Pearl of China

by Anchee Min

  “Pearl,” I called.

  She rose and came to me and collapsed in my arms.

  Softly, I told her that I had come to deliver Hsu Chih-mo’s package.

  She nodded.

  I passed her the package and said, “I’ll be outside.”

  When she emerged from the farmhouse, she looked like an Oriental, her eyes were so swollen from crying.

  She asked me to take a look at the first page of Hsu Chih-mo’s book. The title was Lonely Night.

  Across the screen the autumn moon

  stares coldly from the sky

  With silken fan I sit and flick

  the fireflies sailing by

  The night grows colder every hour

  it chills the heart

  To watch the spinning Damsel

  from the Herd Boy far apart

  A wilderness alone remains

  all garden glories gone

  The river runs unheeded by

  weeds grow unheeded on

  Dusk comes the east wind blows and birds

  pipe forth a mournful sound

  Petals like nymphs from balconies

  come tumbling to the ground

  I had known Pearl’s loneliness since we were children. She had always searched for her “own kind.” That didn’t mean another Westerner. It meant another soul that experienced and understood both the Eastern and Western worlds.

  It was in Hsu Chih-mo that Pearl had found what she was looking for. With him she had not been lonely. If she were the cresting wave’s cheerful foam, Hsu Chih-mo would be the wrinkled sea sand beneath.

  Ashes gathered at the bottom of the incense burner.

  The sun set behind the hill and the room fell instantly dark.

  In the future I would understand the connection between Pearl’s accomplishments as a novelist and her love of Hsu Chih-mo. Over the eighty books she would create in her lifetime, she would carry on her affair with Hsu Chih-mo.

  “Writing a novel is like chasing and catching spirits,” Pearl Buck would say of her writing process. “The novelist gets invited into splendid dreams. The lucky one gets to live the dream once, and the luckiest over and over.”

  She was the luckiest one. She must have met with his spirit throughout the rest of her life. I will never forget the moment Pearl lit her last stick of incense. She composed a poem in Chinese bidding good-bye to Hsu Chih-mo.

  Wild summer was in your gaze

  Earth laughs in flowers

  Lust in the chill of the grave

  Wind’s hand touches

  Mind bent with the weight of sorrow.

  Orchid boat I board alone

  Spring rain blurs the lantern light

  Deep green are my parting thoughts of you

  I considered myself lucky too. Although Hsu Chih-mo didn’t love me, he trusted me. It made our ordinary friendship extraordinary. There was commitment and devotion between us. Hsu Chih-mo had asked me to keep the original manuscripts of his poetry. His wife had threatened to burn them because in the pages she “smelled the scent of another woman.”

  I became the keeper of Hsu Chih-mo’s secrets. I was so faithful that I didn’t even share those manuscripts with Pearl. I’d like to think that Hsu Chih-mo loved me in a special way. The most important lesson he taught me was that there was no one singular perspective on things or emotions in the universe—no one way of comprehending truth.

  Hsu Chih-mo, the man, the child, the poet who smiled at all that passed beyond his understanding, would remain in my life. I possessed, literally, his poetry, although I wished that I had won his heart. After Hsu Chih-mo’s wife died, I began to release his poems one at a time. My intent was to make his legacy last. I created ambiguity and the public embraced it. “Let’s allow mystery to pervade,” I said to journalists.

  Columnists speculated about what might have happened if Hsu Chih-mo had lived. The result was that the poems I released were printed in the newspapers. The public was hungry for Hsu Chih-mo. There were always new discoveries about his romantic life. He was more famous after death.

  Over time, I became the collector of everything Hsu Chih-mo. In addition to his poems and letters, I sought copies of written materials about him, including the most frivolous gossip.

  After Hsu Chih-mo’s death I moved to Nanking to be closer to Pearl and to his memory.

