Pearl Buck - Patriot

And yet it was not hatred which brought I-wan at last to that moment when suddenly, as clearly and simply as though he had been told, he knew what he had to do. It was something deeper in him than hatred could ever be.

Seven days after this was a day when a ship came in from China, and it was I-wan’s duty to meet it and receive into the customs warehouse on the jetty the merchandise it brought for the house of Muraki. It was a strange sight he saw as he stood watching the unloading of that ship. The carefully packed crates of goods marked Muraki were as nothing compared to other goods being set down upon the docks. These were not curios and fine things, but the common things which people use every day. They were, for the most part, unpacked, as though they had been put hastily upon the ship, and if there was now and then a heavy old desk or a carved chair, there were to be seen far more often beds and tables and stoves of foreign metals and shapes, pianos and pictures and bedding and electric refrigerators, music boxes and carpets and cushions and velvet curtains and all such things as well-to-do Chinese delighted to have in their homes in Shanghai, such things, indeed, as might easily have come out of his own father’s house. He looked at the stuff, half expecting to see something he knew, but he did not. And for everything there was someone to expect it and claim it.

“Now I know there is real war,” he thought grimly. “This is loot and nothing else. These things have been in people’s homes.”

And yet in the midst of his rising fury he was stopped. For there was something else on this ship, too. When all else had been unloaded, and he stayed in his anger to see it all, he saw many small wooden boxes begin to be brought off. Each had a name written in letters upon its top. And these, too, were expected. A man stood to call each name, and as he called, a little group of persons came forward and received a box and all of these people were in deepest mourning. And instantly I-wan knew that the boxes held the ashes of those who had been killed in battle.

He had somehow thought only of Chinese being killed. Now he knew how foolish he was. These people, too, must suffer. He stood, watching and silent, as each small box was received preciously and carried away. There was no sound of loud weeping. People even smiled as they received their dead. They had been taught to smile when those they loved died in battle. But down their faces their tears streamed.

He stood, forgetting who he was, pressing nearer and nearer, until now he became aware that he was so close that the eyes of many fell upon him as they wept. They must have known him for what he was, a Chinese, and yet their looks were not of hatred but only of pure sorrow. And he fell back a little when he saw this. It could not have been so in his own country, he thought unwillingly. No, his people were not so disciplined to sorrow as these. Their sorrow would have overflowed into wailing and cursing.

He moved back again, half ashamed, and knocked against an old man standing alone, a box wrapped in his arms as though it were his child. And I-wan, looking inadvertently into his eyes, saw such patient sorrow that he could not but stammer something about his wonder that there was such patience and no sign of hatred. And to this the old man answered gently, “Why should we hate you? You had nothing to do with this. And besides, our people are taught to suffer gladly for our country.” The tears burst from his eyes as he said this, but he only clutched the box more firmly and said, his old voice shaking, “Yes — I rejoice — my only son—”

And this old man uttering these words brought light to I-wan. The dusk, the silence, in which he had been living broke and was gone. He was at that instant recalled to his old self. Yes, to that old self which had been he in the days when he dreamed of his country and lived to make her what he dreamed. How these people loved their country! The love of country which he saw shining in this old man’s face — it was the most beautiful love in the world. How small and selfish was the love of one creature for another! There was a love infinitely larger, a love into which he wanted to throw his whole self. Had he not known such love?

… “I-wan, you are like a priest,” Peony had said…. He longed suddenly to lose himself and all his doubts in great sacrifice. He had never been so happy, he now thought, as he had been in those old days with En-lan — no, not even with Tama, and with all her ministering to him. He was one who was happiest when he ministered. This was his nature, only he had not known it. It had taken the suffering of other people to show it to him. In his own country how many suffered now!

He turned, and the old man went away. But I-wan did not need him any more. He had done his work. Fate, that strange fate in which Tama always believed, had used him for the necessary moment, and had then dismissed him. I-wan, without thinking of him again, went back to the goods in the customs house. But all the time while he listened to the demands of the customs officers, while he watched clerks open the crates, and while he checked one paper after another, his mind and his heart were asking:

“How shall I tell Tama?”

At first, on his way home, he thought that he would simply go without telling her. He would write it all down in a letter for her to read when he was gone. Then he could explain to her in his own language, the written language which was hers also.

He had almost persuaded himself to this when he stepped into his house. Usually she was there waiting for him in the garden or at the door. But tonight she was delayed. He was already inside, taking off his shoes, when she came running out of the kitchen, pushing back her hair as she came.

“Oh, I am so late!” she cried. “Well, I was making something you like, and it took me such a long time.”

When she came running up to him, her wide eyes frank and her face rosy, he knew he could never go away without telling her. And yet if he waited his heart would fail him. In the rush of the moment he seized her shoulders and began to speak.

“Tama, I must go home — I am needed there.”

He said it very quietly, so that he would not startle her, but her body grew still and stiff under his hands and the blood fled from her face. She did not say, “Let me go, too.” No, she knew now that he meant he must go alone.

He hurried on. “I have been miserable all these days. I haven’t known what to do.”

“I knew what you were thinking,” she said. Her voice was so small he could scarcely hear it.

“But you didn’t tell me,” he retorted. “I thought you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t want — I was so afraid — you might think it your — duty — to leave us,” she faltered. Her lips were trembling and he could not bear to see it. He pressed her face to his breast and laid his cheek on her hair.

“I didn’t know what I ought to do until tonight,” he said. “An old man holding a little box of ashes made me see how sweet and — right — it is to die for one’s country.” He was using old words. She had never heard them, but Miss Maitland had once made them memorize those words. En-lan had argued with her, saying, “One ought not to die for one’s country, if the country is wrong. It is better to die for a cause.”

And then Miss Maitland had seemed quite angry. She told them about a young Englishman who so loved England that he had said his dust would be forever England. En-lan had said no more, only smiled, unchanging.

But now, holding Tama in his arms, I-wan knew that Miss Maitland was right and En-lan was wrong. It made no difference whether one’s country was right or wrong. He would never have believed he could go back and take a place under Chiang Kai-shek. But he could.