

  Copyright © Amanda Roberts 2016

  www.twoamericansinchina.com

  * * *

  Cover by Cherith Vaughan

  www.shreddedpotato.com

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  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recoding, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the author.

  For my daughter, Yaqian.

  1

  Rural Hunan, 1846

  I giggled as the silkworm crawled across my feet. The fat little grub inched its way from my heel, along the tips of my toes, and down my ankle. I squealed with laughter as one of my cousins held me down to keep me from removing the worm. I could have kicked it off, but I didn’t want to hurt it, and I enjoyed the sensation. Each little step of the silkworm sent tiny shivers up my legs to the small of my back. And it took hundreds of steps. It was delightful, but I knew it made my cousin happy to think he was torturing me, so I pretended to fight back.

  One of my other cousins ran up and bashed his brother in the back of the head with a tree branch. My tormentor lost interest in me and let me go. The boys chased after each other. I could have followed, but I liked being alone with my silkworms. I picked up the little fellow who had been crawling across my toes and placed it on the largest mulberry leaf I could find and then went back to work collecting silkworm cocoons.

  My family had a small piece of land near the Xiangjiang River in Hunan. Since my father was an only son and I was his only child, the capital granted us just one plot of land for cultivating silkworms and one for growing food. It was not enough to support a family of three, but we lived next to many members of my mother’s family, who had many sons and, thus, more land. We all lived and farmed and shared together. I had three uncles and seven male cousins. I also had two female cousins, but they were grown and married. They had gone to live with their husbands’ families, so I was the only girl at home from my generation. This was a good thing, though; too many girls would burden the family.

  My parents were distressed that I was a girl. One daughter among a brood of boys would have been fine, but for an only child to be a girl was a source of despair. I know my parents tried to have more children. I often heard Father panting late at night as he tried to plant a seed in Mother, but sons never grew. My parents often fought – Father threatening to throw Mother out and get a new wife, Mother waving a knife in his face and threatening to cut off his planter. There was talk of adopting one of my cousins, buying a concubine, or arranging a marriage match for me just to secure a son-in-law. None of these things ever happened, and I learned to ignore my parents’ threats. I spent little time at home and found solace tending to the silkworms.

  In the summer, I took my basket out to the mulberry fields and collected cocoons. I had to pluck the soft, white cocoons very carefully off the leaves so I wouldn’t damage the silk or hurt the little worm inside. Even on our single plot, I collected hundreds a day. I also tended the mulberry bushes and the live worms and moths. If a mulberry bush was sick or dying, I moved all the worms, one by one, to another plant and dug up the bad plant. If a plant had too many grubs and was growing bare, I relocated its residents so it could grow strong again. The worms ate so much. A bush could be lush and vibrant one day and completely bare the next.

  In the middle of the day, when I was hot and hungry, I walked down to the muddy banks of the river and ate some baozi I kept from breakfast. I then stripped naked and swam in the shallow waters near the shore. Children from neighboring fields and those of fishermen and crab diggers joined me. We splashed and played until the hottest part of the day passed and then we returned to our chores. I stayed in the field until my basket was full and then walked home as slowly as possible.

  Most days, I arrived home at the same time as Father, and he’d load my basket in the back of his small cart, along with the baskets my cousins had filled – if they managed to fill any at all – to prepare for the next day’s journey to the nearest city of Changsha for selling and trading. My family was too poor to afford the equipment needed to extract the silk from the cocoons, so every day my father took the cocoons we harvested into town and sold them for cash or bartered them for rice or cheap cotton thread for sewing and embroidery work. I begged my father to take me to the city with him. From the shores of the Xiangjiang River where I swam, I could see the bridge that led into town and many buildings, some much taller than our little village houses. Dust rose from the passing of many people and carts on the city streets. But I had never been there myself. In fact, I had never been beyond my family’s land.

  “Your place is with your mother,” Father would always say. I don’t think he knew just how little time I spent with Mother. The house was stuffy and dark, and I had no desire to learn to clean or cook or sew. I loved being outside with my little silkworms. And since I was only a worthless daughter, I think Mother preferred seeing me as little as possible as well. She never asked me to stay inside with her to learn women’s work. My family lived separate lives – Father in town, Mother in the house, and me in the field. And that suited me just fine.

  2

  Rural Hunan, 1847

  I ran between the rows of mulberry bushes with tears streaming down my face. I knocked the silkworm cocoons I had so carefully tended the day to the ground and felt them crush beneath my feet, but I didn’t stop. Mother chased closely behind me, her large, unbound feet thumping against the packed earth. I crashed through a small opening in the line of bushes to the next row, sending scores of frightened moths fluttering in the air as they attempted to fly on useless wings.

