When I opened my eyes I heard “Kill the rice Christians!” I discovered that my hands were tied behind my back and I was on the ground. The back of my head throbbed with pain.
“Have mercy!” I heard Pearl beg. “ Willow is pregnant!”
“Pregnant?” Bumpkin Emperor laughed. “Good! I will save a bullet!”
The soldiers lifted me and placed me next to Absalom.
“Praise the Lord,” Absalom said. “He will bless you with courage.”
Papa threw himself to the ground and kowtowed to Bumpkin Emperor. “Let my daughter go!”
Soldiers beat Papa with their rifles until he was silent.
“ Willow, we are going home,” Absalom said to me.
I looked into Absalom’s eyes. I saw no fear-only confidence and love.
“The angels are here,” he murmured. “God is waiting for us.”
I shut my eyes and leaned against Absalom. I didn’t want to die.
The soldiers took up their positions and pointed their rifles at us.
Bumpkin Emperor shouted, “Get ready and… f-”
Before Bumpkin Emperor finished his sentence, the earth leaped beneath me. There was a flash followed by a loud roar.
I lost my balance and fell.
Clods of dirt rained down.
I choked as clouds of dust rolled across the ground.
“What is happening?” I heard Bumpkin Emperor yell.
“It must be the Christian God showing his anger!” Papa’s voice said.
The soldiers ran like scattered monkeys.
When the dust cleared, I saw that hills near the city were burning and black smoke spiraled into the sky.
“The American fleet is here!” Carpenter Chan and Lilac shouted, running along the riverbank toward the crowd.
Another round of explosions came. The earth trembled again. There was more dust and smoke and flames.
My ears filled with a ringing sound. It was as if someone had stuffed them with cotton.
Bumpkin Emperor followed his soldiers and ran as fast as he could.
The crowd scattered, and soon we were alone in front of Soo-ching’s burned-down hut.
Carpenter Chan untied Pearl ’s ropes. “Sorry it took so long for me to deliver your letter!”
“What letter?” Absalom asked.
“How did you do it, Chan?” Pearl’s face was animated withexcitement.
“I thought I was never going to find any help, but I was lucky,”
Carpenter Chan replied. “I found the American fleet near the mouth of the Yangtze and managed to get your note to their leader. He sent one warship.”
“God has heard our prayers,” Absalom said in his loud preacher’s voice.
Pearl stared at the river. She then turned to Lilac, who was tending to Carpenter Chan’s blistered feet.
The warship steamed along the shore. Flames burst from the muzzles of the cannons and there were more explosions in the hills. The ground kept shaking. I watched Pearl ’s lips as she said, “ Thank you, America.”
CHAPTER 24
Twenty-four hours was all she had to say good-bye. She would be uprooted and transplanted to America, a country she called home but barely knew. Later in her life, this last day in China would haunt her. It never stopped haunting her as long as she lived. It was useless to tell herself, “My roots in China must die.”
Life simply caught her. The American captain wouldn’t wait. His ship was literally the last boat leaving China. Pearl had only a few hours to pack up forty years of her life.
I convinced myself that our separation would be temporary. Since we had been children, it had happened before. She had gone to Shanghai and then America, but always she had returned. I had no doubts that we would see each other again.
Pearl said that she didn’t feel at home when she was anywhere else, even when she was in America, her birthplace. When she talked of home, she meant China.
“How could I go someplace else when my mother’s grave is here?” she once said.
Pearl was used to accepting reality. She knew that Bumpkin Emperor and his kind would return and murder again. “There is a positive side to moving to America,” she reasoned. “Carol will receive better medical care there.”
“What about Lossing?” I asked.
“I haven’t heard from him,” Pearl said. “He hasn’t bothered to send one word or to try to find out how his daughter is.”
The American captain insisted that Pearl and Grace leave all their belongings behind. Pearl wanted to take Carie’s piano, but she had to give that up. Instead she took Carie’s sewing machine.
Absalom gathered his congregation at the church and announced that Carpenter Chan would take his place. Carpenter Chan was to head the Nanking church while Papa continued to head the Chin-kiang church.
But Carpenter Chan had no confidence in himself. With tears filling his eyes, he pleaded, “Old Teacher, I am not capable of doing as good a job as you.”
“God has let me know that you’re the one to carry on in my place.”
Absalom told Carpenter Chan that if he ran into difficulty, Papa would be there to help.
Papa was touched-he couldn’t believe that Absalom’s feelings hadn’t changed after he had betrayed him.
While the children’s choir sang, Absalom delivered his final sermon. It was the first time Lilac’s youngest son, Triple Luck Solomon, led the singing. The young man had inherited his mother’s beauty. Carie would have loved his sweet voice. We all wished Pearl ’s family a safe journey to America.
I told Pearl that I would take care of her garden. “I’ll bring fresh flowers to Carie’s grave in the spring.”
“I’ll return soon,” Pearl promised.
If I had known that this was the last time we would see each other, I would have held her longer and closer. I would have made an effort to remember how she looked, the clothes she wore and the expression on her face. I would have perhaps tried to talk her out of leaving.
But I didn’t know. In fact, we wanted to get the pain of saying goodbye over with as quickly as possible. The sooner the parting was over, the sooner we could start working our way back together. Pearl was not usually one to dwell on sadness. It was Carie’s training to press back and swallow your bitter tears. Always look forward and be hopeful.
We all started for the river. Lilac came with her children and Soo-ching brought her son, Confucius.
We carried the family’s luggage to the smaller boat waiting to take them out to the warship in the middle of the river.
The large ship excited the children. They called it a big floating temple.
Carpenter Chan followed Absalom. He had been weeping and begging. “I can’t do without you, Old Teacher!”
Papa echoed, “Absalom, without you as our compass we will lose our direction on the sea.”
“Have faith in God” was Absalom’s reply.
“But there are qualities needed in a pastor I don’t possess,” Carpenter Chan insisted. “People won’t follow me the way they follow you! Monkeys will flee when the big tree is down. I am afraid the church will fall apart.”
“Carpenter Chan is right,” Papa agreed. “No matter how hard we work, people see God’s spirit in you, Absalom-not in us.”
Wang Ah-ma, Carie’s former servant and Pearl and Grace’s nanny, arrived to say good-bye. The seventy-year-old woman surprised everyone. After Carie died, Wang Ah-ma had moved back to the provincial village where she had grown up. After hearing the news of foreigners being murdered in Chin-kiang and Nanking, she had come to check on Absalom, Pearl, and Grace. Wang Ah-ma hadn’t known that she was reaching Nanking just in time for the family’s final departure.
“Wang Ah-ma!” Pearl and Grace cried, getting down on their knees to kowtow.
“My sweet girls!” Wang Ah-ma touched Pearl and Grace all over with her trembling hands. She said that her sight was failing and that she could barely see.
“You shouldn’t travel so far.” Pearl wiped her tears.