The Eternal Wonder

PART II

When he reached New York, Rann was impatient to leave at once for home. Yet here was his grandfather and he had not the heart to go without inquiring of him so that he could tell his mother how the aged man did. A lifetime, it seemed, had passed during this trip. He had gone away a boy in experience and he had come back a man. But he had been compelled too quickly. Lady Mary had done him a damage. She forced a physical maturity upon him. What would it have been like, he wondered, if he had loved a girl, shy and young, someone his own age or even younger, and had made his own sexual way, leading instead of being led, hesitating instead of being hurried, wondering instead of being impelled? But there had been no young girl. Stephanie—no, Stephanie somehow belonged to the future. Yet if there had been no Lady Mary, might it have been Stephanie?

He was too tired to answer his own question. A deep weariness, a mental lethargy, overcame him. He had grown too quickly. His mind was too crowded. He needed time for the approach to manhood, time in which to study his own nature, divine his own needs. The thought of the quiet house in which he had been born and where he spent his childhood, yet that also always too quickly he now felt, nevertheless presented peace to his troubled spirit. No, he would not blame others. It was he who hurried himself, his restless mind, his instant imagination his masters. He would sleep, he would eat, he would rest in his mother’s calm presence and gradually he would know what to do. Meanwhile he must consider the matter of military service. Those years loomed ahead—shadow or opportunity? He did not know.

He traveled the crowded, litter-strewn streets of Manhattan with a sense of distaste after the immaculate streets of England and France, seeing the people anew—his people, though they seemed strange to him for the moment. How little he knew them and how much there was to know, how much to learn! He had learned something, in a fashion, about himself, but what he had learned he now did not like. He had learned in fact that body and mind were at war in his big frame and that he had conquered neither. Indeed, he had not fed or satisfied either being, for here was his clamorous body, its passions roused, its instincts alive, and here his mind, hostile against that body. He did not want to see a girl’s shapeliness or imagine her unclothed, and yet he was compelled thus to see and to imagine. He rebelled against his body, for his mind was hungry and impatient for its own satisfaction. The war was within his own members, and somewhere a third part of him hovered—his will, hesitating between body and mind. Body was tyrant and somehow it must be subdued so that he could assuage the deeper and perpetual hunger of his mind.

In this troubled state he left his modest hotel room on his first morning in New York and journeyed toward Brooklyn, intending to stay a day or two with his grandfather and then proceed westward. It was a fair morning, sunny and clear, the sky cloudless, the people walking briskly in the warm, pure air. He took a cab and watched the scene that moved slowly outside the window. Strange, strange how a people shapes its world! This could not be any other city on Earth than it was. Dropping haphazard from the sky, he would still know at once that it was American and New York. The car trundled finally over the Brooklyn Bridge and wound its way through streets until it reached his destination and stopped. He paid the driver, greeted the white-haired doorman who remembered him, and went into the elevator to the twelfth floor.

Then he pressed the doorbell and waited. Impatient, he pressed again. The door opened a few inches and he saw Sung’s frightened face peering at him.

“Sung!” he cried.

Sung put his finger on his lip. “Very sick—your grandfather.”

He pushed his way in, past Sung, and hastened to his grandfather’s room. There, stretched upon the bed his grandfather lay, his hands crossed on his bosom, his eyes closed.

“Grandfather!” Rann cried, and leaning, he put his hand on the folded old hands.

His grandfather opened his eyes. “I am waiting for Serena,” he murmured. “She is coming for me.”

He closed his eyes again, and Rann gazed at him, frightened and awed. How beautiful this aged face, the waxen skin, the white hair, the carved lips above the elegant hands! Suddenly he could not bear to lose his grandfather.

“Sung!” he called sharply. “Has a doctor seen him?”

Sung was at his elbow. “He not want doctor.”

“But he must have a doctor!”

“He talk he wishing die. He begin die last night—maybe five, six o’clock. He talk some lady only I don’t see, and he talk he too tired waiting her and must go her side somewhere—I don’t know. So no more eating, he talk me, but I make soup anyhow. He no eat. Just lying there all night talking this lady. I sit here all night too, not seeing lady, just hear him talk like she here.”

“He is wishing himself to die,” Rann declared.

“Maybe,” Sung agreed. “Man wishing die, he die, in China same.”

He shook his head, resigned and calm, but Rann went to the telephone and dialed. His mother’s voice answered.

“Yes?”

“Mother, it’s I,” he called.

“Rannie, where are you? What—I didn’t know you—”

He broke across her joyful surprise.

“I am with Grandfather—got in yesterday from Paris. Mother, he’s dying—he won’t see a doctor. He just lies here in his bed, waiting.”

“I’ll take the next flight out,” she said.

RANN AND HIS MOTHER SPENT the summer in New York doing all that they could to instill in his grandfather some will to return to living. Each doctor who came conducted extensive examinations and at last declared that there was nothing really wrong with the old man.

“It seems he simply has no wish to go on,” the last one had said with finality.

He refused any medical care and feeding him was a matter of forcing hot broth between his thin lips.

Autumn passed quickly into winter and on a brisk day with the feeling of snow in the air Rann’s mother had gone into Manhattan to purchase a few warm clothes, for she had brought none with her to New York and hesitated to return home with her father so ill.

When she returned, Rann met her at the door. “Grandfather died an hour ago, Mother,” he told her.

Tears came quickly to her eyes and she gave him a quick embrace and kiss. “We have been through this before, Rann, and we know life must go on.”

“But there’s so much I don’t know how to do,” Rann said. “What—”

“I’ll get the proper things going. You look tired and you need to rest. Have you eaten? No? You really should, you know, we both should. There is no need to make ourselves ill.”

Sung hovered about them. “I fix. I know. Soup maybe with sandwich. Coffee.”

He went away, soundless in his felt slippers and Rann put his arms about his mother.

“I’d forgotten,” he muttered. “I’d forgotten what death is like. But he wanted to die. He kept hearing—someone—call him.” He remembered then that his grandfather had not told his mother about Serena.

“My mother—,” she broke in.

He sat down in a carved chair. No, he would not speak of Serena. If his grandfather had wanted his daughter to know, he would have told her. Now he would keep the secrets of the dead.

“He simply willed himself out of life,” he said.

THEY WERE IN THE JET flying westward. A few days and it was as though his grandfather had not lived. Yet both of them were conscious of the urn of ashes they had left behind. It was macabre. The ashes were so meager, a handful of chemicals that a quick wind could blow away.

“I’ll send the urn to you in a couple of weeks, if you’ll give me the address,” the man at the crematory had said.

They had looked at each other, mother and son.

“He’s never left New York after he returned from Peking,” his mother said.

“He was happy here,” Rann said, and thought of Serena.

“You can rent—or buy—an alcove here,” the man suggested.

In the end that was what they had done. They had left the final dismantling of the apartment to Sung, and then suddenly his mother had changed her mind.

“Your grandfather left everything to you, son, even this apartment which he owned. Why not keep it? Sung can take care of it. You may not want to stay in a little Midwestern town. You will want a place of your own, someday, if not now, and in New York, doubtless. He has left you very comfortably well off. You can certainly afford it.”

So they had left the apartment to Sung, and just as it was. The thought of it pleased him. He could come back.

“I will come back,” he had told Sung.

“Please, sir—soon,” Sung had begged.

Now sitting next to the window in the airplane he watched the clouds floating about them in the sky. He was aware of monstrous bewilderment, shock, weariness. When his father died it had been expected and prepared for. His mother had prepared him and so indeed had his father.

“Your father is approaching his next life,” his mother had told him.

“Is there another life?” he had asked.

“I want to believe there is,” she had said firmly.

He had accepted this, as in those days he had accepted everything, it seemed to him now. And his father had spoken easily of his future beyond Earth.

“Of course, we don’t know, but with the passionate will to live that we humans seem to have, there’s the probability that life continues. It’s all right with me either way. I’ve had a wonderful time here—love and work and you, my son. What a glorious life you will have! Joy to you—”

“Don’t,” he had whispered, fighting off his tears. “Don’t talk about it!”

His father had only smiled, but they had never talked of death again. One of these days when he was ready to face it, he must think it all through—gather all the evidence. Now he wanted only to live. He leaned back in his seat and fell suddenly asleep. The plane was jarring to the ground before he woke.

THE OLD LIFE FELL INTO PLACE. The house enfolded him. Here he had been infant and child. Here he had learned to walk and talk and wonder. For a few days, even weeks, it was comfort to fall into a familiar niche, to wake in the morning in his old room, to go downstairs to the logs blazing in the fireplace, the gentle clatter of his mother preparing breakfast, to know the day lay ahead of him, his to possess. Neighbors came in to greet him. After a while even Donald Sharpe called on the telephone.

“Well, Rann—back from your jaunt abroad? What’s next?”

“I don’t know, sir—I suppose military service somewhere. My induction notice has arrived and I’m to go on Thursday for the preliminaries.”

“No idea where, I suppose?”

“No, sir.”

“Try to come and see me before you leave!”

“Thank you, sir.”

He would not go. He knew too much now. He was no longer a boy. And yet he was not quite a man. There were these years facing him, a barrier between past and future, years when he must lend his body to his country, years which he must spend in some unknown place, performing an unknown duty. There was no use in planning until these years were over, and still he could not keep from planning.

He listened, without hearing, to his mother’s determinedly cheerful chatter. There was a comfort in being with her but that was all. Yet though he knew his life had now proceeded beyond her ken or reach, he was aware that she, too, knew this and so she did not question him about Lady Mary or about Stephanie. Of Lady Mary he did not speak, but he told her of Stephanie, briefly and casually, at breakfast one morning.

“The sort of girl who is—well, one of a kind. She isn’t French, nor is she Chinese, and certainly not American, and yet somewhat each.”

He was silent for so long that his mother encouraged him.

“She sounds interesting, at least!”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, certainly she is interesting. Very complex, perhaps! I feel I’d have to be a good deal older before I’d understand her.”

He paused again, undecided, and then went on.

“You’ll be amused by this, Mother! Her father is an old-fashioned Chinese, though he’s lived in Paris for so many years. He has no son, and it seems that when this is the case a Chinese may ask his son-in-law to become his son and take his name. Well, he asked me to be that son-in-law!”

He was half-laughing, in some embarrassment, and she laughed aloud. “How could you refuse such an offer?”

“Well, Stephanie had warned me. She told me she didn’t want to marry at all. And certainly I don’t… not at this point in my life when I don’t know—can’t know—my future.”

She grew suddenly serious. “Have you any idea inside yourself, Rannie? Of what you want to do—and be?”

“No, except that I don’t want to work for anyone. I don’t want to be part of a corporation or in any organization I can’t control. I want to work by myself, for myself. It’s the only way to ensure my independence. I know, of course, that whatever else I do, I will also write. It’s already sort of a compulsion in me.”

She looked at him with troubled eyes. “You’re taking a great risk, aren’t you?”

“But on myself,” he said.

They were silent for a moment. He piled pancakes on his plate again. His appetite was enormous.

“Eat,” she always said. “You have a big body and very little flesh on your bones.”

“Well,” she said now, “you’re lucky in one way, at least. Your grandfather left you all he had. We won’t know yet just how much it is, but he wrote me that you wouldn’t starve, and that you would always be comfortable if you were careful.”

“He wrote that?”

“Yes, before you came home. I think he knew he hadn’t much time.”

“We liked each other, Mother—though I didn’t know what to make of him.”

He hesitated and then told her what he had not planned to tell her.

“You don’t know it—but he married again, after Grandmother died.”

He watched her face and suddenly it grew hard. “It was never a marriage. She simply moved in—Serena Woolcotte. Oh, there was some sort of civil ceremony but not a proper marriage. We knew about her.”

“We?”

“My aunt and I.”

“But he never told—”

“There are things one doesn’t need to be told. Everyone knew Serena.”

“What was she?”

“A woman whose father had too much money and too little time and left her to meddle in men’s lives.”

“Mother!”

“Well, she did!”

“But that doesn’t tell me anything—meddle in men’s lives!”

“She had nothing else to do and that’s why I warned you against your Lady Mary!”

He stopped short, not wanting to talk about his Lady Mary. He got up from the breakfast table. He had been notified to report for induction, and this was the day.

SEVERAL MONTHS LATER HE WAS IN KOREA, stationed at a base on the line between north and south. Behind him lay the crowded miles of South Korea. In front of him were the mountains of North Korea. A bridge toward the left as he faced north was connection and prevention. If he crossed that bridge, he would be shot down. He had no intention of crossing it; indeed, he had a horror of it. At night he woke himself out of the nightmare that unwittingly he had crossed it. Day after day he patrolled the line between north and south, he and others with him, a dull, dangerous, mechanical task from which there was no relief or recreation—or at least recreation that attracted him.

“Get yourself a girl,” the nasal-voiced sergeant had drawled the first night his company had arrived at the base camp. “Don’t pick up with these broads that talk English. They’ve been around a lot and they’re rotten with disease. You’ll have to fight ’em off, though. They’re bold as brass—walk up to you and pull down your zipper before you know it! Naw, you find yourself a nice little country girl and shack up with her. She’ll look after you—they all know how, these little gooks!”

He had not taken up with anyone. He had simply watched the other fellows, laughing, shamefaced, apologetic, boasting as they found girls. He had no desire to imitate them. In a way he could not explain, he now comprehended that Lady Mary had instilled in him a certain good taste. At least they had made love in beautiful surroundings. She herself had been fastidious, clean, and perfumed. Now it was impossible for him to imagine lying with one of these crude Korean whores, unwashed and stinking of garlic, or even the girls in Seoul, whither he had gone on his first three-day leave. He saw them in bars and recreation rooms, aping the garb and the mannerisms of Hollywood stars of an earlier generation, and he could scarcely be courteous when one and another coaxed and wheedled as he sat apart and alone.

“You, nice boy! Lonesome, maybe? You dance, please? I like dance very much.”

“Thanks, no. I’m just here for a nightcap.”

“Nightcap?”

“A drink before I go to bed.”

“Where you sleep, big boy?”

“I am staying here in the hotel.”

“What room number?”

“I—forget.”

“Look your key.”

“I—left it at the desk.”

“I think you not liking girls. Maybe you only liking boys.”

“Certainly not!”

“Why you not dance, big boy?”

“Not tonight.”

One by one they tried and one by one they went away and he was alone and yet not lonely. That was the strange element of his life—he was never lonely because he was beginning to write. He had discovered that in communing with his own mind he was in communication with life. There was a certain permanence in putting down words on paper even in his letters to his mother. They were there in the morning, his thoughts of the night before. He was relieved of inward pressure. He could endure the stupidities of his life in this wild, strange country where he had no business to be. The people were like none he had ever known, basically a nomad people although they lived in villages centuries old. He found books about them in an English bookshop in Seoul and with his insatiable desire to learn and to know, he became absorbed in the mere comprehension of the Korean people. From learning he began to write his private conclusions: “They have never ceased to be nomads at heart, these Koreans! They began as a nomad people long ago in Central Asia and they wandered in search of a place to rest, being persecuted by warrior tribes. This explains their coming finally to this tail end of land, this peninsula, hanging between China, Russia, and Japan. There was nowhere to go from here, except to push northward into Russia, and across the Bering Strait, which then was a land bridge to what is now Canada and thence southward, who knows how far? It is no accident that Americans and Koreans are so much alike. Indeed today when the Korean mess boy was cleaning the tables he muttered something about one of the fellows being Choctaw, and when I asked what that word meant, he said ‘too-short man.’ Whereupon I remembered that we have a tribe of American Indians, the Choctaw, who are short men. Coincidence? There is more than coincidence.”

