City of God: A Novel of Passion and Wonder in Old New York - Hardcover

Mei-hua lay curled next to him in the glow that followed love, her back against his chest, his arm around her waist, their breathing synchronized. Everything was perfect. Or so it seemed to Samuel Devrey.

After a time she moved just enough so one foot caressed his calf. The silken wrappings of her golden lily, the foot that had been first bound when she was three -- excruciating pain inflicted and endured for him, indeed at his behest -- were exquisitely erotic. Sam felt the sap rise in him yet again but he resisted. "There isn't time." He breathed the words into the jasmine scent of her hair.

His Mandarin could be understood, but it had been learned too late to be perfect. His tones were never exactly right. He spoke always the speech of the yang gwei zih, the foreign devil. Mei-hua would die a slow death before she would correct him. "My lord not need do much. Quick and easy. See."

She arched profoundly, one of those supple adjustments of her body that always astonished him, and her hips realigned so that he could take her effortlessly, in an act of possession as natural and undemanding as a whisper. It would have been against nature to refuse a generosity offered with such elegance. He moved the hand that had stroked her belly so it gripped her thigh, pressing her more closely to him. Both golden lilies were touching him now, wrapped around his legs. She was a silken splendid butterfly, tiny but exquisite, cocooned in his bulk. Her sigh of pleasure -- more a vibration than a sound -- thrilled him as if it were again the first time, three years earlier, when she was thirteen.

"You are astonishing," he said when he could speak.

She gently pulled away, then settled back against his body and pulled his hand back to her belly where it had been before. "What do you feel, lord?"

"Samuel," he corrected. "If I have to tell you again, I will spank you." Her smile was hidden from him, but he knew it was there. "For real this time." He attempted to sound severe. "You won't be able to sit for a week."

"I am sure I will deserve it. You are right in all things, lo -- Samuel. But you cannot spank me now."

"Why not?"

"It maybe..." He heard the hesitation though she hurried to cover it. "Maybe disturb harmony. Your tai-tai never lose harmony. Never."

Repetition was the way the Chinese conveyed emphasis. Tai-tai meant not simply wife but senior wife, she to whom all other wives -- if such there might be -- owed allegiance. Devrey knew both things, but he seldom remembered to repeat a word he meant to strengthen. As for the rest, it wasn't practical.

He had married Mei-hua in the room beyond this one, in a ceremony he remembered as a bewildering shimmer of gongs and incense. Afterward she had been brought to this bed on its raised red satin platform hung about with quilted red velvet to perform her first duty as his wife, to sit absolutely still for hours and demonstrate her inner harmony. Meanwhile Devrey had been taken downstairs to eat and drink, and only occasionally remind himself that if he stepped out the door he would be not in this exotic Chinese world but on Cherry Street in New York, a few steps from the busy waterfront. Four hours later, when he had returned to the bedroom to claim what was his, Meihua was exactly as he'd left her. Except for her smile of joyous welcome.

"You could never be disharmonious," he said now.

His voice was steady, the words without any hint of anger or disapproval, but she could feel his fury in the heat of his skin and the coldness of his breath. "I try never displease you, lord." Not true. She had tried very hard. For many months now, as soon as he left her after lovemaking, she lay for long, boring hours with her feet above her head so his seed would find the son-making place deep inside. She had eaten only son-making food, though it was not always her favorite. Only the gods knew how hard she tried. And Ah Chee.

Mei-hua could not see the bedroom door from her present position, but she knew beyond doubt that her servant was near, probably listening. "I do nothing to displease my lord. Never. Never." Big lie, but never mind.

"Samuel," he corrected again, delivering at the same time one slap to her buttocks. Light enough to be playful but hard enough to sting.

Mei-hua stiffened and rolled away, clasping both hands below her waist as she did so. "Husband is correct. I deserve beating." She jumped off the bed, got the bamboo stick they used to close the red velvet curtains, and brought it to him, kneeling on the platform and leaning her head on her folded arms on the mattress. "I stay like this and husband beat back and shoulders until they bleed, only no part below waist. Then I will never -- "

"I have never beaten you, Mei-hua. Why would I start now? Above or below the waist." He got up and put the stick back by the window, then drew her to her feet, kissing her face all the while, little soft kisses.

"Because husband is displeased with me."

"No, I am not. I understand you." The silk robe, the long lung pao he'd worn earlier, lay on a nearby chair, splendid green satin with dragons embroidered in silver thread. Samuel passed it by in favor of his western clothes, carefully hung in an elaborately carved wardrobe. He pulled on the tight black trousers and black boots and high-necked white shirt and tied his stock. "I must go."

