Pearl of China (17 page)

“Dick did send a message,” I said. “But who is going to help Pearl and her family?”

“We have done our best,” Papa replied.

“Why don’t you go and find yourself a hiding place?” I was disappointed.

“I will.”

I never anticipated what would happen next: Papa and I were kidnapped in broad daylight. Unable to resist a reward, an acquaintance sold Papa to the soldier mobs.

The informer pointed at Papa. “This man knows exactly where the foreigners are hiding.”

Papa and I realized that we were dealing with professional soldiers whose leader was a warlord we used to know, Bumpkin Emperor.

It had been over twenty years since I had first met him. The man had gone from being a local warlord to becoming the commander of the Nationalist forces in our region. Bumpkin Emperor claimed that he had killed more foreigners than anyone else in the country. He was responsible for the dean’s death.

The soldiers prepared to torture us. They wanted to know the hiding place of the foreigners. I clenched my teeth and prayed. The soldiers choked me with hot-pepper water until I passed out.

*          *          *

I woke to a clean room. Papa was sitting next to me.

I sensed his nervousness and asked, “Papa, where are we?” I saw that his fingertips were wrapped in cloth bandages.

“Have some water, Willow.” He passed me the cup.

“No, Papa. Please, first explain what happened.”

“I’m getting you out of here.”

“Papa, what is going on?”

“I made a deal, and we are both going to be released.”

“Deal?” I stared at him. “What kind of deal? What did you do?”

He avoided my eyes.

“Speak, Papa!” I tried not to let my imagination run wild.

“The important thing is that both of us are safe,” he insisted. “Look at you, blood all over. You could have lost your baby.”

The possibility of what he might have done hit me.

“Don’t tell me, Papa, you didn’t . . .” I stopped, realizing what must have happened.

Papa lowered his head.

“This can’t be! No! Papa, it mustn’t be . . .”

Papa began to cry like a guilty child.

I could feel my blood freeze in my veins.

“I have committed a terrible crime.” Papa spoke in a small voice. “I deserve to go to hell.”

I pulled at his arms and shook him. “No! You didn’t do it!”

“They used sharpened bamboo splinters and shoved them under my fingernails.” He raised his hands and pulled off the cloth, revealing bloody fingers. “They said that they were going to kill you if I refused to cooperate.”

“You told them where Absalom and Pearl were hiding?”

Collapsing to his knees, Papa nodded.

C
HAPTER
23

“There are no foreigners here!” Soo-ching and Confucius shouted as they tried to push the soldiers away from the hut.

A crowd gathered and watched in fear.

One soldier hit Soo-ching with the butt of his rifle. She stumbled back, dazed, and her nose started to bleed.

Confucius jumped on the soldier and bit him.

Other soldiers pulled Confucius off and kicked the boy in the stomach.

Standing hidden in the crowd, Papa and I were ashamed and scared.

“Let’s burn the hut,” one soldier suggested.

The other soldiers agreed. “Let’s roast the foreigners!”

“No!” Soo-ching screamed.

The crowd moved forward. “There are no foreigners in the hut!” They began to push the soldiers.

The sharp crack of a gunshot came. A man in a high-collared military uniform with bars on his shoulders strode through the crowd. It was Bumpkin Emperor. A row of bright gold buttons ran down the center of his jacket. Medals were pinned across his chest. His hat looked like a lotus pad.

“Is there anyone here hungry for a bullet?” Bumpkin Emperor’s fat cheeks quivered.

Soo-ching crawled to him and grabbed his legs. “Respected general,” she cried. “Please spare my home!”

“Only if you produce the foreigners.” Bumpkin Emperor waved his pistol.

“I know nothing of foreigners,” Soo-ching cried.

“Mother of louses! How dare you lie to me?” Bumpkin Emperor slapped her face. He turned to his soldiers. “What are you idiots waiting for?”

“Please!” Soo-ching pulled at Bumpkin Emperor’s arms.

“You stinking female hog!” He kicked her. “Get off me!”

The soldiers came. They removed the bales of hay from in front of the door.

Bumpkin Emperor walked to the door and kicked it open.

