by Aimee E. Liu
With this encouraging introduction, he went on to reinvent several of Paul’s secret missions to northern and local warlords as treason against Sun Yat-sen. “You were the intermediary who arranged for warlord Fan’s troops to pressure Dr. Sun into accepting an alliance. And you—” he glared across the row of committee members, “were his accomplices.”
By this point in the telling, William was fully fired with claret and brandy, and he jumped up and strode about the room. The children straddled stools and perched on chair arms. Paul had tried to shoo at least his own children away after dinner, but now the scent of blood was in the air and Pearl insisted they deserved to know something of what their father did for a living. Hope silently remarked that of all the reasons Paul did what he did, a living was hardly one of them, but to the children she held her peace. If their father was a hero, as William insisted, then they did deserve to know of that.
“You have twisted the meaning of these missions,” Paul had said as he stood and marched up to Borodin. “You know nothing of my loyalty to Sun or anything about these men. But if you want to know who was in charge—who is responsible—then do not go further. I am responsible, Comrade Borodin.”
Borodin sat dumbfounded, the more because Paul had delivered this rebuke entirely in Russian. It was the first time the Bolshevik had ever heard his native language spoken by a Chinese.
Seconds passed while Borodin considered his options. At length the Russian gave a grim smile and stood, reaching into the pocket of his frayed green jacket. He pulled out one of his Russian cigarettes, handed it to Paul, and, shaking his head, said, “You, my friend, are a man.”
Even Borodin’s handpicked soldiers lowered their rifles at that. The Russian let out a roar of laughter, as if the entire proceedings were some Machiavellian joke. Then he bade them farewell, saying that he was traveling north for the next few weeks, but would see them when the National Congress convened at the end of January.
“Dr. Sun was moved to tears when he learned what had happened,” said William. “He issued a proclamation of our loyalty and dedication to the party. And that was the end of the whole sordid business. But if it had not been for your husband, I think we might well have ended like that pigeon.”
“What happened to the pigeon?” Jasmine asked in a husky voice.
“As we were leaving one of the soldiers shot it to end its misery.”
“William!” Daisy covered her face.
“Unfortunately, that is not quite the end of the story,” said Paul. “Borodin was berthed next to us on the steamer, so we have had the pleasure of his company for the past three days.”
“Your new best friend, eh?” Hope lifted her eyebrow. She could not decide which was the stronger emotion: rage at William’s jocular attitude or horror at the peril they had barely managed to escape.
Paul drew a fistful of gold from his pocket. “I don’t think our comrade would quite agree.”
William let out a guffaw. “Pai gow” he said. “He had never played it before, and he refused to stop. This is a bad combination when faced with an expert like Paul.”
Hope made no comment about William’s story until after the Tans had left, and she and Paul were alone in their room. He lay on the bed, catching up with the Shanghai papers. She sat at her dressing table brushing her hair. She spoke to the mirror. “You would never have told me, would you? If William hadn’t started in?”
“William exaggerates,” he said.
“He did not make it up.”
“Borodin is a mosquito parading as a tiger.” He laid his papers aside and came behind her, still speaking to her reflection. He had removed his spectacles, so that she was aware of the deep gray circles beneath his eyes. Much of the weight the meningitis had taken off him was now returned, but he still had a tendency to look gaunt and exhausted.
“You were about to be put before the firing squad, Paul.”
“That was never his intention.”
Hope dug the bristles into her scalp and pulled in long, measured strokes. The white streaks running from her temple and nape highlighted the absurdity of her pregnant condition. He touched her hair as if he couldn’t see them.
“Would you have me be a clerk?” Paul lifted an eyebrow. “Or perhaps I could serve as the young Madame Sun’s assistant?”
“Oh, stop!” Hope jerked back toward the mirror in vexation. “Is there no middle ground for you?”
Paul smiled, stubbornly sliding his hands over her shoulders and down the front of her silk dressing gown. He cupped a breast in each palm. “This will be a very happy baby, I think.”
