Inky waits outside the door to walk me to the front gate. Instead of going back along the quiet alleyways to the Garden of Fragrant Delights, my bearers carry me on roads crowded with carts, wagons, horses, mules, and camels to the center of Wuxi. As we cross the main square, I carefully lift the curtain and see four convicted criminals sitting in a row with their wrists and ankles immobilized in a wooden structure. I glimpse another man walking through the square with a cangue around his neck. It is also made of wood, but it spreads out wide enough that he can’t possibly feed himself and is so heavy that he struggles to remain upright. I pull the curtain shut.
The palanquin hits the ground with a hard bump. I pay my bearers for the labor they provide for me and for their silence, and so far they’ve kept my visits to Meiling a secret. I hold my sleeve over my face—to avoid smells and especially to avoid detection—as I hurry the few steps from the palanquin into Grace Tranquility Teas. The shop is even better stocked than the last time I was here. The wall to the left has tea cakes piled high. The most expensive tea cakes are propped on a shelf, each on its own display stand, facing out, so customers will be attracted to the woodblock images on the rice-paper wrappings. Kailoo, Meiling’s husband, stands behind the counter, waiting on a customer. I nod to him and then go up the back steps to the second-floor apartment. I enter the main room, and there sits my friend, bent over a basin, washing clothes.
“Meiling.”
She turns to me, wiping her forehead with her wrist. “I wasn’t sure what time you’d come. I’d almost given up hope.”
“Grandmother had many cases to discuss today.”
“Sit.” Meiling dips her head in the way she has since she was a child. “Have you eaten? Would you like tea?”
She ignores my courteous denials that I’m neither hungry nor thirsty and brings out a plate of snacks and sets water on to heat. She wears a tunic that hangs midthigh, with woven frogs that fasten the cloth at her neck, across her bosom, and under her arm. Her trousers come to just below her knees, exposing her calves, which are brown and strong. A scarf covers her hair and is tied at the back of her neck. All are made from common cotton dyed a deep indigo blue. The clothes are clean, without a single frayed thread. She is dressed like a working woman but still manages to look elegant. A melancholic aspect to her features makes her beauty even more limpid and pure. I suspect that since I last saw her, she’s experienced her moon water again. Another month has gone by without the planting of a baby.
We sit together and enjoy the food and tea she’s prepared. The hubbub from outside can be heard through the open window.
“This tea is delicious,” I say after taking a taste.
“Everyone likes jasmine tea,” she responds, “but most of it is made from spraying tea leaves with jasmine oil. My husband has procured real jasmine tea.” She takes a sip, holds the liquid in her mouth to enjoy the flavor, and then swallows in such a delicate way that I can practically see the tea glide down her throat. “The farmer lays out tea leaves, then puts thousands upon thousands of unopened jasmine blossoms on top,” she goes on, doing a good job of selling her husband’s merchandise. “By morning, the blossoms have opened, sending their scent—their essence—into the leaves. Then the farmer and his family spend the next two days picking every blossom off the tea.”
“It sounds like hard work. Time consuming, anyway.”
“Ha! That’s only the beginning! The farmer repeats this process another nine times! The tea absorbs the aroma of jasmine blooms for thirty days!”
“No wonder it tastes like this.”
She leans forward. “I assume you would like some to take to your mother-in-law.”
Naturally the tea is expensive, but I’m happy to pay the price.
Meiling thanks me, adding, “That you share our tea with your household has given an endorsement of quality to our shop. Kailoo and I are forever grateful.”
“I’m the one who’s grateful to you. Your teas keep my mother-in-law from throwing me into the street.”
We laugh at my joke, but it’s true my tea purchases of Iron Goddess of Mercy, wild white peony, Dragon Well, and the Pu’er in the dried mandarin have pleased my mother-in-law over the years. Kailoo has capitalized on my patronage and that of other inhabitants of the Garden of Fragrant Delights. The reputation of Grace Tranquility Teas has grown, wealthy customers have come, and the business has expanded. Kailoo has become a well-to-do merchant, which has, among other things, allowed him to hire a maid for his wife.
“May I inquire after your mother?” I ask. “I haven’t seen her in many months.”
