Peony: A Novel of China (18 page)

“Is that man still your tutor?” the Rabbi asked jealously.

David hesitated, then he replied, “My mother sent him away when you came.”

So Madame Ezra had done without asking anyone, but David hesitated because he did not wish to tell the Rabbi that he still met his tutor. But Ezra knew, for Wang Ma told him this, too, one night, chuckling as she did so.

“The young lord, your son, meets his old teacher in the late afternoon at his own house on the Street of the Faithful Widow,” she told Ezra. It was her habit to take Ezra every night before he slept a bowl of thin rice gruel, which he drank slowly, so that she could gossip to him. In this fashion he learned much that no one thought he knew. He looked a little grave when Wang Ma told him this and she made haste to say, “Should your son not learn of our teachers, also?”

Ezra considered while he drank the hot fragrant rice, the bowl held between both hands. “I cannot decide,” he said at last. “I think he should not, in honor to his mother, lest the Confucian undo all that the Rabbi does.”

“How is it that you are so harsh?” Wang Ma exclaimed pettishly. Long ago their youthful intimacy had made her free with Ezra as she was with no other.

“Our God is a jealous God,” Ezra replied.

“Gods are what men make them,” Wang Ma retorted. “It is the Jews who have made their own God.”

“Not me,” Ezra said, suddenly smiling.

His smile was so fresh and frank in his black beard that Wang Ma, remembering the young man he had once been, smiled back at him. Then she leaned toward him and began to whisper.

“Do not let your fine son be unhappy,” she said. “Yes, yes, you are a Jew, I know—you have to be—but tell me—No, you need not tell me—I know. When you remember your father was a Jew you are unhappy and sad, and when you remember your mother was Chinese you are happy and life is good.”

Ezra could not quite allow this all at once. “Perhaps I am unhappy sometimes because I know I am not a good Jew,” he said.

Wang Ma laughed at this. “You are happy when you remember that you are a good man and a rich man and a clever man,” she declared, “and what else matters?” She came closer. “Why, here in this city, everybody respects you for what you are. Who cares what your father was?”

She could always move him when she gave him her affectionate and robust praise. The approval that his wife never gave him this good Chinese woman gave with her whole heart and had given him since they were young together. He loved to be happy and she made him happy because she gave him courage in himself.

“Now then,” she argued, “ought you not to be doing business again with Kung Chen? Ever since the caravan came you have been doleful. You are at home too much. Men ought not to linger about a house. Leave that to women and to priests. Kung Chen will be wondering what has become of you. He is impatient to put the new goods on his counters.”

“You are right,” Ezra declared. “In the morning I will go early to his countinghouse.”

He got up and began to undress for bed and she took the bowl away. At the door he called her and she paused.

“Eh?” she asked.

“Let David visit his old tutor,” Ezra commanded.

“Why not?” Wang Ma returned amiably, and so they parted.

So David continued to do in secret what he had begun to do one day when the Rabbi had demanded that he learn by heart the curses that Jehovah put into the mouths of the prophets against the heathen: “Thou shalt surely kill him, thine hand shall be the first upon him to put him to death and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones that he die, because he sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God.”

Such words David learned, and he hated them even while he knew them to be the words of Jehovah. He dared not speak his hatred, and he found comfort by going to the little house of his tutor and sitting with the mild old man in his quiet court. There he listened to other words that the gentle Chinese read all day:

“To repay evil with kindness is the proof of a good man; a superior man blames himself, a common man blames others.

“We do not yet serve man as we should; how then can we know how to serve God?

“There is one word that can be the guide for our life—it is the word reciprocity. Do not unto others what you would not enjoy having them do to you.”

While the Rabbi sharpened David’s soul, these words comforted his heart, and at night he was able to sleep.

