Cloud Mountain

by Aimee E. Liu

  “Many years you ask to go home.”

  “And many years you’ve refused. So I made my home in Kuling—”

  “No one can go to Kuling now, Hope. Maybe not for many more years. Maybe never.”

  She wanted to cry, but couldn’t. Already Kuling seemed a dream. She said, “I thought we could not afford it.”

  His shoulders lifted and dropped. “The Nantao house.”

  Paul had rented out his mother’s house soon after Jin’s death, but in his inimitable fashion, he’d let it to one of his poet friends, for next to nothing. “What do you mean?”

  “I sold it to Eugene Chou. He wants all his family inside same walls.”

  She swallowed hard. “You mean Ken and his wife.”

  “Everyone. Except Sarah and Gerald, of course.”

  As he brought the cigarette to his mouth, the glowing tip trembled.

  “But you wouldn’t sell your mother’s house just to send us to America.”

  “No.” His voice altered. “I owe Eugene … and William.”

  “Owe?” For a second she was lost. “You mean … gambling.”

  He smoked, not answering.

  She went to the window. There was a time when such matters as Paul’s gambling seemed crisp and inarguable as the color of whitewash. Now the distinguishing lines had melted. The white wall along the back of the yard turned black with the angle of shadow, blue with the fall of moonlight. Was it, then, black, or blue—or white? We are mortals, all of us, she thought, with moments of weakness, moments of strength, the capacity to love and hate, interchangeably at times, to delight and fatally disappoint. We entice and betray, wound and scar and die. And there is nothing to be done.

  When she turned, he had put out the cigarette and sat with his hands splayed across his gowned thighs, facing the seat she had vacated.

  She said, “America is not my country anymore.”

  He sighed. “You remind me, Pearl is still American citizen. And Dr. Mann says that laws have changed. Now, if you return, sign declaration, you are citizen also.”

  “If I renounce you.”

  He hesitated. “I think so.”

  She tried to muster anger at Mann for cajoling Paul into this scheme, but he was only offering what she herself had schemed and begged Paul to grant her.

  “I won’t renounce you.”

  “No?” He sat very still—straighter than before—yet there was something ultimately relaxed about him, the way he cupped one hand inside the other, the murmur of his breath. He would not judge her.

  “No,” she said. “Any more than you would.”

  “But for me there is no need.”

  She found herself inspecting these words as if he had spoken a foreign language or perhaps did not accurately express himself because he was speaking English. It occurred to her that someone else—Mann, for instance—would have layered this statement with ulterior meanings and innuendo. They would have veiled an invitation or accusation or plea. But Paul, though a classical master of metaphor and allusion, meant precisely what he said. He had no need to renounce his wife. He had his home, his friends, his work, his faith, his nationality intact. She had provided him with children and the comfort of her body. Now, for the sake of their children, she was leaving and he was staying, and yet they were the same.

  3

  They left on Morris’s twentieth birthday, twenty years and four months after Hope and Pearl had first arrived in China. It was spring, bright and blustery, the trees along the Bund cruelly green. The children were happy, Hope decided, not so much to be leaving as to be going to America. Even with all they had lived through, they were still young enough to view life in terms of its possibilities. Pearl, too, though wan and wobbly, was looking forward to long days in the sun and seeing again the country of her birth, which she remembered now only through occasional dreams. But as they made their way down the dock, in their gabardine suits and jersey frocks, laughing excitedly with the friends who had come to see them off, her children seemed to Hope to already occupy a separate universe from their father.

  Paul hung back, reticent, smoking, preoccupied even now with the emergency discussions he had left in Loyang and the squeeze of Nationalist power, between the Japanese on one side and the Communists on the other … He let Stephen Mann take charge of the baggage, turned over the tickets to Hope. Paul alone wore Chinese dress—a long black gown and navy vest, dark stockings and cloth shoes. His head was bare, his spectacles slipped, as always, to the tip of his nose.

