Karin stared at him and, to everyone's amazement, burst into tears.
May knew Karin's bedtime ritual: She would pull on a flannel nightgown, wash her face, and then rub it with a clean, lemon-smelling creme. She would do a few situps, brush her hair and plump her pillows and prepare to read for an hour or so, however long it took to make her sleepy. May listened, and when she knew Karin was in bed knocked on her door.
"Time to talk, luv," she said with what she hoped passed for a cockney accent.
Karin grinned. "Sam was right. I was being bitchy. I don't know why."
"Don't you?"
"Well . . . yes . . . at least I have an idea . . ."
"Tell me."
May settled in at the foot of the bed, while Karin sat up straight, clasped her hands together, and began to talk.
"It's so odd, May. I went over to the house this morning and let myself in. It's the housekeeper's day off and no one was there. It was the first time I'd been in the house alone, and it was just very . . ." the words came out slowly . . . "lovely. Peaceful. I felt so content, so calm. For a long time I just stood there and looked and loved the way it made me feel. Safe. I guess that was part of it, peaceful and safe and substantial, sort of. The way Philip makes me feel.
"Everything was in perfect order, except that Thea had left a pink sweater hanging on the back of the chair next to the phone. I can't tell you why, but it seemed almost heartbreakingly sweet to me— that crumpled little sweater. Then I went upstairs, into the master bedroom. Philip had asked me to pick up a package for him—but the package turned out to be a present for me. One of those big brown and white I. Magnin boxes was in the middle of the bed, and he'd left a note." She paused, sighed, attempted a smile.
"I guess I expected some sort of designer dress, something like that. But it was a pair of grey wool slacks, a matching cashmere sweater, and a paisley Liberty silk scarf."
May widened her eyes. "Did they fit?"
"Perfectly." She pursed her lips. "Philip knows my measurements. He's very thorough."
"I'll bet," May said, and they both laughed a little.
"I tried them on, and pulled my hair back with the scarf and took a good look at myself in the mirror. Then I read the note Philip had left, and decided I had better think about it. So I folded the new clothes and put them back in the box, then I pulled my old jeans back on, and that orange Indian tunic with the little mirrors and embroidery, and my moccasins, and left."
"The note," May prompted.
"The note," Karin repeated, grimacing. "I think it was meant to be a joke, in fact I'm sure of it. But the kind of joke that makes a point. I don't remember all of it, but there were two lists: 'Ward Don'ts' and 'Ward Do's.'
"Some of them were very sweet: Do Kiss Hello when reentering room, that kind of thing. And 'Don't fail to wake me if you wake in the night' . . . But there were some others."
"Like?"
"Like, don't wear red shoes, and do read the New Republic and The Statesman and don't bite your fingernails."
"Don't bite your fingernails? Just like that?"
"No, not just like that. He knows it's a real problem but he believes that once we're married I'll feel secure and then it will just be a bad habit that needs to be broken. I don't think it's going to be that easy."
"So that's what is bothering you?"
"Partly that. Mostly, it's knowing that Philip has this plan, this way of living, and that if our marriage is going to work I will have to fit into it. And I want to, May. I love everything about his life—I adore Thea and Dan, and I know I can be good for them. I want so much to be part of it, I'm just not sure I can . . . I looked so different in those slacks, with my hair pulled back. I almost convinced myself that I could do it, could pull it off. And then, right in front of the mirror, I started biting my fingernails! Right there!"
May started laughing, she couldn't help it. "I'm sorry," she said, "I know this is anything but funny but I can just see you doing that . . . you always did, you know. Bite your fingernails when you were anxious. Why is that so terrible? It seems to me it's a whole lot healthier than smoking or drinking or shooting heroin. I mean, who are you hurting except your cuticles?"
Karin sat for a moment staring, then with both hands she slowly pulled the pillow from behind her and took a full hard swipe at May. May lunged, grabbed the other pillow and the two of them hit and laughed and laughed and hit until they were exhausted, and fell gasping across the bed.