And again, on a hot August night: “Today I was on border duty. I marched for hours on our side of the line, gun on my shoulder and staring into the sullen face of the North Korean guard on the other side. One step toward him, one step across the line, and he would have shot me. One step over the line toward me and—would I have shot him? No—I’d have thrown him back where he belongs. What absurdity! He is about my age—not a bad-looking fellow. I wonder what he thinks about while he is staring at my white face. Perhaps he is wondering what I am thinking about him. There is no possible communication. Yet under ordinary circumstances, were we not enemies we would have many questions to ask each other. Now we’ll never ask them. That is what I hate most about this war game. It cuts off communication between peoples. We cannot ask questions and so we cannot get answers.

“Tonight there was a breakthrough. Three North Koreans in the dark of the moon crossed the border. We caught them at once, but not before I shot one of them. Thank God I did not kill him—only a shoulder wound, but it bled horribly. Of course he was taken to the hospital here at the base. I suppose he will be turned over to the Korean command—probably shot after he is patched up. I can’t think about these irrationalities.”

And again, after his next period of rest and recreation: “I can’t understand, in spite of my own clamoring flesh, how our fellows can penetrate the bodies of these worm-ridden, germ-infested Korean girls! There must be decent girls but we don’t meet them, of course. I don’t want to meet them—any of them.”

And still later: “Today I met the general’s wife. She happened to be in his office unexpectedly. I have been appointed his aide as of last week and it was the first time I had seen her. She is between forty and fifty and still kittenish. I don’t know what to make of her. Fortunately, I don’t have to make anything of her, but she kept looking at me—bluntly put, at my crotch. Whereupon I looked above her head.”

The next day after this meeting the general sent for him. He stood before the desk and saluted smartly.

The general threw an order over his shoulder while he sorted papers. “A senator on a fact-finding trip arrives day after tomorrow. As if we didn’t have enough to do with meetings now every few days with these damned Reds! My wife called me to send you to our quarters today—she needs some sort of help about something—better go over there for an hour or so and see what it is she wants.”

“I will, sir,” he said.

When he reached the general’s bungalow, however, there seemed little for him to do and, vaguely uneasy, he left as soon as he could.

The next day the general invited him to a dinner party being given for the senator and he attended, feeling he must accept an invitation from the general. The night after the dinner party he wrote:

“Am I imagining this nonsense? I swear I am not. The general’s wife put me at her left at the dining table tonight. The senator, a lanky fellow from some western state, sat at her right. She said to me, laughing when I hesitated to sit down, ‘I’m putting you where you’ll be handy in case I need something.’ So I sat down. The table was crowded and her left knee touched my right knee under the table. I moved immediately, but in a few minutes I felt her foot pressing between my feet, her leg against mine. I could not believe it. I moved again, and again she moved against me. And all the time she was chattering to the senator. But as I moved she turned her head toward me and gave me a coy little smile and pressed her foot further between my feet, her leg almost over my knee. I moved my chair and was out of reach. She did not speak to me again. It’s nothing, but I don’t like it.”

The next morning he was on duty in the general’s office. When he entered, the general gave him a frosty look. He saluted and stood at attention, awaiting orders as usual.

“At ease,” the general said.

He dropped his hand and stood waiting.

“Sit down,” the general said.

He sat down, surprised.

“I’ll be frank with you,” the general said abruptly. “I like you. I’ve counted on you. You’re old for your age. You’re officer material. Have you ever thought of a military career?”

“No sir,” he said.

“Well, think of it, because I’m going to kick you upstairs, Colfax. I’m going to see that you get promoted.”

“I’m quite happy as I am, sir,” he said.

“I’m going to promote you anyway,” the general insisted.

He was a kindly man, his blue eyes friendly under his graying hair, a handsome man, his face, the features clean-cut, was kind yet somehow sad in unsmiling firmness. He went on speaking, leaning back in his chair, his left hand playing with a silver paper knife, its handle studded with Korean topaz.

“I have to move you out on my wife’s demand, but I’ll move you up, at least.”

Rann was astounded. “But what have I done, sir?”

The general shrugged. “I understand, of course—you young men are here for months on end and nothing but these Korean girls around—you are men, after all—” The general paused, flushing slightly, and pressed his lips together. The silver paper knife slipped from his fingers, and he took it up again and gripped it in his right hand.

“But I still don’t understand,” he said, bewildered.

The general put down the paper knife. “Bluntly, Colfax, my wife told me that last night you made obscene gestures to her under the table during dinner.”

“I? Obscene—” He broke off, the blood rushing to his head.

“Don’t apologize—or even explain,” the general said. “She’s still a pretty woman.”

Silence fell between them, intolerable silence. He could not endure it.

“Be silent,” the general commanded. “You will get your orders tomorrow.”

“Yes sir.”

The next day, as the general had told him, Rann received his orders. He was distressed that he had been unable to argue the accusation made by the general’s wife, but to argue with a superior would have been to lose, and perhaps it was best to take his orders and let matters rest. He had been promoted and transferred to Ascom, a base southwest of Seoul, and was put in charge of the supply station there. It was the main supply station for the American military forces in South Korea and his position was responsible and detailed enough that it kept him busy for a few weeks until he discovered all that was expected of him. Then he found he had even more time than before for pursuing his own unquenchable thirst for knowledge.

He began to speak Korean, a strange guttural language, unlike anything he had ever heard or spoken before, unlike even the little Chinese he had learned from Stephanie. He asked questions of all Koreans he came in contact with during his daily work, and read books on Korean history long into each night. He began to realize how little Americans knew of these strange people in their geographically strategic country and how, unknowing, his own people had seriously affected their history, indeed were affecting it now, with the American military in South Korea and the truce, American-imposed, at the 38th parallel. He had watched the UN group, including American and South Korean delegates, at the peace talks as they read long lists of infractions of the truce agreement at the meetings there, and had watched the North Korean delegates and their Chinese advisors completely ignore all that was said. Indeed, more than once he had seen these enemy delegates, with their haughty bearing, sit and read comic books throughout the entire proceedings.

In his job in supply he became aware, also, of the well-organized black-market operations, with some Americans getting rich passing out supplies to Koreans to sell on the black market long before the supplies could reach his own warehouses. Rann saw all of this and much more. He saw the American men, many of them officers, involved with Korean girls and he saw the inevitable children who were born. Beautiful children, half-American, and yet doomed to live on the lowest level of Korean society because of their racial mixture. He had never heard of any of this before he came to Korea though he had read the daily newspapers and all of the newsmagazines.

Months passed and yet Rann could not learn enough of Korea, and while he wrote something each night, in the form of a diary, he still felt he had not exhausted the wealth of knowledge he gathered. Then a strange phenomenon began to take place in Rann’s fertile imagination—at least, strange for him as it had never happened to him before. From all of the Koreans he knew, a man well known to him, a composite, came to Rann in his imagination. He was no one person, actually, and yet he was all Koreans and all of Korea was his background. He began to speak to Rann and he told Rann the story of his life. He was a very old man, his life beginning in the late 1800s and continuing through the Japanese occupation of Korea, World War II, and the Korean War. He told of the four sons he had, two of them killed in the war, one of them now in the government, and the other, the youngest one, deeply involved in the black market.

Soon after the old man began to speak in his imagination, Rann carefully wrote down everything he said. He reported every conversation exactly as he heard it, each detail in the long life of the old Korean. Page after page he wrote, night after night, until he saw in his imagination the old man as he lay dying, his two sons standing by his bed, and Rann wrote what he saw and heard. After this night the old man never came upon his imagination again, and Rann felt somehow satisfied in his knowledge of Korea, his thirst quenched for the first time in his life that he could remember. He bundled the pages carefully and mailed them to his mother, thinking that in this way she could share some of his life here. He had not written to her often while he was writing these pages, and perhaps she would be less concerned when she saw all he had learned.

His mother’s letter surprised him. “Darling,” she wrote, “you didn’t tell me what to do with your book when you sent it to me, and I didn’t know what to do. The first thing I did was read it and, darling, it is very, very good. It is so good, in fact, that I knew I was not truly capable of doing anything with it, so, and I do hope you won’t mind, darling, I took it to your old professor, Donald Sharpe. He was so excited when he read it that he called a friend of his in the publishing business in New York and took a plane to the city the next day with the manuscript. Well, darling, you have begun, at last. The publisher has called me three times in two days. He feels the book is very timely and they want to rush it into print right away.

“They are offering you a twenty-five-thousand-dollar advance, and Donald Sharpe thinks that’s very good for a new author, and they also want the rights to your next book. Anyway, darling, congratulations! Your father would be so very proud of you, as, of course, I am. I gave the publisher your address and they will send the contract on to you.”

Indeed, the contract was in the same mail as the letter from his mother. Mingled with his surprise, Rann could not suppress a feeling of deep pleasure pervading his being. He had considered revising the papers he had written at some future time and possibly for publication, but that his writings were considered publishable as they were pleased him greatly. He signed the contract and mailed it back to the publisher with instructions to deposit his earnings to his New York account and then he wrote to his mother.

“You did the right thing under the circumstances, you may be sure. I do not know why I wrote those many pages except that my character, the old Korean man, haunted my imagination and writing down what he had to say seemed the only way to rid myself of him. I am free of him now that it is done. That the pages can be published as they are pleases me, of course, though I did not write them with publication in mind. It is just that the story is true, though the characters are mine, and the Korean people have no one to tell the story for them. Somehow I had to tell someone.”

Rann had no close friends in Korea and so he told no one of his book. The publisher consulted him about the title and Rann could think of none better than Choi, the family name of the old man of his imagination.

In the weeks that followed he read and returned the galley proofs. It wasn’t long before a neat package arrived for him containing a copy of the book itself: Choi, by Rann Colfax.

Rann sat down and read it through and then he placed the book on the shelf containing his other books about Korea.

It is a good job, he thought to himself. Indeed, he had said what he had to say, and there was no more. He wondered if Americans would read what he had written and if they did, would they understand it?

A few days later Jason Cox, another supply sergeant and one of the men who worked with Rann, came running into the office waving a copy of the military newspaper frantically over his head.

“Rann, you old son of a gun, when did you do it?” he shouted.

“What?”

“This!” The man banged a copy of the newspaper down on Rann’s desk and pointed at the front page.

Rann stared at the headline, COLFAX WRITES EXPOSÉ. The article continued. “Rann Colfax, a supply sergeant now stationed at Ascom supply base in South Korea, and a surprisingly young newcomer to the literary scene, has, in spite of his youth, produced what will undoubtedly prove to be one of the most beautifully written novels of this century. His characters have been drawn straight from life and are presented with such tender understanding that long before the last page has been finished one feels one knows the Korean people as human beings rather than ‘gooks.’ He traces the life of a Korean man of the upper classes from the late 1800s through the Japanese occupation, the Second World War, the Korean War, and up to our present military involvement in South Korea. Aye, and therein lies the rub—Sergeant Colfax has written of the military entanglement with the black market and prostitution rings in South Korea with such realism it is obvious he must have had firsthand knowledge of his subject. It remains only for Sergeant Colfax to give the true names of his characters for the arrests to be made. He has left a lot of questions as yet unanswered, and I will not be surprised if they must be answered to the proper authorities in the future. If I were in authority, I would certainly want to know where and how he gets his information, for he seems to be doing a better job than any of our so-called intelligence agencies. It will be interesting to see what follows.

“In the meantime, all thinking Americans should go out and get this book and read it and then reread it, for it is probably the greatest book about a people that has ever been or ever will be written. Definitely recommended!”

“Come on, Colfax,” Jason urged. “Give! I’ve already ordered your book along with dozens of other people down at the bookstore this morning and we are supposed to have it in about ten days, but meanwhile, ole buddy, you can tell me. Who are all of these people you’ve written about and not named?” An exaggerated shrewd look came on his face. “You’ll be going home soon and maybe I could put the info to good use.”

“I really don’t know what you are talking about, any more than I know what this newspaper is talking about. No one in my book is taken from life, and I couldn’t name one of the characters in it if I had to. The people are real enough to me, but it stops there. They came out of my imagination.”

“That’s a good story for the higher-ups,” Jason said, winking his eye and turning up the corner of his mouth. “But you don’t have to keep it up with me. After all, we’ve worked together all these months and we’re buddies. You can tell me anything. It won’t go any further.”

Rann was grateful when the phone on his desk rang and he waved good-bye to Jason as he answered, “Good morning, Ascom supply depot.”

“Sergeant Colfax, please,” the voice on the other end of the line purred.

“This is he.”

“Yes, Sergeant Colfax. General Appleby would like you to be in his office tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. He says he would like to read what you have written and asks that you bring a copy along. We will see you at ten a.m., Sergeant Colfax.”

A metallic click ended the conversation before Rann could ask any questions.

The rest of the day was taken up with the telephone and with people stopping by the office to discuss the article with him. Rann could not understand all of the excitement since no one here had read his book anyway. Everyone seemed slyly “in” on the information about which he had written. He was invited to several parties during the afternoon but Rann declined, preferring to get to bed early to be fresh for the interview with the general the next morning.

The general’s office looked different when he entered the reception room. He must have appeared surprised as he wondered if he had made a mistake, for the girl at the desk explained, “Go in. You are in the right place. The requisition finally came through last week for our new carpet. We waited two years for it. The red looks nice, but it makes me nervous.”

Rann looked at the room. Yes, it was the same except for the bright-red carpet in stark contrast with the black teakwood desk and black leather couches.

The same carpet was in the general’s office and gave a rose cast to the beige grass paper on the walls.

“I didn’t actually write the book for publication, sir,” Rann explained to the general. “I wrote it more or less as a personal record of the Korea I’ve come to know since I’ve been here.”

“I’ll have to read this and talk to you again,” the general said. “I suspect with all this publicity that the pressure will be on me to look into this black-market business and come up with some answers. Where did you get your information?”

“That’s just it,” Rann explained. “I don’t have any information. All I did was look at all that was going on, and what I have written is the only logical way it could be done.”

“Well, I’ll read this and get back to you. In the meantime, don’t talk to anyone about any of this. The whole damned country is buzzing as it is. Why don’t you take a few days off and go down to Pusan and lie in the sun for a while. It will give me a chance to boil this whole thing over and I’ll call you down there. There are some reporters from the local papers in the outer office now and I think the best thing to say is that you have no comment until they have had a chance to read the book. That should stall things for a while.”

IN PUSAN, THE BEACHES WERE WIDE, the sky clear above a sparkling blue sea, the soft green hills blending into the gray, rugged mountains in the background. Rann had been there for three days when the general called him.

“Well, Colfax, you’ve written quite a book. The only thing is, from the looks of it, you had to be mixed in the black market to have written it. Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think you were, it just looks bad. We have to think of how to explain it.” The general waited.

“All I can do, sir, is to tell the truth,” Rann told him.

“Of course, of course,” the general agreed. “It’s a question of how and where that must be decided. Meanwhile, you had better get back up here. There is a meeting in my office tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock. Most of the more important officers concerned will be here and I’d like you here for that. Maybe we can clear everything up then. By the way, Colfax, Mrs. Appleby is having a little cocktail party get-together for the officers’ wives’ club at our house tomorrow afternoon and she would like for you to come. I thought we could go directly from my office if that’s all right with you?”

