Kinfolk

  Mrs. Liang’s heart froze. She had heard stories whispered even at parties and dinners. Newcomers said—

  “You think maybe Peter is—” Again she could not say the word.

  “I just don’t know, Ma,” Louise repeated. She saw her mother’s face melt into weeping and she began to weep, too.

  It was nearly dusk when Mrs. Liang opened the door to her own handsome apartment again. She had not stayed all this time with Louise. When she left her daughter her eyes were swollen and she felt she wanted to be alone instead of coming into the house. When she climbed out of the taxi she had gone to the river and had sat down on a bench there. The bridge loomed above her, high and silver. At first it had seemed to catch and hold the light, and the sunset had stained it pink. Then its own lamps began to spring out, and in the deepening darkness it became an arch of light from shore to shore. She sat there a long time remembering how when the children were little she had brought them here to play. Peter had always loved the bridge. He would look up from his toys to gaze at it. The first word he had said, after her name, had been that word. He had lifted his tiny hand and pointing he had said, “Bridge!” How proud she had been!

  She cried again, softly, her face toward the river, where no one could see. Yet who cared if an elderly Chinese woman cried? Somehow she was coming to believe that Peter was dead. So many young men died in China, she knew. But she had thought that Liang’s name would protect her children. Liang! Why had he sent the children away? He had not wanted Louise to marry an American and so he had sent them all away. Now Louise had married an American, and he pretended that he believed in such marriages. Liang was always pretending. He pretended that Confucius was so big. Confucius was only a man, probably a man like Liang, but his wife could not read or write and so she died unknown. Men were all alike.

  She stopped crying and now she felt cold, although the day had been warm. She got up and walked slowly homeward. She would not tell Mrs. Pan or anyone about Peter. She would wait and wait. If James could find out nothing she would ask Liang to let her go home. She would find Peter herself. A mother could always find her own child.

  She opened the door and was frightened by the utter silence. Where was Liang? “Liang!” she called. Then she saw the line of light under the door of his study and she ran to open it. He was sitting there with his brush upright in his hand, a happy smile upon his face, writing. He neither saw nor heard her. She shut the door without noise and went into the kitchen and began to cook his supper.

  18

  THE MONEY THAT HIS FATHER SENT James used to begin the search for his brother. How does a brother make such a search? James learned soon that the ways were devious. Young Wang went with him everywhere. Leaving his bride and the inn, both of which were now equally dear to him, he followed James, and yet led him. There were no lawful ways to seek justice for what had been done without law. But Young Wang, shrewd and accustomed to getting what he wanted and using money freely since there was hunger everywhere, heard from one hungry mouth or another, and so he was led to the palace gardens, not because of one dead lad or two, but because the old wells there had been used long ago for such things as death. Did not the concubines of emperors drown themselves in the imperial wells?

  Why tell of how James and this faithful manservant crept about in the dark human caverns in a great and ancient city? These caverns were human sewers, not of the filth of bodies but of the filth of souls. Men who starve for food, who starve for opium, who gamble away wives and children, men who will kill rather than work—among these James came and went in silence, and Young Wang was always there and hidden under his coat was the big butcher knife which he had brought from the inn.

  James lived during these days with Su and his young wife. They were kind to him, but they were afraid of him, and so he went out of the house before dawn and entered it after dark. James was the brother of Peter who had been killed, and it was dangerous to be a friend of James, even though he was the son of Liang Wen Hua.

  There came a day at the end of sixty-three days when a vendor told of a gateman who told of a beggar who told of a band of beggars who paid him to allow them to sleep in the shelter of the empty pavilion in the imperial gardens. Among these beggars one was found who told of a night when he had heard voices muttering and whispering about in ancient well. Money—money! James spent all that his father had sent, but American money was true money and it changed for a fortune and this fortune James offered the beggar in exchange for his brother’s body.

  He and Young Wang with him went to the imperial gardens on a dark night, and they waited until the moon was gone. The gate swung open and there was no gateman to see what went on, and the two of them went in and sat down under a vast old pine tree and waited half the night through. His thoughts were strange, and scarcely thoughts so much as unspoken feelings, perceptions, fears, and resolutions. From the vast gardens, miles within the high four-square walls of past empire, there came dying scents, no longer perfumes, from old trees and long grasses, from fungus upon wet bark and mosses creeping between stone and tile no longer trod by human feet. The silence was profound and yet there were sudden small gusts of wind and somewhere small bells upon a roof tinkled in a ghostly tremor. He felt life about him, dead and no longer human, and yet clinging to these haunts, strange and horrible it was to think that Peter’s young rebellion had been quenched here, where all the evils of history lad culminated and died! There was something so solemn about this possibility of his brother’s death that James could not weep. He sat crouched upon the deep bed of pine needles and leaning upon a mighty root of the pine tree that canopied above him he waited, resisting with his own inner forces the forces of the dead past that encircled him here. He was young and he was alive, and he would not allow himself to be overwhelmed. A stubbornness for life and his own life began to steady his heart and cool his mind. Peter had chosen the swift way, the gamble of violence against violence, and he lad lost. He, James, the elder, would take the slow plodding path and live, he hoped, to see his goal clear, if not to reach it.

