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On good days he comes home with bouquets of roses brought all the way from India, or so he tells you, all dressed up in his tailored suits. He sits in his chair chatting about his travels, about business. His voice is subdued and even, and while he does occasionally get irritated, he doesn’t shout. More grumbles under his breath. He is not irritated today, however–he’s in “good spirits,” as he calls it. The roses are in a porcelain vase on the table, placed on top of the lace table runner he bought for you, to “freshen up the place a bit” he said. You don’t like the design at all, but he boasts about how rare a find it was, so you don’t mention it.
“Where’s Li Xiao?” he asks. “I brought him something.”
Li Xiao is at that age where he’s still shy around adults, but Arthur knows how to entice him, holding the wrapped package behind his back until the child’s curiosity overcomes his bashfulness.
“Open it up! It’s all for you.”
Li Xiao disassembles the crinkly wrapping paper in a neat and orderly fashion, finally revealing the treasure inside.
“Know what it is?” asks Arthur.
“A boat?” the child holds the toy up, examining it.
“That’s right! It’s a steamship. The tubes here on top is where the steam comes out. Have you ever been on a steamship, Li Xiao?”
“No.” The steamship is exquisitely handcrafted and painted in bright colors–a rarity in this new age of machine-made products.
“No? You should come with me some time, when you’re older. It’d be fun!”
Li Xiao doesn’t answer but runs back into his room to consider his new toy in private.
“Aren’t you going to say ‘Thank you?’ “ you start to scold him, but Arthur just laughs.
“Let him be! He’s a good kid.”
—
Arthur spends his days playing with Li Xiao and teaching him about how steamships work, showing him diagrams out of a big full-color picture book, another fanciful gift brought back from his home. Li Xiao is an attentive listener, and with Arthur’s help, ends up drawing many pictures of ships, both modern and fanciful.
“Well, that’s enough for today,” says Arthur, leaving Li Xiao to slide his boat over the “water,” which is blue patterning on the rug (“Imported, all the way from Persia!”). “I have more things to show you this week!”
You follow him out of the house as he walks out onto the porch for a smoke break.
“Alright,” he says, leaning against the fence and digging around in his pocket for his pipe. “You’re cross today, as usual. What’s going on? Aren’t you glad to see me?”
“Why must you spoil him so much?” you demand. “It’s not New Years, and it’s not his birthday. If you keep giving him all these new toys and books, he won’t want to concentrate on his studies!”
Arthur shrugs and lights his pipe. “He’s a growing boy! And these days, who needs to study! The future’s in business and world trade, not perusing dusty old scrolls. It’d be good for him to get out into the real world and gain some experience.”
“My world is just as real as yours.” You say. “And all your fancy gadgets are just going to make him lazier, like you. ”
“You think I’m lazy?” When he laughs, it’s in a tight, restrained way. "I’m more industrious than all of you combined! If you only knew of the sort of projects I’ve been working on, all around the globe! Marvelous things! But of course you wouldn’t understand.”
“Fine! Then don’t tell me then. I’m sure it’s boring and unimportant anyway.”
Arthur frowns and starts to gnaw on the end of his pipe in a distinctly un-gentlemanly way, then just as quickly stops himself. “There’s no need to be difficult,” he says. “Is it so wrong to give good gifts to your children?”
“He’s not your child,” you correct him. “And I’ve already given him plenty of toys and books already. Your generosity is appreciated, but it is not needed here.”
“I’m sure he’d beg to differ,” says Arthur, looking back through the door, where Li Xiao has stopped playing with his boat and is now flipping aimlessly through the pages of the steamship picture book. “Just look at him! He has an interest. That is potential, right there, don’t you get it? Once you’ve been exposed to the new, fantastic possibilities of the modern world, you never do want to go back. It clings to you. Sticks in your mind, right here.” he taps his temple to emphasize his point. “Gets your brain working, thinking of new ideas, new things to build to bring us into the future.”
Arthur has given this little spiel before, many times, and he’s always excited whenever he gives it–talking of the glories of new technology, of trade, of commerce, the possibilities for connection around the world. You find it amusing, if not entirely convincing. After all, it’s not as if he invented international trade–you’ve been sending pottery to the Arabian peninsula and Silk to the Mediterranean for millennia. Arthur is always firmly convinced of himself when he does talk of such things, and for you, it’s more fun to humor him and let him jabber on about progress and industry and whatever new words and phrases are cropping up these days. You don’t need more heavy and complicated contraptions, like the fanciful clocks he brought over, once upon a time, from his own little kingdom across the sea to try and impress the emperor with a long time ago.
After all, that’s how it had all started, the strange interaction you suppose could have been called a courtship, but like all things concerning barbarians and would-be tributaries, one couldn’t be completely sure. He and his people had an enormous appetite for tea, silk, porcelain, cotton–all the luxury items of the rich that you had to spare, and of course he always paid in silver, that was non-negotiable. Arthur had always been easily impressed by everything, from the dress of the courtiers to the intricate carvings and art in the palace, you less so, but that was the point–hadn’t even Rome, the great Da Qin himself, withdrawn his breath in awe at Chang’an, the very end of the Silk Road?
Nowadays, of course, he seems less and less impressed with you. He has more on his mind, you can tell that much, he’s thinking at the pace of those clocks and gears of those engines he can’t help boasting about. All about the future, or his anticipated idea of it at least.
Li Xiao is easily dazzled by the shiny toys that Arthur brings him. It makes sense, you grudgingly admit to yourself; despite being a nation-person himself (and an oh-so-profitable one at that), he is still very much a child, curious about the world beyond his tiny but industrious island. It would surely be futile, and cruel to deprive him of his small pleasures while he’s still young and doesn’t quite have to worry about the future or politics or any of the other things that constantly concern nations. You don’t remember having anything that properly resembled a childhood, at least in the conventional sense of the term, it seemed as if you’d hardly emerged choking and coughing out of the river’s floodwaters and into the halls of the Yellow Emperor. Or something like that. You wonder if you actually remember it, or if it’s just the story you’ve told so many times you’ve just accepted it as truth.
Arthur looks out onto the bay, watching the ships docking and taking off, the shipments being loaded, prepared for their long journey back across the ocean to his home, the Empire on the Other Side of the World. He slips his hand into yours, and for a moment you consider pulling away, but you don’t. There’s a faint rustle behind you as Li Xiao turns the pages in his book. It’s a clear day, sunny but not too hot, not yet, it’s too early in the year for that.
It’s a good day, you think adamantly. There’s always the opposite of that as well, but you try not to consider it, not now.
It’s not that you’re stubbornly ignoring the future, like Arthur sometimes accuses you of doing. You know the unbreakable law, the one that says that good days, or weeks, or centuries, never last as long as you’d like them to, but you also know that the future, for all your concerns and misgivings, is something that will come to pass anyway, without the help of automation or steam to push it along.