“Your wife, sir?” Rann knew he could not refuse, but he felt his face flush as the memory of his anger came back to him.

“Yes, certainly, fine woman, my boy, never holds anything against anyone. You will come, of course?”

“Yes sir, of course.” Rann took the next train back to Seoul.

The general started the meeting the next day. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I don’t believe Colfax has had anything to do with all of this. I think he is just young and has a fertile imagination. However, in what he calls his logical way he just may have hit on a few things that can help us. I think we should ask him all the questions we can think of and then start a full-scale investigation before his book hits Korea. I am giving Colfax an early discharge, and I’m sending him back to the United States now. He can wait there. I don’t want the wrong people to get hold of him while he is here.”

For nearly three hours Rann answered questions as carefully and as completely as he could, being careful also each time to state that his answers were his own opinions.

“You don’t think we should keep Sergeant Colfax here, General, until this whole mess is cleared up?” one of the officers inquired.

“No, I don’t think that will be necessary at all,” the general replied, his expression thoughtful. “I think the sergeant has told us everything he actually knows, and his suppositions are repeated in his book. I’m convinced he had no involvement in it himself, so I see no need to hold him up. It’s his first book and probably won’t be very widely read and I feel sure we can clear all of this up in a few weeks anyway. Perhaps it’s best to have him out of the way so no one can get to him. No one else knows as yet exactly what his book says, and we can hold up release for a while here until we finish our work. He should be on his way back to the States as quickly as possible. Now, gentlemen, if there are no more questions I think the ladies are waiting for us.”

The general’s bungalow had been recently repainted also and the stucco was now soft yellow, causing it to stand out from the other houses all painted apple green in the American sector called Little Scarsdale. The split-level interior was the same, however, all in rose pink. “Mrs. Appleby’s favorite color,” he had heard guests told on his former visit here.

“Well, Sergeant Colfax.” Mrs. Appleby moved across the room toward him, both hands outstretched to greet him.

She seemed to have lost some weight since Rann had last seen her, though she was still a plump woman. She wore a deep-rose hostess gown of crushed velvet that brushed the carpet, the toes of her gold slippers kicking up the front hem as she walked. She still wore too much makeup and her bleached hair was styled in tight, stiff waves that reminded Rann of a corrugated tin roof.

“You really surprised everyone but me. I knew you would do something really great and you certainly have. Girls! This is the Rann Colfax simply everyone is talking about, and just wait until you read his marvelous book and you will certainly see why everyone is talking. I just knew he was going to do something and be famous and all, and I told the general the first time I saw him he was an extra-special person and he should keep him at headquarters. But, well, you all know how jealous he always is so he transferred him right on down to Ascom supply anyway.”

“Now, Minnie,” the general interrupted. “You know you—”

“Oh, now hush, dear,” his wife scolded the general. “We all make mistakes, even you. Besides, you’re all forgiven so we don’t need to talk about it anymore. Tell me, Rann Colfax, where do you go from here?”

“Well, Mrs. Appleby, I guess I’ll go back to New York. Perhaps I’ll stop for a few days with my mother in Ohio, but only for a few days.”

“Oh, I know that, silly. The general tells me you leave in a couple of days. That’s why I simply had to have you here tonight. After all, it isn’t every day we have a celebrity born right in our midst, is it? What I mean is, where do you go in your career? Come on over and have a drink and tell us all about it. Here he is, girls. The most exciting man of the day and he is almost a civilian, so I guess we can all call him Rann. That will be all right, won’t it, Rann?”

Rann made excuses to leave as early as he could easily do so and returned to his quarters to begin packing for his journey home. Two days later he was on his way to the United States.

SAN FRANCISCO WAS A BEAUTIFUL CITY to Rann, perhaps indeed, at this point, the most beautiful he had seen outside of Paris. In some ways the city on the hill, surrounded by the San Francisco Bay and linked to its outer parts by the beautiful Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, surpassed even Paris. His entrance into the city by military transport from Tokyo had been quiet, his name appearing on no passenger lists, and his two weeks of mustering out of the service passed without difficulty.

Rann found himself in possession of considerable free time, which he spent in the museums and parks of the city learning what he could of his surroundings for the brief time he was there. He lingered an extra week in the city after his discharge, and then he began to long for the comfort of the apartment in Brooklyn and the presence of Sung. He decided to forgo the planned visit with his mother in favor of her visiting him in New York, and one clear morning he boarded a commercial jet out of San Francisco for Idlewild Airport on Long Island.

“Are you Rann Colfax, sir?” the ticket agent had asked when he had booked his flight.

“Yes, I am,” Rann answered quietly.

“Well, I certainly am glad to meet you, sir. I have just finished Choi and I must say it’s the best book I have ever read.”

The woman behind him in line as this conversation transpired sought out the seat next to him on the plane.

“I haven’t had a chance to read your book yet, Mr. Colfax.”

The woman was middle-aged, Rann surmised, and spoke with the accent of generations of ancestry in New England. She was slender and small and wore a black suit. The stewardess had put the matching hat and coat into the rack over the seat.

“I’m just returning from a year in Japan, so I feel a bit left out. Of course, you have created quite a stir in all of the English newspapers. I suppose in all of the papers, but we never quite know what these foreigners say about us, do we? It’s unfair, in a way, so many of them speaking English when their own languages are so impossible for us to learn. I’ve done little but travel for the five years since my poor husband passed on, so I feel quite out of things as far as books and the theatre are concerned. I have a great deal of catching up to do and I’m certainly putting your book as number one on my list. My, you do appear young to have caused such a stir. Why did you decide to write, Mr. Colfax?”

Rann thought for a moment before he answered. “I don’t know that I’ve ever really considered why before,” he said truthfully. “I suppose I could say simply that I’m a writer.”

“But of course you are, you would have to be a writer to have made such a success. But what I mean is that everyone doesn’t write, and there must be some mysterious quality that turns one man into a writer and another man not. Certainly I could never write.”

“I suppose it’s some sort of compulsion to put things down on paper.”

Rann gave up and let himself be engaged in conversation. There was no escape in such close quarters. Soon, however, he began to ask questions of his own. He found the woman eager to talk of herself.

“I’m Rita Benson,” she told him. “My husband was very, very successful in the oil business and while he was alive we played around with backing shows as a sort of hobby. I’ve continued it since he died. As a matter of fact, I have two on Broadway now. I shall step right back into that life, I suppose. God knows there is no reason why I shouldn’t. He has left me with more money than I could ever spend and I do so enjoy the people of the theatre and the parties and all of that. Do you enjoy that sort of thing, Rann? Surely I may call you Rann—and of course you will remember my name is Rita?”

The conversation continued with her extracting his promise that he would let her introduce him to the theatre crowd in New York and as the plane landed they had exchanged addresses and phone numbers and promised to meet again in a few days.

When they rose from their seats, Rann took her carry-on bag from her and they proceeded together to the baggage claim area. Photographers’ flashes blinded him as they entered the terminal.

“This must be Rita Benson and Rann Colfax,” the reporter spoke in an excited voice. “How very interesting. How did the two of you meet?”

They explained they had met on the plane and Rann helped her into her car.

“Are you sure you won’t let me drop you off, dear boy? It won’t be out of my way as I’m staying in New York a few days before going on to Connecticut.”

Rann agreed, taxies difficult at this hour, and her long black limousine glided easily through the traffic and the chauffeur put his luggage on the elevator of his apartment building. Rita Benson offered him her hand through the window of the car and he held it for a moment in his own. Her hand was warm and soft and well cared for.

“Don’t forget, dear boy, you will hear from me soon. I have your promise now.”

The car moved away from the curb and into traffic and Rann stood for a moment on the sidewalk before entering his building.

“It’s nice to have you back, sir,” the ancient doorman greeted him with enthusiasm.

“Thank you,” Rann told him, and rode the elevator to his own floor. He banged the knocker and Sung opened the door, a dusting cloth in his hand. His round, usually expressionless face creased into a wide smile.

“Very glad seeing you home, master. I waiting very long time here.”

“I’m home at last,” he replied.

Yes, he was at home, his own home. Sung unpacked the bags while Rann telephoned his mother.

“Rann! Where are you?” Her voice sounded young and fresh over the air.

“Where I belong—in Grandfather’s—no, in my apartment.”

“You aren’t coming home?”

“This is home now. You’ll come and visit me.”

“Rann—but I suppose you’re right. Are you well?”

“Yes.”

“You sound as if something were wrong.”

“I’ve learned a lot during these months.”

“You’re back sooner than I expected. Do you have plans, son?”

“Yes, I shall write books—and books and books, sometime, that is—”

“Your father always said that’s what you would do. When shall I come?”

“As soon as you like.”

“Let me see—next week, Thursday? My club meets here on Wednesday.”

“Perfect. Until then—”

“Oh, Rann, I’m happy!”

“So am I.”

“And Rann, I almost forgot. Your publisher wants you to call as soon as you can. I told him you would call right away. You won’t forget, will you?”

“No, I won’t forget, Mother. Thank you.”

He hung up, fell into thought, and then in sudden resolution rang France, Paris, and Stephanie. At this hour, reckoning time, she’d be home. At home she was. A Chinese answered in French that if he would wait only one moment, mademoiselle would be at the telephone. She had only just arrived with her honored father.

He waited the moment, which lengthened to several, and then heard Stephanie’s clear voice speaking English.

“But Rann, I thought you yet in Korea!”

“Returned to New York only today, Stephanie! How are you?”

“As ever—well. Working very hard to speak good English. Am I not speaking quite well?”

“Excellent, now what will become of my French?”

“Ah, you will forget nothing! When are you coming to Paris?”

“When are you coming to New York? I have a place of my own—remember I wrote you?”

“Ah you! Writing me one letter—two, maybe!”

“I couldn’t write letters in Korea—too much to do, to see, to learn. I repeat, when are you—”

“Yes, yes, I heard the first time. Well, in truth, my father is opening a shop in New York. For which case we come, perhaps in a few months.”

“How can I wait?”

She laughed. “You are being polite like a Frenchman now! Well, we must both wait and while we wait we will write letters. Are you well?”

“Yes. Do you think of me sometimes?”

“Of course, I not only think of you I read about you. Your book is very famous, and it is to be in French next week. Then I can read it and see why everyone in the English papers talks so much.”

“Do not expect too much of me. It’s only my first book. There will be others. Now, Stephanie, I really must see you. You are a jewel in my memory!”

She laughed. “Perhaps you will not think so now that you have seen beautiful girls in Asia!”

“Not one—do you hear me, Stephanie? Not one!”

“I hear you. Now we must say good-bye. Time is money, telephoning so far.”

“Will you write me?”

“Of course.”

“Today, I mean.”

“Today.”

He heard the receiver put down and there was silence. Suddenly he wanted to see her now, at once. A few months? It was intolerable. He considered flying to Paris tomorrow. No, it would not do. He had much to arrange in his own mind. He had to order his own life, begin his work, plan his time. What was ahead of him now?

Rann decided to postpone the call to his publisher until the following morning. The flight had not been restful, though he had enjoyed Rita Benson’s endless chatter, in a way. He felt now the need of a hot bath and clean, fresh garments and an evening of relaxation under the care of Sung. When he entered the large master bedroom where he had moved when his grandfather died, he found that Sung, the faithful man, had unpacked his luggage putting everything in its place and had laid a comfortable silk robe and pajamas on the bed for him. At home, Rann thought as he ran steaming water into the tub. If Serena had visited his grandfather in these rooms, Rann had experienced no such invasion of privacy. Indeed, nothing interrupted his comfort here and he thought of his gratitude to his grandfather as he rested in the tub. He dried himself vigorously and, deciding he was not quite ready for the pajamas, he selected a pair of trunks from a drawer and went out upon the terrace for the warmth of the sun.

“You have slept, young sir, and I fear you might chill in the late air.”

Thus Sung had waked him. The sun was gone and Rann moved into the library where Sung had left a cocktail on his desk next to the paper.

Rann sipped the cool drink and glanced at the front page of each section of the paper. In the theatre section the headline arrested his attention.

RITA BENSON ADDS RANN COLFAX TO STABLE. Rann read on. “Broadway’s brightest angel, Rita Benson, widow of oil tycoon George Benson, arrived in New York today from Tokyo with none other in tow than Rann Colfax, whirlwind young author of bestseller Choi. Rita certainly wastes no time in gathering up the eligible young men around town.…”

Rann could read no more. He picked up the telephone and called the St. Regis, where Rita Benson said she was staying.

“Of course I haven’t read it, dear boy,” she said when he was put through to her room. “But you mustn’t pay any attention to what they say. They have to have something to say. You are new to all of this as yet, but you must learn that we simply go on with our lives no matter what the press might write. Now, how about dinner here with me tomorrow. Then we can go to a show. Of course they will talk, but let them, I say! I cannot start at this stage to base my life on what others may say, and you would be wise to feel the same. Anyone important to you or to me will know the truth and who else matters? Of course I enjoy a handsome young escort. That’s why I do business with handsome young men. I don’t haul them off to bed, dear one, but if I have a choice between a handsome young man and a wrinkled-up old one for an evening, I don’t see that there is any choice. They will soon run out of things to say and it will all die down anyway, and don’t you worry about it.”

Rann was comforted by her light acceptance of the article. He put on cool linen slacks and a slip-over shirt and enjoyed an excellent dinner of sweet and sour chicken, one of Sung’s specialties. After dinner he put on the pajamas and robe that had been laid out for him earlier and went to his favorite room, the library, where the thoughtful Sung had placed his favorite nightcap on his desk. He selected a book from the shelves, a biography of Thomas Edison, and settled into the comfortable chair. He never tired of the lives of great people, and while he knew well the life of Thomas Edison, this biographer he had not read and he approached the book with pleasure.

“Will you be needing anything else, young sir?” Sung inquired of him later in the evening.

“No, thank you, Sung. I shall be going to bed soon.”

He rose and went into his bedroom, where his bed had been turned down and all had been made ready for his comfort on his first night home.

RANN OPENED HIS EYES IN the morning, roused by the sunlight streaming through the window opened earlier by Sung. It was the man’s way of waking Rann.

“One must never wake one quickly,” he had explained. “The soul wanders over the Earth while body sleeps and if one is waked too quickly soul has no time to find its way home.”

Sung now stood beside Rann’s bed waiting for him to wake, a pot of hot coffee on a silver tray held in his hands.

“So sorry to wake you, young sir,” he said. “But there is a man call three times in hour, say he must talk to you. Sounds important. His name Pearce. Say he publisher.”

“That’s all right, Sung.” Rann accepted the coffee the man poured for him. “What time is it?”

“Ten o’clock, young sir.”

Rann was mildly surprised at himself for sleeping so late. The telephone rang again as he was putting on his robe. He took his coffee to the library.

“Yes, sir. One moment, sir. He come now.” Sung handed Rann the instrument. It was his publisher, George Pearce.

“Quite some article in the paper, Colfax. Now we must keep your name before the public. Where did you meet Rita Benson?”

Rann explained the meeting.

“Damn good stroke of luck, if you ask me. Otherwise you might have slipped into New York with no notice. You should have let me know your flight, then I could have arranged a reception for you and had full coverage.”

