Anthony Grey

by Peking- A Novel of China's Revolution- 1921-1978 (epub)

  “Yes, of course.” As though suddenly aware that he had dwelled too much on negative thoughts, Barlow opened the Chinese Bible he carried and focused his gaze on the vertical lines of ideograms. “I’ve been working on a fresh translation of the Scriptures for some time. There’s a great need, I believe, to preach in language ordinary people can understand.”

  “Is the number of converts growing?”

  “I’ve been in China thirty-five years, Jakob. In that time almost fifteen thousand Chinese have become Christians through our mission — which isn’t many out of four hundred million people. Cynics will tell you half of them are ‘rice Christians,’ who say they believe to make sure they have access to food supplies when the next famine arrives, and that another quarter of them are ‘rice students,’ who become converts to get a good education in our mission schools.”

  “But surely that’s not entirely true, is it, Mr. Barlow?” Jakob, to his surprise, felt a faint sense of irritation with his superior. “How can it be with so many of our people working hard all over China?”

  Barlow drew a long breath. “No, it’s not entirely true, but we shouldn’t delude ourselves. I suspect few adult Chinese ever become real converts. The Chinese tend to treat new religions like new business methods — they’ll try them all in the hope that at least one might be right.” Barlow paused and his face brightened a little as though in response to Jakob’s enthusiasm. “But you’re right. Many people are giving their best. We’ve got a hundred main stations and about five hundred outstations scattered across the country. There are about six hundred missionaries with twice that number of Chinese helpers. The core of converts still tends to be the missionaries’ servants but we hope that there are as many ‘silent Christians’ as there are ‘rice Christians.’

  “What are ‘silent Christians,’ Mr. Barlow?” asked Jakob.

  “Officials who are believers of one sort or another — but can’t admit it publicly because they’d lose face. We hope our influence is spreading unobtrusively in China through men like them. Some send their children quietly to the missionary Sunday schools. Those children carry our main hopes for the future.”

  Jakob’s face grew thoughtful. “So it’s likely to be a gradual, long- term process.”

  Barlow nodded. “In the end the Chinese themselves will have to evangelize China. We can only show them the way. I hoped that in my lifetime enough native Christians would have been trained to begin that task. But progress has been even slower than I’d expected . . .“ Barlow’s voice again faded away and his expression became abstracted. “One problem is that a lot of young men become missionaries through sheer wanderlust,” he said distantly as though voicing an inner thought. “They’re merely fascinated by distant places and strange peoples. Some never know the difference between that and the true missionary’s spirit.”

  Appalled by the seeming implication that his own motives might be questionable, Jakob straightened indignantly against his pillows. “It was because of you that I came to China, Mr. Barlow!”

  The older missionary frowned. “I don’t follow you, Jakob . . . ?“ “You came to talk to my local church when you were on furlough. I was just a small boy. You told us the Chinese believed blue-eyed people could see into the ground to a depth of three feet. I have blue eyes, and I think that was when I decided I wanted to be a China missionary. You talked about dragons and gangs of bandits and discovering gold and I could think of nothing else for days . .

  “Did I?” From his expression it was clear Barlow did not recall the occasion, but he rose from the end of the bed and patted Jakob on the shoulder in a friendly fashion. “Well done, young man. I’m sure you’ll bring great credit to us all.”

  Jakob looked up at his superior expectantly. He thought that the director-general was going to suggest that they pray together but to his intense disappointment Barlow gathered up his papers and left the room without another word, closing the door quietly behind him. From the alleyway outside Jakob could still hear the muffled noise of cymbals and gongs and several Chinese voices raised in a shrill, angry dispute. The alien sounds reminded him just how far he was from home and everything familiar, and he closed his eyes where he lay and prayed again for the strength to carry out his new, daunting tasks.

