Down to a Soundless Sea

by Thomas Steinbeck

  Unfortunately, many of the wounds had festered, and the poor fisherman now suffered from a high fever brought on by the infections. His wife despaired for his life and tearfully implored the learned healer to attend her husband, which he did until late into the evening.

  Though distressed for the fisherman, Sing Fat was secretly pleased by the delay in departure. It gave him further opportunity to see and speak with his prospective bride.

  The foggy dawn had lifted to reveal clear sparkling weather with no sign of the impending storm. Though the journey back to Salinas took most of the day, the time seemed nothing to Sing Fat. He chirped and chatted away like a magpie the whole trip. The apothecary noted this change in disposition. It appeared his pupil’s long years of brutal disappointment and hardship had slipped away and left behind a happy young man with a world of fortuitous opportunities awaiting him. He reconsidered Sing Fat’s impending nuptials with an eye toward the stability such a union would impart. Now that Sing Fat had taken on matrimonial responsibilities, it was hoped he would strive even more diligently to improve his condition for the sake of his new family.

  They arrived back at the shop at dusk, and Sing Fat attended to the mule and cart before taking himself home for a well-deserved rest. The next day he was at the shop before his time with a song on his lips and a flutter of anticipation in his youthful breast. It pleased the apothecary to see his apprentice take on his labors with such cheerful diligence and enthusiasm.

  The shop was busy all day. The elder Fat’s absence had created a backlog of requests so great that neither master nor student found time to take a meal all day long. That evening the rains came, and they came with a vengeance. The water poured from the sky in torrents and turned the unpaved streets to avenues of deep, sticky mud.

  It rained in this manner for two days and nights. The winds occasionally gusted to amazing velocities, causing considerable damage to the poorer buildings of the town. Signs were torn from their fittings, and the slightest imperfection in a roof allowed channels of water to stream through every seam and fissure. But none of this seemed to affect the buoyant and cheerful apprentice.

  Sing Fat walked through the rain as through sunlight. His heart and mind rested far away in the company of his bride to be, and no veil of gloom or concern could prevail against his optimistic glow. His mood became infectious, and even the elder Fat found himself laughing and joking more than was his habit.

  The storms eventually subsided, and warm sunlight began to dry out the town. Steam rose from the sodden streets as though the earth blistered and bubbled with heat. Every puddle became a raucous birdbath for migrating starlings. As far as Sing Fat was concerned, all was right with the world and the gods were at peace in their jade palace of heaven.

  When he was not in attendance at the shop, Sing Fat rushed about making detailed preparations for the wedding. The nuptial party would be small, consisting of Sue May Yee’s immediate family; the elder Fat, of course; and the Taoist priest who would conduct the ceremony.

  A modestly elaborate banquet was arranged, but to celebrate his true happiness and the pride he took in his new bride, Sing Fat also contracted a three-piece orchestra to play traditional Chinese music. The musicians proved more expensive than he had expected. But Sing Fat knew that the music would delight Sue May Yee, so he refused to haggle and paid one-third of the cost up front to secure the musicians’ enthusiastic participation.

  He also made contributions to the Taoist temple to guard against spiritual carelessness during the ritual. As a boy, Sing Fat had often heard the dictum that stated one only received the equivalent of true value from hard cash, so he concluded that largesse in these matters was hardly impetuous or foolhardy. The elder Fat agreed. In such important essentials it did not recompense one to be frugal, he said.

  The gods detested miserly inclinations and only gave as good as they got. Sing Fat was determined not to be found wanting when it came to the open hand of liberality and saw to it that everything would be concluded according to the best traditions of the Middle Kingdom. His new bride would want for nothing that might be in his power to provide for her. The very thought of bringing a smile to the lovely face of his intended made him happy. The apothecary was inclined to rein in Sing Fat’s more elaborate inclinations in favor of modesty. After all, Sing Fat was to marry a widow, and as such, the wedding hinged on different protocols.

