2

“In the Beginning All Things Are Difficult”

The room was quite dark when Fu Be Be’s repeated callings aroused him. “What is it?” he asked sleepily.

“Already the Hour of the Tiger draws to a close. That we have moved to this city is no reason for your sleeping like a gentleman.”

Young Fu sat up. “But it is still black as midnight.” He pulled the pu-gai about his shoulders. “Ai! it is cold.”

“Laziness never filled a rice bowl. And Chungking is famous throughout the land for its bad weather, so I have heard.” She shivered. “Cold it is.” Loosening the latch, she glanced outside. “And the rain falls.”

Yawning, her son struggled into his outer jacket. Fu Be Be was working over the dilapidated clay stove built into the chimney place. She rubbed stinging eyes as she blew the charcoal into flame. There was a breakfast of hard puffed rice. This, with hot water to drink, completed the meal. Then, dressed in their best garments, the boy and his mother set out for the coppersmith’s.

Mist and fine rain lifted in the streets. Sedan chairs still bore lighted lanterns. A man carried a small oil lamp burning brightly. Its glass shade was wet. Young Fu looked after him. An uncovered light continuing to flame steadily in spite of falling water! This Chungking was different from that of the open country.

At Tang’s, business was already in progress. They stood in admiration before the establishment. Trays and kettles, jars and vases, braziers and water pipes—everything that might be desired in white and yellow brass, or red-gold copper—were displayed on the shelves of the shop. An apprentice dusted stock and a clerk stood behind the counter and deftly counted with the wooden beads strung on the wires of an abacus. Before acknowledging the presence of these new arrivals, he laid down the frame, took up a small camel’s-hair brush, dampened it leisurely on a black slab of ink, and wrote several characters in an account book.

At last he turned to Fu Be Be. “What do you wish?”

“To give this to your proprietor.” She held out a long, narrow envelope.

He accepted it and addressed his assistant, “Take this, Den, to the master.”

The boy laid aside the feather duster and moved to an inner room. As he did so, he eyed the two callers with a glance of derision. Young Fu reddened. He felt suddenly at a loss what to do with his hands and feet. With his chin he pointed to a table and two empty stools. “Let us sit,” he suggested in a whisper.

Fu Be Be shook her head. “It is not custom; we have come to obtain work, not to buy.”

After what seemed an hour, an older man appeared. He walked directly to them and spoke courteously. Behind him the apprentice, Den, stared in an unblinking gaze at the new applicant. Fu Be Be explained their errand.

“This is the youth of whom Wen, the farmer, wrote?”

Fu Be Be bowed.

“And his age?”

“Thirteen years and seven moons.”

“That is older than I wish, but he has strength which apprentices sometimes lack.” Without turning, he raised his voice, “This early in the day they are forced to rest a little.”

The idler flushed guiltily and reached for the duster. Young Fu hid a smile. One thing was certain—this man missed nothing. His mother asked the coppersmith timidly about rules.

“The guild to which all of our artisans belong has in the past required five years of training for an apprentice, but at present, war changes conditions. The two I now have serve three years; your son may do the same. He will eat and sleep here at my expense; you will clothe him. What he earns after he becomes a journeyman will depend on himself.”

Fu Be Be nodded. All of this was as it should be. There was, however, one small matter. “I am one person living alone. Would your guild permit my son to spend his nights in his home?”

The coppersmith thought for a moment. “It can be arranged. He must present himself daily at the Hour of the Hare and remain until his duties are finished at night.”

Fu Be Be thanked him for this consideration and promised that her son’s punctuality would be on her body.

“A contract!” Tang called to the accountant. When it was brought, he read the terms aloud. “Now a pen!” He turned from the clerk to Fu Be Be. “This man will sign your name for you if you will tell him what it is. Is it the Fu character for happiness or the one for a worker?”

Fu Be Be looked up timidly. “It is the character for teacher, Honorable Proprietor, and uses twelve strokes in the writing.”

Tang and the clerk stared at her in amazement. “You recognize written words?” asked the coppersmith.

Young Fu watched his mother shake her head in denial. “No, I am but a stupid countrywoman, but my husband knew several tens of characters, and he taught me our name.”

Her son noticed the accountant’s expression change, and his body grew hot with disappointment. That his mother had been able to tell them the correct word for their name was good; if only she might have written it as well! In these people, respect for such ability was plain to see. At home there had been little talk of learning. With the earth demanding a man’s entire attention, there was no time for books. Their village was too small to support a school, and if there had been one, no child could have been spared from the fields. Yes, girls perhaps might, but who would waste good money trying to educate girls?

