Cloud Mountain

by Aimee E. Liu

  The man’s large wadded lids slowly rose, then descended in a reptilian blink.

  “He is engaged even now in the great Northern Expedition, which has liberated all of Hunan and will soon sweep the warlords out of Kiangsi. I expect his unit to arrive here in Kuling any day.”

  Behind her, Yen cleared his throat and swung the rough wood door shut. The room turned abruptly dank and claustrophobic, and Hope felt more than a little ridiculous standing there in her old plaid cardigan and drop-waisted linen, the brown fedora from another era yanked down over her eyes. A waking snore issued from the deputy’s slack mouth, and the chief leaned back, casually flicking his cigarette stub into a chipped spittoon.

  “I tell you these things,” Hope forced herself to continue, “because I know you, Chief Liu, are a man of honor.”

  The corners of his mouth toyed with a smile, but rejected it. “You wish me to assist you in some matter I think,” he said, adding as an afterthought, “missy.”

  “Certainly in this valley you are a man of importance,” she said, “and persuasion.”

  He nodded, stroking the short black tuft that passed for his mustache.

  “I have seen with my own eyes how Mr. Wu and Wu Taitai look up to you.” He grunted.

  “If you were to say to Mr. Wu that my husband is a man of importance, I know that he would listen to you.” She glanced at Yen for moral support, but he looked as close to tears as she had ever seen him, and he refused to meet her eyes. “All I am asking is that the Wus allow us to purchase goods by chit, the same as we do all summer.”

  The chief scratched his nose, as if genuinely considering this request. “Summer is not autumn,” he said eventually. “I do not tell Wu Yao-lu how to run his shop, he does not tell me how to police this valley. You talk to Wu Taitai, tell her these things. Maybe she can help you.”

  “I have talked to her—” But she could feel her temper starting to boil. “Thank you, Chief Liu,” she concluded. “I appreciate your advice.”

  Bless Yen, there were no recriminations, no sour looks or gentle adages on the way home. Whatever shame she had brought on the house of Liang, in his mind it was he who had failed to keep the family solvent. She knew it was as useless to console him as it was to berate herself, yet she did briefly touch his arm as they started up the front steps. “I hate to think where this family would be without you, Yen.”

  The large flat lips pinched together and he looked at her steadily. “Laoyeh will come,” he said. “I know this.”

  She smiled. “I know this, too.”

  But any dim glow of encouragement was dashed by the scene that met them inside. Jasmine, Morris, and the baby were gathered around the wooden card table with scissors and a stack of old magazines. From these they had cut out pictures of food, which they were busily “devouring” with knife and fork.

  “Mm hmm.” Jasmine speared a square of brown paper. “Beef Wellington!”

  Morris sucked on an empty fork. “Devil’s food cake and custard.” He moaned, “Tinned peaches, too.”

  “Oh, yes, tinned peaches!”

  “Cake!” clamored Teddy, bouncing on his short, stockinged legs. “Want some!”

  Ah-nie, who stood ready to catch Teddy if he fell, had her own eye on a picture of turkey roast from the Thanksgiving issue of Harper’s that had carried Hope’s last article.

  “Dear God,” Hope said under her breath, “what is to become of us?”

  But in the next instant she was bustling about the room, stoking the fire, straightening her papers, directing Yen to put on water for tea and Ah-nie to put Teddy down for a nap. If the children could make a game of this, she was damned if she’d fall apart.

  “Where’s Pearl?” she asked suddenly.

  Morris shrugged, licking a picture of baked Virginia ham.

  “She went out,” said Jasmine, “just a few minutes after you and Yen. Thought she was going to catch up with you.”

  “What do you mean, out?” demanded Hope. “Haven’t I told every one of you, you are never to leave this house alone!”

  “Don’t yell at us.”

  “Didn’t she tell you where she was going, Morris?”

  “I hope she was going to the store,” he said sullenly. “What I’d give for a box of chocolates.”

  Jasmine fell sideways off her chair and writhed melodramatically across the floor, nearly tripping Yen as he came in from the kitchen with Hope’s tea.

