The Patriot (39 page)

I-wan did not answer. He tried to smile, but it seemed somehow his fault that there was nothing but a country inn here.

“Ever been in the U. S. A.?” MacGurk asked abruptly as they walked along, side by side. Under their feet clouds of dust rose and spread, dry and alkaline, into their nostrils.

“No, I never have,” I-wan said, and added diffidently, “It must be a very pleasant country.”

“God’s own,” MacGurk said fervently, and then gave I-wan a great grin. “Why in the heck I can’t stay in it, I don’t know. But every time I go home I hanker to get away from it. I’m the damnedest—”

They laughed and marched through the deep cool gate of the earthen wall around the village. At their heels followed a procession of staring children and idle people. But MacGurk seemed used to them. He strode on into the doorway of an inn and then into a courtyard. The innkeeper rushed out to meet him, chattering with pleasure, and, seizing his hand, shook it up and down.

“Hello, you old son-of-a-gun,” MacGurk greeted him, and turned to I-wan. “I don’t understand a word he jabbers at me every time, but I’ve taught him to shake hands like a white man. It kind of makes me feel at home when I drop in here to spend the night.”

But to I-wan the innkeeper was bowing again and again.

“Come in, my lord, come in and drink tea, and wash yourselves and rest.”

He looked at I-wan and seemed ashamed.

“This white man,” he told I-wan a moment later, when he himself brought tea and MacGurk was in the next room, “he is of course a little—” he tapped his head and sighed. “But I humor him—I always humor him!”

“A good heart,” I-wan replied, not wanting to laugh.

“Oh yes, he has a very good heart,” the innkeeper agreed. And seeing the size of the coin I-wan laid in his hand, he grew instantly zealous and rushed at the crowd standing at the door, staring in to see what was going on.

“Be gone—be gone!” he shouted. “Isn’t this a man? Have you never seen a human being before?”

The crowd fell back and he slammed and barred the door made of rough planks.

“You must excuse them, my lord,” he told I-wan. “They like to see foreigners. What country do you come from, sir?”

“But I am Chinese,” I-wan said in surprise.

“Are you, sir?” the old man exclaimed. His wrinkled face was lively with his wonder. “Now I wouldn’t have known it—your clothes—”

“Many Chinese wear western clothes,” I-wan said. He felt somehow a little hurt.

“But your speech—” the old man began.

“It’s Chinese, isn’t it?” I-wan demanded.

“Well, I understand what you mean, but each word you say is not quite right,” the old man replied. Then lest he offend a good customer, he added quickly, “But I’ve heard there are many Chinese—and some are tall and some are short—that I know, being an innkeeper here for forty years. And now, do you eat meat or not, sir? I have good vegetable dishes, otherwise.”

“I eat meat,” I-wan replied shortly. He was still a little angry.

And he stayed a little angry, if for nothing else than that he could not complain. “We Chinese—” the old innkeeper kept saying, as he served them, “we Chinese are not so particular as the white men. It let my heart down, I do assure you, sir, when you said you were Chinese. Now this white man”—he tapped his head again over MacGurk’s red head—“he roars when his meat is tough, so I must chop it fine for him, like a baby, and put an extra quilt on his bed, and such a noise if it has a little small insect or two in it, such as we Chinese know must live, too. Do not insects also have their life, I ask him? But he never understands a word I say.”

It was true the meat was tough and the bed of boards stretched upon two heaps of dried clay was very hard, and in the night I-wan felt something creeping over his skin. He leaped up and shook himself and was about to shout out. Then he lit the small oil lamp and lay down again.

“We Chinese—” the old innkeeper had said.

But the night was over at last and they were up in the air again and MacGurk’s stubby profile was set toward the Northwest. They were going over mountains now, long reaches of barren clay-colored mountains. The roads were deep ruts across the land and ahead lay a mirage. I-wan had not known the trees and waters he seemed to see were a mirage until hour passed into hour and they came to no trees and no lakes. Their noon meal today was cold steamed-bread rolls filled with garlic which they had bought at the inn and stuffed into their pockets—different enough from the white foreign bread wrapped in clean white paper which Madame Chiang had given them. This bread was gray and solid and the garlic was strong. But it stayed hunger.

And then in the middle of the afternoon MacGurk suddenly shut off the engine and the plane began drifting slantwise to the earth.

“There it is!” he shouted.

