Daughter of Fortune (30 page)

“What shall we do now, Tao?”

“Work. We can't get along without money,” he replied, picking up a few pieces of canvas he found among the abandoned supplies.

“I can't wait. I must find Joaquín. I have a little money.”

“Chilean
reales
. They won't do you much good.”

“And the jewels I have left? They must be worth something.”

“Keep them. They have little value here. We'll have to work and buy a mule. My father went from town to town as a healer. My grandfather, too. I can do the same, but here the distances are much greater. I need a mule.”

“A mule? We already have one. You! How stubborn you are!”

“Not as stubborn as you!”

They collected a few poles and some odd boards, borrowed some tools, and built a shelter using the canvas pieces as a roof. It was a miserable hovel ready to collapse with the first wind, but at least it protected them from the night dew and spring rains. Word had spread of Tao Chi'en's skills and he was soon visited by Chinese patients who gave witness to the extraordinary talent of the
zhong yi
, then Mexicans and Chileans, and finally a few Americans and Europeans. When they learned that Tao Chi'en was as competent as any of the three white doctors, and charged less, many people conquered their repugnance of the “celestials” and decided to test Asian science. Some days Tao Chi'en was so busy that Eliza had to help him. It fascinated her to watch his delicate, skillful hands finding pulses on arms and legs, stroking the bodies of the ill as if caressing them, inserting his needles in mysterious points that only he seemed to know. How old was he? She had asked him once, and he replied that counting all his reincarnations he had to be between seven and eight thousand years old. Looking at him, Eliza guessed about thirty, although at some moments, when he laughed, he seemed much younger than she. When he leaned over a sick patient with total concentration, however, he seemed as ancient as a turtle; it was easy then to believe that he had lived many centuries. She would watch with awe as he examined a glass of urine and by the odor and color was able to determine hidden ills, or as he studied a patient's pupils with a magnifying glass to deduce what was lacking or overly abundant in his organism. Sometimes all he did was place his hand on the stomach or head of an ill person, close his eyes, and give the impression of being lost in a long daydream.

“What were you doing?” Eliza once asked.

“I was feeling his pain and passing him energy. Negative energy produces suffering and illness; positive energy can heal.”

“And what is it like, that positive energy?”

“Like love: warm and luminous.”

Extracting bullets and treating knife wounds were routine procedures, and Eliza lost her horror of blood and learned to stitch human flesh as calmly as formerly she had embroidered sheets for her trousseau. Having practiced surgery beside the Englishman Ebanizer Hobbs turned out to be extremely useful to Tao Chi'en. In that land infested with venomous snakes there were more than a few snakebite victims, who arrived swollen and blue on the backs of their comrades. Polluted water democratically distributed cholera, for which no one knew a remedy, as well as other illnesses of spectacular but not always fatal symptoms. Tao Chi'en charged very little, but always in advance, because in his experience a frightened man pays without argument, while one who is cured wants to bargain. Every time he asked for money his former mentor materialized wearing an expression of reproach, but Tao refused to budge. “I cannot afford the luxury of being generous in these circumstances, master,” he mumbled. His fees did not include anesthesia; whoever wanted the comfort of drugs or the gold needles had to pay extra. He made an exception with thieves, who after a quick trial were lashed or had their ears cut off; the miners were proud of their speedy justice and no one was willing to pay for or guard a jail.

“Why don't you charge criminals?” Eliza asked him.

“Because I would rather they owe me a favor,” he replied.

Tao Chi'en seemed ready to settle in. He did not tell his friend, but he wanted to stay in one place long enough for Lin to find him. His wife had not communicated with him for several weeks. Eliza, in contrast, was counting the hours, eager to get on her way, and as the days went by she was filled with conflicting sentiments about her companion in adventure. She was grateful for his protection and the way he looked after her, dependent on him for food and shelter at night, for his herbs and needles—to strengthen her
qi
—he said, but she was irritated by his calm, which she mistook for a lack of action. Tao Chi'en's serene expression and easy smile captivated her at times but at others grated on her nerves. She did not understand his absolute indifference to trying his luck in the mines while everyone around him, especially his Chinese compatriots, thought of nothing else.