Soo-ching threw herself at Bumpkin Emperor’s feet. “I will die first before you burn my home!”

Bumpkin Emperor walked away from Soo-ching and fired a shot at her.

“Mother!” Confucius screamed.

The soldiers pinned Soo-ching down, and she squirmed to be free.

“You are going to have a lingering death, crazy lady!” Waving his pistol, Bumpkin Emperor ordered, “Skin the rabbit and set fire to the hut!”

The soldiers started to tie Soo-ching with a rope.

Lit straws were thrown on top of the roof.

A voice came. “Stop in the name of God!”

Absalom filled the opening at the door of the hut.

Behind him stood Pearl, Grace, and the children.

“Tie the foreigners,” Bumpkin Emperor ordered. “Line them up.”

“Absalom!” Papa threw himself at Absalom’s feet.

“Mr. Yee, my friend!” Absalom replied.

Papa slapped his cheeks with both hands. “I have betrayed you! I gave in to the torture! May God punish me.”

Papa turned to Bumpkin Emperor and pleaded, “These foreigners have done China no wrong. They have been living with us all their lives. Look, this is Pearl. You remember her when she was a little girl? She was raised in Chin-kiang under your lordship . . .”

“Stay away or you will die with them!” Bumpkin Emperor yelled.

“Your lordship!” Papa cried.

The soldiers dragged Papa away.

Absalom, Pearl, Grace, and the children were lined up against the burning hut.

I no longer knew where I was. All I could think about was Dick’s knife in a basket in my kitchen. My legs began to carry me home. I ran.

When I returned, a larger crowd had gathered. Many of the people were from surrounding towns and villages, having sought refuge in our city from the chaos. They outnumbered the city folks. Among them were many who believed foreigners were China’s curse. They felt that the sooner we got rid of them, the better.

I pushed my way through the crowd, shoving people aside to reach Bumpkin Emperor. My intent was to stab him.

“You!” He saw me.

I held back, hiding Dick’s knife under my shirt.

Bumpkin Emperor was standing near where Absalom, Pearl, Grace, and the children had been lined up. While I had been gone, their hands had been tied behind their backs.

I hoped I could reach Bumpkin Emperor before he shot me.

“I’ll die first,” Absalom said in a calm voice. He looked at his daughters and grandchildren. “We will be with God.”

Terrified, the crowd watched in silence.

Absalom turned to face the crowd and started to sing.

Pearl, Grace, and the children joined him.

“Master Absalom,” the Chinese Christians called out as they dropped to their knees and joined in the singing.

Absalom sang as if he were in his church.

“Prepare to shoot!” Bumpkin Emperor shouted.

I moved behind Bumpkin Emperor and took out the knife.

Hearing the noise, Bumpkin Emperor turned. I could clearly see his big frog eyes.

I have no memories after that. I only knew that I had lifted the knife and then everything went dark.

“You are an ant who tries to shake a pine!” was what I was told Bumpkin Emperor had said, after one of his soldiers had hit me in the back of the head.

When I opened my eyes I heard “Kill the rice Christians!” I discovered that my hands were tied behind my back and I was on the ground. The back of my head throbbed with pain.

“Have mercy!” I heard Pearl beg. “Willow is pregnant!”

“Pregnant?” Bumpkin Emperor laughed. “Good! I will save a bullet!”

The soldiers lifted me and placed me next to Absalom.

“Praise the Lord,” Absalom said. “He will bless you with courage.”

Papa threw himself to the ground and kowtowed to Bumpkin Emperor. “Let my daughter go!”

Soldiers beat Papa with their rifles until he was silent.

“Willow, we are going home,” Absalom said to me.

I looked into Absalom’s eyes. I saw no fear—only confidence and love.

“The angels are here,” he murmured. “God is waiting for us.”

I shut my eyes and leaned against Absalom. I didn’t want to die.

The soldiers took up their positions and pointed their rifles at us.

Bumpkin Emperor shouted, “Get ready and . . . f—”

Before Bumpkin Emperor finished his sentence, the earth leaped beneath me. There was a flash followed by a loud roar.

I lost my balance and fell.

Clods of dirt rained down.