  These well-intended admonitions did little to dampen Sing Fat’s ardor, and he continued to spend his hard-gleaned gold on presents for his bride to be.

  He did it, he said, because it gave him pleasure and he had experienced few real pleasures in his life. It wasn’t asking too much to be indulged in this one instance.

  The elder Fat appeared to understand and ceased applying cautions to every purchase. He acknowledged his protégé’s right to do as he pleased with his gold and praised his generosity. He had seen, he said at last, far greater folly explored in the name of mere infatuation, and Sing Fat’s relationship with Sue May Yee could hardly be characterized as thoughtless infatuation. He had come to trust Sing Fat as a compassionate young man of sober and established experience. He was hardly the kind of person to fall prey to irresponsible or dissipated influences.

  On the sixth day after their return to Salinas, Sing Fat and his teacher were working in the shop. The day was luminous and lovely. The recent storm had burnished the air like jewels, and the odor of recently harvested hay and alfalfa drifted through the town with a sweet, earthy fragrance. Sing Fat thought he had never experienced such a wonderful day, though even he had to admit that much of this sensation had to do with his own newfound perception of happiness and prospective fulfillment. Nothing could have altered his mood. He was above the assault of sordid or mean-spirited prejudices. He was in the grip of devotion and altruism toward his fellow man and nobody could shake his spiritual enthusiasm and good humor.

  About two o’clock, while Sing Fat graded and sorted a shipment of red ginseng root and Indian gotakola leaves, a somewhat disheveled figure entered the shop carrying a covered wicker basket over his arm. The man looked to have been journeying on the road for quite some time, as he was blanketed with road dust cast up by passing wagons.

  Sing Fat couldn’t identify the traveler at first and so returned to his labors. The man came forward and stood in the center of the shop. Sing Fat looked up when the traveler addressed his master as his “kind benefactor.” It was then that Sing Fat recognized the man as one of the miners they had rescued and spirited to Monterey. He had wanted to become a fisherman, and from his appearance had accomplished his aim.

  The elder Fat greeted the fisherman kindly and asked of what service he could be. A wave of profound sadness overcame the man before he could speak. Tears flowed over his dirty cheeks, creating muddy streaks down his face, but he was beyond speech.

  Suddenly the man’s grief broke forth in a pained and prolonged moan, and he fell to his knees and sobbed bitterly. The apothecary quickly came from behind his counter and knelt to help the man rise, but the poor fellow was inconsolable and just bowed his head and cried. The first words that could be elicited from the pitiful creature slumped on the floor were appeals for forgiveness and pardon, and for a few moments, that was all he could say.

  When the elder Fat insisted that the fisherman had done nothing that should warrant forgiveness, the dusty figure only wailed louder and shivered, while his tears rained all about the wooden floor.

  Sing Fat was riveted by the scene. Never in his life had he seen a man so distraught with grief and anguish, not even in the mines.

  At last the fisherman gained some slight semblance of self-control and again begged forgiveness. When the elder Fat at last insisted that the man explain himself, the road-weary figure lifted himself up, clutched his basket, and through a broken voice tripped by intermittent sobs, began to explain that no one should carry the burden of such dreadful tidings. But he felt that he owed the two venerable gentlemen his life, so he had wal
ked all the way from Point Alones to bring the news.

  He had feared that his information might come to them from a stranger, and that would have been the unkindest wound of all. He had traveled on the errand himself out of respect. Suddenly Sing Fat felt a premonition, and his blood ran like fire through his veins. He demanded to know what had happened and to whom.

  The fisherman sobbed once more and then began his story. He said that the day after their departure from Point Alones the expected storm had struck with frightening winds and monstrously steep seas. He said that although no one could be absolutely sure of the true facts, the little fishing village had experienced something like an earthquake about three in the morning. The waves had pounded the shore with such ferocity that no one was quite sure if it was truly the earth or the sea that had created the disturbance. The people had run out into the driving storm to avoid being crushed in their own houses. It was but a few moments later that a great wave rose from the bay like an avenging sea dragon.

