Pearl Buck - The Living Reed

“Yes.”

“It is enough — for a beginning.”

Sasha lay back again, his hands behind his head. As clearly as though his eyes could penetrate that skull, Liang knew what was taking place there. A hard simple core of ruthless desire was shaping into a plan. A woman who fears, Sasha was thinking, is a woman who can be taken by force. No more pleading — no more waiting at stage doors! He would enter her house. When she came home he would be there. He would enter by force.

This was what Liang saw as clearly as though it had already taken place. He felt a sudden uplift of power in him. Was this anger at last? Was this how a man felt when he could strike another man? He leaped up and felt his hand curl into fists. He saw Sasha leap up to meet him. They stood staring into each other’s eyes. As suddenly as it had come, the impulse died in Liang’s body.

“It cannot be done, Sasha,” he said. “She has guards in her house. You will have to find another way.”

He sat down again. The loneliness of Sasha, a boy who saw his mother dead under a tree in the forest, whose home was the coldness of an orphanage in Russia, a youth, wandering here and there to earn his living who found his father only to know that they could never meet, a man who had never known what love was in parent or friend or lover. Of what use was it to strike such a man as Sasha? A blow could never change him.

He felt this as clearly as though he were inside Sasha’s skin, Sasha’s blood running through his veins, and by the instinct in himself which he could never understand, he knew that he must tell Sasha that Mariko now was embarked upon a most dangerous mission.

“The reason I went to see Mariko Araki tonight was a secret one, but I will tell you what it is. You are a Korean, Sasha, and you are a Kim of Andong. Above all other things that you are, you are first of all Korean of the clan of Kim. Our blood is the blood of patriots. At this time we cannot think of ourselves. We must think of our people, our country. Our grandfather has spent his life for our country. He saved our Queen when she was about to be killed and his lasting grief is that he could not save her in the end. My father died because he was a patriot and my mother suffered and died. And your father has been an exile since his youth, and now he is about to begin the most dangerous work of his life. We, the Kim, are staking all we have and are on the moment when victory is declared and the Americans come to our country. We must be ready for that moment. We Koreans must not be divided as we have been, fighting each other, in the open as we did in the past or in secret as we still do. We must be ready with a united government able to take over our country from the defeated Japanese. The Americans must know we are ready. It is for this that I went to see Mariko. She is to take letters to America.”

Sasha stood listening, his hand hanging, his mouth ajar.

“Why Americans?” he demanded. “What have the Americans ever done for us?”

“They have never taken our land,” Liang replied. “They have never dreamed of empire. Whatever they may have done or may not have done, they are the only people who have declared the ideals of which we have only dreamed. True, we were not saved, but an American, Woodrow Wilson, declared self-determination of peoples.”

“I never heard his name,” Sasha retorted.

“He is dead,” Liang said gently, “and I think he died when he found how large his promise was and he knew he could not fulfill it. Yet though dead he lives.”

Sasha turned away. “You are being religious.” He threw himself on the bed and yawned.

“Nations, like individuals, can only learn by their own individual experience.”

Yul-chun paused in his writing. The snow was falling softly but heavily into the garden. It had begun only a few minutes ago, but if it kept up there would be a foot of snow by twilight. The house was silent and he was alone. Yul-han’s house was now his own. He had found himself cramped in his father’s house, and at the mercy of his mother, coming in too often to see if he were cold or hungry or feverish or had he not worked too long, and he had asked for this house. There was also Sasha. To his surprise, Sasha after months of idleness had wished to go to the Christian school so that he might improve his English and go to America. Sometimes Sasha came home at night, sometimes he did not. Last night he came home early with his books, and after he had his meal he went to his room. On the whole, Yul-chun reflected, Sasha was improving, although of late he had shown a sudden hostility to Liang which the latter seemed not to notice. Yul-chun sighed and turned his thoughts resolutely away. Deeper than his longing had once been for Hanya was the constant troubling anxiety he felt for his son. Hanya had been a stranger, but Sasha was part of himself, though how often he too was a stranger!

Resolutely he took up his pen. “We cannot learn to govern ourselves as a modern nation while we are ruled by another. Yet we must be able to defend ourselves at the moment of victory, lest defenselessness invite new invasion. We must be willing to be poor in order that we can build a navy to protect our shores. On the north we must build bastions and fortresses and maintain a heavy defense to prevent the age-old threat of Russia. To the incoming American Military Government, let me recommend immediate recognition of our provisional Korean government. It was our hope that our own brave Korean soldiers, now in China, could have helped the American army against Japan, our common foe. We would have saved many American lives thereby. Bitter indeed was our disappointment when this was not allowed.”

Someone knocked and looking up he saw Liang at the door, and with him a small slender woman wrapped in a sable coat, snow glistening on her dark hair. They bowed.

“We disturb you, Uncle,” Liang said.

“No — no, I was just finishing an editorial,” Yul-chun replied.

“Uncle, this is Mariko Araki,” Liang said.

Yul-chun bowed once, not too deeply, and Mariko bowed deeply several times. Then she allowed Liang to take off her coat. Underneath she wore Korean dress, a short bodice of pale gold brocaded satin, tied at the right shoulder with a bow, and a full skirt of crimson satin. Under the skirt he saw the upturned toes of her little gold shoes and he gazed at her frankly from head to foot. This was the dancer!

“Come in,” he said. “Seat yourselves. I have some western chairs. Sometimes I sit in a chair myself to promote circulation in the legs.”

Mariko laughed. “I do it by dancing!”

“Ah,” Yul-chun said. “It is a resource, but not for me.”

She sat down on a chair and Liang took another. After a moment’s hesitation, Yul-chun resumed his seat on the floor cushion beside the low desk.

“Apologizing, Uncle, for sitting above you,” Liang said with his usual good nature, “but these western clothes allow me too little freedom.”

He wore a western suit which made him look slim and tall.

“We shall all be sitting in chairs when the Americans come,” Yul-chun replied.

Liang and Mariko exchanged looks, and Liang began again. “Uncle, Mariko is leaving tonight for America. I promised that I would bring her to see you before she went. Yet I have put it off until today, I suppose because I have been — I am fearful for her. But she is very brave. She will help us.”

“I am not brave,” Mariko put in. “I do not want to know anything. I wish not to answer questions. But if you put something in my hand, sir, I will put it in the hand where it should be. That is all.”

Yul-chun listened, appraising her as she spoke. He was experienced in such appraisal. How often had he not searched one who must be entrusted with a message of life or death! He was satisfied now with what he saw in this charming face. It was an honest face, frank, mischievous perhaps, but a child’s mischief born of gaiety and not of wile.