by Virginia Pye
Cuneiform shadows spread over the hardwood floor where moonlight filtered through the lattice screen. The same silvery hues caught on the beveled glass of the two sets of French doors that opened onto the dining room on one side and the parlor on the other. The handsome scholar’s desk and traditional yoke-back folding chairs sat huddled in grayness, waiting for Caleb to return. Stretched across the corner by the bay window, a painted screen showed an impressive golden phoenix spreading its wings and flying toward the distant mountains far beyond the mission walls.
Shirley wondered if it would pain her to have that elegant reminder of China, in addition to some of the other, finer antiques she had collected over the past five years, shipped back to her future home in America or if it would be wiser to simply leave it all behind. She would return to America with nothing to show for her time here. No embroidered silk or delicately painted porcelain. No carnelian-colored carved boxes or lacquered picture frames. No objects to touch and call to mind this place and time, as if these years in Cathay had been but a dream with no evidence of their passing. A strange, inexplicable chapter would close forever, leaving only the memory of loss in another land.
Four
The windowpanes rattled, and the brass box on Charles’s bedside table fell to the floor. His pocketknife tumbled out and scooted under the bed. He threw off the covers and hurried to the window. Smoke wafted his way from fire in a field not far off, the soil churned up from some sort of grenade or maybe even a bomb. The Japanese had recently paved the road outside the town so that it snaked steadily to the west in a ribbon of dark asphalt. Charles thought it looked normal enough until he squinted and noticed that at a distant bend, a crater of smoldering earth had replaced the smooth surface. The fighting seemed to have come closer to the mission than ever before.
Below his window, the massive doors at the southwest entrance to the mission stood open, and Charles could make out Japanese soldiers marching past. Their boots stirred the yellow dust on the rutted road. Into the mission courtyard below streamed hundreds of Chinese, some limping or injured, many with possessions piled on wooden wheelbarrows or bundled on their backs. But just as many Chinese appeared to be fleeing up the paths that led away from the town. They fanned out in all directions like the ants Charles and Han had set on fire with the help of a magnifying glass and the sun when they were younger boys.
Charles didn’t see any damage to the town buildings within his sight except that the American guardhouse appeared to have been attacked, its glass windows shattered, the red, white, and blue wood splintered on the ground. Charles worried about old, blind Mr. Sung, who sat all day on his three-legged stool at the gate. He hoped he had been off tending to his cats when the damage was done. But who, Charles wondered, would want to bombard the entrance to the American compound?
He pulled on his trousers over his pajama bottoms, yanked on his golfing cap, and retrieved his pocketknife from under the bed. He went in search of his mother. She wasn’t in her bedroom or in the sewing room, so he started downstairs but stopped short on the landing beside the moon window. The view over the back wall had not changed. On the horizon, the low mountain range shimmered in the morning haze, its blue skirts flowing onto the rosy desert floor. All seemed peaceful in that greater distance, and Charles wondered why the Japanese Imperial Army, or the Chinese military, for that matter, chose to attack one area but not another. It all seemed arbitrary and mysterious.
Into the front hall, swarms of Chinese people poured. Families with small children, older men in coolie hats, a pregnant woman who looked ready to burst, grandfathers hobbling over their canes, and clusters of young men all pressed into their home. Charles’s mother stood at the center, an electric look in her eyes, and Lian’s shouts rose above it all. She sent some strangers into the dining room, others into the parlor. The handsome French doors had been flung back, glass panes reflecting the many who shuffled in and milled about on the blue carpet with the cherry-blossom design. Charles noticed that the Chinese didn’t set down their bags or take a seat on the formal furniture. They hovered about, clearly at a loss for what to do next.
Charles noticed a young man leaning on a friend, with several others surrounding him. He had been shot in the leg and had a tourniquet cinched around his thigh. Down his torn pants, the caked blood had hardened. A frayed rope held his oversized jacket in place, and his cloth shoes were ripped, the sole of the left one flopping loose. Could this kid, who wasn’t much older than he, be an actual soldier, even though he wore no uniform? Charles had overheard the servants saying that the Nationalist Army troops had been fighting the Japanese off and on for months in North China and were badly undersupplied and underfed. The injured boy swayed where he balanced between his friends, the perfectly good wicker sofa empty before them.
