Уолтер Тевис - The Steps of the Sun

“Bring us food from the kitchen, Deng,” she said gently, in Chinese. Then to me, in English, “There will be no meat, Mr. Belson, since I do not eat it. But what we have is good.”

I said nothing and watched Deng as he walked across the gravel and left. When he was gone I said, “Mourning Dove, I am very seldom calm. All my life I have been in a hurry and I’m not even sure what for.”

“You make the simple difficult,” she said. “Perhaps because the difficult is simple for you.”

A voice in me was saying Fortune-cookie wisdom . Yet if anyone on Earth was wise, it was this woman. I could feel wisdom around her presence like a magnetic field. “I’ve been bored with making money,” I said. “But when I stop I just seem to crash around and hurt other people, like Isabel.”

“Miss Crawford is a strong person and can profit from the experience.”

“You know Isabel!”

“I had your history examined when I learned of your cargo.”

“The uranium?”

“Yes.”

“And you know where Isabel is now?”

Mourning Dove nodded, stroking her cat. The cat stretched itself and yawned.

“Mourning Dove,” I said in agitation, “I’d be relieved if you’d tell me where she is.”

“Mr. Belson,” she said, “I do not wish to play cat and mouse with you and I wish you well in life. But I am not ready to tell you that. Maybe later.”

I stared at her. “Mourning Dove, I love her. I need to know where she is.”

She looked at me calmly. “Mr. Belson,” she said, “China needs safe uranium. Our sources of power have caused far more pain than you feel for your Isabel.”

The way she said it gave me pause. “Has something happened?” I said.

She took her hand from the back of the cat and laid her thin arms on the arms of the chair. “While you were crossing the Pacific there was an accident in the North, near the village of Wu. Thousands of cubic feet of radioactive gas were emitted and many died. Wu is my home village and it was I who ordered the reactor built forty years ago, to show good faith in my policy.”

“Your policy?”

“I am one of the sponsors of the use of nuclear fission in China, Mr. Belson. I agreed that the price in lives would be worth the profit—in the contribution to China’s future.”

I could feel her pain, even though her face didn’t show it. “And you had family members in Wu?”

“Yes. My daughter and three sons. Seven grandchildren. They are dead now, or in hospitals dying.”

“That’s unbearable,” I said. I wanted to hold her and try to comfort her. “Do you blame yourself?”

She looked at me. “Who else is to blame?” she said. “I championed nuclear fission. I had the plant built near Wu.”

I just looked at her. What could I say? “What are you going to do?” I said, eventually.

“I am going to have lunch,” she said.

Deng had come back from the kitchen carrying a flat basket and a low table. He set the table between us and put the basket on it. It was full of fruit and vegetables. Another boy, who might have been Deng’s brother, followed with a ceramic teapot and two cups. He set the cups down and poured.

“I don’t see how you stand it,” I said, watching the boy pour the steaming tea and thinking of those corpses and of a provincial hospital somewhere, with the ruined faces of the dying.

“The big things are simpler than the small. One doesn’t complicate them. I went to a monastery in Tibet and fasted. Necessities arrive unbidden, like dreams. It was necessary to grieve properly and I have grieved.” She handed me a cup of tea. “I planned to greet you in Peking, Mr. Belson, to buy your uranium. I am sorry to have caused you a long wait.”

“That’s unimportant. I too underwent a kind of… purgation. I hope your pain will relent. I wish I could help.”

“I see that you do,” she said calmly and sipped her tea. “The broccoli is nourishing. It has been steamed in ginseng.”

I took a bite. It was delicious and my appetite returned in a flash. “Did you visit Wu afterward?”

“Yes,” she said, drinking tea. “I took endolin to the survivors. They are not in pain.”

“I’m glad it helped,” I said. I finished a floret of broccoli and then took a big peach and ate in silence, looking at the water of the pond and at the green ferns that surrounded it. I thought of Juno, of all that safe uranium there, enough to power our world forever. “Mourning Dove,” I said, “I still love America, even though it has treated me badly. And I’m crazy about New York. I don’t want my country to be an outpost of a Chinese empire.”

“Your country is China now.”

“By adoption. And I think I could be a Confucianist. But right now I would like to settle in New York, with Isabel if she’ll have me, and devote the rest of my life to making it into a great city again.”

She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Crashing around?”

“Maybe I can do it calmly.” I said this with surprising passion. “I’ve learned a lot in the last year, Mourning Dove. I may be ready to enjoy the rest of my life.” My head was feeling very clear, and there were no more spots in front of my eyes. This was one of the loveliest rooms I had ever been in and I felt I was with the oldest and best of friends.

She nodded. “‘The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.’”

“That’s William Blake!” I said. “I hope it’s true.”

“It is true. I was excessive when young, as you are, Mr. Belson, and I have become wise. I believe that in my case one brought about the other.” She returned her attention to the cat. “I read Blake in college, in London. I desired to know everything when I was young, and to be infinitely rich and to become a member of the Central Committee of the Party. I have had four husbands and alienated them all. They are all dead now and I have forgotten them. But I got what I desired.” She looked at me. “I have not forgotten my mother and my father. My mother would beat me for nothing…” Suddenly her old face tightened alarmingly. “ For nothing , Mr. Belson. She has been dead fifty years and I hate her still. I hate my father for letting her do it, and he too is long dead.”

“Jesus!” I said. “It sounds familiar.”

“It is not uncommon. The thing is to rule it and not to let it rule.” She paused. “One cannot attract the attention of the dead, though many try.”

“Oh yes,” I said, blinking, “many try.” My voice sounded strange.

“You are crying,” Mourning Dove said. “As much as I hate my mother I also love her. With a mother it is hard to do otherwise. Perhaps you love yours still.”

Orbach had tried to tell me that, but I wouldn’t listen—not in my stomach or heart or wherever it is. I looked at Mourning Dove through tears. They were pouring out, some of them slopping down on my big hairy right hand that held a half-eaten peach. I could see my mother’s face, lost in self-regard. Grief suffused my body, starting in my stomach and spreading to my chest and shoulders and heaving the muscles of my abdomen and my face.

Gradually it subsided. I heard the pond waterfall again. I leaned back and stretched. I could feel the strength of my limbs, the soundness of my heart. My beard was wet. I took a bite from the peach, letting the juice mix with tears.

“You are a remarkable man, Mr. Belson,” Mourning Dove said.

I nodded and swallowed. “Would you call me Benjamin?”

“Benjamin,” she said, “I want your uranium.”

I nodded. “You can have half of it.”

Her voice was quiet. “No. All. China needs it.”

I looked at her. Her face was unshakable. “I can’t do that. There will be enough to go around. I can send the Isabel back.”