For lunch she fixed us little sandwiches of nut bread and cream cheese and Lapsang Souchong tea and we went through all the old papers, making notes and sorting. It was at one of these working lunches that I remembered the two men who had come to question me on the day Saigon was falling.
I was angry with myself for having forgotten. "They said it was only a routine background check," I told her, lamely.
"As it happens," May interrupted, "that is exactly what it was. I'm not supposed to tell anybody," she went on, grinning, "but you're as good a secret keeper as I know. The most curious thing has happened, Faith. Suddenly, all sorts of strange things have come together . . . Daddy has become a sort of hero in Washington. The revisionists' view is that what he wrote about the Chinese Communists was correct, after all. And suddenly my name—as his daughter—turns up on a small list of people who are invited to visit China as the personal guests of Chou En-lai, and we are told that it is because he respected my father as 'a friend of China.' I suspect the Chinese know about Grandfather. If nothing else, my name should have tipped them off. Or maybe Rose told them, she has been moving up in the hierarchy. Whatever the reason, the State Department seems to think that Hayes and I will be assets in Beijing, at the new embassy. If all goes well, Hayes will be posted there."
"Does he want it?" I asked.
She grinned. "He's studying Mandarin night and day. Calls to practice with me every night. Does that answer your question?"
"And you? Do you want it too?"
She hesitated. Then smiled, slowly. "It would have been a lot easier to say 'yes' before Hao appeared on the scene. But yes, I do want it. Very much. It will be wonderful to be both Chinese and American, and in a position that could have real influence in bringing the two countries together. And of course I'll get to see Rose."
"And your mother?"
"Yes," she said, drawing out the word so you knew there were qualifiers, "but only if I can make her life happier. I don't want to disturb her equilibrium."
I was not sure I could speak. I reached across the table for her hand. "Darling May," I told her, and my voice failed me, cracking to a whisper. She understood, finally she understood something of the failure of love, and found it in her heart to forgive, and then to go beyond that to give.
It was a long time before I could speak; finally I asked, "And Hao?"
She hesitated, thinking. "Marylee isn't drinking, not at all anymore. Of course, she talks twice as much. Hao calls her 'Grandmother Talk-talk'—he's got a funny little sense of humor. But he is taking to her, and she is his grandmother. He stays in his father's old room . . . all of Andy's high school pictures are on the wall. I think he is in a good place to wait for his mother . . . it's better that he stay with the Diehls, here on this coast where there are so many Vietnamese. Better for Hao, and for us—as much as I want him, and as much as Hayes wants him. To be honest with you, I am more than a little distressed by these people who want to bring all the babies out of Vietnam, to give them 'new parents' here. I think that when those babies have parents who want them, who would keep them if they could, we should be working to help them stay together, not taking their children from them on the guise of giving them the 'good life in America.' Hao loves his mother. He can't understand why she gave him to me that night. He doubts her love. Kit helped me, and I intend to help Hao and An. I am going to bring them together, if she survives this awful time."
Thea and Amos are to be married at Wildwood on Christmas Day, in front of a bank of red poinsettias. Thea is nineteen. Kit was nineteen when she was first married in the drawing room of Wildwood, two days before Christmas in 1922. "I have had two wonderfully happy marriages," Kit said to me. "One early in life and one late, one at Wildwood and one at the Malibu."
Thea settled on Wildwood for the ceremony because it is near Stanford, and many of her friends. So the clan will gather once more, before they are all scattered by the winds.
We have much to celebrate. Philip's new book will be out in December, and in January, Hayes and May leave to take up a post in Beijing.
Karin and Paul and the baby, Katie (Katherine Faith is her full name) will come for the wedding. Paul's son, Alex, will stay behind to take care of the boatyard. "He says he is tired of sowing wild oats, that he wants to settle down with something as steady as the sea," Karin wrote me some time back, but she did not sound convinced. Karin is also bringing along an exhibit which includes a series of my photographs, called "The Hawaiians," which is to be shown in a local gallery.
Annie will fly in for the wedding, but she can only stay the day. After two years of playing minor roles in touring companies, she has hit what she calls the "semibigtime" in a new repertory theater in Cleveland. She is playing the role of the wife in a play based on James Agee's "A Death in the Family."
Annie is to be the maid of honor, Phinney will be his son's best man. Philip says he would never miss "rolling down the aisle" to give his daughter away, and Kit is ecstatic with the joining of the families. Hao is to be the ring bearer, though he has told Thea, whom he calls "Big Sister," that he is much too old to wear short pants.
Only Emilie is not entirely happy about the marriage. They are too young, she says, Thea should have finished school, Amos still has a long haul in graduate school. Thea is not emotionally stable, she adds, she will weigh Amos down.
I want to say to her that none of us is emotionally stable, that all of us weigh down those we love. I want to tell her that the one thing old age does not blunt is our feelings, that to the end of our days we ache for those we love when they are hurt, no matter they are five or fifty. We cut ourselves, and our children bleed and bear the scars.