  9

  From the moment he left Shanghai to travel to Peking by train, Jakob’s spirits began to rise again. After the oppressive poverty of the Chinese sections of the sprawling port city, the vast, open plains of green terraced rice fields that soon spread out beyond his carriage windows were a refreshing sight to the young missionary. Stark gray mountains bordered the largely treeless plains and the rice fields teemed with bare-footed peasants turning the wheels of ancient irrigation systems, carrying earth for new dykes, hoeing, bending, lifting, wading, planting. Their lives in many ways were obviously as harsh and austere as those of Shanghai’s coolies: from the train Jakob saw large groups of bent-backed figures hacking laboriously at the soil of dried-up fields with hand tools; ragged girls washed clothes in hollows where rain had gathered and men still pulled ancient wooden ploughs in the absence of beasts of burden. But nobody was suffering the cramped squalor of Shanghai’s dark alleyways and the figures in the fields seemed to work with- unflagging energy beneath the limitless sky.

  Felicity Pearson traveled on the same train and when they met to take their meals in the ornate dining car, she and Jakob quickly found that the compassion they felt for China was equally intense. A strong sense of spiritual fellowship and common purpose grew up between them as together they watched the distinctive landscapes typical of central and southern China change to a very different picture in the north. Gradually, between the Yangtze and the Yellow River, the flooded paddy fields with their plodding water buffalo gave way to flat, dry fields sprouting wheat and kao1iaig; giant loads borne by the unending caravans of pole-carrying coolies in the south were taken over in the north by camels, mules, and netted Peking carts; and eventually the vibrantly green land of rice fields and silver waterways was superseded entirely by a dusty brown, corn-growing zone with little grass and few trees.

  On arrival in Peking, Jakob and Felicity settled quickly into the same class of the Joint Missionary Language School, which was housed in a European-style building to the northeast of the Forbidden City. Their fellow students included diplomats from the Legation Quarter and representatives of foreign commercial firms based in the old Chinese capital. Because of the similarity of their interests, Jakob and Felicity agreed to share the same Chinese tutor when the class broke each morning into groups of two or three for more intensive work. After the long hours of study were finished they also found themselves in the same gatherings, and they shared the pleasure and excitements of exploring the old imperial capital that had been fashioned in its lasting form by the emperors of the Ming dynasty more than five centuries earlier.

  During the first weeks and months of their studies they eagerly visited every last corner of the rectangular walled enclosures — the Imperial City, the Tartar City, the Outer City — that surrounded the central Purple Forbidden City. They were enchanted by the simple grandeur of the Temple of Heaven in the southern reaches of the capital, where the emperors had once made regular ritual sacrifices, but they returned most frequently to the Forbidden City, the inner sanctum of China’s emperors that had been named after the “Purple Luminous Constellation,” because in ancient times the North Star was believed to have been the supreme center of heavenly power. At its heart, magnificently lacquered in vermilion and gold, stood the Hall of Supreme Harmony which the ancient Chinese had called “The Center of the World.” Inside, a richly ornamented dais held the Dragon Throne, where until twenty years before the emperor had sat on ceremonial occasions. Neither Jakob nor Felicity ever tired of wandering through these awesome precincts, marveling at the magnificence of the shimmering marble balustrades, the guardian lions, the phoenixes, dragons, and other mythical beasts wrought in stone and gilded bronze. Each time they found new orn
aments of ivory, jade, and porcelain to admire, new luxuriant furnishings of silk and brocade to wonder at, and as their language ability increased they whispered together with delight the beguiling Chinese names of countless gates, gardens, and halls: the Palace of Earthly Tranquility, the Chamber of Beautiful Expectation, the Gate of Heavenly Purity, the Garden of Peace and Longevity.

  Although Chiang Kai-shek had set up his modern capital to the south, in Nanking, and the remnants of the last emperor’s family had been finally banished from the imperial enclosures, the splendor of the court and its precincts still cast an invisible spell over both foreign and Chinese residents in Peking. To Jakob’s delight, the mission houses where he and Felicity were quartered stood inside the Imperial City itself. Traditional ssu ho yuan, the former homes of courtiers, both mission dwellings consisted of clusters of single- storied, gray-tiled pavilions built around shady courtyards adorned with rock gardens, lotus pools, and ancient fruit trees. Jakob slept on a clay-built k’ang, a bed that in winter could be heated from inside by a camel-dung fire, and the frames of the latticed paper windows through which the first rays of dawn filtered each day were lacquered in crimson and fading gilt. Often in half-waking reverie he tried to picture the mandarin noblemen who must have occupied the house in bygone days; he fancied he saw them worshiping in richly embroidered gowns before their ancestral tablets, bowing gravely to welcome high-ranking guests, composing scrolls of exquisite calligraphy, and smoking their water pipes in the shady courtyard while their caged birds sang melodiously in the branches of the fruit trees.

