Anchee Min - Pearl of China

Carpenter Chan nodded and gave his word.

Wang Ah-ma begged Carie to take her with them.

“My husband’s mind is set,” Carie told her tearfully. “You must go your own way. We no longer have the money to keep you.”

“I’ll work for free!” Wang Ah-ma stuffed her mouth with the corner of her blouse to avoid crying aloud. “I’ll cost you no money. I have no one else, no place to go. You and the children are my family.”

The actors from the Wan-Wan Tunes opera troupe came. Many of them, including the nasty turtle-faced lady, had become Christians to Absalom’s credit. “Actors travel,” Absalom once told Papa. “They will be perfect to spread the Gospel.”

The actors wished Pearl ’s family a safe journey and sang their new aria, adapted from the Bible.

Surely goodness and mercy

Shall follow you all the days of your life,

And here we shall remain your faithful servants

We shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Pearl promised to return, but she and I both knew that it was wishful thinking. The Boxers were moving toward the coast and might reach Shanghai soon. America would be the place where Carie and her family would eventually end up.

Pearl and I struggled to find pleasant farewell words, but it was impossible.

We bade good-bye and embraced silently.

The steamboat pulled away from the pier, creating big ripples in the water.

I waved as my tears ran.

The ripples went away. The water became calm again.

I stood on the empty pier and a Tang dynasty poem Pearl used to recite came to mind.

My friend left the Mansion of Crane for the South where fish would bite

Hazelike willow down drift, petals scattered in full flight

Her boat disappears where the waves meet the great river

The bright moon is over the sky’s dome

Wild geese fly by mountains and pavilions ancient

Have you achieved the smile after red sorghum wine sweet

Wear the blossoming chrysanthemums full in my hair

Draw the bamboo curtains over the windows and dream for the night

The day I was engaged to be married, I was fourteen. I had no say in the decision. The town’s matchmaker told Papa, “The only medicine that will help your mother regain her health will be news of Willow’s marriage.”

I wanted to reach Pearl desperately, but our lives had taken separate paths. Pearl had enrolled in a missionary middle school in Shanghai. Her life was a world away from mine.

“ Shanghai is like a foreign country,” Pearl wrote.“The international military forces maintain peace here. My father is waiting for things to calm down in the countryside so that he can return to Chin-kiang. At this moment, he is translating the New Testament. At night, he reads out loud from the original Greek text and Pauline theology. He also chants intonations of Chinese idioms. Mother has fallen ill. She misses her garden in Chin-kiang.”

Although I wrote back, I was too ashamed to tell my friend that I would soon be married to a man who was twice my age. I felt helpless and close to despair. Pearl’s letters showed me that there were other possibilities in life, if only I could escape. Now I understood why I loved The Butterfly Lovers. The opera allowed my imagination to take flight. In my daydreams, I escaped the life I was living to live the life of a heroine.

The more dowry that arrived from my future husband, the worse I felt. It didn’t seem to occur to Papa and NaiNai that I deserved better. Papa was angry when I begged to go to school in Shanghai. NaiNai told me that for a small-town girl, “the more she fancies the outside world, the worse her fate will be.”

I had written to tell Pearl that her bungalow home had been set on fire when the Boxers raided the town. To save the church, Papa had replaced the statue of Jesus Christ with the sitting Buddha. Papa told the Boxers that he was a Buddhist and that the church was his temple. To strengthen his lie, Papa dressed like a monk. The converts chanted the Buddhist sutras as the Boxers inspected the property. It was not hard because all the converts were former Buddhists.

Papa begged Bumpkin Emperor to help protect the church. “The foreign god will return the favor,” he promised. “God will save a seat for you in heaven. You will be reunited with all your dead family members and have an extravagant banquet.”

Papa’s tricks didn’t last. Once the Boxers discovered that the “monks” were Christian converts, they were slaughtered. A member of the Wan-Wan Tunes opera was dragged out in the middle of their performance and killed in front of Papa’s eyes.

Carpenter Chan and Lilac were on the Boxers’ list to be beheaded.

They barely escaped.

Papa was the last convert to flee the town. On the morning of the Chinese New Year, the Boxers caught him. A public execution was to be held in the town square.

Papa begged the Boxers to let him live. He admitted that he was a fool.

The Boxers laughed and said they needed to show the public that the Christian God was a hoax. “If your God is real, call him, because we are going to hang you!”

Papa fell upon his knees and hailed, “Absalom!”

Although Papa didn’t believe in God, he believed in Absalom. When a voice answered Papa’s call, everyone was stunned. The voice came from the riverbank. A tall figure jumped off a boat. It was Absalom! His hands were above his head waving a piece of paper. Behind him were Bumpkin Emperor, General Lobster, and General Crab.

“Old Teacher!” the converts screamed.

The Boxers carried on. They slipped the noose around Papa’s neck.

“Stop the execution!” Absalom halted in front of the Boxers. “Here is the copy of Her Majesty Dowager Empress’s decree! Her Majesty has signed a peace treaty with the foreign troops! The eighth item in the treaty says, Foreign missionaries and their converts are to be protected.”

Five more years would pass before Pearl and I would see each other again. By then I was nineteen and Pearl was seventeen. Our reunion happened soon after our ruler, Dowager Empress Tsu Hsi, died. It was said that she had exhausted herself putting out the wildfire that was the Boxer Rebellion. The new emperor she appointed was only three years old. The nation went into a long period of mourning for the Dowager Empress. Nothing had changed locally, although the country was said to have become a headless dragon.

I went to the pier to greet Pearl and Carie the day they returned to Chin-kiang. I was nervous because my appearance had changed. My dress and hairstyle indicated that I was a married woman. Instead of a braid, I wore a bun in the back of my head. In letters, I had avoided mentioning my married life to Pearl. What was there to say? The moment I entered my husband’s home, I found out that he was an opium addict. The matchmaker had lied. His fortune had been squandered long ago. The family was a fabulously embroidered evening gown chewed by moths. He was in so much debt that the servants had fled. My husband had borrowed money to pay for my dowry. The marriage was my mother-in-law’s idea. It was “one stone for two birds.” Her son would get a concubine and she would get an unpaid servant.

My existence was about serving my husband, his mother, and his elder wives and their children. I cleaned beds, emptied chamber pots, washed sheets, and swept the gardens. I had to sneak out to see Pearl and Carie. My husband would never have given me permission had I asked.

Pearl had grown into a stunning beauty. She was tall and slender and dressed in Western clothes. She carried the air of a free spirit. Her smile was full of sunshine.

“ Willow, my friend, look at you!” she called from a hundred yards away with arms wide open. “What a pretty lady you have become!”