The Secret Language of Women

Nina Romano

Description

This first book in the Wayfarer series from award-winning writer Nina Romano is a love story set against the backdrop of war and upheaval, an era infused with superstition, history, and exotic customs. The story explores the universal themes of love and the atrocities of war, affirming that even in the face of tragedy, enduring love brings hope.

-Nina Romano is an accomplished and published poet and author of short shories. This is her first novel.

-This is the first book in the Wayfarer trilogy and set in Bejing. The next two books will continue through the centuries to Sicily and Brooklyn.

-Analogous to the women’s backstories in The Joy Luck Club and Richard McKenna’s The Sand Pebbles, but set in an earlier time period. The language, lyrical and full of sensory richness, reflects the author’s poetic skills.

The things that test you and are vanquished bring everlasting joy. The differences between traditional written Chinese and Nüshu, the secret language of women, made it difficult for me to learn it. My mother and grandmother could not write Chinese and learned Nüshu when they were young and wanted me to grasp it too. I cannot say they harped on me or were tyrannical, but I will say they were insistent, and for this I am eternally indebted.

My mother said it challenged me because I wrote like a man and didn’t have to rely solely on Nüshu, the way they did, to communicate with other women. The ideograms of Chinese correspond to a word or part of one, whereas each of the seven hundred characters of Nüshu represent a syllable—women’s language is phonetic, in Chéngguān dialect, adaptable and pliant for singing, poetry, and writing with such delicate strokes they appear as lines of feathers.

Though learning was problematical, I mastered it, like I do all things I set my mind to conquer. At the time, I resented the study of it, yet I knew innately one day I would be grateful to possess the knowledge and skill of this secret language, which would offer me strength and solace for a lifetime. And although I was writing in Nüshu, for some reason, I signed with flourish in Chinese: Wǒ Lián.

I am Lian.

Sujets

• Romance historique
• Fiction
• Romance
• Boxer Rebellion
• Historical

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 29 septembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781630269081
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Secret Language of Women
The Secret Language of Women
Nina Romano
Turner Publishing Company 424 Church Street Suite 2240 Nashville, Tennessee 37219 445 Park Avenue 9th Floor New York, New York 10022
www.turnerpublishing.com
The Secret Language of Women Copyright
2015 Nina Romano. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Cover design: Kristen Ingebretson and Maddie Cothren Book design: Kym Whitley
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Romano, Nina, 1942-
The secret language of women / Nina Romano.
pages cm
1. N shu--Fiction. 2. Women--Fiction. 3. China--History--19th century--Fiction. I. Title.
PS3568.O549S43 2015
813 .6--dc23
2015009479
Printed in the United States of America 14 15 16 17 18 19 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1: Anjilika
Chapter 2: Huangqin
Chapter 3: Y n Qi o San
Chapter 4: Niutouquan
Chapter 5: N shu
Chapter 6: Tianshi
Chapter 7: Shenxin; xinling
Chapter 8: Baiziren
Chapter 9: Taifeng
Chapter 10: Suixinsuoyu
Chapter 11: Yongeng de ai
Chapter 12: Ma
Chapter 13: She
Chapter 14: Bing
Chapter 15: Shuiniu
Chapter 16: Rongyu
Chapter 17: Bajitian
Chapter 18: Kuli
Chapter 19: Ma
Chapter 20: Wing Chun
Chapter 21: D ngxu
Chapter 22: Yangguizi
Chapter 23: Gaobie
Chapter 24: Meihao shiguang
Chapter 25: W b d ng
Chapter 26: Cha
Chapter 27: Shangdi baoyou ni
Chapter 28: Xingfu
Chapter 29: Wo ai ni
Chapter 30: Tianzuo zhihe
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
To Felipe
for a lifetime of love and the priceless gift of world travel
Author s Note:
Pinyin instead of Wade-Giles is used for the sake of clarity, except for the capital city Beijing, written Peking, and also the old city of Tientsin.
Prologue


THE THINGS THAT TEST YOU and are vanquished bring everlasting joy. The differences between traditional written Chinese and N shu, the secret language of women, made it difficult for me to learn it. My mother and grandmother could not write Chinese and learned N shu when they were young and wanted me to grasp it too. I cannot say they harped on me or were tyrannical, but I will say they were insistent, and for this I am eternally indebted.
My mother said it challenged me because I wrote like a man and didn t have to rely solely on N shu, the way they did to communicate with other women. The ideograms of Chinese correspond to a word or part of one, whereas each of the seven hundred characters of N shu represent a syllable-women s language is phonetic, in Ch nggu n dialect , adaptable and pliant for singing, poetry, and writing with such delicate strokes they appear as lines of feathers.
Though learning was problematical, I mastered it, like I do all things I set my mind to conquer. At the time, I resented the study of it, yet I knew innately one day I would be grateful to possess the knowledge and skill of this secret language, which would offer me strength and solace for a lifetime. And although I was writing in N shu, for some reason, I signed with flourish in Chinese: W Li n.
I am Lian.
The Great moderate Way has no gate; There are a thousand paths to it. If you pass through the barrier, You walk the universe alone. ~Wu-Men
Chapter 1
Anjilika

