The Long March Home

by Zoë S. Roy

  Lon shook his head. “That’s your grandmother, the same one that lives right here in this house.”

  Yezi examined the woman who wore a long-sleeved, dark Chinese blouse. Her baggy pants ended at her ankles, and her feet were in a pair of cloth shoes. Yes, she was a young Agnes. Her eyes seemed to shine with vigour, Yezi thought. “Oh, they look like the people in ancient times.”

  “This is the only photo of your grandparents together. Your mother told me that each of your grandparents had a copy. Your mama had it reprinted before she left Boston for China.” Lon sighed, thinking about Meihua’s reason for going to China so many years ago. “I hope they can meet again someday.”

  Yezi placed the photograph back into the envelope and returned it to her father. Will the miracle ever happen?

  Finally Lon boarded an airplane back to China, where he would carry on with his life. Engraved deeply in the bottom of his heart was the word, Nirvana, the title of the painting that Meihua had taken several months to complete. The physical form of his wife had passed, but her spirit was free, and it would accompany him on his remaining life journey.

  At the airport, Yezi and her grandmother watched the plane take off. Yezi held her grandmother’s hand all the way home.

  25.

  WHITE PAGODA STREET

  A MONTH LATER, A LETTER FROM Yezi’s father arrived informing her that while Ling had returned to Kunming, she had no new information about Mei. Lon’s letter also enclosed a photograph of Yao. She was wearing the bright blue blouse Yezi had sent to her through her father. Yao’s smiling face brought back many fond memories. Yezi framed it and placed the photograph on her dresser, next to the one of her parents and brother.

  Two months later, Yezi turned fifteen and received Agnes’s old diaries, as the birthday gift Agnes had promised.

  In her bedroom, Yezi quickly unwrapped the package, eager to learn about her grandmother’s history. The two books were covered with faded, pink brocade. They looked like mysterious chests inviting her to look inside for treasure. Carefully, she fingered the fabric on the cover, and then sniffed the pages that smelled faintly of mothballs. Each cover had the word “Diary” engraved on it. She opened the first book and began to read. It was dated Halifax, May 1923.

  Agnes Willard of Wolfville, Nova Scotia was the youngest of four children from a doctor’s family. After graduating from the Nurses’ Training School affiliated with the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax, she studied at Pine Hill College preparing for a Christian mission overseas.In February of 1924, during a Christian fellowship meeting, her pastor informed her that her application for a missionary position in Japan had been rejected.

  Agnes filled out another application for the West China Mission in Sichuan. Along with a reference letter from her pastor, she mailed the form to the Methodist Church in Toronto. In August, Agnes took holidays and visited her parents in Wolfville. Her parents held a family party, inviting friends and neighbours to a potluck picnic. Her siblings joined the party, as did her maiden aunt from Boston. Several tables, set in a row in her parents’ backyard that looked over the Bay of Fundy, were filled with plates of broiled cod fillets, salted haddock, cold poached salmon, smoked herring, potato salad, coleslaw, and home-made bread. Among the dishes was a Caesar salad made by Agnes’s aunt who had followed a recipe, recently created by Caesar Cardini, a restaurateur in California.Agnes’s mother had invited a children’s choir to perform at the party. All the guests joined the choir in singing “Summer Suns Are Glowing,” a hymn by William Walsham How.

  “Summer suns are glowing over land and sea / Happy light is flowing, bountiful and free / Everything rejoices in the mellow rays…” As Agnes sang the last line, “Earth’s tenthousand voices swell the psalm of praise,” she tried to imagine her future, and lost herself in thoughts of missions in far away and exotic places. One of the young men at the party was an ardent and persistent admirer. Joining her in line to fill their plates from the buffet, he said, “Agnes, you’ve been rejected twice by the foreign mission. Maybe that’s God’s will.”

  “I appreciate your concern, Bill, but I’m going to try again.” Agnes carried her plate, laden with food, to a picnic table. He followed and sat down next to her. After a few minutes of silent eating, Agnes turned to him and said, “You’re very kind, but you don’t really understand me.”

