Pearl Buck - Peony

This morning she repeated to herself a few verses from the Torah and she wondered how her father was and whether Aaron was being good, and if Rachel could manage him. Then she wondered shyly if David would come to her, or send for her, perhaps, or whether Madame Ezra would bring them together. Last night at the evening meal he had been very silent, but that was natural — she had been silent, too. Whatever was to be, she was no longer afraid. God was with her.

Filled with such dreaming thoughts this morning, she had moved here and there, and had stood smiling and gazing into space. She walked in her little garden and came in and sat down, all in such a happy hopeful mood that now when she saw Madame Ezra she went to meet her.

“Ah, dear Aunt,” Leah murmured.

“Dear child,” Madame Ezra replied, touched by this warmth. “Today you look happy.”

Leah lifted her head. “I am happier than I have ever been in my life,” she declared. They walked into the house hand in hand, and when Madame Ezra had seated herself, Leah drew a footstool near her and sat down, and again they clasped hands. Leah looked trustfully at Madame Ezra. This look moved Madame Ezra so much that her throat tightened with tears. She felt an ecstasy well up from her heart and infuse her spirit.

“Bow your head, dear child,” she murmured. “We thank God.”

She bowed her own head and began to murmur the words of a psalm, and Leah joined her. When the psalm was over Madame Ezra paused in silence, and then, lifting her head, she opened her eyes and met Leah’s.

“We have Jehovah’s blessing,” she said gently. “I feel it. Now we have only to follow step by step the way that God leads us. Dear child, my son’s father is willing, quite of his own accord, to ask the Rabbi to teach David the Torah again! I have considered how this shall be done, and now it comes to me. The Rabbi must come here to our house — we must all be together.”

“Oh, but what of Aaron?” Leah asked anxiously.

“Aaron will come too,” Madame Ezra said firmly. “They can live in the little west wing.”

“May I not live with them?” Leah asked.

“No, you will stay here,” Madame Ezra replied. Actually she had thought of all this only within the last few minutes. But it came to her so clearly, it seemed so simple, that she was sure God guided her mind.

“I shall speak to your father before we worship,” she went on. “But you will tell David now. No, I shall tell David myself, and you will come with me, and then you and he will talk together. After all, yesterday was yesterday and today is today, and each day must be managed separately so that we arrive at the goal.”

Madame Ezra pressed Leah’s hand and released it and rose. “What is the goal, dear Aunt?” Leah asked, somewhat timidly.

“David’s marriage — and yours,” Madame Ezra replied serenely. “Now is the time. I never saw him so stirred as he was yesterday.”

“Now, dear Aunt?” Leah asked, alarmed.

“Yes, certainly,” Madame Ezra replied.

She moved toward the door as she spoke. She did not want to go more deeply into what Leah might do, or should do. Let the two young creatures be together and God would do His work.

At the door she paused and looked back at Leah. The young girl had not moved. She sat, her long strong hands folded palm to palm between her knees, and her face anxious. “Talk to David about God,” Madame Ezra said abruptly, and so saying she went away.

In a short while, even before Leah had finished pondering these words, Wang Ma appeared at the door.

“Our mistress bids you come to the peach garden,” she said, and stood stolidly waiting while Leah rose, and then led her southward to that place.

The peach garden was David’s favorite spot, as Madame Ezra knew, and thither she had gone when she left Leah. She saw him standing under a blooming peach tree, alone, a puzzled look on his face.

“David, my son,” she said tenderly.

“Yes, Mother?” His reply was ready, but his mind was far away.

Death seemed remote here in the garden. The Sabbath air was quiet. The high wall of the great compound cut off even the noise of the streets. Usually David disliked silence. Not finding Peony here, he would on any other day have hastened out of the gate to find friends or to walk about the streets seeing what new thing had come into the city overnight. The city was halfway between north and south, and travelers stopped here to rest and refresh themselves and to enjoy the good inns. Fakirs and jugglers with all the tricks of India at their finger tips, or troupes of wandering actors from Peking, played at the temple grounds every day or wandered into the teashops to coax the guests.

But this morning he did not wish to see them. He wanted to stay in this house, encircled by walls whose great iron-bound gates were locked at night. How safe it was! Images of dead faces rose to the surface of his mind like drowned men.

“Your father and I have decided that you must begin the study of the Torah, my son,” his mother was saying.

She had said this before and more than once, and he had always protested that he had enough to do. But now he did not protest.

“I am ready, Mother,” he said. Inwardly he was surprised and even awed at the coincidence of his own will with that of his parents, but this he did not tell his mother.

“Today, after we leave the synagogue, I will invite the Rabbi to come here and stay with us for a while,” Madame Ezra went on. “This will make it easier for you. He can attend to his duties quite as well from here.” She looked up at the blossoming trees. “How lovely they are!” she exclaimed. “Leah enjoys them. I shall send for her.”

She was about to say that David was to wait here, and then she did not. Let God bring these two together! She lifted up her heart in secret words: Let my son wait here, O God!

David caught the movement of her spirit without hearing its words. Sensitive and receiving, he felt impelled to stand where he was under the rosy peach trees, and there he stood while his mother, smiling at him, went away, and meeting Wang Ma, commanded her to bid Leah go to the peach garden. Thus David still stood as though his feet had roots into the earth when Leah came with her long swift step to the garden gate.

“Leah!” he said, and went toward her slowly. The morning renewed the magic of yesterday. The sunlight fell upon her, her clear pale skin showed faultless, and her eyes were dark. She had put on white this morning, a white Chinese linen that fell to her feet, and her girdle was gold and so was the band about her hair. She was beautiful, fairer than any lily. At the word he remembered the unfinished poem, and why he had not finished it.

Leah came toward him and put out her hands and he clasped them. “You look like the morning,” he told her.

She lifted her eyes to him and her heart flew as straight as a bird from her bosom and nestled in him. From that moment she loved him altogether and him alone.

God bring his heart to me, Leah prayed. The prayer was so strong and so single that it sang through her body, and all her frame was tuned to it.

He saw her love in her eyes, and sensitive and still receiving, he felt her heart come into him, an overwhelming gift. Even had she been a stranger he would have been moved, and how much more when she was no stranger but one of his own blood and his own kind! They stood alone in the garden. Above them was the soft sky of the spring morning and against it were the tender hues of the peach blossoms and the small new green leaves. Against the memory, too, that Kao Lien had put into them yesterday, the terror of death and the cruelty of persecution, they felt a luxury of safety around them here in the garden.