  “Never mind that,” she said to him. “Pearl’s gone off somewhere—”

  But at that moment the door opened. Pearl’s marcelled bob hung limp from the drizzle that had begun just as Hope and Yen got home. Her pink sweater and skirt were also soaked, but her round moon face was beaming.

  “I’m back,” she said.

  “So we see.” Hope wavered. “Better get those muddy shoes off.”

  Pearl darted a glance around her audience. “I’ve been up to the school,” she announced. “They’re ever so nice there. Helpful.”

  “Helpful,” repeated her mother.

  “Yes.” Pearl hesitated, then turned out her sweater pocket onto the table. Silver, copper, and paper cash in small denominations covered the demolished magazines.

  “I heard you and Yen talking,” Pearl started to explain, but Hope waved her to silence.

  Her voice failed her. She knew just what Pearl had done. What now had to be undone. Whatever the cost.

  She went alone that afternoon, as soon as the rain had stopped. She wore a businesslike green gabardine suit and matching feathered toque. Her Graflex, the only offering she could think of, was tucked under her arm.

  The school seemed even larger and more ominous up close than from a distance. The front door was massive. The main hallway had that dour institutional smell that has nothing whatsoever to do with schooling, yet always seems to accompany it, and the headmistress, one Miss Edith Eaton, looked every bit as upright and puritanical as her name suggested. She wore her brown hair in a wispless bun, her tortoiseshell glasses on the exact center of her nose, and her starched round collar perfectly flat across perfectly angular shoulders. She knew precisely who Hope was, and she knew all about Pearl’s visit.

  “The children were only too happy to take up a collection.” She leaned across her desk with a confessional smile. “Most of them are from missionary families. Charity comes naturally, you see.”

  “Well, I’m afraid there’s been a dreadful mistake.”

  Miss Eaton lifted her chin. “Really.”

  “I’ve come to return the money.”

  “I see.” The headmistress picked up a pencil and turned it between her fingers. “I think that would be rather awkward. Like sending back the Sunday collection plate. Not a tidy process. And rather a slap in the face, after the children have shown such generosity.”

  “Ah.” Hope moistened her lips. “Well, you understand that it is quite impossible for us to accept this as charity.”

  Miss Eaton continued to manipulate the pencil. “We have one or two Eurasian boys here. One’s father is with Standard Oil. The other’s is a French consul in Hankow. It’s their mothers who are Chinese.”

  Hope clenched her hands in her lap. “I wonder,” she said, full of false brightness, “if I might repay your students’ generosity by taking their photographs. I have my own equipment, as you see. And I’m fairly experienced.”

  “I imagine you are.”

  “Under the circumstances,” Hope went on, closing her ears, “I’m not as well supplied as I’d like. But I have enough stock of film to take several group pictures, say one of each class.”

  “Mrs. Leon,” said the headmistress severely, “we ordinarily take class photographs at the end of each school year.”

  “Well—”

  “However, the teacher who generally takes these photographs is on sabbatical in France. He has left behind a fully equipped darkroom with a proper studio camera and a supply of film and mountings that should more than meet your needs. Each student will r
equire a portrait, so of course your offer to do the work in exchange for this morning’s collection is quite unthinkable. We generally pay Mr. Claire one hundred dollars above his salary for this service. I am willing to offer you the same. There’s just one thing.”

  “Y-yes?”

  “I would appreciate you keeping your daughter away from our campus.” She gave Hope a sharp look. “She caused quite a stir among the boys this morning. I am quite willing to give you and your family a helping hand, but I try to run a decent, orderly school here.”

  Hope felt the color drain from her face. Her hands were like ice, and if she’d had even an inch of leeway she would have hammered them into Miss Eaton’s skull. But she could see no other way out.

  “Of course.” Hope stood up. “I understand completely, Miss Eaton. Decency, at all cost.”