Angelica
PEKING, 1895 YIHEYUAN, THE SUMMER PALACE
NOTHING HAPPENS BY ACCIDENT.
I finished assisting my father in a successful operation, and while washing my hands, realized how much I loved the art of healing and desired nothing more than to practice it. My father, Gianluca Brasolin, a Swiss doctor proficient in both Western and Eastern medicine, kept an inexpensive garret southwest of Tiananmen Square in the eighth alleyway in the Dashilan area of Xuanwu District in southern Peking. This was the capital s garish and tawdry red-light district, but Father chose it because he could do the most good there.
The surgery took place in a qinglou, a brothel built some decades prior that adjoins our humble residence, its decorated brick eaves touching ours. My Baba, as I called him, when not referring to him as Doctor in front of patients, saved a thirteen-year-old girl from dying of a self-induced abortion, but she will never have babies. He stopped her from bleeding to death by administering a hypodermic injection of snake poison to staunch the hemorrhage.
Fluent in both Mandarin and Italian, my father had been called to work as the doctor for the Italian Consulate; we had been in China s capital city of Peking for six months, but soon would return to our home in Guilin, where my mother s mother resided. Baba was bored with dignitaries and the artifice of court life and suffered from a heart that was weak and failing. Even more than these things, he was frightened by the brewing animosity toward foreigners and growing political strife that had seized parts of the country, especially in the north. Peasants known as Boxers sought to drive all foreigners from China-my Baba included. They belonged to a secret society known as I-ho ch an, Righteous and Harmonious Fists, in north China but spreading. They practiced boxing and calisthenics, which they believed would give them supernatural powers and make them impervious to bullets. In the south the situation was calmer, and Father said we would be safer there. I, however, feared the return to Guilin because I knew my grandmother, Wai Po,had arranged a marriage that would take place almost immediately. Lu was a simple man, a farmer, whom she felt confident would provide for me.

LATER THAT SAME EVENING, BABA smoked a pipe on our covered terrace overlooking a row of jagged houses while I gazed at an heirloom brooch with a picture of my mother on a porcelain oval. After finishing his training in his native Switzerland, Father had become fascinated by the Eastern arts and medicine. He traveled throughout the Orient where he met and fell in love with my beautiful mother. Only memories of her sustained me now. On the brooch her face looked so serene. I remembered the day she gave it to me seven years ago, on my tenth birthday, when she was dying. I took her fan out of the coffin before it was nailed shut. Baba was so bereaved he didn t even scold me. Grandmother kept Mother s diary, written in N shu, the secret language of women Mother had taught me. Wai Po promised to give it to me for my wedding.
I put the brooch away when there was a loud knocking on our door. Court messengers. At first, I was afraid that something untoward was in store for my father, but they had come merely to summon him to assist the Italian ambassador who had taken ill at a banquet while speaking with Cixi, our empress dowager. Baba was to tend to the sick man at the Summer Palace, fifteen kilometers northwest of Peking.
I stood behind the door left ajar, watching everything, remaining concealed. The messengers were stout men and wore a kind of armor and metal hat. I wondered how they sat a horse. They had brought Father a scroll, which he looked over and nodded his head. He told the two messengers to await him downstairs in our humble courtyard.
Baba opened the door, handed me the scroll, and said, Don t take time to read it now, Lian. Hurry and ready yourself. You re coming with me to the Summer Palace. Get my bag and make sure it s in perfect order.
Had I heard him correctly? I had been training in medicine secretly with Father ever since my mother died and had always helped him in our neighborhood but never, ever at court. In my night attire, my hair loose about my shoulders, I looked down at my bare feet, toes curling with excitement and fear. My feet had not been bound so I did not possess the golden lilies wrought by pain to produce the exquisite, tiny feet all Chinese men sought.
We set out in the depths of a summer evening in the palanquin sent by the royal court and passed Zengh Yi Lu, site of the walled foreign legations. My father was dressed in Western attire, black tails and white tie, while I wore my most stunning Manchu banner dress, knowing that no matter how I dressed, I would be seen by the courtiers as an outcast of mixed blood. I trembled, thinking of their stares. I passed for Chinese with my dark hair and face, my willow-shaped eyebrows, but the instant anyone looked closely and saw my green eyes, they knew I came from a mix, a mongrel with foreign blood coursing through my veins.
Seeing the frightened look on my face, Baba said, If you re planning on being a doctor, get over this nonsense of worrying what people think of you.
I nodded, but knew exactly how dangerous this was-the audacity of appearing in public as his assistant. Chinese women worked at matchmaking, as midwives, sometimes as herbalists, but never as doctors.
As the palanquin traveled through the summer night, the air sweet with lavender blossoms, I studied the scroll. The message stated that an ambassador had taken ill and the situation was urgent. I tried to appear unconcerned. That s it? I asked. Nothing more, except he s sick? Plague perhaps? Maybe cholera?
We ll find out, Baba said. His philosophy of treating patients was never to speculate before an examination. I was barely listening, wondering about the type and gravity of the illness and the reasons my father had been sought out.
Yes, I agreed, even smelling his breath will tell us something.
We drove through a park dotted with gingko trees, an ancient pagoda on one side and opposite, a huge Buddha. Through a seedier part of town, we passed many brick buildings, some with overhanging portals, wooden bridges, or decorated arches in disrepair. Garbage littered the streets.