  In the name of the Nanking Daily, I organized the Hsu Chih-mo Conference. The event satisfied my desire to hear his name pronounced on the lips of the young. Female university students carried The Collected Poems of Hsu Chih-mo under their arms like fashionable handbags. They reminded me of myself, the way I once was in love, still was, and would forever be. I whispered Hsu Chih-mo’s name in darkness and daylight, alone or with Pearl or without her.

  People from every corner of China attended my conference. There were suspicions, rumors, and questions regarding the reason Hsu Chih-mo had chosen me to keep his papers. “We were best friends,” I answered with ease.

  I felt as if I were living in a fictional world when the list of Hsu Chih-mo’s mistresses and love interests continued. The details were imaginative and vivid. Some did get close to the truth. Yet in the end none hit the target.

  I enjoyed the colorful interpretations of Hsu Chih-mo’s life while knowing that I alone held the truth.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER 21

  Hsu Chih-mo’s death reminded us how fragile life could be. Looking back, I realized that it was Dick’s love for Hsu Chih-mo that bound us together. Dick had once been combative and imposing, and Hsu Chih-mo had changed him. Dick acknowledged, “If I am a giant today, it is because Hsu Chih-mo taught me the difference between physical and intellectual height.”

  I married Dick Lin after Hsu Chih-mo died. He worked in Shanghai and came to see me in Nanking once a month.

  Pearl continued to teach at Nanking University but she no longer lingered on campus. Every time she saw the tree that Hsu Chih-mo used to sit under waiting for her, she would burst into tears. Hsu Chih-mo was more in her life than when he had been alive.

  “Hsu Chih-mo was the only Chinese man I know who was true to himself,” Pearl told me. “In his way, he was daring and almost impulsive. I couldn’t help but love him. It was selfish of me. But I needed him. We needed each other.”

  One thing Pearl seemed unaware of was that Hsu Chih-mo had also been her challenge. I was never a challenge for Pearl, in contrast. She was attracted to challenges. When she lived in China, she never looked down on anyone, but she also never looked up to anyone until Hsu Chih-mo.

  Without Pearl and Hsu Chih-mo in my life, I never would have been the person I am today. The three of us discussed Shakespeare, Rousseau, Dickens, and classic Chinese poets and novelists. Although I published and impressed others as a writer, it was never my air and rice, as it was for Pearl and Hsu Chih-mo.

  Like Carie, Pearl worked obsessively for the church and offered her charity. She played Carie’s piano, which was falling apart. The keys either didn’t work or were out of tune. Pearl made the best of it. During Christmas season, we gathered. Pearl retranslated Absalom’s lyrics into Chinese. We spent the evenings singing Carie’s favorites, from “The God of Glory” to “Hail the Heaven-Born Prince of Peace”; from “Love Has Come” to “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”

  Papa no longer worried about the church attendance—the members of the Chin-kiang congregation by now far outnumbered those of the local Buddhist temples. More and more people were choosing the Foreign God Jesus Christ.

  Pearl’s home became what Carie’s once was, a shelter for the needy. Neighbors came by unannounced. People borrowed whatever they needed, from gingerroot and garlic to pots and pans, medicine and clothing. As they visited, they shared words with Pearl. They complained about bad weather, failed business deals, nasty mothers-in-law or troubled children. Pearl listened and comforted them. She believed that only when one understood suffering was one capable of happiness.

  It was the house rule tha
t no one mentioned Carol’s condition to outsiders, but Pearl realized that people drew closer to her because of Carol. Pearl was better understood. Local children were taught to play with Carol as if she were normal.

  I had a feeling that Pearl knew Dick’s true identity, although she never asked. By 1933, Dick was the head of the Shanghai branch of the Communist Party. The party survived the Nationalists’ brutal purge. Mao retreated to Shan-hsi province, a remote area in the northwest mountains. Dick was left alone to be in charge. He barely had time to travel to Nanking.

  While the Nationalists fought the Communists, Japan penetrated into China. In early 1934 Japan launched a full-scale invasion and took Manchuria. The nation protested and forced the head of the Nationalists, Chiang Kai-shek, to unite with the Communists instead of hunting them down.

