“So we heard,” said Kuan Yu. “Well, you’ll be happy to know the Heavenly Kingdom is doing quite well. If your friend is a Hakka, he might even be in great power.” He lowered his voice, looking furtively at the compartment Jack and I shared. “Hong Xiuquan, the Son of God, has taken Nanjing, and it is only a matter of time before Beijing and the devil Qing fall.”
I decided not to draw Kuan Yu’s attention to the fact that he had lied to us before when he assured us he was not Christian but worshipped old gods. Not that, from what I’d heard, Hong’s Christianity was the one I was familiar with. “You sympathize with the Taiping then.”
Kuan Yu shrugged. “I am just a fur trader,” he said. “All the ins and outs and great men and children of gods — all that escapes me, or doesn’t concern me. I do want the Manchu gone, and I want the Chinese to be in charge of China.”
“I want my daughter to grow up with her feet unbound,” Liu Zhi said. “Hakkas don’t bind their women’s feet — this is why Hakka women cannot find non-Hakka husbands, their feet are too big. But if no woman walked with lotus gait… ” He shrugged, without finishing the thought.
I nodded mutely. At first, I wanted to argue against such terrible mutilation as foot binding — I had seen depictions of folded over, disfigured feet that did not look human — and yet I did not want to sound like Ipatiev, who always tried to make everyone think that he was the final arbiter and judge of what was barbarous. So I drank some more tea and changed the subject. “I hear that in Taiping Tianguo they let women take examinations to become state officials. I wonder if women would ever be allowed to hold administrative posts in China.”
Kuan Yu shrugged. “Either way, I do not care. As long as the Manchu are gone.”
Liu Zhi nodded. “I could not agree more. Let us hope the English will not get involved.”
I held my breath, my mind racing with what I knew and what was advisable to mention. Ever since I met Jack, most conversations felt like trying to navigate an unfamiliar carriage drawn by wild horses through a strange city in a moonless night. Sometimes it seemed best to let the reins drop, and to count only on luck rather than trying to guess the intentions and motives and political alliances of every person I spoke to. “If the English got involved,” I said slowly, “wouldn’t they support the Taipings? You know, Taipings being Christian and all.”
Both men laughed heartily, and I felt very young and very foolish.
“Of course not. They won the war with the Manchu, they signed treaties with the Qing emperor letting them trade opium. The Taipings punish opium smoking and selling by death.”
“So they would put profit before religion?”
They nodded in unison. “And besides, what foreigner would ever admit that their God Yasoo might have a Chinese brother?”
I considered the question. “It seems only right,” I said. “The Bible recounts these people being chosen or that. Priests and kings and emperors always act as if they have God on their side. I heard that during war with Napoleon, everyone thought it was God’s will that the French took Moscow, and then it was God’s will it burned and then it was God’s will the French lost. He always seems to be taking different sides. I think He only cares that we put an entertaining spectacle, not who’s right or who’s wrong.”
“Gods like spectacles,” Kuan Yu agreed. “And sacrifices, although they tell me that Yasoo does not like sacrifices?”
“His Father used to,” I said. “I think in the days of the Old Testament you were supposed to burn cows for Him.”
“Terrible,” Liu Zhi said without much conviction. “In any case, we honor our ancestors and old gods, and hope that Manchu are gone.”
I finished my tea. My thoughts were racing with the possibilities I had not previously considered, and as soon as it was polite to do so, I fled back to my compartment. I kicked Jack’s shin until he woke up.
“What is it?” he mumbled.
“Shhh,” I hissed. “I was thinking… the letter from Wong Jun is addressed to the Manchu officials, and to the Qing emperor himself.”
“Yes.” Jack stretched and yawned. “Is this why you woke me?”
“Yes. No. I mean, I woke you because maybe we shouldn’t be talking to the Manchu. Maybe instead we need to make alliance with the Taipings — looks like they just might win this. They’ve taken Nanjing, and looks like it’s only a matter of time before they advance further north.”
“They are barbarians,” Jack said. “At least, the Manchu are civilized.”
“They are a hated foreign government. I am just not sure that Emperor Constantine should make an alliance with such a tenuous power.”
Jack laughed. “The Qing have been in control for centuries. My dear, empires are all about hated foreign governments.”
I laughed too, stretched, and looked at the fir forest whizzing by the window, so close to the train tracks that I could’ve touched the branches if I had opened to window. “I do see your point.”
“Make no mistake about it,” he said softly. “When we visit Turkestan, you’ll see. Emperor Constantine, of whom you seem so fond of for some reason, is as hated there as the Manchus are in Canton.”
“Emperor Constantine is a good man,” I said. “He is being misled by his brother and his advisors, but I think—”
Jack threw his hands into the air. “What is it with you people! Even you, Sasha, and I thought you were smarter than most. The entire country seems to believe in some imaginary good tsar, as if nothing is ever his fault. From the sixteenth century to today, you all mumble about how your ruler doesn’t mean to do anything bad, he or she is just being lied to by corrupt boyars. Do you realize how silly it sounds?”
I did, but was not yet ready to admit to it, so I just turned beet red and stared out of the window, seething, and imagining suitable insults for Queen Victoria, even though I suspected that they would never wound Jack as deeply as his words had wounded me.
It was three days before we reached Yekaterinburg, and by then I had moved beyond vague dissatisfaction and into a ravenous lust for a hot bath and a meal that was not bought on a platform from portly peasant women bundled up in shawls and kerchiefs all the way up to her eyes. They sold sauerkraut and boiled eggs and hand-sized minced meat pies of dubious freshness but nevertheless a welcome relief from the monotonous bread, butter, and two-days-old soup from the restaurant carriage. But even those treats were starting to grate, and I would kill for a pancake or a plate of pelmeni.
The conductor informed us we were to stop for a few hours in Yekaterinburg, and recommended a tavern where we could take a room and, I fervently hoped, find some hot water. And pelmeni.
“Perhaps it would be better to stay on board,” Jack said when I expressed my plans excitedly. “It may be wise to avoid being seen.”
“We are much more obvious on this train,” I pointed out. “Besides, this train is the fastest thing in the country — how can they catch up to us?”
Jack shrugged. “There are ways. What does the train need to stop for anyway?”
“Pick up more coal and tea and water and food,” I said. “I was bored this morning and stopped by the engine compartment — it is rather horrifying. All those half-naked freedmen, covered in coal dust, black as devils, shoveling coal into the maw of the furnace… scary to think one furnace is what’s driving the entire train, isn’t it?”
“Fire and steam,” Jack mumbled under his breath. “It is staggering to think how much the two of them reshape the face of the land.”
“I suppose.” I stared out of the window, impatient for the sight of the city or any human habitation, but so far nothing but a spruce forest and a bridge over Chusovaya River broke the monotony of snow and sky. “Quite a bit of reshaping going on lately. I still wonder if we should take our offer to the Taipings.”