When she did not respond, he caught her eyes in the mirror in such a way that, between his gaze and the solid warmth of his body, she felt pinned inside him. “You, Hsin-hsin,” he said softly. “You are my middle ground.”
6
Theodore Newfield Leon was born laughing. “Never have I seen such a baby,” said the Danish woman doctor who delivered him. “Not a cry, not a wail, but a grand, gurgling giggle. A little Buddha, you have here!”
Indeed, to Hope’s somewhat surprised relief, Teddy was none the worse for his mother’s advanced age, had all the requisite digits and appendages, and showed such a hale constitution that when Jasmine broke out with chicken pox three days after his arrival, Teddy alone of the children was immune.
Paul, who made it a point to be on hand for the birth, took a special pride in this son. He insisted on a Completion of the Month party for the child, at which the Tans and Eugene Chou and Sarah (Paul was courting Eugene as a financier for the Kuomintang) all bore witness as the baby was presented with the career tray of scholar’s brush, toy sword, abacus, official seal, herbs, compass, and slide rule. When the little arms shot out simultaneously for brush and sword, the men, who had placed drinking wagers on the selection, shouted their approval for this young scholar of the revolution.
But the pride that Paul lavished on this newest child did not make up for the time and attention he withheld from the others as they grew older and become preoccupied with their mostly foreign friends and activities. Nor did it halt the stealthy erosion of respect for their father that Hope had detected (in spite of William’s heroic tales) over the past few years. More than once she had caught Pearl and Jasmine mimicking the singsong of his late-night drinking parties, or lampooning his poems as if they were children’s limericks. Pearl flirted openly with the German boy who lived next door, often wondering aloud what Papa would think if his daughter were to marry “the enemy.” Morris responded to his father’s presence by retreating to his room and his books—not the histories of the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions that Paul urged on him, or even the Conrad and Hawthorne that Hope gave him, but newly imported works by writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, D. H. Lawrence, Apollinaire, and Aldous Huxley. Hope suspected that the children’s resentments were exacerbated by their continuing affection for Jin, who had secured a position (of which Paul approved) as artistic designer for a publishing company on Honan Road, but spent his free time organizing a new workers’ political party (of which Paul disapproved). She tried to talk to them—including Jin—to encourage their respect and to demand at least courtesy toward their father and his friends. They would answer her with patient, long-suffering faces, nod politely, and fold their hands, but she knew that, while she might force their conduct, their hearts were closing.
That summer an incident occurred in Kuling that brought this conflict into painful focus. They had been woken before dawn by a shattering cry, followed by shouting and slapping, the thump of flesh against wood. Lamps were lit, and the whole family assembled on the porch, where Yen held a slight, darkly clad figure, lifting him practically off his feet.
“Thief!” Yen declared, yanking the boy’s elbows to show how his threadbare pockets bulged. Yen had caught him halfway out the window.
The children smirked. Ah-nie shook her head and padded back to check on the sleeping Teddy. But Paul was beside himself. He began screaming for Dahsoo to go
straight away and fetch village police chief Liu. At the same time, he turned on the children, waving his arms and barking at them to stand back, then at the boy to—quickly!—turn out his pockets. But the sight of their silverware, a brass clock, Pearl’s tiger-eye pendant, and a silver matchbox that had belonged to Nai-li proved more than he could bear. While Yen jerked the thief back from the trove, Paul clapped his hands and paced, roaring at the boy. With wide, desperate eyes he looked to Hope, to the children, then back to the thief, who stood rigid, staring at the floor. There was a moment’s stillness. Then, as if jabbed by a pin, Paul began flailing his own cheeks, bringing tears to his eyes. He shouted at Yen, “Slap his face! Slap his face!”
Jasmine burst out laughing and tripped over the threshold, sprawling across the parlor floor. This only made Paul more furious, and he began hopping from foot to foot. Hope was mortified. She had never seen such a display, and hoped she never would again. She instructed Pearl to get Jasmine to her room—Morris was already long gone. Then she shook out a cigarette from the pot by the sofa and handed it to Paul. He took it without looking at her. The cigarette wobbled as he lit it. At last the bouncing lantern announced Dahsoo’s return with Chief Liu.
