Peony: A Novel of China (16 page)

Now, although Kung Chen had ceased to think of love, the little romance of the fish brought it back to him for a moment, a forgotten dream, and he sighed. Love passed swiftly and no man could put off its end, and marriage had nothing to do with love. If his daughter fancied the young foreigner, and if the family welcomed her, as assuredly any family would welcome a daughter of his, then it remained for him a matter of business. If he denied his daughter to Ezra’s son, it would be painful to do business with Ezra thereafter. The contract pending between them could never be signed. Ezra would take it to another merchant, and of good merchants there was a plenty in the city, though none so rich as he. It would be very irksome to see one of them benefit from Ezra’s foreign goods. Yes, marriage could be a good connection for him to make with the House of Ezra. It would make their partnership something more than business. All business should have its human connections. The more human every relationship could be, the more sound it was, the more lasting. Kung Chen did not altogether trust Ezra as an honest man any more than he trusted himself. Where large sums of money were concerned, no man could be sure of any man. But if Ezra and he poured their separate bloods into one, then they were one, and dishonesty became absurd.

“Call it only shrewdness,” he murmured to the fish.

Well, his Little Three would be happier in the foreign house if Peony were there, a young Chinese girl, to be her playmate. He must talk with Little Three, if the marriage was to be arranged. But first he should talk with her mother.

Upon this Kung Chen rose reluctantly and sauntered toward his wife’s court, and he clapped his hands at her door. A maidservant came running, and seeing him invited him to enter.

“Is my son’s mother at leisure?” he inquired.

“My mistress is sitting in the sunshine, doing nothing,” the maid told him.

So Kung Chen went in and found his fat, middle-aged wife sitting in a large wicker chair, a tortoise-shell cat before her tossing a mouse it had caught. She looked up when he came, her face covered with smiles.

“Look at this clever cat!” she exclaimed. “It has caught two mice today.”

“I thought you were a Buddhist,” he said teasingly.

“I kill no mice,” his lady retorted.

“You are not a cat,” he said.

“No,” she agreed.

“Nor the cat a Buddhist,” he went on.

To this pleasantry she made no reply, only continuing to watch the cat. But Kung Chen did not mind. Long ago he had comprehended that hers was a pleasant little mind, not deeper than a cup, and he must not pour it too full. He had measured it exactly and they never quarreled. Now he sat down so that he could not see the cat, who was daintily crushing the mouse’s bones.

“I have come to ask your advice about our Little Three,” he began.

His wife made a gesture of impatience with her plump gold-ringed hands. “That naughty girl!” she exclaimed. “She will not learn her embroidery and I am sure Chu Ma does it for her.”

“Little Three takes after me—I never liked to embroider,” Kung Chen said. His face was grave but his eyes twinkled.

His wife looked up at him in simple surprise. “You were never taught to embroider!” she exclaimed.

“No,” he agreed. “Had I been, I should have hated it. She is my daughter—forgive me!”

Madame Kung smiled, perceiving that he was joking again, and fell silent, enjoying the cat. Her plump hands lay on the lap of her pearl-gray satin robe like half-open flowers of yellow lotus. She had been so pretty when she was young that it had taken Kung Chen some years to discover that she was stupid.

“Well?” she asked after a long silence.

“I am about to have another proposal for our Little Three,” Kung Chen said.

“Who wants her now?” Madame Kung asked. There had been many proposals for each of their daughters. Any rich family with a son thought first of a daughter of Kung.

“The foreigner Ezra is considering her for his son, David,” Kung Chen said.

Madame Kung looked indignant. “Shall we consider him?” she asked.

Kung Chen replied in a mild voice, “I think so. They are very rich and Ezra and I have planned a new contract. There is only the one son, and Little Three will not have to contend with other sons’ wives.”

“But a foreigner!” she objected.

“Have you ever seen them?” Kung Chen asked.

Madame Kung shook her head. “I have heard about them,” she said. “They have high noses and big eyes. I do not want a grandson with a big nose and big eyes.”

“Little Three’s nose is almost too small,” Kung Chen said tolerantly. “Moreover, you know our Chinese blood always smooths away extremes. By the next generation the children will look Chinese.”

