by mag
"There is an old Chinese saying," Su Ching said softly, "that whoever saves a life is responsible for that life forever."
Bethany looked at Su Ching and saw the concern, the warning in her eyes.
"Tigers do not tame easily, Bethany."
Bethany held her breath. With the slightest of smiles she said, "But a tiger is such a magnificent beast. Why would anyone want to tame him?"
Now it was Su Ching's turn to smile. "Why, indeed?"
Tiger looked from his mother to Bethany, not at all sure he liked this exchange. He was about to speak when Su Ching said, "Will you pour the wine, dear?"
And the moment passed.
The dinner was delicious, the conversation light. Bethany felt stronger than she had since the attack, but by the time the spiced pears were served her strength had begun to ebb.
"You're tired," Tiger said. "Let me take you to your room."
"Just another sip of wine." Bethany smiled at him. "It's such a relief to be out of bed."
"I know," Su Ching said, "but Tiger is right. This is your first night downstairs, you must not overtax yourself."
Tiger pushed his chair back, but before he could speak Mai Ling entered. She spoke rapidly to Su Ching, then handed her an envelope. Su Ching's pencil-thin brows came together. "It is a telegram for you," she said as she handed the envelope to Bethany.
Bethany's mouth went dry as she stood up and took the envelope.
"Would you like me to read it to you?" Tiger said.
"No... no, I'll read it. It must be from the nursing home. Perhaps they were alarmed when they received the cable saying that I was in China. They're probably still worried about the money for Mother." But even as Bethany said the words she knew that wasn't what the telegram was about. She began to tremble, and handing the telegram to Tiger, whispered, "Yes, please read it."
He opened the envelope. As he took out the telegram Su Ching stepped closer to Bethany. He read and his shoulders tensed. He looked at Bethany. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm so very sorry. It's your mother."
Bethany closed her eyes.
"She died in her sleep a week ago. The person who sent it from the nursing home says they are waiting for your instructions." He put his arm around her. "Will you let me take care of it?"
"Yes." Bethany's voice was only a whisper.
"Let me take you to your room now."
She was frozen, unable to speak or to move until Su Ching touched her face. She looked at her and saw the shared pain, the compassion in the dark almond eyes. Then Su Ching's arms were around her, holding her as she wept for the mother she had lost, for a door that had been closed forever.
When at last the crying stopped Su Ching released her to Tiger. He swept Bethany up in his arms and with his mother beside him, carried her up to her room. The tears began anew when he put her on the bed.
Su Ching sat down beside her and smoothing the fair hair back from Bethany's pale face, said, "Tiger will stay with you tonight." She kissed Bethany's brow, and with a look at her son went out and closed the door.
For a long time Tiger held Bethany and when at last she stopped crying he undressed her. Then he removed his clothes and got into bed with her. He pulled her close so that her head rested in the hollow of his shoulder. Without words Tiger offered her a transfusion of his love, and held her until at last she slept.
Bethany was quiet in the days that followed. At times she spoke to Su Ching of her mother. At other times she sat in the courtyard under the apricot trees without speaking. It seemed to her now that all of the ties to her past had been broken. She knew that never again would she return to the life she had known before, for now there was no one there to return to. She felt adrift, a leaf torn from a branch, floating alone on the wind, looking for a haven.
"Bethany?"
She looked up then into Tiger's green eyes. She wondered if he was her answer; if she could live the kind of life he would expect her to live if they committed themselves to each other.
Tiger had never spoken of commitment. In the days that had passed since her mother's death he had been kind and gentle. He had shared her bed, comforted her when she cried out in the night, and soothed her tears. They hadn't made love, and Bethany knew he was waiting until the first terrible grief began to ebb.
He spoke her name again and this time she answered, "It's all right, Tiger." She covered his hand with hers. "It's time we looked for the dragon."
"We?" He shook his head. "No, Bethany, I will look for the dragon. You'll stay here with Mother so that I know you're safe."