  Under the influence of these many reminders of China’s vivid history, Jakob quickly forgot the doubts and anxieties he had suffered on arrival in Shanghai. Almost daily he felt his mind expanding as never before. The lavish art and architectural treasures of the imperial palaces, and the stylized natural settings created in the surrounding lakes and garden terraces, induced in him a more intense awareness of beauty in both nature and art. Although he possessed no great natural language talent and had finished his formal education at fifteen, he found that by rising early to study before breakfast and working late at night he could at least keep in sight of the other students, who all came from superior. academic backgrounds. There were a dozen or so mission churches of different denominations in the city where mixed congregations of Chinese and Europeans worshiped, and reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Chinese at the services, sometimes at Felicity’s side, never failed to inspire in Jakob’s mind an exciting vision of his future self, preaching the Gospel in Chinese in some remote walled township.

  In the streets the courtly manners of the former imperial scholars and generals added an extra dimension of sophistication and refinement to the city which, it seemed to Jakob, he was also absorbing in some intangible way. In struggling with the rare problems of the written and spoken language under the guidance of a grave-faced Chinese tutor who was himself a former Board of Rites mandarin, Jakob felt that he was daily visiting other mysterious frontiers of the mind, and even his partial mastery of the difficulties proved highly satisfying.

  All these new influences produced a heady sense of excitement in both Jakob and Felicity which rarely left them, and they worked energetically through the sweltering humidity of the long Peking summer without faltering. Their great enthusiasm for the beauty of the ancient capital communicated itself to their tutor, Mr. Li, and one day at the end of August the old scholar paused in the doorway of their classroom after a lesson and smilingly told them that they would soon discover that the approaching autumn was the most beautiful of all seasons in Peking.

  “You’re truly fortunate to be in the capital now,” he said, stroking his wisp of beard reflectively. “The skies remain blue and without cloud all day. The air is crisp and invigorating and some say the dawn hour particularly has magical qualities.”

  “What kind of ‘magical qualities’?” asked Jakob with a puzzled grin.

  “To some extent that depends on the observer,” said the wizened Chinese enigmatically. “We will meet soon for instruction at a place of special beauty — at sunrise. Then you will be able to judge for yourself.”

  10

  A few mornings later the newly risen sun shining from an azure north China sky bathed the Pavilion of Eternal Spring with pure, clear light. Among the darker foliage of the age-toughened pines that had shaded the summit of Gorgeous Prospect Hill for six centuries, the glazed green tiles of its triple-tiered roof glittered like emeralds. Built at the exact center of Peking’s walled inner city on its highest crest, the pavilion had been the crowning glory in the gardens of the Ming emperors: its open south side afforded a spectacular view of the imperial palaces built far below amid groves of cypress and acacia, and from their seats in the pavilion on either side of Mr. Li, Jakob and Felicity gazed down at the gilded porcelain rooftops in silent wonder.

  “From here the palaces look like beautiful golden carp basking in a lake of green jade,” breathed Felicity.

  “No Chinese poet would disagree with you.” Mr. Li smiled. “Anything is possible at the dawn hour.”

  On their way to meet their tutor in the hilltop pavilion, at his suggestion, Jakob and Felicity had passed along the willow-fringed moat outside the crenellated northern wall of the Forbidden City. To their surprise, for it was not yet six o’clock, they had found Chinese of all ages absorbed therein a variety of activities. All clearly shared a belief in the mystery of the dawn hour: boys played bamboo flutes or stringed lutes, following music fastened to the willow fronds; small girls paraded songbirds in little wicker cages; seated against the boles of trees or on the low moat wall young men and women pored over books or softly practiced a song; youths and scholarly- looking older men with beards rehearsed stylized swordplay with tasseled blades or moved rhythmically through the postures of T’ai Chi Ch’uan, the slow-motion, meditative martial art sometimes called “swimming in air.” The lilt of the music on the still air and the silent, graceful movements of the different groups beneath the ancient palace ramparts lent an added enchantment to the crystal-bright autumn morning, and Jakob and Felicity took care not to intrude as they hurried on into the Ching Shan Park, which had once been a private garden of the imperial family.