“I didn’t think of it,” Rann said truthfully.

“Well, we have to think of it from now on. You’re a bestselling author but the public is fickle. Can’t let you slip out of sight. No harm done, though. Rita to the rescue. Can you have luncheon with us today?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Good. We will meet at the Pierre at noon. My public relations people will be with me and afterward we may invite the press for a few drinks and see if we can drum up a headline or two. I think we had better play up the playboy angle now that they’ve started it.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about such things, sir.”

“You will… right after luncheon. Just leave everything to us. I’ve got the best PR in the business.”

Rann ate the hearty breakfast Sung prepared for him and bathed and dressed leisurely and took a taxi into Manhattan to the Pierre.

“Well, well, well,” George Pearce greeted him in the lobby of the hotel.

He was a tall man, stylishly dressed, a shock of blond hair falling across his forehead. Rann judged him to be in his forties, though he appeared ageless.

“So, this is Rann Colfax. And you are a handsome one too. Your photographs don’t do you justice. Must get some new ones. Margie, make a note of that, new publicity photos right away.”

The woman with him scribbled frantically in her notebook while he talked. They were seated in the comfortable dining room.

“I’ve ordered my favorite meal and I hope you will like it.”

The man’s assurance impressed Rann. He had never met anyone like him and found himself liking him.

“The PR people will join us in a while, but there are some things we should settle first,” he went on. “Margie, he will need new clothes. These are nice but too traditional for the image. Got a tailor, Rann?”

Rann shook his head.

“Mine will take good care of you. Not cheap, but worth it. The best. Margie, make an appointment and tell that Italian to put a rush on everything. Sports clothes, suits, dinner jackets, the works, all the latest styles. And get an appointment with that barber on Fifth Avenue. You know the one. Rann’s haircut looks too much like leftover GI. Oh well, we can change that.”

“Mr. Pearce—,” Rann began.

“Call me George,” the publisher interrupted. “We are going to be working closely together. No time for formalities.”

Rann continued. “All right, George, but I think I should be perfectly honest with you. I have always been just myself. I come from a university town in Ohio. I know nothing about styles and haircuts and press conferences and playboys and all of that, and I don’t know that I really want to learn.”

The older man studied his face carefully. “Rann, suppose I give it to you straight. You are a very young man, too young, in fact, to have written as good a book as you have. Nevertheless, you did it. We took a big chance on you when we published your book and now we have to make it pay off. Nothing personal, understand. I like you fine. I had thought of building you up as boy genius, intellectual and all of that, but that takes time. Your book will establish your brain—if people read it. That’s where we come in. If people want to read the kind of drivel that was in the papers about you last night and will buy your book as a result of it, then it’s up to us to give ’em lots to read in the papers. It’s as simple as that. You are a property first and a person second so far as I’m concerned. Your sales have risen steadily and you are now number five on the list. Let’s grab the number-one spot and see how long we can hold it. We have to sell you to the smart set in New York. They set the trend, and the smart sets of Wichita and El Paso and hundreds of other places will follow. It’s a matter of promotion.”

As the luncheon progressed, Rann found himself reluctantly agreeing with what the publisher had to say. The press conference had been set for five o’clock and Margie arranged a barber’s appointment for him beforehand. They were joined for the dessert course by three people from the public relations department. When George Pearce explained his plan, the senior of the three spoke.

“Well, George, at least this one is going to be a lot easier than the last one you gave us. That was a dog if I ever saw one. When are you seeing Rita Benson again?” The question was directed to Rann.

“As a matter of fact, I’m having dinner with Mrs. Benson—”

The public relations man interrupted him. “Call her Rita, especially to the press. She will love it and the press will eat it up. Where do you go afterward?”

“We had planned the theatre.”

“Good, then where?”

“Well, home I guess. I hadn’t planned anything.”

“That’s good. You don’t plan. We plan. Go to Sardi’s. We will have a columnist there. That should keep us going for a couple of days. Now, there is a movie premier, an important one, on Thursday night. I’ve got some extra celebrity tickets. Do you think Rita will go with you?”

“I don’t know, I’ll ask her.”

“Well, if she won’t, we will get someone else important. Now…”

The conversation continued for an hour and Rann found his evening time taken up with social events at least every other evening for the rest of the month.

“Gentlemen, I hate to break this up, but we have an appointment with a barber.” It was Margie who spoke. “We will see you at five.”

George Pearce rose. “I’ll go along with you,” he said. “And we will all meet back here at five.”

They arrived back at the Pierre at ten minutes before five. Rann’s hair was trimmed into one of the new styles and a new black suit of a stylish cut had replaced his more conservative one. George Pearce had used his influence with a fashionable haberdasher to get the suit altered for him, as well as a dinner jacket for him to wear that evening. He had even had time for a short visit to the tailor for his measurements to be taken and George Pearce assured Rann he should leave everything else to the tailor, and Rann had agreed to do so.

Now that his first press conference was so near taking place, Rann expressed some shyness. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” he repeated.

George Pearce seemed prepared for anything. “Margie, you take Rann in for a drink and settle him down. Wait about thirty minutes, then come on up. I’ll go on and be sure everything is ready.”

“You must trust him, Rann,” Margie said to him when they were settled into a comfortable booth in the rear of the cocktail lounge. “You are very lucky, George Pearce is the best in the business. No one in the world knows publishing as well as he does, and with the start you’ve already got, you are off and running. What are you working on now?”

“I really hadn’t thought about it yet, and from the looks of the schedule I’ve been handed I won’t have much chance to think about it for a while.”

“They will ask you upstairs, and it shows lack of promise for an author not to be writing, so just say you are not ready to comment on it yet. That should hold them for a while—till you can get something started.”

Rann began to relax with Margie. “I really have no idea what I will write or even if I will write anything publishable again. There is a compulsion to put things down on paper, but not necessarily a compulsion to write things to publish. Do you know what I mean?”

“Certainly, I know exactly what you mean.” Margie was matter-of-fact as she went on. “The best thing to do is not to worry about it. You will write again and there is no way to prevent it if you wanted to. You are a writer. From my experience in this business, I would say that writers fall into two categories. The first is one who studies his crafts of expression and description, knows his word tools perfectly, studies what comprises a novel or a story, devises a plot from beginning to end, and then sits down and applies his knowledge and does his work. He is frequently very good. This kind of writer can be trained. The other type is one who is haunted by an idea or a situation in existence and who cannot rid himself of it until he puts it down on paper. He may only write down the situation and present no solution, for there may not be one in existence. He may not know grammar or punctuation or even spelling, but that doesn’t matter. Someone can be hired to punctuate and spell or correct these, but no one can be hired or trained to do what he does. He writes only out of existence, and his stories are made up of the situations of which life is made, the constant sights and sounds and smells and emotions of which every day is made. His work is alive, it breathes. This man must write. He cannot help it. He is a writer. The first one can write news or advertisements or manuals or not write at all, if he chooses. Not true for our second man. He writes only out of himself. He cannot have a writing task assigned to him, or even assign one to himself, and sit down and perform it as a duty. You are this second type. They are not always genius, but here is where genius comes along. You may not be a genius. It is too soon to know. You are a writer, however, it’s not too soon to know that, and you are a darned good one too!” She glanced at her watch. “Oops! Drink up. God will be angry if we are late.”

Rann left his drink unfinished and followed her to the elevator. He could not control a chuckle when he recalled her reference to George Pearce as “God.” He felt he was entering into yet another new world with an entirely different kind of people than he had ever known. It was exciting to him and he felt the excitement throughout his being. They were alone in the elevator.

“Incidentally,” he said, “thank you for what you had to say. It was not only a compliment but quite a vote of confidence.”

“Don’t even think about that angle.” She gave him a broad smile. “I tell only the truth in my life. Not that I’m moralistic, either, but it’s simpler if you only tell the truth. That way you don’t always have to keep up with yourself. I told the truth. Know it, and now let’s let the press know it. George Pearce is talking to them now about what a great guy you are and how smart you are and all that, which is why he wanted you to be a few minutes late. He has also given them a biographical sketch we drew up for this purpose. Just relax and be yourself. You’ve nothing to worry about.”

Rann looked at her while she spoke. An attractive woman, thirty to thirty-five, difficult to judge, smart, pearl-gray business suit, matching shoes, an interesting oval face with lines of mirth at the corners of her eyes, her dark hair gathered on the back of her head neatly into a bun, the ever-present notebook and pencil in her hand.

Rann also smiled at her instruction to relax and be himself after all the talk at luncheon about his image and the new clothes and haircut and his schedule for the rest of the month.

The elevator door opened and they stepped into a red-carpeted hall, an open door at one end. George Pearce came down the hall to greet them.

“I didn’t expect this good a turnout.” His face crinkled into a grin. “Yesterday’s blurb must have helped. This is going to be easy for you, Rann. Just remember that most of these are top people and they are friends.”

There were about forty men and women with their backs to the door when they entered the room, besides the public relations men Rann had met at luncheon. A table had been set up as a bar on the left wall of the room and the senior public relations man stood there. Another table had been set up facing the door. Behind the table were floor-to-ceiling French windows draped in crimson velvet exactly matching the carpets. It was to this table Rann, Margie, and George Pearce made their way. The man from the bar came over with three drinks and everyone watched them in expectant silence while George Pearce referred to his notes. He cleared his throat and rose.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you all have your biographical notes, which should eliminate a lot of questions except that I will tell you they were written by Mr. Colfax’s mother while he was out of the country and his information may very well differ from hers on some points. So don’t hesitate to ask any questions you may have.”

The reporters responded to this with a laugh.

“I’m going to ask that Mr. Colfax remain seated throughout the interview and that you do the same and that the waiter keep everyone’s glass filled. Hands? Yes, Miss Brown.” George Pearce took his seat and sipped his highball.

“Mr. Colfax, I have for some time wondered how one so young could write a book such as Choi. Now I notice in our notes that you were ready for college at twelve. Could you elaborate on this for us, please?”

Their questions for the next forty-five minutes dealt mostly with his background and his reference work regarding his book, and Rann answered them all as completely but as briefly as possible.

A young woman in the back row who had not spoken before raised her hand. George Pearce consulted Margie before he spoke.

“Yes, Miss Adams. I’m sorry, I don’t believe I’ve met you before.”

“No.” The woman’s voice was well modulated. “I’m just in from the West Coast. I’m Nancy Adams from the Trib. Mr. Colfax, how is it you know so much detail about the black market in Korea?”

Rann felt his neck redden. “Miss Adams, I don’t know anything about the black market in Korea.”

“But you wrote of it so realistically. How could you do so if you do not know anything about it.”

“I have been asked not to discuss that.”

George Pearce cleared his throat and pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger, about to speak.

“Asked by whom, Mr. Colfax?” Nancy Adams went on, hurriedly.

“One of the officers in charge.”

“In charge of what, Mr. Colfax? Were you tried for involvement in the black market?”

“No, I was cleared of any involvement.”

“But cleared by whom, Mr. Colfax, if not by trial?”

“By a group of officers in charge.”

“Not a court-martial?”

“No.”

“Just a group of officers?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Colfax, in your book there are some ranking officers involved in the black market. Couldn’t it be possible that the ones who gave you a clean bill were those you wrote about?”

“No.”

“But how do we know, Mr. Colfax, if, as you say, you don’t know? What was the name of the officer in charge?”

“He was not involved.”

“Then if you were not involved and he was not involved, why not give his name?”

“It was General Appleby.” Rann wished he hadn’t spoken the name, but the woman had made him nervous with her persistence.

George Pearce rose. “Ladies and gentlemen, I hate to break this up but I know Mr. Colfax has to dress for dinner. Thank you very much and I hope that this has been helpful.”

“Mr. Colfax, one more short question, please.” It was the first woman who had questioned him. “I think my readers would be interested in knowing what a young serviceman would choose to do on his first night out in New York after being away for so long. Do you mind?”

“Simple for me. Dinner and the theatre.”

“With anyone special?”

“Rita, Rita Benson.”

“Oh, I see. Very special! Thank you, Mr. Colfax.”

George Pearce and Margie seemed pleased with the afternoon and parted from Rann in the lobby and Rann took a taxi home to change for dinner.

“Why, young sir, you look so different.” Sung’s smile showed his enthusiasm. “You so all new from morning. Looks nice like, different but nice.” He took the package Rann was carrying.

“Thank you, Sung. I’ll be dressing right away and I’ll wear the jacket in that box.”

“Your mother called, young sir. She sound upset. She ask you call.”

“All right, I’ll call her now, but I’ll have to make it quick. I don’t have any time to spare. Turn the water on in the bathtub, will you, and not too hot.”

Rann sat at the desk in the library.

“How are you, Mother? Is anything wrong?” His call went through quickly.

“Oh Rann, I’m so glad you called. I don’t know if anything’s wrong or not until you tell me. There was this very insinuating article in this morning’s paper. Rann, who is Rita Benson?” His mother sounded anxious.

Rann laughed. “No one you need to worry about. She’s just a lady I met on the plane.”

“Not according to this article.”

“Mother, I can only tell you what I have been told, which is pay no attention to stuff like that you read in the papers. She is a nice lady, that’s all.”

“As long as you are sure you haven’t been added to someone’s stable, though I suppose that’s all right too, if that’s what you want.”

“I’m not in anyone’s stable and I’m not going to be. There is nothing to worry about. Now, Mother, I have to run or I’ll be late for a dinner date.”

“With her?”

“Yes, Mother,” Rann laughed again. “With Mrs. Benson.”

“Well, all right. We’ll talk again soon.”

“And I’ll see you soon, Mother, and you will enjoy Mrs. Benson when you meet her.”

Rann sat, thoughtful, for a moment after he hung up. He could not resent her concern. She was not actually prying. It was honest, natural concern. It was a comfort to him, in a way, to have her there in the background of his life, always concerned for his happiness.

“MY DEAR BOY, YOU ARE not late,” Rita Benson said when he telephoned her room at the St. Regis forty-five minutes later.

“And never apologize. In this world anything under a half hour is on time. Do you want to come to my suite for cocktails or, in view of the papers, shall I meet you in the lounge? I must say, however, that if this is a stable, I’m paying dearly for it.”

“I’ll meet you in the lounge, Rita,” Rann laughed. “And I’m not worried about the stable.”

“Oh dear, I must be slipping.” Rita Benson laughed too. “See you in a minute.”

Rann was glad for the new dinner jacket when Rita Benson entered the cocktail lounge a few minutes later. Every head in the room turned to her as she came to the table. She looked to be perhaps thirty-five, though Rann suspected she was nearer fifty-five. Her long gown of wine-colored silk clung to her slender frame with the easy grace of a dress made for the one who wears it. Her closely cropped hair fit smoothly to her head, framing her face dramatically and accentuating her long, graceful neck and slender shoulders.

“Rita, you’re beautiful.” Rann complimented her frankly, rising to hold her chair.

“But of course I am, dear boy. God knows I work hard enough at it. Nice of you to notice, though. But you’re the one. How handsome you look. Who cut your hair? Maybe I’ll give him a go at mine.”

They finished their cocktails quickly and moved to the dining room.

“Rann, I now want to say that your book is absolutely marvelous. I ordered it the moment I got to the hotel and was unable to put it down until I finished it, and I’ve begun it again. I’ve toyed all day with the idea of putting it on Broadway but I think perhaps the stage is not right for it. I think maybe film, though I’ve not done anything with film. We will have to talk about it when we have more time. Right now we are running late.”