  Calmness came to him as the hours passed, and in all this time Young Wang had not spoken. Had the beggars betrayed them, after all? Young Wang had prudently held back half the money lest there be no body brought, and he promised that cash would be given after its delivery.

  In the small cold hours of the night, when the owls hoot in the trees, he whispered harshly, “They are coming!” James rose and stood waiting and behind him he heard Young Wang take a stealthy step. They saw the glimmer of a paper lantern through a marble colonnade and the light fell dimly upon a cluster of human feet, staggering under a load. A half moment, and the beggars brought three water-soaked bodies and laid them under the ancient pine. It was too dark to see, but James heard the footsteps and he heard the beggars’ voices. “Take care—they are already rotting—”

  Then he rose and took from his pocket the small flashlight he had brought with him from America, and this light he lit upon each dead lad, and Young Wang peered over his shoulder. The first he did not know, nor did Young Wang. The second one James did not know, but Young Wang cried softly, “It is the one in whose room he slept!” The third they both knew, for it was Peter.

  Thus was certainty made sure. Now they moved quickly to do what they had earlier decided must be done. No one in the whole city would have dared to bury these bodies. Under the ancient pine the earth was soft and rich, and Young Wang had brought a spade hidden under his long Chinese coat. He began to dig swiftly and the earth came easily away. Soon he had made a bed, narrow but wide enough for three and deep enough for safety, and the bottom lay upon the stout old roots of the tree.

  When it was ready the beggars helped to lift the lads, and James stooped to hold his brother’s head. They laid Peter in the middle and upon his right his friend and upon his left the unknown. Then Young Wang covered them, and when the earth was smooth he spread over them the deep pine needles which had fallen here year after year since the Old Empress herself d
ied and was buried.

  Young Wang paid the beggars and they crept away into the night. But James stood motionless under the tree and beside the new-made grave. All in him was feeling and not only that Peter was dead. For the first time he felt how small he himself was, how solitary, and how vast was the people which surrounded him, and how miserable. Had not Peter died, James could never have known of creatures who never saw light or comfort or safety. They swarmed beneath the surface of life, breeding and counterbreeding, and life pressed down upon them and held them under. In his own fashion Peter had known people more quickly than any of them and in passionate tragic fashion he had tried to help them. Yes, James told himself, in his young foolish way Peter had died to save their people.

  Young Wang touched his arm. “Come,” he whispered. “This is not safe.”

  And taking James’s hand with simple tenderness he led him away.

  Long before dawn they were on their road again to the ancestral village. James could not quickly enough be quit of the city. Upon the surface of his mind as he rode along he thought of such things as what to tell his parents and what to tell Uncle Tao. To his parents he would simply say that he had found Peter dead and had given him burial. He might say that Peter had doubtless mixed himself with rebel students of some sort. To Uncle Tao he would only say that Peter would not come back again. It was hard to tell so half a truth but James weighed the matter well, and he knew that Uncle Tao would take fright if he knew the whole truth. Only to Mary and to Chen would he tell exactly what he had found. Beneath such surface thought he dwelled hour after hour upon the meaning of Peter’s death and how it had come about and why. It would take his lifetime to answer all he asked himself this day.

  So at nightfall he rode into the village, very weary and silent, and he bade Young Wang return to his wife and his inn and never to tell even his wife what had taken place in the night.

  Young Wang was somewhat offended at this and he pursed his mouth and said, “Master, I am not the sort of man who tells his wife everything! I am trustworthy and you ought to know it by now.”

  “So I do,” James said to comfort him, and the two parted.

  James went first to his own room. He hoped to find Chen there, but the rooms were empty. He washed himself and then he went to find Mary, but she too was not to be found. Next must he then go to Uncle Tao to announce himself returned, as younger should do to elder, and Uncle Tao he found sitting in the main room doing nothing. He was waiting for his pipe to be filled, for he had declared the tobacco damp and the grandchild who served him for the day had gone to find a dry handful by the kitchen stove.

  “Eh, you are back again,” Uncle Tao rumbled, when he saw James come in. “Did you find that young mischief?”

  “Yes, I did,” James said and he tried to smile. “He will not come back, Uncle Tao. I arranged everything in the city.”

  “If he likes the city I do not want him here,” Uncle Tao said. The grandson came running in now with the tobacco and Uncle Tao took it in his hand, felt it and smelled it. He forgot Peter in this task. When he found himself pleased he commanded that his pipe be filled. Then he was ready to speak again.

  “Eh—eh—” so he began.

  James leaned forward to listen. “Yes, Uncle Tao.”

  “What do you want to do here, eh?” Uncle Tao went on smoking between every word.

  “What would you like me to do, Uncle Tao?” James asked. By now he knew that Uncle Tao must seem to give direction everywhere.

