Anchee Min - Pearl of China

“So you are here to deliver Dick Lin’s message?” Pearl ’s eyes were on the tree outside the window.

“No,” Hsu Chih-mo said so gently that it was as if he had merely breathed. “I come to deliver my own message.”

She didn’t ask to know.

He waited.

I found myself tortured by the fact that he tried to get her attention, tried to get her to turn her head.

Many years later, after Hsu Chih-mo’s death and after Pearl had become an American novelist and had won both the Nobel Prize and the Pulitzer Prize, she wrote about him.

He claimed me with his love, and then he let me go home. When I arrived in America, I realized that the love was with me, and would stay with me forever.

He used to sit in my living room and talk by the hour and wave his beautiful hands in exquisite and descriptive gestures until when I think of him, I see first his hands. He was a northern Chinese, tall and classically beautiful in looks, and his hands were big and perfectly shaped and smooth as a woman’s hands.

I sat in the same room with Pearl and Hsu Chih-mo. It was my home, but I felt like a ghost.

Dick Lin was no longer their topic of discussion.

Hsu Chih-mo was talking about a famous musician, a blind man named Ah Bing who played the erhu, a two-stringed violin.

“Ah Bing is a perfect example of someone who created his art as the people.” Hsu Chih-mo’s tone was rushed, eager to get his point across. “Before Ah Bing became an artist, he was a beggar-something the critics choose to ignore. Ah Bing spent years wandering the streets of the towns of southern China. He dressed in rags and was bitten by hungry dogs. He became famous because his music moved people. Listening to his erhu was like hearing him tell the stories of his life. He made my heart weep and made me want to be a good human being. He didn’t set out to inspire or guide…”

“What do you imagine occupied Ah Bing’s mind when he played?” Pearl asked.

“I have asked myself the same question.” Hsu Chih-mo’s hands gestured like birds in the air. “Did Ah Bing think that he was creating a masterpiece? Was he impressed with himself? Did he think that he was claiming an important place in Chinese music history?” Hsu Chih-mo turned to look at Pearl as if asking for her opinion.

“More likely, he was thinking about his next meal,” Pearl responded.

“Precisely!” Hsu Chih-mo agreed.

“Ah Bing wanted only to please the passersby for a penny or two,”

Pearl continued. “Hunger drove him. I imagine him apologizing for being a bother. At night, he slept below the ancient walls or outside the train station…”

“Yes, and yes,” the poet Hsu Chih-mo echoed. “During his waking hours, he played his erhu to forget his misery.”

“Ah Bing would take up his bow. Sorrow would pour from his strings…” Pearl followed.

“Yes, Ah Bing, the greatest erhu player that ever lived. His music is considered the symbol of the Yangtze River. It starts at the bottom of the Himalayas and flows like water across the vast plains of China to the East Sea and out into the Pacific Ocean.”

They spoke as if I were not in the room, as if I didn’t exist. I could feel the force pulling them closer. It was strong. They were my real-life Romeo and Juliet, the Butterfly Lovers. I sat behind Hsu Chih-mo in the corner of the room by the shadow near the curtains. I held my breath and dared not stir. Moment by moment I saw love take root in their hearts. They blossomed like flowers. It was fate.

I was amazed to be both witness to and victim of a great love. I was touched by their birth of feeling but sad beyond description because my heart withered.

“I share Ah Bing’s joy in the warmth of springtime.” Pearl ’s voice came gentle and soft. “I smell the sweet scent of jasmine and I see all beauty under the sky. Ah Bing’s love of life touches a commoner’s heart. My favorite is ‘The Fair Maiden.’ His longing for her is endless and deep. His musical depiction of the sunshine in a girl’s eyes brings tears to my eyes.”

Hsu Chih-mo turned toward Pearl and their eyes locked on each other.

“It was in music that Ah Bing escaped the life he was living.” Hsu Chih-mo’s voice was so quiet he was almost whispering.

“Yes,” Pearl uttered. “Through music Ah Bing became the hero he desired to be.”

They stopped.

The sound of a teakettle boiling came.

“Excuse me.” I got up and went to the kitchen. I tried to press back my tears.

I emptied the teapot and refilled it with cold water. My hands were shaking.

After a time, I heard Hsu Chih-mo say, “That is how I felt when I read your manuscript.”

I didn’t hear Pearl ’s response.

I looked out the window. The sky was dark gray. The sound of the mountain creek was clear.

“I have to go,” I heard Pearl say.

I tried not to think that Hsu Chih-mo stayed because he felt sorry for me. I invited him for dinner and drinks. Alcohol went to our heads and we became animated. I joked about my marriage and he his. Hsu Chih-mo spoke of his confusion with feminism. I asked about his infamous love life.

“Don’t tell me that you hate it,” I said.

“I do, believe it or not.”

“Come on, you are living every man’s fantasy!”

“ Willow, my friend, you have had too much to drink. A cold shower would do you some good.” Hsu Chih-mo shook his head.

I let him know that I was upset that his thoughts were still with the one who had left.

“You are attracted to Pearl Buck.” I turned to him and made him look at me. “Don’t even attempt to lie.”

He smiled. “What makes you think that?”

“Can you tell me that it is not true?”

He lowered his eyes. “I am a married man.”

“I am drunk.” I threw my cup at him. It missed. “Now get out!”

I would have felt better if Pearl and Hsu Chih-mo had admitted their attraction to each other. Their denial and resistance made it worse. Pearl avoided Hsu Chih-mo at the university. She went to Lossing and persuaded him to move back home, which he did.

Pearl buried herself in her room and wrote feverishly. She sent out her manuscript East Wind, West Wind and finally found a small American publisher willing to take on the book. She was happy, even when the book didn’t sell well. She didn’t care. She couldn’t stop writing.

She started another novel. She let me see a few pages a day from her rough draft. I ended up reading the entire manuscript. It was The Story of Wang Lung, a title later changed to The Good Earth. I could see the shadows of villagers whom we both knew. Pearl described a world I was familiar with but had never encountered in Chinese literature. She changed my perspective. She made me see things I intuitively knew to be true.

“I am doing this behind her back,” I told Hsu Chih-mo when I shared Pearl ’s manuscript with him. I asked him to help find the manuscript a home so that Pearl could earn an advance.

Hsu Chih-mo promised to try.

I must say that I brought this upon myself-if Hsu Chih-mo hadn’t already been in love with Pearl, this would have pushed him over the edge. Hsu Chih-mo believed that Pearl was a true artist, the Ah Bing of literature.

We went on being good friends. Finally, after much beating about the bush, Hsu Chih-mo asked if I could pass along a letter to Pearl Buck.

It was a thick letter.

I told Hsu Chih-mo that I would think about it. The truth was that my jealousy of Pearl was growing by the day. And I was hurt by the fact that she had never even made an effort to attract him.

Pearl was the only faculty member who voted against the renewal of Hsu Chih-mo’s teaching contract. She refused to explain her action to the others.