Anthony Grey

by Peking- A Novel of China's Revolution- 1921-1978 (epub)

  Abigail spoke in a quietly sympathetic voice as she stepped out onto the balcony. She wore a cool frock of yellow linen and a matching woolen jacket to guard against the fresh autumn morning and she moved to the parapet beside her father to follow the direction of his gaze.

  “I suppose I might be,” conceded Jakob with another sigh. “I’ve been trying hard to see Peking as my hosts want us to see it — not as I remember it.”

  “Is that for their sake or yours?” asked Abigail with a little frown.

  “I think I’ve been trying to do it for all our sakes.”

  “But you haven’t always been successful, have you?”

  “Perhaps not.” Jakob looked sharply at his daughter. He had become gradually aware that closing his mind to his own past associations with Peking had induced a growing feeling of tension in him as the days passed. Abigail, who was promptly included in the peace committee’s invitation as soon as he made the request from Hong Kong, had remained dutifully quiet at his side during the functions and visits, but he realized from her pointed question that she must already have sensed something of his mood. “Has it been that obvious?”

  “No. I can see you’ve been fascinated by everything you’ve heard and seen since we’ve been here. But you’d hardly be human, Daddy, if the past didn’t creep up on you at times. I guessed that was the reason you decided suddenly last night to drop out of today’s program.”

  Jakob looked out over the balcony again toward the Temple of Heaven. From the moment when he had first caught sight of the gilded Summer Palace roofs at the end of their flight from Canton, he had felt the tug of the past. The palaces, the shimmering lake with its willow-pattern bridges, and the curved-roof teahouses had reminded him vividly of the China of his boyhood imagination and at that point he had consciously clamped an iron band of discipline on his own thoughts. Once on the ground, however, he discovered that the austere Communist present had stamped its image more firmly on Peking than he had imagined from afar. The road into the capital from the modern, functional airport was newly constructed and ran straight for twenty miles past freshly planted saplings and featureless concrete buildings that housed schools, research institutes, and factories. Unbroken cliffs of new brick-built apartment blocks marked the outer suburbs of Peking and although the Forbidden City’s golden-roofed pavilions and palaces remained undisturbed at the heart of the capital, the network of roads and public buildings that had begun springing up in the Outer City gave it a much-changed appearance.

  Many old houses of the imperial courts, with their walled courtyards and moon gates, had been pulled down or modified for use as workshops and schools. The streets of the Outer City, which had once seethed with rowdy, rumbustious life, were, to Jakob’s disappointment, filled now each day with orderly swarms of cycle- borne Chinese dressed in standard blue cottons, and all these changes had made it more difficult for him to recall the Peking of his own experience. But with each passing day he had felt the desire to seek out familiar reminders of those earlier days grow stronger within him, and the previous evening, claiming that he needed to rest, he had excused himself from yet another factory visit that his fellow delegates were due to make to a distant town that morning. He had not withdrawn Abigail’s name from the official party, suggesting instead that she represent them both, and he was surprised to find she had not already departed.

  “Isn’t it time for the delegation to leave?” asked Jakob, glancing at his watch.

  “It’s already left,” replied Abigail, smiling faintly and looking at her own wristwatch. “I decided to scratch too at the last minute. Wherever you go, I’d like to be with you.”

  Jakob smiled uncertainly and nodded toward the blue-tiled temple with its spectacular crowning orb of gold. “I’d just decided to take another look at the Temple of Heaven. Your mother and I loved going there together.” Jakob hesitated, his expression becoming serious. “In fact, that’s where I proposed to her . .

  “I’d like very much to come with you, Daddy. What time will you go?”

  “When we’ve had breakfast.”

