The Eternal Wonder (31 page)

Rita laughed and ended the call, leaving Rann in deep thought. He decided at last that he would discuss his own feelings with Stephanie when next they met.

“Can you not understand, Rann, that is exactly why I cannot marry you?”

They were comfortably settled in the study with coffee and a cordial served to them by Sung after they had completed a delicious seafood dinner he had prepared. It had been Sung’s own concoction, consisting of various types of shellfish with bamboo shoots and bean sprouts in a sauce tart but at the same time with the unmistakable pinch of ginger Rann had come to expect of Sung’s cooking. It had been a thoroughly successful experiment, and both Rann and Stephanie had complimented him profusely. To show his pleasure, Sung had served them a rare Chinese liqueur from a bottle he had treasured for years and was difficult to locate in New York.

Rann and Stephanie had spent that afternoon walking in the park while Rann explained his feelings to her. She listened to all he had to say and had then said, “Please, do not let us talk more now. Allow me to think while we refresh ourselves at dinner. Then when we have finished we can speak of this again.”

Now she shifted her position slightly, leaned forward in her chair, and placed her hand on Rann’s arm.

“You must see and respect my feelings also. I do love you. There is no denying that, but even more important to me is that I admire and respect you deeply, at times even more than my own father. I am impressed with your mind and with the wide and varied range of
interests you have. I am American enough, perhaps, that I wish to marry you, disregarding all that I am, alas, Chinese enough to know I also must consider.”

She again shifted her position, but her eyes met his with her inner conflict evident as she continued.

“We must consider your children, Rann, and you must, of course, have many sons.”

Rann lifted his eyebrows, mocking her with amused exaggeration.

“Am I merely to be considered as a stud animal then, and not as a human being?”

Sipping the sweet liquid from the tiny glass, she thought for moments before answering.

“That is my point exactly, my dear. It is as a human being, a brilliant one indeed, that I must now consider you. With your intellect and your genes you will undoubtedly produce beautiful and brilliant children and you must do so. The less intelligent and civilized of the human race continue to reproduce as a matter of course with either no, or at most very little, thought to the future overpopulation and resulting famine or anything else. They go on, generation after generation, reproducing merely because it is their nature to do so. The more intelligent and civilized members of human society, on the other hand, are using birth-control methods in their effort to control population growth and, so, are slowly breeding themselves out of existence or at least into what is already a serious minority. It is this world trend in human development that makes it exceedingly important to me that you do indeed produce many sons.”

“But I have no reason to believe that I would produce sons superior in any way to anyone else’s.” Rann laughed to cover his discomfort. “Besides, can’t we go at this another way? I’m beginning to feel as if I were under a microscope.”

“To make that statement only shows that you are not viewing the facts in their true light.” Stephanie’s face took on a look of firmness in decision as she continued. “You know perfectly well that in breeding it is the male who controls the outcome. It has long been known that one can mate a fine bull to a mediocre cow and produce fine offspring. On the other hand, if one mates a fine cow with a poor bull, one produces poor calves.”

“But I am not a bull, Stephanie, and you are not a cow, and our children will not be calves romping in a meadow. They will be beautiful and intelligent and with everything at their disposal because we love each other. You do not deny that you love me?”

“No, I do not deny it. But as I have said, you must understand that is exactly why I will not marry you. I decided long ago, Rann, that I would never bear children of my own.”

“You cannot be serious, Stephanie,” Rann said—though he knew from her expression that she was more serious than ever she had been with him. “You will marry, if not me then someone, and you will have beautiful children who will be very fortunate to have so intelligent a mother.”

All appearance of the carefree girl he had grown to love vanished now as she dropped her eyes and spoke to him as a woman speaks to the man she loves out of the anguish in her inner soul.

“No, Rann.” There was a slight catch in her voice and she moistened her lips before she continued in her determination. “Perhaps only the racially mixed person can understand the inborn tragedy of so being. I have been raised as a Chinese. Chinese is my native tongue. I am Chinese in my manner and dress and in feeling and yet to the Chinese people I am American because to them I look American and act American. To them, my bone structure and manner of moving lacks the delicacy of the Chinese. They are right. I am never more aware of the difference than when I am with my Chinese friends.”