  A horn blasted, and a man’s voice came through a megaphone. Passengers began to board. Jasmine was unabashedly kissing all her beaux goodbye, while the other children shook hands. Stephen cried out a greeting to Yen, now hurrying down the gangplank, with Ah-nie in tow. There were cries of delight among the children as Yen made them all presents of camphorwood beads, which he said would keep them safe. Hope clasped his hands and embraced Ah-nie, and they all began to weep.

  Suddenly, there was no more time left. The children and Stephen went ahead. Paul lifted his hand to Hope’s cheek. She went up on her toes and kissed him, publicly, shamelessly, winding her arms around his neck as her tears soaked both their faces.

  He gave her a final, gentle push, and she was into the boat with the others. From somewhere in the middle of the river, three more blasts of a siren sounded, and the tender cast off.

  The sun’s brightness made her squint. The boat’s rocking made it difficult to keep a steady eye, but all the way to the bend in the harbor she held him in her sight—a tall, broad, darkly clad figure, one arm raised and waving slowly, as the water widened between them.

  EPILOGUE

  To the north I see a span of mountains

  To the south I see water flow in peace.

  In one year my beard has turned white,

  In the heart of night, rain falls on a lonely boat.

  When the tide rises, the sails descend,

  The cold river rings with stone chimes.

  The golden sun drops its slanting rays,

  Multiplying the pavilions beneath my gaze.

  REPLY

  CHUNGKING

  (FEBRUARY 1942)

  1

  Control Yüan

  Chungking, Szechwan

  April 2, 1939

  My dearest Hope,

  I have received letter, writing by Morris, on one week ago. Said that you had send a letter to me, but I have not received it. It is long time since I can write to you. I hope you can understand.

  Before last year May, I leaved Nanking with a small box to Kuling. But our house of Kuling occupied by Chinese Army, all people drived down the mountain. Old Chief Liu was nearly kill by them, because he told them, do not ruined my things. Now I do not know, can be remained how much.

  Last year May to August, I have been Wuchang in my family house. Our books, clothes, and all things, all hold by army, ruined and burned (my fathers and mother’s things, too). The Japanese airplan have bombared every day. Around my home all destroyed or burned. By my house still well, no broken then.

  At last year September I leaved Hankow to Chungking on the river way, by steamer, spend one month. I have one bag summer cloth, only that blanket you give to me in Shanghai, then in winter I need cloth, because old clothing was left in Kuling, could not carried away.

  I received a letter from Hankow, said that my house was burned by government order before they leaved there. Then in Nanking, in Kuling, in Wuchang, my property will be lost all. Few days ago, here in Chungking, the Japanese airplan has bombared and burned around my living house, all is ruined when I was in the mountain hole.

  Dearest Hope, here all is gone for me, everything change. I do not know how to do in future. I think, if I come to you, now will be better. Only so much time passed. Do you keep place for me in your heart, your home? I cannot be certain unless you answer.

  I await your answer

  Your husband, Paul

  Now, at last, Paul will have his answer.


  I am on my way to Chungking. William Cadlow, on the threshold of retirement, has given me one last chance. “You’re lucky I haven’t died or moved to Timbuktu,” he wrote when I contacted him last month. “Ten years. You drop off the face of the map, and now you want me to send you to Chungking, just like that? I have every right to refuse, you know. Would, too, if I didn’t somehow feel I owe you this—price of history and friendship, however longdistance. Anyway, since Pearl Harbor, I’ve been scrambling for someone to send to Chungking. Our readers are hungry for the insights that will show our Chinese allies as living, bleeding, passionate human beings—separate and distinct from the Japanese. If anyone can demystify them, you can, Hope.”