“Babies come when they come,” my friend answers. “Important families no longer hire her, but poor women still need help.”
Midwife Shi has not been able to recapture her reputation after all these years. It seems shameful to me, but I say, “I’m happy your standing continues to grow.”
“My mother trained me well,” she responds. “I know what I’m doing. Women trust me. No one is as capable as I am, I can assure you.”
“Doctor Wong—”
“Has been good to me. If it weren’t for him, I don’t know what my mother and I would have done.” Her jaw tightens under her flawless skin. “My husband is doing well, but if we want to keep improving our lives, all three of us need to work.” She leaves unspoken unlike you. “I now attend to births in all the best families in Wuxi—”
“That’s—” I try to interrupt to show my sense of joy for her, but her need to prove something pushes her on.
“Since I last saw you,” she talks over me, “I delivered Magistrate Fu’s son. You can’t get much higher than that.”
“That’s wonderful! And I’m happy to see you reap the rewards of being a midwife with a good reputation. Grandmother and I are proud of you.”
“I’ve received gifts of catties of meat, sacks of rice, and crates of coal.” She takes a breath before continuing. “Furniture! Porcelain vases! Bamboo screens!”
Inside, I feel myself retreating. Her enthusiasm seems so mercantile, but then she and her husband have always been working people. The consequences of their labors can be seen in the shop, with its improved merchandise, and in this two-room apartment, where, over the years, I’ve noticed a nice kang purchased and set under the window for Meiling and her husband to sleep on, and a smaller kang in the other room for Midwife Shi.
“If I’m lucky,” she comments, “one day a grateful family might honor me with a lavish funeral.”
“That is the highest reward anyone can receive,” I have to admit.
“Kailoo says that soon we’ll be able to buy our own tea farm, expand the business, and…” She grins. “I’ve been eager to tell you that we’re going to build a single-courtyard house.”
“Oh, Meiling, this pleases me greatly!”
“None of this would have happened if not for Doctor Wong. A midwife needs male doctors if she’s to fill the rice bowl.”
That seems an exaggeration. But maybe it isn’t. I know of only two women doctors—Grandmother and me. Grandmother is limited to caring for the female inhabitants in the Mansion of Golden Light, and Lady Kuo is in charge of employing the physician in the Garden of Fragrant Delights. She likes Doctor Wong, and he uses Meiling.
“When I’m mistress of the Yang household,” I say, “you and I will bring many babies into the world.”
“I look forward to that.” She reaches for a salted plum. “Have you seen Doctor Wong’s book?”
“Hmmm…” This is something I don’t want to talk about. Doctor Wong has published a book of his cases. It features standard remedies for common illnesses and recipes for “special formulas” to make perfumes, eliminate wrinkles, and glisten hair. But the most annoying, it seems to me, is that he chronicled solely the cases of the wealthy or illustrious. (Yes, that means he included cases from the Yang family.) Grandmother explained it this way: “Writing a book of this sort is a well-known shortcut to being named a ming yi—a famous doctor. The arrogance of it!”
Seeing my hesitancy, Meiling sighs. “Don’t forget, it’s thanks to Doctor Wong that you and I see more of each other when I accompany him to your home.”
That’s true. As the official doctor for the Yang family, he comes to the Garden of Fragrant Delights each month to offer his services first to the men and boys. Then he visits the inner chambers to check on the women, including me. Meiling and I don’t get to spend much time together during these sessions, but we’re able to look into each other’s eyes while she relays Doctor Wong’s inquiries to me and my answers to him.
“I’m grateful for anything that allows us to be together, however fleeting,” I say.
But my words of conciliation are not enough for Meiling. “I don’t understand why you don’t have more respect for Doctor Wong. He and I have been in difficult situations, and they don’t always end with a good result, but I don’t know another doctor in the city who is as good at telling a husband that his wife has left this world. And did you see? He even included me in some of the cases he wrote about in his book. By name!”
I feel like she’s run through the inside of my body with a rasp. Doctor Wong wouldn’t have to tell a husband that his wife had died if he did a better job. More troubling, is Meiling becoming a person desiring the same kind of fame Doctor Wong is seeking?