my arms.
“Stop that!” I cried, fearful that he meant me serious harm, perhaps because he wanted to vent on me his anger at his father. “Help! Help!” I screamed.
A loud voice commanded, “Stop!”
We both froze, then turned to see Kuan standing in the doorway. He spoke disapprovingly in Chinese to his son. T’ing-nan released me and glared at Kuan.
“Come with me, Miss Bronte,” said Kuan.
As he ushered me up the stairs, into his office, I felt as though I’d been plucked from a frying pan and cast into fire. He seated me in the chair I’d occupied yesterday, and himself at his helm behind the desk.
“I apologize for the crude behavior of my son,” Kuan said; yet he did not appear sorry. Rather, he seemed gratified, as if at an opportunity that T’ing-nan had furnished him. “But then he is not the first unruly young man you have ever had the misfortune to know.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I am referring to your brother.”
My defenses reared inside me as they always did upon mention of Branwell. “Branwell is nothing like your son.”
“I beg to disagree,” Kuan said, calmly folding his hands. “Your brother is, according to the people of your village, a constant trial to his family, as my son is to me.”
“Branwell would never attack a woman,” I protested.
Kuan gave me a pitying smile. “Would you like to hear what my spies have learned from your village folk?”
I didn’t want to learn more than I already knew about my brother’s misdeeds, and particularly not from Kuan. Goaded and indignant, I said, “What I would like is that you should honor your promise to let me inquire about you.” If I couldn’t yet deliver him into Mr. Slade’s hands, at least I might learn what he was and what were his intentions.
Again he seemed pleased, rather than annoyed, by my forwardness; perhaps he welcomed an audience. Contemplation narrowed his gaze. “Perhaps the time has come for me to answer the question you asked me last night: Why did I leave China?” His eyes took on that distant, musing look of recollection. “Why indeed, when Canton had everything to offer an ambitious civil servant such as I was.”
Once more, his mellifluous voice and the mention of foreign locales began weaving a spell around me. On the sea outside the window, a ship seemed a Chinese junk floating on eastern waters. I fell into the same languorous yet attentive state as yesterday.
“Wealth flowed into Canton from distant lands,” Kuan said. “Foreign merchants paid duties to the emperor and fees for lodging. Chinese merchants paid taxes and tributes. Much of this money found its way into the hands of officials like myself, the secretary to the governor. And the most profitable commerce was the trade in opium.”
I flinched at his mention of the drug that had ruined my brother and caused my family such woe. Kuan’s spies must have discovered Branwell’s habit. It seemed no coincidence that Kuan would speak of Branwell and opium in the same conversation.
“Opium is the fruit of the poppy and a substance of miraculous powers,” Kuan said. “When ingested-or smoked in a pipe, as is done in China-it eases pain and induces a feeling of tranquillity and euphoria. Worries fade; the senses grow keener. The world seems delightful.”
Often had I wondered why Branwell took opium, to his own detriment. Now I began to comprehend.
“Hence, the use of opium is widespread in Canton,” said Kuan. “The servants in my house indulged. So did clerks and officials in the governor’s service. But opium is not a pure boon to mankind. It induces a disinclination to do anything but lie dreaming amidst clouds of smoke. A habitual user abandons his duties, ceases to eat, and grows weak. Even should he wish to reverse his decline, he finds the habit most difficult to break. Cessation causes stomach cramps, pains, nightmares, and extreme nervous agitation.”
How well I knew, from observing Branwell.
“The poor wretch will do anything rather than give up his opium,” Kuan continued. “When he has spent all his funds on the drug, he will steal. Money has vanished from the government treasury, stolen by officials. Thieves roam the city. And the problems extend far beyond Canton. Across the kingdom, merchants, peasants, soldiers, priests, and the finest young men and ladies of society have taken up the habit. So have the emperor’s bodyguards and court eunuchs. It is estimated that China harbors some twelve million opium smokers.”
I was amazed to hear that what I’d thought a private problem was such a vast calamity in the faraway Orient.
“And the scourge continues,” Kuan said. “Every autumn, the ships arrive in Canton, laden with thousands of chests of opium from British poppy plantations in India. British merchants in the foreign settlements strike deals with Chinese opium brokers. Chinese silver pours into foreign hands, while the opium is carried inland along creeks and rivers, like poison flowing through the kingdom’s blood.”
Kuan suddenly addressed me: “What did you do when your brother fell under the evil spell of opium?”
Startled into frankness, I said, “I tried to stop him using it.” Indeed, I’d searched the house for bottles of laudanum, thrown them away, and remonstrated with Branwell.
“That is exactly what we in China attempted with our many opium smokers,” Kuan said. “Imperial edicts were issued, outlawing opium use and trade. Under orders to stem the scourge, I led raids on opium dens, arrested dealers. I seized Chinese opium boats and confiscated the cargo. Smokers were punished by beheading. Dealers and opium den operators were strangled. By discharging my duty, I made myself unpopular with the users whose opium I made scarce, the officials who profited by the trade, and the dealers whose property I destroyed.” Kuan’s expression turned dark with memory. “There was a price on my head.”
His crusade to save his people had earned him threats. I had experienced the same from Branwell by trying to save him. I began to see another piece of his intention in telling me his story: Kuan meant to forge our common experience into a bond between us-and in spite of my awareness, he was succeeding.
“But the profits from the opium trade were so great,” Kuan said, “that new dealers replaced those executed. The only solution was to attack the source of the opium: the British merchants. They who brought their foreign mud to poison our people must be banished from China.”
The hatred I saw in his eyes when he spoke of the British merchants surprised me. I had never thought to hate the people who supplied opium to Branwell; I had blamed him alone for his condition. Now I felt my perspective revolving, like a globe turning in Kuan’s hand to reveal new continents.
“The importation of opium was banned,” Kuan went on. “British ships were searched, and their opium cargo seized. But corrupt officials pocketed bribes from British merchants and turned a blind eye to the trade. Although opium ships were barred from Chinese waters, they still came, for we lacked a navy strong enough to repel them. Chinese brigands formed secret societies to smuggle opium from the ships into China. Nonetheless, during the winter of 1838, we executed more than two thousand opium smugglers.”
Kuan sat motionless while he spoke, yet radiated the fire of a zealot championing his cause. I watched him like a disciple mesmerized by a prophet.
“A new imperial commissioner arrived from Peking the next spring. Under his orders, I investigated civil servants and army officers suspected of collusion in the opium trade. By summer, I had caused the downfall of some sixteen hundred people. The commissioner ordered the British merchants to surrender all their opium and pledge to refrain from the trade forever. But they refused. The commissioner then halted all trade and imprisoned them inside their settlement. Finally, after many days under armed guard, the British surrendered their twenty thousand chests of opium, which we dumped into the ocean.
“But our triumph was brief. The British were outraged by our treatment of them, and their financial loss. They demanded reparations. They concentrated fifty battleships and several thousand troops at Hong Kong. There, the first shots of the war over opium were fired. The British forces began arriving in Canton the following year, in June 1840.”
An image of battleships in full sail, heavy with guns and troops, advancing on a harbor, filled my mind. I saw the scene in more vivid detail than Kuan depicted in words. Was this my vision, or was his memory transmitted to me by some magical power?
“We were aghast at the size and strength of the fleet,” Kuan said. “When it began to bombard our fortresses, we were horrified that our actions had provoked such retaliation.”
