The Ginger Tree

by Oswald Wynd

  I was beginning to be really curious about this incantation to the dawn. It might be one of the priests displaced from his temple now camping out in the woods until the foreign devils had gone back to the city and he could once again say his prayers under a roof. I moved carefully, kicking no stones, the drone becoming more prominent as that first rush of bird sound died down. The path levelled out, with an offshoot from it leading to another painted temple like ours, except much smaller and with what had once been its garden even more of a ruin. On a rocky outthrust, hidden from the path below and only just visible when I was a little way above him, sat the worshipper.

  He was facing the sunrise, sideways to me, and completely unaware of anyone on the path, a man with the cropped head of a priest and in a white robe which is a colour you only expect to see for mourning in China. I recognised the Buddhist posture for prayer, the seated on lotus leaf position, legs tucked in tailor fashion, hands held palms together in front of his chest at about waist level, the drone of the chanting not broken by regular, low bows. There was something lying beside him on a straw mat which I couldn’t make out until I had gone a little higher. It was a crutch.

  Suddenly I thought I knew what that crutch meant: a leper. He wore the white of death while putting up another hopeless petition that a new day might bring him some relief. Leprosy still produces a kind of panic in me in spite of all you hear about it being a very slow contagion. The most dreadful thing about the disease is that long-drawn-out destruction of the body while the mind remains intact. I had the panic thought that summer visitors to these temples might be coming to a secret leper colony and that it wasn’t priests who cleared out temporarily to provide holiday homes.

  The man moved, the prayer pose suddenly abandoned. I watched quite frozen while he groped for the crutch with one hand, remembering then how some of these cripples from the disease can still move with astonishing speed. There is a horrible story about a leper beggar suddenly getting up and chasing a European woman, catching hold of her with his good hand and laughing as he rubbed the crumbling stump of what had been his other hand against the bare flesh of her arm.

  I had the sensation then you get in wild dreams, of wanting to run from a horror, but being unable to move, and while I stood there the man in white somehow managed to stand on one leg, propping himself up on the crutch while he bent over to roll up the straw mat. It seemed almost to be a drill, as though he had practised all the necessary movements, none wasted, and it was only when he had straightened, with the mat under one arm that I saw what he was wearing was a Japanese kimono. The sun caught a scar on one side of his head. It was Count Kurihama. I am sure he didn’t see me as he swung himself up towards the little temple. He never looked in my direction.

  I have not told Marie or Armand that one of the heroes of the Russo-Japanese war is living just up the hill from us. I don’t really know why I am being secretive about this. It may be from a feeling that the man in the white robe would not wish to come to a picnic dinner-party given in his honour. Armand, coming back from one of his botanical expeditions, may well meet the Count, in which case his privacy will be ended, but I am not going to bring that about. I was back here lying on my camp bed by the time I heard Armand setting out for one of his early morning walks. The rats usually go silent as it becomes light, but this morning they went into a great flurry of activity, plus loud squeaking. Though they don’t seem to come down into the rooms I am always nervous about one of them getting at Jane under the tight mosquito netting stretched over her cot, and I got up again to have a look at her, quietly pushing open the sliding door.

  Meng was asleep in a corner between two quilts but even through the mesh of the net I could see that Jane had her eyes open. She sometimes comes awake like this and instead of at once crying for her feed, just lies perfectly still looking up at the ceiling. It could have been the rats that wakened her, but if she had been frightened she would have cried. There was plenty of light, and Jane must have seen me bending over the cot, but I had the feeling she did not want to be picked up, was neither hungry nor in need of comfort. Sometimes, like this, Jane does not suggest the helpless infant at all. Only a few days ago Marie said something that quite disturbed me: ‘You know, I have seen your baby lying laughing at her own jokes.’ Perhaps they are Collingsworth jokes. Jane is going to be as fair as Richard.

  Western Hills

  September 13th, 1904

  All the time we have been here Marie and Armand have insisted on using English, at least in my presence, which means most of the day. They say this is practice for Washington. His accent is much less noticeable than hers, he seems to have trained himself to be able to think in English, too. With Marie you have to wait sometimes while she chooses the right word for the French one in her mind. Armand says that, next to the British, the French are the most arrogant people in the world about learning other languages. According to him, the real reason why Napoleon wanted to conquer us was that he was certain God speaks French and it was therefore maddening for him to know that across only twenty miles of channel were the British who had no doubts at all that the Almighty had always used English to communicate with man, even when He was dictating the tablets of the Law to Moses.

  I find Armand most entertaining, more so really than Marie. He never fights to rule the conversation like his wife, but waits for the right moment to say something, and when he does it often stings with wit. Mama would be outraged by almost everything Armand says and at first I, too, was a little shocked at times. But no longer. He has a warm heart. I think he finds me restful, perhaps because I do not advertise myself. I really have nothing to advertise.

