Pearl of China

by Anchee Min

  Dick said that he was nervous whenever he was near me. He complimented and flattered me. I wished that his words were coming from Hsu Chih-mo. I wondered where Hsu Chih-mo was and what he was doing. Was Pearl’s name written in the sky of his mind? For the past few months, Hsu Chih-mo had made visits to Shanghai to be with his wife. Each time he returned to Nanking, he would be even more depressed. When I asked about his wife, he would reply, “My wife lives in her opium den. She doesn’t talk unless it is to ask me for money.”

  The gossip publications following Hsu Chih-mo revealed the massive debts his wife owed. The latest reports had the former courtesan spending time with a wealthy patron. Hsu Chih-mo was said to be fighting with his wife over money and her drug habit. One source said that Hsu Chih-mo had gone back to his former architect mistress. The public had become obsessed with the drama.

  “It’s time for you to think about taking Hsu Chih-mo as a lover,” I said.

  Stunned, Pearl turned to me. “You are crazy, Willow.”

  “Why not?” I went on. “After all, Lossing is with Lotus.”

  “No,” she said bluntly.

  “Hsu Chih-mo . . .”

  “Stop, would you? I don’t feel like discussing Hsu Chih-mo.”

  “But I do.”

  She was quiet.

  I felt sick with myself, but couldn’t stop.

  “I am not a fool, Willow,” I heard Pearl say. “I can see . . .”

  “Then answer my question.”

  “I don’t know how to answer your question. As you know, we both are married. Frankly, I don’t enjoy this kind of joke. Or . . . is it a joke?”

  “What do you think?”

  “It is pure Chinese that you indulge in this game of cruelty. This is how you drive away misery. But is it working? Are you less miserable than yesterday?”

  “You speak like your father, wearing God’s clothes!” I responded. “You can’t face the truth!”

  “I am trying to act decently. I am your friend.”

  “Then damn your decency!”

  “Fine!” She came to face me. “You want the truth? Here it is! Yes, Hsu Chih-mo and I are in love witheach other! And yes, we will go to bed together, tonight!”

  CHAPTER 19

  I accepted Dick Lin’s offer to be the editor of his magazine. I made up my mind to move to Shanghai for good.

  Pearl was devastated.

  A month before I left, Hsu Chih-mo paid me a visit. He pleaded with me to save his relationship with Pearl. “She fell apart after learning about your departure. She told me that she would view me as an enemy if I continued to visit her. She’s engaged in a war with me.”

  I refused to talk to Hsu Chih-mo. I had done enough for him.

  Confused, he said, “I’ll come back when you are in a better mood.”

  After he left, I couldn’t escape the sound of his voice praising Pearl. “Pearl and I are soul mates!” “The Good Earth is like no other novel I have ever read. It’s a masterpiece!” “It takes a humanitarian to be a good novelist.” “She denied that love has passed between us!”

  Before I could say hello to Shanghai and to Dick Lin, I knew that I must settle my past accounts and say good-bye to Nanking. Yet the shadows of Pearl Buck and Hsu Chih-mo followed close upon me.

  Dick promised me independence. He said that he would always be there for me if I needed him.

  “You are coming to Shanghai,” he said in his letters, “and that is all that counts.”

  Dick was confident that I would grow to love him.

  I warned him that I was taking advantage of him.

  “You don’t owe me anything” was his response.

  Dick told me that Shanghai had been the red cradle ever since the Communist Party had been created in 1921. Although the party was still considered a guerrilla group, it was becoming the major opposition force against the ruling nationalist government. Dick played an important role in the party. He had become Mao Tse-tung’s chief adviser and he ran the party’s bureau of propaganda.

  I was not terribly interested in the new world Dick described. I didn’t care whether or not the Communists would win China. What I cared about was having a place in Shanghai where I could tend to my wounds and try to start my life again. Dick made it convenient.

  “You used to be a tiny creek and now you are part of an ocean.” Dick was as happy as a goalie after catching a ball.

  The day of my departure was approaching. I wasn’t living a lie, yet I wasn’t living truthfully either. Pearl and Hsu Chih-mo had called a cease-fire and had finally become lovers. I took credit because I had helped. My home was their love nest. There, they were able to escape the prying eyes of the public. But I was wrong about myself. I was consumed by envy and jealousy.