  October 23, 1926

  If only Mary Jane could see what her innocent gift of a Kodak hath wrought! My days for the past two weeks have been a seemingly endless succession of chip-toothed grins and crossed eyes. Tow-headed boys with cowlicks and brown-haired girls with freckles. Their careless faces populate my dreams, driving out my own children almost completely. I have photographed them singly, in their cricket teams, Scouting uniforms, and chorus formation. I have been the brunt of their jokes, their protruding tongues, and blatant speculation. My Chinese husband is known around the Kuling School to be alternately a fallen Manchu prince, a Communist, a bandit, a viceroy with fifteen wives, and a publisher of Mandarin Bibles! Pearl, who so severely threatened Miss Eaton’s moral order, has been described to me by those (mostly younger boys) who encountered her as “chipper,” “pert,” “a good egg,” and “wholesome.” I think, on balance, Miss Eaton is right that I should confine her movements, but the moral order that needs protecting is not the school’s but Pearl’s! I forget too easily, because she does look and behave so innocent, that she is eighteen years old. If we ever get back to Shanghai, this will be her last year of school, and then our worries will really begin.

  But that seems brutally far away. According to the coolies, there is fighting all around the base of the mountain. Even if I had the fare for the steamer, we could never get out now. I cannot allow myself to believe that we shall be stuck here all the way through winter, yet the possibility is real. When this job for the dreaded Miss Eaton is done, the specter of poverty will rise again. By then the children may well have cannibalized each other. We have run completely out of reading material. The girls spend their days unraveling old sweaters to knit into new ones. Yen is teaching Morris all his old childhood songs and stories, and Ah-nie entertains Teddy endlessly with that poor little India rubber ball.

  But there are small triumphs to be gained from this. Jed Israel, for one, will be so proud when he sees what his reluctant pupil has made of his random darkroom lessons. It was pure bravado—and desperation—that drove me to offer my “photographic services” to Miss Eaton. What I would have done if the school had no darkroom I can’t imagine, for the small quantities of developer and fixer I brought from Shanghai had mostly evaporated after Morris and Ken fooled with them—and left the caps off. Also, the shed where I played at developing this summer is like an ice house now. And though I suppose I might have muddled through, I am becoming quite an accomplished printmaker with the help of the proper tools.

  Doubtless Miss Eaton would not approve if she knew about it, but I have used the facilities to produce some exceptional portraits of Chief Liu and his deputies and also the Wus, which I’ve used to barter my way back “into the chits.” In exchange for the portraits that are now prominently displayed on the shop and police station walls, we have added portions of noodle, buns, pork, and vegetables to our daily rice. I only wish I’d thought of this trick in September, before the first pangs of starvation set in!

  The other boon of this crisis has been my writing. I have a sizable stack of nearly completed articles for Cadlow, including a profile of Yen, an interview with Chief Liu, and an account, compiled with the help of Morris and several Kuling students, of the enthusiasm for Boy Scouting that has gripped China in recent years (it’s my opinion that Scouting is a precise blend of missionary zealotry and military trappings—both of which are much in evidence in today’s China and therefore appeal to young boys trying to make sense of these seemingly contradictory forces).

  Anyway, the photographic work, the articles, the children all help me to keep my mind off the larger issues. I must believe that Paul is wending his way toward us, that he will reach us before we are destitute again, that we are no more vulnerable to this war than Miss Eaton and her students believe themselves to be. I must believe all sorts of things about who I am, who my children are, what place we hold in this lunatic world—and so I do believe.

  But every now and then I think of this summer, of Stephen and Sarah and my foolish preoccupations, and I suddenly feel so many centuries old that the bottom drops right out from under me. It’s a feeling I am quite certain Miss Eaton would find positively indecent.

  On November 16, Hope was working on her final batch of prints in the Kuling School darkroom when the walls began to reverberate with the students’ cries. She timed out the exposures, finished moving them through the sequence of baths, and carefully pinned them to the drying rack before washing her hands and removing her apron. She put on her jacket, ran a hand over her hair, and emerged from the darkroom with as much dignity as she was ever able to muster when perfumed by chemicals and half blind from light deprivation.

  “What is it?” she asked a small pigtailed girl galloping toward the stairs.

  “Soldiers!”

  “What kind of soldiers?”