  “Why won’t you give me a chance?” Bill’s face lit up.

  Agnes was at a loss for words when she spotted one of the young women at the picnic staring pointedly at Bill. She stood up and beckoned for her to join them. She turned to Bill and said, “Eva’s been looking for you. I think she would really like to talk to you.”

  Then, excusing herself, she walked over to her aunt, Joanne. “Are you enjoying the smoked fish? Mother and I smoked them a couple of days ago.”

  “Oh, really? It really is very good; it reminds me of my childhood.” Joanne nodded, looking back at Bill. “He seems to like you.”

  “He’s a nice man, but I’m hoping to leave for an overseas mission very soon. I cannot get involved with anyone right now.”

  “You could come to Boston and stay with me. You could easily get a job there,” her aunt said with a smile. “Boston is a great city for a young, ambitious woman.”

  They finished their plates and then strolled to the shore. A cool breeze from the bay brought with it the smell of fish and salt. Agnes drew a deep breath. “I really want to go overseas. I believe people there need me and I want to do this work.”

  Water crashed against the shore. Aunt Joanne had to speak loudly to be heard. “But you might have to wait until next year for another opportunity. And even then, you don’t know if you’ll get a position.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Joanne. But I can get a part-time job in September. And I’ll do some volunteer work at the hospital in Halifax while I wait for my next chance to apply.”

  They reached some crumbling sandcastles that had been built earlier by the children at the picnic. Agnes picked up a few pebbles and threw one at the bay’s surface. It slipped into the water. She tossed another one, which flew into the air and then disappeared. She kept skimming stones. At last, the fifth pebble skipped twice before sinking into the water. Satisfied with her efforts, she eyed the waves thoughtfully.

  Joanne linked her arm with Agnes’s. “Your father insisted on coming back to Wolfville after he got his medical degree from the New York Medical College, even though he could have more easily practiced in the States.”

  “Now, I understand why he’s never interfered with what I want to do.” Agnes laughed.

  “Like father, like daughter,” Joanne said. “All right, do what you want. But come with me to see your grandparents in Port Royal tomorrow.”

  “Certainly. I haven’t seen them for a couple of years.”

  After her holiday, and back in Halifax, Agnes worked part-time as a nurse and volunteered at her neighbourhood church. On an August day in 1925, a year later, she received a telegram from the newly formed United Church in Toronto. They offered her an unexpected position in the West China Mission, due to the sudden sick leave of a missionary. They asked her to leave within ten days for Vancouver. From there she would go to Shanghai by ship.

  Exhilarated, Agnes immediately confirmed her acceptance.But it was the end of October before she could finally board the Empress of Australia in Vancouver. Growing anti-western resentment in China had delayed all new missionary positions.When she arrived in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, it was already the end of November 1925. Agnes was housed in the West Mission Compound on White Pagoda Street where she would get lessons in the Chinese language for three months before beginning her missionary work.

  Several days later, Agnes met with the Chinese tutor assigned to her in the compound meeting room. Mei looked to be in his early twenties. He wore a padded black robe and a short gray Chi
nese blazer with two rows of buttons reaching a tight, standing collar. He was tall and well-built. Handsome. Amazingly, he spoke fluent English. “Is this your first time speaking to a Chinese person?”

  Agnes nodded. “Not only that, I thought I would be taller than you, but…”

  “You also thought I’d be malnourished, right?” Mei said, his mouth curving into a smile.

  Feeling her face flush, Agnes stammered, “This is something I have heard about before. I am sorry about that.”

  “No need to apologize. China’s a weak country. My people need lots of help to escape famine and poverty.”

  Agnes learned that Mei, from a teacher’s family, had been converted to Christianity at a missionary middle school. As a senior student, he had majored in medicine at the West China Union University, sponsored by missionaries from Canada, the United States and other western countries.Agnes met him several hours a day to practice Chinese. When he was not teaching her Chinese, Mei showed her around. She bought a long white Chinese blouse and a loose black skirt that Chinese girl students commonly wore. She found it more comfortable walking with Mei when she dressed like a Chinese girl student.

