“It’s always been my dream to preach the Gospel in the remote regions of China, sir,” said Jakob at once. “I would regard it as the greatest honor to win new territory for the Lord.” -
Barlow nodded and drew from a battered leather document case a linen-backed map. He paused for a moment, listening to the howl of the sand-laden wind outside, then spread the map before him on the padded quilt. “Only the Japanese, I’m afraid, seem to be winning much new territory at the moment,” he said, tapping the map in the northeastern regions bordering Korea and the Soviet Union. “And nobody knows whether they’ll be satisfied with occupying Manchuria. As it was so easy, they might be tempted to launch an all-out invasion of China — and if they do, all of our work here will come under threat.”
“Do the Japanese show any signs of wanting to move farther into China, sir?”
“Not at the moment.” Barlow coughed noisily. “But it’s impossible to see what the future holds.”
The Japanese had carried out their shock invasion of Manchuria only ten days or so after Jakob and Felicity had first experienced the magic of an early autumn dawn in the Pavilion of Eternal Spring. Tokyo had renamed the region Manchukuo, declared it independent, and installed as a puppet head of state P’u Yi, the last, infant emperor of China, whom they had made a virtual prisoner in his own palace. Chiang Kai-shek had withdrawn his Chinese divisions based in Manchuria to new positions below the Great Wall without offering resistance, contenting himself with a protest against Japan’s aggression to the ineffectual League of Nations, and in a further flurry of related military activity, Japanese forces had attacked Chinese troops briefly at Shanghai in an effort to dislodge them from the Chinese-ruled parts of the city.
“There were some terrible outrages in Shanghai after China’s Nineteenth Route Army was driven out,” continued Barlow after he had recovered from another painful fit of coughing. “The Japanese soldiers strung up Chinese civilians in the streets to use them for bayonet practice. There was fighting all-round the borders of the International Settlement — but Europeans went on dancing in their own nightclubs as usual as if it was nothing to do with them. It made me feel deeply ashamed.”
Barlow sank back against the snowy pillows again, closing his eyes, and Jakob noticed just how lined his once-handsome face had become. His hair had whitened further since their last meeting and a deep weariness over and above that caused by his sickness was discernible in his sagging features. As he looked at Barlow, Jakob realized he had idealized the long-awaited designation meeting in his mind beforehand, and the reality was quite different. He had imagined Barlow would appear to him as a faltering Old Testament patriarch preparing to bless his young followers, and entrust to them his responsibilities and his hopes for the future. But now he sensed that the director-general’s own faith had long since been undermined by his experiences, and to the awe and admiration he had once felt for him was added an overwhelming sense of sympathy and compassion.
“I’m telling you all this, Jakob, because the Japanese threat ... has made us more aware of the new dangers all missionaries face in central and southern China.” Barlow was speaking with his eyes closed and his voice was unsteady. “It’s obvious that Chiang Kai-shek has not resisted the Japanese because he’s more afraid of the Chinese Communists.”
“Which areas are the Communists operating in, sir?”
Barlow opened his eyes and gestured toward the map. “They’re reported to have two or three fixed base areas in Kwangtung, Kiangsi, and Fukien. They seem to have set up camps in the mountains in other areas. But their forces appear to be highly mobile.”
“Have our missions there reported any trouble?”
Barlow shook his head. “So far there’s been nothing. But China is a vast country, Jakob — big enough to lose whole armies in. One newspaper report said thousands of people were killed in Communist raids in Hupeh last year and many were taken hostage.” Barlow raised his head from the map and looked at Jakob. “You know, don’t you, that it’s always been mission policy not to pay ransom money to secure the release of field missionaries captured by bandits?”
“No, I didn’t know that, sir.”
Barlow’s expression grew thoughtful. “Now that you do and we’ve discussed all these things, does it make you want to change your mind about volunteering to itinerate in the interior?”
In the silence that followed, the noise of the wind outside seemed to grow louder; sand was being hurled against the paper-latticed windows with an ever-accelerating fury and for some moments Jakob sat rubbing a hand thoughtfully along his jaw. “It’s obvious, sir,” he said slowly, “that the difficulties you’ve spoken of are serious — but they don’t put me off.”
