Jewel of the East by Ann Hood Page A

wanted to be a lily-footed woman.”
    “I think it’s barbaric!” Felix blurted.
    But Pearl just shrugged. “It’s the custom here. My friends’ mothers do it to them.”
    “It sounds terrible,” Maisie said. “Painful.”
    “Amah says that her parents made her sleep alone in the outhouse so they wouldn’t have to hear her cries of pain all night.”
    Pearl brightened. “Do you want to see them?”
    “No!” Felix said, just as Maisie said, “Yes!”
    Amah and Pearl spoke in Chinese for several minutes. Then the old woman bent and removed her small shoes and white stockings.
    As she began to unwrap the bandages, Felix got up, panicked. “I don’t want to see deformed feet,” he said.
    “In China,” Pearl said gently, putting a hand on his arm, “they are considered beautiful. And Amah’s, at only three inches long, are the ideal golden lilies.”
    “There are so many bandages,” Maisie said, watching Amah unroll them.
    “She has to wear them all the time, even when she sleeps,” Pearl explained.
    Finally, the last of the bandages came off, and Wang Amah lifted her tiny foot for them to see.
    Felix pretended to look, but as soon as he caught a glimpse of the deformed lump, he averted his gaze. Maisie, however, gawked. The skin was black and purple, and the foot itself had been reduced to just the big toe. But on closer inspection, she saw that the other four toes were indeed fused below the arch.
    “
Xie xie
.” Pearl softly thanked Amah.
    The old woman slowly began the process of putting the bandages back on. As she did, she said something to Pearl.
    “Amah says every pair of small feet costs a bath of tears,” Pearl translated.
    Wang Amah spoke again to Pearl.
    “She wants to take us to Horse Street,” Pearl told Maisie and Felix. “Where I met you yesterday,” she added.
    “Is it okay with your mother?” Felix asked.
    “Sure. She needs to stay here and take care of Grace,” Pearl said. “Do you want to go to Horse Street then?”
    “All right,” Maisie said eagerly.
    With each passing hour, Maisie became more and more enchanted by China, with its bamboo rising from the river in the mist, the storybook pagoda, and green rice paddies. She loved the smells in the air, the gardenias and roses mixing with spices from the kitchen. She even loved Wang Amah’s stories, with their soldiers and burning monks and foot bindings.
    Felix recognized the look that had spread over his sister’s face. Once again, she would want to stay in the past instead of going home to Newport and their mother. This happened every time. The simple life on Clara Barton’s farm and the return with Alexander Hamilton to New York—even the New York of the eighteenth century—appealed to her much more than their own new life. Certain that they would give the jade box to Pearl and the time would come for them to leave, he could already foresee the arguments theywould have when Maisie refused to try to get back. Felix sighed.
    “Are you all right?” Pearl asked him.
    “He’s fine,” Maisie said knowingly.
    Pearl threw her arm around Felix’s shoulder. “Just wait,” she said. “Amah always buys the candy Mother forbids me from having. You’ll love it.”
    Once again, Felix tried to meet Maisie’s eyes. And once again, Maisie ignored him completely.

Telling stories marked the days with Pearl. Wang Amah, Mrs. Sydenstricker, and even Pearl herself were all masterful storytellers. Maisie and Felix loved to sit out on the veranda in the morning and hear their stories about life in China and Chinese legends and myths. At night, Felix wrote down the stories he’d heard to take back to Lily Goldberg, who so desperately longed for information about her culture.
    They spent a lot of time in the kitchen, too, where Chushi, the cook, fed them salted fish, pickled vegetables, tofu, and—to Felix’s surprise, his favorite—the crunchy rice from the bottom of the pan. Never before had he liked anythingcrunchy, but