When letters needed to be sent, the Head of the Village would draft a few crude sentences explaining the matter in hand. Sayings from the Classics, handed down from one generation to another, were a part of daily speech. And occasionally a wandering storyteller would appear at the small inn and regale those who could stay to listen with tales drawn from centuries of history. Once or twice his father had taken him to hear these romancers, but that had been before the soldiers had made life an impossible hardship. Such slight contacts had been his only ones with the knowledge to be found in books. His mind formed a swift decision: he would not remain ignorant; in some way he would learn to read and write.

When the ceremonies of contract were completed, Fu Be Be whispered to her son, “Give heed to all that you are told and say little! It is the good listener who learns well. This new master of yours is, I believe, a wise one.” She finished swiftly as Tang’s attention centered once more on them. “Remember the turns by which we arrived here this morning, two to the left—”

Young Fu interrupted with a nod, “I know the way,” and then waited silently while his mother bowed herself out of the shop.

In the street the mist had lifted and Fu Be Be gazed on either side with interest. Her bound feet made slow progress. The flagstone pavings were loose and slippery with mire, and everywhere thoroughfares were separated by flights of steps, for Chungking climbed high on its rocky promontory above the swirling currents of the Lin and the still more treacherous Yangtze.

Today she had leisure, but work must be found for the future. In this city living costs were exorbitant. To retain the shelter of the room in Dai’s tenement, she would have to pay, each moon, one half of a Szechuen silver dollar. Besides the rent, there was the problem of food for herself. She was thankful that her son would be fed by Tang. She herself could live on little. Rice and sometimes chin-t’sai, the cheapest of green vegetables, would satisfy her needs. Meat, except on feast days, she had learned to do without, and in brewing tea she would use fewer of the precious leaves. As for clothing, their present garments would last for some time; when they became too threadbare, she would purchase material on Thief Street, where stolen goods were offered for cheap sale, and make others.

The shops about her were busy, but most of them employed men only. The sound of light chatter attracted her attention. Women sat in a room close by and gathered pig bristles of varying lengths into uniform bunches. Fu Be Be wondered if more workers were needed. To inquire would harm no one. She came out with the promise of work to begin the next morning. After three days of learning to sort properly, she would receive ten coppers a day for twelve hours of labor, until the Great Heat arrived. Bristles to be marketable had to be thick and wiry, and summer robbed them of these qualities. But she would not worry about that now; when the time came, some other means of livelihood would present itself.

At the coppersmith’s, her son was led to the farthest room and taught his first lesson in tending the fire. This he soon discovered, though no one wished to be responsible for it, was a task of the utmost importance. The heat had to be held to an even temperature, and to do this required constant attention. Fuel was fed the small furnace regularly, and if the flame failed to respond promptly, a pair of bellows flared it into life. The workmen plied from anvils to fire, and between the moments of concentration the new apprentice studied his associates.

Five journeymen there were, and he soon connected them with their names. Tsu, an old man and second in importance to Tang, was short and his face was a network of wrinkles. His speech, though Young Fu could not hear it, kept his companions in high humor. At the anvil next him worked a sharp-featured man named Lu; Young Fu thought he had never seen anyone so long of body. When Old Tsu happened to stand beside the other, the contrast was comic. But there was no underestimating the importance of this pair; that Tang counted on them was very evident, and the whole shop deferred to them in most matters. The accountant and his assistant apprentice conducted the store. On one of his errands to the furnace room, this boy, whom the workmen called by every epithet possible except his real name, Small Den, watched the new stoker critically.

“That you have been used to tilling the soil and nothing else, I can see,” he remarked with a smirk.

Young Fu, sweating in the effort to place a glowing coal in a strategic position, made no reply. He would never care much for this fellow, he felt sure. As for the others, time would tell.

At midday rice he experienced the first taste of that torment with which a new apprentice is always greeted. Without acknowledging his presence, the men began to discuss the differences between city and country people, and the first seemed to have everything in their favor.

“Countrymen are always stupid!”

“Yes, but that can be forgiven; it is their appearance I find hardest to bear. Their heads are usually the shape of a turnip, and their hands and feet are twice the size of a normal being’s.”

“I, myself, could like them, if I had no nose. As it is, the odor of manure about their garments makes me hurry in the opposite direction.”

“And such garments!”

“And their talk!”

One remark followed the other, and the men, with sly glances at the newcomer, agreed gravely to all that was said. Old Tsu’s quips, though few in number, were more to the point than the rest, and Den, aping his elders, wagged his tongue incessantly.

