Dreams of the Red Phoenix

by Virginia Pye

  “No, Charles, I’m fine.”

  Her voice sounded far off, and he worried that she might not be telling the truth. He wanted to know what had happened to her. He wanted to take care of her. But he also somehow didn’t want to know. He couldn’t bear it if she had been harmed.

  She finally looked away from the busy courtyard. “Reverend Wells is right. This is no place for a child. No place for you, Charles. But I can’t imagine leaving just yet. My patients still need me.”

  He studied the lines around her eyes and her hollow cheeks. She had lost weight since his father’s death, and now she appeared almost frail. He had never seen her looking so sallow and drawn. “You don’t look well, Mother. Are you sick?”

  “No, not at all,” she said and touched a cool palm to his cheek. “I feel quite well. Perhaps better than ever.” She brushed hair from his forehead and let her hand settle lightly on his shoulder. “I will join you. That’s what I’ll do. It can be arranged.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I want you to go ahead with the American women and children. I will come along soon after, perhaps with the men, or some other way.”

  He flicked red paint from the porch railing and then held on to it. He wasn’t dizzy, exactly, but felt mild vertigo. For days, he had let himself consider the possibility of leaving China without his mother, and now she was saying that that was how it would be.

  “I need to check on my patients now, darling. You’ll be all right,” she said and stood on her toes to plant a kiss on his forehead. “Reverend Wells is correct in saying that your father would be terribly proud of you—as am I.”

  She turned and left him on the porch, looking out at the Chinese who went about their business in what had been his front yard. Charles wanted to hate them. They were the reason his mother wasn’t leaving with him. They needed her more than he did. Charles spat onto the dusty ground below.

  “Damn,” he said loudly in English. “Damn this damn country.”

  Charles headed off to where he always went when he got riled up inside. He took the stone steps to the top of the wall. He needed air and the view across the rooftops to the millet fields and the purple, shadowed mountains. His father had been lost in that great distance. He spat again—not down at Japanese soldiers on sentry duty below but instead beside his own dusty sneakers on the brick path.

  When he looked up, he noticed that one of the pigeon cages was open, and he went to close it. As he rounded the corner, the full coop came into view, and Dao-Ming stood before it. She had a feedbag at her feet and was sweeping the open cage with a handmade whiskbroom.

  “Hey,” Charles said, “what do you think you’re doing?”

  Dao-Ming didn’t look up from her task.

  He stepped nearer and changed his tone. “Did Han ask you to do that for him while he’s away?”

  Dao-Ming nodded.

  Charles reached for one of the pigeons that was strutting about and stroked it. “I always did whatever Han told me to do with the birds. He knows everything about pigeons.”

  “I know more,” she said in a high, crackly voice, and in English, too.

  Charles nearly dropped the bird. “Since when can you talk?”

  She offered an odd smile.

  “And what do you know about pigeons?”

  “I know we use them to help cause.”

  Why had she kept quiet for so long? he wondered. He cocked his head to the side and looked her up and down. “What cause?” he asked.

  Dao-Ming laughed. “The cause your father work for, silly.”

  “Now, wait a minute—” Charles began.

  She held up a pudgy finger and shushed him. “With radio and supplies.”

  Charles took off the Red Army cap, slapped it against his leg, and suddenly noticed that she was wearing his father’s wool driving cap.

  “Where’d you get that thing on your head?” he asked. “That’s mine. Give it to me.”

  “Not yours. Reverend leave it behind.”

  “I know. I saw it down in the cellar, but I tell you it’s mine.”

  Dao-Ming went back to cleaning the cages and even hummed to herself as Charles tried to fathom that she had known his father in a way that he never would.

  “All I want is his ugly old cap. It’s all I’ve got left of him.” He could feel tears starting down inside, though he didn’t cry anymore.

  Dao-Ming finally looked up from her work and tossed it his way. He snatched it from the walkway and put it on his head. Then he looked at the Red Army cap in his hand and sensed her watching him with her small, dark eyes. He walked over and placed Han’s army cap on her head.

