The Promise: A Novel of China and Burma (Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck)

by Pearl S. Buck

  He strode forward, quickening his step with anger, and so she saw his face surly when he came near. She did not speak. She gazed at him and waited.

  “Who is this you have brought with you?” he asked shortly.

  Then she understood the cause of his anger and she laughed. “Sheng!” she said, “you know her.”

  He cast a look or two at Pansiao but carelessly, so eager was he to be alone with Mayli. As for Pansiao, she lifted her little face timidly and looked with wonder at this tall harsh-voiced fellow. Was this indeed her third brother? She remembered him as a reedy, sullen boy who had been like a storm in his father’s house. And yet she remembered, too, that sometimes when she was very small he had let her ride the waterbuffalo to the grasslands with him and there upon the peaceful sunny hills he had not been surly, but kind. He had pulled the sweet grass that had its tender silvery tassels folded inside green sheaths and drawing them out one by one he had held them before her open mouth and she had licked them in with her tongue while they laughed. And she could remember that sometimes he had sung to her.

  “Do you remember the song you used to sing about farmers hoeing in the spring?” she now asked him suddenly.

  And she lifted her voice and sang a snatch of it in a clear quavering trill.

  “Why, how do you know that song?” he asked her. “It is a song of my native hills.”

  “Because I am Pansiao,” she said, faltering under his stern dark gaze.

  He stared down at her and drew in his breath and pulled his right ear. “What a thing I am,” he said, “that I do not know my own sister—if you are my sister,” he added, “being here in this evil hole and how you are here I could not think if I should think the rest of my life.”

  Now his surly looks were gone and he was all eager and amazed, and he gazed into Pansiao’s face and the more he looked the more he saw it was she.

  “What is the name of my sister-in-law?” he asked.

  “Jade,” she said, quickly.

  “And what is the number of my brothers?” he asked.

  “Two,” she said happily, “Lao Ta and Lao Er, and you are Lao San, and our house is built around a court with a small pond in the middle and there are goldfish in it, and in the summer there is matting over the court and we eat there, all of us together, and my elder brothers’ little boys run to and fro and—and—” she put her hand to her mouth. “Oh poor Orchid,” she whispered, “I have not remembered you for so long and you are dead!”

  “The two boys also are dead,” Sheng said shortly.

  Pansiao gave a wail of sorrow. “Oh, but they were so pretty, those two little boys!” she wept, “and I remember that the smallest one was so fat and soft when I held him and he always smelled of his mother’s milk, like a little calf!”

  There in that strange and lonely place, in a short hour of peace in the middle of the night, with the soldiers sleeping about them and the moans of the wounded in their ears, the brother and sister drew near to each other in longing for the home where they had been born.

  “Let us find somewhere to sit down,” Mayli said gently.

  But where was there to sit in this evil place?

  “We must not go near the edge of the wood,” Sheng said. “The snakes are very swift here and deadly. We must stay where we can see the ground clear about us.”

  There was a broken truck near them, turned on its side and blasted partly away by an enemy shell, and upon this they sat, Pansiao between Mayli and Sheng. The mosquitoes sang shrilly about their ears and out of the night there came the sounds of the jungle on either side of them, those sharp sounds of restless small beasts, moving through the night, and sometimes they heard the stealthy crackle of twigs bent under the foot of some larger creature. There they sat in the hot moonlight and the memory of that farmhouse so many thousands of miles from here crept into them like a sickness.

  Now they both fell silent for a while, and Pansiao stretched her memory and Sheng sat dreaming, forgetting all except his home, and those from whom he had sprung. Who knows the paths of the mind?

  … It so happened that at that very moment Ling Sao, too, was thinking of her third son and she lay sleepless upon her bed. She who at night always fell upon her bed and into sleep at the same instant was now uneasy because of new evil that had befallen the house that day.