Charles ran down the stairs and stopped beside his mother. She was leaning over an elderly man crumpled in the middle of the mayhem. With his chin tucked to his chest, the grandfather refused to respond to her entreaties that he move so he wouldn’t be trampled by the incoming horde. When she straightened and called for Lian’s help, his mother finally noticed Charles and threw her arms around his neck. Then she pushed him away and held him at arm’s length. She looked him up and down, searching nonsensically for injuries, then offered a grim and apologetic shake of her head.
“I’m so sorry, my boy. This is an awful mess. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Mother.” He knew she meant well by her concern, as if it was her duty to make everything right in a world that wasn’t one bit right. It made her look tired, Charles thought, her face lined with worry. He shifted away from her now and gestured toward the parlor. “Should I tell them to sit down?”
“What?” she shouted back.
Charles noticed an elderly woman being carried in by two strong grandsons, her bound feet dangling uselessly. A toddler cried, and another child not much older scolded him but then reached down and took his hand. Charles raised his voice, too. “Shall I help them to feel at home?”
“Yes, excellent idea. Thank you, Charles.” Her eyes were shining, and she seemed ready to cry. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Please don’t make a fuss,” he said and stepped away, his fists balled at his sides.
In the parlor, he wove past several families and climbed onto his father’s leather chair. For balance, he placed one foot on the desk beside the banker’s lamp with the green shade. He tried not to notice the abacus that his father had always allowed him to play with, or the letters and ministerial notes covered in his fine, spidery scrawl. Charles reached down and pocketed his father’s chop, a two-inch-long piece of marble with a phoenix carved on one end and Chinese characters on the other. The bright-red ink his father had used to stamp his signature smudged on Charles’s palm, but he held on to it tightly anyway.
Charles swallowed and then shouted in the local dialect, “Sit!” He gestured to the available chairs. “Make yourselves at home!”
The Chinese stared up at him, and Charles saw only distress and confusion on their faces. Where had they come from, he wondered, and from what were they running? He realized that standing so high above them wasn’t helping to put them at ease. He stepped down and began to yank the rocker and other chairs away from the center of the room. He lined them up against the walls, and the Chinese began to drift toward them. “That’s right,” he tried more patiently. “Put down your things and take a seat.”
From his visits to Han’s father’s quarters at the back of the compound, Charles knew that the Chinese kept their formal furniture around the outside of a room and used it only on special occasions or when an important visitor came. This parlor’s usual arrangement of seats clustered before the fireplace and in front of the bay window would seem odd to them, so Charles tried to create his own version of a Chinese setting. As he moved the furniture, Dao-Ming appeared without a sound and began to help him. When they finished, Charles patted her on the head, and she smiled. She always stood a little
too close, literally underfoot, but Charles didn’t mind having her around. She did whatever he asked, and although Charles tried not to take advantage of her too often, every once in a while he’d say something like “Dao-Ming, sneak me a malt candy stick from the cookie jar where Lian hides them, will you?” And she always would, no questions asked. She had never once betrayed him to his parents or his amah.
He spoke again to the crowded room, bowing first. “My family and I would be most honored if you would permit us the privilege of your taking a seat.” He bowed a second time to the most elderly of the gentleman.
The Chinese finally settled in. They sat on the chairs and set blankets on the hearth. More made themselves comfortable along the window seats. But still no one sat on the sofa, which remained in its usual spot on the fine rug. Charles went to the injured young man and gestured for him to lie down on the silk cushions. The injured fellow looked at his friends, then down at his feet. None of them moved. Charles left the room briefly and wove through the crowd. He returned a few moments later and spread one of Lian’s rags over the silk pillows on the couch and gestured again. Finally the young man stumbled toward it on his good leg and eased himself down, grimacing apologetically.
