City of Tranquil Light

by Bo Caldwell

  I paused, amazed that my listeners seemed eager for me to continue.

  “The elders brought the young man and his parents to the grave. They took hold of him and were ready to throw him into the freshly dug earth, but at the last minute,” I said slowly, “at the very last minute, the father leaped to the young man’s side and requested that he be buried with his son.”

  My audience gasped softly.

  “It was this act of the father that at last broke the hard heart of the son. He repented, and both father and son came out alive.”

  The people commented to each other about the rightness of this outcome. I took a breath, and as I looked at the faces of those sitting in front of me, a man sitting on a bench in the second row caught my attention, for he gazed at me with such focus that I found it difficult not to stare back at him just as intently. His appearance was commanding, for even seated, I could see he was tall and very muscular. His face, because it was pockmarked and in some way fierce, reminded me of a lion’s face. I felt hypnotized by him, and he seemed to be drawn to me as well, for he did not take his eyes from me. I had the sense that he was listening with his heart.

  I took a deep breath. “I have come here from my country to tell you the Good News: that there is a God who has this kind of deep love for each of us, the love of a father for his son. This God desired to know us and to be known by us, and His desire was so great that He became man so that He could walk and live among us.”

  A few people nodded, and I was encouraged. I continued, telling of the life of God’s Son, the man called Jesus: Yeh-Su. I told of His birth and of His ministry and the miracles He performed. I told of His death and resurrection, and of His promise to never leave us. The people listened intently, and I thought we might have many potential converts.

  But when I finished, everyone left without a word or a look back, except for the large man in the second row, who stood and approached me. He was indeed tall, well over six feet, which was common in northern China. I looked up at him, already thanking God for his faith and hoping that his size was an indication of his belief. If only one man was going to accept the Lord that day, I thought, at least he was the size of two. “Friend,” I said hopefully, “do you want to know more of this man Jesus?”

  The man shook his head. “Foreign gentleman,” he said eagerly, “what is the cost of your buttons?”

  My spirits fell as I looked down at my chest and understood. Katherine had added leather buttons to my satin jacket, something not seen in China.

  “Come back on the next market day and I will have one for you,” I said finally, an attempt to bring him back for buttons, if not for faith. He smiled slightly and went on his way.

  I went to bed that night not encouraged by my evangelistic efforts, but my discouragement did not linger. Three days later, on the next market day, a morning so crisp and clear I could only feel hopeful, my button man was back, and once again he stared intently at me as I preached. When I finished he came forward and I asked him to come inside so I could give him his button. He nodded agreeably and told me his name—Chu Chung Hao—then followed me across the courtyard and into our home, where he and I sat down together on a bench near the stove. While Katherine served us tea, I gave him a button and sold him a copy of the Gospel of Mark in Mandarin for one copper coin, less than an American penny. We received these tracts at no charge from Bible societies, but we had learned that when we gave them away people used them as doorstops or inner soles for their cotton shoes instead of reading them.

  My button man seemed pleased with his purchase but even more pleased with his button, and I had no doubt that it was the buttons that brought him back the next day and the day after that and so on. As we made our way through Mark’s Gospel, his collection of buttons increased, and at the end of the first week he made an announcement. “Mu shih,” he said, “I have read the testimony of Mark, and I accept what he says as true. I believe in this man Jesus; I have opened my heart to him. What must I do next?”

  I was wary. In Ch’eng An Fu I had seen new converts who went through the motions of faith to gain the rewards of physical comfort, whether that meant food or shelter or care, adding the Christian faith to the combination of the teachings of Confucius, Buddha, and Lao-tzu that comprised their religion, hoping that belief in Christ might improve the mix. Perhaps this man’s question was not a matter of the soul but of buttons.

  “Have you given this adequate thought, Chu Chung Hao? Do you understand what your decision means?”

  He nodded.