"Follow me," Kit said as she flicked her horse into a trot. May breathed in the warm, dry air and was glad to be back on the southern California ranch where her father and Kit had been born, and where they had grown up. She nudged the chestnut mare and followed Kit up a path which headed into the mountains. They rode for the better part of an hour, single file along a narrow path cut through a wide, grassy meadow, then up into the hills, into the welcome shade of an old eucalyptus grove. Kit stopped, turned, and when she saw the beads of sweat dripping down May's face said, "Am I setting too fast a pace?"
"No!" May laughed. "You're just a much better rider than I am—Phinney touts himself as the world's best trainer of riders, but Phinney could take some lessons from you."
Kit pulled her horse around, to come alongside May. "Your dad and I spent a good part of our childhood roaming these hills—I get carried away every time I come back. Let's rest awhile."
As Kit rummaged in her pack for the Thermos, May studied her: She was wearing a pair of worn jodhpurs that had gone out of style long ago, riding boots that were well oiled but cracked with age, and a plain white shirt. For an instant that morning, as Kit had set about saddling her horse, May glimpsed the girl she had been: small, boyishly built, intense. As the early morning light played through the stand of oaks that shaded the ranchyard, May suddenly understood what life must have been like long ago when all of this land for as far as you could see, all the way to the ocean, had belonged to Kit's mother, before Kit had been forced to sell off large tracts to save any of it.
"Wait a minute," Kit had called, running back into the barn. She came out carrying a shapeless felt hat which she slapped against her hip to get the dust out: "This was your dad's riding hat. You'll need it."
Now May dismounted, pulled off the old hat, and with the back of her wrist felt the sweat that had accumulated around her forehead, where the band had been.
"I've never seen this part of the ranch," May said, sipping the cold water. "When Dad and I were here we never went riding . . ."
"I know," Kit said, "he was worried about his heart—that something might happen when the two of you were out alone."
May looked up to the softly curving hills that rose to the west, long green winter grass dotted with tiny flowers. "I didn't realize he knew that early—about his heart, I mean."
"He didn't want you to know. He thought you already had enough to handle. I remember Porter telling me once that he would give anything if he could give you the kind of childhood we had here, on the ranch."
"And I remember you came down when I was here, and wanted to take me riding and I wouldn't go."
Kit looked at her, smiled gently. "You had every reason in the world to be angry, May. Your mother left you and your father was fighting for his life. I remember feeling so . . . damned . . . impotent . . ."
May reached for the Thermos and touched Kit's hand. To change the subject, Kit asked, "What did you decide about Philip and Karin?"
May lay her head back on the saddle and wet her lips with the water. "Well, I decided I wouldn't be breaking any faith with Karin by not telling her about you and Philip. And I guess I've decided that the marriage might be good for K. I had some doubts, and I think Karin does too, we had a long talk about them the other night. She knows the kind of life he lives, and the part she will be playing. She's convinced me that she really does want it. She only worries that she isn't up to being the wife of the dazzling Philip Ward. I have a lot more confidence in her than she has in herself . . . and Philip d
oes too. I think he can make her happy."
"I'm glad," Kit said, tightening the cinch on her saddle. "Let's ride for a while longer—there's a place over the hill there where your dad and I always stopped for a picnic."
The climb took the better part of an hour, but now Kit set a slower pace and May could look about, could breathe in all of the wide country—the fresh tangle of grasses and animal sweat, the steady blue of the sky at midday, the dry rasping calls of insects rising from the warm earth, interrupted by a sudden sharp bird song from above. She lifted her face for the sun to warm, and opened her eyes to see Kit waiting on the crest of the hill ahead.
"Behold the wide Pacific," she said, arm outraised.
May stared: They were on a knoll overlooking the ocean which stretched, empty and blue and perfectly calm, to the far horizon. For a moment she thought she could no longer breathe. "Dear God," she finally whispered.