These last nights, in the hour before sleep, I find myself remembering my mother. Snatches of songs she used to sing as she sewed and rocked . . . In the sweet by and by and Shall we gather by the river. The night nurse wakened me last night, she said I was crying in my sleep and she wanted to give me another pill, "to ease the pain," she said. I could only shake my head and try to hurry back to the dream she had interrupted. There was a parade down Market Street on a lovely, bright blue afternoon, bunting on the buildings and brass bands and music and everyone was there, all my old friends, long dead, laughing and strutting as the band played . . . May was there as a little girl holding Sara's hand and not far behind. May as a grown woman walking, arms abreast, with Karin and Hayes and Sam and Eli and Israel, all smiling. Phinney was wearing an Alpine hat, with Amos and Annie on his shoulders and Emilie shouting, 'Come march with us, Mother.' I jumped out of my wheelchair and ran to meet them, twirling and stepping high as the brass band played and the happiness swirled about me, and I was filled with the perfect knowledge that it was right, all of it was right, and that the parade would never end.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
WHEN I CAME to the end of my first novel. Hers the Kingdom, I knew I wasn't done with the Reade family. Or, more precisely, they weren't quite done with me. What I did not know was that the baby born at the end of that book would become the main character in this one. In between I did a novel called A Time Between, in which several characters from Kingdom appeared, almost uninvited. (Just as Faith, from A Time Between, became the narrator of this book.) Diane Reverand has been the editor on all of my novels; I think she must be as caught up with the Reades and their friends as I am, because when I told her what I had in mind for this book her immediate response was something like, "Of course." In the long months it took to research and write Gift of the Golden Mountain, Diane and my literary agent, Claire Smith, would look in on me now and then, say a few encouraging words, cheer me on. Working with them has been part of the pleasure of doing this book, and I am more grateful than I can say to those two nice, smart, thoughtful women.
There are others I must thank. It amazes me how generous people are, how quick to help. I suppose you can expect it of friends (I did, and none of them failed me) but now and then an acquaintance would go out of his or her way to get a bit of information for m
e, or put me on the right track. I sat next to Dr. Peter Strykers at a dinner party, and happened to mention to him a medical problem I was dealing with in the book. The next day he phoned me with precisely the information I needed.
I knew our good family friend Karsten Prager was much too busy to take time out to read my Saigon chapters, but I asked him anyway. Karsten had been in Vietnam as a correspondent for Time and has strong feelings about that place, that war. He is Time's international editor now, but he managed to read my chapters on a plane, then made the time to talk to me at length about his impressions of Saigon.
Tim Knowles is a lawyer friend whose grand passion is sailing. Tim painstakingly went over that part of the book which deals with sailing, his charts of Hawaiian waters spread out on my kitchen table.
My friend Suna Kanga, a journalist who lives in Singapore, set out with me to explore Hong Kong and Macao and the south of China. Then, a few months later, she went with me to Thailand. It was sweet, polite, determined Suna who got us to the jail on Mahachai Road in Bangkok.
Two other dear friends, Ingrid Schultheis and Carol Kirk, were generous to a fault with their time and energy—Ingrid did library research, Carol did whatever needed doing, and both offered unflagging encouragement all along the way.
In the Chicago area, my helpers were my college friend Jane Pritchett Bailey and her friend, Joan Lincke.
In Hawaii, Janet Sanborn was a wonderful source of information. We sat and talked on the lanai of her little house perched high in Makiki Heights, overlooking all of Honolulu, and I knew I would have to borrow the setting for the book. Expatriate Hawaiians Pete and Lynda Sanborn, now of California, never lost patience with me when I would call them—as I frequently did—for some bit of information. Nancy Maxwell of Honolulu was also a great help.
I ran into Dr. George Moore of the U.S. Geological Survey on the Hawaiian island of Lanai, where he was doing field research. He agreed to help me with my research on volcanoes, and was as good as his word. The folks at the Volcanoes National Park, and at the Volcano Observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii were a great help as well.
Dr. Bonnie Hardwick, head of the Manuscripts Division, Bancroft Library at U.C. Berkeley, took the time to explain the responsibilities of an archivist.
Carolyn Wakeman has a deep and abiding affection for the Chinese, having taught English literature in their schools. She was kind enough to go over several chapters for me.
In Los Angeles, our longtime friend Doug Ring, that fine barrister, has my heartfelt thanks for all of his good help.
So many others helped out: Ray Colvig of the University of California Public Information Office; Michael Moynihan, Head, OECD Publications and Information Center; Sara Brown and Jackie Fridell McKinley; Janice Eng, Susanne Robbins, Ruth Limtiaco, Barbara Sheehan, the Hong Kong Tourist Association; Bob Candiotti and Singapore Airlines; The Singapore Tourist Promotion Board; National Tourism Administration, People's Republic of China; The Tourism Authority of Thailand; Thai Airways International; and the Macao Tourist Information Bureau. If I have left anyone out, I am truly sorry.
I've saved for last the people who deserve a large blue ribbon (or maybe a purple heart) for bravery, patience, and good humor— my photojoumalist husband, Ted, who read the manuscript in progress and offered the kind of sound advice I've learned to listen to; my son Mark and my daughter Maria. They are good guys, and I appreciate them.
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Gift of the Golden Mountain Page 51