A spark of spontaneous admiration appeared in Barlow’s expression. “I should tell you that several of your colleagues, Jakob, have chosen city designations. It would be no discredit for you to do the same.”
“Your own example, I think you know, Mr. Barlow, brought me to China,” replied Jakob unhesitatingly. “if you do decide to send me to the south, on every mountain track I hope that I shall remember that.”
Barlow looked away quickly, busying himself with papers from his document case. When he picked up the map and jabbed a finger into the heartlands of southern China, his manner was suddenly brusque and impersonal. “Here at Pengshan, in southern Hunan, a married couple, the Carpenters, are about to begin a furlough in two months’ time. They will be away six months. I would like you to take over from them. When they return you will be ready to carry out six months of itineration through this mountain region to the west. No missionary work has been attempted there before, but I’ve always wanted to open up the area.” Barlow paused and tapped the map again. “You could set up a new station eventually . . . here at Chentai. Will you accept the designation?’
Jakob’s face broke into a smile of relief. “I accept gladly. Thank you, sir.”
He rose exultantly from, his chair and moved closer to the bed to peer at the map. He was just able to make out “Chentai” printed in fine letters amid the dark brown mountain contours of southern Hunan. Still smiling, he stared hard at the obscure name, trying to imagine what the landscape around Chentai looked like, and when the older man smiled at him and offered his hand, Jakob shook it warmly. “Thank you, Mr. Barlow, for having faith in me. You won’t regret granting me this opportunity.”
As Jakob turned and hurried from the room, the shrieking of the wind outside rose higher but he neither heard it nor noticed the dust swirling in the air of the drafty corridor outside the bedroom door. Already in his mind’s eye he was climbing a high southern pass, breathing the thin mountain air deep into his lungs, and singing a stirring hymn as he swung along toward the next ancient walled town where no white-skinned missionary had ever been seen before.
13
By noon next day the high winds from the northwest had blown themselves out. During the winter months a cloak of northern dust had as usual spread its drab folds over all Peking, coating without distinction the golden roofs of palaces and temples and the sea of single-storied, gray-tiled houses that spread out all around them. Wind-borne desert sand whirled hundreds of miles from the Gobi had dyed the cloak a deeper, more dramatic shade of red in recent days and as Jakob rode toward the Temple of Heaven in a hooded rickshaw to meet Felicity and hear news of her designation, he felt a sudden stab of regret at the prospect of leaving a city which in less than a full year had captivated him in all its many moods. The fierce, exciting heat of late summer and the sparkling clarity of autumn had given way to a winter which had often frozen the imperial lakes and sprinkled fine coverings of snow onto the spectacular palace roofs; and even the arid weeks of stinging dust storms that followed had seemed to Jakob to give the ancient capital a new dimension of austere grandeur.
Muffled beneath the fur helmet and the thick quilted Chinese robe of dark blue cotton in which he had withstood the sharp winter cold, Jakob felt at ease in the narrow hut’ungs through which he had directe
d his rickshaw coolie to take him en route to the southern district of the Outer City. The Chinese swarming in the narrow lanes of beaten earth wore bulky padded clothes of the same shade and scarcely glanced under the raised hood of his rickshaw. Gray walls reaching up to the eaves of the low buildings bordered the lanes on either side and whenever a gate stood ajar Jakob peered discreetly inside.
Such glimpses had long since made him aware that daily life for the ordinary Chinese in Peking was hard: inside the walled courts his eyes invariably fell on ragged clothes, pinched faces, wailing children playing in the dirt. The hut’ungs also had their share of beggars and cripples, and reeking handcarts of night soil trundled by frequently But the visible poverty never seemed as coarse and harsh to Jakob as that he had seen in Shanghai. On the walls surrounding the Legation Quarter he could see foreign soldiers still patrolling thirty-two years after the Boxer uprising — but Peking, he reflected as he rode on, had never been forced to suffer the humiliation of treaty-port status and perhaps for this reason had managed to retain its unique atmosphere of imperial dignity.
