East Goes West

by Younghill Kang

  “Wait, Brother,” I said. “I’m still confused in my way.”

  He took out a gold fountain pen and drew an elaborate diagram. By this time he had brought another chair, and he interspersed his directions with social questioning. In fact it was evident that I had made some great impression on this elegant light-colored gentleman quite out of proportion to my own importance. But he had never heard of Korea. He just wouldn’t believe I hadn’t come from China. (In fact, all the time I knew him, I could never make him understand about Korea. I remained Brother Han, from China, a “Chinee.”) He seemed never to have heard of the big Eastern colleges either, nothing but Johns Hopkins. But he knew I was very learned, for my destination was Johns Hopkins that evening. When I rose to go, he said, “Well, well . . . er . . . Brother Han, are you in some hurry?”

  “Only for some studying.”

  “First, won’t you join me at dinner, Brother Han?”

  He drew out his card and handed it to me. I read,

  Elder Bonheure

  Temple of The Saints

  Baltimore, Norfolk, and Atlantic Beach

  “I would be delighted.”

  “Then step this way,” said Elder Bonheure with a flourish. “My chauffeur is waiting.”

  Sure enough, around the corner from Ginsburg’s shop, there was a big Cadillac car waiting, and in the driver’s seat a very black and beaming Negro with a kind, honest, innocent face, dressed in the shiniest kind of chauffeur’s uniform, with black leather puttees, cap, gloves, everything to match. He jumped out and bowed and bowed, first to the Elder and then me, and opened the door for us in the most aristocratic manner.

  Bonheure motioned for me to go first. We sank back on the rich cushions and the car rolled grandly away. As we drove, Elder Bonheure asked me gently if I knew anything about God. Not much, I said modestly. Well, had I ever been converted, was I baptized a Christian? I hedged, at that, though of course I really had been baptized once in the Presbyterian Church. But I saw Bonheure did not really think I was a Christian. He would almost be disappointed if I was. I let him think that I was undecided. Still, I said, I thought the Christian faith very beautiful. I quoted the Sermon on the Mount, and St. Paul’s words on Charity, and some other chapters that I knew by heart. Bonheure listened, enraptured. He wiped his face with his handkerchief. He sank back on the luxuriant cushions again, staring at me hard. Finally he jumped forward excitedly and gripped my arm. “Oh, Brother Han!” he cried with tears in his voice. “The Lord has planned it all! He was good to us this day. Blessed be the name of the Lord! He put me in your path, Brother Han, to show you the way home. This is our happy day, the day of the New Jerusalem!”

  We drove up to a large three-story brick house of rather institutional appearance, still in the Negro section of Baltimore. Inside all was very neat and decent-looking. Everywhere were seen Negroes working. They all beamed and smiled at me and Elder Bonheure; they all bowed low. The chauffeur followed us inside. I noticed that as soon as we got in the house, Bonheure addressed him, too, as Brother, Brother Green. Then he introduced me to him for the first time. “Brother Han, meet Brother Green.” All these working Negroes were the Elder’s brothers and sisters, though they were humble while he was very fine.

  On the ground floor, through an open door I saw a big, rough-looking dining room with long tables as in a charity house. But the Elder led me upstairs to his private apartment, which was more like a rich hotel suite. He threw open a large white-tiled bathroom and indicated with princely gesture one of the many snowy hand towels. When I came out, a tall, very dark-brown colored lady was standing there, whom the Elder introduced to me as “Sister Bonheure.” She was plainly but neatly dressed in black taffeta and I remember especially her long skirt which fell below the ankles, and this at a time when the style for ladies, even grandmas, in America, was somewhere around the knees.

  “Sister Bonheure,” cried the Elder, clasping her round the shoulder ecstatically and looking at the ceiling, “I have just received a revelation from the Lord! The Lord has planned that I should meet this Chinee gentleman. I looked up from prayer, and I saw Brother Han standing there. Then it came to me what I should do. I went straight up and spoke to him, as the Lord breathed it into my ear. He harkened. And here he is, Sister Bonheure, he has not made up his mind yet to leave the world, but he followed to hear what more shall come to me from the Lord. I am sure the Lord has great blessings planned out for this Chinee. And all shall come about through me, the Lord’s servant, Elder Bonheure. O praise God for His goodness, Sister Bonheure. Down on your knees and thank the Lord God!”