In the morning after he had talked with Wang Ma, Ezra woke filled with new energy and zest for his life. He loved to bargain in amiable and lively talk over a feast, and now he made up his mind that he would invite Kung Chen to a fine dinner at the teahouse on the Stone Bridge, which was the best in the city. Kao Lien must come too, and the three of them would talk together of new and better business. The times were good. There had been no famine in nearly a decade and they had a good governor and taxes were low, so that people had money with which to buy goods. Now was the time for trade.

He went out that morning without seeing any one of his family. Wang Ma and Old Wang served him together and there was no need for talk. Wang Ma, pleased with what she had done the night before, was all smiles and calm, and Old Wang was full of usual zeal to please his master, and the gateman was awake and clean and at his place, and Ezra’s mule cart waited outside. It was a bright gay morning in summer, and upon the street the people looked lively and well fed and ready to be amused. Riding among them, Ezra told himself it was folly indeed to cling to the dream of that narrow barren land of his ancestors. A good thing they did leave it, Ezra told himself. He was learned enough to know that Palestine was a small dry place, and had now been possessed for hundreds of years by nomads and heathen. Should we go back, he mused, would they let us come in? What madness not to stay here where we are welcome!

He asked himself if ever there could be hatred against him here, and he could not imagine it. No people had ever been killed in China because of their kind. True, these Chinese could be cruel enough against a man they hated, but because of what he himself did, not because of his kind. Once when Ezra was a boy he had seen a man from Portugal torn in pieces by angry people on the street, because he laid his hands on a young girl who had come with her father to the city to sell cabbages from their farm. Ezra had run out to see the sight, but all that was left of the man was his head, wrenched from his neck. The rest of him was mangled meat. The head was plain enough, a big thing with matted curly black hair and big black eyes still open and coarse lips once red, now white, set in a thick dark beard. But the man’s death had been his own fault, and all felt that only justice had been done. Had he been courteous as a stranger in their city, all would have welcomed him and none would have harmed him beyond staring at him with curiosity and perhaps with a little laughter at his coat of hair.

Ezra had already sent word of his coming to Kung Chen, and so the Chinese merchant was ready for him. He sat in the great room in his countinghouse, which was his place of business. The room was furnished with the most expensive goods, the floor of polished pottery tiles, the desk and tables and chairs of fine blackwood, carved delicately and without excess and inlaid with marble from Yunnan. The seats of the chairs were made comfortable with red satin cushions and at the windows there were shades made of slit bamboo woven with scarlet silk cord. Indeed, everything was shaped for comfort, but Ezra knew from the past that there was everything here, too, for business, cleverly concealed but near.

Kung Chen rose when Ezra entered, and bowed in the most friendly fashion. “How long has it been since we met?” he said kindly. “I sent my servant to inquire of your gateman if you were ill, but beyond that I did not wish to disturb you.”

“I must ask your forgiveness,” Ezra replied.

Each took his seat, and a door opened and a servant brought tea and a tray of sweetmeats of the best kinds and then he went away again.

“I hope there has not been a misfortune in your household,” Kung Chen said after they had sipped tea and eaten cakes.

“No,” Ezra said and hesitated. How could he explain to this urbane and good man what had been going on in his house? Then suddenly he decided that he would try to explain and see what this friend would say. Could it be that the Jews were wrong to all eyes except their own? Perhaps this good man would help him to understand why they were hated in so many lands, and if Jews were wrong, then why were they not hated here, too?

So Ezra began in the simple brusque fashion that was the only way he knew to talk. “Now, my friend,” he said, “I would ask you something but I do not know if I can make even you see what it is.”

“Try me,” Kung Chen said.

He looked so wise, so understanding, as he sat there in his handsome gown of dark blue satin, his smooth face smiling and his eyes content, that Ezra’s heart went out to him as to a brother.

“My father came of a strange people, Elder Brother,” he said. “I do not understand them altogether myself. Yet in one part of me I do understand them. You must know our history, perhaps—”

“Tell me,” Kung Chen said gently.

“A small people, a few among many,” Ezra said. “We were enslaved in Egypt—”

“How came you to be slaves?” Kung Chen inquired.

“How do I know?” Ezra returned. “The tradition is that we made Jehovah angry—somehow.”