“But you are not interested in gold, either,” he replied, unruffled, when she nagged him.

“I came for a different reason! Why did you come?”

“Because I was a sailor. Until you asked me, I didn't plan to stay.”

“But you are not a sailor, you're a physician.”

“Here I can be a physician again, at least for a while. You were right, there is a lot to be learned in this place.”

And that was what he was doing, learning. To find out about the medicines of the shamans he hunted out Indians, who by now had lost everything in the stampede for gold and were reduced to filthy bands of nomads in mangy coyote skins and European rags. They wandered from pillar to post, dragging their weary women and hungry children, using their finely woven wicker baskets to try to pan gold from the rivers, but they no sooner found a promising spot than they were chased away. When left in peace, they set up small villages of huts or tents and stayed for a while, until once more they were forced to leave. They came to know the Chinese physician, to welcome him with a show of respect because they considered him a medicine man, and were pleased to share what they knew. Eliza and Tao Chi'en would sit with them in a circle around a pit filled with hot stones where they cooked a pap of boiled acorns or roasted seeds and grasshoppers that Eliza found delicious. Then they smoked, speaking in a mixture of English, signs, and the few words of their native Indian tongue the outsiders had learned.

During that period some Yanqui miners mysteriously disappeared, and although their bodies had not been found their buddies accused the Indians of having murdered them; in retaliation the miners had attacked an Indian village, taken forty prisoners, including women and children, and as a lesson had executed seven of the men.

“If that's how they treat the Indians who own this land, Tao, you can be sure they will treat anyone Chinese much worse. You need to make yourself invisible, like me,” Eliza said, terrified when she learned what had happened.

But Tao Chi'en had no time to learn tricks of invisibility, he was busy studying plants. He made long outings, collecting samples to compare with plants he had used in China. He would hire a team of horses, or walk miles beneath a burning sun, taking Eliza along as interpreter, to the
ranchos
of the Mexicans who had lived in that region for generations and knew its natural world. They had only recently lost California in the war against the United States, and their huge ranches, which once had sustained hundreds of peons in a communal system, were beginning to break up. The treaties between the countries were still only paper and ink. At first the Mexicans, who were skilled miners, taught the newcomers the processes for obtaining gold, but every day more foreigners came to invade territory they felt was theirs. In practice, the Yanquis scorned them, as they scorned anyone of a different race. A relentless persecution was waged against the Hispanics; they were denied the right to work the mines because they were not Americans, although Australian convicts and European adventurers were accepted. Thousands of unemployed peons tried their luck in the mines, but when the harassment became intolerable, they moved south or turned to crime. In the rustic dwellings of the few remaining families, Eliza was able to spend time in the company of women, a rare luxury that for a brief while recalled the tranquil, happy days in Mama Fresia's kitchen. Those were the only occasions she emerged from her enforced muteness and spoke in her own language. Those strong and generous maternal women who worked elbow to elbow with their men in the most demanding chores, hardened by work and by demands upon them, were fond of that fragile Chinese lad, awed that he spoke Spanish like one of them. They gladly shared secrets of nature that had been used for centuries to ease many ills and, in passing, delicious recipes that Eliza wrote in her notebooks, sure that sooner or later they would be valuable to her. In the meantime, the
zhong yi
ordered from San Francisco the Western medicines his friend Ebanizer Hobbs had taught him to use in Hong Kong. He also cleared a piece of land by their shack, fenced it to protect it from deer, and planted the basic herbs of his calling.

“Heavens, Tao! Do you plan to be here until those scrawny little things grow?” Eliza complained, exasperated by the sight of wilted stems and yellow leaves, and getting no answer but a vague shrug.