Young Fu burned with shame and anger. He was aware of the sting of truth in much that they said. His trousers and short coat were made differently from theirs, and the earth language he spoke did contain words these people did not use. He himself had to listen sharply to catch all that they said. As for his appearance, he thought miserably that perhaps his head was the shape of a turnip. He would look into the next puddle he came to and find out. Hungry as he was, the hot rice stuck in his throat. He wanted nothing so much as to get back to that village which only last night he had scorned. He forced the food down his throat as Den’s voice ran on; he would not let these city people see how much he suffered at their hands.

Unexpected relief came with Tang’s entrance. The master sat down and told Den to bring him food. Old Tsu squinted in mock horror, “Let me bring it, please, instead of this honorable apprentice. His talk this noon has been weighted with wisdom. I had not guessed he knew so much about this business. Is it possible that you have offered him a partnership?”

Tang joined with the others in laughter, and Young Fu forgot his own wretchedness long enough to appreciate this fun at Den’s expense. The talk turned abruptly to politics and the men were soon in a hot discussion as to what would happen to Chungking if the present Tuchun should be defeated.

After a while Lu told the new apprentice to clear away the bowls. The youth collected them and carrying them to the rear room set them down on a table while he blew the fire once more to intense heat. Then pouring hot water over a dirty, gray rag he swabbed the inside of the bowls and wiped off the chopsticks. As he placed them neatly on a shelf, a boy’s voice called out, “Give me a bowl! Is there rice still in the pot?”

Young Fu whirled about. This was someone he had not seen before. “There is rice in plenty,” he replied.

The newcomer used his sleeve to wipe perspiration from his face. “That is good, for I am starved to death. So you are the new apprentice! What is your name?”

“Fu.”

“Mine is Li.” He lifted the food to his lips.

Young Fu made no effort to continue the conversation. While the newcomer assumed no superior airs, he might if opportunity arose find delight in exercising his talents along this line. The tall Lu entered and held a sheet of metal in the heat. He poised the tongs carefully and spoke: “When Small Li has eaten, you will go with him to deliver a mei-shiang-tz of kettles. It is too heavy for him to carry alone; also, in this fashion you will become familiar with the city.”

They set out, the mei-shiang-tz suspended from a carrying pole, the flat ends of which rested on a shoulder of each boy. Young Fu soon learned the swinging stride which load-bearers used, and Li cleared a path for them through the crowded thoroughfares by yelling, “Open the way for a load of brasses!”

Li was shorter in stature than himself, but older. He seemed genial and inclined to ask questions.

“Where is your home?”

Young Fu hesitated. If he told, this fellow would mock him too. Then let him! He was not ashamed of his native place. “The village of Three Pools, near Tu-To,” he replied sharply.

“My grandfather was a farmer,” proffered his companion, “and while my father’s house has lived nowhere but Chungking, we do not, of course, consider it our home. But one is safer behind strong city walls than in open fields. There, nothing checks soldiers and bandits.”

“A true saying!”

“But,” the other continued, “my father misses the soil. And I can understand. Once last spring we went through the land gate to the village of Dsen Gia Ngai. There were fields of rice and mustard, and, on the paths, grass. It was good to look at and very clean. Some day I hope to cross the Great River to the hills. From their highest points, it is said, one can see long distances, even to the provinces of Kweichow and Yunnan, but that naturally is on a day when the sky holds no cloud.”

Young Fu warmed to this companion. They moved aside to flatten against a compound wall that two sedan chairs might pass in the narrow street. The two passengers were gentlemen of wealth and, as they recognized each other, fans were raised hurriedly before their faces in greeting. The ceremonies attendant on stopping would have required some time, and by this gesture each indicated courteously that he was in a great hurry.

The sedan chairs having passed, the boys once more swung into step. “Where do you now dwell?” asked Li.

“On Chair-Makers’ Way.”

“My family lives on Chicken Street, but I, of course, share the coppersmith’s roof. You will sleep next me, I suppose.”

“No, my mother is alone and this morning she asked the master if I might return to keep her company each night.”

“That is not the custom.” Small Li’s eyes were wide with surprise. “But then Tang’s payments to the Brass-workers’ Guild are so large that it is easier for him than for most to arrange things to his own liking.” He sighed. “I am sorry. Den is a poor companion. He wishes to forget he is still an apprentice and his ears are only for the men.”

Young Fu thanked him for this friendly advance. He was moved to frankness. “Den, I think, will not regret my absence.”

Small Li threw him a questioning glance. “So this early he vented his bitterness, did he? A member of his house, a cousin, wished to become Tang’s apprentice. The coppersmith would not consider him. It was bad fortune enough to have one in his shop like Den; he did not wish a second. I myself heard him say it. Den will not soon forgive you for filling the place.”

