There were hours in the night when James, lying restless upon his bed, hated his very name. Because he was a Liang, he told himself, the people would never trust him. Yet how could he help what he was born? He promised himself fiercely that he would find a way, though he were a Liang, to break through to his own folk. Then sometimes even his determination failed and he remembered the beautiful clean hospital in New York where he might have become a great surgeon, and he thought of his father’s fine home, and he thought of what might have been his own fortune had he stayed there and married Lili and what it would have been to have escaped the dust and filth and cold and heat of this village, and all the stupidities of his people. And yet he knew he could never have escaped. In spite of anything his heart was here. Somehow he would find a bridge to cross that short span, that fathomless abyss, between his eyes and the eyes of the man who would look at him in his clinic tomorrow morning.
In such mood James received from his father the cable saying that his mother was coming to China by air. The cable reached the city promptly enough but from there it had to be taken on foot by messenger to the village. This left James and Mary only the shortest possible time to meet their mother at the airport. As usual, Uncle Tao had first to be informed of the news.
The first difficulty, however, was that no one had yet told Uncle Tao even of the betrothal. As soon as it was known it would be impossible for Mary and Chen to meet face to face again without offending the proprieties in this ancestral village, and both Chen and Mary had been slow to give up the joy of seeing one another. Now all agreed the time had come. The mother was arriving for the wedding, which must take place soon, and James must therefore tell Uncle Tao everything immediately. He went to the elder one evening after the day’s work was done.
Now James knew more surely with every passing day that at some time or other he must come face to face with Uncle Tao on very grievous matters having to do with the life of the people. It was no use, for example, to save from death a man who when he returned to his home would fall ill again from lack of proper food. Nor could James urge him to eat more and better food when taxes were so high that there was no money left with which to buy food. The people hid eggs as they might hide gold, for in these days of worthless money eggs were good tender even to the tax gatherer. Wheat was precious, too, and the tax gatherer or the local military lord took all except the seed wheat. The magistrate kept silent before these for he also must have his share. In the midst of soldier, magistrate, and idle scholar, none of whom produced food or clothing or shelter or tools for themselves, the man on the land who raised food and the artisan who made clothes and shelter and tools were slowly being squeezed out of life. Soldier, magistrate, and scholar clung together against peasant and artisan while they fought among themselves for the petty booty. James began to see that merely to heal the body was doubtful good. Often the man on the land came to him exhausted before he was old, with too little will to live. Something was wrong here in the ancestral village and James had determined one day soon to grapple with Uncle Tao, who allowed all to continue as it was.
But today was not the time, he knew, not only because he must think first of Mary and Chen and of his mother, but above all he had not found his own place here. He was not yet indispensable to his people. If he made trouble Uncle Tao would cast him out and the people would be silent. Before he tried to set up even one of the reforms of which he dreamed, he must have such strength in the ancestral village that Uncle Tao would not dare to cast him out. Ruthless as Uncle Tao seemed to be, yet even he in his secret heart feared the people in anger. For these people on the land and in small shops and crafts could be patient for a generation or two and then one day for some small cause their patience broke and they took up hoes and rakes and knives and mallets and went out to kill their oppressors. Men and women and children they killed. There were times when James felt the hour of the people’s anger was near at hand again, especially as the bitter winter drew on and as the bandits began once more to come out of their nests in the distant hills to the northeast.
Yet today was still not the day to speak of such things. James went to find Uncle Tao, and he found him in his bed, where he always went as soon as he had eaten his last meal for the day. Three times each day Uncle Tao ate heartily, although in the winter when the work on the land ceased he allowed to others no more than two meals. He excused himself by saying that those like himself who must take care of others are valuable and should be kept alive.
When James came into the room the youngest son of Uncle Tao was hearing his last commands and all but going away for the night. The older grandsons took turns each night sleeping on a pallet bed in Uncle Tao’s room, but tonight Uncle Tao bade the lad wait outside until he was called. Then he told James to shut the door and draw up a stool near the bed.
This unusual kindness from Uncle Tao made James wonder what was wrong here. In a moment he knew. When they were alone Uncle Tao put off the bedclothes, pulled up his night jacket, and pointed to his belly. “Feel my knot,” he told James.
James stood up and bending over the huge pallid mound of Uncle Tao’s belly he delicately probed its depths. “Is it bigger?” Uncle Tao asked anxiously. “Much bigger,” James said gravely. “Am I thinner?” Uncle Tao asked next. “You are thinner,” James agreed.
Uncle Tao pulled down his jacket and covered himself with the thick cotton quilt. “The question now is this — am I to die or to be killed?”
“If you mean that you will be killed if you are cut, then you are wrong.” He made his voice mild but excitement stirred in him. Uncle Tao was so afraid of death that he had refused the knife. Now even more afraid, was he about to ask for it? There was something piteous here. James went on still more gently. He said, “If you allow me to take this knot out soon instead of late, it is likely that you will live. Indeed, I will not do it at all unless I can do it within the next six months. It is only just to give me a reasonable chance to save your life.”
Uncle Tao listened to this with unblinking black eyes. “Let us talk of something else,” he said.
“I came to talk of something else,” James replied. Excitement died. Uncle Tao was still more afraid of dying by the knife than of anything else. James hardened again toward the stupid old man. He sat down and seeing no reason for delay or bushbeating, he said, “You will remember that you told me my sister should be married. I am come to tell you that the betrothal is arranged.”
As soon as he had said this he saw that he had made a mistake. Uncle Tao frowned. “How can this be so when I have known nothing of it?” he asked.
James knew that he must at once take a firm stand or Uncle Tao out of jealousy for his position might say that he did not want Chen even as a remote relative for the Liangs. “You know that my sister and I have been reared in America. It is not likely that we could grow up there exactly the same persons that we would have been had we stayed here in the ancestral village. In America the young choose their own mates. Then it would have been impossible for you or for me or even for my father to have compelled Mary to marry someone she did not like. She has chosen for her husband my friend Liu Chen. Nothing can be done about this.”