Peony: A Novel of China (19 page)

Yang Anwei’s old jaw dropped. “Why now?” he asked.

“That is what I ask and no one can tell me,” Kung Chen replied. Then he went on in a different voice, “None of this matters to me, except that I am considering allowing my Little Three to join the family of Ezra. If there is something strange in the Jewish blood, then I must ponder for a few moons before deciding.”

Old Yang Anwei heard this. “There is something strange in them,” he declared. “It is not in all of them but it is in some of them. Ezra himself is a man like us, and indeed he carries our blood in him. But there are others who are different.”

“What is the difference?” Kung Chen asked.

The old man hesitated and then he said shrewdly, “If they worship their god they are strange; if they do not worship him they are like other men. In my long life in this city I have seen that the worship of a special god makes a special people.”

Kung Chen listened to this with the utmost silence and respect. There was deep wisdom in this old man, wrinkled and dried with age until his body was like a preserved fruit. But his mind was clear, and indeed he had become all mind.

“Then what we should do,” Kung Chen now declared, “is to steal them away from their god, so that they will become like us.”

Yang Anwei laughed noiseless old laughter. “Or else destroy their god,” he retorted.

“How can we do that?” Kung Chen asked. “This god cannot be seen, he is not of stone or clay, as the gods of our common people are. He is a subtle god who lives only in their minds.”

“Then destroy the god in their minds,” Yang Anwei said.

The two Chinese looked at one another.

“It is not hard to destroy that god,” Yang Anwei went on. “Let us be kind to this Ezra, let us grant him his wishes, heap him with favor, help him to grow rich, remove all his fears, teach him to enjoy our city with all its pleasures, urge him to know that however they ill-treat Jews elsewhere, here there will never be anything but kindness for him and his people.”

“What wisdom!” Kung Chen exclaimed in admiration. “I pray you, Elder Brother, never leave our house.”

“I thank you,” Yang Anwei replied modestly, and getting up he took his leave and returned to his desk, where by the light of a small latticed window he spent his days copying entries of goods into a large ledger. His characters, which he brushed slowly one by one, were exquisite in their perfection. The work demanded about one tenth of his mind, and with nine tenths he thought about everything of which he had ever heard in his long life.

Kung Chen, left alone, sitting as motionless as a stone lion, for a long time considered what the old man had told him. He still wished to know why it was that Jews were killed, for he did not want to put his Little Three into the danger of becoming a widow. But even more than that, he wanted to know whether there were something hateful in these people, something that he did not see. He thought about Ezra, and he could not find anything in that hearty, good-natured, clever merchant that could be hated. Somewhat coarse, perhaps, not very learned, laughter too loud, but otherwise Ezra was a man as common as other men and as easily understood.

But was Ezra like his people? What of his wife and son? What of the strange old priest, blind, and yet able, the city gossips said, to see with the eyes of his inner ghost? This old man and his evil son now lived inside the house of Ezra, and what would they do to Ezra’s son? Some Jews indeed were strange, Yang Anwei had said.

And then Kung Chen fell into one of his musing, perceiving fits of thought. How was a man called strange? A strange animal among other animals was feared and hated for his strangeness. He was a thing apart, one marked in some fashion different from others. Was this also true of the Jews?

He made up his mind that before he decided to let his daughter marry the son of Ezra he would know what a strange Jew was, the old Rabbi and his children, and he would talk with David himself. Until then he would keep his Little Three safely in his own house. He would not marry her to make his business better.

That evening Kung Chen, Ezra, and Kao Lien met in the Stone Bridge Teahouse. The moon rose over the canal, and though the waters were foul, the moonlight turned them pure and beautiful as they flowed beneath the ancient and mighty bridge of white marble. The teahouse was so full of guests that talk was impossible, and Kung Chen called the proprietor and asked for a separate room that overlooked the canal. The man said every room was full, but when Kung Chen put a sum of money into his hand, he went away and took guests out of the best room, saying that those who had ordered it before and had delayed coming were now here.

So the three men found themselves alone in a small but cool and pleasant room just at the edge of the canal. The table was put before the wide-open window and they could look along the canal and see it winding its way among the overhanging houses.