"It's as close as you'll get to Him on this Earth," Kit answered, laughing as she dismounted. "I've been aching to bring you here . . ."
May stood, hands limp at her sides, unable to speak. Kit led the horses off, tethered them, and busied herself with lunch. "Hardboiled eggs, tomatoes, cold fried chicken legs, a Thermos of fresh lemonade made from Meyer lemons, and Trinidad's tortillas. Josepha makes them almost as good as her mother did. This was our favorite trail lunch, your dad's and mine."
They ate in silence. May's eyes continually scanning the wide horizons of land and water. Kit leaned back to rest against a large rock, enjoying the warmth of it through her blouse. She began in a soft voice that seemed to May to have a small echo, as if coming from a long distance:
"I think I knew from the moment I saw your mother that a marriage would be disastrous for both of them. I understood perfectly well how he could love her—she was exquisitely beautiful . . . not pretty, but beautiful . . . that extraordinary bone structure, that's where you got those wonderful high cheek bones . . . But more than that, too. Her face was very animated, you could look into her eyes and see how bright she was.
"She was also very Chinese and extremely traditional. Honor was more important than love. Porter knew this, but I don't think he ever grasped how firmly Ch'ing-Ling was committed to it. Then too, like most Chinese she felt herself superior to Westerners. She was a member of the ruling class so democracy did not make much sense to her. The point is, she was repelled by so many things in this country, though she tried hard to hide these feelings because she didn't want to offend us. And then she became quite homesick for China. All of this happened before she found out about Porter and the nurse. For Ch'ing-Ling there was no margin for error.
"I think there was never any way that she could have been happy here. Your father agreed, you know. He understood the Chinese well enough, and he knew she would not change her mind. Even so, he wanted to go after her, to talk to her—for your sake more than anything. He knew you would want some answers and he thought you deserved them. But by then he wasn't allowed to travel abroad." She sat quietly for a time, thinking. Then finally she looked up at a hawk gliding overhead, riding parallel on the wind, close enough that it seemed possible almost to reach up and touch it. "We did manage to get some information. We were able to keep track of her until the Communists took over. And then something strange happened. Most of her relatives went to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek, but your mother stayed behind. For a while she was in Shanghai, then she moved out to a village far out in the countryside, in one of the most primitive provinces. . . ."
May's eyes had been following the hawk, but now her body tensed. She put her head on her knees and began to shiver uncontrollably in the noonday heat.
Kit, alarmed, put her arms out and May moved instinctively into them. Kit stroked her and whispered calming words . . . "It's all right, darling, it's all right . . ." Finally the shaking stopped, and Kit kissed her forehead and asked, delicately, "What was it dear? What happened?"
May sat up, wiped her forehead with the dampened handkerchief Kit gave her. When she could speak her voice quivered: "It's so strange," she managed, "but until this moment, until you told me where she was, I had never really thought of her as being . . . alive. She was my mother, and I knew she existed, once, but I guess I didn't really know it. Until now. That she is somewhere out there—" she looked out to the sea, flat and vast—"right now, breathing and talking and being . . . and she has been there all along, my mother." She put her head down again, and sobbed, and Kit let her, knowing it was good for May to cry, knowing it was the first step. And while she waited for May to spend herself, she looked up at the wheeling hawk and thought about her own mother, who had known everything about the birds of prey, and who had spent so much of her life in a losing battle to keep this ranch clear of man's encroachments on their wild habitat.
"Daddy was right," May finally said, "I do want some answers and she's the only one who can give them. I have to see her, Kit."
