Pearl Buck - The Promise

He had been sitting until a moment ago, talking across a small porcelain garden table to the woman he loved who would not marry him. It could be said rather that she persuaded him to talk, drawing out of him by her shrewd questions all that he had been doing since they last met, more than two months ago. Then she fell silent, and her handsome head drooped as though she were thinking of what he had said. What she thought about he did not know, indeed. He loved her very well but he did not pretend that he knew her thoughts. She was not a usual woman when it came to the stuff of her brain. He could talk to her as though she were a soldier and she to him. But when she was silent she seemed always beyond him. Now she lifted her head suddenly, as though she felt his eyes, and smiled a small smile.

“You look beautiful in that uniform,” she said. Her smile twisted. “But why do I tell you? You know it.”

He did not answer this, for he never answered her when her red mouth twisted.

“How many characters can you write now?” she asked again.

“Enough for me,” he said.

“Then why did you not write me a letter?” she asked.

“Why should I write when I knew I was coming here in a month or two at most?”

“If you see no reason for writing to me, then there is no reason,” she said.

She took up her tea bowl in her hand and held it and he looked at that long narrow hand of hers, its nails painted scarlet. He knew the scent in her palm. But he did not move toward her. Instead he put his hand into the breast of his new soldier’s uniform and took out a handful of colored silk. She sat sipping her tea, her lips still smiling, and her great black eyes smiling.

“Here is the flag,” he said.

“You still have that flag?” she said.

“You gave it to me,” he retorted. “It was your command to me to come to you.”

It was true that when Mayli left Jade that day now six months behind them she had given this small bright flag to Jade and she had said, “Tell him I go to the free lands — tell him I go to Kunming.” To Kunming he had come after the victory. But when he had come she was not willing to marry him. She was still not willing, though he had been here for days and each day he had come to see her.

“Why do you keep that flag in your bosom?” she asked him.

“That you may remember you bade me come here,” he said.

He leaned over the porcelain table and looked down upon her upturned face. Behind his head, over the wall of the courtyard, she could see the high tops of the mountains which surrounded the city, bare mountains, purple against the clear winter sky. The day was not cold. It was seldom cold here, and in another climate it could have been spring. The light of the sun fell upon her face and his, and each saw the other’s beauty, how fine their skin was, the golden fine skin of their people, and how black were their eyes and how white.

“I ask you again if you will marry me,” he said. “Yesterday I asked and today I ask.”

Her eyelids fell. “You are very bold these days,” she said. “When you first came you would not have thought of asking me yourself. Do you remember how you found some one who knew a friend of mine and then through the two of them you proposed marriage to me?”

“I have little time now,” he said. “A soldier must go by the straightest road to what he wants. I ask you this — will you marry me before I march to my next battle?”

She lifted her lids again and he saw what he feared in her more than anything — her laughter. “Is it the last time you ask me?” She put the question to him as playfully as a kitten tosses a ball.

“No,” he said. “I shall ask you until you yield.”

“At least wait until you come back before you ask again,” she said.

Each of them thought the same thought — what if he never came back? But neither would speak it aloud.

“Do you know why you will not wed me?” he asked her at last.

“If I did I would tell you,” she said.

There was one more long moment between them, eyes looking into eyes. Then he took up the bright silk flag that lay between them and crumpled it and put it back into his bosom.

She rose. “Do you go?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Do you go because you must or because you wish?” she asked him. Now that he was going away she felt her heart pull at him to stay.

“What does it matter?” he said. “I have said what I came to say. There is no reason for staying longer today.”

She did not answer him. She stood near him, tall for a woman, but still only a little beyond his shoulder.

“I swear I think you are still growing,” she said willfully. “Can you blame me that I do not want a growing boy for my husband?”

“I do blame you for not wanting me,” he said gravely. “I blame you because you know we are destined for marriage. Do not our horoscopes promise us to each other? Are you not gold and am I not fire?”

“But I will not be consumed!” she cried.

“I am the man,” he said, “and you are the woman.”

The air around them was so clear, so still, the sunshine so pure, that their two shadows lay on the white stones beneath their feet as though they were one. She saw the closeness and stepped back from him and the shadows parted.

“Go away,” she said. “When you are finished growing you may come back.”

He gave her a long look, so long and fierce that she stamped her foot. “Don’t think I am afraid of your eyes!” she cried.

“Don’t think I am afraid of you,” he said sturdily, and turned and without another word he went away.

And she, left alone in the courtyard, walked here and there, and back and forth, and stopped in front of a cluster of bamboo trees and plucked off a smooth hard leaf, and tore it between her teeth into sharp shreds. When would she be sure of this man for whom her flesh longed? She would not marry a lout, and was he more than a lout? Who knew? A month ago he had been chosen by those above to lead other men. But it had taken him months to prove that he could lead something more than the handful of ragged men who had escaped with him out of the hills near his father’s house. For those months he had drilled in the common ranks of soldiers and at night he had learned like a schoolboy the strokes and dots and hooks that go to make writing and reading. He could read a book today but only if it were simple. And she did not yet know whether or not his mind were simple. Marry him she could, as women did marry in these days, and then cast him off. But she was not of such hot blood that she must marry for nothing but that. She wanted to marry a man whom she could love until she died and to keep her love he must have more than beauty — he must have the power to be great. Had he that power? She did not know.

An old woman in a black coat and trousers came to a door that opened upon the court.

“Your food is ready,” she said. She looked about the court. “Is he gone? I went out and bought a pound of pork and some chestnuts because I thought he was here.”

“I will eat them,” Mayli said.

“No, you will not,” the old woman said. “You are the child of your mother, who was a follower of Mohammed, and not while these hands of mine prepare your food will flesh of pig enter into you. I, who nursed you as a child in your mother’s house!”

“Why did I ever find you?” Mayli pretended to complain. For she had found this old woman in the city of her birth where now the puppet of the enemy ruled. In that way which poor people know everything about those above, this old woman heard that Mayli had returned from over the seas and so one day she came and told Mayli who she was and told such things about Mayli’s mother that she proved herself as the one who had been Mayli’s wet nurse. She, too, was a follower of Mohammed, else would the child Mayli not have been allowed to suckle her, and yet it was often an inconvenience now that she still made much of rites and foods which had no meaning for Mayli, reared far off from such ways in the land of the foreigners.