  “Here,” he said. “You’re the Red, not me.”

  Dao-Ming gave a big grin, a front tooth missing and eyes crinkled shut. He suddenly worried she might think he had given her the grungy cap because he wanted to go steady.

  “I better get going,” he said and started to stride away.

  “Han here,” Dao-Ming shouted after him.

  Charles stopped and went back. “What on earth do you mean by that?”

  Just then, Han stepped out from behind the corner tower. He no longer wore a Red Army uniform but still appeared strong and sure of himself.

  “Jesus,” Charles said, “you gave me a fright.”

  Han bowed, but Charles wasn’t having it. He strode to his friend and lifted him up in a big bear hug. Han laughed, and Charles did, too.

  As Charles set him down, Han said, “Charles-Boy is in good spirits. You are going home soon.”

  “I’m happy, all right,” Charles said, “but, sad, too, if you know what I mean.”

  “It is sad we must say good-bye. You and your family are good people. May many happinesses come to you in your own country.”

  Charles was at a loss for words, but he sputtered out, “You, too, Han. You be safe, now.”

  Charles realized how ridiculous that sounded. He might be excited about his own future, but Han had nothing to look forward to except more fighting, and Charles couldn’t imagine how his friend could be happy about that.

  “My country will be great someday. Our dream will become a reality,” Han said. “The people will no longer suffer. You will see. There is no better satisfaction than that.”

  Charles nodded and wanted to understand but knew the time was past for that. Soon he would start the long journey back across the ocean to the America of his dreams. How could he possibly explain the joy in that to Han? Instead, Charles reached out, and they shook hands like men.

  Eighteen

  As the others lined up outside the kitchen for their supper, Shirley slipped past them on her way up to her bedroom. She found a clean linen blouse in the back of her closet and a lace skirt she had usually saved for Sunday service. She dragged her hairbrush through her knotted curls and applied lipstick for the first time since her husband’s death. In the intricately carved mirror above her dressing table, she saw a changed woman: older, more haggard and thin, but flushed with life.

  Once back downstairs, Shirley received a bowl half filled with noodles from Lian.

  “For you, Mrs. Carson,” Lian said. “Sit on piano bench and eat.”

  “I can’t imagine what you went through to find food for all these people,” Shirley said as she sat. “You have done well by us in so many ways.”

  The young woman named Li Juan came up then, bowed, and handed Shirley a plate with meat swimming in a red, gelatinous sauce. Shirley suspected she was the only one to be given this delicacy. She would share it with one of her patients who needed the protein, or with her son, who was still growing and hungry all the time.

  “Thank you, kind and esteemed Mrs. Carson,” Li Juan said, “for allowing me to live here.”

  “My pleasure.”

  As Shirley raised her chopsticks, she noticed the helpers crouched on their haunches in the hallway or seated on the edges of cots in the clinic, each digging into their bowls of noodle soup. The elderly Japanese fishmon
ger huddled on the bottom step as he had on the day he had first arrived at the mission. Only now Tupan Feng sat beside him. The two appeared to be having a debate about the correct use of discipline in child rearing. The old Chinese warlord insisted the rules should be the same in the home as in the military, while the fishmonger felt that a softer touch was needed. Though combative, they seemed to be enjoying one another.

  So little joy had surrounded them all for too long, making this brief moment of peace all the more precious. Shirley cleared her throat, rose again, and in her best imitation of a minister’s resonant oratory addressed the small band of friends. “I want to thank each of you for your fine efforts. I have great confidence that you will continue to run the clinic beautifully when I depart soon with my son. It has been an honor to work beside you.”

  The nurses’ aides bowed their heads and accepted the praise.

  “I would like to especially offer my gratitude to Lian for her forbearance and skill in all she does.”

