“Young Wang!” James called. “You take care of the baggage, please!”
Young Wang appeared smiling. “I will do it, master. And please, here is the carriage.”
He had hired a carriage whose cushions had been newly covered with khaki and whose horse was something less starved than others. The driver was huddled under an oilcloth on his high seat but when he saw his customers he jumped down and took away the old newspapers which he had spread over the cushions.
It seemed even a little cozy inside the carriage, especially when the big oilcloth apron smelling of tung oil had been fastened to hooks in the umbrella top and the horse trotted away from the dock.
“Well,” James said, smiling on them all. “This is nice.”
They smiled at him wanly, or so he thought.
“Louise was seasick,” Mary said.
“So were you,” Peter said.
“Not much, really,” Mary retorted. “You are too proud of yourself, Peter.”
The long sea voyage had worn down their tempers a little. “I wish I could have ordered a good day for you,” James said, trying to be cheerful. Still, he told himself, it was well enough to go through the streets behind this oilcloth curtain. Chinese people seemed always unprotected against rain and snow. Their cotton garments melted like wet paper, and while in the sunshine they looked gay enough all of them were miserable in rain. And the Bund lasted for so short a distance. Too soon the streets became crowded and disheveled. The hotel entrance was pleasant and a smart doorman received them. Their rooms, taken for a day and a night, had made inroads upon his funds but James was grateful for temporary comfort. The lobby was warm and lined with palms, and sheltered at least from the weather. Well-dressed Chinese and a few foreigners sat upon the imitation-leather chairs. It was not too different from what they were used to, James thought. Upstairs the rooms were clean. He had taken two, one for himself and Peter and one for the girls, with a connecting bath.
“What measly towels!” Louise said when she looked in.
“I believe they are made in the factories here,” James said.
“Why is it we can’t do anything as well as other people?” Louise muttered.
“Now, Louise,” Mary said, “don’t begin by being disgusted with everything.”
“We’d better have some food,” James said. “We’ll all feel better. Then we can go to a movie this afternoon, if you like. That sounds like New York, doesn’t it? Let’s get ready.”
He wanted very much an hour alone with Mary but he knew that there would be no chance for this. In his room with Peter he did not know whether to ask questions or not. He began tentatively enough as he watched his younger brother brush his hair carefully before the mirror.
“It’s a great surprise, all this,” he said. “Ma’s letter didn’t make anything very plain, either, and I haven’t heard from Pa.”
“It’s a big fuss about nothing, if you ask me,” Peter grunted. He took out a cigarette rather ostentatiously. He had not smoked when James was at home, because this doctor brother had objected to his smoking before he had stopped growing. Now he wanted James to know that he did as he liked and expected to continue doing so. James understood and said nothing.
“Louise made Pa angry,” Peter went on. “I never thought he really meant to ship us off, though. He threatens so many things he never does. But there was no question about this. He went himself and bought the tickets and he wouldn’t pay for any tuition for us. I want to turn right around and go back, of course. I can make up the few weeks that I am missing at college. I’m still going to be an engineer.”
James smiled. “Better stay a few months anyway, now you’re here,” he said. “Half a year doesn’t matter at your age. And I’ve fixed up rather a nice house in Peking for us all. It’s a fine old city — makes you proud.”
“Is it better than Shanghai?”
“I think so anyway.”
There seemed nothing to say for a few minutes. Then James returned to the effort. “So you don’t know really what Louise did?”
“Oh, I know,” Peter said. “She’s in love with Philip Morgan, and Phil doesn’t want to marry her. That’s about it. I know Phil. He doesn’t want to marry anybody now. When he does he will probably marry some debutante.”
He was careful not to say that Philip probably did not want to marry a Chinese. He thought of himself as an American. Now something occurred to him. “Say, I heard something interesting on the ship. We had a fellow on board from Hollywood. He’s coming out here to shoot some pictures. It’s a story about a GI — sort of a Chinese Madame Butterfly story he said, only the GI doesn’t go away. He takes his gal home. He said that while they don’t want stories about white met and Negroes getting married they don’t mind Chinese any more. Pretty good, isn’t it?”
James smiled. He could not speak, watching this brother of his. Peter was utterly and completely foreign. He had nothing to help him here, no shred of knowledge, no hour of experience, to help him endure being Chinese. For it would be a matter of endurance. Peter had never absorbed either atmosphere or ideas from their father, and now James realized, though grudgingly, that the atmosphere of ancient Chinese philosophy which his father had so persistently built around them had helped only him and Mary. Even after they understood its artificiality, and then perhaps its uselessness in these swift modern times, it had become a part of them, thinly spun, indeed, but there, nevertheless, its mild silvery thread running through the structure of their beings. But Peter and Louise had absorbed none of it. Instead they had come to despise it, and they were never deceived for an instant by its unreality. Nor did they understand or care that once it had been a reality.
“So Louise was sent here to get over a love affair,” James said.
“Something like that,” Peter said briskly. He got up, bored by Louise. “Jim, if I stay for this autumn will you promise to make Pa let me go home in time for midyears?”
“If you won’t call it home,” Jim replied. “This is home, you know.”
“Oh well — you know what I mean,” Peter said. He stood restlessly, his hands jingling some change in his pockets. “I don’t want to waste time, even if I have plenty of it.”
“I think you ought to go back at midyears,” James said, getting to his feet. “There is no good place here to get engineering. The country needs fellows like you — needs them now, if this eternal quarrel would ever end between the government and the Communists. We’re all held up by that. But maybe by the time you’re through, it will be settled one way or the other.” He paused. “Of course there’s always the chance you may not want to go back. Something steals into you. I don’t want to go back — though there’s much I don’t like here, I can tell you.”
“I know I’ll want to go back,” Peter said. “Come on, let’s eat.”
It was the end of talk, and they joined Mary and Louise in the hall and went downstairs to a hearty lunch of barley broth, boiled beef, cabbage and potatoes and a cornstarch pudding. It was the standard hotel meal for foreigners.
But it was quite pleasant in the motion-picture theater. The building had been designed by an American and the seats were still new enough not to have their upholstery torn and the springs exposed. The air was thick with the smell of Chinese food, for everybody seemed to be munching something, but they grew used to that. It was still raining when they came in and it was pleasant to get under shelter. The picture was American, too. It was a Western, and after it was finished there was an old Harold Lloyd comedy, so old that to the four young people sitting together it was new, and they laughed at it. When they came out it was nearly dark and again the hotel seemed shelter. Young Wang had brought their baggage and when they came in he served tea with small cakes and sandwiches from the hotel kitchen. These tasted good and they began talking as they ate. James told them about the house in Peking, which perhaps sounded better than it was as he told of it, and Peter heard about the college and Mary about the hospital. Louise, James said, could make up her mind about what she wanted to do when she got there. Maybe she would just want to keep house for them for a few weeks until she saw everything. None of them talked about America. They did not unpack very much because they were to take the train before noon the next day. The trains were better now and they did not need to go more than an hour before theirs started. Young Wang would go early and spend a little money.