She rose from the table and Rann helped her with her stole. “Add twenty percent to our check and put it on my bill, Maurice,” she said as they passed the headwaiter.

Rann could scarcely keep his mind on the play they were watching. His mind kept drifting to what Rita had said over dinner about his book. He was flattered, of course, but the idea was strange to him. He had never considered the old man’s story as anything other than a book and had barely had time to get used to it as a book.

“Did you enjoy the play?” Rita asked as he helped her into her limousine afterward.

“I did very much, though I confess I had difficulty concentrating on it after the remark you made at dinner.”

“You mean about your book? I mean it, but I’ll have to read it again and then we will talk.”

The ride to Sardi’s was short. “Mrs. Benson, Mr. Colfax,” the headwaiter announced clearly. “We’ve been expecting you. Your table is right over here. Mr. Caldwell has already arrived.”

Emmet Caldwell’s column was syndicated in every major newspaper in the world, Rann had long known, but he was not prepared for the man he met when they arrived at the table. He was tall and outgoing, an intelligent look in his wide-set eyes, his brow a little high for him to be considered handsome. He looked like a college professor. He rose.

“Rita, it’s always a pleasure.” He extended his hand. “And you are Rann Colfax. I must say that yesterday’s news photo wouldn’t have let me know it.”

Rann shook hands. The man’s grip was strong and firm and Rann liked him. There was the air of one long accustomed to his profession in all that he did.

They settled comfortably into their chairs at the round corner table and ordered a supper of the well-known Sardi steak sandwich and a tossed green salad.

Emmet Caldwell led the conversation. “Rita, is the rumor I’ve heard true that you are considering purchasing the dramatic rights to Rann’s book?”

Rita looked thoughtful and delayed her answer until the waiter had served their drinks and left the table.

“Yes, I think you can truthfully say I am considering it. I have not decided and I am unable to do so without some very good advice. It is an excellent book, in my opinion, a moving story, beautifully told. Whether or not it will fit on a stage and do justice to the stage and the story, I do not know. Perhaps it needs film. About that I shall have to get advice. I have an appointment with a Hal Grey on Monday morning and I have asked him to read the book before then.”

Rann knew of Hal Grey as the head of the most successful independent production company in the country and winner of many awards for documentary films.

She continued, “I think if Hal is interested then he could do the right job with the book. It is a very historical novel.”

Emmet Caldwell unobtrusively made notes in a small pocket-size notebook. “And what do you think of it, Rann?”

“I haven’t, frankly, had time to think of it.” Rann was quiet for a moment. “Margie Billows of my publisher’s office mentioned I should have an agent to handle subsidiary rights, and she has made an appointment with me to introduce me to one. If Rita is interested, however, I am sure she would do well with the material.”

Caldwell smiled. “I know Margie well, Rann, and if she is interested in you then you will do well to follow her advice. She is an old hand at this business and there is none better. George Pearce is lucky to have her. She really knows her way around.”

The conversation continued through supper and Rann enjoyed the easy exchange between Rita Benson and Emmet Caldwell. Yes, a world within a world, he thought to himself, and its discovery fascinated him.

Sung was waiting for him when he arrived home and brought a drink to him in the library.

“Sung, you must not wait up for me when I am out late,” Rann told him. “It seems I shall be late often for a while.”

After a hot shower, Rann put on fresh pajamas and lay in the huge old bed in the darkened master bedroom, the night noises of the city beneath him giving a faint background for his thoughts as he remembered the events of the day and reflected on his life that had brought him here. He could almost hear his father’s voice speaking to his mother many years ago.

“Give our boy freedom, Susan,” his father often said. “Give him freedom and he will find himself.”

Had he found himself, he thought? Was this then Rann Colfax? he wondered as sleep came to him.

The room was still darkened when Rann opened his eyes the next morning and he had to think for a moment to recall where he was. His dreams had been a mixture of Lady Mary in England and Stephanie in Paris and his mother in Ohio. How would these women react to the changes taking place in his life? The now familiar surroundings brought him back into the present. He rose and opened the draperies and the French doors leading to the terrace. The warm sunshine fell into the room. Rann put on a pair of shorts and walked out into the sun and glanced at the angle of his shadow. About ten o’clock, he judged, and time for some sun before the afternoon shadows engulfed the terrace. He settled himself comfortably on a long chair, the sun warming his lean frame.

“I got all papers like you say, young sir,” Sung told him when he brought Rann’s coffee to the terrace. It still amazed and pleased Rann the way his servant watched him and anticipated his wants. “They are on your desk when you ready. Shall I bring here?”

“No, let them wait. I’ll enjoy the sun first.”

Margie’s phone call interrupted his thoughts.

“Rann, have you read the papers yet?”

Rann confessed that he had not.

“Well, I didn’t think anyone would make his deadline for today, but one did—Nancy Adams of the Trib. I’m afraid she is nasty, Rann. It will sell books, which is good, but her overall tone is nasty. You must pay no attention. What are you doing for luncheon? We have an appointment with the agent at three o’clock and I thought we might have luncheon beforehand.”

Rann agreed to meet her at noon, replaced the receiver, and began sorting through the papers for the Tribune. The article was on the bottom of the front page. BLACK MARKET BOY HITS BRIGHT LIGHTS. There was a photograph of him and Rita getting out of the limousine in front of the theatre. Rann read the article in which Nancy Adams explained that he, Rann Colfax—who had made a fortune on the black market in Korea, either through personal involvement or by writing about it—had been seen in the right places last night with wealthy widow Rita Benson, living high on his profits. Rann smiled bitterly as he remembered he had been Rita’s guest for dinner and his publisher had arranged ahead of time to pay for everything else.

The closing line in the article disturbed Rann deeply: “It would seem that someone should care enough to check with General Appleby in Korea to see exactly how it is that Mr. Colfax was so easily cleared of involvement with the black market. One has only to read his book to see he obviously must have firsthand knowledge of the entire sickening operation.”

“But she had no right to say the things she said,” Rann protested to Margie as they sat over luncheon later.

“Oh, but yes she has.” Margie’s voice was gentle but firm. “That is the price we pay for freedom of the press,” she went on. “She can write anything she wishes as long as she covers herself, which she did. She said you made a fortune off the black market—either by being involved personally, or by writing about it. That’s true. You did write about it in your book, and you are making a fortune. You will make even more after her article. But you can’t let it get to you.”

They continued the discussion throughout luncheon and later at the office of the agent.

“You are hot, Rann,” Ralph Burnett, the head of the agency, said to him. “We have plenty of clients already but we will take you on. Anything anybody wants to discuss with you about your work, refer them to us. That’s all there is to it. But you have to stay hot. If you do that, we’ll all make a bundle. After today’s article, your book will jump to number one within a week, you’ll see.”

And it did. Rann sat at his desk, the book-review section of the newspaper open before him. A long, thoughtful review of his book was on the page opposite the bestseller list. George Pearce, Margie, and Ralph Burnett should be very pleased, he thought to himself.

This review pleased him also. The reviewer had understood so well everything he had tried to convey that Rann, himself, was surprised. Not all of the articles that had appeared—and there had been many—were as thoughtful or as carefully written. They had all been good and factual, except that Nancy Adams had followed up with two more articles in the Tribune, one in which she told of a person-to-person phone call to General Appleby in Korea. General Appleby had not accepted her call, telling the operator merely that he had no comment to make, but reporting the phone call gave her the opportunity to write her nasty insinuations all over again. Two days later she had written of a meeting she had with Sen. John Easton, a young presidential hopeful from a New England state and a member of a committee investigating military affairs, who had promised to read the book and meet with her again. She vowed that her readers would have a full report on what the senator had to say and again used the opportunity to repeat her former remarks.

In the two weeks since Rann came to New York, all that he did was reported. He wondered that the public could actually be interested in his every move. He went to the premiere with Rita on Thursday, and on Saturday they attended a charity ball. On Friday, he had dined with George Pearce and Margie, a busy but simple routine, and all was written in the gossip columns. His mother had dutifully called him several times regarding the articles and he was truly sorry for the way he had affected her life. All he could do was continue to assure her all was well with him. The telephone on his desk interrupted his thought. It was Donald Sharpe.

“Professor Sharpe, you must forgive me for not writing to thank you for introducing me to George Pearce. I’ve only been back for two weeks and they have been so busy.…”

“I know.” Donald Sharpe laughed. “I read the papers. You surely do get around. Who is Rita Benson? She must be something to take up so much of your time.”

Now Rann laughed. “She is a very nice lady I met on the plane from San Francisco and now she is interested in making a movie of my book. In fact, her attorneys are working to come to terms with my agent now. The newspapers blow everything up.”

“I know.” Donald Sharpe was silent for a moment. “What are you working on now, Rann?”

“I’m not. In fact, I can’t even think of anything I want to write. I’m sure I will but this newspaper business takes all of my energy going from rage to fits of laughter.”

“I can tell you how to cope with that, Rann. It may sound strange to you, but just don’t read them. There is nothing you can do about anything they say and you can go on with your work if you ignore them. If you pay attention to every thing people say about you, then you will never accomplish all that you could and should accomplish otherwise. I’ve known people in your position before and, believe me, the only possible way to go on is to ignore all of it.”

“I suppose you are right. Everyone who knows anything at all about this business says the same thing. I’m sure you understand, however, that it’s a lot easier said than done.”

“Of course it is, dear boy, but it’s something to work for. Try it this way now and it will work. You will arrive at this position eventually—after much heartbreak and soul-searching—but if you can follow advice and begin now to pay no attention to what other people say, and especially the press, you will save yourself a lot of agony. In my own small way, I have had to learn this for myself.”

The reference to him as “dear boy” and the personal overtone to the conversation brought the memory of that night in Donald Sharpe’s home vividly into Rann’s mind and he felt his face flush as he spoke.

“Professor Sharpe, I—”

Donald Sharpe interrupted. “Wait, Rann. Before we go any further in our relationship there are a couple of things we should clear up, and I think I can do it very quickly. In the first place, call me Don. We are not too far apart in age or station for that now, I think. In the second place, I’m sorry for what happened between us years ago but we must not let that stand in the way of our future friendship if we can help it—and we are both intelligent, so I think we can work it out. I reacted to you as any man in my position would have. Perhaps you can understand that now. You reacted to me as any boy in your position would have. Certainly, I can see that. I won’t say I don’t wish things could have been different. There is no need for us to lie, but as long as it’s this way, then let’s be friends on whatever basis we can. I think that’s all there is to say on that subject.”

Rann was relieved that Donald Sharpe had spoken so frankly.

“I think I’d like that, Don. So long as we can both remember the facts of the situation.”

“I shan’t ever forget, dear boy. Now, your mother tells me she is coming to New York in a couple of weeks and I think I might fly in with her. Who knows? Maybe now that I’ve given him you, George Pearce may be willing to publish something of mine. At any rate, hold a little time aside for us and we will see you soon.”

Rann promised he would and sat in thought after the conversation had ended. A great deal had taken place in his own life since that night he had spent in Donald Sharpe’s home and while his personal feeling of physical revulsion remained strong, he was better able to understand the pity his mother had expressed for the man at that time. It must be difficult, indeed, for a man like him to find any satisfying relationships, caught, as he was, between sexes. With his total recall, Rann could hear his father’s voice as it had been during one of their long talks together.

“The world is made up of many different kinds of human beings, son, and while you, yourself, and only you, can be responsible for the kind of person you are to be, you must, however, get to know as many different types as you can, for these are the basic components of life as we know it today. Because there are thieves and because you know does not mean that you must steal. Because there are cannibals and prostitutes does not mean it’s all right for you to eat human flesh or sell your own body, but the fact that it is not right for you need not stop you from knowing those who do or from trying to understand why they do so. You will be many times hurt, for you have a deep appreciation of beauty and order in all that you do and people, alas, are not always beautiful or orderly. They will not always be what you would have them be, so be content if at least they can be honest with you and you can learn to understand them as they are. You must hold yourself apart and be the kind of person you want to be. In this way, someone—somewhere—will come along to prove to you that all things of beauty must be good, and when that person does come along you will know him, for you will have known many others before, and you will be ready for the lasting relationship that is, in itself, man’s deepest satisfaction.”

Rann knew now that he could accept Donald Sharpe as a friend, whatever else he was, and that this friendship need not in any way affect him and what he knew himself to be, except to broaden his own understanding of yet another of the multitude of facets of human nature. Rann’s thoughts were interrupted again by the telephone on his desk. It was Rita Benson.

“Rann, if I send my car for you, can you come for cocktails and dinner? I’ve had Hal Grey here for the weekend and we’ve talked of nothing but your book and there are a few angles we would like to go over with you. You could stay over and we will ride back to the city together tomorrow.”

He said he would go. Sung prepared a light luncheon for him and packed an overnight bag and Rann was ready when the doorman announced that Mrs. Benson’s car had arrived. Traffic was light on Sunday afternoon and Rann enjoyed the drive through the suburbs onto the parkway and into Connecticut to Rita Benson’s home. It was a large old stone house she had bought and modernized and was well situated on acres of lawns and gardens, all meticulously kept. Cocktails were served to them on the south terrace, and they were enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun. Hal Grey, seated on a long chair facing Rita and Rann, was talking.

“There are problems with the project, Rann,” he was explaining. “It’s an excellent story and will lend itself well to the screen, but the trouble is that there is no role important enough for an American star, which we must have to ensure a box office. I had thought the scriptwriters could write in the role of the author as the star so we would be doing the story of the book, which would include the story in the book and it would give us the role we need.”

The conversation continued through dinner and on into the evening and Rann agreed to work with the scriptwriters to create the needed role.

The next day, back in the city, the three of them met with Rann’s agent and Rita’s and Hal Grey’s attorneys, and the necessary papers were signed. George Pearce was delighted and insisted on taking them all to dinner afterward to celebrate. Hal Grey’s office arranged a press luncheon for the next day, where the formal announcements were to be made.

Rann was unable to suppress a feeling of hostility for Nancy Adams of the Tribune, so, knowing he would see her at luncheon the next day, he expressed his feelings to George Pearce and Rita Benson that evening. Margie and Hal Grey had excused themselves after dinner because of early morning appointments and the three of them had taken Rita’s car to Rann’s apartment, where Sung had served them drinks in the drawing room.

“Your apartment is charming, Rann. So decidedly masculine and yet I suspect a woman’s touch here and there.”

Rita sat on the couch facing the fireplace, the fire already crackling though Rann had put a match to it only minutes before when they had entered the room. Something Chinese, Rann supposed, in the way Sung laid a fire always made them catch very quickly.

“It must be Serena, my grandfather’s second wife. I’ve not changed anything since he died and left the place to me.”

Rann settled into a comfortable armchair on one side of the fire, and George chose its counterpart on the other side. Rann realized these were the first visitors he had brought here since he returned. It had not occurred to him to change anything in the apartment.

“You really should redo the place to suit your own personality, Rann.” Rita sipped her drink and placed the glass on the cocktail table. “It is good for one to express one’s self in one’s surroundings.”

