“I can’t bear it,” Mary said suddenly. James looked down at her and saw tears flooding into her eyes and shining like crystals in the clear sunshine.
“You can’t change what has been going on so long, Mary,” he told her, and yet understanding all she felt. He too knew very often this catch of the heart, this sense of shame, before the poor here in his own land. Yet what could any of them do? It was all too old. One could not change eternity.
They walked away beyond the square, apart from the others. The square was set in the park belonging to the palace, and huge old trees stood in it here and there. “I am not satisfied, Jim,” Mary said. “I want to go farther into the country. We’re still on the surface here.”
He knew what she meant but he did not answer her quickly. She had their father’s fluency of words and he did not. In his own way he had been thinking and feeling deep under the surface of his daily life. Peking was now a pleasant backwater, a charming ancient pool. But it was not in the stream of life. One could live here and even do some good work and yet never reach the roots and the source.
“I’d like to go back to our ancestral village,” Mary said. “I want to know what kind of people we really are. Behind Pa and Ma who are we?”
She did not ask him the question. She put it to herself am he knew this and did not reply. She went on, “Let’s ask for a week away and let’s go to our village. Then I think I shall know what I want. Maybe it is what you will want, too. As we are now, we are almost as far from our people as we would have been had we stayed in New York.”
He was not prepared to agree altogether to this distance but he felt that with her usual directness Mary had chosen the next step. It would be good for them to go to the village of their origins and see it for themselves. Whether they liked it did not matter. His natural caution kept him from making up his mind too quickly. “I think it a good idea,” he told Mary “Let’s keep it in our heads for a few days and see if it holds. And now we must go to Louise. Do you see that she is talking to an American soldier?”
So indeed it was. Louise, wandering alone, had attracted the eyes of a fair-haired young man in foreign uniform. He had drawn gradually nearer to her, and though she had been aware of it, she had made no sign. Yet so subtle was the perception of their youth, and of sex, that he became confident that she would not repel him, and he had come to her side as she paused to admire a pale lavender flower, huge in its size, with petals curled loosely inward.
“Do you like this one best?” he had asked boldly.
She answered in English. “It’s nice.”
He moved to her side. “I’m in luck — you speak English. But somehow I knew you did.”
“How did you know?” she asked, looking at him from under her eyelashes.
“There is something American about you,” he declared, and knew that he had pleased her.
After that it was easy to talk. They exchanged names and ages, and she told him that her real home was in New York and found that he, too, had come from New York. Here in Peking this was a miracle for them both, and they had jus discovered it when James and Mary, Peter and Chen converged on them from different directions. Louise introduced the uniformed boy. “This is Alec Wetherston, and he come from New York, not terribly far from where Pa and Ma live.
“West of the park,” Alec said, smiling frankly and showing fine white teeth.
They bowed, Mary somewhat coldly, and then she said in Chinese, “Now we must buy what we want and go home, Louise. It is nearly sunset and the best flowers will be gone.”
Somehow or other their backs were all turned toward the American. But he was not to be discouraged. His face took on an indignant and set look and he said loudly to Louise, “Where do you live, Miss Liang? I’m coming to see you if I may.”
She gave him the name of the hutung and the number of the house, and he tipped his hat. “I’ll be there one of these days real soon,” he said, and giving a full stare at Mary and Chen and James, and a grin to Peter, he went away.
“Louise!” Mary cried, “how can you?”
Louise shrugged. “I didn’t do anything,” she declared. But all of them saw that the look in her eyes had changed in this short time. The despondency was gone and instead there was a look of life and even of triumph. Chen turned away.
“Come,” James said, “let us buy this white one, this yellow one, and this fine red one.”
“I will choose also this red and gold,” Mary said. She was too indignant to speak again to Louise. Young Wang came forward and argued the price with the vendor, then they gave him handfuls of paper bills and set out for home. Louise, Peter, and Chen went ahead, and Mary and James walked behind. Still farther behind came Young Wang seated in a wheelbarrow he had hired to take himself and the pots home.
They walked along resisting the pleadings of ricksha men to ride. Evening was settling upon the city in sunset colors caught in a mist of dust. Along the street near them a blind violinist walked, playing as he went. He was a tall fellow, stalwart and strong, and his whole heart sang through the two vibrating strings under his bow. The melody was joyful and loud.
“See that man,” James said. “I wonder if he can be cured.” He stepped a little nearer and then back again and shook his head. “No hope,” he told Mary. “The eyeballs are quite gone.”
The musician had passed without hearing him, walking in great powerful strides. People gave way before him, fearing him because he was blind, and had, therefore, so they thought, a special power of magic intuition.
“I cannot bear so much that cannot be helped,” Mary said.
“You are getting too tense,” James answered. “I think that idea of yours is a good one. We need to go back to the place from which we sprang or we’ll not be able to live the life we have chosen.”
Neither felt like talking more deeply. Thoughts were going very deep indeed, and speech must wait.
When they got back to the old house, from which now all weasels had fled, Young Wang set out the chrysanthemum pots and Mary ran about changing them. Young Wang watched an arrangement take form from under hands which he considered only haphazard.
“According to the rules, young mistress,” he said in a lofty voice, “everything should be set in pairs and if there are two on this side the door there must be two on the other side or life has no balance.”
“Thank you for telling me but I have my own ideas,” Mary said without meaning to be unkind.
Young Wang said no more, but he went away to the kitchen where, without any wish to do so, he kicked Little Dog on his left ankle as he stood stirring the rice cauldron for supper, and shouted to Little Dog’s patient mother, who was behind the stove feeding in knots of fuel grass, that yesterday the soup had tasted of kerosene oil, and the person who tended the lamps must not wipe her hands on the dish towel.
Mary, when the chrysanthemums were arranged to her liking, went to find Louise. She was in her own room, experimenting with a new way of combing her hair. Mary sat down, and seeing her sister’s face only from the mirror, she said, “James and I have decided that we ought to pay a visit to our ancestral village.”