City of Tranquil Light

by Bo Caldwell

  The colonel stared coolly at me for a long moment. Then he said, “Mu shih, I am well aware of who you are. You and those in the room below will all benefit if you are forthcoming about what you know.”

  For a moment I stood there mute. I understood the words he had used, but not what he was saying until I realized he was accusing me of being a spy. I was exhausted and my judgment lacking, and my first thought was my family’s reaction at home. Will? Our clumsy Will a spy? My response surprised me as much as it surprised the colonel: I laughed.

  The colonel’s expression did not change. “This amuses you,” he said flatly.

  I shook my head and forced myself to focus on where I was. “Forgive my lapse, Colonel. I am fatigued and not myself.” I took a deep breath. “I have lived in Kuang P’ing Ch’eng for eighteen years. I am not here for politics or war. My wife and I came here to serve the people and to tell them of a God who loves them. We knew no one when we came; we now know many of the city’s residents. We have provided them with medical care; we have taken in many children, especially during the famine. We have taught the people about hygiene and the prevention of disease. We have committed no crimes.”

  Colonel Wang nodded and I thought for a moment that our conversation was over. Then he asked, “Is this not exactly the claim a northern spy would make?”

  When I started to answer he stopped me. “We know you are a spy for the northern army. You and those in the room below will benefit if you are forthcoming about what you know.”

  I was stumped; it was almost exactly what he had said the first time. As nearly as I could remember it, I repeated my response.

  We went on that way for some time, back and forth, the colonel repeating his accusation while I repeated my defense. He sometimes added specific questions about the northern army’s supply of ammunition, their casualty rate, and approximately how many troops had been in the area before their retreat, questions for which I had only the vaguest of answers, all of them more guesswork than fact. But he didn’t seem to pay much attention to my responses; he simply kept repeating his accusation and his questions, and I repeated my defense and my guesses.

  By then it seemed the day would never end, but finally, after perhaps an hour, the colonel leaned back in my chair and answered all of his own questions in great detail. He knew his enemy well. When he had finished, he looked at me for a long moment. Whether he was deciding my fate or the fate of our city or thinking about what he would like for dinner I could not tell. He said, “I do not believe you are a northern spy; you do not appear to have the mind for such things, nor do you have the cleverness to tailor the truth. As you yourself have said that you are here to serve the people and that you have not taken sides in my country’s conflict, I am certain you will not mind giving over your compound to my soldiers.”

  Seeing no choice, I nodded grimly.

  He smiled. “Good. This compound is now the property of the Kuomintang. You and your”—he paused for a moment, searching for a word—“what is it they call you, goatherd?”

  “Shepherd.”

  “Ah, yes. A shepherd has a flock. So you and your flock will leave the compound immediately. You may take what you can carry. Nothing more. My soldiers will escort you to the gate.”

  “Colonel Wang, an intelligent man such as yourself must see—” I started, but he waved me away.

  “You are a fortunate man, Kung P’ei Te. You and yours have been spared.” He smiled then. “You may go now and tell them this good news, since you claim that that is what you are here to do.”

  I left the room, but when I was in the hallway, he called me back. “Mu shih, take the potatoes. My men are tired of them, and your provisions will be a welcome change. Consider them a gift from the Kuomintang.”

  I was led back downstairs and into the large hall, where everyone waited. A few kerosene lamps burned, and in the dim light I found Katherine and Chung Hao and Mo Yun and the other leaders of our church and I felt a tightness inside of me loosen a bit at the sight of them. “We may go,” I said tentatively. People looked relieved and began to stand and I corrected myself. “We must go. The southern army has claimed the compound and we have been ordered to leave as quickly as possible. We may take only what we can carry.”

  I instructed the older boys to help the sick to the compound gate, some of them on the straw mats we used as stretchers. Katherine made her way to me and said, “The upstairs cabinet,” and I nodded. Food and clothes we could replace in the city; medical supplies we could not. We hurried upstairs to our cabinet dispensary where we frantically crammed two small suitcases and two large baskets with as much as we could while a soldier stood in the doorway, haranguing us to be done with it and leave.

  Fifteen minutes later, three hundred of us were escorted across the compound yard to the gate. Just before we reached it, I looked back at our home and saw Colonel Wang standing at our bedroom window, watching us as though we were squatters he was glad to be rid of.

  Our compound was a short distance from East Gate, an easy walk on any other day but a difficult journey on that long night. Many of those with us needed help: the children, the elderly, the sick, those who were simply worn down. As we neared the city, the bodies of southern soldiers lay in the fields that surrounded us and the air became thick with ash. The bodies of four northern soldiers hung from the tower at East Gate and there was almost no sound from within the city walls, making me wonder if anyone had survived. The gate was unlocked, an eerie first for night. In the city, dead soldiers lay everywhere, and for several blocks we saw no one. The streets felt so strange that those walking with us who had houses in the city continued on with us, reluctant to go home alone.