“Perhaps I don’t know yet what it is I would express, Rita—but I have time for that. Right now I have a problem I think the two of you can advise me on, which is why I wanted to talk to you this evening. Tomorrow, we will have to talk to Nancy Adams—”

George Pearce interrupted. “I know. I’ve thought of that. You are understandably upset and angry over all the articles she has written, and now she has that upstart of a senator, what’s-his-name, promising a full-scale investigation based on your book. The thing to remember is that she can’t really hurt us. Oh, she can irritate and infuriate, but the more she writes the more books we sell and the richer you get in the long run. The worst that can happen is that you will have to answer some questions, but you are innocent so that can’t hurt. I say forget about it. Ignore her and go on. She is one of this new breed calling themselves investigative reporters and she is doing her job, which is to sell newspapers. The thing to remember is that she also sells books. Just don’t, under any circumstances, lose your temper with her. Then she can say something that is true. She can say you lost your temper when questioned.”

“I know how to handle it.” Rita looked thoughtful as she spoke. “Let the press conference be mine. That way, the reporters can direct their questions to me and I can ask Rann or Hal for information we want them to give.”

George Pearce took a long drink from his glass. “That’s a good idea, Rita. It seemed logical to me that you should answer their questions.”

“Of course it is. After all, at this point it is I who have spent a million dollars. That, my dears, is still news.”

They all laughed.

“There is one other point I’d like your advice on.” Rann stirred the fire as he spoke. “I had thought I’d call Senator Easton and offer to answer any questions he might have. I have nothing to hide and this way we might bring things to a head.”

“Just let it rest,” George said. “Let him call you if he wants to. You haven’t done anything—so forget it.”

“You are right, George.” Rita rose from the couch. “And now I have to get home or I probably won’t be there tomorrow.”

Rann said good night to them at the door and returned to the fire to finish his own drink.

“THERE IS NOTHING MORE FOR her to say, Mother.”

Rann was sitting in his grandfather’s study with his mother and Donald Sharpe. They had arrived on an afternoon flight and his mother was settled in his guest room while Donald Sharpe had chosen a small neighborhood hotel in the next block as his headquarters, and Sung had worked for two days to prepare the first dinner to be served to the mother of his young master. It was already dark in New York at five o’clock and the chill in the air promised that winter was not far away. The fire burned brightly in the grate as Sung refilled their glasses from a pitcher of Bloody Marys he had prepared earlier, and the aroma of hot Chinese hors d’oeuvres roasting in the oven filled the apartment.

Rann continued, “Nancy Adams has said everything she can say. She blew this whole thing up and involved Senator Easton. I went to Washington and answered questions for his committee. General Appleby flew in from Korea and told of all the arrests they had made there and that was all there was to it.”

“Well”—his mother frowned—“she could have written an article reporting the outcome. She could have said that you are innocent after all the nasty things she implied.”

“Rann is right, Susan. Reporters seldom write articles stating they were mistaken in the first place, and it would certainly be out of character for Nancy Adams. Rann is a public figure now. His book is still number one on all the lists. He simply has to put up with what they say and go on with his work, which brings me around to this.” Donald Sharpe pulled a thin black leather attaché case onto his knees and snapped open the latch, removing a large manila envelope. “It’s your father’s manuscript, Rann. Your mother gave it to me to read some time ago and it’s so good I think you should do something with it.”

“It doesn’t seem to me that I can expand his basic ideas any further than he has already done. I think he has made his point. I am glad to have it, however, and I’ll read it again and try to figure some way in which it could be useful in publication. I think it should be published if possible because it is a beautiful piece of work and it represents a great deal of my father’s time and study. Also, as you know, I agree so completely with his theories regarding art and science.”

“And I too, as you also know.” Donald Sharpe rose and placed the manuscript in the center of the large green blotter on the desk under the window, where Rann had moved it so that he could look out when he glanced up from his work. It was among the few changes Rann had made in the apartment since the death of his grandfather.

He enjoyed the visit from his mother and Donald Sharpe. Donald Sharpe returned to Ohio after one week but before he left Rann arranged a dinner party so that his mother could meet George Pearce and Margie and so they could both meet Rita Benson. They were impressed with Rita and George, as everyone was, but both appreciated Margie’s down-to-earth approach to Rann and his career. After Donald Sharpe left, Rann and his mother had luncheon with George and Margie, then had dinner and went to the theatre with Rita.

“I like your friends, Rann,” his mother said to him. They were in the drawing room, where Sung had served them a late drink when they arrived home after the theatre.

Rann smiled at her. “Even Rita Benson, Mother?”

His mother sensed his teasing. “Yes, perhaps particularly Mrs. Benson, after Margie, of course. She is not at all the way the newspapers make her out to be.”

“People are rarely what newspapers make them out to be. I’m glad that you approve of my friends, Mother.” Rann spoke the truth. He knew he would continue as he was even if she disapproved, but it was good to have her approval.

“THERE IS NOTHING MORE I can do for you,” his mother said.

Her eyes were soft and brown, her smile was wistful. She was still a pretty woman.

“Had you planned to do something for me, Mother?”

He made his voice playful, although he perfectly understood what she meant. Obviously, he knew after a few days that she had come with the vague idea that he might want her to keep house for him. She had not said so, nor had he said he did not, but Sung had made it clear by perfect service, always silent, that he needed no help in the keeping of the house and the tending of its young master, the grandson of the old man who had saved him from the unknown terrors of the American immigration officers. The house for years had been his island of safety. He knew little more of America than if he had stayed in his native village outside Nanking, China. It did not occur to him to seek other Chinese since those outside in this foreign island spoke their own Cantonese dialect, which he did not understand any more than they could understand him. He had never trusted anyone in America except his old master. Especially he did not trust women, not since he had been cheated by his own sister.

Long ago, Sung had bought with his savings a small business in China, a wayside tea shop, and he had put his own older sister in charge while he continued his work as a waiter in a hotel in Shanghai. She told him every month that there were no profits. Then through a neighbor he heard that there were profits but she used them for her husband, an idle opium smoker, and their children. He said nothing to her, since she was his elder, but he decided at that time to leave his country forever and go to America, where he had no relatives. No one had told him about immigration laws. What would have happened to him if he had not found a haven in this house, he could not imagine. But here he was, with a young master to serve forever. He was perfectly courteous to the mother but by his very perfection he conveyed to her exactly what he intended, which was that there was no need for her—indeed, no place for her—in this house.

“No,” she was saying, “I hadn’t planned my life at all, Rann, until you returned home from Korea. I didn’t know how it might change you.”

“It was an interruption,” he said, reflecting. “It did not change me. Only people can change me, I think, and that takes time. There was no time for anyone—foolish routines, and the official Americans were—”

He shrugged and pushed away the distasteful memory in silence.

“So, what next for you, Rann?” his mother asked.

Rann put down his coffee cup. “I shall sort myself out,” he said.

“Shall you go back to college?”

“I can’t see any reason for it. I know where to look for the knowledge I need.”

“In books?”

“Everywhere.”

“Then I’ll be going home, I think, Rann.”

“Only when you like, Mother.”

SHE LINGERED A FEW DAYS LONGER and he devoted himself to her. She was a dear person but it was true he no longer needed her. Nevertheless, he was not impatient. He took her to museums and theatres and to a symphony concert. These were pleasant hours but noncommunicative. When they came home again, Sung met them at the door and served them their nightcap drink in the library or drawing room. Once, when they were alone, she tried to talk about Lady Mary.

“Is there anything you want to tell me about Lady Mary?”

“Oh—no, that’s all over.”

“With no regrets?”

“No regrets on either side, Mother.”

“An experience for you,” she suggested.

“Yes—I learned something about myself, at least.”

“No more?”

“No more.”

It was impossible, indeed unnecessary, to explain to her. He needed hours alone, hours and days, weeks and months, in which to begin again his work.

She rose. “I think I’ll go home tomorrow, darling.”

He got to his feet and, putting his arms gently about her, he kissed her cheek. No, he would not tell her any more about Stephanie, either. There was perhaps nothing more to tell. Whatever might be he wanted to keep to himself, to live it before he spoke of it.

“As you wish, Mother. But you’ll come whenever you like?”

“Next time you come to me, darling.”

“As you wish, Mother,” he said again.

The distance between them was composed of time. She belonged to his past and even to his present but his future was as yet his own.

THERE WAS NO NEED TO hurry that future—yet the length of his own youth pressed upon him. Whatever he was to do next he wanted to begin now. But how to begin and on what? Sung served him with a silent devotion that provided an environment of ordered peace in his home. His social life had worked into a routine requiring three evenings a week divided between George Pearce, Margie, and Rita Benson. He worked with the scriptwriters to write the role required into his book, and the script, complete and ready for casting, no longer demanded his time and energy. He thought often of Stephanie. They corresponded, useless letters, filled with trivial information, and he had several times considered going to Paris to see her but each time he decided it best to wait until she came to New York. He could not decide how important she was to be in his life, or if, indeed, she was to be very important. He dreamed, he read the leather-bound volumes in the library his grandfather had accumulated over half a century, he walked the streets, he was occupied but preoccupied, not knowing where or how to begin his next work or even what to begin. His brief military experience faded into nothing, a few memories of Korean countryside, of crowded streets and narrow alleys, of barracks and the isolated American compound where officers and their families lived and that so faithfully reproduced the suburb of any small American city.

He was glad that he had not really been a part of that life in Korea. His book was of the life of the Korean people, and while it dealt with American involvement it portrayed it from the Korean viewpoint. Of any experience he had in that small, sad country, one memory emerged cruelly sharp and balefully clear. It was the face of the North Korean Communist soldier marching a few feet from the border, eternally marching, night and day. There, across an invisible line, was the enemy. And yet even he was not so much the enemy as the unknown. Unknown—that was the word and the meaning, even of life itself. He had no hold upon life. He did not know where to begin. Here upon this crowded American island, he, Rann, had no hold, no grip, no niche, no entrance to life.

Crowds moved wherever he went, across the bridge to Manhattan, in New York, wherever he went, life flowed and eddied, but he was not part of it. The newspapers continued to report all that he did in inaccurate detail, but this no longer perturbed him. He did not even read them anymore, for each article was only more nonsense like the one before it. His book remained in the number-one position on the bestseller list, and perhaps after all that was the only important aspect of it all, and the only thing to be considered. He was glad if people read his book, but the money really meant nothing to him, as he did not need it.

George Pearce and his agent and even Rita were inclined to think in terms of money and this was natural to them, he supposed, but in a way this separated him even from them, his closest friends. Only with Margie did he have a feeling that he was always a person and never an object, and they were together often for luncheon or dinner—but even she played a role of minor importance in his real life, his inner life, that part of himself that he had never shared with another person. His friends urged him to redecorate his apartment more to his own taste, but it remained as his grandfather had left it. He took little interest in such things. He could have been lonely except that he was never lonely, since he had always been alone.

Perhaps when Stephanie came—and suddenly one winter’s day, she was there. Snow fell thickly that day upon the deserted streets. He sat looking at it from the tall window of the library, watching it festoon roof lines and telegraph wires and doorways, fascinated by its beauty as he could always be fascinated by beauty. The telephone rang on the desk before him, his grandfather’s leather-covered desk here in his grandfather’s library. He took up the receiver.

“Yes?”

“Yes,” Stephanie’s voice replied. “Yes, it is I.”

“Paris?”

“Not Paris. Here—in New York.”

“You didn’t tell me you were coming now. I had a letter from you only yesterday. I was planning to write to you today. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I am telling you, am I not?”

“But such a surprise!”

“I am always surprising, is it not so?”

“Then where are you?”

“Fifth Avenue, between Fifty-Sixth and Fifty-Seventh, where my father’s new shop is located.”

“When did you come?”

“Last night, too late to call. It was a bad flight. There were very rough winds tossing us up and down. It was terrible! I could have been frightened if I had allowed myself to be. But the servants came one week ahead of us, and all was ready for us. We fell asleep. Now my father is already inspecting the shop. I have finished breakfast. Will you come here?”

“Of course. I may be delayed by this snowstorm. But I will leave at once.”

“Is it far?”

“Depends—the traffic will be slow.”

“Are you not walking?”

“I may have to walk.”

“Then I accustom myself here, waiting.”

“And I will hurry.”

“Only being careful meanwhile.”

He laughed. Her English was so perfect, each word perfectly articulated and yet so charmingly imperfect. The idiom was a mixture of Chinese and French expressed in English.

“Why are you now laughing?” she demanded.

“Because now I am happy!”

“You are not happy before?”

“I realize I was not, just as now I realize I am.”

“How are you not coming immediately, then?”

“But I am—I am! I leave this instant, not another word!”

He laughed, again, put the receiver in its cradle, dashed to his rooms to get into proper clothes—he’d been lazy when he woke to see the snow flying across the windows and after showering and shaving he had put on one of his grandfather’s luxurious brocaded satin dressing gowns, a wine red with a gold silk lining. Shaving! He had been growing a young mustache, but would she like it? It made him look older and that was an advantage. Sung heard him scurrying about and knocked on the door and came in.

“Excusing me, sir, it is too bad snowing. You going somewhere?”

“A friend from Paris.”

He was knotting his tie—a blue suit, a striped tie of wine and blue, then suddenly he remembered.

“By the way, she’s half-Chinese!”

“She? Which half, sir?” Sung smiled a small prim smile, suitable to his small size. “Father Chinese is good, sir. Never mind Mother.”

Rann laughed. “Always a Chinese!”

“Mother dead?” Sung asked hopefully.

“Damned if I know,” Rann said, staring at himself in the glass.

Sung was taking an overcoat out of a closet. “Please, you wear this, sir. Inside is very warm fur.”

“I don’t think I shall be very cold but I’ll take it along anyway.”

“If no taxi,” Sung said, concerned.

“I’ll walk!” he retorted.

Rann found a taxi nevertheless, covered with snow but cruising along slowly and he leaped into it.

“Fifth Avenue—between Fifty-Sixth and Fifty-Seventh. I’ll tell you where to stop.”

The ride would be endless but the snow was magnificent, floating down in the clouds of white through which small black figures, bent to the wind, labored their way. He was in haste yet as ever he was diverted by all he saw, his restless mind storing every sight, every sound, against an unknown future. This was his mind, a storehouse, a computer programmed to life, minute by minute, hour by hour, day and night. He forgot nothing, useless and useful. Useful! But for what? Never mind the question, never mind the answer. It was enough to be as he was, himself, every instant alive to everyone and everything. Time never crawled, not even now, as the cab lumbered through drifts and lurched over frozen ruts.

Nevertheless, when he reached the house on Fifth Avenue, the great shop, its windows curtained with snow, he made haste to ring the bell on the door of the adjoining house, a red door on which he saw in brass Chinese characters her father’s name. He had learned to write that name with a rabbit’s-hair brush and dense black Chinese ink—all that in Paris, before ever he went to Asia himself. The door opened immediately and he went in on a gust of snow-laden wind. Rann recognized the manservant, a Chinese, and was recognized by him with a wide and welcoming grin.

“Miss Kung?” he inquired.

“Waiting, sir. I take your hat, coat, sir.”

She did not wait. She came downstairs, smiling, graceful in her long Chinese robe of jade-green brocaded satin. The only change was in her hair. She had wound it about her head, a shining black coif. He stood waiting for her. Amazing that he had not realized her beauty! Her cream pale face, the oval of Asian song and poem, the dark Asian eyes—he had seen these in Korea and even in his brief stops in Japan, but the tincture of American blood defined the Asian lines. In Asia she would be called American, though here, in New York, she was Asian.