The gray eyes grew dark as Bethany shook her head. "I'm going with you." Her voice was firm. "Part of the dragon belongs to me. If I'm to share in the riches then I must also share in the danger."
"No! You will do as I say. You will—"
"I have brought some tea," Su Ching said from the doorway. She paused, looking from one angry face to the other, then with a sigh came out into the courtyard. She put the tea tray down on the table and when die had poured it and taken a seat she said, "You were arguing when I came out. Was it about the golden dragon?"
Bethany glanced at Tiger, then away, waiting for him to speak.
"Yes, Mother. Bethany wants to go with me when I look for it. I have told her that is impossible, that she H to stay here with you until I return."
Su Ching's face was impassive.
Tiger put his teacup back on the saucer. "It's time, Mother, time for you to tell me where to find it."
Su Ching sipped her tea as she looked from her son to Bethany. "I will tell you," she said. "But first I will tell you a story."
"Mother!" Tiger's voice held an edge of impatience. "We want to hear about the dragon."
"And you shall." Su Ching took a deep breath and began: "The Sung Dynasty ruled China from the year nine hundred until 1279, when the empire extended from the Great Wall to Hainan. It has been said that the golden dragon dates back to the year one thousand."
The almond eyes closed. "But long before, in the beginning of the beginning, there lived in a small village on the island of Hainan a maiden so pure and so beautiful that all who passed her way were stuck by her beauty and her goodness.
"Her mother named her Flowering Peach, for even at birth her skin was that fruit's softly shaded color. Her father, a rich merchant involved in trade with Persia, had little interest in his girl child. But as Flowering Peach grew into womanhood he began to think how he might use her to gain more riches for himself.
"Like all females of her age and time, Flowering Peach spent her days helping her mother with the household chores and tending her garden. One day, in the spring of her sixteenth year, a young poet passed through the village. He saw the girl in her father's courtyard and before she could move away he began to play to her on his lute. In song he told her that her skin was as delicate as rice paper, her hair as fragrant as jasmine.
"The next day the poet appeared again, and again for many days thereafter. He was a handsome young man. His body was as slender and as strong as a sapling, his eyes as dark as the midnight sky. Each day the poet and Flowering Peach fell more and more in love.
"Then one day a rich merchant from Persia came to the village to buy silk from the girl's father. She was sent for. 'Bring tea,' her father ordered, all the while looking slyly at the expression on the fat merchant's face.
"Flowering Peach brought the tea and after she had served it and left the room the merchant said, 'I would have your daughter.'
"'What will you give me in return?' her father asked.
" 'One thousand gold coins.'
" 'It is done,' was her father's reply.
"The next day he told Flowering Peach that he had sold her to the merchant from Persia. The merchant, he said, had other business in China, and would return for her in two weeks' time. She prostrated herself before her father. Weeping, she told him of her love for the young poet and begged to be allowed to marry him. But her father would not listen to her pleas.
"That
night Flowering Peach told her lover that they must part. Together they wept and he said to her, 'Come away with me. We will defy your father; we will marry.'
"Fearfully Flowering Peach looked at him. She was afraid, but her love was greater than her fear, and that night the lovers slipped away together into the darkness.
"Her father found them a week later and brought them back to the village. His daughter had been despoiled; the despoiler must be punished. In a rage the father sought a sorcerer. He paid him one hundred silver coins to cast a spell upon the poet, an irreversible spell that turned the handsome young poet into a hideous dragon with ugly green scales and distended fire-breathing nostrils.
"Flowering Peach looked in horror at the dragon, but instead of backing away, almost blinded by her tears, she tenderly ran her fingers over the ugliness of scales. And with her touch of love the dragon turned into an object of golden beauty.
"But love could do no more than that; the poet had been locked within the golden dragon for all eternity.
"Her father had won. He convinced the Persian merchant to buy Flowering Peach although she had been soiled.
"The night before the wedding Flowering Peach slipped from her father's house. In one hand she held a flacon of a deadly potion, in the other the golden dragon. Down through the willows she went, down to the river. There on the moss-green banks, by the light of the moon, she drank the poison. With her last breath she held the golden dragon to her breast and whispered of her love.