“I hear the foreigners are very fierce,” Madame Kung objected.

“Fierce?” Kung Chen repeated.

“They have religious fever,” Madame Kung said. “They will not eat this and that, and they pray every day and they have no god that can be seen but they fear him very much and they say our gods are false. All this is uncomfortable. Our Little Three might even have to worship a strange god.”

“Little Three has never done anything she did not want to do,” Kung Chen said, smilingly.

“With many young men wanting her, why should we choose a foreign husband for her?” Madame Kung asked.

The cat had now consumed the mouse, except the head, and she took this and put it neatly behind the door. Madame Kung was so diverted that she laughed and forgot what they were talking about.

“Aside from business,” Kung Chen said with patience, “I do not believe in separating people into different kinds. All human beings have noses, eyes, arms, legs, hearts, stomachs, and so far as I have been able to learn, we all reproduce in the same fashion.”

Madame Kung was interested when he mentioned reproduction. “I have heard that foreigners open their stomachs and take their children out of a hole they have there,” she said.

“It is not true,” Kung Chen replied.

“How do you know?” she asked.

“My friend Ezra and I attend the same bath house and he is made as I am, except that he has much hair on his body.”

Madame Kung showed still more lively interest. “I have heard that this hairiness is because foreigners are nearer the monkeys than we are.” Then she looked concerned. “Suppose our Little Three does not like a hairy man?”

“Our Little Three will never see any man except the man she marries,” Kung Chen said. “Therefore she will not know she does not like his hairiness.”

They had now come to the crux of the matter and Kung Chen put the question to her. “Then if I receive the proposal?”

“If?” Madame Kung interrupted.

“When I receive the proposal,” he corrected himself, “I shall accept it?”

It was partly affirmation, and she nodded indifferently. It was easier to yield to him than not.

“We have so many girls,” she murmured and yawned, and he saw she was ready to think of other things and so he went away. From the gate of the court he looked back. She had composed herself for sleep and her eyes were closed.

For a moment he was half angry. It was in his mind to go to his daughter and speak to her, since her mother cared so little what she did. Then he decided against it. It was too soon. Better it would be to wait until he had the proposal in his hand. Better even then to consider a while longer—his Little Three was very young. Nevertheless, he felt himself so disturbed that he knew his day of rest was ended. He turned his footsteps and moved in his slow stately fashion toward the great gate that opened to the street. His satin-curtained mule cart waited always ready for his coming. The gate-man shouted and the muleteer sprang to his feet. Kung Chen stepped into his cart.

“Take me to my countinghouse,” he commanded. The muleteer cracked his whip and Kung Chen was on his way.

At the synagogue on that Sabbath day Madame Ezra planned while she worshiped. Her busy mind ran hither and thither about her plan. Purposely she had not told Ezra that she would invite the Rabbi to be her guest for a while. For how long? Who knew? Perhaps a week, even a month—at least until David spoke his willingness to take Leah for his wife. Had she told Ezra, he would have exclaimed that David must not be forced. Yet it was not force she planned—it was the will of God.

The will of God—the sweet peace of these words filled her spirit. But the synagogue was a place of peace. Ruin was not too evident—not yet. The curtains were old, but they were still whole, thanks to the women who mended them tenderly. Most of the Jews were poor, and their homes were clustered about the synagogue. Madame Ezra felt guilty sometimes that she did not share the poverty of the small community, all that was left of the once large one.

Where had the Jews gone? It was a matter to puzzle them all. Without persecution or any sort of unkindness from the Chinese, they had disappeared, each generation fewer in number than the one before. Madame Ezra was angry when she thought of this. It was, of course, easier to sink into becoming a Chinese, easier to take on easygoing godless ways, than it was to remain a Jew. All the more reason, therefore, for her to live strictly, in spite of her wealth—perhaps, indeed, because of her wealth. A poor Jew might be constrained to choose between God and money. She had no such compulsion. With such thoughts she renewed her determination. As soon as the worship was over, she would stay behind and go to the Rabbi. When her plan was secure, she would tell Ezra. It was not difficult to stay behind, for in the synagogue a high carved wooden partition separated men from women, and it was her habit to worship separately from Ezra. Leah was at her side, and David was with his father. She would send Leah home with Wang Ma while she herself went to the Rabbi.