  Jakob left the balcony to put on his jacket and tie and when breakfast was finished, he led Abigail outside and hailed two passing pedicabs. As these creaking successors to Peking’s old-style rickshaw carried them through the once-familiar streets of the Outer City, Jakob became aware that all the old gambling and drug dens had been swept away, along with the houses famous for their “singing girls.” There was no longer any sign of curbside dentists and barbers or itinerant food peddlers with portable charcoal stoves bouncing at the end of their shoulder poles. All these colorful figures, he had learned from his hosts, had been absorbed into handicraft and small merchant cooperatives and nowhere on the street corners could he any longer buy chiao tzu, the little dumplings stuffed with spiced vegetables that he had once loved to eat. The unruly open markets that had formerly filled the streets with the noise of haggling and quarreling had disappeared, In the subdued silence which now cloaked the city Jakob also missed the pigeons that had once swooped overhead, creating sweet, harp like music with tiny pipes that their owners had bound to their pinion feathers.

  As the pedicabs carried them farther from the center of the capital, Jakob saw that swaying camels and slow-moving donkey carts were still hauling bulging loads of vegetables and other daily food supplies into the city, but now silent rubber tires had replaced the noisy rumbling wheels of solid wood on which the carts of old had run. The loud, clanking trams had given way to purring electric buses and whenever these vehicles passed their pedicabs, the rows of yellow-brown faces crowding the widows peered curiously out at the rare sight of white foreigners. All the other people thronging the pavements turned to stare at them as they passed, and after paying off the pedicab drivers Jakob and Abigail were glad to escape into the walled enclosure surrounding the Temple of Heaven.

  It was deserted at that early hour and the moment they stepped through the Gate of the Western Sky, the deep, natural stillness of the enclosure seemed to envelop them in its welcoming embrace. A sense of peace which he had not experienced since arriving in Peking stole over Jakob as they strolled slowly along the avenue of ancient cypress trees toward the Red Stairway Bridge. At last the years seemed to have rolled away to expose his past with a perfect clarity, and on catching sight of the main triple-roofed temple in its full glory, Jakob stopped and stared, transfixed by its simple, timeless elegance.

  “Chi Nien Tien!”

  In a hushed whisper Jakob murmured the Chinese name of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests and in that instant he felt he could almost see his twenty-one-year-old self dashing headlong through the rain and up the long flights of balustraded marble steps toward Felicity.

  “It’s extraordinarily beautiful,” said Abigail softly. “It’s so uncomplicated — yet it’s breathtaking.”

  They stood side by side in silence looking at the ancient temple, and finding himself moved in turn by Abigail’s emotional reaction, Jakob took his daughter gently by the arm.

  “It was April when we came here,” he said in a husky voice. “From where we’re standing now I could see your mother waiting for me alone on that marble terrace beneath the eaves of the temple. She was wearing a Chinese jacket of green silk, I think, embroidered with plum blossom patterns. Because it was still cold she’d tucked her hair inside a fur hat . .

  Sensing the depth of her father’s feelings, Abigail remained silent; when Jakob began walking again, she fell into step with him.

  “We’d agreed to meet here at the end of our study course to tell one another about the designations we’d been given. Your mother had doubts about our future together, you see, and we’d decided it would be best to let fate decide d always wanted to preach in remote areas and I’d just been told I was being sent to a region of Hunan where no white missionary had been before, . . . I was bursting to tell her my news. But when I reached the terrace, she insisted that I wait and made me go into the temple with her. She was a lit
tle upset but inside it was wonderfully peaceful. . .

  Remembering the gentle, sacred silence of the empty temple, Jakob increased his pace, impatient to savor it once more. As he walked, he glanced along the Red Stairway Bridge at the other major sanctuary, the Imperial Vault of Heaven. In doing so, a movement caught his eye and he turned his head in time to see the figure of a Chinese man slip quickly in among the cypress trees a hundred yards away. Puzzled, Jakob continued to watch for several seconds, but the man, who had appeared to be wearing a navy blue cadre’s tunic, had become invisible in the shadows beneath the trees and he did not reappear.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Abigail. “What did you see?”

  “I thought somebody might be following us,” replied Jakob, shaking his head in mystification. “But perhaps I was mistaken.”