Paul stood silent while Yen delivered his account of catching the thief. Then, with an exactitude that surprised Hope, given his agitation, Paul provided a full inventory of the retrieved goods. Chief Liu, a self-important character with gap teeth and unruly eyebrows, accepted a cigarette as the boy turned out his pockets again and Yen shook his sleeves and trousers. A costume ring of Jasmine’s was added to the recovered pile. Then the chief demanded the boy’s name. He recognized it from the list of sedan chair bearers, which was routinely submitted to him by the Gap transportation office because, as he said with a scowl at the thief, “These coolies no good.”
Yen was noted as a witness and the thief led away with his wrists in chains. Without a word, Paul slipped upstairs to his study, leaving Hope alone to the sunrise.
It was a glorious one, with slivers of magenta and molten gold shooting across the valley, but Hope felt as if it were mocking her. Only the baby would be spared, she thought. For the others, this morning’s slapstick image of their father would remain as damning as her own memory of Paul prostrating himself for his mother. No revolutionary act of heroism, no exquisitely reasoned essay or acclaimed poetic composition could erase the memory of such ineffectuality. Nor would they take into account whatever bizarre childhood torments must have accounted for this lapse. What mattered, what made Paul’s outburst so indelible was that this was the truest, most intimate glimpse of him that his children had ever known.
Presidential Palace
Canton
October 12, 1924
Dearest Hope,
A new warlord, Feng Yu-hsiang, has taken Peking. He is Christian, a pragmatist, an admirer of Sun. This is good news. He wants peace talks between key factions by January. But this gives less than three months for us to build a unification plan that will satisfy all—Borodin, the Kuomintang’s merchant supporters, and the warlords who will be seated at this table.
I leave today for Hupei to arrange with leaders there to support this peace plan, then on to meet Dr. Sun in Tientsin. I hope maybe I can return to Shanghai for Christmas, but now I cannot predict. I am sending what I can, six hundred dollars for you until my return. I so miss our little Teddy. And all our babies.
Take good care of our home.
Your husband, Paul
Tientsin
December 20, 1924
Dearest Hope,
Sun has arrived from Japan, and we have met. He is gravely ill, but in good spirits in spite of fact that peace talks have been thwarted. You remember Madame Shen’s old “uncle” Tuan Ch’i-jui? Well, he brought his troops into Peking while Feng Yu-hsiang was here in Tientsin, and seized government for himself. This ends all hope of cooperation among the northern warlords; however, Dr. Sun wishes now to go forward with a plan William and I have brokered to establish new Nationalist capital in Wuhan. There on his sickbed, Dr. Sun affixed his seal to the document of intent. I am hopeful this may lead to some good.
Now that the agreement has been sealed, however, William and I must go to Wuhan for some weeks to negotiate terms of this agreement. I am sorry to miss our Christmas together, but I have enclosed some little cash for you to buy presents for the babies.
I will be home as soon as possible.
Your husband, Paul
Peking
March 13, 1925
Dearest Hope,
I feel as I have lost my elder brother. I was summoned from Wuhan just few days ago. I arrived to find that Dr. Sun had lost faith in Western medicine, and had taken some Chinese herbs. His eyes were bulging and he could not speak. Soon he was gone, and all the future—my own and China’s—forever changed.
We have no leader with strength or vision to replace Dr. Sun. Borodin toys with his puppets. The northern warlords again circle like vultures. Young marshal Chiang Kai-shek, the commandant of the new soldiers’ academy in Canton, talks of going ahead with the great military march northward from Canton which was Sun’s dream for unifying the country under the Kuomintang, but there is little support for this now.
Sun’s funeral will take place next month, here in the Western Hills. Many hundreds of thousands will march in his procession. I must join them. Then I return to Shanghai.