"It is early. Useless old Ah Chee made soup you like, with duck and pumpkin."

"Perhaps tomorrow. You rest now." He picked up her pale yellow silk robe and draped it over her shoulders, lifting her back into the bed as he did so. "Sleep, Mei-hua. Stay beautiful for me."

The room beyond was as exotic and foreign as the bedroom, if not as sensuous. The furnishings -- rosewood, ebony, ornaments of luminous porcelain and glowing brass -- had all arrived from Canton when Meihua did, part of her dowry, along with the servant woman.

Ah Chee's skin was creased leather and her hair white, but she seemed to Samuel ageless. She stood by the front door, eyes cast down, hands folded, ready to usher him out. Hard to say if she knew he was leaving by the way he was dressed or if, as he suspected, she listened regularly to everything that happened in the bedroom. "My lord stay a little stay," she urged. "Maybe take some of this old woman's poor soup. Stay."

Samuel walked straight to her and slapped her hard across the face. She did not move, seemed barely even to flinch. He slapped her a second time. He knew she wouldn't react, but it calmed some of the rage in his belly. "When did tai-tai bleed last?" And when she didn't answer, "Tell me. If you lie, I swear I will cut out your tongue."

"In Last month, lord. Before start of Water Sheep year."

He did the calculation quickly. Last month was January, and this year, 1834, was Water Sheep. "When did she stop taking the special drink?" He bought the powder himself from a Mrs. Langton on Christopher Street. Guaranteed to prevent conception as long as a woman drank it dissolved in ale every morning before sunrise.

"Never, lord. Never. Never. Every day I wake up tai-tai and she drink." Ah Chee did not say that the girl hated the taste of ale with a rare passion, and spat it out almost as soon as the mixture touched her mouth. Anyway, the powder was probably useless. What did a yang gwei zih woman know of such things? Ah Chee, whose job it had been to look after this plum blossom since the day she was born, got make-no-baby powder from Hor Jick the apothecary -- the closest thing to a proper doctor, a yi, in this place -- and sprinkled it on the girl's food, and twice a day rubbed excellent lizard skin cream on Mei-hua's beautiful flat belly. Until, that is, she had judged the plum blossom to be ready and stopped sprinkling and rubbing. "Never, lord, never," she repeated. "Tai-tai drink every day."

"Still? Even after she missed two monthlies?"

"Yes, lord, yes. Drink. Drink."

"You are a lying old witch." He itched to slap her again but knew it would make no difference.

Mei-hua, her ear pressed to the door, heard the latch click, signaling Samuel's departure. She ran from the bedroom in a whirl of yellow silk and flung herself at Ah Chee, fists flying, pounding out her rage. "You tell. You tell. Old woman say I do not bleed already two months. You tell."

Ah Chee stood calmly under the onslaught. Eventually Mei-hua's anger turned to misery, and she retreated to huddle, weeping, in the elaborately carved red-lacquered throne chair, usually reserved for her husband, under the scroll depicting Fu Xing, the god of happiness, whose benign smile did not alter whatever happened in this room.

For once the old woman did not rush to dry the girl's tears. "You think Lord Samuel stupid? Soon tai-tai's flat little girl belly get big and round. Will the lord not see? Will he think tai-tai swallowed a melon?"

Such considerations were for the future. Mei-hua was concerned only with this terrible moment. "Now my lord will make you take me to the wretched Hor Jick devil yi, and he put filthy devil yi hands on me and make son jump out of belly and -- "

"No, not happen. Not. No devil doctor Hor Taste Bad," Ah Chee said, using the nickname by which the apothecary was generally known.

Mei-hua stopped weeping and looked up. "Why you think this? Why?"

"Know definitely for sure. No Taste Bad. Absolutely." Ah Chee did not wait to answer more questions. Instead she went to the kitchen and returned with a bowl of hot soup. "Tai-tai open mouth. I feed son."

"Wait -- "

Ah Chee did not wait. She spooned soup into the girl's open mouth. It was so hot that it scalded Mei-hua's throat, but she swallowed it quickly, turning her head aside so Ah Chee could not immediately force a second spoonful on her. "Wait, old woman. Wait. First tell why you are sure Lord Samuel not make you take tai-tai to Taste Bad devil yi."

"Because Taste Bad devil yi one of us, civilized person. Lord Samuel take tai-tai himself to white yang gwei zih. Make sure abortion done properly."

Mei-hua gasped in h...