Despite the cold, barbers and dentists were plying their trade busily at the curbside and food peddlers abounded in the crowds, Their portable stoves, carried at the ends of bouncing shoulder poles, spilled appetizing aromas into the cold air, and remembering that within two days he would be leaving all these sights and smells behind, Jakob stopped his rickshaw to buy a bag of chiao tzu — little dumplings stuffed with spiced vegetables which had become a favorite during his stay. He munched on them hungrily in the rickshaw, acutely conscious that he might be enjoying them for the last time, and simultaneously he felt a new tremor of excitement at the thought that he would know within minutes whether Felicity might share with him the new adventure of life in the remote south.
The rickshaw dropped Jakob at the Gate of the Western Sky, and as he hurried into the walled enclosure of the Temple of Heaven a fierce shower of rain, the first of the spring, drove down on the long avenue of ancient cypress trees which led toward the Red Stairway Bridge. In the past China’s emperors had come to the broad, wooded enclosure with great ceremony to sacrifice bulls and sheep in porcelain furnaces before worshiping in the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. The hall, a circular temple with a triple- tiered roof of sky blue tiles set on a round terrace of dazzling white marble, had impressed Jakob and Felicity deeply during their first visit: both of them had been strongly attracted to the grandeur of its simple lines soaring upward to the blue heavens from its pristine setting in the midst of what was virtually a small forest of cypress trees. The southern wall of the enclosure was square and the northern wall semicircular, in recognition of the ancient belief that the earth was square and heaven was round; altars and halls designed for fasting, for the sacrificial killing of animals, and for other ceremonial functions had been built with geometric precision throughout the enclosure, and Jakob and Felicity had often picnicked in the shady woods during the summer in sight of these historic pavilions.
On this occasion they had arranged to meet at the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, and because of his eagerness to hear news of Felicity’s posting, Jakob ignored the sudden deluge of April rain.
He ran the length of the quarter-mile-long avenue to the Red Stairway Bridge, a wide promenade linking the hail with the other major sanctuaries, the Circular Altar Mound and the Imperial Vault of Heaven. Seeing Felicity standing alone beneath the blue eaves of the main temple, he continued running across the deserted enclosure and leapt up the long flights of balustraded marble steps three at a time to arrive panting at her side.
“What designation have you been given?”
Felicity’s features were set in serious lines and Jakob asked the question in a tense voice, watching anxiously for her answer. His coat was drenched, his hat was askew, and strands of his fair hair were plastered wetly across his damp face.
“Perhaps you’d better catch your breath, Jakob, before we talk. Come inside out of the rain.”
Felicity took him gently by the arm to lead him into the empty temple and for a moment her face relaxed into a little smile at his evident impatience. She wore over her long coat an embroidered, wide-sleeved Chinese jacket of dark green silk decorated with phoenix and plum blossom motifs, and her hair was tucked up inside a fur hat with earflaps tied neatly across its crown. As usual she wore no rouge on her cheeks or lips.
“I’m glad we came to this temple to talk, Jakob,” she said in a. subdued voice. “It’s always so peaceful. And today it seems especially tranquil. Do you feel that too?”
“Yes, I do.”
With his chest still heaving from the exertion of running, Jakob gazed around the shadowy interior of the conical temple. Four central “dragon well” pillars, carved from Yunnan trees of massive girth, represented the four seasons, and there were two outer rings of twelve wooden columns symbolizing the months of the year and the twelve two-hour periods into which the ancient Chinese had divided each day. Colored frescoes adorned the high roof a hundred feet above their heads, while in the center of the stone paved floor a circular slab of marble was carved with the forms of a dragon and a phoenix, the symbols for the emperor and his empress. Outside, the shower had stopped as abruptly as it had begun and pale sunlight, filtering through the wall partitions of latticework, was dappling the floor and pillars with fragments of brightness. No sound penetrated to the heart of the enclosure from the surrounding city, and when his breathing returned to normal Jakob felt constrained by the deep, gentle silence to speak in a whisper.