  While the Nationalist troops turned around and marched toward Manchuria to fight the Japanese, Mao expanded his forces. Dick received secret orders from Mao to focus on key generals who served Chiang Kai-shek. Dick’s goal was to inspire them to lead an uprising inside the Nationalist military.

  “We will take the troops who rebel to Mao,” Dick told me.

  Although I was aware of the danger, I supported Dick. It was clear that he simply couldn’t be stopped. What concerned me was his safety.

  One day my fear turned into a reality: Dick’s plan ran into trouble when sensitive information was leaked. By the time I heard the news, Dick was on the run. Overnight, he was on the government’s most-wanted list. Dick was followed everywhere. Soon he ran out of places to hide in Shanghai. Whoever received him was followed and arrested.

  I went to Pearl and asked if she could help by getting Dick a temporary job at Nanking University. “Dick must have a job in order to register with the city as a legal resident,” I told Pearl. “Dick will take any job, even as a janitor or night guard. There would be no financial burden to the university because we’d give you money to pay his salary.”

  Pearl promised to try, but she warned me that the situation in Nanking was becoming uncertain.

  “I would hire Dick as my house servant if it wouldn’t be so suspicious,” Pearl added. “I am watched because all foreigners are considered allies of Japan.”

  The moment Dick arrived in Nanking, he was arrested. He was thrown into the Nationalist military prison. Although his true identity was still undiscovered, he was tried as a Communist. He was asked to cooperate and produce the names of his comrades. When he refused, he was beaten and his jaw broken.

  “Has he been allowed a doctor?” Absalom asked when I told Pearl the news.

  “No,” I replied.

  “Nonsense!” Absalom said. “I don’t think that we are helpless.” He turned to Pearl. “There must be something we can do to help Dick.”

  “Father, we must be cautious. We are not the only ones at risk,” Pearl said, reminding him of the other people in her house. “We are responsible for their lives as well.”

  Pearl’s house was crowded. Besides Absalom and Carol, Pearl’s sister, Grace, had moved in. Her family had also stayed in China, as missionaries. Pearl’s new adopted daughter, Janice, was there too. She was a little older than Carol. The two were already close sisters.

  Pearl insisted that I stay with her instead of going back to my own house.

  When Nanking University turned down Pearl’s proposal to hire Dick, the seventy-seven-year-old Absalom went to the Nanking government and claimed that Dick was his assistant working for the church.

  “It was the first time in his life that Absalom chose to sin,” Pearl later said, after Dick’s release.

  Absalom made it his duty to protect the members of his church. He had difficulty because Dick was not a Christian. It was Papa who convinced Absalom that by helping Dick he was helping our family.

  “Dick needs to see God’s work in action,” Papa said to Absalom. “Because of your good deed, you may soon see his conversion.”

  Absalom knew that Chiang Kai-shek was a new Christian himself, although he’d converted only to satisfy his wife’s marriage request. When Absalom heard this, he knew that he stood a chance.

  “What if Dick refuses to convert afterward?” I asked. “We don’t want to disappoint Absalom.”

  Papa replied, “Dick will remember that he was saved by a man of God.”

  Even covered with a beard, Dick’s face was horribly misshapen. The right side of his jaw was swollen and much larger than the left. Pearl arranged for a doctor from the American Embassy to come. The doctor reset Dick’s jaw and wired his mouth shut.

  For days, Dick couldn’t speak. This was perhaps fortunate, because he couldn’t respond to Absalom’s talk of God. If Dick had been able to speak, the two would have been in combat.

  Laughing at the thought, Pearl said, “Dick would try to convert Absalom to Communism.”

  Eventually Dick had enough. He left without saying good-bye to Absalom.

  Two weeks after Dick’s release, an order arrived from Communist headquarters. He left the next day to join Mao at his base in Yenan. Dick told Pearl he was grateful for Absalom’s rescue, but that he could never believe in God.