  Determined not to be distracted from his goal, Jakob dismissed the man from his mind, and taking his daughter’s arm again, he hurried her up the white marble steps to the temple. Inside, the morning sun shining through the open-lattice walls was dappling the carved stone floor with pools of golden light just as it had done after the shower of rain twenty-five years earlier, and Jakob and Abigail entered the domed chamber in a respectful silence. Standing quietly at her father’s side among the “dragon well” pillars, Abigail gazed up in awe at the colored frescoes that decorated the high roof. Her young face had an enraptured look, but as Jakob watched her, the tense, tearful image of Felicity returned suddenly with such haunting clarity that he closed his eyes and bowed his head. In his imagination he again heard her halting voice expressing apprehension at the prospect of moving to an isolated inland area, and he regretted anew the impetuosity that had led him to take her by the hand and run to the Echo Wall to ask her to marry him.

  “What is it, Daddy?” asked Abigail softly, touching his arm. “Is something wrong?”

  When Jakob raised his head he had an agonized expression in his eyes; although he tried to speak calmly, his unsteady voice betrayed the inner turmoil he was suffering. “Your mother wasn’t physically brave by nature. Left to herself, I think she might have been happiest filling a teaching post in a missionary school in one of the bigger cities,...”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I persuaded her to go to one of the wildest parts of China against her better judgment. I was convinced I could protect her from anything. Standing here, I told her she needn’t ever worry about her safety, I would protect her. But in the end I wasn’t able to

  Abigail looked at her father with a shocked expression. “Do you mean you blame yourself for what happened?”

  Jakob nodded miserably. “I’ve never been able to say this to anyone before . . . but whenever I’ve looked back over what happened, I’ve felt it was my own foolishness that caused your mother’s death.”

  “You couldn’t possibly have known what would happen!” Abigail tightened her hold on her father’s arm. “I’m sure she went with you because you loved her and she loved you. Isn’t that right?”

  Abigail moved around in front of him and looked directly into his eyes, waiting for his answer. As he considered what she had said, Jakob’s face remained troubled but at last he nodded. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

  “Then there’s no question of you having forced her to go against her will. Don’t you see, it was right for her to go with you. It can’t have been your fault.”

  A faint look of relief softened Jakob’s features, and he and Abigail drew closer to one another. Something indefinable in the stillness of the soaring, circular vault seemed to soothe them and for a long time they stood on the symbolic carved motif of dragon and phoenix,

  saying nothing. -

  “Was it here that you proposed?” asked Abigail, breaking the silence.

  “No.” Jakob shook his head.

  “Will you show me where it happened?”

  Jakob hesitated, then smiled for the first time. “All right.” They began to retrace their steps along the Red Stairway Bridge in the direction of the imperial Vault of Heaven, walking slowly. Because he was lost in thought, Jakob failed to notice when the figure in the Chinese cadre’s uniform emerged from the trees and began following them again. The new sense of companionship which his confession had engendered made both of them temporarily oblivious to their surroundings, and at the foot of the steps leading down to the Echo Wall, Jakob stopped and turned to look at Abigail.

  “I’m glad that you know,” he said in an emotional voice. “It doesn’t seem quite so terrible now.”

  “You should’ve told mc long ago,” said Abigail quickly. “There was no need for you to suffer in silence all that time.”

  Jakob smiled sadly, then pointed toward the San Yin Shih, the Triple Sound Stone, which they were approaching, and began to explain how the Echo Wall functioned.

  “I invited your mother to marry me from up there. I asked the question from the bottom step, and because she was so taken aback, I repeated it from the second. After listening to the echoes, she stood on the top step to give her reply

  Inside his head Jakob imagined he could already hear his own voice echoing his insistent proposal and this moved him to climb alone to the third step. When he stood facing the curved echo wall, Felicity’s softer response seemed to come faintly alive again too: “Yes, Jakob, I will! Yes, Jakob, I will! Yes, Jakob, I will!”

  When a new voice broke softly across his thoughts he assumed at first that it was as imaginary as Felicity’s. Then it repeated itself more insistently and Jakob heard an echo that was unmistakably real bounce back from the curved wall of polished bricks.

  “Ke Mu-shill! Ke Mu-shih! Ke Mu-shih!”