  Both sank on their knees and Elder Bonheure plainly wished me to do likewise, so I sank, too. But Sister Bonheure was not quite so ardent and wholehearted in thanksgiving as Elder Bonheure. The Lord’s plan seemed hidden from her, if not from Elder Bonheure. She regarded me hard and a little distrustfully. Afterwards, Elder Bonheure murmured in domestic confabulation with Sister Bonheure, “How about putting Brother Han in that little room off our own, Sister Bonheure?”

  Sister Bonheure hesitated, but the Elder, without waiting for a reply, drew away and showed me a small room with bed and window and dresser and armchair, all very clean and comfortable-looking. “How about being our guest, Brother Han, while making up your mind? Step right in and make yourself to home. Later I hope you will join with us. We are all fellow workers for God here, and you are in the company of saints.”

  I protested that I couldn’t think of accepting hospitality this way without doing some service in return. Was he in need of a secretary? If so, I might be his secretary for a while. (For I was very curious to learn what was going on here.) “The Lord will tell in time, Brother Han,” answered Elder Bonheure mysteriously, “what it is you are to do. Now we must just be patient and not go against His will. He has some plan. He tell me it is best you stay now in the Saints’ House. But we’ll talk about this after dinner. Now whenever you’re ready, Brother Han, we’ll sit down to table.”

  I expected dinner to be served on those rough tables on the floor below with all the other saints, but no, there was a private dining room in the Elder’s suite, with tablecloth and napkins and real silver, and no one had seats here but Elder Bonheure and Sister Bonheure and myself. But Brother Johnson, in white uniform, stood behind Elder Bonheure’s chair to wait on him, and Sister Johnson, in white uniform, stood behind Sister Bonheure’s, to serve her. What a dinner that was! My, but Sister Somebody downstairs could cook! There was real green turtle soup, and there was fried chicken, lots of it, great juicy drumsticks and many breasts, and pan-smothered sweet potatoes and many different kinds of fresh vegetables, and at the end a deep, fat blackberry pie straight from the oven.

  After dinner, when we were all three feeling very plump and good-humored, Bonheure revealed a little more of the Lord’s plan for me. He was telling Bonheure to take me with him when he went to Norfolk and Atlantic Beach in a couple of days. Sister Bonheure’s face lighted up with comprehension, especially when Bonheure remarked, “Brother Han is a powerful speaker, Sister Bonheure.”

  And we did start off immediately for Atlantic Beach, before I got the chance to become better acquainted with the other brothers and sisters who ate downstairs and who seemed to hold a service of dancing and singing every night. Elder Bonheure did not ask me to join them, and besides I was very busy getting ready for the journey. But I remained curious about them, and wondered how they all came to be the servants of Elder Bonheure, while he, it appeared, took orders only from the Lord—the Lord’s Servant.

  After a tremendous breakfast in the private dining room (chicken again, with waffles, and honey-dew) Elder Bonheure and Sister Bonheure and I swept out like royalty, and all bowed before us, and Brother Green held open the door of the Cadillac car. And there to my surprise was Ginsburg, up in the space beside the driver’s seat, with a clean shirt on, but no necktie and still looking very rough. He, too
, it seemed, had some place in the Lord’s plan. At least he was to accompany us to Atlantic Beach.

  2

  At Atlantic Beach was a house even bigger than the one in Baltimore—a five-story house, and it was occupied by a hundred of Bonheure’s brothers and sisters who were all living communally and working for him like the ones in Baltimore. They lined up to greet Bonheure and to shake hands with me and with Ginsburg, after which they fell back to stare at us, with amazed rolling eyes, too stirred for speech. You could see it meant something special, our arrival down here. And Elder Bonheure, too, seemed much moved, and he called them his saints instead of his brothers. Saint White, and Saint Owen, and Saint Washington, he now addressed them, though on all ordinary occasions they were just Brother and Sister, or if Bonheure were talking to outsiders, “My Atlantic Beach cook, valet, or chauffeur.”

