Anchee Min - Pearl of China

Twenty-four hours was all she had to say good-bye. She would be uprooted and transplanted to America, a country she called home but barely knew. Later in her life, this last day in China would haunt her. It never stopped haunting her as long as she lived. It was useless to tell herself, “My roots in China must die.”

Life simply caught her. The American captain wouldn’t wait. His ship was literally the last boat leaving China. Pearl had only a few hours to pack up forty years of her life.

I convinced myself that our separation would be temporary. Since we had been children, it had happened before. She had gone to Shanghai and then America, but always she had returned. I had no doubts that we would see each other again.

Pearl said that she didn’t feel at home when she was anywhere else, even when she was in America, her birthplace. When she talked of home, she meant China.

“How could I go someplace else when my mother’s grave is here?” she once said.

Pearl was used to accepting reality. She knew that Bumpkin Emperor and his kind would return and murder again. “There is a positive side to moving to America,” she reasoned. “Carol will receive better medical care there.”

“What about Lossing?” I asked.

“I haven’t heard from him,” Pearl said. “He hasn’t bothered to send one word or to try to find out how his daughter is.”

The American captain insisted that Pearl and Grace leave all their belongings behind. Pearl wanted to take Carie’s piano, but she had to give that up. Instead she took Carie’s sewing machine.

Absalom gathered his congregation at the church and announced that Carpenter Chan would take his place. Carpenter Chan was to head the Nanking church while Papa continued to head the Chin-kiang church.

But Carpenter Chan had no confidence in himself. With tears filling his eyes, he pleaded, “Old Teacher, I am not capable of doing as good a job as you.”

“God has let me know that you’re the one to carry on in my place.”

Absalom told Carpenter Chan that if he ran into difficulty, Papa would be there to help.

Papa was touched-he couldn’t believe that Absalom’s feelings hadn’t changed after he had betrayed him.

While the children’s choir sang, Absalom delivered his final sermon. It was the first time Lilac’s youngest son, Triple Luck Solomon, led the singing. The young man had inherited his mother’s beauty. Carie would have loved his sweet voice. We all wished Pearl ’s family a safe journey to America.

I told Pearl that I would take care of her garden. “I’ll bring fresh flowers to Carie’s grave in the spring.”

“I’ll return soon,” Pearl promised.

If I had known that this was the last time we would see each other, I would have held her longer and closer. I would have made an effort to remember how she looked, the clothes she wore and the expression on her face. I would have perhaps tried to talk her out of leaving.

But I didn’t know. In fact, we wanted to get the pain of saying goodbye over with as quickly as possible. The sooner the parting was over, the sooner we could start working our way back together. Pearl was not usually one to dwell on sadness. It was Carie’s training to press back and swallow your bitter tears. Always look forward and be hopeful.

We all started for the river. Lilac came with her children and Soo-ching brought her son, Confucius.

We carried the family’s luggage to the smaller boat waiting to take them out to the warship in the middle of the river.

The large ship excited the children. They called it a big floating temple.

Carpenter Chan followed Absalom. He had been weeping and begging. “I can’t do without you, Old Teacher!”

Papa echoed, “Absalom, without you as our compass we will lose our direction on the sea.”

“Have faith in God” was Absalom’s reply.

“But there are qualities needed in a pastor I don’t possess,” Carpenter Chan insisted. “People won’t follow me the way they follow you! Monkeys will flee when the big tree is down. I am afraid the church will fall apart.”

“Carpenter Chan is right,” Papa agreed. “No matter how hard we work, people see God’s spirit in you, Absalom-not in us.”

Wang Ah-ma, Carie’s former servant and Pearl and Grace’s nanny, arrived to say good-bye. The seventy-year-old woman surprised everyone. After Carie died, Wang Ah-ma had moved back to the provincial village where she had grown up. After hearing the news of foreigners being murdered in Chin-kiang and Nanking, she had come to check on Absalom, Pearl, and Grace. Wang Ah-ma hadn’t known that she was reaching Nanking just in time for the family’s final departure.

“Wang Ah-ma!” Pearl and Grace cried, getting down on their knees to kowtow.

“My sweet girls!” Wang Ah-ma touched Pearl and Grace all over with her trembling hands. She said that her sight was failing and that she could barely see.

“You shouldn’t travel so far.” Pearl wiped her tears.

“When will you return to China?” Wang Ah-ma wanted to know. “Before the New Year or after?”

“What’s the difference?” everyone asked.

“The fortune-teller predicted that I will expire soon after the New Year,” Wang Ah-ma replied.

“Grace and I would like to prove that you wasted your money on the fortune-teller,” Pearl said.

Wang Ah-ma smiled, cupping Pearl ’s face with her hands. “My child, promise that you will come back as soon as you can.”

“I promise.” Pearl gently kissed Wang Ah-ma’s cheeks.

“On board now or never!” the captain of the American warship yelled through a loudspeaker.

Wang Ah-ma let go of Pearl and Grace as she broke down.

The family got on the smaller boat that would take them to the warship. Absalom went to stand in the bow with his back to shore. Looking out across the water, he seemed frozen.

The horn blasted.

The Chinese Christians moaned, “Old Teacher, Absalom!”

Carpenter Chan and Papa sobbed like two abandoned children.

“May the wind blow in your favor!” the crowd chanted.

Absalom was no longer at the spot where he had been standing. It was as if he had suddenly vanished.

“Father!” Pearl and Grace called.

Papa was stunned. “Oh, dear God, Old Teacher has changed his mind!”

Running along the gunwale, Absalom moved quickly. Like a mountain goat, he jumped into the water and began to swim toward the shore.

“Old Teacher!” the crowd cheered. “Old Teacher!”

“Absalom has decided to stay with us!” Papa cried.

Carpenter Chan waded into the water and swam toward Absalom.

“Captain, help!” Grace cried. “Please, stop my father!”

The crowd received Absalom with happy tears.

A few minutes later the American captain arrived from the warship on another small boat. He talked with Pearl.

I could guess exactly what Pearl said to the American captain. She would have said, “Let the fighting angel be.”

When Pearl, Grace, and the children went aboard the ship, Absalom smiled. He waved good-bye to his daughters and grandchildren. His long arms rose like flagpoles in the air.

Pearl waved back. I sensed that she knew that she had made the right choice in letting go of her father.

What Pearl did not know was that she would never see her father again. Absalom would continue to do what he loved all the way to the end. One day Absalom would deliver his sermon. Afterward he would tell Carpenter Chan that he would take a break. Minutes later Carpenter Chan would find him in his room, lying on his bed as if sleeping. But he would be dead. Before that moment, Absalom had lived his dreams. With the help of Papa and Carpenter Chan, Absalom had built the largest Christian community in southern China.