Whether any other friend of Chang Shan had followed he never knew. For that night he walked through the snow with his head down that it might not creep down his collar and chill him with wet. Thus he came near the bridge by the path he knew so well. Snow is so silent that it hides even footsteps. Therefore Peter heard no one and he did not know that he was followed until he felt his shoulder seized. He looked up and saw a fierce wet face under a ragged felt hat.
“Are you going to the bridge?” a voice hissed in his ear.
How do the secret police dress themselves when they spy upon children playing under a bridge? They dress themselves as common men, in ragged hats and dirty robes. These robes are better than smart uniforms for there is room under the skirts for pistols and knives and ropes.
But what did Peter know of secret police dressed as common men? He nodded, and the next moment he felt a round cold piece of metal at his temple. But this was only for the fraction of a second. Then upon a roar of thunder he felt himself lifted from earth into heaven and he knew no more.
“Dear Mr. Liang,” the president of the university wrote to James some weeks later. “For a number of days now your younger brother has not appeared in his classes. Neither has his roommate, Chang Shan. We do not know whether they have met with some unfortunate accident, or whether, as has been the case with a few others, these two have unwisely joined a brotherhood of some kind in the northwest. Unless you have further information, the name of your brother will be removed from the roll of the university.”
Upon receiving this letter, James forbade Mary to be frightened. He went at once to Peking. But where could he search? He called upon the proud and dignified president, who, as a great scholar and a famous man, received him with courtesy but without interest.
“It is unfortunate that your brother was the friend of Chang Shan,” the university president said in a loud clear voice. “I reproved Chang Shan many times for his daring behavior. A scholar, I told him, ought not to concern himself with outside affairs. Alas, Chang Shan never obeyed his elders.”
There was no more help than this to be had from the scholar who sat wrapped in his quilted satin robe, nursing his soft hands and long fingernails, and James went to Chang Shan’s room, which was pointed out to him by a shabby girl student, whose eyes were red, and there he found some of Peter’s clothes. The padded coat was gone, he saw, and this made him wonder whether Peter had run away with Chang Shan. On the other hand, his toothbrush was there and his hairbrush and comb and such small things as are needed for daily life—that is, for Peter’s daily life. But perhaps he had deliberately left them behind because to Chang Shan they would not seem necessary. Someone had already taken all the books, for books were precious.
But the shabby girl student who had been hanging about the door now drew a bit of paper from her pocket. “This was found,” she whispered.
James saw Peter’s handwriting and he took the paper and read it.
“Does it tell you anything?” the student asked. She could not read English.
“Nothing that I did not already know,” James replied. He put the paper in his pocket, and after a few more such fruitless days he went back to the village again with his miserable news. There, with Chen and Mary listening, he told them what he could and he showed them the paper. Young Wang, hearing that James was home again, came from the inn with a rack of steaming hot spinach dumplings. He set it down upon the table and listened, too, for a moment. Then very unwillingly he told them what the vendor had once said and of the yellow clay upon Peter’s shoes. “I believe they were plotting to destroy the marble bridge,” Young Wang said.
“But why?” Mary asked. “What good would it do?”
“Young men do not ask what good it will do,” Young Wang said. “They only wish to make a big noise.”
“But the bridge is not blown up,” James reminded them. “I passed it as I came and went. It stands there exactly as ever it did.”
Young Wang shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe they were caught before they could set the dynamite.”
This was all guess and conjecture and no one could know.
“Peter will write to us,” Mary insisted. “Wait—and we’ll hear.”
“Nevertheless, I should tell our parents,” James said gravely.
So he sat down that same day and wrote down all that he knew, how discontented Peter had been and how unhappy and yet that he would not go back to his father and mother.
“I feel myself at fault,” James wrote. “I blame myself. I should have compelled him to tell me what he was thinking about. As soon as we hear from him, I will go to him wherever he is.”