  “You do not think it hasty?” I was aware that I was doing exactly the opposite of what I had come to China to do. Here was a man who desired to come to Christ, and I was the barrier, not the entryway. Still I went on. “It has been only a few days since you first heard of Christ.”

  “Mu shih,” he said, and I heard the sadness in his tone. He looked down as he spoke, and he seemed ashamed. “I have been unhappy for many years. My home is full of strife, as is my heart, and my days are difficult and without joy. But since I heard you speak, my soul is host to a strange new peace. I am no scholar, but you say that only this is required: that I believe in this man Jesus, which I do. I have accepted Him in my heart as you suggested, and I am already changed inside.”

  As I listened to his testimony, I was amazed at his belief. “Chu Chung Hao,” I said, “you have been given the gift of faith. You are truly blessed.”

  December 1, 1909

  We have a new member of our household—Will’s first convert has come to live with us. Until now he has earned his living by teaching a kind of Oriental self-defense, but two weeks ago he told Will that he has grown tired of fighting and that it saddens his Lord. He said that if he lived with us here he could be of use: he could get water and coal for us, and buy our food, and cook our meals. Will said yes; he somehow did not think it necessary to discuss the idea with me first. Perhaps he thought it unimportant; I don’t know. Marriage is not as easy as it looks.

  I understand the logic of this arrangement; I understand what Will means when he says we are fortunate to have Chu Chung Hao with us, that he will be a great help both in understanding the culture and in people’s acceptance of us. I also understand that Chu Chung Hao must have experienced a great change of heart to alter his life as he has. And I understand that what’s done is done.

  But this giant of a man moving in with us came as quite a surprise, and I am struggling to adapt. It is strange enough to be a newlywed; even stranger to be a newlywed in a foreign city in a foreign land where I know almost no one; and stranger still to have someone I do not know living with us. When I greet these two men each morning I sometimes feel that I’m the newcomer who has moved in with them. Chu Chung Hao is only two years older than Will, and even though they’ve known each other for only a few weeks, they seem as comfortable with each as old dogs, so much so that it’s a little disconcerting.

  I meanwhile am a little afraid of our new housemate. He is an imposing man—tall, lean, powerful-looking, and at first glance frightening in his strength. His name fits him: Chu is the last name of an emperor of the Ming dynasty, Chung means loyal, and Hao means heroic or bold. The combination of the words describes him well: he has a noble bearing, and he seems both loyal and heroic. He is also strangely graceful; he moves so quietly and calmly that it is like living with a leopard. Yesterday when we were in the city square I was listening to the lungs of a stooped old man. When he saw Chu Chung Hao standing beside Will, the old man nodded solemnly toward Chu Chung Hao and said matter-of-factly, “That one can kill a man with his hands as easily as you wipe your brow.”

  But sitting at our table and sharing our meals with him, I see a kind face and dark eyes that are full of sorrow. I sense a gentle soul and a sweet nature, and I pray that my misgivings will ease.

  In return for room and board and modest pay, Chu Chung Hao did much for us. Each morning he did the day’s marketing and brought water from the city well for drinking, cooking, bathing, and
laundry. He arranged for coal to be delivered and he cleaned and replenished our kerosene lamps and trimmed their wicks. He prepared meals that were simple but good and he made our donation to the beggar king, a kind of required extortion in the city. Had he not, we would have been harassed by beggars and pickpockets every hour of the day.

  Although Chu Chung Hao cautioned us that he was not a scholar and that perhaps someone else would be better suited for the task, he also gave us our Chinese names. The surname was to be a Chinese name that began with the first letter or syllable of our English name, Kiehn. It was also desirable for the name to have a good connotation. For our family name, Chu Chung Hao chose the name Kung, the family name of Confucius and therefore a choice that honored us deeply. Given names consisted of two characters that described some pleasing and admirable quality to be attained, if not already a part of the bearer’s character. My given name was P’ei Te; p’ei means great, te means to attain. Together they mean “he who will attain greatness.” Katherine’s name was Mei Li, which means “beautiful strength.”