  I laughed out loud when I read that last line, thought, the old Hope would have bundled this off to Sarah with some cryptic, self-deprecating note. But the last I heard from Sarah was four years ago, she was about to marry a fertilizer baron in Boca Raton, and she’d “as soon never think of China again.” She’d be more appalled to learn I was going back than amused by Cadlow’s comment. I am glad Sarah tracked me down after we arrived in Los Angeles and that we are still, haphazardly, in touch, but I no longer envy her talent for reinventing herself. What for her is a survival skill has backfired on me. For ten years, through the Depression, I’ve earned a decent living teaching English composition and literature, taking class photographs of schoolchildren. I’ve watched my own children grow up, Morris moving to Washington to become a documentary filmmaker. Jasmine taking bit parts as “exotic Eurasian” singsong girls in Hollywood movies. Pearl has a baby girl and an American husband who forbids her to reveal that she’s half Chinese, and now Teddy, still a Chinese citizen, has been drafted into the U.S. Army, becoming American by default—and possibly in exchange for his life. Through all of this I’ve tried to keep my head down and my spirits up, to push China and Paul out of my thoughts and concentrate on this life apart, but Cadlow’s right. My job is—always was—to demystify my Chinese ally. My husband. My lover. My past.

  And so the planes that carry us through this interminable journey drone on. We have made eight stops on four continents in one week. We have flown in DC-3s, seaplanes, and stripped-down military transport, over oceans and deserts, blackouts and battle zones. We have traveled with diplomats and soldiers, aid workers and journalists, spent nights in cargo hangars, pensiones, hostels, and USO lounges. More than once I have forgotten where I am upon waking.

  What will happen when we finally reach Chungking, I cannot predict. Paul knows only that Morris is coming to produce a documentary on China’s war for the International Red Cross. Communications have improved dramatically since America joined the war, and so letters that, before, would have taken months—or years—have been flying back and forth. In this way, Paul has arranged for Morris to meet with various officials and to stay at Chungking’s Press Hostel. He has predicted that his son will be proud of the courage with which the Chinese are defending their country. The tone of his two messages since Pearl Harbor is so fondly optimistic that it is hard to believe they were written by the same man who scrawled this letter in my hands.

  I, myself, have written Paul only that I received his letter, two years delayed, and am considering his request…

  But now, as we lift off from Calcutta, we are so near. The cabin is hot and crowded with military and government personnel. Across the aisle sits a youngish Canadian, some sort of industrial advisor, who reminds me of Stephen Mann in the self-conscious way he holds himself, as if he can’t decide whether to act powerful or embarrassed. He has the same cleft chin and angular face, the same thinning sandy hair Stephen used to have. Even Morris remarks on the resemblance when the man pulls out his pipe. I mention the difference about the eyes; our fellow traveler has a clear, piercing green gaze. Morris shrugs and says he never noticed the color of Dr. Mann’s eyes. Then he wonders whatever happened to Mann. I watch the industrial advisor stuff the bowl of his pipe and light it with long draughts, his cheeks caving and his eyes intent.

  During our three long weeks aboard the President Coolidge, Stephen Mann was solicitous of Pearl. He was attentive to me, cautiously jovial with the others. He dined with us, played shuffleboard, raced the children across the pool, and strolled the decks with pipe in hand. He and I danced and took the cold night air. We avoided reminiscence. Three days out of Honolulu, in a gray, coating gloom, he asked me to marry him.

  Now, as Morris drifts back to his work, I imagine trying to explain this trip to Stephen. No, I know how I would explain it. What I imagine is his reaction. The flash of those yellow motes in his eyes. The tensed jaw and clutch of his chest as he took in air and let it out, even the slope of his bony shoulders marking his disappointment. His reaction would be no different, I’m sure, than it was on the pier in San Pedro when I thanked him for all he had done for me, and especially for Pearl, and told him to go back to Seattle, to his family, to go home. He said, “There is no going back, Hope. Don’t you understand that yet?”

  I would tell him, I am going back because my marriage is not finished.

  2

  As we descend to Chungking the clouds open and close, giving us intermittent glimpses of brackish river and chalky gray cliffs. I make out the charred hull of a cathedral, the pinched streets of a medieval town that passes at eye level as we drop into the gorge. Mist and rain stream from the wings, and our wheels hit water, driving spume up the windows before grabbing the yellow sand spit runway. As we climb down from the plane the rain stiffens into slanting spikes, and we must run for the end of the spit, where a small open boat is waiting. Morris throws an arm around my shoulders and draws a square of oilcloth above our heads, but within seconds the rain has seeped through my three coats, jacket, dress, and underpinnings (what we wear is not included in our two-pound luggage limit). Meanwhile, high on its cliff, Chungking leans above us like the prow of some great shadow ship, unmoved by our discomfort.