Peace descended upon her as she saw her way clear, and she lifted her eyes to look at the Rabbi as he stood beside the Chair of Moses upon which the sacred Torah was placed. He wore long black robes and about his black-capped head was wrapped a fine white cloth that streamed down his back. He was reading aloud, while Aaron, dressed in the same fashion, except that his cap was blue, turned the pages. The Rabbi seemed to read, but actually he recited from memory, page after page. If he faltered, which was seldom, Aaron prompted him in a loud voice.

When the service was over, Madame Ezra discovered that the Rabbi did not come easily to the house of Ezra. When she explained, when she begged him to come at once, he shook his great bearded head. “Let your son come here to me to learn from the Torah,” he said firmly.

Madame Ezra wailed aloud at this. “Father, why should I hide anything from you? What if he does not come? Just now, yes, he is very eager. He is moved by what Kao Lien said of the murder of our people. But he is young. There will be days when he does not want to come. He will make an excuse of a game or of sleep or of playing with birds or the dog or writing a poem—anything! But if you are in the house, he cannot escape you.”

The Rabbi considered this. “I am a servant of the Lord,” he declared at last. “It is of Him that I must inquire.”

Now Madame Ezra, being a woman of impetuous nature, felt that she must say more. The will of God was clear to her and it must be made equally clear to this stubborn good old man.

“You know, Father, I say without any vanity that ours is the leading Jewish family,” she now told him. She saw a certain smile flicker about the blind Rabbi’s mouth and she hastened on. “Yes, yes, I know that Ezra is a man divided in heart, and I can tell you with truth that many a night I have wept because of his pleasure-loving ways. But I have tried the more, Father, to do duty for us both, and you know that is true.”

“I know,” the Rabbi said gently.

“Yet I cannot live forever,” Madame Ezra went on, “and I must see my only son set in the way of his fathers. If he marries Leah—”

The Rabbi looked surprised. “Is he not to marry her?” he asked.

“Of course he is,” Madame Ezra said with some impatience. “But we cannot say he is married to her until the act is done. You do not understand young men and women these days, Father. I assure you that David, left to himself, would be the best of sons, but Chinese girls are always looking at him. I shall not be sure until—”

“Does David look at them?” the Rabbi interposed.

Madame Ezra evaded this. “He will not look at anybody after he is married to Leah.”

“Why does he not marry Leah at once?” the Rabbi asked innocently.

Madame Ezra sighed. “Father, to speak plainly, David must first want to marry her.”

At this the Rabbi looked very grave indeed. “Does he not want to marry her?” he asked.

“A young man often does not know what he wants until it is pointed out to him,” Madame Ezra retorted.

The Rabbi considered this for some time, sitting with his head bowed and his hands clasped on his staff. Then he lifted his head as though he could see. “What have I to do with this?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Madame Ezra said quickly. “It is entirely my duty—and Leah will help me. But what you must do, Father, is to guide David into the way of Jehovah. Instruct him, Father, teach him the Torah, incline his heart to the Lord—and we will do the rest.”

The Rabbi considered this. Then he said, “Still, I will go before Jehovah and inquire of Him. Leave me, my daughter.”

Madame Ezra rose with vigor from her chair. “I will obey you, Father.” Her rich voice was angry. “May it be soon that you come to us!”

She returned to her home and the Rabbi returned to the synagogue through a covered passage from his house. He knew every step of his way, and his feet fitted into the slightly worn hollows in the stones of the floor. It had been many years since he had seen the synagogue with his eyes, but he had other senses. Thus now he could smell mildew on the hangings, and he touched doors, table, altar, and he felt dust like sand between his too sensitive finger tips. By the soles of his feet he knew the floors had not been swept, even for the Sabbath. But it seemed to him that someone was here and he listened. Yes, he heard a slow deep breathing.

“Who is asleep in the house of the Lord?” he asked loudly.

The breathing ended in a snort. A half-strangled voice answered out of sleep, “Eh? It’s only me, Teacher—Old Eli! I fell asleep. Is the worship over?”