  We made our way cautiously toward the yamen. I was hoping many of us could stay in the large hall that the magistrate had allowed us to use for the wounded only a week earlier. As we neared the center of the city, I began to sense movement behind the walls that enclosed people’s homes, but we still saw no one for some distance. At last a gate opened and someone peered cautiously out. I called out, “I am Kung P’ei Te. The battle is over. The army has taken our compound and we are seeking shelter in the city.” As an afterthought I added, “We are unarmed,” and I saw Katherine’s grim but amused look. We were hardly a threat.

  The gate did not move, but I began to see others open ahead of us, and soon people began emerging from their homes, greeting us and telling us of what they had witnessed: the fear and destruction, the torture and death. By the time we reached the yamen, word of our coming had preceded us and the magistrate awaited us. The place was wretched; it had become a morgue, with the slaughtered—the soldiers we had nursed and cared for—lying everywhere, killed in their makeshift beds.

  Two of the large halls in the yamen were empty, and with the magistrate’s permission, we directed the women and children to the hall on the left of the courtyard and the men to the hall near the magistrate’s living quarters. Those who had survived the attack in the city brought food and bedding and clothing, and those who were returning to their homes also brought what they could.

  When I finally lay down late that night on the floor of the yamen, I was grateful to be alive. As I fell asleep a question lingered in my mind: in the compound yard, Katherine had seemed to know the beggar, Hsiao Lao, and I could not understand how this could be. I told myself I would ask her later, but I never did; the tasks at hand overshadowed such a trivial-seeming question, and I soon forgot it.

  February 15, 1928

  We, too, are refugees now, staying at the home of Chung Hao and his brothers and their wives, the same house where we first met Mo Yun. After being booted out of our compound by the victors, Will and I camped out at the yamen for four days then came here. As the southern army has claimed the compound as its own, there is no way of knowing when we will be able to return there. In the meantime we have at least the start of some order to our lives. We have established a schedule of care at the temporary clinic and orphanage at the yamen, and the m
agistrate has granted us permission to hold worship services there for our ragged church. I am astonished at how quickly this battered city has come back to life. Even with the ground still stained with blood, the market is busier each day, and while the people may comment on their fates, they do not complain. Their lack of self-pity inspires and humbles me, and I admire them.

  We have been with Chung Hao and his family for a month now, eleven of us in four rooms. I am grateful to be here, and grateful to have Will beside me. Thirty-four days ago when the southern army reached our compound and Will went out to meet them, I did not think I would see him alive again. As he left the hall and closed the door behind him, I glimpsed my life without him—I glimpsed myself without him—and I did not see how I would bear it, or how I would sit there without speaking as I waited for the sound of shots fired at my husband. I could not breathe, and I felt waves of panic and fear go through me. But because I knew there was far more at stake than Will’s life, I forced myself to stay still.

  Chung Hao stood up then. He walked calmly to the door then turned and faced us, and there was a fierceness about him I had never seen; he looked like a warrior. “If my friend dies today,” he said, his voice strong, “I will die with him. Those who wish to stay here, do so. Those who wish to stand at mu shih’s side, whatever the cost, come.”

  He looked directly at me then, and I have never been so grateful to anyone; his words gave me strength and permission, and I got to my feet. As I did I saw Mo Yun and Lao Chang and the leaders of the church stand, then one after another of our friends. Within moments everyone in the room was standing, and a current of energy ran through us.

  Chung Hao said, “Let us pray,” and the adults dropped to their knees, closed their eyes, and began speaking all at once, as is the custom for prayer here. Their murmuring filled the room. I heard “mu shih” again and again, and as I looked around—I could not help myself—I saw not the fear of only a few minutes before but faith. Then, in the compound yard when the southern commander ordered me to come forward, I knew we were safe, for the beggar who stepped forward was my beggar, the same man who brought us opium for our dying wounded. I didn’t know his name, but I knew he was from God.

  On our second morning here with Chung Hao’s family I rose early to go outside to pray before the day began. It’s so cold that I can’t bear it for long, but even a few minutes of solitude strengthens me. That morning, when I stepped from the house into the courtyard, I thought I sensed someone nearby, and I heard footsteps on the other side of the wall. Fear washed over me and I told myself I was being foolish, but as I started to walk toward the bench against the wall, I tripped on something. My first thought was that it was a body, and I looked down with dread. But when I knelt I found a small basket of eggs, which I had somehow not broken. When I took them inside, our morning became a feast; none of us had felt full for months, but that morning’s breakfast left all of us sated.

  Three days later when I went outside I found a large sack of flour at that same early hour and in that same place, and four days after that a basket of vegetables. There have been more gifts since—pears, noodles, persimmons, steamed buns—and once, the greatest luxury, a tin of English shortbread. After the first deliveries I began to check the doorstep before I retired at night, hoping for a glimpse of the giver. But there is only silence and the empty doorstep in the still night; my benefactor is adept at coming and going undetected, and he seems to know my habits. I have come to understand that I am being watched or, rather, that I am being watched over. I have no idea why, but I do not dwell on it. I accept his gifts gratefully and I pray for him in return.

  In March of 1928, three months after the battle, the southern army vacated our compound. As long lines of exhausted soldiers headed north, I felt I had seen a million men pass by. In the months that followed, the Kuomintang army took Tsinan, the capital of Shantung province, and Peking, the country’s ancient capital. The new government named Nanking as the new capital, and the warlord era seemed to come to an end.