“But in America this makes no difference, Stephanie.” Rann’s face creased with his sincerity.

“But there you are wrong, my dear.” She lifted her face to meet his eyes with her own, moist, as she continued. “You must not be saddened by this, though I know that you are, but you must make it only for a short time. Then you must continue with your own life. This is one of the main reasons I wished to come to America. I wished to see with my own heart if it would be different and it is not. Even here in New York, and I understand it is true of every major city in this vast and beautiful land, there is a Chinatown and a Latin quarter and an Italian section and a Negro neighborhood and blockbusters and riots and all of that as your own fearful civil war continues even one hundred years after it is supposedly over. And look again at the plight of the only real Americans, the American Indians. No, my dear, one cannot really ever know how it is to be anything unless one is indeed that thing.”

“Stephanie, please do not refer to yourself as a thing.” Rann rose and went to her and kissed her gently. “You are not a thing. You are a human woman, and, moreover, the woman I love.”

“And you are wrong again, my dear, for a thing is the tragedy, for to be human is to reason and to understand, and so much understanding makes it pleasant at times to think of simply not being. I do not forget that while I never feel less Chinese than when I am with my Chinese friends, who are always kind, I also never feel less Western than when I’m amongst Westerners, who are not always so kind. No, my dear one, my children would be racially mixed and therefore, more for me than for them—for I could not bear their pain from separation—they must never exist. And now, will you take me home, Rann, for I am tired, and we must not speak of this again.”

He pulled her up from her chair and held her firmly in his arms and kissed her.

“Yes, I will take you home, but I will not promise not to speak of this again, for I have made up my mind and I am quite determined!”

“And I, too, have decided, and I, too, Rann, am quite determined. And furthermore, I must ask that you accept my decision and that we not speak of it again, for you must understand the pain to me each time I refuse you, for it is myself I deny also.”

“But we don’t have to have children, Stephanie,” Rann insisted. “There are many children without parents. We can adopt children if we must have a family, but at least we will always have each other.”

“What you say is true, Rann, but what I have said is also true. I will never have children of my own and you must do so and, therefore, we must accustom ourselves to the fact that you must love and marry another woman.”

Rann sighed deeply as he helped Stephanie into her light spring coat, its soft yellow color becoming to the honey cast of her complexion.

“Never,” he said. “Never can I love another.”

“Never say never, my dear.” Stephanie moved to the door as she spoke and turned to face the goddess in the entrance hall. She looked into the face, itself so impervious to time. “Time has a way of arranging all things, Rann, you shall see.”

The goddess remained as she was—silent, unperturbed, understanding carved into every line of her delicately beautiful wooden face, similar to the human face turned toward her.

Rann stood behind Stephanie and put his hands on her shoulders and bent his head to kiss her slender arched neck. “I cannot give up, Stephanie,” he whispered.

“But you must, Rann,” she said firmly again. She turned from the goddess to face him and pushed him gently away. “And now we must go, please.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN,
YOU
have asked her and she has said no?” Mr. Kung’s voice showed disbelief.

They were seated in the old man’s study, where Rann had been summoned as soon as he arrived for the dinner party Stephanie had arranged celebrating her father’s eightieth birthday. Rann explained what had happened in his apartment two evenings earlier. He had not seen Stephanie since then but he had spoken with her on the telephone and she was adamant in her position.

“You must not persist, Rann,” she said. “It is useless to continue to ask when you already know the answer.”

Mr. Kung’s face grew pale as Rann spoke, and he was silent for a long while after the explanation was finished. When he spoke at last it was slowly and with obvious effort.

“She cannot be so foolish a girl as to speak this way to you. You must leave my daughter to me. I will speak with her and …”

His voice trailed away, the remaining blood drained from his face. Rann rose.

“I must call someone—I can’t take responsibility—”

To his horror, Mr. Kung rose, and then, wavering, suddenly fell to his knees and clutched Rann’s right hand in both his own hands.

