“Philip,” she began impetuously, “I have to hurry because I know you haven’t much time. But I must tell you that my father has found out about you and Louise. He is very angry. He has told her that she must go to China right away. She doesn’t want to go. I think you know why. But I want to know how you feel. I mean — what I want to say is — if you are in love with Louise—”
Her face burned scarlet and she turned her head away. The taxi was racing downtown. She wished it would go more slowly. There had to be time. A light changed to red and the taxi stopped. She forced herself to look at Philip. His pale face had turned even more pale.
“I’m not in love — with anybody,” he said.
“Then why did you—” she began, and could not go on.
His eyes were downcast and he had dropped his head so that she could not look at him. His profile was gentle and his lips were trembling. She could see how Louise had come to love him. He was not coarse and big-nosed as so many Americans were, and his skin was smooth and delicate, his hair and eyes were brown. She felt rather sorry for him.
“I don’t know how it happened,” he stammered. “Gosh, I like Louise awfully. We were all having too good a time, I guess. It was pretty late. I’m afraid I was a little tight—”
“When was it?” she asked in a faint voice.
“Only a couple of weeks ago—” he muttered. “We were all at a roadhouse. I’m awfully sorry. I could kick myself. The funny thing is — I guess it was the first time for both of us. We were both — scared.”
The light changed and the taxi jerked them forward. He caught her arm and she shrank from his touch. She would have got out before the light changed, because now she knew everything she had to know. No, there was one more thing.
“I suppose your family wouldn’t want you to marry — a Chinese girl, even if you did want to?”
“My mother wouldn’t like it,” Philip said huskily. “My dad is more — broadminded. Of course we all like Louise awfully. She’s pretty and smart and all that.”
There was no sign whatever of love in his voice or his eyes. She stopped feeling sorry for him and she grew angry enough to want to defend her sister. “I suppose you don’t know what you have done to our family,” she said bitterly. “It is easy for you Americans, but for us — it just spoils her chances of a good marriage — I mean, it would have to be told. And it would always be between her and her husband.”
“Gosh,” he said miserably, “I’m sorry.”
She wanted to wound him and she did not know how. “If it had been in the old times in China you’d both be killed,” she went on.
“Gosh,” he said again. “I guess we ought to be glad it’s not old times.”
To her surprise when he said this she wanted to cry. Her throat grew tight and her eyes filled with tears. He did not know what he had done and nothing could make him know because he had nothing with which to understand what he had done. It had simply been, with him, an evening’s drunkenness, then something more of fun, and now something he was vaguely sorry for. In her fury she imagined that he would have taken it more seriously had Louise not been Chinese, though it was a hundred times more serious for that very reason. But he would not understand that either — or care.
She leaned forward and tapped on the glass. “Let me out,” she called to the driver. “I want to get out right here.” The taxi drew up to the curb and she got out without saying good-by and slammed the door. She saw Philip’s face, startled and concerned, looking at her through the glass as the cab darted away.
6
ON A WARM SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON James was washing his hands after a leg amputation. His patient was a man, young and strong, and he would live easily. James was not concerned about his recovery. He was deeply concerned, however, over the growing number of such wounds, all gun-inflicted and all reaching him too late to save legs and arms. Seven men had died because the wounds were in the body trunk. Last night when he had gone to see his patient he had asked him bluntly where he got so deep a wound in his lower thigh.
The man was the son of a farmer to the north of the city and he spoke with a burr at the end of every noun. “Bandits keep pressing us,” he said and turned away his head.
“Bandits?” James asked.
“Bandits is what we used to call them and it is what we still call them,” the man said. His eyes were bitter.
“Where are they?” James asked.
“In our own village,” the man said bitterly. “They do not come from outside any more. They are among our own. Look you, please! I am surnamed Hwang. My whole village is Hwang. But this man who put his bullet into me is also surnamed Hwang.”
James interrupted. “You mean he is a Com—”
“Hush!” the man said. “Do not say the word. Call them bandits. Eh, they are everywhere! The hungry, the ones who will not work, the ones who hate their work, the tenants on the farm — they turn into — bandits.” He sighed. “The times are evil. Such a good gun he had! I have a cheap thing made by the Japs. I took it away from a Jap. But I am only Hwang the Honest. That’s what I am called. The bandit Hwang has a fine American gun. I saw it in his house one day. When I saw it, I knew he was a — bandit. I needed not to look into his eyes.”
“Where did he get such a gun?” James had asked. Yes, the wound had been very deep.
“These guns come from America,” the man had said. “They give them to our soldiers and then — the bandits get them.”
“How?” James had asked sternly.
“There are many ways,” the man had said listlessly.
James knew he must ask no more questions, and he went away. How many things he did not understand! Now the operation was safely over and the man would get well, and perhaps then he would talk. Actually the man had talked a good deal while he was under ether. The nurse Rose had been his assistant today and he had caught her nervous glance, when the man began to mutter.
“Bandits — bandits — my brother—”
“A little more ether,” James said to the anesthetist.
“His heart is already weak,” Rose reminded them. She held the man’s wrist between her thumb and finger.
So they let him mutter, “Starve — my brother — no — no — Communists—”
No one paid heed to this last word which had burst from the man’s mouth like a bullet from a gun.
Remembering it James wondered if he himself were naïve. He was aware, only half-consciously, of some profound though secret struggle going on among the people. Yet, since no one spoke of it he did not think of it. The day’s work absorbed him, and he disliked political quarrels. The true scientist, he believed, would have nothing to do with politics. He must keep himself whole. Yet perhaps he had accepted too easily his father’s belief in government, whatever it was.
“Heaven chooses a ruler,” his father had been wont to declare. “Only when that ruler forsakes wisdom does Heaven put him aside.” From these high-sounding words Dr. Liang Wen Hua was apt to descend to this remark, to his children. “Whatever we have in the way of a government it is better than Communism. Do you think you could enjoy our personal luxuries under those Red devils?”
At this moment, while James was so thinking, the door opened and a hand thrust itself in, holding an envelope. James recognized the hand. It was that of Young Wang who, always terrified of seeing cutting and bleeding, would on no account put his head into a room where by any chance an operation might be going on. James went to the door and took the envelope.
“An electric letter — from your father,” Young Wang’s voice said huskily through the door.
James had long since stopped wondering how Young Wang knew everything before he did. The envelope was sealed. Besides, Young Wang could not read nor write. Perhaps the clerk had told the messenger who brought the cablegram. James opened the message. It was indeed from his father. Even in a cablegram his father could not resist the careful phrase. “The other children joining you in our homeland. Sailing today. Explanation to follow by airmail.” He looked at the date. They had sailed yesterday.