When they reentered the store late that afternoon, Young Fu felt braced to meet anything. One in this place was his friend, the others did not matter. As they appeared, Tang called out, “Did you enjoy yourselves playing about this afternoon? Or can it be that the customer has moved?”

Small Li bowed with a grin. Noticing his companion’s confusion, he waited until they had reached the rear, then told him, “Tang is always like that. His tongue is sharp and his wit worse than Old Tsu’s, but he does not beat his apprentices, and that is a great blessing. My cousin who works for a tanner bears scars from the bamboo’s strokes—and for no reason but that he placed a skin with a tear on a pile of perfect ones.”

That Tang had another side to his character, Young Fu discovered later. At dusk the coppersmith beckoned to him. “You need not remain to finish tonight. The ways of this city are new to you, and your mother will carry a heavy heart until you return. Do you know the direction to Chair-Makers’ Way?” The youth nodded. “Then follow it without delay.” His eyes held a kindly expression, and through the devious turns that led him home, Young Fu remembered it.

The light was still dim when he arrived at the shop next morning. Lanterns suspended from the ceiling softened the brasses to a satiny sheen, and Young Fu was held for a moment by the beauty on display. His pride increased; these objects were the work of men who had at one time started as apprentices. In time he, too, would be permitted to do something more than tend fires and run errands. Small Den’s challenge broke the spell, “Did you never see a piece of brass before, countryman?”

Young Fu’s countenance hardened. This morning was not yesterday! Coolly he faced his antagonist, “If I have not, is it your affair?”

“Ai!” exclaimed Den turning to the accountant for appreciation, “his temper is easily fired!”

Tang, suddenly appearing, took the conversation into his own control. “As is mine, when I see the dust still thick where you have left it.”

Small Den began to whisk furiously at the offending tables, and the other boy lost no time in applying himself to the fire. Twice his enemy had lost face in his presence. This would be something to remember for future consolation. Also, his first opinion that the coppersmith missed nothing was being momentarily proved. Wherever Tang was needed at the moment, there he was to be found. No smallest detail of the work escaped him, and he gave the impression of being in all three rooms at once. There was nothing he did not know about his craft. A hint from him saved a sheet of metal from an unnecessary degree of heat; a stroke of his thumbnail hastily corrected a weak line in a design. Under his suave influence, customers whom the clerk was unable to interest would invariably buy.

When Tang was in the store, Old Tsu would chuckle: “There is no better bargainer in this city than the master. Never does he follow a patron into the street; always they tug at their moneybags before they leave this place. I have seen his competitor, Wu, a half li from his shop trying to persuade a reluctant buyer to return and purchase.” And the men would acknowledge the truth of these statements.

Tang, though he demanded the utmost in effort and artistic achievement from his workmen, held their respect. He wasted none of his suave manner on them, he was blunt and his tongue could flay like a whip, but Young Fu soon recognized the fact that the coppersmith was just in all of his dealings, and no artisan in Chungking gave better quality of work for value received.

From sunrise to nightfall, the new apprentice had no free minutes except those stolen from errands. The workrooms were a bedlam of noise—hammers beating against anvils, chisels screeching their way into designs, voices calling out, tongs clattering beside the fire. And the oven, stretching out long tongues of green and gold flame, added its contribution of soot to the blackened figures of the journeymen and recalled to Young Fu’s mind pictures he had seen of the realms in which evil spirits dwell.

His thoughts of evil spirits became vividly real one afternoon as he squatted in the middle room and polished a brazier which a workman, named Dsen, had just finished. Through the doorway he watched coolies lower an open sedan chair from which a tall, strangely dressed person stepped out. The apparition sauntered into the store and Young Fu stopped his work and gazed open-mouthed. It was a foreigner. In the weeks of living in Chungking, he had not yet been close to one. Occasionally he saw them at a distance, but they were usually so well hidden by the inquisitive crowds that always accompanied their appearance, that he still had no idea what they were like. Tang took immediate charge of the stranger, and the clerk and Den rushed about displaying goods.

Young Fu turned to the journeyman beside him. “Is that a man?”

Dsen laughed. “Truly you are from the country. Have you never seen a foreigner before?”

“Not so close. And if it is a man, even you will agree that he wears the jacket and loose trousers of a woman.”

“All of their men dress in this fashion, and their women clothe their bodies in men’s skirts. Everything they do is the opposite of accepted custom. The women all have feet as large as coolies’, and they go about, even the young ones, in open chairs that expose their faces to the gaze of the world. The shoes they wear have thin pegs under the heels, to make them taller, I suppose, though High Heaven knows they are ungainly enough by nature. And their hair flies loosely about their faces and they laugh and talk as freely as a man. But they are as all other barbarians: they have no polite rules of conduct, and we of the Middle Kingdom can feel pity.”

