The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(15)
As she looked down at her lotus shoes, she remembered her quiet jealousy of beggar women with unbound feet on the streets of her village. They were the lowest of peasants, spending their days selling bundles of green kindling, but at least they could go where they wanted without hobbling like toothless old men.
Meanwhile, Afong was rarely allowed out in public.
“If the people out there on the avenues want to gawk at you, my little squab,” Mrs. Hannington had once snorted as she rolled down the curtains of the carriage they were riding in, “they can buy a bloody ticket just like everyone else. Trust me, as a woman, you should never give away anything for free that men will gladly pay for.”
Afong understood that her presence fascinated Americans, especially wealthy men. She was also aware that her name had appeared in scores of newspapers after President Andrew Jackson had asked to meet her when she arrived in Washington, DC, for a performance. She was impressed at how the zung tung had opened his emperor’s home to the common people. There was even a 1,400-pound block of cheese in the front entrance hall. Afong found the taste, smell, and texture utterly disgusting, but her handlers at the time, Francis and Nathaniel Carnes, cousins who originally purchased her a year earlier along with a shipload of Chinese curiosities, seemed delighted and laughed heartily as they ate.
Then she and the cousins were ushered in to see the president. Afong had been worried about his well-being, after all, since she was told that someone tried to assassinate him while attending a funeral the week before. But as she timidly approached the man on her bound feet, he appeared to be a stout figure of good health. Though perhaps it was not really him, as he seemed lacking in grandeur, wearing a dark suit like most American men, and sat in a common chair, not a throne.
Afong had listened as Nathaniel Carnes did his best to translate their brief encounter. “I wish you the power to persuade your countrywomen to abandon the custom of cramping your feet,” the president said, believing she was an ambassador or emissary of some kind. “It is in total opposition to nature’s wiser regulations.”
Afong listened to his words, nodding. She thought about the women in America. They had enormous, hideous feet. But they could also be outspoken, and in this upside-down world, the poorer they were, the louder they seemed. While she was limited in where she could travel, American women came and went as they pleased. There were even times when Afong thought she might be allowed that kind of freedom, but then the cousins lost everything in the Great Fire of New York and she lost hope once again.
Afong’s stomach grumbled as she waited backstage, wondering what might be taking so long. The Hanningtons were cunning promoters and the evening had gone well. Perhaps they were booking a second night, or a matinee, or off celebrating. Maybe they forgot her altogether. Afong smiled at the wishful thought. She envisioned flying away from the theater like a bird from a cage, singing. Soaring back over the ocean through a cloudless sky. Finally going home.
Her smile faded when she heard a sputtering, popping sound from above as gaslights lit up the backstage gloom. The lamps were so bright that she had to squint and shade her eyes to see the man who was stepping through the curtains.
Her heart sped up as she thought about the handsome Chinese man in the golden waistcoat and what he might be able to share: news of home, the health of her ah-ma and sisters, if and when she might be able to return.
But another man stepped through. And another.
As her eyes adjusted to the light, Afong counted eight men, each in fine suits. Some in long coats, and two of them carried leather satchels. They all stared at her, intrigued and eager. Some stroked their beards as they whispered to one another.
“There she is, gentlemen, just as I told you,” Mr. Hannington said as he stepped through and closed the curtain behind him. He turned and spoke to Afong. “We have some special visitors tonight. They would like an encore performance, so to speak.”
Afong stepped back and bumped into someone.
“Don’t be a prude, girl. These men are all doctors,” Mrs. Hannington said from behind. “The finest in New England. And they all paid to see you.”
Afong felt trapped, her heart now racing for other reasons entirely.
“May we?” a doctor asked Mr. Hannington, who merely nodded.
Mrs. Hannington took Afong’s hand and led her back up onto the riser, where a stool had been placed. She sat as the doctor donned a pair of spectacles and opened his satchel to retrieve a host of brass instruments that he spread out on a folding tray. The fiery glow of the gaslights reflected on the surface of scalpels, probes, and calipers.
“We’ll have to cut through her bandages,” another doctor said as the men surrounded her. “But first she’ll have to remove her queer footwear. And this costume altogether, if we’re to do a proper physical examination.”
Afong shook her head frantically, helplessly.
No man had ever seen her bare feet. Not even her own father. She had always been told that someday, if she were worthy, that privilege would belong to her husband.
She flinched as the men began to unbutton her shoes.
4 Dorothy
(2045)
Dorothy removed Annabel’s shoes and raincoat and gently wrapped her in a comforter that smelled flowery, like fresh linen. She held her daughter in the darkness, gently rocking, whispering, “It’s just the wind, Baby-bel. We’re safe. Nothing can hurt you. Ah-ma’s right here.” Even as she said those words Dorothy knew she was merely firing blunt arrows into the storm, hopeful platitudes from a mother’s quiver of comforting phrases. She wished she could be certain. She wished she could spirit the two of them far away, someplace warm, sunny, and dry, someplace where the frailty of modern society wasn’t put to the test each year by one-hundred-mile-per-hour winds.