  “Anything—anything,” Uncle Tao said. He was feeling amiable tonight, having eaten well. “That is,” he said after a long draw of smoke, “you are not to meddle with the land. Your grandfather meddled with it and we were all but in the hands of the tenants before I took it back. You young ones who have been to school, you cannot understand the land.”

  “There is only one thing I can do which will be useful to you,” James said with proper caution. “I see that many of our tenants look sickly. Surely they cannot do a day’s work. If you will allow me, I will try to discover what their sickness is and heal it.”

  Uncle Tao’s small eyes half closed. “No cutting!” he said sternly.

  “Not without your permission,” James agreed.

  “Well, well,” Uncle Tao replied. “How will you begin?”

  “With your permission I could take one of the empty rooms and keep it as a medicine room. I have a few medicines which I brought with me when I came, and when I need more I can get them through the city hospital. To that room the sick ones can come.”

  Uncle Tao turned this over and over in his mind. “What if you kill someone?” he asked after some minutes. This thought filled him with horror. “No, no,” he said in alarm, “it is better to let them die naturally.”

  “I will kill no one,” James said.

  Uncle Tao wagged his head. “You would be blamed if one dies, and then I as your eldest relative would have to pay for it.”

  “Consider,” James reminded him. “When a tenant declares himself sick and cannot work, then I will see if he is truly ill or only pretending. Moreover, there are the children. It is a pity for children to waste away. And the women who die in childbirth—”

  “You cannot concern yourself with women,” Uncle Tao said firmly.

  “A doctor concerns himself with all human life,” James replied.

  Thus coaxing and persuading he led Uncle Tao to the place where he agreed that James might use a certain room which had a door of its own to the street. This door had been barred for generations and it had been made long ago secretly by a wicked Liang son who went out at night against his father’s command.

  James was weary indeed by the time Uncle Tao had reached his permission, but when he rose to go Uncle Tao stayed him again. “As to your sister—” so he began and James sat down once more.

  “Your sister is—one of those new ones,” Uncle Tao said solemnly. He laid aside his pipe, now grown cold. “She makes a disturbance in our village. Already I see my daughters-in-law are growing forward. The youngest one spoke to me the other day. Such a thing has not happened before. I speak to command her, but I expect no reply.”

  James could not but smile at this. “What shall I do with my sister?” he asked.

  “She should be married,” Uncle Tao said in the same solemn voice. “Women who are not married go about cackling like hens who lay no eggs.”

  James did not reply to this. It would make a disturbance indeed if Uncle Tao stepped in to arrange a marriage for Mary! Yet Uncle Tao now prepared to do so. “In this village,” he said, “there is a very decent fellow who does not belong to the Liang blood. His father came here as a peddler and then settled himself as a tailor. I gave him permission. The son is a tailor also. I will speak to the father.”

  James made haste to avert this catastrophe. “Uncle Tao, let me talk with my sister,” he begged. “If I fail I will come and tell you.”

  “Well, well,” Uncle Tao granted him. “But let it not be too long. Women are a family burden until they are married.” So James went away at last and now he found Chen in his room, the one next to his. He was changing his garments from his old working uniform to the Chinese robe which he wore when he was at ease.

  “Where were you?” James asked. “I have been home this hour and more. You and Mary—I could find neither of you.”

  “I was helping her clean the schoolroom,” Chen said with an air of lightness.

  “Is there already a schoolroom?” James asked.

  “Mary has taken one,” Chen replied. “I told her it would be better to ask Uncle Tao first, but no, she said she would go and tell Uncle Tao when it was done. The young mothers are all on her side. They are helping her. They want their children to learn to read, and some even talk of learning themselves. The youngest daughter-in-law is quite determined.” All this he said in the same light voice, half carelessly, as he usually spoke.

  “I want to tell you and Mary about Peter,” James said. “I will go and find h
er. We can meet in my room.”

  All through that evening they sat together and they talked about Peter and why it was that he could not be happy. They well knew. The weight of their country, vast and old, lay heavy upon them all, and they were of such conscience that they could not escape.

  “What Peter could not see,” James said at last, “was that destruction does not heal. For what can be destroyed except people? Yet the people are the treasure of the nation.”

  “And our people are good,” Chen said.

  “I tell you ours are the best people in the world. Ignorant and dirty and fighting disease with nothing except their natural health—” James broke off here and shook his head.

  “Peter was too young for this life,” Chen said.

  “Perhaps too spoiled,” Mary said in a low voice. The two men did not argue this and they sat a while not speaking and watching the guttering candles on the table.

  “When I have children,” Mary said at last and as though she had been thinking of it for a long time before she spoke, “I will not let them go to America. They must grow up here, where our life is. They must learn to do with what we have and if they want more they must make it with their own hands. They must not dream of what others have made.”

  So she spoke of her own marriage and it came into James’s mind to tell her what Uncle Tao had said. But he did not. The time was not fitting. They were speaking of solemn things, and what Uncle Tao had said was only cause for laughter.