  “Your father must learn that we Communists are fighting for a real cause,” Dick said to Pearl. “China will one day be free of politics and religion. People will be their own gods.”

  Pearl told Dick that she and her father had disagreements on many things. “He is God’s fighting angel. I don’t understand him, but I love him.”

  Dick replied that it didn’t make sense to him. “I could not love my father if he were my political enemy,” he said.

  Pearl smiled. “There is no enemy for me.”

  In retrospect, Dick’s encounter with Pearl and Absalom helped him become a different kind of Communist. In a way, it was a perfect example of how God worked. Only the future would reveal the changes that had occurred in Dick. Without knowing it, his horizon had been expanded as God’s light shone on him.

  * * *

  Before my husband left we spent the evening together. His jaw was still tender but I cooked him his favorite meal and we stayed up late into the night discussing our plans. Dick was excited by the journey he was about to take, although we both shed tears at the idea of parting. He promised to come back and fetch me as soon as he was settled. I knew that if I insisted, Dick would stay in Nanking. He would do it for me, even though his heart was already with Mao and his comrades. Dick left me with a quote from Madame Curie: The weak one waits for opportunity while the strong one creates. By opportunity, he meant his dream of a people’s China.

  When I sent my first letter to Dick two months later I had some news to share with my husband. On our last night together we had shared a bed and I had become pregnant. I was thrilled because years before, a doctor had told me after my miscarriage that I would not be able to bear children. I was forty-three years old and Dick forty-six. It was the happiest letter I’ve ever sent.

  Pearl suggested that I start collecting medicine and packing it into bags. She had learned from an American journalist friend who had interviewed Mao that “medicine is the best currency in Yenan.” And besides, I didn’t want to be without medicine for my newborn.

  CHAPTER 22

  The day Papa abandoned his church in Chin-kiang and came to Nanking was the day Pearl sensed that the safety of foreigners in China was a thing of the past.

  Papa told us that the church had been attacked. The Nationalist government was convinced that Communism was a foreign idea, thus the church must be a hiding place for Communists.

  “Dick was fortunate to depart earlier,” Papa said. “He could have been captured and murdered if he had stayed.”

  We learned that all the escape routes from Nanking to inland and coastal cities were now controlled by warlords who had become allies of the Nationalists.

  The city of Nanking showed no sign of what was about to take place as we gathered on Sunday morning at the church. People believed that what had happened in Chin-kiang wouldn’t h
appen here, because Nanking was a capital city and had a number of foreign embassies.

  Absalom led the Bible reading. We studied chapter twenty-seven, Paul’s voyage to Rome. I had difficulty concentrating. I worried about Dick and the safety of the baby inside me. Tracing the words with my finger, I followed Absalom. “And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away . . .”

  As Absalom strained to convince us that God would not let evil win, a young red-haired officer from the American Embassy ran in. He was breathless and drenched in sweat.

  “Yes, sir?” Absalom was annoyed by the interruption. “How can I help you?”

  The officer passed a letter to Absalom and said, “The consul general has ordered the immediate evacuation of all Americans in Nanking.”

  “What is going on?” Absalom put down the Bible.

  “The Chinese government informed us that it has lost control over the spreading chaos.” The officer spoke quickly. “There have been riots in the provinces of Shandong, Anhui, and Jiangsu. Mobs and soldiers have killed foreigners.”

  “We have seen none of this in Nanking,” Absalom responded. “Are you sure our consul general is not making a storm out of a little breeze?”

  “Sir, I must move on,” the officer said and excused himself.

  The church was silent.

  All eyes were on Absalom.

  Absalom gave an unconcerned expression as he picked up the Bible. He turned a page and began to read. His voice was calm, as if nothing had happened. “And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve . . .”

  Absalom asked the crowd to join him, and we followed. “Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar and God hath given thee all them that sail with thee, wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer, for I believe in God . . .”