  Pearl knew me too well to feel comfortable with the situation. She even refused to show up when Hsu Chih-mo gave me a farewell dinner. On the one hand, I was comforted by the fact that Hsu Chih-mo didn’t know that I was in love with him. On the other, I suffered when he shared with me his feelings for my friend. “I am in love” was written all over his face. It hurt me, but Hsu Chih-mo couldn’t stop talking and I couldn’t stop listening.

  Hsu Chih-mo was convinced that Pearl was more Chinese than he was. He was infatuated with her perspective, her Chinese habits, her love of camellias. He was especially thrilled when she cursed in Chinese. He loved “the Chinese soul under the white skin.”

  Hsu Chih-mo told me that he used to play with peasant children when he was young. “My family were small landowners, so I was surrounded by peasant children. But I had no understanding of them when I played with them. I only knew that I was the young master and they were my slaves. They were not my equals as human beings. My family owned them or hired them. All Chinese schoolboys have the same attitude. When they become adults they look down on peasants. But Pearl believes that all spirits are equal before God. This respect for her subjects makes her work wonderful. In her, one hears the voice of a peasant as a human being.”

  I drank and toasted with him.

  Hsu Chih-mo confessed, “Pearl makes me happy. I never know what she is going to say next. She’s brilliant, cunning, and funny. The mix of the Chinese and American cultures in her fascinates me always. I find myself looking forward to her thoughts.”

  “What about love?” I asked.

  “What about it?” He blinked.

  “Does she . . . love like a Chinese woman?”

  Hsu Chih-mo’s lips stretched into a big smile. “That is my secret.”

  “Share with me a little, please.”

  “I must go, Willow.”

  “How dare you destroy the bridge after crossing the river!”

  I imagined the hands she described, his hands, touching her. Pearl told me that she had woken up from her foolishness. I asked what she meant. She said that Lossing vanished from her mind the moment she was alone with Hsu Chih-mo. She was afraid she was becoming obsessed with Hsu Chih-mo. “I used to think that what I went through with Lossing happened in every marriage. I write about romance because it hasn’t existed in my life.”

  “And romance is frightening?”

  “I am afraid of what that knowledge will do to me.”

  “So this may be more than just an affair?”

  “I don’t know anymore. Hsu Chih-mo is a green refuge in the desert of my life. Because of him, I am more patient with Carol and tolerant of Absalom. I am no longer disgusted with myself. My despair has left me. I have even been thinking about adopting a little girl. In fact, I’ve already begun the process. And yet . . .” She stopped for a moment before continuing. “It is hard to see that Hsu Chih-mo and I would have a future together.”

  “Because you are both married? Or because you are too different as individuals?”

  “All I know is that I am in love with him, and that common sense has deserted me.”

  “Hsu Chih-mo will continue to pursue you.”

  “He doesn’t understand my responsibilities. He doe
sn’t understand that I will never be free because of Carol. He told me that he lost his own son at the age of five. He was able to dig himself out of his own sorrow. But I can’t. I am not like him. For Carol’s sake, I must stay with Lossing . . . for the money.”

  “Will you give up Hsu Chih-mo?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Your mother used to say that life is about being forced to make choices.”

  We both went quiet. “I am watching life escape before my eyes,” she said.

  The air was filled with the sweet scent of summer blossoms. I had come to the riverbank to say good-bye to the city of Nanking. I knew that under the cover of darkness, in the shadow of the magnolia canopies, Hsu Chih-mo and Pearl walked the streets of Nanking. Pearl had told me that the place they most often frequented was a local restaurant called Seven Treasures. Her favorite was Chin-kiang mushroom noodle soup.

  Lossing had moved away again with Lotus. He had accepted a new position as the head of the agricultural department at a university in southwest China. Hsu Chih-mo was free to visit Pearl, although in secrecy. The love she could not let go of revived Pearl, and she changed. She began to pay attention to the way she dressed and she joined a dance class at the university. She went with Hsu Chih-mo to collect fresh camellias during the early spring. Inspired, Hsu Chih-mo published a poem titled “The Camellia Petals on My Pillow.”