  Lian’s arthritic fingers twisted the rag that hung from her belt. She pulled back her shoulders as if Shirley’s words were stones pelted her way. Charles, who must have sneaked in from his usual roaming about, leaned against the door frame, a lanky young man who, Shirley was surprised to realize, might even be mistaken for someone rather suave. He addressed the assembled group like the man of the household he had become.

  “Madam Lian,” he said, “you have been a second mother to me, often more reliable than my first, if I do say so.”

  Lian hissed, “Do not be rude to Mother, Charles-Boy.”

  “But really,” Charles continued, “I wouldn’t be the fellow I am today without your help. I learned so much from you, especially from those crazy bedtime stories you told. Frightened the devil out of me and made me want to grow up faster. Anything to escape those witches and spirits in the night!” He bowed. “Thank you, esteemed and patient Madam Lian.”

  Lian dabbed at the corners of her eyes with the rag and hurried off toward the kitchen. The others returned to their soup and shared memories of the terrorizing fairy tales of their own childhoods. Shirley patted the piano bench, and Charles strolled over to sit beside her.

  “Well said, Charles. Now, help yourself to this plate Lian made for me. I was afraid to ask the type of meat, but I think you’re so hungry you won’t care.”

  “Mother, I don’t understand you,” Charles said as he started in with his chopsticks. “Did I hear right? You just told everyone that you’re leaving with me. The last I recall, you were staying behind and planned to join us later, however that might work.”

  She studied his handsome profile and piercing blue eyes, his large hands as they expertly used the sticks, and the overall heft of him. To look at her son, anyone would assume he could manage just fine on his own. It was true, he didn’t need her any longer. But she had come to realize that she needed him.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “My assistants have learned to run the clinic quite well. They’ll do fine without me. Also, I don’t want to be like Lian, separated from my child for the wrong reasons. That just seems too pitiful. So I intend to go with you.”

  “All right, then,” he said.

  “But I’ve promised Captain Hsu that I would accompany him on a brief visit to his camp on the plains to the east of here. It’s quite nearby. They’ve set up a medical clinic like this one.”

  Charles set down the empty plate and pulled one of his father’s handkerchiefs from his pocket. “When?” he asked.

  “Tonight. I’ll be back by morning. I’m ready to leave with you whenever the word comes.”

  “I don’t know. That doesn’t sound like such a good idea to me,” he said as he wiped his lips. “What if we have to leave tonight?”

  She took the handkerchief and dabbed a spot of red sauce from his cheek. “It’s already 9 o’clock and dark outside, son. They couldn’t possibly mobilize us to depart this evening. And besides, I already agreed to go with the captain. We’ve put it off for days. He’s coming back to pick me up shortly. But don’t worry, you and I will still leave the mission together. I promise. Doesn’t that make you happy?”

  He stood and stretched but didn’t reply.

  “Well, it makes me happy,” she said. “But will you agree to a haircut when we get to Shanghai? I’ve never seen such a disgraceful mop.”

  He planted a quick kiss on her forehead.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To say good-bye to Li Juan.”

  “Ah, I thought so,” she said with a teasing smile.

  But he hadn’t heard, or didn’t care, and was already stepping away.

  Nineteen

  The Reverend Caleb Carson felt the stirring of the trees on all sides and listened as the wind picked up. He heard the beginnings of rain before it arrived. Leaves began to fall, and twigs whipped past his cot on the cliffside. He would have liked to reach out and catch some but could not move his arms fast enough. He simply shut his eyes and felt himself becoming a part of the maelstrom. Flimsy and insubstantial, he welcomed the sensation of being sucked into it.

  But then Cook was at his side. As always, dear Cook. And his son, Charles’s friend, whose name Caleb now remembered: Han. He recognized in their voices the timbre of concern and perhaps something like love. They had been unerringly kind. The sudden drops of rain struck Caleb like small punishments, punches from God down the length of his prostrate body, bestowed upon him for his foolishness.