“Jehovah?”

“The God of the Jews.”

A veil of gentle laughter passed over Kung Chen’s face, but he spoke courteously and with respect. “This is the tribal god of your people?” he suggested.

Ezra hesitated. “My father considered him the God of the Universe—the One True God.”

“We have never heard of him here,” Kung Chen said, “but go on, Elder Brother.”

“My father’s people were delivered from slavery by the hand of one of our leaders. He promised us—that is, God promised—that if we obeyed Him perfectly we might return to the land of our fathers.”

“And did your father return?” Kung Chen asked with interest.

“No, but some did,” Ezra said hesitating.

“Then how is it that you are scattered again?” Kung Chen inquired.

“Our people disobeyed God—mixed with the heathen and so on.” Ezra found it difficult to explain all this before the clear, tolerant Chinese eyes. He gave up abruptly. It was impossible. It did not sound reasonable.

“But what has all this to do with you now, my friend?” Kung Chen asked when Ezra was silent.

“I could say it has nothing to do with me,” Ezra replied, “except that Kao Lien brought evil news that now our people are being killed—thousands of them—across the mountains.”

“What evil did your people in those lands?” Kung Chen inquired.

“None,” Ezra said with energy. Of this he was sure.

“Then why do they suffer?” Kung Chen asked.

“That is what I should like to ask you,” Ezra said. “Judge of us who are here.”

Kung Chen shook his head. “I have no answer,” he replied. “I have never heard of such a thing. I should like to inquire of Kao Lien myself.”

This was Ezra’s opportunity. “I was about to invite you to feast with me this night,” he said. “I will bring Kao Lien also.”

“Thank you for your kindness,” Kung Chen replied.

“At the Stone Bridge?” Ezra suggested.

“The best place,” Kung Chen replied.

“When the moon rises?” Ezra said again.

“The best time,” Kung Chen replied. “But do me this further kindness, that I be host.”

After some polite argument Ezra agreed, and since business should not be discussed before a feast, after a little more talk he rose and bowed and the two friends parted, promising to meet again in the evening.

Each spent the day in his own fashion, but Kung Chen sent for some of the men in his countinghouse whom he trusted and he put certain questions to them concerning the small colony of Jews remaining in the city from ancient times. Two of the men were older than he and one was a partner of his father’s time, long past his seventieth year and at his desk only because he was loath to leave it. His love of work shamed his children very much but they could do nothing with him, and so every noon his eldest son, disapproving and silent, brought him here, and before sunset the son came and fetched him again, to show that however stubborn the father was, the children were filial.

He was an old man, Yang by surname and Anwei by name, and Kung Chen talked with him and from him he found out about the Jews.

Yang Anwei said, “These people from the country of the Jews have from time to time taken refuge in our country and especially here in our city because it is near the great river. I remember that my great-grandfather said that once or twice hundreds of them came together into this city and our elders met in the Confucian temple to decide whether they were to be allowed to stay in such numbers. So many of them, our elders thought, might change our ways. But some of these Jews spoke our language, having been here before as traders, and they told the elders that their people asked for nothing except to live here quietly and according to their laws and traditions. They have a god of their own, but they do not ask others to believe in him, and only to be allowed themselves to continue their own traditions and laws.”

“Why did they leave their country?” Kung Chen asked with lively interest.

To this Yang Anwei replied, “As I can remember, and I have not thought of these things for many years, it was because a warlike savage nation attacked them. Some of the Jews resisted, but others were for compromise.” The ancient man paused here and shook his head. “I can remember no more,” he said.

“One more question,” Kung Chen urged. “Was it the compromisers or the resisters who came to our city?”

But Yang Anwei could not answer. Yet after a little while he said with his wrinkled smile, “I daresay it was the compromisers, for see how they have settled into our people! You have only to look at their ruined temple. Who goes there now to worship on their sacred day except a handful of them?”

“The Jews are being killed again in the countries west of the mountains,” Kung Chen said.