And looking down, I-wan saw a square-walled village set like a block upon the plain. Outside were fields and inside the courts of houses there were trees growing thick and low. Down the plane drifted. And from the fields blue-clad figures shouted and dropped their hoes and came running to meet it.

“You’re in the heart of the Reds!” MacGurk shouted at him and then grinned. “They’re just like anybody else,” he remarked. The plane bumped gently along the earth. “Fact is, I kinda like ’em. This one you’re goin’ to see is a swell guy. The madame said I was to lead you straight to him. C’m on!” They climbed out and again he was following MacGurk.

He had so completely believed that En-lan must be dead. He had always thought of him as dead. So then, how could he believe what he now saw? They had come into the village gate and just inside was a gateway into a court, full of laughing men. This they had crossed and then they entered this plain mud-walled earth-floored room. There was a man sitting at the un-painted table. He looked up. It was En-lan. They stared at each other, doubting. Ten years lay between them—ten years of time and all else. But it was En-lan. I-wan knew him instantly.

“This fellow Wu’s got a letter from my chief,” MacGurk was saying. “I don’t mind telling you now I’m here, I’m glad I am. I didn’t tell you, Wu, but I have these”—he drew out two pistols from his pockets—“and orders to shoot if anybody bothered us. But I picked our place last night. I know that old son-of-a-gun.”

But they were not listening to him. They were staring at each other.

“It is not you, I-wan,” En-lan said slowly.

“It is I,” I-wan replied, “but how can I believe it is you?”

They drew nearer. Now they were feeling each other’s shoulders and arms, now they were clasping hands—yes, this was En-lan’s hand, but it was bigger, harder, stronger than it had once been.

“Where did you go?” En-lan demanded. “I never heard a word of you. Peony came running to our meeting place, but where were you? We waited until the last moment, every second expecting you.”

“Say, you two know each other, I guess,” MacGurk broke in. “I guess I’ll just go and get to work on the plane. It’ll need some cleaning and fixing if we’re to start back in the morning.”

They did not see or hear him.

“Peony!” I-wan repeated, stupefied. “Is that where she went?”

“She’s here,” En-lan said. “Sit down. How can we ever get everything told between us?”

He clapped his hands and a young boy in khaki uniform came to the door.

“Call the inner one to come here,” he ordered.

“Is Peony—are you—” I-wan stammered.

“Married?” En-lan said. “For ten years!”

“For ten years—you two have been together! But why didn’t you write me?”

“We did—and signed false names, hoping you would know who we were.”

“But I never had letters!” I-wan exclaimed.

“They were sent to your home,” En-lan replied.

“I suppose my father was afraid to send them on,” I-wan said when he had thought a moment. Yes, his father would be clever enough to know them dangerous letters!

“And you—why should you not write?” En-lan asked.

“I believed you dead,” I-wan answered. “And how could I know where Peony was?”

They looked at each other again, measuring, examining, trying to see behind the men they now were, the boys they had been. I-wan thought, “Can I tell him about Tama?”

“And you—what about you?” En-lan demanded. “You are married—you have sons?”

“Yes,” I-wan said. He longed to tell En-lan everything, how clever Jiro was and how Ganjiro—but no, it was better not to tell about Tama, better to keep her secret and safe.

“Yes, I have two sons,” he said simply.

And then suddenly he heard a quick running step he knew and there was Peony rushing in. But Peony? This slender woman in a boy’s uniform, a soldier’s cap on her short hair, no rouge on her lips, no powder on her brown skin, no jasmine scent—and her hand, seizing his, so hard and firm, this was not Peony’s hand that used to tremble like a bird!

“I-wan—I-wan—I-wan,” she was crying. She pushed off her cap and it fell to the floor and he saw this was Peony. But she was no longer the pretty, melancholy, willful girl he had known. This Peony was En-lan’s wife. I-wan sat down.

“My legs are trembling,” he confessed. “I can’t understand everything at once.”

He had been like a man asleep, he now perceived. All these years, while he had been making a life with Tama, that old life of his which he had thought cut off and ended had been going on like this!

“How did this come about?” he demanded. “How could you pretend to me, Peony, that you despised the revolutionists?”

“I didn’t despise him!” Peony thrust her pretty chin toward En-lan. Her large apricot-shaped eyes grew shy. Now that he looked at them I-wan saw her eyes were not changed at all.

“But you didn’t know him!” I-wan exclaimed. “You had only seen him once!”