  “Yaqian!” Mother screamed my name, followed by curses I dare not repeat.

  But I did not stop. Not for her, not for my precious silkworms. I had to protect my feet from what was coming. If my feet were bound and broken, never again would I be able to walk the field to tend to my gentle worms or return to the Xiangjiang River to swim in its cool waters with my friends. And I would never be able to convince Father to take me to the city to see what happened to the cocoons after they left my loving care.

  I could not allow my feet, my only means of freedom, to be bound like my grandmother’s and aunties’. True, I did not want large, flat, ugly feet like Mother’s. She was
tall, broad, and built for hard labor. I was small, gentle, and dainty. Quick like a cat and quiet like a mouse. I had no doubt that my feet would remain small on their own forever.

  There had been some debate about whether to bind my feet. As my parents’ only child, the better my marriage, the better for them. But if I could not tend the silkworms, the responsibility would fall to my cousins, who were not known for being responsible and had their own chores to do. My family would surely lose much-needed income if I could not work. But if I made a good marriage later, the sacrifice could be worth it.

  My parents decided to seek counsel from a fortune teller.

  She arrived early one morning, before I had made my daily escape to the fields, tottering in on her tiny, bound feet with only a cane to hold her upright. Mother graciously accepted her into our home, offering her tea, nuts, and blackberries, all of which she declined as she pulled out her charts to look at my numbers. After a few minutes, she spoke.

  “Three…six…nine…” she mumbled to herself. “Three…six…nine…How marvelous!”

  “What do you mean, Laoma?” Mother asked.

  “Are you sure these numbers are true? Born in the third month on the sixth day and the ninth hour?” the fortune teller asked. Mother nodded. “These numbers are all quite good. Not quite in line for a tiger, the year your daughter was born, but a goat, like your family name. I think the girl embodies the essence of the yang. Another good sign!”

  “What does all this mean?” Mother prodded.

  “She is lucky,” the fortune teller said proudly. “Three, six, nine, all good numbers. The goat, the eighth animal, the eight is prosperity! And the goat is elegant, refined.”

  “Goats are ugly!” Mother declared, eyeing me.

  I wrinkled my nose at her and laid my head on the table, sighing with boredom.

  “Gray coat, big horns, offensive tongue. How can a goat be a good thing?” Mother asked.

  “Have you ever seen a goat in the wild?” the fortune teller asked. “Have you not been to the great western mountains? The goats can climb a sheer rock face on stones too small for you to see. They step delicately and gracefully. They possess great skill at what they do. Many people who identify with the goat are very creative and clever. Believe me, the goat is a truly auspicious sign for a girl with such lucky birth numbers.”

  “But what am I to do with her?” Mother asked. “What good is a goat to me?”

  “First, we will have to bind her feet.”

  I sat straight up at those words. “No!” I yelled. “You cannot touch my feet!”

  “Silence, Yaqian!” Mother snapped. “Do not embarrass me so. You will do as you are told.”

  “It is a part of life, Yaqian,” the fortune teller said, softly. “With lovely bound feet, good numbers, and elegant mannerism, you can make quite a good marriage.”

  “How will she become elegant?” Mother asked. “She is too spirited and not very beautiful.”

  The fortune teller shrugged. “When you bind her feet, everything about her will change.”

  My heart sank. I didn’t want to change. I wanted to have more freedom as I got older, not less. I wanted to walk along the river and travel with my father to the city marketplaces. But if my feet were bound, I would never leave my house again.

  “I won’t do it!” I shrieked and ran for the front door.

  Mother jumped from her chair and ran after me, but she was too slow. I threw open the door and ran to the field as fast as my unbound feet could carry me.

  That was why I was running from my mother. I didn’t know what the future held for me. I was a child – I couldn’t think that far ahead. I only knew that if my feet were bound, I would be confined to the house at my mother’s side. I would be doomed to darkness, cleaning, cooking, stitching hideous embroidery day in and day out. I couldn’t bear the thought.

  As I ran, Mother fell farther behind. I thought I might escape, but where would I go? I had no money, not even shoes on my feet. But I was getting away. For now, that was all that mattered.

  But I was betrayed. Like a pair of wild monkeys, two of my cousins fell upon me from behind a tree. They knocked me down and I lost my senses long enough for one to grab my ankles and the other my wrists so they could drag me back home. I screamed and kicked as much as I could, but they were too strong, and I quickly tired. They thought my impending mutilation and torture was hilarious fun as they triumphantly presented me to Mother. I was so exhausted, I barely even had the energy to cry when Mother beat me for good measure.