  It grew to an appalling height and drove straight for the village. Because of the darkness the size of the wave could only be judged by its white luminous crest. It seemed to reach for the clouds.

  The fisherman wept once more and attempted to finish his disturbing narrative. Before anyone could give the alarm, the rogue wave crashed down on the rocks, destroying the three southernmost dwellings in the village. Sadly the house of Jong Yee disappeared under the breakers with two others. The shattered remains were dragged into the surge like so much kindling.

  By dawn the broken figure of Sue May Yee was discovered on the rocks. Nobody else had been found. Seven adults and six children had disappeared completely. Sue May Yee lived only a short while before joining her honorable ancestors, but she had gathered strength enough to request that a legacy be forwarded to her intended husband with a message. They were to tell the young master that he was not to grieve. She would return to him one day. It was the will of heaven and love’s commandment. Until then, Sing Fat was to take guardianship of her emissary. With that, the Imperial Duchess of Woo pushed open the hinged lid of the basket, shook her head, looked at Sing Fat, and voiced a long meow of recognition.

  The sobbing fisherman said that the cat had been found in a cypress tree far from the shore, wet and angry but uninjured. He had brought the animal here at once as Sue May Yee had requested, but no one could understand how the poor creature had survived when all the others had been lost.

  The elder Fat looked up at his apprentice and was startled by what he saw. The frame and form of his pupil stood there, to be sure, but the soul, the heart of Sing Fat, had vanished in an instant, had raced away upon the wings of shock, disbelief, and anger.

  Sing Fat stood looking down at the beautiful white cat, but he said not a word, nor expressed the least emotion whatsoever.

  Again the distraught traveler asked the gentlemen’s pardon for being the bearer of such lamentable news. He would rather have lost his right arm than act the courier for such tragic tidings, but such were the ways of heaven.

  Still Sing Fat said nothing, disclosed nothing.

  Chow Yong Fat was deeply troubled to find that his protégé’s expression betrayed no normal human response. Nothing remotely emotional could be perceived behind Sing Fat’s stony countenance. The young man’s spirit-light had vanished, and in his experience, this signaled a dangerous ledge. Another step and Sing Fat might easily stumble into a bottomless crevasse of anguish-goaded madness.

  The elder Fat had witnessed such effects of shock and grief before, and he knew this was beyond his medical skills. This was an affliction that no tincture or compound could assuage and no sacrifice or concern would alleviate. The healer felt totally powerless to alter the course of events.

  Whatever was to happen in the next few moments, no matter how extreme or drastic, would define the parameters of response. Chow Yong Fat gripped the counter, held his breath, and waited. The fisherman looked up in fear and waited. A universe of time and stars waited. The last gasp of reason waited as well.

  Sing Fat stood motionless for a few moments and then, without saying a word or altering expression, reached down and gently lifted the cat to his breast. He caressed the purring creature’s head with his cheek and then walked out of the shop.

  The whole incident distressed the elder fat in the extreme. He even felt that perhaps his own participation in the affair might be assessed as too meddlesome. Since, obviously, the will of heaven was not in harmony with events as planned, he could be rightly criticized for stunted professional insight. He might have acted sooner. If he had not cautioned Sing Fat to exercise patience and wait, the couple would have been married by now, and this fate would have passed from their door. He should have sensed disaster from the sea and guided the couple to safety. Many similar self-reproaches haunted his thoughts and daydreams.

  Chow Yong Fat waited a week for his young friend’s return, but no word or sign of his whereabouts turned up. The apothecary then began to make broad inquiries. Some said a young man of similar description had been seen in Watsonville, in an opium den. Others heard it said that the young man had taken work as a railroad laborer. But all these accounts proved false. Then one day, an old customer recounted witnessing a person of Sing Fat’s description purchase a small spring wagon, mule, and burro from a livery stable in Monterey. This observer also reported that the man in question no longer wore Chinese garb, but rather dressed in overalls, seaboots, and a long, canvas duster. He had also taken to wearing a black derby hat. It was additionally rumored that he carried a twelve-gauge coach gun on a shoulder strap under his duster.