“Why do you look at me so?”

She paused on a step and waited.

“Have I changed?” she demanded.

“Perhaps it is I who am changed,” he said.

“Yes, you have been in Asia,” she said.

She moved toward him, put out her hands, and he clasped them in his.

“What luck for me that you are here!” he said.

He looked down into her face, a face radiant and yet with its usual calm. Her control never broke. The surface was smooth, yet she communicated warmth. He hesitated, and decided not to kiss her. Instead, he put her left hand to his cheek and then dropped it gently. She drew him by her right hand toward a closed door.

“My father is waiting for us,” she said.

He hesitated, her hand still in his. He searched that lovely face.

“Yes, you have changed!” he accused.

“Of course,” she said calmly. “I am no longer a child.”

They looked into each other’s eyes, deeply. Neither drew back.

“I shall have to know you all over again,” he said.

“You—” She hesitated. “You are not a boy anymore either. You are altogether a man. Come! We must go to my father.”

MR. KUNG SAT IN A huge carved chair to the right of a square table of polished dark wood, which stood against the inner wall. He wore a long, plum-colored Chinese robe and a black satin vest. The large room was an exact replica of his library in Paris. On the table stood a Chinese jar. He was examining the jar through his tortoiseshell Chinese spectacles. When Rann entered, he smiled but did not rise. As though they had met an hour ago, he said in his usual mild voice, a trifle high for a man’s voice and gentle, “This is a vase which belongs to a famous American collection. It may be for private sale. Some of the best Chinese collections are here in your country. Extraordinary—I cannot yet understand. My shop already is busy with American collectors—very rich men! Look at this vase! It is from some ancient Chinese tomb—Han dynasty, more than a thousand years. Probably it had wine in it for the dead. Usually such has an octagonal, faceted base. The material is red clay, but the glaze is this bright green—very beautiful! The sheen—you notice? A silvery iridescence!”

He took the vase in both hands and tenderly smoothed it. Then he set it carefully on the table again.

“Sit down,” he commanded. “Let me see you now how you are.”

He set his spectacles firmly on his low-bridged nose and, a hand on each outspread knee, he examined Rann carefully across the table. Then he took off his spectacles, folded them, and put them into a velvet case. He turned to Stephanie, who stood waiting.

“Leave us,” he commanded. “I have business to talk now.”

She smiled at Rann and left the room, her footsteps silent on the heavy Peking carpet.

Mr. Kung cleared his throat loudly and sat back in his chair, his gaze nevertheless fixed upon Rann’s face.

“You,” he said with emphasis, “you are now a man. You have been in a war.”

“Luckily not to kill,” Rann said.

Mr. Kung waved this aside with his right hand. “You saw sights, you have learned about life, and so forth. As for me, I have become an old man. I have developed heart disease. Why have I come to a new country at this time? It is because you are here. I have no son. I have only a daughter. She is clever, she understands my business, but she is a woman. Any woman may suddenly marry a fool or a rascal. This is my great fear. I must see her safely married to a man I trust. I prefer Chinese. Alas, what Chinese? We are refugees or—what is a Communist? I do not know. Besides, she is half-American. Perhaps a good Chinese, thinking of his own family line, will wish to keep his blood pure.”

“Sir”—Rann could not refrain—“you married an American.”

“Who left me for an American,” Mr. Kung retorted. “Perhaps similarly, in turn, and so forth, a Chinese might leave my daughter for a Chinese. New Chinese women are very bold. My son-in-law will be rich man.”

Mr. Kung looked gloomy. He sighed deeply, coughed, and put his left hand against his left side.

“Pain,” he said.

“Shall I call someone, sir?” Rann asked.

“No. I have not finished.”

Mr. Kung was silent for one, two, three minutes, his eyes closed, his hand on his heart. Then he opened his eyes, his hand dropped.

“I cannot die,” he said slowly. There was indeed a look of suffering on his thin face. “I must not die until my daughter’s marriage is arranged—has taken place—until I am assured that her future is safe.”

“Have you discussed it with Stephanie?” Rann knew that probably the old man had not. “Perhaps she has some ideas of her own.”

“It is not for her to decide.” He was as firm as one of the jade figures behind him. “How can a girl so young decide a thing as important as the man to whom she shall entrust her future, the one whose children she will bear? Her own mother decided and see what has happened? No, it is I who must decide and I have decided. I have only now to convince you and we begin today. You will stay and have dinner with us. You are now a famous man, and I have asked my daughter to prepare it with her own hands. What her mother did not do I have had done by faithful servants. She is well trained for your wife. And now in the meantime she must show you around my shop so you can see her brain. She knows my business as well as any man. I have taught her. Then we will have a drink together while she finishes our meal. But you must not take so long to decide. I am already a very old man and I cannot join my honored ancestors until I know this is done.”

The old town houses were side by side, one for their residence and one for the shop. The one that the shop occupied had been tastefully decorated with carpets, walls and draperies in neutral tones of beige, and the objects of art stood out in sharp contrast. Soft piano music played through hidden speakers and Rann allowed himself to be led from room to room, where he was shown object after object—each at least as beautiful as the one before it, if not even more beautiful.

“And this is the Quan Yin,” Stephanie said when they stood finally in the last room overlooking Fifth Avenue from the fifth floor, the snow still whirling into the streets below. The figure Stephanie indicated was about three feet high, carved in wood and very old, Rann judged, and she stood by herself in an alcove between the two arched windows, the place of most importance in the room. Rann knew the Quan Yin but he allowed Stephanie to continue with her explanation.

“She is my favorite of all. She is the goddess of mercy and she is about five hundred years old. My father found her in a small secondhand shop just outside Paris. There was nothing else of any value in the place and as we were leaving he saw her lying on her side under a table in the back of the room.

“The shopkeeper was very surprised when my father took her up and bought her. And now she is here until someone falls in love with her and she goes to their home for a while, but only for a while, and then she will go on to yet another lover and so on, for goddesses are eternal and can never be possessed by a mere mortal for very long. It is sad in a way to think of her never having an eternal home of her own—but that is the price one must pay for being a goddess of mercy.”

Stephanie laughed and slipped her arm through Rann’s and tilted her head prettily to look up at him as they stood side-by-side before the goddess.

“She is truly the most beautiful I have ever seen,” Rann said, and he made a decision. “I must have her for my own. Her face reminds me of you, somehow, in the expression.”

Stephanie smiled. “It is my Chinese half, Rann.”

He kissed her then, his kiss long and gentle and full on her soft lips, and she returned his kiss.

“And you must have her,” she said when he released her. “You must take her to your home this very night. My father and I present her to you and charge her to look after you.”

“But I must pay for her,” Rann protested. “I have money, Stephanie, and I can afford her.”

Stephanie was firm. “And we too have money and can afford her. There is no need for us to buy and sell goddesses between us. You are to have her as a gift from us. If you must think of money then think of all the money we will make when you have to redecorate your apartment to provide a suitable home for such a goddess.”

They laughed then and went arm in arm to the elevator and joined her father in the drawing room of the house next door. The houses had been ingeniously joined by a door in the back of Mr. Kung’s office in the shop, which opened onto his study in their home.

“I will bring only my most important and wealthy clients here,” Mr. Kung explained to him. “Here we will keep our most treasured and valuable articles and all must be for sale. This is one sad decision which must be made early in this business if one is to be a success. One must either be a collector or a dealer, for one cannot be both. Therefore, if one is to be a dealer, everything must have a sale price. It pleases me to know that I can keep my most treasured things here, however, and if I do not like one who inquires, I do not bring him here and so he does not see my best pieces and so he does not want them. It is a small deception, yes, but it soothes me somehow for buying and selling beautiful things and so it is a harmless deception.

“I am glad you are to have my goddess and Stephanie was right to give her to you. I was making a place for her here, but I like to think of her in your home. She will be happy there and you will be happy with her there and so I shall be happy, also. Ah—it should be so simple for me to place my daughter there as well. It is easier, though, to deal with goddesses than with human beings. Goddesses can be to us only what we need and want them to be while, alas, with humans it is not always so.”

Rann laughed and they talked lightly of his business and Rann’s writing until the servant appeared to say Stephanie was waiting for them to join her in the dining room. Rann was filled with delicious food and warm wine when he said good night later that evening.

The snow had stopped and he found a taxi easily. He sat in the backseat with the goddess in his arms as indeed Stephanie had been only a few hours earlier. With pleasure he remembered the softness of her supple figure as his arms had enfolded her and the sweet gentleness with which she had pressed her lips to his, returning his kiss. So different from the demanding kisses he had shared with Lady Mary. They had been wild and uncontrolled, each of them demanding satisfaction for himself each from the other, each with no thought of the other beyond that satisfaction. Remembering Stephanie, there was a sweetness that pervaded his entire being with thoughts of her presence, and yet not without passion. Rann felt a familiar warmth rising in his loins as he recalled the shared intimacy with Stephanie.

He ordered the taxi to stop and he walked on the freshly fallen snow for the remaining short blocks to his apartment building.

“That is a very beautiful figure, sir,” said the night doorman as he offered to take the goddess from Rann’s arms.

“That’s all right,” Rann told him. “I can make it myself. I’d prefer it. She was a gift from a very dear friend.” He could not bear the thought of her in anyone’s arms as she had been in his.

He entered his apartment and placed the goddess on the small table in the entrance hall and admired her for a moment, then he went into the study and dialed Stephanie’s number.

“She is home,” he said when she came on the wire.

“I am glad,” Stephanie said.

“She is so beautiful where she stands now that I know I have been saving this space for her. You must come and see her here.”

Stephanie agreed. “Yes, I must.”

“Will you come here for dinner? Sung can prepare for us and he is very good and perhaps you could bring your father, too.”

“I do not think my father will come,” Stephanie told him. “He has not been well for some time and rarely goes out anymore. However”—she laughed softly, teasing Rann—“I am a big girl now. I don’t need a chaperone. I can come alone if you wish.”

“Tomorrow then.”

“So soon? Very well, I shall come tomorrow if it pleases you.”

“It does. Until tomorrow, then?”

“Until tomorrow, then,” she repeated. “Good night, Rann.”

He heard the soft click as she broke the connection.

THEY WERE TOGETHER ALMOST EVERY EVENING in the months that followed and Rann’s friends eagerly accepted Stephanie into their homes and hearts, especially Rita Benson. They had dinner with her one evening and as Rann fitted the key into the door of his apartment upon returning he heard the telephone begin to ring. He rushed to answer before its ring could wake Sung.

It was Rita. “You had better marry that girl quickly, Rann,” she told him. “She is too beautiful to last long and some hot shot will take her away from you if you aren’t careful.”

Rann laughed. “Rita, we haven’t even discussed it.”

“So—what’s there to talk about?” Rita made her tone indignant. “Men! Always talking. The girl is in love with you. Are you too blind to see the way she looks at you? Besides, I like her and it’s a rare thing for me to like a woman, especially one so young and beautiful, but she is just right for you and you are going to lose out if you don’t get busy. How did your mother like her?”

Rann had taken Stephanie to Ohio with him to visit with his mother over one weekend.

“She liked her very much,” Rann told her. “She even said the same things you have said after our visit.”

“That settles it then—get busy or your mother and I will gang up with Stephanie’s father and railroad you both into it.”

Rita laughed and ended the call, leaving Rann in deep thought. He decided at last that he would discuss his own feelings with Stephanie when next they met.

“Can you not understand, Rann, that is exactly why I cannot marry you?”

They were comfortably settled in the study with coffee and a cordial served to them by Sung after they had completed a delicious seafood dinner he had prepared. It had been Sung’s own concoction, consisting of various types of shellfish with bamboo shoots and bean sprouts in a sauce tart but at the same time with the unmistakable pinch of ginger Rann had come to expect of Sung’s cooking. It had been a thoroughly successful experiment, and both Rann and Stephanie had complimented him profusely. To show his pleasure, Sung had served them a rare Chinese liqueur from a bottle he had treasured for years and was difficult to locate in New York.

Rann and Stephanie had spent that afternoon walking in the park while Rann explained his feelings to her. She listened to all he had to say and had then said, “Please, do not let us talk more now. Allow me to think while we refresh ourselves at dinner. Then when we have finished we can speak of this again.”

Now she shifted her position slightly, leaned forward in her chair, and placed her hand on Rann’s arm.

“You must see and respect my feelings also. I do love you. There is no denying that, but even more important to me is that I admire and respect you deeply, at times even more than my own father. I am impressed with your mind and with the wide and varied range of interests you have. I am American enough, perhaps, that I wish to marry you, disregarding all that I am, alas, Chinese enough to know I also must consider.”

She again shifted her position, but her eyes met his with her inner conflict evident as she continued.

“We must consider your children, Rann, and you must, of course, have many sons.”

Rann lifted his eyebrows, mocking her with amused exaggeration.

“Am I merely to be considered as a stud animal then, and not as a human being?”

Sipping the sweet liquid from the tiny glass, she thought for moments before answering.

“That is my point exactly, my dear. It is as a human being, a brilliant one indeed, that I must now consider you. With your intellect and your genes you will undoubtedly produce beautiful and brilliant children and you must do so. The less intelligent and civilized of the human race continue to reproduce as a matter of course with either no, or at most very little, thought to the future overpopulation and resulting famine or anything else. They go on, generation after generation, reproducing merely because it is their nature to do so. The more intelligent and civilized members of human society, on the other hand, are using birth-control methods in their effort to control population growth and, so, are slowly breeding themselves out of existence or at least into what is already a serious minority. It is this world trend in human development that makes it exceedingly important to me that you do indeed produce many sons.”

“But I have no reason to believe that I would produce sons superior in any way to anyone else’s.” Rann laughed to cover his discomfort. “Besides, can’t we go at this another way? I’m beginning to feel as if I were under a microscope.”

“To make that statement only shows that you are not viewing the facts in their true light.” Stephanie’s face took on a look of firmness in decision as she continued. “You know perfectly well that in breeding it is the male who controls the outcome. It has long been known that one can mate a fine bull to a mediocre cow and produce fine offspring. On the other hand, if one mates a fine cow with a poor bull, one produces poor calves.”

“But I am not a bull, Stephanie, and you are not a cow, and our children will not be calves romping in a meadow. They will be beautiful and intelligent and with everything at their disposal because we love each other. You do not deny that you love me?”

“No, I do not deny it. But as I have said, you must understand that is exactly why I will not marry you. I decided long ago, Rann, that I would never bear children of my own.”

“You cannot be serious, Stephanie,” Rann said—though he knew from her expression that she was more serious than ever she had been with him. “You will marry, if not me then someone, and you will have beautiful children who will be very fortunate to have so intelligent a mother.”

All appearance of the carefree girl he had grown to love vanished now as she dropped her eyes and spoke to him as a woman speaks to the man she loves out of the anguish in her inner soul.

“No, Rann.” There was a slight catch in her voice and she moistened her lips before she continued in her determination. “Perhaps only the racially mixed person can understand the inborn tragedy of so being. I have been raised as a Chinese. Chinese is my native tongue. I am Chinese in my manner and dress and in feeling and yet to the Chinese people I am American because to them I look American and act American. To them, my bone structure and manner of moving lacks the delicacy of the Chinese. They are right. I am never more aware of the difference than when I am with my Chinese friends.”

“But in America this makes no difference, Stephanie.” Rann’s face creased with his sincerity.

