The meal was lavish and consisted of many delicacies like bird's nest soup (which Tatiana later learned, to her dismay, included real birds' nests made from twigs and bird saliva), tiny steamed dumplings, smoked duck, delicately prepared vegetables carved in the shapes of flowers, a fish that was surrounded by more carved vegetables, tiny little spare ribs in black bean sauce, plus a few things she didn't recognize and, of course, the essential bowls of rice. All of it was washed down with great quantities of jasmine tea. The family ate with carved ivory chopsticks, but Tatiana was given heavy silver forks, knives and spoons because it was assumed she had not mastered the art of eating with sticks, which was true.
The Relnikovs had a French cook, and Katarina insisted that he follow the recipes her cook in Russia had used. Sometimes, when their cook had the afternoon off, his Chinese assistant would prepare a local delicacy such as shark fin soup or a whole fish steamed in broth and soy sauce. The family was often surprised to discover how tasty these dishes were. Tatiana had attempted to eat with chopsticks a few times, following his instructions, but was glad that she didn't have to rely on her inadequate skills in front of Lily's family.
Tatiana's parents had instructed her to be polite, above all. Even if she didn't like the food, she was to smile and say thank you for everything. To her young palate, most of the food tasted sour or salty, the texture either soft and slimy, sticky or brittle. Tatiana did her best to swallow small bits at a time, usually followed by a large quantity of rice, and to smile after every mouthful. She noticed that Lily's family ate noisily and spoke constantly to each other in Chinese. Occasionally, someone would address Tatiana in English.
“Did you make a good grade in school?” Lily's Number One Brother asked.
“Yes, thank you,” she replied, smiling.
“Are you happy living Shanghai?” asked Number Two Brother.
“Oh, yes, thank you. Very happy.”
“And honourable parents are also happy?”
“Very happy, thank you.”
It was a bit of an ordeal but, once lunch was over, Lily and Tatiana were left alone to talk and look at picture books in Lily's spacious bedroom, which was decorated like something out of an English magazine, with ruffles and ribbons and furniture painted white. Lily's large canopied bed was at the far end of the room, and the area closest to the door was furnished as a sitting room with a small sofa and armchairs that were upholstered in soft green silk. In the corner was a narrow cot where Lily's amah, her nanny, slept. The amah rarely let Lily out of her sight, and for years they had slept in the same bed. But, as Lily matured, the amah became more of a personal maid who looked after her clothes and her belongings, helped her dress and do her hair, and generally picked up after her. Whatever Lily asked her to do, the amah did. However, she was not above nagging or complaining that Lily made her work too hard. Like the traditional Chinese nursemaid, she was Lily's greatest defender and she had a deep and unconditional love for her charge.
In Lily's bedroom after lunch, Tatiana gave her the fan. Lily was so happy she ran to show her mother right away. The woman came to thank Tatiana personally. She was small and slender and wore a dark blue silk dress with a long skirt, high neck and long, tight sleeves, in the latest European fashion. Her straight black hair was pulled back loosely into a bun so that it fell in flattering soft waves around her delicate face. She wore makeup, as did many Chinese women of her class. Powder to whiten her skin and rouge to redden her lips. Tatiana thought she was very beautiful. Whenever she saw her after that first visit, no matter what time of day, Lily's mother appeared to be wearing her best clothes, as if every day were a special occasion. She was elegant and gracious and spoke to Tatiana in halting French, which she said she had learned in Europe. Lily's mother had been to school in Switzerland for one year and was very modern by Chinese standards. She wanted Lily to be educated before she was married and to learn a bit about the world.
Tatiana didn't know it at the time, but Lily was already betrothed to Tang Wu-ling, a boy she had never met. They were to be married when he completed his university education in France and a period of service in the army. He also came from a prominent Shanghai family, and it would have been unthinkable for Lily to choose to marry anyone else. Their parents had arranged the marriage when Lily was born, and Wu-ling was ten years old. It was considered auspicious that their two families should be united. Love was irrelevant; dynasty was everything. Tatiana knew something of this tradition because of her Romanov cousins. Being princesses, they would not have been free to choose their own husbands.
As the youngest child and a girl, Lily had been sheltered from the life beyond the walls of the family compound and the convent school the girls attended. She and her brothers each had their own amah from birth who spoiled and protected their precious charges. As a result, Lily was as much a stranger to Shanghai as Tatiana had been when she'd arrived. Tatiana and Olga had an amah, too, but she was more like one of the maids who helped their mother and did household chores. More often than not, the amah was glad when the girls were not underfoot so she could get her work done or gossip with the other servants. But Tatiana had seen more of life in Shanghai than Lily ever would. When she talked about what she saw in her weekly excursions with Olga, Lily couldn't believe many of the things she heard.
“You're very brave,” she once told Tatiana, “but also very foolish.”
“No, I'm not,” Tatiana said. “There's nothing to be afraid of, at least not in the daytime.”
“You are wrong,” Lily said. “There are many robbers and bandits who kidnap children and take them far away so they never see their families again.” Tatiana was pretty sure this was not true. It sounded like something Lily's overprotective amah would tell her to keep her from venturing beyond the compound on her own, should she ever have such a notion.
After Tatiana's initial visit to Lily's home, Lily's parents had allowed her to visit Tatiana, but only on the weekends in the afternoon for no more than two hours, and never for a meal. The girls accepted these restrictions on Lily's movements, because Tatiana was allowed to visit Lily whenever she wanted. Sometimes Olga would go with her, but she had begun to form her own friendships, especially with a French girl from her class at school.
“Will you ever be allowed to go out on your own?” Tatiana asked Lily on one of her rare visits to the Relnikov residence. They were in one of the upstairs sitting rooms, the one with the yellow silk sofa that Katarina called the sunroom because it faced south and was bright and sunny most of the day. She had hung there the heavy, hand-crocheted lace curtains she had brought from their home in Russia, and the sun streamed through the hundreds of tiny openings between the lacy stitches to send shimmering spears of light across the room.
“Perhaps if I go to Switzerland to school, like my mother. Then no one can stop me.” Lily smiled at the thought of one day being able to do whatever she wanted. “Once I am married,” she continued, “I will have to serve my husband's mother, because I will have to live in her house. But someday I will be mother-in-law to my son's wife, and she will have to obey me. It is tradition.”
“That sounds awful,” Tatiana said. “Besides, what if you don't have a son?”
“Of course, I will have a son,” Lily chided. “My husband will insist.”
Tatiana was so far away from thinking about husbands and children that she only half-believed what Lily said. It seemed preposterous that a husband could insist on a wife having sons. Later Tatiana would learn how precious sons were to a Chinese family and how undesirable daughters were thought to be. An ancient Chinese saying compared having daughters to finding maggots in the rice. Some unwanted baby girls in China were literally thrown out with the garbage, either strangled, smothered or simply left to die. Too many families could not afford to feed another hungry baby, especially if it were female. As well, in order to marry, a daughter needed a substantial dowry.