  Ling Tan could not sleep because of it and he lay at her side, still but wakeful. On this day he had heard from his two elder sons, who had heard it in the city where they had gone to sell new radishes, that the war was lost in Burma. From there, how many thousands of miles away, had the evil news come. It came by secret voices in the air, it came by whispers spoken behind hands and into waiting ears, and now many knew that Burma would be lost and because of this, years must pass before they could be free again.

  So Ling Tan that day saw his sons come back gloomy from the city, though their baskets were empty. “What are the devils doing now?” he had asked them. In these days he himself went no more to the city, but used what strength he had upon the fields.

  “It is not the devils this time but the white men in Burma,” Lao Ta told him, and he sat down on a bench at the door and sighed and let his baskets drop, and took out his little bamboo pipe and stuffed it with a dried weed they used instead of tobacco nowadays.

  Now this Lao Ta since he married the woman he found in his trap had grown sleeker and more fat than he had ever been in his lean life and this was because his new wife made him secret dainties and slipped into his bowl all the little best meats she could without being seen. She had made him give up his traps, too, and she had done this by persuading him that he must help his old father more.

  “This you should do being so good an elder son,” she had said, and she praised him always and coaxed him with her praise and without any force she had him little by little doing what she wanted.

  But indeed this was the woman’s power in the house that she could coax so sweetly and with so much love that it was a pleasure to yield to her. All she did was without any wish for herself, and her love poured out for them all and all loved her. With Jade she never took an elder’s place but she cried out with wonder at Jade’s learning and her prettiness and she worshiped Jade’s three sons and especially the two she had delivered at a single birth. Lao Er she served and praised and let him think he should have been the eldest son with so much wisdom as he had, and Ling Sao she studied how to spare and Ling Tan she spoke to as her master. Only to her own husband, Lao Ta, did she show her one great constant wish that she might have a son before it was too late, but of this too she spoke with only such anxious love for him that he was moved to comfort her instead of blaming her. “Leave off fretting for a child,” he told her often, “I am pleased with you, though you are barren. These are ill times for children anyway.” But still the woman prayed to Kwan-yin night and morning with her beads between her fingers, and still she hoped.

  Therefore Lao Ta was cheerful enough these days so that gloom showed on him when he felt it, and all had shared his gloom when he told them what he and his brother had heard that day. They sat late in the evening talking of it and planning what should be done if Burma fell.

  “Those white men,” Ling Tan said again and yet again, “I never dreamed it that those white men could fail. Why, their guns—their weapons—how could it be?” And he thought sadly how little worth their promise was if Burma fell.

  “Years it will be for us if we are shut off,” Lao Er said sadly and his eyes sought Jade’s.

  “Are our children to be brought up as slaves?” Jade cried out. Now Jade had sat silent all this while, and at her sudden cry they all turned to stare at her. At this she burst into tears and ran out from the room.

  Ling Tan looked at his second son’s grave face. “What does she mean?” he asked.

  “It is her great fear that our children will not know what freedom is,” Lao Er answered. “So far she has been hoping beyond reason that the white men would vanquish the enemy quickly, and she kn
ows that for this Burma is our last hope.”

  “She always knows too much,” Ling Sao sighed. “That wife of yours, my son, she knows as much as any man.”

  Ling Tan spoke again to Lao Er. “If you want your sons to grow up free then you must leave this house.”

  “What?” Ling Sao cried at this. “Am I to let my grandsons go out and be lost like my third son?” And she put her blue apron to her eyes and wept aloud and Lao Er made haste to comfort her.

  “Now, my mother,” he said “why will you always reach the end before there is the beginning? Have I said I am taking your grandsons away from you?”

  “No,” Ling Sao sobbed, “but if Jade wants to go, you will.”

  “How can we take three small children out secretly?” Lao Er urged. “It is only a dream of hers. We will not leave you.”

  But Ling Sao would not be comforted, “If Jade is dreaming, then I am afraid,” she said, and though Lao Ta’s wife brought hot tea to soothe her, she would not drink it, and so at last they parted and went to bed, and still none was eased.