  My room was especially nice in the Atlantic Beach house, being large with a big double bed, and ruffled white curtains at the windows; the floor was so spotlessly clean it looked as if Sister White, who showed me in there, had cleaned it all round with her tongue. Later, I guessed she must do nothing all day but just wait around the corner, and as soon as I left for a moment, in she would jump, smoothing wrinkles, picking up every single hair or thread that had dropped, and plumping the big starched pillows until they were straight as boards.

  I made myself at home and got out my copies of The New Republic and The Nation, and I placed Elmer Gantry on the table, to read in my spare time in my research upon Elder Bonheure. In fact, I was just beginning to like my room very much, when along in the afternoon, I found Ginsburg in it, too. Ginsburg had been washing up with my pitcher and bowl—he was still at it when I came in, and he had made an awful mess. I sat down on the big double bed and tried to talk to him, but there wasn’t anything to talk about. He himself seemed in a dazed, humble, religious mood, after that excellent lunch in which he had joined Brother and Sister Bonheure and me in the Atlantic Beach private dining room, for he addressed me unctuously as Saint Han. But I couldn’t help thinking he had come down for the ride, or just to get in on the ice cream and turkey. Certainly that man was very dumb. He couldn’t read. He had nothing to say. And yet he could talk a few broken words, so it wasn’t like having an animal in the room, which would have been better. Before words came to be, man got along with his fellow man without embarrassment, but as soon as language was invented, he became embarrassed when not talking.

  By and by Bonheure came in and shook hands with us both. He acted as if he were surprised to see Ginsburg in my room, but I am sure Ginsburg had been led straight there by his orders. “Well, well,” remarked Elder Bonheure, rubbing his hands in benevolent approval. “You two seem to be chums already. Do you think this is too crowded, Brother Han? Of course, there’s room for Brother Ginsburg up on the next floor if you two brothers don’t like each other. How about it, Brother Ginsburg?”

  Brother Ginsburg said my room suited him. Elder Bonheure looked at me. I was sewed up. Nothing left to say. Oh, how it tortured me to nod “all right!” Oh, how I was tortured all that night with that dumb Ginsburg, who snored most horribly!

  But meanwhile Elder Bonheure asked Brother Ginsburg if he would like to have a little conversation on spiritual matters. So they sat down on the side of the bed, and I listened.

  The spiritual conversation was difficult, for they didn’t have the vocabulary. Bonheure, of course, knew a few big words, but Ginsburg didn’t know any. But their sex-phraseology was the most limited, at least when they wanted to be very delicate and nice as at a time like this, which was a pity, as this spiritual matter was all about sex. Though neither had even the word for that. So they had to use some expressions overtime, such as “sleeping with a woman” and “going to bed,” and things like that, with intonation and quavering pause to convey the real meaning.

  “Well, has the Lord done help you to overcome, Brother Ginsburg?” began Elder Bonheure cheerfully, “Has you done forgot that temptation I yanked you away from?”

  Brother Ginsburg admitted he had received grace. He had been looking as timid as a rabbit ever since arriving in Atlantic Beach, but as Elder Bonheure went on, reminding him, some of his old irritation came back.

  “Only I know sanctification can’t last,” he said doggedly. “Too much I got habit.”

  “You can’t hold out, Brother, I know, not alone, but the Lord’s going to be with you . . .”

  “Take it this way, Elder, a man that’s been having three meals a day all his life—he can’t stop sudden, can he?”

  “That’s all right, Brother Ginsburg.” (This was always Bonheure’s first position in any argument. He always approved of you first, no matter what you said, and if possible he would always try to find a straw on your trousers to brush off. He sat a little nearer to Ginsburg and brushed off his trousers.) “That’s all right. The Lord ain’t going to let you hunger and thirst. It’s the devil do that.”

  “It’s sleeping with women, I mean,” blurted Ginsburg. “I’m an old man, used to that thing. If I ain’t never begun . . .”