But he did not tell them of the bit of paper upon which Peter had written the words of destruction. When the letter was gone James sat reading again and again these words, and slowly he began to believe that Peter was dead. But how and by whose hand?
These questions were never to be answered. For at this moment Peter’s body was in an old well. The fall had not been hard, even had he known that he was falling, for Chang Shan had been thrown down before him, and his body lay upon others. Such old wells were deep. They had been dug in the palace gardens, long ago, so that the Empress might have ample water with which to water her peonies. Now they were foul with age and death and nobody drank their waters, and all the flowers were dead.
17
DR. LIANG RECEIVED THE LETTER and immediately he refused to believe that Peter was dead. Who would kill the son of Liang Wen Hua? Even the secret police, whose existence he had never acknowledged, would not dare to do such a thing. It was therefore probable that Peter had joined the Communists. This being the case, he, Liang Wen Hua, as a loyal citizen of China, would disown his younger son. His first feeling upon putting down the letter was one of swift anger. Peter knew how his father felt about Communists. To run away from school, to leave no message, to join the traitorous ones, was unfilial beyond measure. He would disown Peter publicly.
Upon the first impulse of his anger he went to find Mrs. Liang. She was in the kitchen, since this was Nellie’s day off. A fine aroma met his nostrils as he opened the door. Mrs. Liang was heating a combination of fresh ginger and onion in lard and soy sauce, ready to brown a whole fish. She looked happy when he came in and immediately burst into speech.
“Liang, look! I made the Ashman leave on the head. That is good luck, for once.”
He took a dark pleasure in spoiling her joy. “We have no luck,” he said bitterly. “Here is a letter from James. Peter is gone.”
Mrs. Liang felt her legs tremble. She sat down quickly on the kitchen stool. “You mean—” she could not say the unlucky word “death.”
“Who knows?” Dr. Liang shouted. Now that he took thought he perceived that it was possible that they would never see Peter again, dead or alive. In his heart of hearts he was a soft and tender man, and tears came into his eyes.
When his wife saw these tears she was terrified. She remembered the first time she had ever seen him cry. It was after he had been told that he had failed an examination, many years ago. It was in the first year of their marriage and she had wept with him. In old times scholars not only wept but sometimes they hanged themselves or swallowed opium if they failed in an examination. She had watched Dr. Liang for some time after that and had not felt wholly safe until two years later he had taken the examination again and had passed successfully and so had removed the shame from himself.
Now seeing his tears she burst into loud wails. “He is dead!” she sobbed. “You are afraid to tell me!”
This dried his tears again with anger. “Why should I be afraid to tell you?” he retorted. “He is your son. No, he has simply run away.”
To his surprise she turned on him with fury. “This is your fault! You sent him no money. He has nothing to spend. He took money from somewhere and now he is afraid. Sit down at once, Liang, and write to James and send him money to use to find Peter. I will not eat until you do this.”
So it was. She finished
the fish and prepared the meal and she would eat none of it. Dr. Liang ate alone until he could not endure it. Then he threw down his chopsticks and with much complaint he wrote the letter and enclosed a check which he made twice as large as he wished.
After this they both felt better, as though now it was certain that Peter would come back. They finished the fish together and Dr. Liang went to his study for his nap and Mrs. Liang went to mail the letter.
“I will just go to see Louise,” she told him. “I will talk with her about Peter and see how he was when she was with him.”
Dr. Liang, outstretched upon his couch and covered by a light silk quilt, listened to her footsteps and the closing of the front door. The rooms were very still. He tried not to think of Peter but he found himself remembering him. Of all the children Peter was the most American. He had gone to the excellent public school of the district and he had stood often at the head of his class. But he had not written one letter to his father after he went to China. They had not thought this strange, for it was natural that James as the eldest should make tie report to his parents, and when Mary wrote it was to her mother. Now, however, in the silence about him, and thinking of Peter’s face, Dr. Liang wondered if there was something he did not know about his son. Strange that the face he saw was not Peter’s at eighteen, but the face of twelve-year-old Peter, coming home from school, his books in a strap, a boy always gay and always hungry. The door would burst open and Peter would shout, “Ma, I’m hungry!”