  Chung Hao had been with us for several weeks when, at dinner one evening, I asked him the question that had been much on my mind. “You have never married, Chung Hao?”

  “I am married,” he said simply. He did not look up from his bowl.

  “Is your wife dead?” I asked, and I was aware of a quick look from Katherine at the bluntness of my phrasing.

  He shook his head. “No,” he said, still not meeting my eyes. “She is most certainly alive. She lives in my home with my brothers and their wives.”

  This surprised me. “Why have you left her?”

  He shook his head again. “Ta tai ko,” he said—She is too fierce. “She has a temper that she uses like a weapon. That is why I wanted the buttons—as gifts, to soothe her.” Still he looked down at his bowl. “But her spirit is angry and I am alone. A frozen heart is a great sorrow, mu shih.”

  “Is there not some path of reconciliation between the two of you? Is she as fierce as that?”

  “That cannot be known. She treats me as though she despises me, and she despises herself.”

  “What is the source of her anger?”

  Chung Hao paused. “We have buried three children,” he said finally. “Two were stillborn; the third died one month after birth. My wife believes she is at fault. After each death she has refused to eat for many days, hoping to join our children in the next world. Time has hardened her sorrow into anger.”

  “We will pray for her,” I said, and he nodded halfheartedly. He did not seem convinced it would help.

  Two weeks later on an early morning in late December there was a knock on our bedroom door. When I opened it I found Chung Hao standing in the doorway and I could see he was distraught. “Mu shih,” he said quickly, “my wife is ill. She has taken a large dose of opium, with the intention of ending her life.”

  “When?”

  He shook his head. “I do not know the hour. My brother came for me in the night.”

  “How far is your home?”

  Chung Hao pointed to the west. “An hour’s walk across the city.”

  I said, “Take us there.”

  Chung Hao nodded, his expression pained.

  I closed the door and looked at Katherine; she was already dressing. “If she dies while we’re there, they’ll blame us,” I said. “Even if we haven’t done anything.”

  She did not look up. “I know what to do.”

  Soon the three of us were walking quickly through the city in the soft gray light of early morning, Chung Hao leading us through narrow back lanes to avoid the market-day throng that was already gathering. We did not speak as we walked. The morning was extremely cold, more like the middle of winter than the start of it. To warm her hands Katherine carried a fire basket, a bamboo basket with a saucer of live coals inside. I had not thought to wear my hat, a lapse I sorely regretted. Chung Hao, walking evenly and easily at my side, seemed unaffected by the cold.

  When we had walked for nearly an hour, we reached the western part of the city and turned down a lane that looked like all the others, lined with small windowless mud-brick homes with tile roofs. Chung Hao pointed to the last house. “There,” he said.

  Inside it was so dark that I couldn’t see for several moments, and although I was aware that there were other people in the room I couldn’t immediately make them out. As my eyes adjusted, I saw the k’ang in the middle of the room. There was a wooden chest at the end of it and a bench against the wall. A large black kettle sat on the stove in the corner, where two men whom I guessed to be Chung Hao’s brothers stood motionless. They looked to be nearly as tall as Chung Hao, but of slighter frames. Their wives were not in sight.

  A woman covered with several quilts lay on the k’ang. She looked far older than Chung Hao. Her long black hair was loose around her face, which was haggard and pale and covered in perspiration. Her cheekbones protruded sharply, her eyes were sunken. Had I not seen her chest moving with her labored breathing, I would have thought her dead.

  Chung Hao motioned to the men in the corner. “My brothers,” he said. “They will bring you whatever you need.” The men said nothing, but only nodded uncertainly, their fear of us evident.

  “When did she take the opium?” Katherine asked. She was leaning close to the woman, holding her thin wrist and searching for her pulse.

  “It has been more than a few hours,” one of the brothers said, in the vague way of the people in that place.

  Katherine looked at me and said in English, “If she’s not in a coma we have a chance. She has to move around.”

