“I say,” Dr. Kang called at the door, “aren’t you staying for the feast? Everything is first rate here.”
“Thank you, I have duties at the hospital,” James said, and he went out into the street. A cluster of ricksha men seized their vehicles at the sight of him and he climbed into the nearest one. The puller was a youngish man and since the night was hot he wore no jacket. His smooth brown back rippled with the undercurrent of muscles and he ran without effort. But he was too thin and the shape of his skeleton was clear, a fine firm structure, the bones strong and delicate. He wore his hair long enough to fall almost to his neck and it flowed behind him in the breeze. His profile when he turned it was clean and large.
“Where is your home?” James asked when the fellow slowed to a walk near the hospital.
“In a village a hundred li from here,” the man replied.
“Why are you here?” James asked.
The man turned his head and smiled and showed white perfect teeth. “There are too many of us on the land,” he said frankly. “My father owns very little and he rents as much as he can. But the landlord lives abroad and his old uncle does as he likes with the rents.”
“What village is yours?” James asked with sudden curiosity.
“The village of Anming,” the man said.
“Anming,” James repeated. “That is my village, too.”
The man laughed. “Then I will not ask you for wine money,” he declared. They were at the hospital gate now and he set down the poles of the ricksha.
“Because we come from the same village I must give you wine money,” James declared in turn. He could not tell this fellow that the absent landlord was his own father!
The man made a feint of politeness but his eyes glistened when James poured silver into his palm. “I wish our landlord were like you, elder brother,” he said smiling, and with such thanks he took up his ricksha and darted away into the street and out of sight.
James went slowly up the stairs of the doctors’ house and to his own two rooms. Something familiar struck his eyes. Upon the handle of the door hung an imitation panama hat. Young Wang’s, without a doubt! The fellow had a weakness for hats. He went in and found Young Wang in his white cotton underwear, mopping the floors. He had taken off his outer clothes, and had laid his jacket across the bed.
Young Wang grinned at him from his knees and his white teeth flashed. “Master, this floor!” he exclaimed. “How many days since it was washed?”
“How do I know?” James replied, smiling back at him. Young Wang got up, darted forward and took his hat. He held it in both hands and admired it. “What did you pay for this fine hat, master?” “I bought it in America,” James said.
“Everything is better there than here,” Young Wang said, and he put the hat reverently into the closet. Then he wrung out the cloth, emptied the pail out the window and put it under the bed.
James sat down in the wicker easy chair. The room seemed pleasantly cool after the street. Young Wang had drawn the shutters and had laid out fresh towels. He pattered about the room now dusting everywhere with a damp cloth.
“Peking is a great city full of big dust,” he said cheerfully. James watched him without speaking. Within his mind, always preoccupied with his work and not given to much sorting of thought, he felt that he had come to a dividing place. He would have to become one person or another. Either he must join the league of his fellow doctors and live oblivious of his countrymen, or he must take some sort of plunge which he could not define. The surface life was safe enough and quite pleasant. He need not give up his professional standards. His colleagues were good and careful and sometimes superlative doctors. But except for Liu Chen they were not more than that. They worked the full day, they did their duty to the hospital. No one could complain that when Dr. Kang decided to take a case he was less than competent. Dr. Su, who was more human and therefore more likable, even went further sometimes than his duty. But it would have occurred to none of them, and perhaps not even to Liu Chen, to go beyond the demands of his profession.
“You are thinner,” Young Wang said, staring at him as he whisked his cloth about the legs of the table. “You must think of your body.” He reached the mirror and he paused to stare at himself with humorous eyes. He laughed and pointed a finger at his own image. “That big turnip there,” he said. “Anybody can tell he comes from the country!”
“How did you find your village?” James asked.
Young Wang accepted the invitation to converse. He threw the duster over his shoulder and squatted on his heels.
“Sit on a chair,” James said.
“I do not dare,” Young Wang replied politely, and began at once smoothly and coolly to tell his tale. “When I returned to my village I found it was under water. The rains have been too heavy and the nearest dike of the river overflowed. I had first to hire a boat in the small city nearby and I went to my village. It was nearly gone. The houses had crumbled and only the treetops stood above the water except at one place where the land rises a few feet. Upon this small island my village crowded itself. We are all Wangs and of us there are a hundred and five hearts. Thanks to the gods, the waters had risen slowly and so our men had been able to move food and bedding and some small benches for the old to sit on. Also we have some bamboo mats which we have spread upon willow poles for shelter.”
Young Wang laughed as though the predicament were amusing. Then he looked rueful and shook his head. “It is very hard on old people and small children,” he sighed. “Several small ones have fallen into the water and have been swept away. Three old people have died and there has been no place to bury them and so we let them down into the water. This is very bad because now they cannot lie with our ancestors and so all the old people are afraid to die. This is bad, too, for death is natural to the old and they should find comfort in it.”
James listened with growing horror. “Does no one come from the city to help you?” he demanded.
Young Wang raised his eyebrows at the question. “Who comes to help?” he asked. “People have enough trouble for themselves. Ours is not the only village. There are many like us.”
“The mayor of the city should help,” James declared. “Or the governor of the province should at least take notice.”
“No one takes notice of the folk,” Young Wang said. “Those governors and officials are high people and they have their own affairs.”
He sighed loudly, rose from his heels, and whirled his duster over the mirror, glancing at himself with some admiration as he did so.
James watched this. How deep was Young Wang’s grief for his family? He seemed callous and even gay, and yet surely he had feeling. “Did you leave your family on that island?” he asked.
“My parents I took to the city and also my brothers and sisters.” Young Wang picked up a fountain pen from the table and pulled the top from it cautiously. “I found rooms in an inn for them. But it costs very much money and so I came back to work for you, master. Before this, wages were nothing to me, but now I ask that you give me three months’ in advance, and then I will go back to them at the end of the month and pay for what I owe and if the waters have sunk down, I will help them to move again to the village.”
“But you said there was no house,” James reminded him.
“Oh, the house is never mind,” Young Wang replied. “A few days’ labor will put up a mud house again. I will carry some thatch from the city markets and we have willow trees for poles.”