He lay, listening to that boy’s voice, and for some reason which he could not explain, the tears began to flow again. Why should he weep for Peter? Was it an omen? He got up from the couch and walked up and down the room, his hands clasped tightly together. Perhaps he ought not have let Peter go to China. Yes, he should have kept the boy here. He had allowed him to grow up with a sentimental notion of what China was like. He had even helped to make the notion—let him be honest, now while he was alone. But he had wanted the children to understand the glory of China, the honor, the dignity of an ancient race and country. He himself purposely dwelled upon these things. It was necessary to do this in order to have a perspective upon the disagreeable present. The present was always transient. It faded away. Only the past and the future were eternal. Therefore he had done well to teach his children of their people’s greatness. It was what Confucius himself had taught. Confucius too had lived in troubled and divided times, and he had not allowed himself to be troubled or divided. Instead he had gathered together all the greatness of the ancients and he had put this greatness into a book which had lived through the ages.
Dr. Liang stood still, his head lifted. Here was inspiration. He would write such a book about the past that it would inspire the young of today. They would know their roots and they would feel fresh life come up into them. He should have done it long ago, but perhaps it was not yet too late.
He sat down at the desk and took up his brush and began to make the exquisite letters for which he was famous among Chinese scholars. Then he paused. Should he not dedicate the book to his own children? He would write it first of all for them. Over this he pondered, then he decided. If Peter came back before the book was finished, the dedication would be to James, Mary and Peter, citizens of China. If Peter never came back? Then he would simply dedicate it “To Peter, whom China has lost.”
The tears stung again but he refused to allow them. He had immense work to do.
Mrs. Liang mailed the letter and then she took a taxi across town. The day was gray but it neither rained nor snowed and she rode through the park and stopped at the Wetherstons’ apartment house and took the elevator to the twelfth floor. She liked Mrs. Wetherston very much and the two had become good friends. True, she thought the American lady was too fussy about the baby, but this was natural since it was her own grandchild, though by an unknown woman. The child was fine enough. He grew well; he was trying already to walk; he looked much like his father. A grandmother naturally would be proud of all these things. She herself, also naturally, was more interested in the child Louise herself would bear before the year was over. Mrs. Wetherston hoped this child would be a little girl, but Mrs. Liang said frankly that for herself she wished a boy. It was true that Alec was not her son, and this child could be only an outside grandchild, but she had grown fond of Alec, and with all her own sons away, it was nice to have a tall young man call her Mother, even though he was not Chinese. With much that she did not approve, it could be said for the Americans that here both mothers-in-law received attention, and not only the mother of the son, as in China.
Mrs. Wetherston opened the door and the two ladies greeted each other with affection. Mrs. Liang produced a small gardenia that she had bought on the street and Mrs. Wetherston thanked her for it as she pinned it on her dress.
“You always bring me something,” she said with pleasant reproach. “It that a Chinese custom?”
“Only when we like,” Mrs. Liang replied. She spoke in a loud voice in order to help Mrs. Wetherston to understand her English. “Suppose we don’t like somebody better, we don’t bring something else.”
Mrs. Wetherston laughed. “Come in and sit down! I’ll have some tea made.”
“No, thank you,” Mrs. Liang replied. She remembered Peter and the smile faded from her face. “I must talk to Louise, please, Mrs. Wetherston, because I have bad news of my younger son. He is gone away, maybe dead, but I don’t think so.”
Mrs. Wetherston’s look was instantly concerned. “Oh, my dear—dead? But I can’t believe it—you look so—” cheerful, she was about to say and stopped herself.
“Who knows? I want to ask Louise how was Peter when she saw him before,” Mrs. Liang told her.
“Of course.” Mrs. Wetherston tiptoed to a door and knocked. “Louise dear?” she called.
