Pearl Buck - The Eternal Wonder

RANN AND HIS MOTHER SPENT the summer in New York doing all that they could to instill in his grandfather some will to return to living. Each doctor who came conducted extensive examinations and at last declared that there was nothing really wrong with the old man.

“It seems he simply has no wish to go on,” the last one had said with finality.

He refused any medical care and feeding him was a matter of forcing hot broth between his thin lips.

Autumn passed quickly into winter and on a brisk day with the feeling of snow in the air Rann’s mother had gone into Manhattan to purchase a few warm clothes, for she had brought none with her to New York and hesitated to return home with her father so ill.

When she returned, Rann met her at the door. “Grandfather died an hour ago, Mother,” he told her.

Tears came quickly to her eyes and she gave him a quick embrace and kiss. “We have been through this before, Rann, and we know life must go on.”

“But there’s so much I don’t know how to do,” Rann said. “What—”

“I’ll get the proper things going. You look tired and you need to rest. Have you eaten? No? You really should, you know, we both should. There is no need to make ourselves ill.”

Sung hovered about them. “I fix. I know. Soup maybe with sandwich. Coffee.”

He went away, soundless in his felt slippers and Rann put his arms about his mother.

“I’d forgotten,” he muttered. “I’d forgotten what death is like. But he wanted to die. He kept hearing—someone—call him.” He remembered then that his grandfather had not told his mother about Serena.

“My mother—,” she broke in.

He sat down in a carved chair. No, he would not speak of Serena. If his grandfather had wanted his daughter to know, he would have told her. Now he would keep the secrets of the dead.

“He simply willed himself out of life,” he said.

THEY WERE IN THE JET flying westward. A few days and it was as though his grandfather had not lived. Yet both of them were conscious of the urn of ashes they had left behind. It was macabre. The ashes were so meager, a handful of chemicals that a quick wind could blow away.

“I’ll send the urn to you in a couple of weeks, if you’ll give me the address,” the man at the crematory had said.

They had looked at each other, mother and son.

“He’s never left New York after he returned from Peking,” his mother said.

“He was happy here,” Rann said, and thought of Serena.

“You can rent—or buy—an alcove here,” the man suggested.

In the end that was what they had done. They had left the final dismantling of the apartment to Sung, and then suddenly his mother had changed her mind.

“Your grandfather left everything to you, son, even this apartment which he owned. Why not keep it? Sung can take care of it. You may not want to stay in a little Midwestern town. You will want a place of your own, someday, if not now, and in New York, doubtless. He has left you very comfortably well off. You can certainly afford it.”

So they had left the apartment to Sung, and just as it was. The thought of it pleased him. He could come back.

“I will come back,” he had told Sung.

“Please, sir—soon,” Sung had begged.

Now sitting next to the window in the airplane he watched the clouds floating about them in the sky. He was aware of monstrous bewilderment, shock, weariness. When his father died it had been expected and prepared for. His mother had prepared him and so indeed had his father.

“Your father is approaching his next life,” his mother had told him.

“Is there another life?” he had asked.

“I want to believe there is,” she had said firmly.

He had accepted this, as in those days he had accepted everything, it seemed to him now. And his father had spoken easily of his future beyond Earth.

“Of course, we don’t know, but with the passionate will to live that we humans seem to have, there’s the probability that life continues. It’s all right with me either way. I’ve had a wonderful time here—love and work and you, my son. What a glorious life you will have! Joy to you—”

“Don’t,” he had whispered, fighting off his tears. “Don’t talk about it!”

His father had only smiled, but they had never talked of death again. One of these days when he was ready to face it, he must think it all through—gather all the evidence. Now he wanted only to live. He leaned back in his seat and fell suddenly asleep. The plane was jarring to the ground before he woke.

THE OLD LIFE FELL INTO PLACE. The house enfolded him. Here he had been infant and child. Here he had learned to walk and talk and wonder. For a few days, even weeks, it was comfort to fall into a familiar niche, to wake in the morning in his old room, to go downstairs to the logs blazing in the fireplace, the gentle clatter of his mother preparing breakfast, to know the day lay ahead of him, his to possess. Neighbors came in to greet him. After a while even Donald Sharpe called on the telephone.

“Well, Rann—back from your jaunt abroad? What’s next?”

“I don’t know, sir—I suppose military service somewhere. My induction notice has arrived and I’m to go on Thursday for the preliminaries.”

“No idea where, I suppose?”

“No, sir.”

“Try to come and see me before you leave!”

“Thank you, sir.”

He would not go. He knew too much now. He was no longer a boy. And yet he was not quite a man. There were these years facing him, a barrier between past and future, years when he must lend his body to his country, years which he must spend in some unknown place, performing an unknown duty. There was no use in planning until these years were over, and still he could not keep from planning.

He listened, without hearing, to his mother’s determinedly cheerful chatter. There was a comfort in being with her but that was all. Yet though he knew his life had now proceeded beyond her ken or reach, he was aware that she, too, knew this and so she did not question him about Lady Mary or about Stephanie. Of Lady Mary he did not speak, but he told her of Stephanie, briefly and casually, at breakfast one morning.

“The sort of girl who is—well, one of a kind. She isn’t French, nor is she Chinese, and certainly not American, and yet somewhat each.”

He was silent for so long that his mother encouraged him.

“She sounds interesting, at least!”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, certainly she is interesting. Very complex, perhaps! I feel I’d have to be a good deal older before I’d understand her.”

He paused again, undecided, and then went on.

“You’ll be amused by this, Mother! Her father is an old-fashioned Chinese, though he’s lived in Paris for so many years. He has no son, and it seems that when this is the case a Chinese may ask his son-in-law to become his son and take his name. Well, he asked me to be that son-in-law!”

He was half-laughing, in some embarrassment, and she laughed aloud. “How could you refuse such an offer?”

“Well, Stephanie had warned me. She told me she didn’t want to marry at all. And certainly I don’t… not at this point in my life when I don’t know—can’t know—my future.”

She grew suddenly serious. “Have you any idea inside yourself, Rannie? Of what you want to do—and be?”

“No, except that I don’t want to work for anyone. I don’t want to be part of a corporation or in any organization I can’t control. I want to work by myself, for myself. It’s the only way to ensure my independence. I know, of course, that whatever else I do, I will also write. It’s already sort of a compulsion in me.”

She looked at him with troubled eyes. “You’re taking a great risk, aren’t you?”