“Will you have singing girls to amuse you?” the proprietor asked. He was a fat busy man, sweating and panting, bawling here and there and everywhere at once.

“No, for we must talk of important affairs,” Kung Chen said. Then seeing the proprietor’s downcast look, he remembered that these small pleasant rooms were used for the girls and so he said, “But you may choose three who sing well and let them sit in a little boat under the window and do their singing, and we will pay for their food and wine to the same amount that we would if they were here with us.”

The proprietor thanked him and went away, and the waiter brought in the dishes that Kung Chen had ordered earlier in the day, first the cold small dishes and then the hot small dishes, and so in order to the sweet rice in the middle and then the meats and vegetables and hot rice at the end.

Ezra loved this food. In his own house beneath his wife’s eyes he was scrupulous as to food, but when he was alone and free he ate whatever was praised by his host, and tonight his willing belly was warm and waiting.

Kung Chen was too wise to begin the evening with serious talk. He talked of the food, praised or judged the flavor of the dishes, discussed the wine, and when the sound of girls’ voices, very sweet and clear, rose from beneath the window, he lifted his hand smiling, and the three men listened.

Kung Chen watched the faces of his guests without seeming to do so. Ezra’s round face was plump and melting, his eyes were filled with swimming pleasure, and his full lips smiled. But Kao Lien’s long narrow face did not change. He sat straight, his tall lean figure unbending, and he ate sparingly of the food that Kung Chen put upon his plate. He did not join in the talk, and in proud acknowledgment that he was not quite the equal of the other two he had taken the lowest seat opposite the window. But upon his face the moonlight shone most clear, for Kung Chen had commanded the waiter to put the candles in a corner so that they would not spoil the moon.

So through the evening; and as the courses came and went, skillfully Kung Chen led the talk. Each time the songs floated up from the canal, he fell silent and listening, and after every song Ezra was more open and more ready for warm friendship. But Kao Lien stayed always the same.

At last, when the feast was nearly over and fresh hot wine had been brought, a small pewter jug for each, Kung Chen told the waiter that the girls should be silent for a while, but that at midnight they might come into the room and sing their last song for the sake of kindness. He gave the waiter money for more wine for the singers, and then the door was closed and the room silent.

Kung Chen turned at once to Kao Lien. “On your travels, Elder Brother, I hear that you met war in some parts of the West.”

Kao Lien answered readily in his soft composed voice, “Not war, only the persecution of my people.”

“Can you tell me why this was so?” Kung Chen asked.

Kao Lien glanced at Ezra, and Ezra, warmed with good food and delicate wines and melted with the songs, exclaimed, “Tell him anything, Brother! This good Chinese brother is our true friend.”

So Kao Lien said, “I cannot tell you why again and again through the centuries the Jews, my people, are killed. There is something strange about us.”

Something strange! These were the very words of Yang Anwei.

“Can you describe this strangeness?” Kung Chen inquired.

Kao Lien shook his head. “I am a trader and I am not a learned man. We are a people bemused with God.”

“Can you describe this god?” Kung Chen asked again.

“I sometimes wonder whether He is,” Ezra broke in. “He cannot be seen, He cannot be heard—”

“Then why do you think he exists?” Kung Chen asked.

“Our old rabbis tell us so,” Ezra said violently.

“Elder Brother,” Kao Lien said in a low voice of remonstration.

By now Ezra was a little drunk. “Let me speak, Brother!” he exclaimed. “This is my best friend, yes, though he is Chinese—ah, because he is Chinese! When I am with him I feel happy and I am not afraid—I tell you, a man’s wife can make him feel always sinful. Sin—sin—what is sin, Elder Brother?” The wine had come up in Ezra’s head and his eyes were beginning to glaze as he turned to Kung Chen with this question.

The Chinese laughed his mild, rolling laughter. “We do not have this word,” he replied.

Kao Lien said, “For us sin is to forget our God and our law.”

“Let me be as other men!” Ezra cried. He began to weep. “I have always wanted to be as others are,” he babbled. “When I was a little boy, they laughed at me—the other boys—because I was strange. I am not strange.”