The older of his two friends had hollow cheeks and was missing several teeth, but his eyes seemed kind as he adjusted the pillow under the injured boy’s leg and crouched down beside him. His other friend had a barrel chest, stocky legs, and forearms as thick around as baseball bats. He swayed side to side and kept a restless, eager watch over his injured friend.
Charles stepped closer to the three men and asked, “So, what happened out there this morning?”
They looked to one another again, and the older man finally nodded. The restless fellow could hardly contain himself as he answered, “Communist guerrillas destroyed a section of the railroad the Japs have been trying to build through the mountains. I heard it was a direct hit!”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Charles asked.
“Yes, but they attacked us out on the plains in retaliation! They must have thought we were responsible.”
“We don’t know if that is the reason,” the older man said. “There could be action elsewhere. Or it could still be in response to the Marco Polo Bridge incident in Peking. We must be patient. Word will come.”
“But you were attacked near here?” Charles asked. “Where?”
The older man looked at him but didn’t answer.
The restless one paced behind the sofa. “If only we had proper weapons and better aircraft, we would stand a chance. Our officers parade around, and the young warlord issues commands from afar.” He waved his hand in disgust. “I could run this army better myself.”
“Settle down,” the older one growled. “And don’t forget we did well in the North.”
“There’s been fighting north of here?” Charles asked.
“They want the coal of this region,” the robust fellow said, “and to use the roads through the mountains to get supplies. So far we have not let them. We have been very brave!”
“Control of the mountains is crucial,” the older one said, shaking his head.
The injured boy, who had lain quietly until now with his eyes shut, opened them and pushed himself up onto one elbow. “The Reds know the mountains better than anyone. When my leg is healed, I’m joining them.”
The robust one patted him on the shoulder. “Do not desert us, my friend, like our traitorous commanders.”
The older one muttered a curse.
“What do you mean?” Charles asked. “Your commanders actually left you?”
“They are puppets, nothing more!” the restless one said. Then he leaned closer to the older man and whispered, “I say, let the Imperial Army execute them! I will do the job myself if the Japs don’t.”
As the injured boy flopped back onto the sofa he said, “There is no such thing as traitors in the Eighth Route Army. No one is conscripted, so there is no reason for desertion.”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear, kid,” the restless one said. “Stick with us.”
The injured boy let out a soft moan and shut his eyes again. Charles crouched before him and carefully lifted the torn material to see the wound. The other soldiers leaned in closer, too, and seemed unimpressed.
“You will run again in no time,” the restless friend said.
The bullet appeared to have only grazed the thigh, but the skin was nonetheless badly torn, and Charles thought he saw bone beneath. If this was considered a slight wound, he hated to think what these men might consider a real injury. He quickly covered the leg again, breathed through his open mouth, and held on to the sofa arm. He tried to focus on the task at hand. He would need to find something to clean the wound, also towels and bandages. But first his head must stop spinning.
“American boy all right?” the older man asked.
“He is afraid of blood,” the robust one said and swatted Charles’s arm. “You would never make it in my army!”
Charles tried to smile. “I’ll get supplies for you,” he said to the injured boy.
Light-headed, he gazed around the parlor. Several elders and the pregnant woman sat on the chairs, their families and possessions clustered at their feet. Others crouched on the rug or pushed aside the curtains to look out at the crowded porch and courtyard. What these people hoped for, or what they wanted to see happen next, remained unclear to Charles. What had taken place outside the compound remained equally confusing, despite the explanations from the soldiers.
Charles looked toward the chaotic scene in the front hallway. Each of the Chinese appeared caught in his or her own turmoil, with his mother at the center, trying to make sense of it all. Charles couldn’t help laughing a little under his breath. She looked so alive and engaged, her hands gesticulating as she spoke, her head held high, then dipping low to hear the words of a bent elder or small child. With renewed vigor, she appeared to be doing her darnedest to help each and every one of them.