  Rumors spread and the public assumed that Hsu Chih-mo had gone back to his former mistress. The newspapers competed to predict Hsu Chih-mo’s next move.

  I didn’t answer Pearl’s request for a chance to say good-bye.

  I felt that we had said enough to each other. I didn’t want to hear the name Hsu Chih-mo again. I left quietly. The pier was crowded. I boarded the steamboat and stood by myself. As the boat began to pull away, I got a surprise.

  Pearl ran down the stone terrace toward the water.

  I didn’t think she would be able to find me.

  She slowed and finally stopped. Behind her, people waved, cheered, and shouted.

  Then she found me. Her eyes. I knew she saw me because she stood completely still, gazing in my direction. She wore an indigo-colored Chinese outfit. Her hair was in a bun. The sun shone down on her. She looked like Carie.

  I wished that I could shut my eyes.

  The porters let go of the ropes. The steamboat began to pick up speed.

  “Farewell!” the crowd on the pier cried.

  One wife shouted at her husband affectionately, “Hey, you idiot and soon-to-be-beheaded. Don’t forget to save firewood after lighting the stove!”

  The husband laughed and yelled back, “Hey, dumb wrinkleface, you’d better remember to come home or you will find me spending all your savings on a concubine!”

  I wept, wishing that my arms were around Pearl. By leaving I meant to escape my own misery, but I had ended up punishing her.

  The departure would preserve what we had, I hoped.

  Yet could I truly leave?

  The water gap between us widened. People screamed back and forth in a contest of comic insults.

  Then, in a Chin-kiang tone, I heard Pearl yell, “I am not a bird but a mosquito—too tiny for you to use a rifle on!”

  Knowing I was forgiven, I shot back, “Be careful when you think that you have gotten a good deal. Check on your handsome rooster. Don’t be surprised if he grows a set of teeth one day!”

  “Go ahead and cartwheel on the back of a bull! I am a loyal admirer!”

  “Yeah, the fox comes and cries at the chicken’s funeral. Go away!”

  CHAPTER 20

  I wasn’t sure whether it was my door or the neighbors’ when I heard the knocking. The attic room where I lived was near the Shanghai waterfront, the Bund. At night I could hear porters at work and the sighing sound of passing ships. I tried to go back to sleep but the knocking grew louder. I realized that it was my door. I glanced at the clock. It was four in the morning.

  “Willow!” came Dick’s voice.

  I went to open the door.

  The expression on Dick’s face scared me. His eyes were red and swollen, as if he’d been crying.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Dick handed me a stack of newspapers.

  I glanced at the headlines and staggered back in shock.

  POET DIES IN PLANE CRASH!

  HSU CHIH-MO’S PASSING AT 34 STUNS THE NATION!

  POSTAL PLANE CRASHES NEAR NANKING, PILOT AND PASSENGER. NONE SURVIVE.

  I recognized the words, but my mind refused to acknowledge their meanings. I kept flipping the newspapers back and forth. The date was correct, November 20, 1931. Hsu Chih-mo’s face was on every front page. I looked at him, the handsome smiling face, the leaf-shaped gentle eyes and the silky black hair. The classic good looks of a northerner. I touched the image of his face with my fingers. My tears smeared the ink.

  Dick held my shoulders and sobbed like a child. “Did you know about him taking free rides on postal airplanes?” he asked.

  Of course I knew. Hsu Chih-mo had been in touch with me because Pearl had again been refusing to see him. Pearl wanted to end their affair. Hsu Chih-mo figured it was because he was still a married man. He returned to Shanghai and asked for a divorce from his wife. But his wife wouldn’t release him without an impossible monetary settlement. To make money, Hsu Chih-mo accepted lecture invitations all over the country. He traveled every few days from city to city. He was also teaching part-time at both Shanghai University and Peking University. He was offered free airplane rides by a friend, a postal pilot. Hsu Chih-mo was grateful to save the money. The friend also flew Hsu Chih-mo to Nanking to meet Pearl in secrecy.

  “Once bitten by a snake, forever in fear of ropes,” Hsu Chih-mo once said about Pearl’s anxiety about a new marriage.