  With Katherine on one side and me on the other, we were able to wake the woman and get her upright. Once she was standing, her padded blue cotton jacket and trousers hung on her as if her body were no more than a few bones strung together, and when I took her hand, it was like cold metal. She looked so frail that I doubted she could support herself, but as she grew alert she began to fight us off, and I saw I had underestimated her and that we were in for a battle.

  Katherine nodded as we forced our patient to begin walking. “Answered prayer. Her fighting will save her.”

  Despite the woman’s efforts to resist us, we were able to lead her in circles in the middle of the dark room, holding her between us. After many small laps, the woman cursing us bitterly and ordering Chung Hao to make these foreign devils leave, Katherine asked for a cup of warm salt water. When one of Chung Hao’s brothers brought it, we led the woman to the k’ang and seated her on the edge of it. Katherine held the cup to the woman’s lips, but the woman pressed her lips together and shook her head. Katherine asked pleasantly, “May we have some chopsticks, please?” and when they were brought, she used them to pry the woman’s mouth open. Then, as the woman fought and struggled against us, Katherine poured the salt water down the woman’s throat.

  It was a success: within minutes the woman’s stomach rebelled and the results were abundant, with a great mess to be cleaned up. In the middle of the foulness and the woman’s moaning and cursing, Katherine smiled confidently. “More walking,” she said brightly. “I believe we are winning her back.”

  The chill from our walk there was long gone, for this saving work was strenuous, and as we walked the woman around and around the room I was soon as warm as if I had been working outside for hours. Presently she was alert enough to walk unaided, but Katherine was not yet convinced that all was well. Another treatment was needed, she said, and she took a long feather from the bag of supplies she had brought with her, then addressed the woman again.

  “Sit down and open your mouth wide,” she said, but despite the authority in her tone and manner, the woman refused. So once again, as I held the woman still, Katherine used the chopsticks to pry the woman’s mouth open, then poked the feather inside. Again it produced results and was a success; much more had to be cleaned up.

  The woman sank to the floor, exhausted. Chung Hao’s sisters-in-law had entered the room, and while they got to wor
k cleaning up the mess, Katherine knelt next to the woman and gently wiped her face with a damp towel.

  I turned to Chung Hao. He stood back several yards, shaken and afraid, watching his wife. “She will recuperate,” I said. “She only needs rest.”

  He nodded slightly, then walked to his wife, knelt in front of her, and spoke to her in a whisper we could not understand. She gazed up at him for a moment and then began to weep softly.

  Wanting the two of them to have some kind of privacy, Katherine and I busied ourselves with cleaning up. Katherine asked for a basin of water, and we washed our hands and dried them with a towel she had brought. I was amazed at all that had happened, but Katherine acted as though this were any other day.

  Finally Chung Hao stood. He asked his sisters-in-law to care for his wife and said he would see us home. I accepted his offer without hesitating; I knew I was not familiar enough with the city to find our way.

  The three of us retraced our steps in silence. The days had grown short and the sun was nearly gone, the shops already shuttered tight. I hadn’t realized we had been there so long, and while I was tired and suspected that Katherine was far beyond that, I felt deeply content. I thought briefly of my family in Oklahoma: I pictured gifts and a tree decorated with lighted candles and a fire in the hearth, and I felt a quick stab of longing. But it lasted only an instant, for although there were no lights or decorations in our city’s dark streets, it was still Christmas Eve, and we were blessed.

  February 25, 1910

  Now we are four: Chung Hao’s wife, Chu Mo Yun, has joined us, the same woman who ingested opium with the hope of ending her life. Early one morning a month after her unsuccessful attempt I found her in our kitchen with Chung Hao, helping him to prepare breakfast, and when they heard me enter, they turned and she bowed to me. In the weeks since I first saw her, she was much changed. Her color was good and her hair was neatly coiled at her neck and held there with a silver fastener. She wore a clean jacket and trousers and was a little less skeletal. Sewn down the front of her short padded jacket were the black leather buttons that Will had given Chung Hao.