Pearl Buck - Kinfolk

In the midst of the talk the music, subdued until now, broke into the Mendelssohn Wedding March and Dr. Su’s elder son, a shy, grave young man, touched his father’s arm. “Pa,” he said, “they are waiting for you.”

Dr. Su looked startled, then he laughed. “I’d forgotten,” he said frankly. He wiped his lips with a spotless white silk handkerchief, for he had been eating butterfly shrimps with his cocktails. He cleared his throat, looked dignified, and walked beside his son toward the ballroom where the guests were already assembling. He turned into a side entrance, and a few minutes later the audience saw his tall slender figure appear on the stage followed now by both sons and Dr. Kang, who was his best man.

Well-to-do modern people had many foreign weddings and there was nothing new about this one. Only the servants of the guests saw anything strange about it and they clustered about the door, gazing in the same open-mouthed astonishment with which they stared at Hollywood motion pictures. They fell back for the bride and her bridesmaids. Her father walked beside her looking hot and ill at ease. He was a retired warlord, and having taken off his uniform permanently immediately after the war, he wore now a heavy brocaded silvery satin robe and a black velvet jacket. Since he no longer troubled to hold in his large belly with a military belt, his figure was pyramid-shaped and his shaven head sat like a melon upon it. The shining figure of his daughter was tiny against his mass. Her satin gown, her train, her lace veil were shell pink instead of white and she wore diamonds in her ears, about her neck, and on her arms. Upon her finger she wore a huge diamond solitaire. Dr. Su was a prudent man and each time he had divorced his former wives he had recovered this ring.

His face did not change as he watched his young bride come up the aisle, nor did she lift her eyes. She was walking with painful intent to the march, but Dr. Su noticed that she missed the beat. He was a little annoyed at this, for she was supposed to be a fairly brilliant pianist. He had heard her play Chopin concertos with dash and execution. He himself was a good violinist, although he made the excuse that his surgery made it necessary for him to keep the ends of his fingers sensitive and therefore he could not practice as much as he wished. One reason he had chosen this little creature among scores like her was that she might accompany him upon the piano when he played for guests at his frequent dinner parties.

He looked somewhat critically at the little figure coming up the aisle followed by the train of girls in dresses of all colors. He did not know her very well, but that perhaps did not matter. He had known his second wife very well, and they had quarreled bitterly. They had been lovers before their marriage and after it. His third wife had taken an American as a lover, and that he could not tolerate, especially when he saw the tall boy in uniform. He was too handsome, too easy, too romantic looking, and Dr. Su knew that never again would he be able to hold his wife’s attention.

His first wife he scarcely remembered. That wedding had been different indeed. He had been in haste and impatience to get to America. It was the first time, and America then had seemed wonderful and perfect and his home hatefully old-fashioned. But his mother would not let him go until he had consented to marry the girl to whom his parents had engaged him so long ago, so much a part of his childhood that it was nothing to him. The wedding had been the traditional one, the bride in red satin from head to foot, a veil of beads hanging over her face. The feasting had gone on for three days. When he saw her alone for the first night he had found her a pretty little thing, speechless with shyness. He had never been able to persuade her to say anything to him. A month of this silent marriage and his mother let him go. His first son was born while he was in Baltimore. His second son had been born after his return. Then he had left home, never to go back until his parents were killed during a harvesttime by angry tenant farmers. They had not hurt the timid woman who hid in a dry well nor the two little boys whom she clutched. But after that he had brought his sons away with him and their mother lived on in the old home with his eldest uncle who took over the lands.

The wedding ceremony was half through before he realized he had paid no heed to it.

“Where is the ring?” the officiating Presbyterian minister asked. “Here, sir,” the eldest son whispered. He took it from his pocket and gave it to the best man who gave it to the groom. Dr. Su put it on the delicate third finger where the solitaire shone so bravely, and thus he was married again.

The wedding music blared from the horns and trumpets of the hired hotel band and the procession marched gaily down the aisle. In the lobby Dr. Su took his stand under a huge bell of red paper roses and prepared to receive the congratulations of his friends. He was now a rich man, thanks to his father-in-law. The dining-room doors were thrown open and the smell of fine feast foods streamed out upon the summer air.

James went forward to shake hands with Dr. Su. He had been moved against his will by the wedding and the music. So he supposed would it have been had Lili been ready to marry him. Half curiously he looked at the face of the bride. It was painted and powdered into an exquisite mask, as lifeless as the face of a movie star. He bowed and turned away.

“I say,” Dr. Kang called at the door, “aren’t you staying for the feast? Everything is first rate here.”

“Thank you, I have duties at the hospital,” James said, and he went out into the street. A cluster of ricksha men seized their vehicles at the sight of him and he climbed into the nearest one. The puller was a youngish man and since the night was hot he wore no jacket. His smooth brown back rippled with the undercurrent of muscles and he ran without effort. But he was too thin and the shape of his skeleton was clear, a fine firm structure, the bones strong and delicate. He wore his hair long enough to fall almost to his neck and it flowed behind him in the breeze. His profile when he turned it was clean and large.

“Where is your home?” James asked when the fellow slowed to a walk near the hospital.

“In a village a hundred li from here,” the man replied.

“Why are you here?” James asked.

The man turned his head and smiled and showed white perfect teeth. “There are too many of us on the land,” he said frankly. “My father owns very little and he rents as much as he can. But the landlord lives abroad and his old uncle does as he likes with the rents.”

“What village is yours?” James asked with sudden curiosity.

“The village of Anming,” the man said.

“Anming,” James repeated. “That is my village, too.”

The man laughed. “Then I will not ask you for wine money,” he declared. They were at the hospital gate now and he set down the poles of the ricksha.

“Because we come from the same village I must give you wine money,” James declared in turn. He could not tell this fellow that the absent landlord was his own father!

The man made a feint of politeness but his eyes glistened when James poured silver into his palm. “I wish our landlord were like you, elder brother,” he said smiling, and with such thanks he took up his ricksha and darted away into the street and out of sight.

James went slowly up the stairs of the doctors’ house and to his own two rooms. Something familiar struck his eyes. Upon the handle of the door hung an imitation panama hat. Young Wang’s, without a doubt! The fellow had a weakness for hats. He went in and found Young Wang in his white cotton underwear, mopping the floors. He had taken off his outer clothes, and had laid his jacket across the bed.