"And as she died one single tear fell from the dragon's eye."
There was silence in the courtyard as Su Ching finished her story. She sat back in her chair, relaxed, eyes closed, as the last rays of the afternoon sun faded from the horizon. When at last she spoke she said, "The golden dragon is a symbol of a love that will never die. Its value cannot be measured by money."
Impatiently Tiger got up from his chair. "It's only a story," he said. "A legend that has nothing to do with reality."
"Doesn't it?" Su Ching turned her gaze to Bethany. "Do you think it is only a story?"
"I... I don't know. It's beautiful and sad. I don't know," she said again.
"Nor do I." Su Ching looked at her son. "Now I will tell you where you can find the golden dragon," she said.
Chapter 11
As the shadows of evening descended on the courtyard, Madame Su Ching drew her chair closer. "Your father met Ross Adams in the early part of 1939," she said to Tiger. "Chennault had been hired by Chiang Kai-shek to train Chinese pilots in the fight against the Japanese, and other pilots, adventurers from Italy, England, France, and America, came to China to fly with Chennault. They became the Flying Tigers, brave and daring men who, with one hundred and fifty Chinese pilots, flew planes no sensible man would have taken two feet off the ground."
"Did you know your husband then?" Bethany asked.
Su Ching shook her head. "No, I didn't meet Bill Malone until later when Chennault moved his base of operations to Kunming. It was the summer of 1941.1 had just turned seventeen." She smiled at Bethany. "I
will never forget that summer. Kunming is called the City of Perpetual Spring because all through the year there is a profusion of blossoms: cherry, camellia, magnolia, azalea and plum. To me it is the most beautiful city in China."
For a moment Su Ching was silent, remembering. Then she said, "I met Bill and Ross one Sunday afternoon in the park. My father had taken all of us, my sisters and brothers and me, boating on the lake." Her lips curved in a smile. "They were so young, so raucous and full of life. So glad to be alive.
"They waved to my sisters and me and though we smiled behind our fans we dared not wave back. Then, Bethany, your father stood up in the boat and began signaling to us, doing funny things to make us laugh. Suddenly, before we could warn him that this type of Chinese boat had not been built for such antics, the boat overturned."
"Father went overboard?" Tiger asked with a grin.
"And came up with a lily pad covering his face. He looked so funny that my father took mercy on both of them. We helped them rescue their boat and get back to shore, and father invited them for tea.
"My father—your grandfather, Tiger—admired the pilots who flew for Chennault. He thought they were brave and wonderful men, but he did not like the idea of his daughters becoming friendly with foreigners because of the cultural differences, the barriers that are almost impossible to cross." Su Ching looked at Bethany. "But there are times," she said, "when two people look at each other and there is a magic, a destiny that cannot be denied. Then nothing matters except that these two people should be together. That is the way it was with Bill Malone and me. Not even my father could stop the love we felt for each other."
In the silence of the garden a mourning dove called to its mate. Bethany looked at Su Ching through the gathering darkness. She knows, Bethany thought, she knows what I feel for Tiger.
"Bill and I were married by a Catholic missionary in Guilin," Su Ching went on. "Ross Adams was our witness. No one in my family was there." She closed her eyes and after a moment said. "For our honeymoon trip we hired a small boat and went down the Li River to Yangshuo. I still remember the feathery bamboos lining the banks, the cormorant fishermen, the local people who sold tropical fruits. And the way Bill Malone looked with the sun on his face."
Su Ching lowered her head for a moment. When she spoke again her voice held a different tone. "I didn't learn that Bill and Ross were dealing in the black market until a year after we were married. I was angry when I found out, and I tried to tell Bill how dangerous it was. He laughed and said, 'Dangerous? What in the hell could be more dangerous than what I've been doing for the last couple of years? The planes we're flying are put together with spit and glue. We land on runways that aren't fit for jackrabbits. Hell, girl, all the pilots are doing black market business. It's the only way we can put some money aside for when the war's over. If it's ever over. All we're doing is a little trading—cigarettes and liquor, silk, porcelain and jade. Things like that.'"
