In the years that followed the birth of his son and daughter, Emanuel fell into a welcome routine. Awakened early in his own rooms by the delicate dinging of the clock on the mantel opposite his bed—a new device given him by the Board at the bank for services rendered—he made his ablutions in the adjoining bathing room. With hair still damp, he smoked his first cheroot standing on the veranda and counting the ships in the harbour, tallying the traffic and its economic significance. After a good breakfast, he rode on his camel to his offices on Lyndhurst Terrace at the bottom of the hill. Preceding his arrival, clerks, supplicants, lawyers, and colleagues packed the large, open front room. They bowed as he passed them on his way to his spacious private offices, where he conducted business by acquiring as much as he could at the lowest possible price. At five by his watch, he closed the portfolio on his desk and, bobbing his head in acknowledgment to his staff, entered the street. There an office boy waited with one hand on the camel’s halter and the other cupped over his nose and mouth against the animal’s foul breath. Emanuel mounted the beast, flicked a coin to the boy, and loped up Garden Road to Kingsclere. There he delighted in spending a half hour first with David in the western wing and then with Leah Felicie in the eastern. He took great care in giving both his children equal amounts of time.
Social engagements kept him busy most evenings he was in town (he still made frequent trips to his client warlord in China), and depending on the occasion, either Semah or Pearl would accompany him. He took pains to ensure that each attended the same number of annual events and that these occurrences were complementary in stature. Domestic peace, it seemed, had arrived at last. But peace came dropping slow…
Emanuel enjoyed dusk. He liked the pall of calm that fell over the house. In the stillness, linnets winged and cicadas rattled. He looked up when he heard the knock on his door. Without waiting for an invitation, Pearl entered. He put the legal documents he was reading beside the others on his desk, adjusted his focus, and chuckled.
“My presence amuses you?” she asked.
“The black-and-white telegraph works fast,” he said, referring to the gossiping amahs who wore black pants and white tunics.
“It’s true, then?”
“Yes.”
She was there because Semah had commissioned a family portrait from Ming Qua, an acolyte of the great Lam Qua from Macau, who was a student of the English painter, the late George Chinnery. It would feature herself, her husband, and their five-year-old son David, and would be painted in the style of the portraits she had seen in the Illustrated London News of Queen Victoria’s family. When completed, the painting would hang in the foyer of Kingsclere and be the first thing visitors would see upon entering the mansion.
Emanuel took off his reading glasses, set his elbows on the desk, and leaned in.
“If there is to be a family portrait,” Pearl said, controlling her tone, “then I want one as well.” Her statement hung in mid-air. Her eyebrows were raised to the maximum height, her lips tightened.
“And?”
“And it will be a photograph, not a painting!” She proposed Wan Chik-hing and his brother Wan Leong-hoi, neither of whom Emanuel had ever heard of. “They create the sweetest pictures mounted on card stock about the size of a sheet of writing paper. These photographs can be reproduced and given to everyone who comes to the house. They will have a permanent record of their visit.”
“And obviously, these photographs would feature Leah Felicie, you, and me?”
“Obviously. You think about it,” she said, closing the door behind her.
He reached for a cheroot, lit it, and walked onto the veranda. A pair of crows watched him expectantly. He breathed out a plume of smoke. Linnets flitted. The cicadas made an anxious din as the sun lost its heat.
As with social engagements, he thought, there would have to be two sittings on two separate occasions to ensure equanimity. He felt foolish. Shuttling back and forth between the eastern and western wings of the house, devoting his days to a game of diplomatic chess, suddenly felt idiotic. Good grief, not a week had passed when he didn’t have to arbitrate some domestic matter. No! Enough is enough!
A fog of smoke had collected around his head. He flicked the stogie at the crows. The birds flew off in anticipation of another missile.
That’s right! he thought. There will be no more shuttlecocking. The women will learn to settle disputes face to face—like a family!
The following day he summoned his wives to his study.
Emanuel stood in front of the fireplace and glanced from one to the other, seated on settees on either side of him. “If there is to be a family portrait, then it will be of the entire family,” he announced.
Semah’s jaw muscles clenched. Pearl’s eyes narrowed.
“Yes, yes, my dear, I know this, this…” What was the word she had used? “…Sitting!” he shouted, as though it was something distasteful done in private followed by a thorough washing of hands. “This sitting was your idea, Semah, but I’ve given it a lot of thought…we shall all be in the picture. You and David will be on one side, Pearl and Leah Felicie on the other. I shall give you one hour of my time a month from tomorrow.”
Emanuel paused.
Semah twirled her ring as though she were screwing on the lid of a tiny jar.
Pearl remained still as a rock, one hand folded over the other.
“You may each decorate your sides however you wish.”
He paused again.
The air turned as thick as treacle. He saw Semah’s chest rise and lower like a piston. Pearl’s lips disappeared. Filled to bursting, the women spoke simultaneously.