  With the soldiers gone, we reclaimed what was ours and got to work. There was much to be done; our guests had thoroughly ransacked each of the buildings: our home, the clinic, and the orphanage. They broke our windows, hacked down our doors, ripped out the wooden door and window frames, and destroyed our furniture. The few items not deemed worth taking had been thrown on the floor and trampled on, and our carefully stocked pantry had been completely emptied of the onions, squash, carrots, apples, and canned goods that were supposed to sustain us for a year. I was enraged about all of this until I noticed dozens of holes burned into the floors from the charcoal heaters the soldiers used, and I realized that we were fortunate that the whole place hadn’t burned to the ground, with or without intent.

  Appraising the damage was painful, not only because of the hard work it would require but because the time and money required to fix everything meant time and money not spent on our real work. But we got busy. We swept out the dirt and scrubbed the walls and floors with pailfuls of hot soapy water and stiff scrub brushes. We whitewashed every wall, and our home and the other buildings slowly began to look as they had before the war.

  On a cool, breezy afternoon in late April, Katherine and I were whitewashing the last room of the orphanage when Chung Hao appeared and said we had been summoned to the yamen. He did not know why we were needed; he said only that the magistrate desired to see us. This was not unusual, and as there was nothing to do but comply, Katherine and I cleaned ourselves up and walked to the city with Chung Hao and Mo Yun, our hands still ghostly from whitewash.

  It was a beautiful day, the kind of spring afternoon on which the world feels new, and once we were walking on that rutted dirt road I had come to love, I was glad to be in the open air. The winter wheat was nearly ready for harvesting and we were surrounded by fields of deep golden stalks that were almost as tall as Katherine. The breeze blew the plants back and forth in even waves, and I breathed in the scent of ripe wheat. I had no idea why the magistrate would summon us, but I chose not to dwell on it and concentrated instead on the feel of the sun on my back and the unexpected pleasure of taking a walk with my wife and friends.

  When we entered the city through East Gate and turned toward the yamen, the city seemed strangely quiet for late afternoon. We walked by shops whose owners we knew and whom we would usually greet as we passed, but even though it was still afternoon, the shops had been boarded up and no one was in sight. The city’s unusual stillness made me uneasy.

  We turned onto Hsiao Chieh, which ran straight into the yamen, and I heard people talking and laughing, though I still saw no one. The yamen itself was on Te Chieh, and when we reached the entrance I was about to knock at the huge doors but stopped, for as I looked to my right I did not understand what I saw: more people than I could count were sitting at long tables that stretched far down the middle of the narrow street, nearly as far as I could see. Everyone was laughing and talking, and I saw that they were our friends and acquaintances and members of our church, and that the tables were laden with more food than I had seen at one time in many years.

  Suddenly everyone grew silent and I was afraid we had intruded on a private celebration. But then the magistrate came forward and smiled at us, and when he had greeted us, he began speaking loudly.

  “Mu shih and Kung Mei Li,” he said. “I am pleased you have answered my request for your presence.” He paused, waiting for me to answer.

  “We are honored to do so,” I said.

  He then did something he had never done before: he bowed to us. Then he said, “My friends, you have brought western medicine to us, fed our hungry, healed our sick, eased our pain. You have buried our dead, as well as your own. Our debt to you is great, too large for us to repay.” He paused. “But we ask one thing more. Will you do us the honor of being our guests?”

  “Magistrate,” I said, “doing so would give us great joy, as would anything else you asked of us.”

  The magistrate smiled broa
dly and once again faced the citizens of his city. “Let us welcome our friends,” he said, at which people began to cheer and to come forward to greet us.

  We sat down to a feast that was like a grand family dinner. There were platters of whole fish fried in batter, baskets of persimmons and apricots and pears, trays of roast goose, hard-boiled eggs preserved in salt and vinegar. When evening came, lanterns were hung along the storefronts, casting the street in a lovely golden light, and I saw the magistrate signal to one of his servants, who left the celebration. He returned sometime later followed by two men carrying a large object covered with a red cloth. They set it down behind our table.

  The magistrate stood, and when the crowd had quieted, he addressed Katherine and me once again. “Most foreigners left our country for safety before the war; we know that you could have left as well. That you chose to stay honors us deeply, and I present you with this gift, in gratitude for the safekeeping of Kuang P’ing Ch’eng.” He nodded to his servant then, who lifted the red coverlet from the mysterious object, and I was astounded at what I saw. It was a carved chest of chang mu, camphor wood, and although of a common size—approximately two feet high, three feet wide, and two feet deep—I had never seen another like it. I knew it well, for it had been made for the magistrate when he arrived in Kuang P’ing Ch’eng thirty years earlier, and I had often admired it in the yamen. Its top was carved with hydrangeas, a symbol of abundance because of the abundance of the flower’s petals, while the chest’s front, sides, and back depicted Kuang P’ing Ch’eng’s city wall with its uneven turrets and odd curves and corners. Each side of the chest showed one of the wall’s gates, with South Gate on the front, West Gate on the left side, North Gate on the back, and East Gate on the right side.