Su Ching turned to Tiger. "I kept my peace until the day your father bought me this ring." She rubbed the fingers of her other hand across the large jade ring. "I knew it was expensive, that we couldn't afford it, and when I pressed him he told me about the golden dragon."
Her voice dropped to a whisper so that both Bethany and Tiger had to lean forward to hear. "He and Ross had been away for almost a month, on a mission to The Great Bend of the Yellow River. It was there, in that region where the capitals of eleven Chinese dynasties have flourished, that your fathers were given the golden dragon by a warlord who knew his enemies were closing in around him. He paid Ross and Bill a great sum to take the statue to his son who lived in northern China in a city called Jiayuguan.
"The fighting was fierce in those days, and many Months passed before they were able to make the trip to Jiayuguan. They did, however, on one of their missions, return again to the Bend of the Yellow River. They went to see the warlord to tell him they had not yet been able to deliver the dragon. But when they arrived they were told by the few of his men who were still alive that most of their men had been killed, and that the lord himself had been tortured and murdered."
Bethany's hands tightened in her lap and she shivered, not sure whether from the evening chill or fear. She looked at Tiger and saw that he too was affected by his mother's story.
Both Ross and your father were sobered by the news, Tiger. But I honestly do not think they connected the murder to the dragon. Not until they flew to Jiayuguan, and found that the son of the warlord's tee had been the same."
With trembling hands Su Ching smoothed her flawless hair. "They kept the statue in our home, wrapped in silk in a wooden box. For a long time I didn't open the box, but one day, while Bill was away, I took the box from its hiding place and slowly unwrapped it." She looked from Tiger to Bethany. "I have never seen anything as beautiful, as magnificent as the golden dragon. I touched it and it seemed so real that I could almost feel it quiver ben
eath my fingers."
Su Ching pressed her hands to her face and for a long moment did not speak. Then in a faltering voice she said, "I had heard the legend of the golden dragon when I was a child. I knew of its cultural value and I... I felt, after I had seen its beauty, that it should be in a place where all could see. I asked Bill to turn it over to the Chinese government.
"He refused. He said that it was ours. Then he and Ross took it to a place where they knew it would be safe. 'When the war is over,' he said, 'we will get it.' But when the war was over your father and I had to flee to Hong Kong. And China closed its doors behind us."
"Where is the dragon now, Mother?" Tiger asked.
"It is near Wuhan." And to Bethany she said, "Wuhan is a port stop for the Yangtze River steamers. It is a composite name for three cities, Hankow, Hanyang, and Chungtai." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "The dragon is in the monastery in Chungtai." She took a key from her pocket and handed it to Tiger. "Here is the key that with Bethany's key will unlock the place where the golden dragon is hidden."
Then quietly, not waiting for Bethany or Tiger to speak, Su Ching got up and went into the house.
Bethany sat as though frozen, her heart thudding hard against her ribs. In a voice made tense by emotion she turned to Tiger and said, "When do we leave for Chungtai?"
"Not we," Tiger said half an hour later as they were getting ready for bed. "You're not going anywhere."
"But—"
"I will not even discuss it, Bethany. I will go to Chungtai alone. When I have found the dragon I'll return for you. Together we will go back to Hong Kong where we will find a dealer and dispose of the dragon."
"Dispose of it?" Bethany looked at him incredulously, "How can you say that? The golden dragon isn't a... a thing. It's a symbol of love. It represents love!"
"Surely you don't believe the story my mother told us. She said herself that it was a legend, Bethany, a fairy tale she heard when she was a child." Tiger smiled at her stormy face and putting his hands on her shoulders he turned her to face him. "It was only a story, Bethany. There never was a girl named Flowering Peach or a handsome young poet who was turned into a dragon by an angry father." He gave her a little shake. "You came to China to find the dragon, Bethany. Well, we have almost found it, don't back out now."