  An hour later the rain has dwindled. We have dropped our bags at the former school that serves as Chungking’s foreign Press Hostel and are making our way by fading light up the slickened, ice-edged hill to the city. It’s two or three miles, all uphill, but the passing motorbuses lurch like death traps, bursting with five times as many passengers as they were built to carry and belching poisonous wood-oil fumes. A rickshaw costs four hundred Chinese dollars. It is war, and so we walk.

  Morris trudges silently beside me, climbing, climbing seemingly endless cuts of slimy stone steps, but he studies the passing faces and ruined walls with an air of preoccupation, his thoughts still back with the brace of foreigners clustered in the hostel lobby. Apparently it had not occurred to my son that his mother would be the oldest and one of the only women among the Chungking press corps. He must have asked me six times on the way up to our rooms if I felt quite well, if I didn’t want to rest, wouldn’t I want to move to Papa’s after we’d surprised him. Poor thing. He has no idea, suddenly, what I’m doing here, and he’s embarrassed and concerned. Underneath his handsome bravado—and in direct contradiction to the life he’s lived, he still believes in order and convention and appearances. I told him yes, no, and no, and if we expected to find our way, we’d better start before it got dark. Perhaps I should have shown him Paul’s letter. Probably I should have solicited comments and advice from all my children months ago. But while I had the nerve to travel more than halfway around the world, I did not have the nerve to confide in my family. Not before I’d seen Paul one last time.

  Morris has the address—an alley off the Street of Seven Stars—but we must stop four black-suited policemen for directions before we reach the right lane. It’s near the Wang Lung Men steps, the city’s ancient access up the cliff from the riverbank, though there is nothing scenic or antique about the stucco facades and mud shells that line this hut’ung now. The walls, in this damp twilight, are the color of fetid water. The building where my husband lives is shaped like a shoe box with small square windows, blackened chimney pots, soot crawling in vines do
wn the rough facade. The blackout cloths give it a vacant look in spite of the men—some in uniform and others in traditional gowns—who scurry in and out of the entryway.

  “You all right, Mama?” Morris asks yet again. “If he’s not here, I think we should leave a note telling him you’re with me.”

  I squeeze his hand. “He might turn us away, then.”

  “Is that what you’re afraid of?”

  “No!” I scoff. But suddenly I feel a fool. All this distance, all this time, and I’m still toying with half-truths.

  I push forward, ask a young man with the vivid red cheeks of a consumptive which door belongs to Liang Po-yu. He points up three flights. I thank him and wish him well. He gives me a curious look, and I realize the stairwell is throbbing with voices. The door he’s indicated stands open.

  Morris goes ahead now. The stairs are narrow and steep, barely lit. There is no heat, and the smells of must and cheap cooking oil permeate the building, but the voices above are jocular. Their familiarity simultaneously chills and consoles me, and I am pressing with every nerve against the instinct to flee.

  Paul is not visible as we approach the doorway, but his friends are. Looking past Morris’s shoulder I can see three men of varying sizes and ages, all wearing crude blue cotton robes. An iron floor lamp with a pink tasseled shade casts light up into their laughing faces and down on their mud-spattered shoes. They stand before a wall map studded with red- and yellow- and blue-headed pins, speculating about the most strategic targets for the coming American air strikes. The floor is bare, the ceiling low. The foot of a narrow metal bed is visible, with a butterscotch blanket carefully folded, its once satin edging threadbare.

  I am having difficulty breathing. Morris touches my shoulder lightly, steps through, and disappears to the left of the doorway. I hear Paul cry out. It is a ragged noise, but bright with emotion. The men at the map turn and watch. They smile with all their teeth as I follow into the room to see my husband and son embracing.