Kit sighed, nodded. "I thought you might, so I made some preliminary inquiries through my contacts in Hong Kong. It isn't going to be easy, not right now. You can't get a visa to go into China. The borders are closed to foreigners, particularly Westerners, while Mao tries again to shake up the bureaucracy and has another go at creating his perfect classless society. This time the intellectuals are under fire, and all things Western are strictly forbidden. I know the name of the village where she was living four years ago. She had been there for seventeen years, so there is a good chance that she still is. It's a very primitive village called Kau Peng in a western province. She's the only doctor in the village, but she operates a small clinic where she has trained a number of paramedics. It's an area where most doctors have no desire to go, so she has been left pretty much alone. I was told that she never remarried, that she lives a very simple life, and that the peasants of the area revere her. I'm afraid that's all I've been able to find out. Except that until the current troubles abate, getting into China will be not only very difficult, but very dangerous."
May listened as she concentrated on peeling an egg. "Do you think I could pass?"
Kit looked at her sharply. "Pass? You mean go in as a Chinese?"
May nodded.
Kit exhaled, "No, don't even think about that, you could end up in prison or worse. There has to be another way and we'll find it, but please don't do anything foolish . . ." Something distracted her, a sound. A mechanical grinding noise.
"Damn!" Kit swore as a white Mercedes appeared, its hood seeming to ride the waves of grass on this soft plateau. Kit's face registered her astonishment: "A road, somebody's put a road through here."
The car stopped, and the mechanical rattle of its engine ceased. May stood, but Kit remained seated against her rock, too dismayed to move.
A blond woman wearing a lavender linen dress and matching oversized sunglasses got out and picked her way toward them, stepping carefully through the rough grass in high-heeled sandals.
"What are you doing here?" the woman demanded.
When Kit didn't answer May said, "We're having a picnic."
The woman looked at the horses with disapproval. "This is private property," she told them, hand on hip, "and we have a lot of trouble up here with fire, so I'd suggest you be on your way out— and next time take the no trespassing signs seriously."
May waited for Kit to tell her, but Kit seemed unable to speak. "We have permission to ride here," May said. "The owner is an old friend."
"Is that right?" the woman came back, looking both of them over suspiciously, not impressed with Kit's worn riding clothes or May's jeans and T-shirt.
"Yes that's right," May answered, allowing some steel into her voice. "I'm sure the owner would appreciate your concern for fire hazard. If you'll give me your name, I'll be sure to tell her."
The woman's tone changed. "Damned right I'm concerned. Damned hippies come out here, set up their teepees and smoke their damned fool dopeheads off. Going to burn us all out one of these days. I'm Evie Shurz—my husband's granddad owned al
l this land to the north here." She waved her hand vaguely. "We're selling off lots. I'm Evie's Realty, down in town. I didn't catch your names."
Still Kit said nothing.
"This is my aunt, Mrs. McCord," May spoke up, "and I'm May Reade."
There was a long, thick pause. Evie Shurz looked at them through her lavender glasses, as if there was something she had meant to remember. Then, tossing her blond head as if to shake off some troublesome buzzing insect, she raised her hand in a gesture of dismissal. "Like I said," she threw back at them, "there's fire hazard up here."
The hollow clacking of the Mercedes engine echoed over the hills, and when the silence returned and wrapped around them, May said:
"She had no idea who you are."
Kit only sighed and said: "It will never be the same again—not when you can get here by car."
May looked at her. "I don't know whether to laugh or cry. But I'll tell you what I do know. Someday I'm going to bring my children up here and I'm going to tell them about the day you and I came, and about the blond bombshell real estate agent who wanted to know what we thought we were doing up here, and how you wouldn't tell her you owned a big chunk of the damned place. And then, just before we leave, I'm going to get a big tear in my eye and sigh and say to them, 'But it'll never be the same again . . .'"
Kit's face softened into a smile. "I didn't know you were planning to have children," she said. And May answered, "Of course I am, and as soon as we can get them on horses we are going to bring them here. With hardboiled eggs and homemade tortillas. I've just decided. You and me and little Porter and little Kit. I've already named my children, so you see how serious I am! All you have to do is promise never to sell the ranch or this piece of land."
"I promise," Kit said, wiping at the tears she could not keep from welling. "But first things first. Now it's time to begin plotting the China Project."
Gift of the Golden Mountain Page 20