  Now in bed Ling Sao lay and thought how great a sorrow it would be if there were no children in the house and it would be worse even than if she heard her third son were lost, and then she felt herself wicked to think thus of her own son and she began to yearn for Lao San and soon she fell to weeping softly.

  Now Ling Tan heard her weeping and he spoke sharply from his pillow. “Give over weeping, woman, your tears should be dry by now with so much trouble as we have had,” he said.

  “Am I to have my life end childless?” she cried out.

  “You still think of yourself,” he said heavily. “But you and I, old woman, we are as good as dead. Can we let the little ones grow up as slaves? Jade is right.”

  At this Ling Sao wailed afresh and he being very weary in his old age could not be patient with her for once and he reached out his hand and slapped her cheek. “Give over—give over—” he shouted, “lest you make me weak, too.”

  At these words, she paused, and, not minding his fierceness, she put her hand and touched his cheek and found it wet. Now she was quiet.

  “You, too?” she whispered.

  “Be still,” he muttered, but his voice broke her heart.

  “My dear old man,” she said and yielded up her will. Let come what must—let come what must.

  … And in the hot night Sheng sat frowning and remembering and Pansiao, beside him, remembered, too, and Mayli let them be alone, as though she were not there.

  Pansiao put out her hand and Sheng took it and held it.

  “Ai, my little sister,” he said sadly, “why are you here? It is worse for you than for me. What can be your end?”

  “But it is very lucky for me to have found Mayli and now you,” Pansiao said cheerfully. “It might have been that I was here all alone,” and so she told him how it happened that she had come here by one chance and then another.

  “You have been like a leaf on a river,” he said, “borne along without knowing how or why.”

  “But now I am quite safe,” she said cosily, “now I am with both of you.”

  Over her head those two, Sheng and Mayli, looked at each other, and well they knew what each was thinking. Though they longed to be alone, how could they tell this young and trusting creature to leave them even for a little while? They had not the heart to be so cruel, and so they sat listening while she prattled, and looking at each other over her head.

  And what she prattled of was always home and again home. “Do you remember how Jade used to try to teach me to read, Third Brother?” she asked. “I wish I could show her now how many letters I know and read to her out of my little book. I have the book still in my pack.”

  “Yes, she does,” Mayli said. “I have seen her reading it sometimes.”

  “I learned to read it in the white woman’s school,” Pansiao said, “where I first saw you, Elder Sister,” she said to Mayli. “And the moment I saw you I knew that you—”

  She turned to look at her brother with sudden thoughtfulness. “The moment I saw this elder sister I said she would be a good wife for you,” she said.

  Sheng laughed aloud. “So have I always said the same thing,” he told Pansiao, “and so I still do say. But can you get her to agree with us?”

  Now Pansiao was all eagerness. She took Mayli’s hand and brought it to Sheng’s upon her knees and she put them together under her two little rough hands and held them there.

  “Now you t-two,” she said, stammering, “you two—ought you not to agree?”

  And as though to humor her Mayli let her hand lie under Sheng’s, and Sheng closed his right hand strongly over her narrow one and held it and above these two clasped hands Pansiao’s hands pressed down, quivering and hot. “Will you not agree with us?” she said pleadingly to Mayli.

  “Child,” Mayli said, “is this the time or the hour for such talk? Who can tell what tomorrow will bring to any of us?”

  “But that is why we should agree together,” Pansiao said anxiously. “If we were sure of tomorrow—there would be no haste. But when there may be no tomorrow, should we not agree tonight?”

  “She is right,” Sheng said in his deep voice.

  Then Mayli felt her heart drawn out of her body. Would it not be strength to make her promise to Sheng and so be secure at least in that?

  Then as though Heaven would not give her even so much, before she could speak they heard the sound of running footsteps and there was An-lan, pale in the moonlight, gasping with running, and her eyes were staring black in her pale face. She ran to Mayli as though the other two were not there and she shouted as she ran,

  “Oh, you are here—Oh, I have searched for you everywhere! Chi-ling—Chi-ling has hung herself upon a tree! She—she is there!” And An-lan pointed to the further side of the encampment.