  Jakob turned to find the Chinese in the dark blue cadre’s tunic standing close behind him. His black hair was the color of steel at the temples, and around his eyes and mouth the creases of a delighted smile were etched deep into a dark, weathered face. He was holding out a welcoming hand, but because of the astonishment Jakob felt, he remained rooted to the spot for a moment, staring in disbelief. Then he recovered and grasped the proffered hand of his former cook boy with an exclamation of pleasure and surprise.

  ‘Hsiao Liang!”

  “Ke Mu-shih!”

  In the emotion of the moment both men found themselves incapable of speech. Their hands remained locked as they looked at one another; then Jakob threw an arm around Liang’s shoulders and embraced him. Jakob felt his eyes dampen, and when the two men pulled apart again, he could see there was a hint of tears in Liang’s eyes too, despite the broadness of his smile.

  “I can hardly believe it’s you, Hsiao Liang,” said Jakob, speaking in Chinese. “This seems almost like a miracle.”

  “It’s truly wonderful to see you again too, Pastor Ke

  Remembering suddenly that Abigail was standing tensely at the foot of the steps watching them, Jakob took Liang by the arm and led him toward her. Her face was puckered with curiosity and he could see that although she had begun to study Chinese while waiting to make the journey to Peking, she had understood little or nothing of their conversation.

  “Abigail, prepare yourself for a surprise,” said Jakob, speaking slowly in English for Liang’s benefit. “This is Hsiao Liang, the man who saved your life all those years ago.”

  An expression of astonished delight appeared on Abigail’s face, but on glancing at Liang, Jakob saw that he had not grasped what had been said.

  “Excuse please, Pastor Ke,” said Liang apologetically. “I forget all English.”

  “This is my daughter, Abigail,” said Jakob, speaking in Chinese once more. “You remember the tiny baby you hid in your basket? That was Abigail.”

  Liang stared in amazement at the beautiful, flaxen-haired girl before him. “Now I feel as if I’m dreaming, Pastor Ke,” said Liang, laughing and shaking his head in wonder. “Who could have imagined . .

  “I never thought I’d meet you, Hsiao Liang,” said Abigail with a catch in her voice. “I know that if it wasn’t for you I would
n’t be here today . . . So I’m very glad I can say thank you in person at last for all your kindness and courage.”

  “It was my duty to help your father,” replied Liang with a warm smile, after hearing Jakob’s translation. “Pastor Ke is a brave man. He was a wonderful friend.”

  Above the dark green cypress trees the blue of the autumn sky was deepening as the sun climbed higher. The rose-colored walls of the temples and pavilions were beginning to glow with a soft luminescence, some flower-bearing shrubs were still in bloom, and the beauty of the setting heightened the unexpected pleasure of the reunion for all of them.

  “I didn’t turn round when I first heard your voice, Hsiao Liang,” said Jakob as he led the way back along the Red Stairway Bridge, “because nobody has called me Pastor Ke for so many years.”

  “Are you no longer a missionary, then?” Liang’s face showed surprise but his smile of pleasure did not fade.

  “No, I gave up missionary work many years ago.”

  “And what do you do now?”

  “I live in Hong Kong, Hsiao Liang. I write about the politics and economy of China.”

  A guarded look came into Liang’s eyes; then, after an awkward silence, he smiled again. “I notice you make the same mistakes as me, Pastor Ke. I’m no longer Hsiao Liang. I became a grandfather some years ago. Now you should call me Lao Liang — ‘Old Liang.’”

  Although in his mid-fifties, Liang still possessed an air of rugged self-reliance. He limped slightly, his lined face still bore traces of scar tissue from his Luting burns, and he looked a little tired as though from overwork; but the neat formal tunic of a cadre buttoned high at the throat did not entirely disguise the strength and physical self-confidence of his hard peasant upbringing.

  “Grandfather or not, you’ll always be Hsiao Liang to me.” Jakob laughed affectionately. “Which reminds me, how are your wife and those two fine sons?”

  “They’re all well.” Liang’s smile widened again. “The boy you knew as Little Liang now has three children of his own — two small Sons and a daughter. He’s a cadre of the All-China Trade Union Federation in Changsha. Big Liang works with the Provincial Committee of the Party in Hunan. He has a boy and a girl. When we all meet up for the New Year festival there are grandchildren everywhere!”