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like a thoroughbred horse. Each time Huiann stood dressed in a scarlet bridal gown before Master Xie and his guest. They would stare at her while her flesh burned from humiliation. The man might tell her to raise her face so he could see it, or he might come close and lift her chin with a finger while her flesh crawled at the touch. When the client was finished assessing her merits, Madam Teng led her back to her room for more training and hours of speculation about her possibilities for escape.
    Today Madam presented Huiann with a white gown to wear. “This man is a Westerner. To them white 42
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    symbolizes a woman’s purity. This is what their brides wear.”
    Dressed in the lacy white gown, Huiann followed Madam down the corridor and back staircase to Xie Fuhua’s den. She noted every door or window they passed, trying to get a sense of the layout of the house.
    It would be too ironic if she had a chance to run and got lost in the labyrinth of rooms, never making it outdoors.
    Standing on the moss-green carpet, Huiann stole surreptitious glances at the Yankee who’d come to bid on her. It was her first chance to see an American up close. At the wharf she’d been too distracted to study the foreign faces before being hustled into the waiting carriage.
    She held her lips steady, stopping them from twisting into a disgusted grimace. The man was ugly.
    His face was round and his features overly large.
    Bushy eyebrows jutted over strange gray-green eyes, and a thick moustache covered his upper lip. Long sideburns furred his cheeks but his hairline receded, revealing a bright pink scalp. He was tall and wide across, stretching his waistcoat with a belly like a pregnant woman’s. The thought of this man touching her was utterly repugnant.
    Xie Fuhua spoke with the man in English. The cadence of the foreign tongue sounded slow and drawling to her ears. She listened to each sound as though she might be able to make sense of the words if she listened hard enough.
    After the men talked for a few minutes, the Yankee approached her. She smelled his cologne, his sweat and cooking odors clinging to his clothes, as well as Bonnie Dee
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    the sharp odor of burned tobacco. He reached out a hand and it took all her strength not to cringe from it.
    He touched her hair, toyed with the tiny white shells on a string that adorned it, and tipped her face up with one fat finger under her chin. He traced the same finger along the bridge of her nose then over her red-painted lips.
    Huiann stared at his ear rather than his eyes, focusing hard and willing him to stop touching her before she screamed. At last he turned away and spoke to Xie again as he walked back to his seat and lowered his bulk into the chair.
    She was dismissed and returned to her room.
    In her too-soft bed that night, Huiann dreamed she was home. Her sisters and mother were pestering her about something, perhaps about the forthright way she spoke or how she neglected her household duties.
    There was always something. But then a great storm came. The river flooded and carried her family away.
    She waded through waist-high water, fighting the current, desperate to find and save them, but knew by the ache in her heart that they were gone forever. She woke with her cheeks wet with tears and the ache in her chest still there because the nightmare was true.
    She would never, ever see her family again.
    Late that morning, Madam Teng entered her door without knocking. The expression on her face was as close to excitement as it ever got.
    “Why are you still in bed, lazy girl? An agreement has been made and a client chosen for you. He wants you to be brought to his house to fulfill a particular fantasy. You won’t be the first ‘bride’ he has acquired 44
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    from Master Xie.” She clapped her hands. “Get up!
    You must be made ready for him.” Several maids hurried into the room, setting up a copper tub and filling it with urns of hot water. Like a