She felt that with every day that went by she was farther from her goal, and that Joaquín Andieta was plunging deeper and deeper into unknown territory, maybe toward the mountains, while she was wasting time in Sacramento passing herself off as the slow-witted brother of a Chinese healer. She often berated Tao, calling him terrible names, but she had the good sense to do it in Spanish—as he must have been doing when he spoke to her in Cantonese. They had perfected a sign language for communicating in front of others, and from being together constantly they came to look so much alike that no one doubted they were related. When they were not busy with some patient, they would wander through the port and shops, making friends and asking about Joaquín Andieta. Eliza did the cooking, and Tao Chi'en soon got used to her cuisine, although from time to time he went off to the Chinese eating halls where he could eat his fill for a dollar or two. They used signs in public, but in private spoke only in English. Despite the occasional insults in two languages, they spent most of their time working side by side as good comrades, and found many excuses to laugh. Tao was surprised that he could share a sense of humor with Eliza, even with the obstacles of language and cultural differences. It was, in fact, those very differences that were the greatest source of amusement; he couldn't believe that a woman would do and say such outlandish things. He would watch her with inexpressible curiosity and tenderness; he was tongue-tied with admiration for her, and in his mind granted her the courage of a warrior, but if he saw her at a vulnerable moment she seemed a child and he was overcome with a desire to protect her. Although she had gained a little weight, and her color was improved, it was obvious that she was still weak. As soon as the sun set she would begin to nod, unroll her blanket, and go to sleep, and he would lie down beside her. They became so accustomed to those hours of intimacy, of breathing in unison, that their bodies adjusted in their sleep and if one turned the other would follow, so they were always touching. Sometimes they awoke entwined, tangled in their covers. If Tao woke first, he savored those instants that brought memories of happy hours with Lin, lying motionless so Eliza would not perceive his desire. He never suspected that Eliza did the same, grateful for that male presence that allowed her to imagine what her life with Joaquín Andieta might have been had she been more fortunate. Neither of the two ever mentioned what happened at night, as if that were a parallel existence they were not aware of. As soon as they dressed, the secret spell of those embraces disappeared entirely and they were again brother and sister. On rare occasions Tao Chi'en left alone on mysterious nocturnal sallies from which he returned with great stealth. Eliza did not need to ask where he went because she could smell him: he had been with a woman; she could even identify the cloying perfumes of the Mexican whore. She would burrow deep in her blanket, trembling in the darkness, alert to the least sound around her, knife in hand, frightened, calling Tao with her thoughts. She could not rationalize the longing to cry that swept over her, the feeling that she had been betrayed. She understood vaguely that men must be different from women; she herself felt absolutely no need for sex. Their chaste nocturnal embraces were enough to fill her need for companionship and tenderness, and not even when thinking of her long-lost lover did she feel the need for times like those in the room of the armoires. She was unsure, but thought that in her case love and desire might be one and the same, and so without the former the latter did not arise, or that her long illness on the ship might have destroyed something basic in her body. Once, because she hadn't menstruated for several months, she dared ask Tao Chi'en whether she could have children, and he assured her that as soon as she regained her strength and health she would be back to normal, and that that was the purpose of the acupuncture needles. When her friend slipped quietly in beside her after one of his absences she pretended to be sleeping soundly even though she lay awake for hours, offended by the scent of another woman between them. As soon as they got off the ship in San Francisco she had gone back to the modest ways Miss Rose had taught her. Tao Chi'en had seen her naked all through the weeks at sea, and knew her inside and out, but he divined her reasons and asked no questions except to inquire about her health. Even when he inserted his needles he was careful not to offend her modesty. They did not undress in front of each other and had reached a tacit accord for respecting the privacy of the pit that served as a latrine behind their shack, but everything else they shared, from money to clothing.

Many years later, going over the notes in her diary for that period, Eliza asked herself with amazement why neither of them had recognized the undeniable attraction they felt, why they had used the pretext of sleep to touch each other but feigned coolness during the day. She concluded that at the time loving someone of another race seemed impossible; they believed there was no place for a couple like them anywhere in the world.