  Four months later, in March of 1926, Agnes began to work as a nurse in a missionary hospital. One Monday, as she stepped out of the hospital building after work, she was surprised to find Mei leaning against the stairwell banister. “Let’s celebrate your day!” he said, waving his hand at her.

  “My day?” Agnes tried to think what he meant and then suddenly remembered. “March the eighth? International Women’s Day?”

  “Right. Don’t you celebrate this day in Canada?”

  “Not really. But I remember its founder, Clara Zetkin.”

  “Good! Because of her urging and help, Lenin established International Women’s Day.”

  “Lenin? The Russian communist?”

  Just then, a rickshaw abruptly halted in front of the gate. A man jumped down. “I need a doctor? Please help me!” he shouted, racing into the yard.

  “What’s happening?” Mei asked the man.

  “My wife is in labour! Please come!”

  “Is she in the wagon?” Agnes ran over to the rickshaw.

  “No, no. She’s at home. She can’t move.” The man wiped the sweat on his forehead with a handkerchief and looked at Agnes. “Can you help me?”

  “Let me get something first.” Agnes ran back into the building. The doctor on duty could not leave the hospital, so she was the only one who could help him. She returned with an emergency kit.

  The man led her to the rickshaw. “Take her back to my house. Remember? It’s 24 Black Horse Lane,” he said to the rickshaw-puller. Mei helped Agnes clamber onto the seat.

  “I’ll follow you,” Mei said. Maybe I can be of some help.”

  The rickshaw-puller began to run. Mei and the man raced after the rickshaw, dust rising from its wheels. Several pedestrians scurried out of the way while other passers-by cheered the rickshaw-puller on. Fifteen minutes later, the rickshaw pulled into a courtyard.

  “You a doctor?” asked a boy who had waiting for them. He pointed to a door on their right. The door suddenly opened and a middle-aged woman hobbled out to grab Agnes’s arm. “Please save the baby.”

  Agnes followed her into the room, noticing her tiny, bound feet, which caused her slow, shuffling steps. Mei and the husband were stopped at the door after they had rushed into the yard. The woman’s panting and moaning filtered through the window accompanied by Agnes’s reassuring voice, “Hold her legs, please.”

  The middle-aged woman inside asked in a husky, panicky tone, “What did you say?”

  Mei shouted outside the window, “Lady, please listen to me.” He interpreted Agnes’s words from the outside.

  “Take deep and slow breaths.” “Shift your weight from one leg to the other.” Blow through your mouth.” Mei continued. “Push the baby out, gently.”

  The world seemed dead until a baby’s cry broke the tension in the air. Finally Mei and the father were permitted to enter the room. Agnes fell into a chair, too tense to move. It was her first time delivering a baby. The foot-bound woman insisted they drink some tea before leaving. The husband thanked them profusely. After they left, he waved goodbye from the double doors of the yard gate. Emergency case in hand, Mei walked with Agnes back to the hospital.

  It was too late for them to go to the performance of the female students at the university as Mei had planned. Instead, Agnes suggested going to a teahouse she had heard about, even though Mei mentioned that most of the patrons were male. To satisfy her curiosity, Mei led the way along a pebble-paved alley toward the Laoguang Teahouse. Agnes pulled her black scarf over her head to hide her blonde hair. Inside, middle-aged and elderly men lounged together at tables. A few women were sitting beside their husbands. Tobacco smoke spread through the room lit by a few burning oil lamps hanging precariously on the walls. Occasional coughs rose from the crowd.

  Mei and Agnes found a small, square table made of bamboo near a window. A breeze blew in, diluting the smoke. Patrons sipped tea and ate snacks. Like most of the people in the teahouse, Mei ordered two cups of tea and a plate of deep fried fava beans and another of deep fried soybeans.

  Agnes craned her head toward the stage.An elderly man with a long, white goatee was seated in front of a table in the centre of the stage. He spoke loudly, and bobbed his head. He was wearing a small, round, traditional Chinese cap that shook as his head bobbed, its sleek surface shining in the flickering light. Agnes asked under her breath, “What’s that old man doing?”

