in the sandy soil. But my grandmother scarcely enjoyed the scenery, as she was covered in dust and jolted badly by the rough road. Above all, she was worrying about what would greet her at the other end.
When she first saw the mansion, she was overwhelmed by its grandeur. The immense front gate was guarded by armed men, who stood stiffly at attention beside enormous statues of reclining lions. There was a row of eight stone statues for tying up horses: four were of elephants, and four of monkeys. These two animals were chosen for their lucky sounds: in Chinese the words ‘elephant’ and ‘high office’ have the same sound (xiang), as do ‘monkey’ and ‘aristocracy’ (bou).
As the cart passed through the outer gate into an inner yard my grandmother could see only a huge blank wall facing her; then, off to one side, she saw a second gate. This was a classic Chinese structure, a concealing wall so that strangers could not see into one’s property, also making it impossible for assailants to shoot or charge directly through the front gate.
The moment they passed through the inner gate, a servant materialized at my grandmother’s side and peremptorily took her child away. Another servant led my grandmother up the steps of the house and showed her into the sitting room of General Xue’s wife.
As soon as she entered the room, my grandmother went down on her knees and kowtowed, saying, ‘I greet you, my mistress’, as etiquette demanded. My grandmother’s sister was not allowed into the room, but had to stand outside like a servant. This was nothing personal: the relatives of a concubine were not treated as part of the family. After my grandmother had kowtowed for a suitable length of time, the general’s wife told her she could get up, using a form of address which immediately established my grandmother’s place in the hierarchy of the household as a mere submistress, closer to a higher form of servant than to a wife.
The general’s wife told her to sit down. My grandmother had to make a split-second decision. In a traditional Chinese household, where one sits automatically reflects one’s status. General Xue’s wife was sitting at the north end of the room, as befitted a person in her position. Next to her, separated by a side table, was another chair, also facing south: this was the general’s seat. Down each side of the room was a row of chairs for people of different status. My grandmother shuffled backwards and sat on one of the chairs nearest the door, to show humility. The wife then asked her to come forward—just a little. She had to show some generosity.
When my grandmother was seated, the wife told her that from now on her daughter would be brought up as her (the wife’s) own daughter and would call her, not my grandmother, ‘Mama’; my grandmother was to treat the child as the young mistress of the house, and was to behave accordingly.
A maid was summoned to lead my grandmother away. She felt her heart was breaking, but she forced back her sobs, only letting herself go when she reached her room. Her eyes were still red when she was taken to meet General Xue’s number-two concubine, his favourite, who ran the household. She was pretty, with a delicate face, and to my grandmother’s surprise she was quite sympathetic, but my grandmother restrained herself from having a good cry with her. In this strange new environment, she felt intuitively that the best policy was caution.
Later that day she was taken to see her ‘husband’. She was allowed to take my mother with her. The general was lying on a kang, the type of bed used all over North China, a large, flat, rectangular surface about two and a half feet high heated from underneath by a brick stove. A pair of concubines or maids were kneeling round the prostrate general, massaging his legs and stomach. General Xue’s eyes were closed, and he looked terribly sallow. My grandmother leaned over the edge of the bed, calling to him softly. He opened his eyes and managed a kind of a half-smile. My grandmother put my mother on the bed and said: ‘This is Bao Qin.’ With what seemed a great effort, General Xue feebly stroked my mother’s head and said, ‘Bao Qin takes after you; she is very pretty.’ Then he closed his eyes.
My grandmother called out to him, but his eyes remained shut. She could see that he was gravely ill, perhaps dying. She picked my mother off the bed and hugged her tight. But she had only a second to cuddle her before the general’s wife, who had been hovering alongside, tugged impatiently at her sleeve. Once outside, the wife warned my grandmother not to disturb the master too often, or indeed at all. In fact, she should stay in her room unless she was summoned.
My grandmother was terrified. As a concubine, her whole future and that of her daughter were in jeopardy, possibly even in mortal peril. She had no rights. If the general died, she would be at the mercy of the wife, who had the power of life and death over her. She could do anything she wanted—sell her to a rich man, or even into a brothel, which was quite common. Then my grandmother would never see her daughter again. She knew she and her daughter had to get away as fast as possible.
When she got back to her room, she made a tremendous effort to calm herself and begin planning her escape. But when she tried to think, she felt as though her head were flooding with blood. Her legs were so weak she could not walk without holding on to the furniture. She broke down and wept again—partly with rage, because she could see no way out. Worst of all was the thought that the general might die at any moment, leaving her trapped forever.
Gradually she managed to bring her nerves under control and force herself to think clearly. She started to look around the mansion systematically. It was divided into many different courtyards, set within a large compound, surrounded by high walls. Even the garden was designed with security rather than aesthetics in mind. There were a few cypress trees, some birches and winter plums, but none near the walls. To make doubly sure that any potential assassin would have no cover, there were not even any large shrubs. The two gates leading out from the garden were padlocked, and the front gate was guarded around the clock by armed retainers.
My grandmother was never allowed to leave the walled precincts. She was permitted to visit the general each day, but only on a sort of organized tour with some of the other women, when she would file past his bed and murmur, ‘I greet you, my lord.’
Meanwhile, she began to get a clearer idea of the other personalities in the household. Apart from the general’s wife, the woman who seemed to count most was the number-two concubine. My grandmother discovered that she had instructed the servants to treat her well, which made her situation much easier. In a household like this, the attitude of the servants was determined by the status of those they had to serve. They fawned on those in favour, and bullied those who had fallen from grace.
The number-two concubine had a daughter a little older than my mother. This was a further bond between the two women, as well as being a reason for the concubine’s favour with General Xue, who had no other children apart from my mother.
After a month, during which the two concubines became quite friendly, my grandmother went to see the general’s wife and told her she needed to go home to fetch some clothes. The wife gave permission, but when my grandmother asked if she could take her daughter to say goodbye to her grandparents, she refused. The Xue bloodline could not be taken out of the house.
And so my grandmother set off alone down the dusty road to Changli. After the coachman had dropped her off at the railway station, she started asking around among the people hanging about there. She found two horsemen who were prepared to provide her with the transportation she needed. She waited for nightfall, and then raced back to Lulong with them and their two horses by a shortcut. One of the men seated her on a saddle and ran in front, holding the horse by the rein.
When she reached the mansion, she made her way to a back gate and gave a prearranged signal. After a wait that felt like hours but was in fact only a few minutes, the door in the gate swung open and her sister emerged in the moonlight, holding my mother in her arms. The door had been unlocked by the friendly number-two concubine, who had then hit it with an axe to make it look as though it had been forced