En-lan suddenly began to roar with laughter, and Peony’s face turned pink. “I knew him a little—before I saw him,” she confessed.

“Go on,” En-lan commanded her. “Tell all your wickedness!”

“Well, I was cleaning your table drawers one day—” Peony went on very slowly.

“I missed something the other day from that table drawer,” I-wan said, and he began to laugh, too.

“She found my story, that I had written—you remember, I-wan?” En-lan cried. “She stole it and read it—and made up her mind then and there.”

Peony sat down on the edge of a chair. She was biting the edge of her red lip.

“It was my business to keep your table drawers neat, I-wan.” Her eyes were full of demure hidden laughter.

“Oh yes, of course,” I-wan agreed.

They laughed together. It seemed to I-wan he had never had better and more happy laughter. Then suddenly he remembered why he was here at all. He exclaimed to En-lan. “This Chiang who separated us has brought us together again! I am sent with this. You are to give it into the hands of the ones who are with you.”

And he pulled the sealed letter from his inner pocket and gave it to En-lan.

“I have been expecting this—but not you,” En-lan replied. “And I must not delay it. They are waiting for it. But wait for me here.”

He took the letter and went away.

And I-wan, left alone with Peony, looked at her and she looked at him, and then in a moment she began to ask of his parents and his grandparents and he told her and he put in as though it were simply family news that now I-ko was married too, but he did not say to a white woman, for why need he tell that? And still his instinct kept him back from telling about Tama.

She listened to it all and while she listened he saw her face grow more what he remembered it, though still the ten years lay more heavily upon her than they did upon En-lan.

And then in a little while En-lan came back. His whole look was grave and yet alive and he said to Peony, in a solemn voice, “What I said would come to pass has come. Chiang wants union!”

She gave a cry of joy and I-wan saw there was more between these two than love.

“Ai, I told you, Peony, he’s a great man—yes, he’s right!” En-lan said. “Well, now, somehow I have to make my soldiers see it—they won’t want to do it at once. Each of us is to talk to his own division. There’ll have to be a meeting. I’ll make them see it.”

He was looking at Peony, asking for her agreement, for her approval. She nodded.

“Shall I go and tell them to strike the gong for meeting?” she asked.

“Yes, tell them,” En-lan commanded. “No, wait—say in half an hour. I-wan must refresh himself. And I must be alone for a while.”

“He still writes everything down before he speaks it,” Peony explained.

He sat upon the dry baked earth of the drill ground. Beside him sat Peony. And helter-skelter, anyhow, and as they liked, sat men and women, but all young, around them. The hard and brilliant northern sunlight fell upon brown burned faces. It was difficult to know which were men and which women. But all these faces were upturned to hear En-lan, who stood so near that he could put out his hand and touch him. He felt strangely carried back into his boyhood. But then, in those days, En-lan had spoken to twenty or so, and now there were these hundreds. How had he done this? Somehow, while he had been thinking him dead, En-lan had been building this—this country; somehow, in spite of endless fighting he was here, strong and alive, and with him all these. En-lan’s voice, clear and carrying through the still air, was saying:

“You know what we did. Six years ago we declared war upon Japan. They laughed at us. Then three years afterwards we made our Long March. Our feet were torn and we were starved and many of us died. But we knew even then who was the real enemy. Though Chiang Kai-shek had pressed us and driven us backward over thousands of miles, we knew there was an enemy greater than he.” He raised his voice. “Our enemy was Japan, who even then was attacking our people!”

He paused, and a low roar went up from the people. He put up his hand in an old gesture which pulled at I-wan’s heart, he remembered it so well.

“What I tell you, you know. Not many months ago Chiang Kai-shek was kidnaped in Sian. We held him there—in our hand.”

En-lan held out his strong rough hand, cupped.

“We might have closed it—thus.” He closed his hand. “Then Chiang Kai-shek would have been no more. He who fought us so bitterly, for so many years, was here in our hand.” He opened his hand again and stared into it. Over the whole multitude there was not a sound. Breathless they gazed at En-lan. He looked up, over his hand. “There were those of you who said, ‘Kill him—kill him!’ If your leaders had heeded you”—En-lan’s thumb went down—“he would have been dead in an hour. You blamed us then, because we did not move. You blamed us bitterly because he lived and returned safely to his home. Some of you still are angry because today he is still alive.”