“It is impossible for painters to work under such conditions!” “This is insulting to my side of the family!” Outrage flew like a barrage of flaming arrows shot from a platoon of archers. But his decision, like a gigantic shield, repelled whatever projectiles, darts, barbs, shafts, and shots they had in their arsenals. Eventually the incendiary debate flamed out.
Winded, the women drew breath. Emanuel seized the moment.
“See here,” he said, looking from one to the other, “this ‘sitting’ is not just for you. I see it as an opportunity for me as well. I want the world to know that, unlike so many of my peers with plural spouses, I am comfortable with our domestic arrangement. No! I am proud of it.”
One month later, in late September, preparations began at dawn. Servants harvested flowers from the garden, arranged them in vases, and placed them behind the two padded benches that flanked a large wingback chair in the foyer. Playthings appeared: stuffed animals, a family of wooden ducks tied with string, rattles, and small leather balls were scattered on the floor. It looked as though a toy shop had exploded.
Sunlight from the sky-high casement windows streamed onto gleaming marble floors and the banister was festooned in leafy vines. A crowd of workers arrived to convert the foyer into a photographer’s studio and an atelier.
Emanuel could hear the commotion from inside his sanctum sanctorum. Occasionally, he peered through the slit between the double doors and scanned the goings on. He harrumphed, took a sip from his brandy snifter, and looked at his watch for the thousandth time.
The sitting had been delayed. Not because Leah Felicie (frightened by the crowd of noisy people) would not stop wailing and not because David refused to take his thumb out of his mouth, but because Semah and Pearl discovered they were wearing the same colours—albeit one was in Western clothes and the other in a traditional Chinese gown. An hour’s delay was called for, and Emanuel had escaped to his study for a drink.
He put his watch back into his waistcoat pocket. The hiatus was almost over. He spied photographers and painters discussing the angle of the light reflected off long mirrors held by their assistants, the angle of the benches, the arrangement of toys, and dozens of other picayune matters that were beyond his ken. It was enough to make a man swear like a Christian. He drummed his fingers, regretting his decision to sit for a family portrait. For heaven’s sake, there were other fish to fry.
Li and Aleandro’s commitment to the opium trade—the goose that laid golden eggs—had waned.
“No, no, no,” Li had said, wagging his finger in Emanuel’s face. “It is the golden egg that will kill the goose!” His finger punched the air. “There is a curse on the heads of opium traders. They will suffer misery. Their offspring will die before their eyes!”
The finger was long, the knuckles like the nodes of a bamboo stick. It reminded Emanuel of the switch used by his headmaster when he was a boy. Had it been the finger of anyone else but his father-in-law, he would have reached up and snapped it off.
“Utter nonsense!” Emanuel countered.
“You have children. I have a granddaughter. Think about it. We’ll talk again.”
He heard a knock on the door. They were ready for him in the foyer. Leaving his brandy glass on the silver tray, he tugged at the hem of his waistcoat and strode out the doors of his study. His daughter bawled relentlessly above the chatter of servants, artists, and photographers. They all made way for the large man who headed for the wingback.
Four artists in green smocks stood in front of their canvases mounted on easels placed a few feet apart. Because this was to be a one-time sitting, Ming Qua had averred that multiple artists were required: four to do studies of colour and shape and at least a dozen to capture details of expression, light, and composition. By that same precaution, the brothers Wan mounted three cameras on tripods to shoot as many slides as could be fit into the hour. Camera operators in white smocks fussed with the lenses. Photographic assistants readied their flashguns. Where were Semah and Pearl?
Semah appeared dressed in a pale-yellow off-the-shoulder dress. He had never seen her eyes and dark skin look so radiant. She sat to his left. Pearl took her seat on the padded bench to his right. His eyes widened. Her navy-blue gown with gold trim set off her shiny black hair tied in a bun and held in place with a jewelled comb. Her face and hands looked like they were made of ivory. Emanuel’s chest puffed. My, but they looked beautiful, if a little stern faced.
Next, the children were brought in by their amahs. David sucked his thumb, his eyes full of wonder at all the big people in the room. Terrified by the noise and the strangers, Leah Felicie remained inconsolable in Gum-ghee’s arms. Ming and the brothers Wan led little David to stand beside Semah and instructed Gum-ghee to place Leah Felicie on Pearl’s lap, thinking that that would placate the child. When it didn’t, they waved a rattle in her face, bounced a ball, and made funny faces. Those attempts only exacerbated the girl’s fear. She let out squeal after piercing squeal.
“Oh for heaven’s sake!” Emanuel exclaimed, hanging his head. He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. Dealing with lawsuits, cynical Jews, and weak-kneed business partners were strolls in the park compared to this. Heat rose from his chest and flooded his cheeks. Family portrait be damned. He felt an overwhelming urge to stand and leave.
He released his fingers, opened his eyes, and looked at his daughter.
Leah Felicie had stopped crying. She flashed a beautiful smile and pointed. Emanuel followed the line of her tiny finger to the object of her delight: David. David took his thumb out of his mouth, pointed it at Leah Felicie, and smiled back at her.