I choked as clouds of dust rolled across the ground.

“What is happening?” I heard Bumpkin Emperor yell.

“It must be the Christian God showing his anger!” Papa’s voice said.

The soldiers ran like scattered monkeys.

When the dust cleared, I saw that hills near the city were burning and black smoke spiraled into the sky.

“The American fleet is here!” Carpenter Chan and Lilac shouted, running along the riverbank toward the crowd.

Another round of explosions came. The earth trembled again. There was more dust and smoke and flames.

My ears filled with a ringing sound. It was as if someone had stuffed them with cotton.

Bumpkin Emperor followed his soldiers and ran as fast as he could.

The crowd scattered, and soon we were alone in front of Soo-ching’s burned-down hut.

Carpenter Chan untied Pearl’s ropes. “Sorry it took so long for me to deliver your letter!”

“What letter?” Absalom asked.

“How did you do it, Chan?” Pearl’s face was animated withexcitement.

“I thought I was never going to find any help, but I was lucky,”

Carpenter Chan replied. “I found the American fleet near the mouth of the Yangtze and managed to get your note to their leader. He sent one warship.”

“God has heard our prayers,” Absalom said in his loud preacher’s voice.

Pearl stared at the river. She then turned to Lilac, who was tending to Carpenter Chan’s blistered feet.

The warship steamed along the shore. Flames burst from the muzzles of the cannons and there were more explosions in the hills. The ground kept shaking. I watched Pearl’s lips as she said, “Thank you, America.”

C
HAPTER
24

Twenty-four hours was all she had to say good-bye. She would be uprooted and transplanted to America, a country she called home but barely knew. Later in her life, this last day in China would haunt her. It never stopped haunting her as long as she lived. It was useless to tell herself, “My roots in China must die.”

Life simply caught her. The American captain wouldn’t wait. His ship was literally the last boat leaving China. Pearl had only a few hours to pack up forty years of her life.

I convinced myself that our separation would be temporary. Since we had been children, it had happened before. She had gone to Shanghai and then America, but always she had returned. I had no doubts that we would see each other again.

Pearl said that she didn’t feel at home when she was anywhere else, even when she was in America, her birthplace. When she talked of home, she meant China.

“How could I go someplace else when my mother’s grave is here?” she once said.

Pearl was used to accepting reality. She knew that Bumpkin Emperor and his kind would return and murder again. “There is a positive side to moving to America,” she reasoned. “Carol will receive better medical care there.”

“What about Lossing?” I asked.

“I haven’t heard from him,” Pearl said. “He hasn’t bothered to send one word or to try to find out how his daughter is.”

The American captain insisted that Pearl and Grace leave all their belongings behind. Pearl wanted to take Carie’s piano, but she had to give that up. Instead she took Carie’s sewing machine.

Absalom gathered his congregation at the church and announced that Carpenter Chan would take his place. Carpenter Chan was to head the Nanking church while Papa continued to head the Chin-kiang church.

But Carpenter Chan had no confidence in himself. With tears filling his eyes, he pleaded, “Old Teacher, I am not capable of doing as good a job as you.”

“God has let me know that you’re the one to carry on in my place.”

Absalom told Carpenter Chan that if he ran into difficulty, Papa would be there to help.

Papa was touched—he couldn’t believe that Absalom’s feelings hadn’t changed after he had betrayed him.

While the children’s choir sang, Absalom delivered his final sermon. It was the first time Lilac’s youngest son, Triple Luck Solomon, led the singing. The young man had inherited his mother’s beauty. Carie would have loved his sweet voice. We all wished Pearl’s family a safe journey to America.

I told Pearl that I would take care of her garden. “I’ll bring fresh flowers to Carie’s grave in the spring.”

“I’ll return soon,” Pearl promised.

If I had known that this was the last time we would see each other, I would have held her longer and closer. I would have made an effort to remember how she looked, the clothes she wore and the expression on her face. I would have perhaps tried to talk her out of leaving.

But I didn’t know. In fact, we wanted to get the pain of saying goodbye over with as quickly as possible. The sooner the parting was over, the sooner we could start working our way back together. Pearl was not usually one to dwell on sadness. It was Carie’s training to press back and swallow your bitter tears. Always look forward and be hopeful.