  * * *

  The night after the fortune teller delivered her advice, Mother came to the upstairs room along with one of my aunts to begin the foot-binding process. Mother had seen it done, but had never done it herself. My aunt knew how the feet should feel as she had bound her own daughter’s feet several years before.

  Mother held my head and arms in her lap while my aunt began wrapping the bindings around my feet. At first, they were just tight and uncomfortable, but not painful. I thought maybe I had been wrong and the binding would not be so bad after all. But then they made me stand.

  The moment I put my weight on my newly bound feet, blinding pain surged through my entire body. I screamed and tried to collapse to the floor, but Mother caught me and held me up by my arms, forcing me to stand. She stood in front of me, holding my arms and took a step backward, forcing me to take a step forward. It was as if I had been stabbed in the sole of my foot as pain shot clear through my head. I wanted to faint, but Mother would not let me.

  “Do not fall, Yaqian!” she yelled. “You must walk. The more you walk, the faster your feet will find their new shape and this will all be over.”

  My aunt kindly rubbed my back to help calm me. She knew Mother was lying. The pain would never be over.

  Every day, Mother forced me to walk on my bound feet in order to break the small bones. The only thing I looked forward to was evening time when Mother would unwrap my feet, wash them, clip my nails, and then rewrap them even tighter. For those few moments when my feet were free, sheer relief washed over me.

  It took two weeks before the first bone broke. On hearing the crack, bright white light flashed across my eyes. I collapsed to the floor and vomited. Mother rushed to my side. I thought she would grab me and force me to stand, but instead she rubbed my back and whispered, “Good girl.” Mother’s sudden tenderness surprised me. In my six years of life, I did not remember her speaking gently, holding me close, or saying words of love. But perhaps seeing her child in such pain moved even her stone heart. Whatever the reason, it gave me the strength to keep going. My mere existence was such a disappointment to her. Surely I could endure this.

  I panted with sickness and pain, but I knew there was no going back. I reached for her hand and slowly stood back up. I took another step and heard another crack. This time, I grabbed Mother’s arm for support, but I did not fall. I took another step and then another. I lost track of how many bones I broke that day and in the days that followed.

  * * *

  After a couple of months, my feet had taken on an entirely new shape. I had not worn any shoes since the binding began and none of my old ones would fit now anyway. My aunt brought me a pair of her old slippers as a gift. They were blue with a black trim made of coarse cotton thread. But on the front they had the most beautiful embellishment I had ever seen. Mother told me they were peacock feathers. I had no idea what peacocks were, but from that day on, I loved them. The shape of the eye and the blue, green, and red colors in the feathers were the loveliest design I had ever seen. I didn’t believe something so lovely could exist in nature.

  Mother was terrible at embroidery. We did not have many embroidered things – we had no use for such frivolous decorations – but she had some small pieces of decorative cloths, shirts, and shoes she had made as a girl for her dowry, and I would be expected to spend my days creating embroidered items for my own dowry. I always thought Mother’s embroidered items were the ugliest things I ha
d ever seen. The thread was coarse and thick, the stitching was too far apart and uneven, the colors didn’t complement each other, and the animals she attempted were unidentifiable. I always thought that if that was what embroidery was supposed to look like, I would rather not bother.

  But the shoes my aunt gave me where the first piece of embroidery I had seen that had some semblance of beauty. True, they were crude and simple, but I could see how beautiful they could be.

  I admired the shoes, turning them over and over in my hands. The black trim was quite boring, so I examined how I could remove the threads and re-stitch the design with angles and spacing, making it much more delicate and decorative. I ran my fingers over the peacock feathers and decided that if the thread had been thinner and stitched more closely together, they would appear more real from a distance. I took a needle from Mother’s mending basket and retreated to my room to get to work.

  I had planned to remove just a few threads and make some minor changes, but before I realized it, I had removed every thread. I used my fingernails to make the strings thinner and longer. Then I began to re-embroider them in the way I envisioned them in my mind. After a few hours, I finished the outline and my vision was coming to life. It took me two days to finish them, and they were the most beautiful things I had ever seen. I even had one long, red string left over, which I wrapped in a cloth and laid next to my bed to use on a future project.

  * * *

  The next day, my aunt came back and brought the fortune teller with her to examine my progress. When the fortune teller held out her hand to see my feet, I proudly sat in a chair in front of her, pulled up the leg of my pants, and placed my foot in her hand with the shoe still on. My aunt, the fortune teller, and Mother all looked at the shoe in surprise.