  “I know, I know, Brother Ginsburg, I understand. God plans everybody to have a woman. Ain’t that good? He don’t say you can’t have no woman at all, never. What he say: Marry. Then everything’s all right with God. It’ll be all right with me too, Brother Ginsburg. Why don’t you do what the Lord plan for you, marry and stay sanctified?”

  “Well, Elder, I already got a wife.”

  “Then why don’t you sleep with your wife, Brother Ginsburg? That’s what all the saints does.”

  “You see, Elder, my wife don’t live here. She’s in the old country with all her kids. I ain’t made enough cash to bring her already. How I going to do like your saints with all the Atlantic Ocean between, Elder?”

  This was a poser, I could see, but Bonheure glided softly over it, saying, “Ah, we must pray about that, Brother Ginsburg.”

  But Ginsburg wouldn’t be put off with anything superficial like that. He got irritated again.

  “You talk like all people with money and a big house. Yes, prayer, prayer. What good it does me? You mean, if I pray, I get money and a big house? I bring my woman and kids over here, to stay? But I got only one room. Just my shop. A poor lonely old man . . . say, Elder, what harm does it do, if once in a while I get with that woman you drove out? I pay her a little money—everybody’s made happy, see? You got all these big houses and a fine car. And a woman in with you every night. . . .”

  “None but my own dear sister, Sister Bonheure,” insisted the Elder firmly. “And money ain’t much, Brother, under God’s eyes. I’m a poor man. Them is not my goods, but the goods of the saints. Now when you’re a good enough saint, Brother, all will come right for you. We bring your wife over, we baptize her, too—t’won’t do for a saint to sleep with a Jew. . . .”

  Ginsburg looked alarmed at the flow of Bonheure’s mellow, juicy language making all things possible. He saw himself really a reformed man. “I ain’t married to her,” he exclaimed hastily, “though we got four kids. Four kids and her in one tailor shop, that’s too much!”

  “Oh, that’s sin you ain’t never told me about yet, Brother Ginsburg,” said Bonheure reproachfully. “Now you got to make things right. You got to marry her. And after you marry, stick. That’s it. Just one. Not like cows and horses and dogs; Brother Ginsburg, you’re not a pig. The Lord says, just one.”

  Something about the “one” displeased Brother Ginsburg again, and he wormed and squirmed and complained, until the Elder said, sternly:

  “This is all I got to say to you, Brother Ginsburg. When you think of the devil, you want devilish things. When you think of God, then you want heavenly things. You want to be one of these saints in this church, and eat with the saints, and sing with the saints, and pray with the saints—you don’t want nothing to do with nobody but saints.”

  Well, Elder Bonheure worked on Ginsburg
, until they both got up and danced around the room, shouting Glory, hallelujah.

  After that the Elder turned to me a little awkwardly. “And now Brother Han, is there anything you would like to discuss about your sanctification?” he said with dignity. (He always treated me as one apart, the man whom he might like, someday, to make his partner; for he had already let many hints drop about this.) So he was rather surprised when I said, “Yes, Elder Bonheure. I’ve been reading and reading in this Bible Sister Bonheure gave me. And it bothers me a lot that I can’t find out any arguments against smoking here. So I don’t believe that is down in this Book.”

  “No, no, you’re in error, Brother Han. I’ll convince you.”

  “Still, I don’t think we find the word ‘smoking’ here at all.” (Smoking was one of the deadliest sins to the saints.) “And it certainly isn’t in the Ten Commandments.”

  “True, of course,” said Bonheure, after a pause, for his first sentence was always to approve you, “but there are many words in the Good Book that warns against this sin.” Then he quoted to me several passages, among them the one about keeping the temple of the body pure. “You see, smoking’s not clean, Brother Han. It’s filthy and rotten.”

  “Then ashes are not really a clean form of dirt?” I inquired. “Do you think we could find a good argument there against smoking, Elder Bonheure? And yet people get cremated. . . . It worries me, Elder, not to be able to find that ‘no smoking’ verse in the Bible. Maybe, somebody might say, it’s all right to smoke.”

  It pleased me to see Bonheure get irritated, for he lost his power when he got irritated. Very few people really irritated Elder Bonheure. But now he was irritated.

  “Smoke, and you will go to hell,” he said dogmatically.