To answer your query, no, I have not “gone native”—you may recall that I was born native, so to speak, and so I only ever went British, which in China is a foreign nationality. When I told you that I was using chopsticks on a regular basis and that I had hired a Chinese woman to cook for me, I did not intend for you to see this as a rejection of your upbringing. You must know that I am still deeply grateful for everything you have done for me. I had not realized that I had left the question of my sincere affection for you in such doubt.
I know you are apprehensive for me. That it comes from a place of love. I can only send all my reassurances that you have my affection forever, whether I use a fork, chopsticks, or a machete.
Dearest Leland,
Thank you for your advice on how to approach Mother. I do not know if it will relieve you to hear that it worked as well for me as it did for you, which is to say not at all.
I would fret over it substantially more, but I am far too busy.
The day they connected the line at Myriad Island was a time for celebration. The telegraph worked, and Grayson knew he should feel something like excitement. But there was too much to be done to think of what it meant to be closer to his goal.
Unfortunately, Grayson had people thinking for him. The Celerity helped ready the Victory for the journey back south. They finally got on their way in the late afternoon, and Captain Ellis let the seamen choose the songs for the Daily Disoccupation.
But after the sixth song about missing love and the seventeenth slightly pointed comment, accompanied by a snigger in his direction, Grayson set down his violin and gave up.
“Is this supposed to be some sort of commentary?” he asked the crew.
One man snickered. Another nudged the other.
“Go ahead, Lightfoot,” said Chief Engineer West, and Lightfoot shook his head, leaving Mr. West with no choice but to clear his own throat, take off his hat, and face Grayson with a somber expression.
“We’re with you, Captain Hunter,” he said solemnly. “In your time of need.”
“My time of need?” Grayson made a face. “What do you imagine I’m needing?”
“All those messages with your woman,” said one of the seamen, shaking his head. “Now that we’ve left Myriad and have no cable anymore, you won’t be able to exchange sweet nothings.”
Grayson let out a surprised puff of air. “Sweet nothings. Is that what you think I’ve been trading?”
One seaman turned to the other. “Seventeen.” His delivery was gruff and forbidding. Grayson did not sound like that. Well. Hm. Mostly did not sound like that.
The other batted his eyelashes and simpered back. “Seventeen, Captain. Please. Seventeen me right here.”
The last message he’d had from Mrs. Smith had indicated that she was beginning to do short tests on a twelve-foot-long telegraphic line set up in the office. Seventeen had been good work, good luck, I look forward to hearing from you later. He’d added a line indicating he was at Myriad and any further messages would take substantially longer.
Grayson sighed. “Ah, I see. It’s jealousy. You want me to tell you about my woman.”
They clearly hadn’t been expecting anything other than gruff denial in response to their ribbing because they leaned in as one, delighted expectation on their faces.
“My woman…” Grayson looked off over the stern of the ship. Myriad Island was just behind them, but the rock was so small he could no longer see it. “My woman has eyes like fire and hair so long it could wrap around the world.”
“That’s it, Captain,” Chu called. “Give us more of that.”
“She’s soft-spoken,” Grayson said, “but when she has something to say, you can hear her clear across the ocean.”
“Such a gentleman.” This was said in a mournful tone.
“What about her thighs, Captain?” This ribald request was decidedly not mournful.
Grayson ignored them all. “She’s a jealous lover and brooks no competition. She’s demanding—she’ll want me to bring her to completion as soon as I can.”
That brought out the hoots and calls.
Grayson stroked his chin, pretending to remember some heated tryst. “And if I don’t, she’ll leave me for the British.”
Silence. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see two men exchange confused glances.
Mr. West spoke first. “That doesn’t sound good, Captain.”
Lightfoot spoke up for the first time since they’d started. “He’s talking about his telegraphic network. Hair that can wrap around the world? Hear her clear across the ocean? Needs to be completed as soon as possible?”
Groans all around. “Captain!”
“I thought we were going to get us a good story.”
Grayson turned to face them. “A good story? I’m telling you the best story. It’s the one you’re in, fellows. And she’s the only woman I have in mind. I’m making her a wedding ring of copper wire stretched across the seas. There will be no rest for me until I’ve satisfied her down to the toes.”
Another silence stretched.
“If Captain Hunter isn’t looking for a woman of the human persuasion,” said one man out of the crowd, “you all know what that means, right?”
Grayson grimaced. “Don’t say it like that. That makes it sound as if I’m looking for—” But they were already talking over his protest. “Never mind.”
“It means more for the rest of us!” called a sailor.
And with that, they started in on a ribald song involving two women and their nineteen lovers.
Three days into Amelia’s telegraphic tests found Auntie Zhu at the table in the Lord Traders office. “Right,” Amelia said. “What message would you like to send? Start with the person.”
“To my husband. Mr. Zhu.”
Amelia had not known there was a Mr. Zhu. She tried not to look too interested. “The, um, substance of the missive?”
“It has been five years since last I saw you,” Auntie Zhu narrated mechanically, as if she were reciting from memory. “I have a tea shop now. It is profitable. I have heard the American railway is finished. I miss you.”
She said this all without blinking, looking straight ahead. Amelia looked at her.
“Your husband worked on the American railway?”
Auntie Zhu shrugged. “He left to do so.”
“And he hasn’t returned?” Her voice was softer.
A shake of Auntie Zhu’s head.
Amelia was supposed to ask for an address, but it felt impolite. “I suppose we should direct it to someone in San Francisco?”
Auntie Zhu shook her head. “Send it to Hell. That’s where I think he is.”
She used the English word—Hell—and Amelia did her best not to smile awkwardly at this.
“Um. Do you mean that he is in Diyu?” she asked in Mandarin.
“That’s what I said. Hell.”
Hell was a perpetual cross-cultural mistranslation. Christian missionaries had told the Chinese that all non-Christians went to Hell. But the Chinese had taken that to mean that the word “Hell” was the English translation for the Chinese afterlife. They’d adopted the word without any of the negative connotations.