  “The purity of the dawn air also enhances the art of the calligrapher,” said Mr. Li, drawing ink stick, stone, and brush from a satchel at his side. “We believe it helps beautify his script and brings greater distinction to the strokes of his brush.”

  Li, who wore a tight-fitting black cap and a robe of pale blue silk over white trousers, shook a few shimmering drops of dew from an acacia leaf onto his stone and ground the ink stick delicately in the moisture before beginning to fashion ancient pictograms, murmuring the names of shapes representing recognizably the sun, the moon, a fish, a horse.

  “The character for happiness, hsi, for instance, is derived from a picture of a mother and child under a curved roof. . . ‘grass’ is simple upright strokes of the brush, ‘brightness’ is conveyed by placing the sun and moon side by side. .

  The tutor outlined the characters skillfully in their antique and modern forms and Jakob and Felicity watched, fascinated, as the changing images retained their pictorial essence. Taking out brushes and ink sticks from their own pouches, they began inexpertly trying to imitate his fluid movements.

  “If you are to understand China at all well, it is vital to know how deeply Chinese behavior is influenced by our written language.” Li spoke softly, almost reverently, his brush flowing uninterruptedly across the paper. “Almost without our realizing, it reminds us subtly each day of our history, our customs, our traditions. It ensures that the experiences of our past play a full part in the thoughts and deeds of the present. And because those who can’t memorize and write the characters have great respect for those who can, it confers authority on those who practice the art. In the beauty of our palaces and temples below us you can see similar principles at work.”

  Jakob looked down at the panorama of richly orn
amented halls and pavilions spread out beyond the foot of the hill. They were separated by landscaped gardens, lakes, marble terraces, and walled courtyards, each large enough to shelter tea thousand imperial soldiers, and in the early light and shadow they had taken on an added air of mystery and majesty.

  “The palace roofs were constructed around uniquely arranged beams that allowed their eaves to sweep upward — but they could equally have remained straight and rigid.” The tutor illustrated his words by making a long, delicate, curving upstroke with his writing brush, then bisected it with a broad-slashed perpendicular. “The harmonizing of straight and curved lines, you see, lies at the heart of Chinese calligraphy. In combining the two in our script and in the design of our finest buildings, the qualities of strength and grace are intermingled and made visible for all to see in both.”

  “You write so beautifully, Mr. Li,” said Felicity. “It’s a pleasure to watch you on this lovely morning.”

  “Hsiaochieh is too kind. After many years of practice my accomplishment is slight.” The old mandarin gestured toward Felicity’s practice pad and smiled. “But Hsiaochieh is truly making good early progress.”

  “I lived in China until I was eight, Mr. Li. My parents were missionaries in Tientsin. I think perhaps that helps.”

  “Hsiaochieh is certainly making faster progress than me.” Jakob laughed ruefully at his own comparatively clumsy efforts and made a pantomime of hiding his pad when Li turned to look.

  For a moment the tutor peered intently at Felicity. It had not escaped his notice that she glanced frequently in Jakob’s direction during their lessons and that there was always an eager brightness in her gaze in Jakob’s presence. For his part Jakob was obviously enjoying her company, as usual, but the shrewd old mandarin decided that he was unaware of the special light in his companion’s expression. When Felicity lifted her head from her pad to find the Chinese watching her, he smiled mysteriously and bent over his pad once more. “I will give you other examples . . . the character for grow, you see, is the pictogram for the earth placed beside a sprouting plant.” He deftly drew the ancient and modern versions of the character, then turned to a fresh sheet of paper. “But perhaps most interesting of all is the character for love. Because it is an abstract idea it is composed of three roots: at the top is the character that can mean either ‘a bird is on the wing or ‘quickened breath.’ In the middle is the pictogram for the human heart and below that a character indicating a man walking with pride. When mingled together the poetic sense of each character helps define an important word with great beauty and subtlety.”