The boy listened attentively, but his eyes never left the figure in the store. The foreigner moved restlessly about the room, pointing out objects with a long stick and refusing to sit down and drink tea, which was what any Chinese gentleman would have done in the same circumstances.

“I like not his face,” Young Fu told the journeyman. “The skin is white with bristles and resembles a poorly plucked fowl, and his nose is twice the size it should be.”

Dsen went on with his work. “I felt the same about the first one I saw. When he opened his mouth to smile, he was so ugly I thought it would kill me. But I am used to them now, and while I see no good in them, I do not believe with the women that they cause bad fortune. Indeed, they are too stupid for any sensible man to fear. With money they are fools, paying coolies for every service twice what they ought to receive. But they are rich, and silver means nothing to them. They have meat every meal, it is said, and the choicest vegetables and fruit. Even the poorest among them lives like a Mandarin.”

The foreigner, who showed no particular interest in the objects before him, was attempting to explain his dissatisfaction to Tang. Young Fu strained to hear, but nothing reached him above the usual uproar of the room.

“What language does he speak?” he asked Dsen.

“English, and some few words of Chinese, I suppose.”

“Does Tang understand English?”

“No, but what the fellow cannot say in Chinese, the coppersmith will guess.”

Tang came swiftly toward them. “With such industry in an apprentice, my fortune is made already,” he remarked wryly in passing.

Old Tsu called out, “Does nothing suit your rich customer?”

“Nothing in the store. He wishes a finer piece to send as a gift to his friend in America. He shall see the best that we have.” The master moved to a large chest, pulled a key from his belt, inserted it in the triangular hanging lock, and lifted the lid.

Young Fu’s hands moved rhythmically over the surface of the brazier, but stolen glances told him everything. He had noticed that chest many times but he had paid it little attention. That shopkeepers did not show their finest stock in the open store was news to him.

Tang beckoned. “Wipe your greasy hands and carry these to Den.”

At the partition to the outer room, the youth halted. Fu Be Be’s warnings about foreigners returned to him in full force. Suppose evil should fall on him as a result of being close to this creature. His skin prickled; then he moved forward. Evil was certain to follow if he made Tang angry by not obeying orders, and the unknown seemed the lesser of the two. He gave the articles carefully to Small Den. On his third return to the inner room, a voice called after him, “Tell your master I wish to hurry.”

Startled, Young Fu glanced over his shoulder. That had been the foreigner speaking. He could not believe his own ears. He himself knew no English, so the man must have used Chinese words. In a daze he repeated the message to Tang.

“Always these foreigners must hurry,” remarked the coppersmith. “They waste good time studying their watches. They hasten to earn money and hasten to spend it. Why then trouble to gain it? Careful spending increases riches.”

Old Tsu was now helping Tang to choose from the hidden treasures. “His hurry will be to your advantage,” he said. “He will not linger over the bargaining.”

Carrying a tray and a jar, Tang and the apprentice strode toward the customer. In a moment the latter had selected the tray and asked its price. Young Fu was amazed at the stupidity of such a course. Even a child knew better than to let a merchant guess which purchase pleased him most. One pretended interest in everything else and asked the price only after the storekeeper had, himself, centered attention on the article desired. Tang mentioned a sum at which Young Fu caught his breath. The foreigner looked up quizzically, then offered half the amount. Tang raised it to three fourths of the original and the other man met this compromise with one of two thirds. He accompanied the last figure with action. His hand drew from a slit in the side of his trousers—a queer place, indeed, to keep money!—several silver dollars. They were accepted. Small Den wrapped the gleaming tray in tissue paper and carried it to the chair. With a nod, the foreigner was gone.

That night on Chair-Makers’ Way, Young Fu told his mother, “Today a foreign man bought a tray in our store.”

“He did not see you, I hope!”

“He did. Tang told me to carry brasses into his presence. Also, he spoke to me.” At his mother’s exclamation of fright, he reassured her, “Do not fear! He was ugly, but harmless.”

“When did you acquire so much wisdom? Already you copy these city people. You are like a man who sits at the bottom of a well and boasts about his knowledge of the world. No one now is wise save those within the walls of the brass shop! But in the country we still know a few things, and one is that foreign barbarians should be avoided.”

“But do you wish me to disobey Tang’s orders?”

No reply came, and rolling in his pu-gai, her son fell asleep.