Kinfolk

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 and 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.”

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.