“But there you are wrong, my dear.” She lifted her face to meet his eyes with her own, moist, as she continued. “You must not be saddened by this, though I know that you are, but you must make it only for a short time. Then you must continue with your own life. This is one of the main reasons I wished to come to America. I wished to see with my own heart if it would be different and it is not. Even here in New York, and I understand it is true of every major city in this vast and beautiful land, there is a Chinatown and a Latin quarter and an Italian section and a Negro neighborhood and blockbusters and riots and all of that as your own fearful civil war continues even one hundred years after it is supposedly over. And look again at the plight of the only real Americans, the American Indians. No, my dear, one cannot really ever know how it is to be anything unless one is indeed that thing.”

“Stephanie, please do not refer to yourself as a thing.” Rann rose and went to her and kissed her gently. “You are not a thing. You are a human woman, and, moreover, the woman I love.”

“And you are wrong again, my dear, for a thing is the tragedy, for to be human is to reason and to understand, and so much understanding makes it pleasant at times to think of simply not being. I do not forget that while I never feel less Chinese than when I am with my Chinese friends, who are always kind, I also never feel less Western than when I’m amongst Westerners, who are not always so kind. No, my dear one, my children would be racially mixed and therefore, more for me than for them—for I could not bear their pain from separation—they must never exist. And now, will you take me home, Rann, for I am tired, and we must not speak of this again.”

He pulled her up from her chair and held her firmly in his arms and kissed her.

“Yes, I will take you home, but I will not promise not to speak of this again, for I have made up my mind and I am quite determined!”

“And I, too, have decided, and I, too, Rann, am quite determined. And furthermore, I must ask that you accept my decision and that we not speak of it again, for you must understand the pain to me each time I refuse you, for it is myself I deny also.”

“But we don’t have to have children, Stephanie,” Rann insisted. “There are many children without parents. We can adopt children if we must have a family, but at least we will always have each other.”

“What you say is true, Rann, but what I have said is also true. I will never have children of my own and you must do so and, therefore, we must accustom ourselves to the fact that you must love and marry another woman.”

Rann sighed deeply as he helped Stephanie into her light spring coat, its soft yellow color becoming to the honey cast of her complexion.

“Never,” he said. “Never can I love another.”

“Never say never, my dear.” Stephanie moved to the door as she spoke and turned to face the goddess in the entrance hall. She looked into the face, itself so impervious to time. “Time has a way of arranging all things, Rann, you shall see.”

The goddess remained as she was—silent, unperturbed, understanding carved into every line of her delicately beautiful wooden face, similar to the human face turned toward her.

Rann stood behind Stephanie and put his hands on her shoulders and bent his head to kiss her slender arched neck. “I cannot give up, Stephanie,” he whispered.

“But you must, Rann,” she said firmly again. She turned from the goddess to face him and pushed him gently away. “And now we must go, please.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU have asked her and she has said no?” Mr. Kung’s voice showed disbelief.

They were seated in the old man’s study, where Rann had been summoned as soon as he arrived for the dinner party Stephanie had arranged celebrating her father’s eightieth birthday. Rann explained what had happened in his apartment two evenings earlier. He had not seen Stephanie since then but he had spoken with her on the telephone and she was adamant in her position.

“You must not persist, Rann,” she said. “It is useless to continue to ask when you already know the answer.”

Mr. Kung’s face grew pale as Rann spoke, and he was silent for a long while after the explanation was finished. When he spoke at last it was slowly and with obvious effort.

“She cannot be so foolish a girl as to speak this way to you. You must leave my daughter to me. I will speak with her and…”

His voice trailed away, the remaining blood drained from his face. Rann rose.

“I must call someone—I can’t take responsibility—”

To his horror, Mr. Kung rose, and then, wavering, suddenly fell to his knees and clutched Rann’s right hand in both his own hands.

“You—,” he stammered. “You are the one. I can trust you. You will be—you will… you will—”

He crumpled to the floor and Rann caught him in his arms.

“Stephanie!” he shouted. “Stephanie—Stephanie—Stephanie!”

The door opened and she came swiftly in. She knelt beside her father. She supported his head in the crook of her right arm. She felt his heart in the terrible silence. Then she lifted her eyes to Rann’s face.

“My father is dead,” she said.

AND HOW COULD HE LEAVE HER that night? He had telephoned Sung to come to their aid—Sung, who had been through the ordeal of after-death with Rann’s own grandfather. For a few minutes he pondered the possibility of telephoning his mother but refrained. He knew that she would take the jet for New York and he was not ready to explain Stephanie’s position to her.

“You asking me come New York side?” Sung inquired in protest.

“Yes,” Rann said shortly. “My friend’s father has just died. We need help.”

“Master Rann, I cannot come Manhattan side. Supposing police catching me. Your grandfather, he never ask me such.”

“Sung, Miss Stephanie’s father—a Chinese gentleman.”

“Chinese man die?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll come.”

Rann heard the receiver replaced. Then he turned again to Stephanie. She was kneeling on the carpet beside her dead father. Under his head she had put a yellow satin cushion. She had straightened his limbs, arms at his sides, and had smoothed his long purple robe to his ankles. He went to her.

“Sung is coming. He will know what to do.”

She did not reply or even lift her head. She continued to gaze at her father, but she did not weep. He stooped and lifted her to her feet and she did not resist.

“Come,” he said. “We will stay with him until Sung comes. Shall we call your own servants or wait for Sung?”

“Wait,” she said. “We must do something about the guests. They are due to arrive soon.”

He led her to a yellow satin couch and they sat side by side—he in silence. He reached for her hand, her left hand in his right, and he held it, a soft, narrow hand, a girl’s hand.

“I must not be left,” she whispered. She turned her eyes from her father to him.

“I shan’t leave you,” he said.

They did not speak again. The time seemed long, but it was short and the door opened. Sung stood there looking at them.

“Sung, Mr. Kung has—”

“I see for myself, sir,” Sung said. “Please, you both go some other room. I will do all.”

“There are servants—”

“I find everybody, Miss Kung. Please trust. I do all for your honored father like I do for my old master already. Please go, please rest. I will do.”

“He will, Stephanie. So come with me. Shall you go to your own rooms?”

“I can’t be alone.”

“I will sit in the next room.”

“I want to go into the shop.”

“The shop, Stephanie?”

“Yes. We worked there together. He placed each piece as he wished. If he is anywhere, he is there. People don’t go away at once, you know. They don’t know at first that they are dead. They linger in their favorite places, where their treasures are. Come—come quickly!”

She urged him, their hands still clasped, and he kept at her side down the narrow hall and into a vast lighted room filled with art treasures. Room led into room, all lighted.

“He is here, Rann. I can feel his presence.”

Rann looked around at the brightly lighted room, half expecting to see Mr. Kung, though he felt no such presence himself. An ancient altar table stood against the far wall, a small golden Quan Yin in the center of the table in front of a rosewood screen, with a bronze incense burner on each side. Stephanie lit incense and the familiar fragrance of sandalwood renewed itself in the air.

“He worked for a long time on this arrangement,” she said softly. “It became his favorite and he is here. He is displeased with me. He was unhappy with me when he died. Why was he angry, Rann?”

“He wanted us to marry, Stephanie. You know that. He questioned me about it and I told him the truth. I saw no reason to lie to him. I respected him too much.”

“You told him of my refusal and he became so agitated he had a heart attack. Oh, Rann, I have killed my father.”

“That is not true, Stephanie.” Rann led her to a comfortable love seat placed in the center of one wall so that one seated there could see all of the objects tastefully displayed on the remaining three walls. He sat beside her, his elbow resting on the back of the couch, and he turned to face her, lifting her chin with his forefinger.

“You must not blame yourself. Your father was eighty years old today and he has long had a problem with his heart. It was coincidence that the fatal attack came when it did.”

“And is it coincidental also that it came the first time I have ever defied him? My grandfather died of the same problem, but he lived to be ninety-five and my father’s life has been shortened. I have always done as he wished but in this one thing I could not, Rann. Marriage and motherhood are very personal to a woman and in these areas I must decide for myself. He made all other decisions and, alas, because he could not make this one he is gone.” Tears came to her eyes, spilling onto her cheeks, but in all other ways she maintained her composure.

“Nevertheless, I am right, Rann. Even though he did not agree with me and though he is now dead, I am right in my own decision.”

“We must not speak of it further now, Stephanie. Your father’s death is not your fault. You must know that.”

He took her right hand gently into both of his own and they sat in silence for a long time before Sung appeared.

“All is done, young master,” Sung told him. “The servants tell me there are no relatives to notify and so all is done.”

“Yes, it is true. There is no one to notify. Everyone we knew in this vast country was coming here tonight and so they must know by now. I wished you also to be surprised, Rann, and so I did not tell you that even your mother was coming. She must be in New York now.”

“It is true, young master,” Sung told him. “When your honored mother came and found— She is waiting in your apartment.”

Rann was pleased now to know his mother was near.

“Call her, Sung,” he said. “Ask her to come here.”

His mother arrived a short time later. “I am very sorry, Stephanie,” she said. “I was looking forward to meeting your father. Now you must rest and you, too, Rann. You go on home, son, and I will remain here with Stephanie.”

“I feel I wish to stay with Stephanie,” Rann said.

“No, Rann.” Stephanie was calm. “Your mother is right. All has been done here. Now you must rest. I will rest also. I have a sedative.”

Sung accompanied Rann back to his apartment and drew a bath for him and served a drink to him in the study and excused himself for the night.

Rann fell asleep sitting at his desk and was still there, his head resting on his folded arms, when his mother arrived in the morning. He was aware only that he was very tired as consciousness crept into him. When he opened his eyes to find her seated in the comfortable chair across from him, he was surprised to see her until his memory of the events of the evening before came to him.

“Oh, Mother, is Stephanie?…” His voice trailed into silence at the expression on his mother’s face.

“Rann, you must be very brave now.” His mother’s voice was solemn. “You must remember that all that happens has a reason. You must try to remember the things your father said after he knew he was dying.”

His alarm showed in his voice when he spoke. “Mother, what are you saying?”

“Stephanie is dead, son.”

For long moments he stared at her in disbelief, collapsing finally, his head on his arms, his body wracked with his own deep sobs as realization came to him.

“YOUR SON WILL BE ALL RIGHT, Mrs. Colfax,” the doctor told her.

She had called him when Rann’s sobbing seemed endless and uncontrollable. “I have given him a sedative and he must rest now. He will sleep for several hours and then he will be all right. He is young. He will take sorrow in his stride.”

“I KNOW WHY STEPHANIE DID what she has done, Mother. There was no accidental overdose of sedative—oh, let it go at that. There was no note—but I know and she knew that I would know. She always felt displaced because of her racial mixture. She even refused to marry me because of it. She did not wish to have children because they, too, would be racially mixed. I’m sure she saw herself in a hopeless situation and simply swallowed a few extra capsules. She was really quite Asian and would attach no particular disgrace to having the courage to do what she considered the only action she could take.

“The point I must reach now is simply that I, alone, can discover for myself a way in which I can go on. My life, as I had seen it before me, has changed irrevocably. It can never be the same again as life is never today as it seemed yesterday. Today there is no future ahead of me as I have seen it, and so I must create one.”

Rann sipped coffee from the cup on the desk in front of him.

In the two weeks since Stephanie and her father had died, he and his mother had come to the study each morning after breakfast for another cup of coffee and had talked each day, often for many hours, of events, and how haphazard events and their effects upon one another shaped one’s life. Mr. Kung and his beloved Stephanie had both been cremated as they wished, since the Communist regime had not yet ended in China and their bodies could not be returned to their homeland. Rann had inherited the entire Kung fortune from Mr. Kung. It was all entailed, of course, so that Stephanie would need nothing for the rest of her life should her husband not be Rann, but now that Stephanie was also gone, so was the entailment.

“I am glad you have been with me these weeks, Mother. I don’t know how I could have gotten through without you. It has helped to have these long talks with you each morning so I could begin to feel my way into the future.”

His mother replaced her cup on its saucer on the desk and rose to gaze out the window.

“I am happy if I have helped you, son. I have felt so utterly useless throughout this tragedy. I scarcely knew Stephanie and I did not know her father and I feel almost as if I have never really known you. If I have been of some use to you by listening to you sort out your own thinking, then I find comfort for my own shortcomings by having done so. Your father felt you were a very special person, Rann, and I suppose I have always been in awe of your remarkable abilities while I’ve waited for you to find yourself. Perhaps, in this sorrow, you have done so.”

“I do not know what it is that I shall eventually accomplish in my life, Mother. I have put all of Mr. Kung’s fortune into a foundation I have created. Its purposes are broad, but simple. It will work to relieve the hopelessness of the situation in which the racially mixed individual finds himself all over the world. Someday, perhaps, in five or six centuries, the problem will not exist, but now it does.

“The world is growing too small for us to continue to judge persons by race or color. In the past century, we have gone from antiquated modes of travel, taking months to cross our country, and we have pared that time and, as a result, the distance, to weeks, days, and now hours. If we continue to speed up our mode of travel, which I’m sure we will, then soon we won’t have to move to get from one place to another. We must give up the luxury of remaining members of small racial groups and all become a part of the whole, the one race, the human race.

“The wars have taken men all over the world and the mixing and molding of this person of the future has already begun. Someone must make the peoples of the Earth ready to accept and even to be grateful for the opportunity to know this person of the future. I have seen them myself in the streets of Korea, and they are in a very pitiful position, indeed. Everyone wishes they did not exist, but nevertheless, they do exist and will continue to do so in ever increasing numbers and we must recognize them for what they are and we must work together for the awesome responsibility they face. I do not yet know what the Kung Foundation can do to help them but we will find out. George Pearce, Rita Benson, and Donald Sharpe have accepted as the beginning board of directors and together we shall find other members equally as important and we shall find this person, wherever he or she may be, and endeavor to help him or her to become a useful citizen in society.

“Perhaps when other peoples see that these important persons all over the world are concerned and interested in the futures of racially mixed persons, they themselves will reconsider and the world will be a better place for it. If so, then we shall have accomplished what I have set out for the foundation to do.”

“And what about you, Rann?” His mother continued to stare out the window, her eyes unseeing, and tears glistened on her cheeks as she spoke. So often now she realized she was learning and growing through this child of hers. “What will you do, Rann?”

“You mean personally? To answer truthfully I must say I do not know. I have this enormous work to think of now. I shall continue to write, of course, I am a writer. I cannot think now of anyone I might ever marry—if I do—or of whether else about the future, other than this work to be done. There are so many decisions yet to be made, but each must be made when the need arises and not in advance of the need. I feel as if life has perhaps taught me too much, so far, and has made me wiser than I ought to be or wish to be. I shall not press wisdom on my own children. It is not well to be too wise. Wisdom cuts one off from everyone, even the wise, for then one is afraid of so much wisdom. To take each day as a separate page, to be read carefully, savoring all of the details, this is best for me, I think. My life is yet in spring. I look forward to the summer and I shall enjoy my autumn years and I’m sure I shall approach the finality of life with the same curiosity that has plagued me in everything so far. Perhaps one day I shall look back on this entire life as but a page out of the whole of my existence, and if I do I am sure it will be with the same thirst to know more—the certain knowledge that there are truths, the reasons for which we cannot know.… Perhaps that is the whole point of it all—the eternal wonder.”