Pearl Buck - Kinfolk

He felt fretful in his loneliness and he began to long for Mrs. Liang to come home. He could be cross with her and she would not mind because he was her husband.

When he got her telegram saying that she would arrive at three o’clock the next day, unless there were storms, he immediately began to feel better. It was something like having been ill or away or out of his usual routine. Now soon his house would be what it had always been. He felt more kindly even toward Louise and he rang her up to invite her, with Alec, to dinner. It was the hour when she was putting her baby to bed and she was abstracted but good-natured.

“Sure we’ll come, Pa,” she said. “I think Alec would like it.”

Before he knew what he was doing he was also inviting Mr. and Mrs. Wetherston. “We may as well make it a real party,” he told Louise. “If you think your parents-in-law would enjoy hearing the latest news from China, then bring them along.”

Since her father had shown no interest in the existence of any of them ever since her mother went away, Louise was pleased. “I don’t believe they have anything planned,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll want to come. It’ll be nice. It’ll be lovely to see Ma again.”

“Indeed it will,” he said with unusual warmth.

He was very much absorbed the rest of the evening in planning the dinner. After some thought he decided to order it sent in hot from a Chinese restaurant and he had a long talk over the telephone with the proprietor about special dishes and their preparation. When this was over he felt he should go to bed in order to be fresh for the next day. But he found it difficult to sleep. His mind, instead of being absorbed with memories of Violet Sung, returned to the earlier years of his life when Mrs. Liang had first come to his father’s house. She had been a fresh-faced lively-looking girl with a full red mouth. His first disappointment had been that she was not pretty. But somehow or other she was living and strong in the house, simple creature though she was, and he had soon learned to depend on her. When there was something unpleasant to be done, such as asking a permission of Uncle Tao, it was always she who did it. She had many faults, and each one irritated him separately, but they did not combine to change her quality, which was that she never thought of herself. She was not interested in herself or in her own moods. She had very few moods and they were because of some external circumstance which could easily be changed. Usually she changed it herself and restored her own good humor, or she took a long nap or she bought herself a bag of chocolate drops which she enjoyed. She liked sweets, he now remembered, and he determined to buy her a large box of them tomorrow.

Mrs. Liang saw her husband waiting for her at the airport and she thought he looked tired. She blamed herself for having been away so long, and although she felt very tired herself after this dreadful journey, she braced herself to seem better than she was.

When he saw her she was smiling and cheerful as ever. She looked younger than he remembered and her hair was becomingly loosened by the wind. When she saw him her face turned quite pink and this touched him. He took her hand openly. “Louise couldn’t come,” he told her, not knowing what to say at first. “She has the children and so on. But they are all coming to a welcome dinner.”

“How nice!” she exclaimed. With him she began instinctively to speak in English. “You look a little bit of tired, Liang. Are you feeling quite well? Now I shall feed you something good.”

“I am well enough,” he replied with a touch of pathos. “Nellie has done her best. I gave her a little vacation, by the way, because I had an invitation to visit the Li family in London and I thought it would be a good way to pass the time until you came home. I got leave from the college.” He wanted to tell her about London at once.

“I am glad you took some rest,” she said briskly. She longed to get home and crawl into her own bed and put a hot-water bottle to her poor stomach. But if there was to be a welcome dinner she must not think of such things.

In the cab they sat hand in hand. He had put her suitcase on the floor so that she could use it as a footstool. He was surprised at his sense of comfort as he held her plump hand. He had not done such a thing in years.

“Eh, Liang,” she said, smiling at him, “I think you do want me to come home again!”

He gave her his slight smile. “I was only afraid you would not want to leave the ancestral village and all its delights to come back to New York and your poor old scholar.”

She began unexpectedly to chatter in Chinese. “Liang, nothing is changed! Can you believe that after all these years Uncle Tao is just the same, but more fat, except, poor old man, for the knot in his belly which must come out, James said, as soon as he is willing. And the street, Liang, even more dirty! Of course it is winter and so I did not see flies. But the children run everywhere as before, their faces dirty and their pants — well, you know. Mary teaches a school now and maybe things will be better in a few years. All the relatives are the same except some are dead.” She counted off on her fingers the dead Liangs and what they had died of and when.

“Of course there are bandits everywhere now,” she went on, “but even they are somewhat afraid of Uncle Tao because he takes dinner with the magistrate and he is friends with the police and the tax men. In fact, Liang, Uncle Tao is quite useful and though he is troublesome, nobody dares any more to wish him dead. Later when government is better perhaps it will be all right for Uncle Tao to die. But just now—”

He laughed for the first time in days. “Nothing you say makes me want to go back there,” he told her when they reached the apartment.

Now that she had been away and had returned she was surprised to find as she went from one room to the other that there was a strange feeling of home here, too. She could not have believed it possible, but so it was. The Wetherstons had sent flowers of welcome, and Louise called on the telephone almost immediately and Mrs. Liang listened avidly to details of baby’s teeth and how much little Alec could say. Then she looked at the clock and screamed, “Louise, please! Only one hour or so and there is the dinner coming. Tell me something more, dahling, when you are here.”

She hung up and then remembered Mrs. Pan and telephoned to her. It was just the time when Mrs. Pan was cooking supper and when she heard her friend’s voice she cried out with joy.

Dr. Liang heard only his wife’s end of the talk. “Yes, Mrs. Pan, I am here. … Oh fine, everything is fine. … Not so much as you think, Mary is fine — very nice man. James also is being married. … Yes, yes, I tell you everything. Tomorrow? Oh fine!”

“What’s this about James being married?” Dr. Liang demanded. He had changed his coat for his old smoking jacket and had dragged out a pair of old slippers that he had not worn since she went away. He was smoking and reading and feeling almost entirely normal.

“I tell you later,” she said. “It is surprise, but good. Now, Liang, you must dress yourself early. I and Neh-lee set the table. Supposing I am somewhat late you can be polite.”

She was bustling about, but she found time to be alone in the kitchen with Nellie.

“How is everything went?” she inquired in a low voice.

“Good,” Nellie replied. “For a while I thought something was funny, but I guess he was just restless. He went over to London and come back like a lamb and hasn’t hardly left the house since.”

“Thank you, Neh-lee. Now better we use the second-good tablecloth on account Chinese dinner slops around fiercely.” Together they searched for the second-best tablecloth. Mrs. Liang had not seen a tablecloth since she left.