  Now they are quarrelling, in French. It is noisy, but I am sure that anger for both of them does not go deep. When Richard and I disagree we don’t say much, but there is a column of coldness in me and in him, too, because I can feel it. It is better to shout at each other. Marie wants back at once to Peking and people again, she is utterly bored stuck in a temple in the Chinese hills where the only excitement is some kind of new leaf from a prehistoric tree. Armand has just told her that she will return to the city when he thinks it is right that she should, and not a minute before. It sounds as though she has upset the table on which her patience cards were set out. I think I had better go for a walk.

  In the evening

  There is something wrong with the wick of this lamp, it keeps smoking and blackening the chimney. I went my walk. Count Kurihama’s temple looked deserted as I passed. It is the highest of all, the last building on this hill. Up there the winter winds have stunted the trees and I saw a pine with its branches touching the ground, like arms put down for support. It was very hot this afternoon but I went on climbing to get the view back over the plains to Peking, for I have been told you can sometimes see the sinking sun reflected in such a way that it looks as though the city was burning. Flies kept me company and a horrible, much bigger insect repeatedly swept down like a kestrel on its prey, some relation of what we call a cleg in Scotland, but even more vicious. I was wearing a white canvas hat with a floppy brim but could have done with more shelter from the glare, which seemed to radiate off the leaves and the very earth of the path. I have given up carrying a parasol in China. There are times when these are useful, but I think we look so silly holding the frilled-edged things over our heads, especially when riding in rickshas from which they stick up in Chinese street traffic like flags of identification. I took with me one of Armand’s sticks because I have no intention of meeting another snake on these paths without some weapon.

  The end of the trees and the point from which I could get my view was probably less than half a mile beyond the last temple, but it felt more in that heat and because of the steep climb. I came around a clump of wind-flattened rhodys to find Count Kurihama half leaning, half standing against a rock outcrop, as though he was taking from it as little support as possible. His crutch was propped beside him but he wasn’t touching it. He must have been hearing my coming for some mi
nutes.

  I didn’t need to imagine how I was looking, my face moist, and not just my face, either. He had obviously been standing for some time where the breeze reached him, hatless, his face very brown except for the white scar. His dress was almost formal, a white pongee suit, light enough, but with a button up to the neck collar which gave it the look of a uniform. The only casual things about him were his shoes, white canvas with rubber soles. I could see that most of his weight was on one leg, though the other was still put quite firmly on the ground.

  I might have pretended complete astonishment that he was here in the Western Hills, but have no confidence in myself as an actress, so all that happened was a polite exchange of good-afternoons as though we had been neighbours meeting when one of us was out to post a letter. I then said that it was very hot and moved into the shade of the rock, though some distance from him. My heart was thumping from the exertion of the climb and I used one of the large men’s handkerchiefs that I now always carry in the hot weather, patting my forehead and cheeks. The view I had come to see was hidden by a haze.

  It was a shock when the Count suddenly apologised for having said his prayers at a point so near the path, thus disturbing my early walk. He had not thought European ladies came out alone to see the sunrise. I don’t know whether he was mocking me or not. I said that we had heard about his wound and hoped it wasn’t troubling him too much now. He said no, it was nothing. Without looking at him, I asked where he had been hit. The wound was in his upper leg, made by a piece of shrapnel, but all that was necessary now for a complete cure was exercise. He added that it was shameful for a soldier to live in idleness while others were fighting for their Emperor. I wondered why he had come to China instead of convalescing in Japan and his answer was that he hated hospitals and rest homes. Also, he wanted to be quite alone for some time in order to offer prayers of apology to the men under his command who had died. It might not have been necessary for so many of them to die if he had given better orders.

  During all this we didn’t look at each other, or at least I didn’t look at him, and I am sure that he, too, was staring down at the plain. I had never heard of a soldier sending messages to the spirits of those killed under his command asking to be forgiven for his errors as their leader. It seemed wild and strange to me, but it also suggested a kind of brotherhood that was utterly different from the way in which I have heard Richard speak of the men under him when he was with the regiment. Perhaps this is the secret of Japanese success against the Russians, that military rank does not prevent a man from being one in spirit with all those serving the same cause.

  We began then to talk about the war, or rather I asked questions and he answered them. He has no doubt at all that, in spite of the huge numbers of men the Russians are sending east via the Trans-Siberian railway, the withdrawal on Moukden indicates their complete defeat soon. He said the defensive war is always the lost war, and that any lines drawn up just to hold the enemy’s attack mean inevitably that the enemy will break through. He has complete contempt for the way the Russian fleet has refused to do battle, mostly staying hidden in Port Arthur. The rumours of a huge new Russian fleet coming from Europe do not trouble him, either; he says that if it ever arrives in these waters Admiral Togo will sink all their ships. The arrogance of that was a strange contrast to his humbleness over the men under him who had died.

