Pearl Buck - Patriot

“Thank you, sir,” I-wan said.

“Your father writes me,” Mr. Muraki went on, “that there is great improvement in China. The revolutionary elements are purged. The communists are driven into the inner provinces. Order is quite restored.”

I-wan did not answer. He was not sure whether Mr. Muraki knew why his father had sent him abroad.

“Order will always prevail,” Mr. Muraki went on in his even, old voice. “It is what the young must learn — not desire, not will-fullness, not impetuous wishes for — for anything. These must be checked. There is the course of right order which must be rigidly followed—” Then in a moment he added, “—for the good of all.” He cleared his throat and said a little more loudly, “Therefore, since you have done very well, I-wan, and have learned so much here, I have decided to send you to Yokohama, to help my son Shio in our offices there. It is time you learned the rest of the business. Besides, there is a good university in Yokohama, and you may want to study a little more. You will live not in Shio’s house, but in the hostel where the other young clerks live.”

“Yes, sir,” I-wan whispered. He wanted to cry aloud, “I know what you mean — you want to send me away from Tama!” He wanted even to cry out, “Why should we not marry?”

But he could not say one word. There was such dignity in this erect old figure sitting beside the brazier that he could only murmur his assent — for the moment, his assent.

“Since I always do at once what I have decided upon at length,” Mr. Muraki said, “you will leave tomorrow. It happens that Akio is going to Yokohama on his usual monthly trip to consult with his brother. Have you ever been in an airplane?” Mr. Muraki lifted his eyebrows at I-wan.

“No, sir,” I-wan muttered. Tomorrow!

“Ah,” said Mr. Muraki, “then it will amuse you to fly. The Japanese planes are excellent. So — hah!”

His soft final ejaculation was a dismissal. He nodded, and I-wan hesitated. He should express thanks of some sort, but he could not. Thanks would choke him.

“Good night, sir,” he said.

“Good night,” Mr. Muraki said.

Outside the door Bunji was waiting for him.

“What did he say?” he inquired.

“I am to go to Yokohama,” I-wan answered. They looked at each other.

“I thought something would happen,” Bunji said. “The minute I came in tonight I knew by the feel in the house — everything was so promptly and exactly done — even the servants feel it when he is angry. Everybody is afraid of him.”

I-wan did not answer. Against his own father he could rebel. His own country was full of rebellions — children against parents, people against governors. China was used to the lawlessness and unruliness of people who loved freedom. But here not a leaf could grow in a garden where it was not wanted. Ruthless scissors snipped and trimmed the least detail to the appointed shape. He began to see that the great peace of this house, the exquisite order of everything, was the result of ruthlessness.

“What shall we do now?” Bunji asked.

“I don’t know. I can’t go to bed—”

“It’s raining, or we could walk,” Bunji said.

“I don’t care for rain,” I-wan answered despairingly. Tama would not be free until day after tomorrow. He would have to go away without seeing her.

“Put on this raincape,” Bunji said.

They put on the oilcloth capes that hung behind a screen and went out into the quiet cool rain. The cobbled streets were empty except for a servant maid gone out on an errand, a ricksha hooded against the wet. They walked down to the sea, lapping upon the cobbles. In the darkness they could hear the roar of surf against the breakwater. But it was held back and here in the harbor the sea lay as quiet as a pool.

They had said nothing, but now Bunji spoke suddenly.

“You wouldn’t think that once a tidal wave rushed over that breakwater twenty feet high and came roaring through the harbor, crushing great ships together and sweeping the little ones out to sea.”

“Can’t the breakwater hold it?” I-wan asked listlessly.

“Not when the sea really rises up,” Bunji replied. “Nothing can hold back the sea then.”

“It is hard to believe,” I-wan said dully.

They went on, seemingly without direction. I-wan felt the rain on his face. His hair was wet and he felt a trickle run down his neck. But he was thinking, “I shall probably never see her again.” He was thinking, “What will become of her?”

Bunji stopped before a small square house, set exactly in a small square garden.

“I-wan—” he began.

“Yes?” I-wan answered.

“This is Akio’s house,” Bunji said.

“Akio’s?”

“Where Sumie lives,” Bunji explained.

I-wan paused a moment in his endlessly circling thought. Akio, that mysterious man, so strange and reserved, as even as a machine, lived here.

“Would you like to go in?” Bunji asked.

“Should we?” I-wan inquired. This was nothing he had ever known. Such things were, of course, but not to be recognized.

“Oh yes,” Bunji said, shaking the rain from his cape. “I often come here. Sumie and I are quite good friends. She is a good woman. Even my mother has visited her.”

“As you like,” I-wan said, doubtfully. How would he behave before Akio? As for Sumie — old as he was, he had not seen such women as she. His father had said to him, “Stay away from such women!” That was in some trouble of I-ko’s. But he had been interested in the revolution then and had no time for anything else. And since he had come to Japan — he had not wanted Japanese women. He wanted only Tama.

Bunji was knocking at a screen. It slid back.

“Bunji, is it you?” a very soft voice asked in the darkness.

“I and my Chinese friend,” Bunji replied. A light flashed on above their heads, and I-wan saw a short plump woman, no longer young, though still very pretty, standing looking out into the rain.

“Come in, come in,” she said warmly. She drew Bunji in by the sleeve.

“Oh, how wet you are!” she exclaimed. “Oh, is this I-wan? Akio has told me. I am so glad. Now take off your capes. Oh, and your wet shoes! Are your feet wet?” She stooped when Bunji kicked off his shoes and felt his feet. “Oh, your feet are wet! I have plenty of Akio’s socks here. You must change — oh, you naughty boys!”

She was so warm, so soft, so natural that she was wholly charming. I-wan felt vaguely comforted and for the first time in the day his heart lifted. They followed her into a lighted room, dry and warm with a glowing brazier. There by the brazier, reading a newspaper, sat Akio. It was an Akio that I-wan had never seen, a cheerful Akio who looked up to say, “Bunji, come in. And you are welcome, I-wan.”

He stirred himself as though they were guests.

“Sumie, two more cups, please!”

She had gone into the other room and now her soft voice called, “Yes, yes! I am bringing everything, so impatient man!” Akio laughed. I-wan had never seen him laugh before.

In a moment she came running in, her footsteps noiseless on the deep woven mats, in her hands the wine cups, and over her arm two pairs of clean dry socks. Here in the light she was prettier than ever in her kimono of deep apricot silk, patterned with white pear blossoms. Her hair was still black and dressed in the old Japanese butterfly style. Her cheeks were round and her lips soft and red.

“Now, then, here is everything. You pour them hot sake now, Akio — don’t be slow, Akio — and change your socks at once so you won’t catch cold, the two of you.”

In a few minutes they were all sitting about the brazier sipping hot sake and feeling warm and secure and free. Yes, there was a sort of freedom within these walls, whatever it was. Akio was talking, he who never talked at home. And Bunji was listening, attentively, without laughter. Sumie rose silently and fetched a small lacquered box and took out a piece of silk embroidery and fitting a thimble ring to her finger, she sat down again a little away from them all, and sewed. Every now and again she looked at Akio and filled his cup or mended the fire.