Pearl Buck - Kinfolk

“You always bring me something,” she said with pleasant reproach. “It that a Chinese custom?”

“Only when we like,” Mrs. Liang replied. She spoke in a loud voice in order to help Mrs. Wetherston to understand her English. “Suppose we don’t like somebody better, we don’t bring something else.”

Mrs. Wetherston laughed. “Come in and sit down! I’ll have some tea made.”

“No, thank you,” Mrs. Liang replied. She remembered Peter and the smile faded from her face. “I must talk to Louise, please, Mrs. Wetherston, because I have bad news of my younger son. He is gone away, maybe dead, but I don’t think so.”

Mrs. Wetherston’s look was instantly concerned. “Oh, my dear — dead? But I can’t believe it — you look so—” cheerful, she was about to say and stopped herself.

“Who knows? I want to ask Louise how was Peter when she saw him before,” Mrs. Liang told her.

“Of course.” Mrs. Wetherston tiptoed to a door and knocked. “Louise dear?” she called.

She had grown fond of the young girl that her son had brought home. Louise was lively and gay and yet docile. When Alec was not in the house she stayed alone in their rooms and seldom came out. But when she did join the family she was good-natured and talkative enough to give life to them again. “You mustn’t be afraid of me, dear,” she had told Louise after the first few days. “And I don’t want to be obeyed.”

“I am not afraid,” Louise had said sweetly, “and I like to obey you.” No one knew how grateful she was to be in this kind house, where everything was clean and comfortable and where she could take a hot bath whenever she wanted it. She liked to sit in her room and Alec’s and look around it and think, “This is really my home, I belong here. I am really American.”

Now she heard Alec’s mother’s voice, even in her sleep. She slept a great deal so that when Alec came home she could stay awake as long as he liked. Curled under the down quilt she had slept and now she rose from it, her eyes dewy and her lips folded sweetly in content.

“I am here,” she called softly and opened the door and saw her own mother. “Why, Ma!” she exclaimed.

“I shall leave you two alone,” Mrs. Wetherston said and went away.

Louise drew her mother into her room. “Ma, what is the matter? You’ve been crying.”

Mrs. Liang began to cry again without let. She put her handkerchief to her eyes. “Peter—” she sobbed.

Louise looked stricken. “Is he dead?” she whispered. Mrs. Liang let the handkerchief drop. “Why do you say that?” she asked sharply.

“Oh, I don’t know. Yes, I do know. Ma, he was in trouble over there.”

“Why?”

“He hated everything over there too much.”

“Then why didn’t he tell us and come back here?” Mrs. Liang asked. She went on without waiting for an answer. “That’s what you did. Yes, I know, Louise. You never told me you didn’t like it in China, but you didn’t, I know. And so you were glad to marry an American.”

“But I love Alec,” Louise retorted.

“Yes, now,” Mrs. Liang said stubbornly. “At first I think you only loved him for this nice house and for New York and hot water and electricity and clean streets and so on. I know how you are, Louise. You are too American. I told your father too many times.”

Mother and daughter were preparing for one of their hearty old quarrels when Mrs. Liang suddenly remembered Peter again and her anger cooled. “I am glad you are come just the same,” she said quickly, “and I wish Peter would come, too. After all, you are not used to China. So strange there, isn’t it? Now I am homesick all the time for China. My own children don’t like it. Oh, Peter, why don’t you come away from it, then?” she moaned softly.

Louise accepted her mother’s offer of peace. “Ma, if you want the truth from me — Peter hated it but he wanted to stay, too. He was afraid of Pa.”

“Afraid?” Mrs. Liang cried. “Why, when I am always there?”

“He blamed Pa,” Louise said. “Once when we talked together he told me Pa told lies about everything and if he ever saw Pa again he would have to tell him so and he didn’t want to see Pa any more.”

“Peter must be crazy,” Mrs. Liang exclaimed.

“No, he wasn’t. He was angry and he was sore and he was ashamed and it was all mixed up in him. He wanted to be proud of his country, and he had thought there were things to be proud of, and so he began worrying when he couldn’t find them.” Louise looked thoughtfully at herself in a long mirror opposite the chair where she sat. “Maybe I would have been that way if I had been a boy instead of a girl.”

Mrs. Liang rebelled at this. “You can’t talk that, Louise. Many women in our country do very much.”

“I guess I’m American,” Louise said. “Women here are taken care of.”

Mrs. Liang was not a little shocked. “You are too selfish. What about poor Peter?”

Louise looked away from the mirror. “I just don’t know what to say, Ma.” Her mother spoke as usual in Chinese mixed with English, but she herself spoke always in English, and the conversation had gone along in the two tongues. “I have a queer feeling that anything could have happened. I mean—” she broke off and then went on again with a catch in her voice. After all, Peter was her brother, and they had played together much when they were children. “Well, a lot of things could happen,” she said unwillingly. “Students disappear, you know, if they do anything except their books. And Peter belonged to some clubs and things. He never brought his friends home — I don’t know why.”

Mrs. Liang’s heart froze. She had heard stories whispered even at parties and dinners. Newcomers said—

“You think maybe Peter is—” Again she could not say the word.

“I just don’t know, Ma,” Louise repeated. She saw her mother’s face melt into weeping and she began to weep, too.

It was nearly dusk when Mrs. Liang opened the door to her own handsome apartment again. She had not stayed all this time with Louise. When she left her daughter her eyes were swollen and she felt she wanted to be alone instead of coming into the house. When she climbed out of the taxi she had gone to the river and had sat down on a bench there. The bridge loomed above her, high and silver. At first it had seemed to catch and hold the light, and the sunset had stained it pink. Then its own lamps began to spring out, and in the deepening darkness it became an arch of light from shore to shore. She sat there a long time remembering how when the children were little she had brought them here to play. Peter had always loved the bridge. He would look up from his toys to gaze at it. The first word he had said, after her name, had been that word. He had lifted his tiny hand and pointing he had said, “Bridge!” How proud she had been!

She cried again, softly, her face toward the river, where no one could see. Yet who cared if an elderly Chinese woman cried? Somehow she was coming to believe that Peter was dead. So many young men died in China, she knew. But she had thought that Liang’s name would protect her children. Liang! Why had he sent the children away? He had not wanted Louise to marry an American and so he had sent them all away. Now Louise had married an American, and he pretended that he believed in such marriages. Liang was always pretending. He pretended that Confucius was so big. Confucius was only a man, probably a man like Liang, but his wife could not read or write and so she died unknown. Men were all alike.

She stopped crying and now she felt cold, although the day had been warm. She got up and walked slowly homeward. She would not tell Mrs. Pan or anyone about Peter. She would wait and wait. If James could find out nothing she would ask Liang to let her go home. She would find Peter herself. A mother could always find her own child.