  “Isn’t it enough that you are lovers?” I asked.

  “No.” His voice was soft but determined. “I’d like to spend the rest of my life with her.”

  The expression on Hsu Chih-mo’s face was still vivid in my mind. He had sat on the chair in my attic. When he stood, his head touched the ceiling. He hunched to make himself fit. Behind him, beyond an open window, was a sea of Shanghai rooftops.

  Pearl would learn the news in the next few hours. She would discover her lover’s death at the breakfast table, perhaps. Carol wouldn’t notice her mother’s shock, and the servant wouldn’t know where the mistress’s tears sprang from.

  I hadn’t told Pearl about Hsu Chih-mo’s last visit. He had been upset and angry at me for supporting Pearl’s decision.

  In the past, their separations had never lasted. It was like cutting water with a sword. They simply couldn’t resist each other. Hsu Chih-mo took the free plane ride three times a week to be with her. I learned from Hsu Chih-mo that the pilot let him borrow his farmhouse near the airport. Pearl described to me her visits to the farmhouse.

  “I was like an addict running toward opium,” she said of her meetings with Hsu Chih-mo.

  I kept finding out new details about the plane crash. On the day of the accident the weather was foggy. The pilot misjudged. The plane hit the mountaintop and crashed. One source said that the pilot often got absorbed in conversation with Hsu Chih-mo. They thought the accident might have taken place because the pilot was distracted.

  The papers said that Hsu Chih-mo’s wife was so heartbroken that she vowed to quit opium. She declared to the public that she would devote her life to publishing all Hsu Chih-mo’s remaining work and letters.

  Hsu Chih-mo’s funeral was held in Nanking.

  I asked Dick, “Why not Peking? Why not Shanghai?”

  “It was Hsu Chih-mo’s wish,” Dick replied. “He wanted his ashes to be scattered over the Purple Mountain and the Yangtze River.”

  Had Hsu Chih-mo anticipated the possibility of his crash? I was astonished at the thought. Certainly the poet had had an active imagination. It wouldn’t have been unthinkable for him to have entertained the idea of a dramatic exit.


  I remembered Hsu Chih-mo’s description of his last falling-out with Pearl. He visited me after days of drinking and sleepless nights. In fact, it was two days before he took the fatal flight.

  “Will you give this to her?” he asked, holding out a package.

  “She told you that this had to stop,” I responded.

  “It will be the last time that I impose on you.”

  “What is it?”

  “My new book, a collection of poems.”

  I gave him a she-won’t-read-it look.

  “I don’t care. She inspired it.”

  Mourners filled the streets of Nanking. White magnolias and jasmine were sold out. Dick and I had taken a train from Shanghai to Nanking. We arrived in the afternoon. Dick had sent Pearl a message before we left but received no response.

  The Nanking crematorium was covered with white flowers. A photo of Hsu Chih-mo on the wall greeted the visitors. A banner that ran the length of the hall read, people’s poet rests in peace. Beyond the flower wreath was the closed casket. Dick had seen his friend’s body and said that Hsu Chih-mo would have wanted the lid closed.

  No one in Pearl’s house knew where she was. The maid said that her mistress had gone to the university. Eventually I thought of the pilot’s farmhouse.

  I only had Pearl’s vague description of the place, but I told Dick that I would look for her. Once outside the city, I was lost. It was a peasant child who pointed me in the right direction. The child had seen an airplane landing and taking off at an abandoned World War I–era military airport near the house. The spot was cradled by the surrounding hills. Waist-tall weeds grew in patches across the cracked runway.

  The farmhouse was covered with wild ivy. Frogs and crickets ceased their singing as I walked to the door. Grasshoppers jumped over my feet, and one almost got into my mouth. Giant mosquitoes buzzed around my head.

  The door was ready to fall from its hinges. It leaned to one side and was open. I let myself in. Once inside, I smelled the incense.

  She was in an ocean-blue Chinese dress, embroidered with white chrysanthemums, the symbol of grief. She was on her knees lighting incense. She had been performing the traditional Chinese soul-guarding ceremony for Hsu Chih-mo. She had set up an altar with flowers and water.