One family, though, sat stonily quiet, asking for nothing and not raising their voices. On the bottom step that led up to the second floor, an older man sat. Two middle-aged women, who must have been his daughters, and several grandchildren crouched around him. Charles recognized the traditional Japanese robes and realized that this grandfather was the town’s only fishmonger, a Japanese citizen who had been here at least as long as the Carson family. Charles had always been afraid of the old man, not because he was Japanese but because he was a crotchety bastard who never had a kind word for anyone. The man was quite unreasonable about his prices, but he didn’t seem a mortal enemy of the Chinese. Now his hand trembled as he raised it to his brow, and his children and grandchildren hardly lifted their eyes from the floor.
Charles went to his mother’s side and whispered in her ear, “Shall I take them upstairs?” He nodded toward the Japanese family. She looked both exhilarated and utterly flummoxed, her mouth hanging open and wisps of hair falling from her bun. Before she had a chance to respond, Charles said, “It’s all right, Mother. I’ll take care of it.”
He slipped away and bowed before the Japanese grandfather and his family, then gestured for them to follow him up to the second floor. At the top of the stairs, he escorted them into his mother’s sewing room, a space not much larger than the lavatory, which now felt far smaller with all those people in it. The ladies let out thrilled exclamations at the sight of the Singer machine on its special table with the iron foot pedal underneath. They crowded around and touched it with delicate fingers. One of the grown daughters elbowed the others aside and took the seat in front of it. She read aloud the gold letters written in English script on the side of the black base, and the little girls inched closer and clapped their hands as the woman began to practice on a piece of muslin his mother had used for the curtains downstairs.
Charles joined the Japanese fishmonger, who sat at the end of the iron-framed day bed, his head bent, his palsied hand to his brow again. The
old man was so distracted by his worries that he hadn’t even noticed the curled body stretched beside him on the pilled bedspread. A tartan throw covered the narrow shoulders, and a lace antimacassar lay over the bald head to keep out the light.
Charles shook Tupan Feng’s shoulder. “Rise and shine,” he said. “You have visitors!”
The Japanese fishmonger still didn’t look up, even when the old warlord’s feet in his tattered slippers shifted beside him. Tupan Feng sat up, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand like a child, and blinked several times. He didn’t look one bit surprised to find Charles standing over him in the narrow room now packed with strangers.
“Is it time?” he asked.
“Yes, it is,” Charles said, though he wasn’t sure what the old warlord had in mind.
Tupan Feng’s face went red as he pushed himself to stand, one hand on his cane, the other on the handle of his prize sword. “Into battle we must go!”
The Japanese fishmonger finally looked up.
“Whoa, hold on,” Charles said and took the old warlord by the arm. He gently eased him back down onto the bed.
The two men sat hunched shoulder to shoulder, neither acknowledging the other. Charles made proper introductions, being sure to sound equally respectful and bowing equally low before each. They nodded imperceptibly and pursed their lips, but neither spoke.
“All right, now, you two should have plenty to talk about,” Charles said and tipped his cap. “How about Tokyo, for starters? Old Tupan Feng remembers it, don’t you? He was a student there. And you, Honorable Fishmonger, you must have at least visited there before coming to China?”
Both men grimaced. The deep frown lines that sloped down their cheeks acted as perfect mirrors when they turned their heads on their sinewy necks toward one another. If only these two could resolve the war, Charles thought.
At the top of the stairs, he held the newel post and listened to the cacophony of voices all around. After his father’s death, the Carson home had felt as chilly as a tomb for weeks. The spring rain had fallen in sheets outside his window and pounded the unyielding ground. The tile roofs had grown slick, and a rush of unceasing water had rumbled down the gutters. Unable to sleep, Charles had crawled out of bed, pushed open the window, and sat with his elbows on the sill, his face splattered by rain. His shirt became quickly soaked, and he shivered but still kept watch. Even in the dark, his eyes stayed on the compound gate. Only when his arms grew numb and his ears filled with the sensation of being lost deep under water in a sea he could not name did Charles realize that he was waiting for his father’s mule to come around the corner of the guardhouse and into the mission.