Beyond this, I do not know. I face a mountain with no way around. I wish you were here, my wife. I wish you with me.
Your husband,
Paul
XI
FIFTH SEASON
KULING AND WUHAN
(1926–1927)
1
A shimmering June day at the Three Graces Pool. Hope and the children had come up to Kuling a couple of weeks earlier, Sarah and her two just days ago, but the summer crowd was still light, and they had the small, spring-fed lake almost to themselves. The older children were out on the raft. Jasmine and a White Russian boy she’d met that morning were wading along the shore. Hope lay back on the blanket she and Sarah were sharing while little Teddy napped on his quilt beside them.
“Your figure’s come back nicely.” Out of the corner of her eye Hope could see Sarah’s long, slender legs gravitating toward a wedge of sunlight. “Considering your age,” Sarah added.
Hope threw her a teasing moue. “I detest people who dole out compliments to their inferiors. It’s a perfectly transparent ploy, you know.”
“Inferiors!”
“I’m afraid, dear heart, when it comes to figures, you have me knocked. You needn’t play games to make me admit it.”
“Well, I…” But having the satisfaction she’d baited, Sarah fell judiciously silent.
She sat as if she were one of the Three Graces herself, thought Hope, the way her arms clasped loosely around her knees, her bobbed hair catching the light. It was true that Sarah had become steadily more beautiful over the years. She often said her looks were her ticket to escape. For that very reason the subject disquieted Hope, and she resented Sarah’s not infrequent allusion that beauty was a tool they had in common.
The sun slid behind a cloud, and Hope looked up as darkness swept across Lu Shan. She wondered if the same shadow would pass over Paul—wherever he was.
Sarah pointed to her boys and Morris racing each other to land. Pearl and her friend Shirley Tsai cheered them on. “They really are happy here,” Hope said.
“So are you,” said Sarah.
“Be happier if Paul were with us.”
“Nothing new in that.”
“Maybe.” She considered. “I hope not.”
“Eugene seems to think they’ve actually got a chance of making good on this Northern Expedition. And Gerry tells me Jed Israel says the same.”
“I don’t know, but at least it’s brought Jin and Paul back onto the same team. Paul says this young commander Chiang Kai-shek means to prove himself as Sun Yat-sen’s successor—and so is determined to make th
e Expedition a success. Jin’s pleased because Chiang seems to have embraced the students and workers in the process. Even Borodin has backed down and is claiming to be a friend … The question is whether any of them can be trusted.”
“Any of them?” Sarah gave her a hard look.
Teddy stirred in his sleep. Hope tidied his coverlet, but Sarah’s challenge unnerved her, and after she’d made certain that the baby was not waking up, she reached into the pocket of her wrapper for Paul’s most recent letter. She had been rereading it this morning before they set off for the pool. Now she scanned it again, searching for the reassurance that he had so clearly meant to convey.
Hong Kong
May 7, 1926
Dearest Hope,
I am in Hong Kong for a few days to negotiate toward end to the general strike here, which labor unions backed by Communists have conducted for more than one year. We have agreement from Borodin and his faction to support a truce, but we must take care. British have fired on strikers here as they did in Shanghai, and each death raises the passion for revenge—which can only bring more slaughter and defeat. This was lesson of Taipings and Boxers, but the radical students and unschooled workers have not learned it. I spend no fondness for Borodin, but at least he now understands that power lies still with foreigners and generals, and it will take a firm union of merchant and landowner money combined with manpower of the masses to wrest China from their grip.
Young general Chiang Kai-shek understands this, too. He has studied in Japan, taken military training in Soviet Russia, and has many rich and powerful friends, so he sees all sides. He has had many tensions with the Communists and Soviet advisors in Canton, but as new commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army, he has upper hand now, and so has ordered us to begin Northern Expedition next month. Our goal is Yangtze Valley. We will march in two sections with Russian aviators overhead and saboteurs assisting. I am to push northwest with first section toward Wuhan. Second section led by Gen. Chiang to travel northeast toward Nanking.