  “He is, as the folks here say, talking books. It’s a kind of oral tradition for illiterate people, so they can also appreciate the classics.” Mei passed a cup to Agnes. “This is Emei tea. It’s rated the best in West China.”

  Sipping the tea and nibbling the beans, Agnes strove to understand what the elderly man was saying. He banged the table with a thick palm-sized bamboo sheet whenever the story reached a turning point or the protagonist had something important to do or say. Then the hall echoed with applause and cheers. At the next table, several men joined in the clapping. Their long, single braids drooped down their backs. Meanwhile they smacked their lips on long smoking pipes.Agnes understood some of the war stories of heroes from The Legend of Three Kingdoms. Later, though the clapping of the audience made it difficult for her to hear, she was able to make out the words “boxers,” “righteous,” and “harmonious fists” coming from the mouth of the book talker. When she heard the phrase “foreign devils,” she realized the story was about the Boxer Rebellion that had taken place more than two decades earlier.

  “We should leave now,” Mei whispered, noticing that one or two listeners sitting nearby were staring at them.

  “Okay.” Agnes stood up and began to follow him out. As they passed through the door, a heavy voice called behind them. “Get out of here. You fake foreign devils!”

  Mei was relieved that they had mistaken Agnes for a Chinese girl student. In the eyes of ordinary people, college students were poisoned by foreign ideas. If the patrons had realized that Agnes was actually a westerner, some of them would have gotten even angrier; Boxer fighters had been opposing foreign imperialism and Christianity for decades and were responsible for widespread anti-western sentiment. Mei took Agnes’s arm and said, “I hope you aren’t upset by the stories in the teahouse. I regret taking you there.”

  “Don’t regret it. I am glad we went there.” Agnes stopped walking. “Now I’ve learned what ordinary people think.”

  “Some people welcome missionaries. Some don’t. They are hostile to anyone who’s been converted to Christianity or who gets new ideas from outside.” Mei looked at the almost empty street. “I’ll walk you back to the compound.”

  Walking with her arm through Mei’s, Agnes felt safe. “I’m wondering when we can go to Mount E
mei. I’m really eager to see it.” She had read about the Buddha’s Glory on the summit.

  “I’ll take you when my semester ends,” Mei replied.

  When they reached the compound yard, Agnes said, “Today is the most eventful International Women’s Day I’ve ever had.”

  May 28, in the early morning, Agnes and Mei paid for a horse-drawn wagon ride to Mount Emei, which would take them almost an entire day to reach. Agnes wore a long-sleeved, blue blouse made of hand-woven cloth and light baggy pants bound at her ankles. Over the blouse she had on a white Chinese-style vest. She sported a pair of cloth shoes with rubber soles—the best walking shoes she could find. She rolled her long blond hair into a bun at the back of her head and covered it with a silky blue scarf. This way, people around her would barely notice that she was not Chinese. Mei, like most local peasants, was dressed in a short white robe and baggy pants with their cuffs bound at his ankles. A black waistband cinched his robe shut. He also had a bamboo hamper on his back, its two straps on his shoulders. Inside were provisions for the trip. They talked the entire way, never running out of things to tell each other.

  The wagon deposited them at the foot of Mount Emei the following morning. Immediately they started to climb along the path winding up the mountain. A number of tourists had hired carriers—two men to carry them on sedan chairs. Each carrier held two poles, attached to a chair, resting on both shoulders.

  Half way up, when Agnes and Mei decided to rest for a moment under a pine tree, Mei pulled a bunch of bananas from his hamper and passed them to Agnes. “Help yourself.”

  Before Agnes’s hand could reach for the fruit, a monkey unexpectedly dropped from a branch in the tree. Mei, startled, dropped the fruit and the monkey, seizing his opportunity, snatched it. Startled, Agnes screamed as more monkeys arrived and hopped excitedly around them.

  “I should’ve told you about the monkeys,” Mei laughed. “They’re everywhere on the mountain, but they won’t hurt you. Watch that one.”