  Mayli leaped to her feet and ran toward the place she pointed and Sheng came behind her. Behind him Pansiao stood still but none thought now of her. They ran to the further edge of the jungle, beyond where the men lay behind the barricade of their vehicles, and there upon a gnarled low tree whose small fan-shaped leaves quivered even in the silent air, they saw Chi-ling, a slender shape hanging loosely from a branch.

  Sheng took out his knife and cut the cloth that held her and caught her as she fell and laid her on the ground. It was Chi-ling indeed, and she had torn her girdle in half and made a noose and by it had taken her own life.

  But was her life quite gone? Mayli stooped and felt the flesh still warm. “Run,” she bade An-lan. “Run—find Chung!” And she began to chafe Chi-ling’s limp hands and to move her thin arms. In very little time Chung was there, girding himself as he came, for in the heat he had been sleeping nearly naked, and he stooped and felt Chi-ling’s heart. He shook his head—the heart was still and she was dead. They rose and An-lan stood gazing down at her with no tears in her staring eyes, and only grimness on her mouth.

  “Did she say nothing to you, An-lan?” Mayli asked gently. “You two were such friends.”

  “Nothing,” An-lan said. “We ate our meal together tonight as we always do, she and I, a little apart from the others for the sake of quiet. Then afterwards she did what you told us was to be done for the wounded. She did for hers, and I for mine.”

  “I saw her,” Chung said slowly, “not above an hour ago. She came in to tell me that one of the Australians had died. But I had feared he would. There was gangrene in his wound and my sulfa drugs are gone. But she knew that he might not live—besides, he was a stranger to her.”

  “She always took every death too hard,” An-lan muttered. “I told her—I said, we shall see many die, and what are we to do if you behave so each time?”

  “What did she say?” Mayli asked.

  “You know how she never answered anyone,” An-lan said. “She did not answer me. But I was speaking thus even as she went to the young dying man and it must be that when she saw him die, she came here to the jungle and died, too.”


  “Let us go and look at that dead man,” Chung said. “It may be she left some sign on him.”

  “But we cannot leave her here,” Mayli said quickly. “The jungle beasts would have her—the ants, the wild cats—they say there are tigers here, too.”

  Sheng stooped. “I will carry her,” he said, and he lifted Chi-ling’s dead body over his shoulder, and so they went into the encampment. An English guard peered at them.

  “Who goes there?” he asked.

  “A nurse has killed herself,” Chung said shortly.

  “Oh, I say!” the guard murmured. He lowered his gun and put up the mosquito netting that hung from the brim of his hat and stared at Chi-ling. “Why, that girl,” he said aghast, “she passed me not half an hour ago, and I said she had better not go out alone, but she pushed by me, and I let her go—it’s hard to argue with them when they don’t speak English.”

  “Put her down,” Chung said to Sheng. “The guard will watch her until we come back.”

  So Sheng put Chi-ling down and Mayli stooped and straightened her body on the ground and there she lay peacefully, the white moonlight on her face.

  “I’ll watch,” the guard murmured.

  They went on silently then to the place where the young man had lain upon a pallet on the ground and there he still was, dead. But there was neither sign nor message there from Chi-ling. Only when they looked closely did they see how ordered was the young man’s body, his hair smoothed, and over the foulness of the gangrene wound in his lower belly there lay a handful of fragrant leaves of some sort.

  “She put those leaves there,” An-lan said.

  So they stood a moment and then Chung said, “Let us go back and bury her. In this heat it will not do to let her lie. The young man others will bury, but let us bury her for she is ours.”

  So they went back, and there beside the road in the edge of the jungle they dug a hole with sticks and a shovel that Sheng found and An-lan and Mayli put green leaves into the hole and they laid Chi-ling among them and then when the earth was covered over her Sheng and Chung together lifted the log of a fallen tree and laid it across the grave to keep the beasts away.