  Days before, word had come that his able and forceful wife had returned to the mission after being briefly detained by the Japanese. Apparently she continued to perform her good works at the small medical clinic now set up in their home. Her will was strong, Caleb thought, while his had always been weak. Ever since his accident, he had asked himself how and why he had gotten into this wretched position. The only answer he could muster was that he was pitifully human.

  But there was no time for such sad reflections now, with the rain falling fast. The father and son leaned over him and raised the cot to return Caleb to the cave, leaving the rain to pelt the rocky ground. Their backs—one young and narrow, the other crooked and wide—grew wet in a matter of moments. Both so healthy, it might even have felt good to them after the dryness and heat. But to Caleb, the rain came like another irrefutable curse.

  They lifted his cot and carried him over the rough earth. He heard their shoes slosh in sudden puddles and worried that they didn’t have proper footwear. He would have liked to give them his fine leather boots, but those had been lost to the mudslide many weeks before. Since then, he had had no need for them, but he hoped he might need them eventually. He had made it through the summer and seemed to be improving, or at least holding on. He could lift his head now. And as he did, he saw great torrents fall outside the mouth of the cave.

  Han began to laugh at the rain, which made Caleb smile, too. It rolled over the cave door like a waterfall, and they were inside it. Yes, Caleb thought, that had always been a fine sight. He and his older brothers would hike miles up the trails near their home, and after a final steep bend in the path, they would come upon their favorite hidden gem: a waterfall that seemed to him, even at a young age, ancient and profound. In August, when other streams were dried up, white water churned over the rocks at this falls, fed by snow melting deep in the bowl beneath Mt. Washington.

  The boys would throw off their clothes and scramble across the slippery rocks and dare one another with its icy touch. They sensed the danger and knew never to mention it to their mother, who would have forbidden them if she had known. A fall from that height at that distance from home would never permit rescue. If one of them fell, each brother would blame himself for the rest of his life, and so all four would be sacrificed to the failed expedition. They owed it to one another to never let that happen.

  Caleb, being the youngest, was always the last to make the ledge. For years, his legs were not quite long enough to step over. While his brothers waited, he had to jump the f
inal expanse across to the other side. They stood trembling inside the waterfall, their shivering backs pressed against the dry rock, while Caleb remained on the outside looking in at their wild and joyous faces. The frothing water poured down like a veil between them as they waited for him to take the last leap, which their shouts encouraged him to do. He would never forget the instant when he hung between rock and rock and waited for the firm grip of his brother’s hand as it reached out through the falling water to bring him across to safety.

  Caleb felt the tears roll down his cheeks before he realized he had shed them. Such was his new state of being: more fluid than solid. He reached a trembling hand up and swiped away the wetness. Outside, the rain carried the sky downward with it. The peak of the mountain over his head, Caleb could imagine, becoming one with the wet sky.

  The Chinese youth beside him danced a boyish dance, and Caleb wished he could join him. Caleb recalled Charles performing a similar rain dance in fresh puddles when he was younger. Without words, Han was reminding Caleb that the rain was not a curse against him but merely the changing of the seasons, proof that life carried on, and they with it. He had never believed he would make it this long with his broken back, but he had, and the boy’s excitement gave him hope that he might just make it through to the next season, and even the next. He did not want to die. He wanted to rise up and rejoin the living. He wanted to dance with his boy again.

  Han hovered over his bed as Cook massaged the blood back into Caleb’s feet. He thought he might even walk today. He might sit up, as he had several times, and actually walk.

  “Reverend,” Han said, “I have news from the mission.”

  Caleb smiled at the young man. “You look well, Han.”

  “Thank you, Reverend. You look better, too.”

  “You are happy?” Caleb asked.

  “Yes, very happy. Shall I tell you about your family?”

  Caleb looked out at the rain and wondered if he could bear to hear it. Any news of his family both fueled his recovery and pained him. He nodded carefully, his neck finally repaired enough to allow him to do so. He longed to show Shirley his progress.