  I was sure his leg was giving him pain, but that he would never show the slightest sign of this in front of me. I thought of the rough path he had to use to get back to his temple, but knew what he would say if I offered to give him help down it. I said that I would have to be getting back and that I was staying with Armand and Marie. He showed no interest in them. I did not think he had any interest in me until I had said goodbye and was already on the path down, with my back to him. He called out: ‘Mrs Collingsworth, please come to tea tomorrow afternoon.’

  He would never have issued such an invitation to a Japanese wife. Perhaps they think we are all loose women at heart.

  Western Hills

  September 14th

  God forgive me, I went to him. I have no excuse for myself. He kept saying ‘Good, good?’ making this a question. I did not really answer him, but I wanted to. All I can think of in this madness that has taken me is his body. Armand and Marie still do not know he is here. I won’t tell them. I will never tell anyone. We have five more days. His name is Kentaro.

  Western Hills

  September 17th

  I stayed too long today. I’m sure Armand is beginning to wonder about my walks, always taken in the heat of the afternoon. Supposing he should decide to have a look at the empty temple above ours, in case there were some interesting plants in its old garden? He may have done this. We would not have known if he had.

  Western Hills

  September 18th

  I think Armand knows. There are a number of ways he could have found out. Kentaro has supplies delivered to his temple only once a week, but a pack mule came up yesterday, past our temple. Armand was out walking at the time and could easily have seen where it went. I cannot look at him. I don’t think he has told Marie. I am certainly not going to stay with them in Peking, I could not. I am glad they go to America soon. Kentaro and I have only one more day. It is impossible for us to meet in Peking, and he is only to be there for a short time before he goes back to Korea for headquarters duty until he is fit for the front again. I can only pray that the war is over by then. His leg still hurts him badly. He has never let me see the wound, always with a fresh bandage on when I come. I do not know whether this is love. I do not know.

  Western Hills

  September 19th

  Our last day. I did not care if I stayed too long. I did not care how Armand looked at me when I got back, or Marie. Kentaro sat out on the verandah wearing only a loincloth, his bandaged leg thrust out in front of him. After a while I put on the cotton kimono he gave me to use and went to him. He had a sheet of white paper flat on the boards and was using a long brush dipped in black ink for the sweeping strokes of Chinese characters. When I asked what he was writing he said a poem. After he seemed to have finished I asked for a translation. He said the poem was not one he should have been writing in this place. I wanted to know what he meant by that and he told me he had come here to prepare himself for duty. He had broken solitude. I asked if he was ashamed of this and he said not as much as he should be. It was like having riddles given back instead of answers. I asked again for a translation of the poem and in careful printing, as though he needed this to help him, he wrote down the Japanese words in English letters. Afterwards, taking a long time, he used the brush again to write the English words:

  Kono yama no ura ni At the back of this mountain

  Uguwisu no uta The song of the nightingale,

  Myonichi hidoi kaze Tomorrow will there only be

  Narimasho? The violent wind?

  I began to cry. He caught hold of me and said: ‘Do not cry, Mary.’ I cannot believe that we will never meet again. I cannot believe that today is today and tomorrow is nothing. It must not happen like that. What can we do?

  I came back down the hill carrying his poem rolled like a scroll. He did not watch me go, turning back into the temple. It was nearly sunset. When I got here the trees were shadowing the verandah but I could see the glow of Marie’s cigarette from one of the chairs. No one called out to me.

  I went by a side way to my room and sat on the camp bed looking at a wall. Next door Meng was singing to Jane, a harsh voice that sounds as if the vocal cords had been strained at some time, but the baby seems to like it. The singing became softer as Jane showed signs of going to sleep. I waited for Marie to come in to say how disgusted they were with me, but she did not. It was Armand who called me to supper. We had it on the card table with the usual two candles stuck in bottles which Marie says are better than the glaring lamp. Armand mixed the salad and made the dressing as carefully as usual. I did not try to explain why I had been away from two until ne
arly six, saying very little. The talk between them was in French, mostly Marie going on about what they would and would not take to Washington. I ought to beg them not to talk about me in the Legation Quarter before they go. I don’t think they will, but I have spoiled a friendship. If there was any explanation I would give it, but I have none for myself.

  I am afraid to put out this light and lie back. If only there was something you could do to make yourself numb.

  We did not have any wine at supper, the champagne is finished. I want away from these hills. I will never come back to them again. I must blot out the picture of a path climbing through bamboo. I must never say a name. I must never say it. I will not look at the scroll.