  The elder Fat found these stories difficult to believe. None of this sounded like the Sing Fat he knew, but they were the only reports that came to light. Perhaps they were true. Perhaps madness had come to roost in the young man’s soul after all.

  The one piece of evidence that finally convinced the apothecary that this identification might prove valid was a report that just such an individual, described just as he had heard, always traveled in the company of a beautiful white cat. This last piece of intelligence corked the bottle of speculation.

  Chow Yong Fat, apothecary and healer of local distinction, at last buried any hopes that his talented pupil and friend would ever return to him as the man he once knew. The affliction that claimed victims of such cataclysm had consumed his most promising student, and there was no remedy for such misfortune save prayer. One either survived or withered into the grave of love’s despair.

  The old man assumed, with good reason, that he would never see Sing Fat again. After all was said and done, Sing Fat would not be the last child of the Middle Kingdom to go mad in the land of the barbarians.

  It was sad to think upon, but no consecrated soil would claim his bones, and his grave would go uncherished by the generations of family he had hoped to sire.

  Chow Yong Fat was alone once more. He despaired of ever finding someone to whom he could pass on his knowledge and practice, but disappointments were part of the currency traded with heaven for the gift of life. He was altogether resolved to accept this fact and went about his business as usual. Out of respect for his loss, no one ever mentioned his tragic apprentice again.

  * * *

  Seven months had passed since the death of Sue May Yee, and on New Year’s Day of the Chinese calendar, Master Chow Yong Fat traveled to the Brooklyn district of Watsonville to witness the celebrations as a guest of his old friend, Dr. Lee Wah. It was tradition to render up debts on New Year’s Day, and that had prompted one of his reasons for the journey. He maintained business relationships with the elders of the Fon Lee Look Company, the Ling Fook Company, and the Quong Wo Company, and there were important debts to be collected as well as paid during this propitious time of the year.

  He had also pledged to visit his onetime benefactor, T. M. Shew, who now owned a general store on San Juan Road. Shew had acquired part ownership of a Chinese nickelodeon down by the Pajaro River, and the elder Fat was cu
rious to see this strange new oddity.

  The apothecary arrived back in Salinas two days after the New Year celebrations. It was late in the evening, and not a soul moved on the streets. He had no sooner closed the shop and gone up to his rooms when there came a loud knocking on his front door.

  Chow Yong Fat naturally assumed it was a minor medical emergency and went downstairs to answer the summons. When he opened the door he received a shock, for there stood an ominous-looking brigand who resembled the cowboy villains he had seen illustrated in the cheaper periodicals. He was about to slam the door in the man’s face when he noticed a beautiful white cat step out from under the man’s full-length trail duster.

  He looked up in the dim light and saw that behind the wispy beard, mustache, and long, unkempt hair burned the eyes of his erstwhile apprentice, Sing Fat. He had changed to such a degree that the apothecary barely recognized him at all.

  Behind Sing Fat, in the street, stood a mule-drawn wagon with a little gray burro haltered to the tailgate. At Sing Fat’s feet lay a number of large sacks packed to bursting and a small ironbound strongbox. The elder Fat swung open the door and warmly invited his former pupil to enter. The Duchess of Woo made her entrance first, followed by Sing Fat, who dragged in the sacks and the strongbox.

  There followed a few moments of embarrassed silence before Sing Fat spoke a greeting. The elder Fat noticed at once that more than appearance had changed. Sing Fat no longer spoke in his usual fast-paced, youthful manner. His voice had sunk to a low baritone, and he talked in a slow, studied cadence that left one with the impression that he had only just learned his own language.

  Sing Fat apologized for the lateness of the hour. He had come by on New Year’s Day, as tradition mandated, to repay his debts, but he was told that Master Chow Yong Fat had gone to Watsonville. He said that he would have waited until morning, but he had business to attend to, and he wished to be back on the road as quickly as possible.