“You—,” he stammered. “You are the one. I can trust you. You will be—you will … you will—”

He crumpled to the floor and Rann caught him in his arms.

“Stephanie!” he shouted. “Stephanie—Stephanie—Stephanie!”

The door opened and she came swiftly in. She knelt beside her father. She supported his head in the crook of her right arm. She felt his heart in the terrible silence. Then she lifted her eyes to Rann’s face.

“My father is dead,” she said.

AND HOW COULD HE LEAVE HER
that night? He had telephoned Sung to come to their aid—Sung, who had been through the ordeal of after-death with Rann’s own grandfather. For a few minutes he pondered the possibility of telephoning his mother but refrained. He knew that she would take the jet for New York and he was not ready to explain Stephanie’s position to her.

“You asking me come New York side?” Sung inquired in protest.

“Yes,” Rann said shortly. “My friend’s father has just died. We need help.”

“Master Rann, I cannot come Manhattan side. Supposing police catching me. Your grandfather, he never ask me such.”

“Sung, Miss Stephanie’s father—a Chinese gentleman.”

“Chinese man die?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll come.”

Rann heard the receiver replaced. Then he turned again to Stephanie. She was kneeling on the carpet beside her dead father. Under his head she had put a yellow satin cushion. She had straightened his limbs, arms at his sides, and had smoothed his long purple robe to his ankles. He went to her.

“Sung is coming. He will know what to do.”

She did not reply or even lift her head. She continued to gaze at her father, but she did not weep. He stooped and lifted her to her feet and she did not resist.

“Come,” he said. “We will stay with him until Sung comes. Shall we call your own servants or wait for Sung?”

“Wait,” she said. “We must do something about the guests. They are due to arrive soon.”

He led her to a yellow satin couch and they sat side by side—he in silence. He reached for her hand, her left hand in his right, and he held it, a soft, narrow hand, a girl’s hand.

“I must not be left,” she whispered. She turned her eyes from her father to him.

“I shan’t leave you,” he said.

They did not speak again. The time seemed long, but it was short and the door opened. Sung stood there looking at them.

“Sung, Mr. Kung has—”

“I see for myself, sir,” Sung said. “Please, you both go some other room. I will do all.”

“There are servants—”

“I find everybody, Miss Kung. Please trust. I do all for your honored father like I do for my old master already. Please go, please rest. I will do.”

“He will, Stephanie. So come with me. Shall you go to your own rooms?”

“I can’t be alone.”

“I will sit in the next room.”

“I want to go into the shop.”

“The shop, Stephanie?”

“Yes. We worked there together. He placed each piece as he wished. If he is anywhere, he is there. People don’t go away at once, you know. They don’t know at first that they are dead. They linger in their favorite places, where their treasures are. Come—come quickly!”

She urged him, their hands still clasped, and he kept at her side down the narrow hall and into a vast lighted room filled with art treasures. Room led into room, all lighted.

“He is here, Rann. I can feel his presence.”

Rann looked around at the brightly lighted room, half expecting to see Mr. Kung, though he felt no such presence himself. An ancient altar table stood against the far wall, a small golden Quan Yin in the center of the table in front of a rosewood screen, with a bronze incense burner on each side. Stephanie lit incense and the familiar fragrance of sandalwood renewed itself in the air.

“He worked for a long time on this arrangement,” she said softly. “It became his favorite and he is here. He is displeased with me. He was unhappy with me when he died. Why was he angry, Rann?”

“He wanted us to marry, Stephanie. You know that. He questioned me about it and I told him the truth. I saw no reason to lie to him. I respected him too much.”

“You told him of my refusal and he became so agitated he had a heart attack. Oh, Rann, I have killed my father.”

“That is not true, Stephanie.” Rann led her to a comfortable love seat placed in the center of one wall so that one seated there could see all of the objects tastefully displayed on the remaining three walls. He sat beside her, his elbow resting on the back of the couch, and he turned to face her, lifting her chin with his forefinger.