She had grown fond of the young girl that her son had brought home. Louise was lively and gay and yet docile. When Alec was not in the house she stayed alone in their rooms and seldom came out. But when she did join the family she was good-natured and talkative enough to give life to them again. “You mustn’t be afraid of me, dear,” she had told Louise after the first few days. “And I don’t want to be obeyed.”
“I am not afraid,” Louise had said sweetly, “and I like to obey you.” No one knew how grateful she was to be in this kind house, where everything was clean and comfortable and where she could take a hot bath whenever she wanted it. She liked to sit in her room and Alec’s and look around it and think, “This is really my home, I belong here. I am really American.”
Now she heard Alec’s mother’s voice, even in her sleep. She slept a great deal so that when Alec came home she could stay awake as long as he liked. Curled under the down quilt she had slept and now she rose from it, her eyes dewy and her lips folded sweetly in content.
“I am here,” she called softly and opened the door and saw her own mother. “Why, Ma!” she exclaimed.
“I shall leave you two alone,” Mrs. Wetherston said and went away.
Louise drew her mother into her room. “Ma, what is the matter? You’ve been crying.”
Mrs. Liang began to cry again without let. She put her handkerchief to her eyes. “Peter—” she sobbed.
Louise looked stricken. “Is he dead?” she whispered. Mrs. Liang let the handkerchief drop. “Why do you say that?” she asked sharply.
“Oh, I don’t know. Yes, I do know. Ma, he was in trouble over there.”
“Why?”
“He hated everything over there too much.”
“Then why didn’t he tell us and come back here?” Mrs. Liang asked. She went on without waiting for an answer. “That’s what you did. Yes, I know, Louise. You never told me you didn’t like it in China, but you didn’t, I know. And so you were glad to marry an American.”
“But I love Alec,” Louise retorted.
“Yes, now,” Mrs. Liang said stubbornly. “At first I think you only loved him for this nice house and for New York and hot water and electricity an
d clean streets and so on. I know how you are, Louise. You are too American. I told your father too many times.”
Mother and daughter were preparing for one of their hearty old quarrels when Mrs. Liang suddenly remembered Peter again and her anger cooled. “I am glad you are come just the same,” she said quickly, “and I wish Peter would come, too. After all, you are not used to China. So strange there, isn’t it? Now I am homesick all the time for China. My own children don’t like it. Oh, Peter, why don’t you come away from it, then?” she moaned softly.
Louise accepted her mother’s offer of peace. “Ma, if you want the truth from me—Peter hated it but he wanted to stay, too. He was afraid of Pa.”
“Afraid?” Mrs. Liang cried. “Why, when I am always there?”
“He blamed Pa,” Louise said. “Once when we talked together he told me Pa told lies about everything and if he ever saw Pa again he would have to tell him so and he didn’t want to see Pa any more.”
“Peter must be crazy,” Mrs. Liang exclaimed.
“No, he wasn’t. He was angry and he was sore and he was ashamed and it was all mixed up in him. He wanted to be proud of his country, and he had thought there were things to be proud of, and so he began worrying when he couldn’t find them.” Louise looked thoughtfully at herself in a long mirror opposite the chair where she sat. “Maybe I would have been that way if I had been a boy instead of a girl.”
Mrs. Liang rebelled at this. “You can’t talk that, Louise. Many women in our country do very much.”
“I guess I’m American,” Louise said. “Women here are taken care of.”
Mrs. Liang was not a little shocked. “You are too selfish. What about poor Peter?”
Louise looked away from the mirror. “I just don’t know what to say, Ma.” Her mother spoke as usual in Chinese mixed with English, but she herself spoke always in English, and the conversation had gone along in the two tongues. “I have a queer feeling that anything could have happened. I mean—” she broke off and then went on again with a catch in her voice. After all, Peter was her brother, and they had played together much when they were children. “Well, a lot of things could happen,” she said unwillingly. “Students disappear, you know, if they do anything except their books. And Peter belonged to some clubs and things. He never brought his friends home—I don’t know why.”