Pearl Buck - Kinfolk

The dusty wind blew down the wide street. It was several minutes before she could find a ricksha in the dim light. With nightfall and cold the Chinese went inside their houses and put up the boards. All the open gaiety of the city in summer was gone. She felt still more frightened when a wild-looking old man pulling a dirty ricksha offered it to her, but seeing no other she got in. He ran slowly as though he were too weary to walk, and when he let the shafts down at the hotel gate, his face glistened with sweat and his cotton jacket was streaked with damp. She ought to pity him she told herself, but he only repelled her and she gave him as little money as she dared. He was too exhausted to protest beyond a moan and a grimace at the money outspread on his grimy palm. She paid no heed to him and walked quickly up to the door. Then her heart was released. She had been afraid that Alec would not be there but he was waiting for her, his coat collar turned up and his hat pulled down.

“Hello,” he said in a guarded voice. “You were a long time coming. I began to freeze.”

He put his arm into hers and they walked down the street. “Tell me everything,” he said.

Who could have foretold what now happened? Before she could reply six or seven students coming along the half-lit street saw a Chinese girl walking with an American. They surrounded the pair swiftly and a flashlight in the hands of one thrown upon the girl revealed Louise’s pretty face. “You American man!” a student shouted. “Leave our girls alone!”

Then incredibly the students began to hustle them. Alec felt himself pushed against a wall. He put Louise behind him to shield her, but the yelling students were trying to pull her out from behind him.

“We’ll have to cut and run,” he said to her over his shoulder.

Where could they go in this whole city?

“We’ll have to go home,” Louise said.

“When I start, you keep up with me,” Alec commanded. “Come now — get ready — get set — let’s go!”

By the suddenness of their dash, by the swiftness of their pace, they took the students by surprise and got a head start. Both Alec and Louise were strong and long-winded. Good food and care had gone into the making of their young bodies, and the students were underfed and weak. The chase was uneven and one by one the students halted and gave up. When the two reached the hutung no one followed.

“You’d better leave me here,” Louise said.

But Alec Wetherston had been thinking hard while his legs ran. He was deeply attracted to this pretty Chinese girl. Perhaps he was really in love with her — not as he had been in love with his little Lanmei who had died when the baby was born. The baby worried him terribly. He had come back to China when he knew there was going to be a baby and he had made up his mind to marry Lanmei as soon as she got out of the hospital. When he reached here she was dead. He had gone to the two rooms she had shared with another girl, who had told him the story. Lanmei’s room had already been taken by a man whom the girl had accepted as her lover. Alec had listened and gone away again, not knowing what to do. “Better leave the baby in the hospital,” the girl had advised. But his heart clung to the child, although he had never seen it, hesitating to own it as his. What could he do with a baby? He had told no one at home about Lanmei. At last he had told Louise everything, even about the baby, and she had gone to see it.

“The kid is cute,” Louise had reported. “He has big eyes and he smiles when you look at him.” The father in him wanted to see his child.

Now he took Louise by the shoulders and pinned her against the wall. “Look here,” he said. “I’m not going to leave you, darling. I’m coming in to see that big brother of yours and tell him I want to marry you.”

Louise looked up at him wistfully. She would never love anyone as well as she had loved Philip. She had told Alec about Philip, too. They had exchanged the stories of their sorrows. He even knew that Philip did not want her, and it was sweet of him not to mind. But before she could speak they heard footsteps in the hutung. In the darkness they stood quite still, waiting. Again a flashlight was thrown upon them and in the beam they saw Peter.

“Peter!” Louise gasped.

Without a word Peter jumped on Alec and tore him away.

“You devil!” he cried.

Alec leaped at him. In a second the two young men were rolling on the ground locked together and Peter struggling up seized Alec by the hair and beat his head against the cobbles. Louise shrieked and fell upon Peter.

“Jim, Jim!” she screamed for help.

Down the hutung doors opened. Their landlord’s servant came running out. “These foreigners are fighting,” he shouted, and he hastened into the rented house and beat on the closed door of the living room. “Your brother and sister are killing a foreigner!” he yelled.

So it happened that the next instant James and Chen and behind them Mary carrying the lighted lamp saw three disheveled young people rising from the ground. Louise was crying.

“You leave my sister alone!” Peter was bellowing, and Alec leaped on him again.

It was James who separated them, James who commanded Louise to get into the house and who led the young men into the house behind her. He locked the gate firmly upon the gaping crowd and they stared a while at the closed gate and went home telling each other that a house haunted by weasels could give no happiness even to foreigners.

Into the living room James led his captives and Young Wang came out of his room and Little Dog and his mother followed.

“Get us some food,” James commanded them, “and fetch hot tea. Then we will talk quietly.” He turned to Peter. “What were you doing?”

Peter, his eyes still blazing at Alec, replied, “I had just passed a crowd of the fellows who said they had run after an American going with one of our girls. They can’t stand that now, after all the things Americans have done here. I didn’t dream the girl was my own sister.”

“And you?” James said still more quietly to Alec.

“I was coming here to ask your permission to marry Louise,” Alec said bluntly.

“Who are you?” James asked with the same fearful quietness.

“Alec Wetherston, formerly of the U.S. Army,” Alec said in a firm voice. “Louise and I met the day she came to the chrysanthemum market. You won’t remember me.”

“I do,” Mary said. She saw that she was still holding the lamp and she set it down on the table.

Alec looked at her. “Yes — well, I know you, too. I wanted Louise to tell you about us, but she seems to be afraid of you all, for some reason.”

“Because they don’t want me to marry an American,” Louise put in, beginning to cry again.

“Mary, take Louise away,” James said.

Louise allowed herself to be led as far as the door. There she paused, the tears wet on her cheeks. “I tell you I will marry Alec,” she declared.

Mary pulled her away, and James went on quietly. “Mr. Wetherston, sit down, please. I have no objection to my sister’s marrying the man she wants to marry, but he must be a good man.”

They were all sitting down now except Peter, who stood with his hands in his pockets, his hair on end. Chen had sat down. His face was very pale and he had said nothing.

“I guess nobody is perfect — not these days,” Alec said frankly. He was beginning to feel better. Louise’s brother looked like a regular fellow.

“Please tell me everything,” James said sternly.

Alec looked startled. “How do you mean — everything?”

Chen spoke. “The little boy in the hospital—”

Alec leaned his arm on the table. “I guess you know,” he said simply. “I guess it’s nothing different from lots of other fellows during the war. Only I came back — I guess that was my mistake.”