“I’ve been assigned to the southern Hunan border, Felicity! I’m to help at an existing post at first — then set up a new station at an old walled town called Chentai.” Jakob was unable to suppress the pleasure he felt and his eyes shone. “It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
“I’m very glad.”
Jakob was gripped by a sudden apprehension. He stared hard at the American girl: her expression remained serious, almost grave, and although she had spoken very softly he had noticed a slight catch in her voice. “Don’t keep me in suspense any longer, Felicity,” he whispered urgently. “Please tell me your designation.”
“I’m to go to Chenyuan — to teach in a school for Chinese children with three other women.”
He stared in disbelief for a moment; then he seized both her hands joyously in his own. “But that’s wonderful news! You’ll be in Kweichow, the neighboring province.”
“Yes.” Felicity nodded quickly, but to Jakob’s alarm glistening tears sprang into her eyes.
“Felicity, what’s wrong? Why are you unhappy?”
The American girl shook her head quickly and tried to smile. “I’m not unhappy. It’s just that I never expected to be sent to a remote inland station. My parents, you see, worked only in the city of Tientsin.” She hesitated, biting her lip distractedly. “I can’t really explain why, Jakob. I just suddenly feel afraid . .
“There’s no need at all to be frightened!” Glancing down, he saw that they were standing on the dragon and phoenix symbols carved in the circular marble slab. “I’ll cherish you, Felicity, as well as any emperor of China cherished his empress. You’ll see. Come on!”
Smiling, he drew her out of the temple by the hand and led her at a run down the marble steps. The sun was shining more brightly and the heavy shower had washed the desert grit from the enclosure’s cypress trees, turning them a sudden, thrilling green once more. Ignoring Felicity’s protests he ran with her the length of the Red Stairway Bridge to the Imperial Vault of Heaven, a smaller temple with an umbrella-shaped roof topped by a gilded ball. At the sides of the promenade Jakob noticed that tiny shoots of paler green had suddenly become visible, as if by magic, on the flower-bearing shrubs and fruit trees; in the flower beds beneath the gnarled cypresses, too, fresh green shoots had been uncovered by the rain. Already the rose tints of the temple walls, the deep blue of their roofs, the milky white marble terraces, and the glossy trees had worked their special spell on Jakob’s mi
nd, and the sight of these tiny new specks of life heightened the sense of joy he felt welling up within him. As they ran he pointed them out to Felicity.
“Look, even the spring has chosen this morning to make a new start. The Lord has truly blessed us.”
“Yes, it’s beautiful — but where are you taking me?”
Felicity, her apprehensions blotted out for the moment by Jakob’s exuberance, was laughing and panting for breath as she struggled along in his wake.
“To the Echo Wall, of course.” Jakob slowed to a fast walk to lead her down the steps outside the entrance to the Imperial Vault of Heaven. “Come and stand by me on the San Yin Shih.”
Jakob stopped by a hewn block known as the Triple Sound Stone, from which three separate steps hail been carved. It faced a long curved wall of polished brick which had been constructed o that any whisper made close against its surface could be heard distinctly at any other point on the wall. On previous visits they had playfully tested one another’s knowledge of difficult Chinese words with whispered echoes, but this time Jakob remained standing on the first step of the San Yin Shih and did not approach the wall. The stone had been artfully positioned so that the sound waves of words uttered from each of its three steps had to travel different distances to the wall’s curved surface. The echoes consequently returned at different intervals, and from listening to Chinese children playing at the spot, Jakob knew that a call voiced from the first step returned once, a call from the second step, twice, while any call from the top step echoed three times. Drawing Felicity onto the first step beside him, Jakob held a finger theatrically to his lips, inviting silence, then turned to face the wall.
“Felicity . . will ... you . . . marry . . . me?” he called loudly, drawing the words out at length.
Felicity listened wide-eyed as the question rolled sonorously back to her from the curved rampart of polished bricks. At first the disembodied words seemed to overawe her and when she didn’t reply, Jakob climbed to the second step and repeated the question with greater insistence. Felicity again remained silent on the first echo, but when after a brief silence the polished wall repeated the proposal with a seeming show of impatience, she hurried to the third step and made her reply in a soft, low voice.
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