“Indeed you are not,” Kung Chen said, comforting him. He perceived now that talk of business would be impossible, and he turned to Kao Lien. “Let us comfort our brother. You see how the wine has revealed to us the trouble in his heart. Shall we call in the singing girls?”

“Look at him,” Kao Lien said. They looked and saw that Ezra, always volatile and ready to change, was now beginning to sleep, his head rolling on his shoulder. There was a couch in the room, and Kung Chen rose and Kao Lien also, and together they laid Ezra on the couch. There he fell fast asleep.

“Now,” Kung Chen said, “let us talk together, you and I.”

“Nothing that I say can be binding,” Kao Lien said, somewhat troubled.

“That is understood,” Kung Chen said.

Little by little skillfully he led Kao Lien along to telling, until by midnight he understood exactly what Kao Lien had seen, how cruel was the plight of the Jews, and how in Ezra’s own house there was division between the Rabbi and Leah and Madame Ezra on the one hand and Ezra on the other. Between these two sides David stood undecided, and in his shadow was the weak and useless Aaron.

“Nor are these two sides unusual to our people,” Kao Lien said thoughtfully. “Everywhere I find them, the Jew of the Covenant and the Jew who wishes only to be human and like any other man.”

“What is this covenant?” Kung Chen asked.

“It is the covenant that we made with God in the beginning,” Kao Lien said half sadly. “A covenant that we would be His people if He would be our God.”

“You believe in such superstition?” Kung Chen asked in surprise.

Kao Lien looked apologetic. “I believe and I do not believe,” he acknowledged. “I was taught the law and the prophets, and it is difficult to forget them. I deny them often and sometimes for years together. But I remember them, and I know that it is as a Jew that I shall die.” He sighed. “Let us have in the singing girls,” he said abruptly. “It is nearly midnight.”

So the girls came in, three of them, all pretty and gentle and trained in the art of pleasing. Ezra woke when their music began and he lay there, his head pillowed on his hands, and he listened and looked at them. When their singing was over the girls hesitated, not knowing whether they were wanted further, but Kung Chen shook his head.

“Nothing else,” he said laughing. “We are old staid men and we must go home to our wives.”

He put money into each little palm and the girls laughed and went away and Ezra got up, sighing, and so they went each to his home.

Kung Chen did not sleep well that night or for several nights to come. The end of his sleeplessness was that he decided that he would not give his Little Three to the House of Ezra and he decided to call her to him and find out how much it mattered to her when he told her so.

After he had eaten his breakfast one morning, therefore, he sent a servant to invite her to come to him, and she sent back word that she would come immediately, as soon as she had brushed her hair.

Hearing this, he settled himself for an hour or two, and toward noon she came led by Chu Ma. He knew this little daughter of his was pretty, but each time he did not see her for a while, he forgot how pretty she was. Now he gazed at her with such pleasure that she blushed, seeing in his eyes the admiration of all men, even though he was her father.

“My father!” she called in greeting from the door.

“Come in, my Little Three,” he said, and she sat down on a chair near him and Chu Ma stood behind her.

He asked her his usual fatherly questions, how she did and what she did, and he admired her silk garments and he asked her whether she had read any books, and how her pet birds were that he had given her, and all such small questions. She answered in a pretty voice, shy and smiling, child and woman together, and he told himself that this little creature must be wed only into the safest and kindest of homes.

So he brought himself to what he wanted to say. “My Little Three,” he began, “the time has come to talk of marriage for you. There is your younger sister, Lili, to think of, and I must have you betrothed first. I should have done so before, had I been a good father, but I dislike these early betrothals. Who knows what a boy will be when he grows up? So I have betrothed all of my daughters late, that I might see my sons-in-law as men. Now it is your turn.”

At this Kueilan turned a deep rosy pink and she took her handkerchief from her sleeve and put it to her face and leaned her head against her nurse so that he could not see her. All this was as she should do.

“Master, you put her to shame!” Chu Ma exclaimed. “These things are not to be mentioned before a young lady.”