We all started for the river. Lilac came with her children and Soo-ching brought her son, Confucius.

We carried the family’s luggage to the smaller boat waiting to take them out to the warship in the middle of the river.

The large ship excited the children. They called it a big floating temple.

Carpenter Chan followed Absalom. He had been weeping and begging. “I can’t do without you, Old Teacher!”

Papa echoed, “Absalom, without you as our compass we will lose our direction on the sea.”

“Have faith in God” was Absalom’s reply.

“But there are qualities needed in a pastor I don’t possess,” Carpenter Chan insisted. “People won’t follow me the way they follow you! Monkeys will flee when the big tree is down. I am afraid the church will fall apart.”

“Carpenter Chan is right,” Papa agreed. “No matter how hard we work, people see God’s spirit in you, Absalom—not in us.”

Wang Ah-ma, Carie’s former servant and Pearl and Grace’s nanny, arrived to say good-bye. The seventy-year-old woman surprised everyone. After Carie died, Wang Ah-ma had moved back to the provincial village where she had grown up. After hearing the news of foreigners being murdered in Chin-kiang and Nanking, she had come to check on Absalom, Pearl, and Grace. Wang Ah-ma hadn’t known that she was reaching Nanking just in time for the family’s final departure.

“Wang Ah-ma!” Pearl and Grace cried, getting down on their knees to kowtow.

“My sweet girls!” Wang Ah-ma touched Pearl and Grace all over with her trembling hands. She said that her sight was failing and that she could barely see.

“You shouldn’t travel so far.” Pearl wiped her tears.

“When will you return to China?” Wang Ah-ma wanted to know. “Before the New Year or after?”

“What’s the difference?” everyone asked.

“The fortune-teller predicted that I will expire soon after the New Year,” Wang Ah-ma replied.

“Grace and I would like to prove that you wasted your money on the fortune-teller,” Pearl said.

Wang Ah-ma smiled, cupping Pearl’s face with her hands. “My child, promise that you will come back as soon as you can.”

“I promise.” Pearl gently kissed Wang Ah-ma’s cheeks.

“On board now or never!” the captain of the American warship yelled through a loudspeaker.

Wang Ah-ma let go of Pearl and Grace as she broke down.

The family got on the smaller boat that would take them to the warship. Absalom went to stand in the bow with his back to shore. Looking out across the water, he seemed frozen.

The horn blasted.

The Chinese Christians moaned, “Old Teacher, Absalom!”

Carpenter Chan and Papa sobbed like two abandoned children.

“May the wind blow in your favor!” the crowd chanted.

Absalom was no longer at the spot where he had been standing. It was as if he had suddenly vanished.

“Father!” Pearl and Grace called.

Papa was stunned. “Oh, dear God, Old Teacher has changed his mind!”

Running along the gunwale, Absalom moved quickly. Like a mountain goat, he jumped into the water and began to swim toward the shore.

“Old Teacher!” the crowd cheered. “Old Teacher!”

“Absalom has decided to stay with us!” Papa cried.

Carpenter Chan waded into the water and swam toward Absalom.

“Captain, help!” Grace cried. “Please, stop my father!”

The crowd received Absalom with happy tears.

A few minutes later the American captain arrived from the warship on another small boat. He talked with Pearl.

I could guess exactly what Pearl said to the American captain. She would have said, “Let the fighting angel be.”

When Pearl, Grace, and the children went aboard the ship, Absalom smiled. He waved good-bye to his daughters and grandchildren. His long arms rose like flagpoles in the air.

Pearl waved back. I sensed that she knew that she had made the right choice in letting go of her father.

What Pearl did not know was that she would never see her father again. Absalom would continue to do what he loved all the way to the end. One day Absalom would deliver his sermon. Afterward he would tell Carpenter Chan that he would take a break. Minutes later Carpenter Chan would find him in his room, lying on his bed as if sleeping. But he would be dead. Before that moment, Absalom had lived his dreams. With the help of Papa and Carpenter Chan, Absalom had built the largest Christian community in southern China.