  But the girl was gone, and Hope didn’t wait for further details. Half an hour later she was home with the children, Yen standing guard on the porch. She had seen not a soul along the way, nor were there any signs of encampments, gun placements, or reconnaissance. She had no idea what kind of soldiers had been sighted, whose army they belonged to, or what their reasons for coming up the mountain might be. But she did not intend to be separated from her children while the facts presented themselves.

  They crowded around the windows, Morris in the upstairs study, Jasmine in the kitchen. Pearl and Hope took the north and south watches, while Ah-nie and Teddy hid in the nursery, Ah-nie as near to being under the bed as she could possibly manage. There were periodic alarms, once when Morris spotted a movement that turned into a leaping doe and several times when Jasmine’s fertile mind transformed rocks and bushes into gun-toting warriors. But Hope had come home at two o’clock. By four the sun had slipped below the ridge, and they were all getting jumpy.

  Suddenly Yen called to Hope. Two men were coming up the trail. One was Chief Liu, with his chest puffed out and his most officious scowl on. Behind him strode a man in the brown uniform of the National Revolutionary Army.

  Hope lowered herself into one of the porch chairs and labored to even out her breathing. At the bottom of the steps Chief Liu saluted and banged his heels together. His companion bowed his head briefly, and approached.

  “Mrs. Liang?” His accent was American—Yankee, and now that she saw him more closely she realized he could not be more than three-quarters Chinese. He had the same length of face as Morris, though his eyes were slightly less round, his forehead marginally squarer. Sturdy, youthful, and vigorous in appearance, he had an openness of expression that one almost never saw in full Chinese. His bearing was respectably official without being the least bit grave.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “I am Lieutenant Jung. I have a package from your husband.” Turning to shield the motion from Liu’s eyes, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a thick envelope.

  “You’ve seen him, then?”

  “We were in the same unit entering Wuhan. He is there now.”

  “I expected him to come himself.”

  “I am to convey his regret. Also to tell you, he tried twice before to send word. When I was assigned to one
of the details sent to capture Kiukiang, he requested for me to come here. I have known your husband for many years. He was friends with my father, and I’m honored that he trusted me.” The lieutenant’s attention strayed momentarily to the children clustered at the window.

  He smiled. “You have a son.”

  “Two.”

  He saluted the children, and at a nod from Hope they came tumbling out.

  “This is Lieutenant Jung,” she said. “He’s a friend of Papa’s.”

  “Where is Papa?” Pearl demanded. “Is he all right?”

  Teddy showed the soldier his new back teeth.

  “Have you been in the fighting?” Morris wanted to know.

  “Is that a real pistol?” asked Jasmine.

  Hope silenced the brood. “It’s late. If you can stand the assault, you’re welcome to stay here tonight.”

  “Thank you, no. I am billeted with a small detail in the village, but tomorrow morning I will accompany you and your children down to Kiukiang and see you safely onto the steamer.”

  “At least some supper?”

  Lieutenant Jung replied with an almost imperceptible tilt of his head toward the police chief, who by now had slid halfway up the stairs and was leaning to catch every word. The soldier gave Hope a slow wink and, turning, signaled Chief Liu that he would be with him in a moment. The chief jerked backward, nearly losing his balance, and landed with another salute at the bottom of the steps.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” said Hope.

  The man slid his left thumb under his leather bandolier. His eyes had crept back to Morris, whose jaw hung slack with admiration. Suddenly the lieutenant stuck out his hand. Astonished, Morris gave a quick look as if asking permission, but before it could either be granted or refused, he was gripping the soldier enthusiastically and pumping the poor man’s arm.

  “Lieutenant?” said Hope.

  The soldier looked up.

  “Who is your father?”

  He let Morris go. “His name was Morris Jung. He died in Peking last year.”

  They stood facing each other like two distant relatives at their first introduction. There was that vague sense of relevance, of some nonspecific mutuality or connection, yet at the same time utter bewilderment. In the end, there was only one link between them. One reason for the soldier’s curiosity. Why Morris was his father’s namesake. And why Hope should allow her family to follow him into a war zone.