Peony: A Novel of China (24 page)

“Torture—that’s it—they torture themselves and everybody else. But now it’s the children. I won’t have you tortured—what’s it for? To be young is not a sin. Besides, how do we know God? These old rabbis—”

Hearing this angry roar in his father’s lungs, David laughed suddenly in the midst of his sobs. Ezra held him off and looked at him. “That’s right, my son—you laugh! Why not? Who knows? Perhaps God likes laughter, eh? Now get on your best clothes and let’s go. Softly, so nobody wakes! I will wake only Old Wang. We will meet at the gate.” He went away, heaving sighs of relief.

David went into his bedroom. He wondered now at the strange release of his heart. The sad quiet of the day had suddenly lightened to joy. No sin was in him, only a vast relief that his father had loosed him somehow from sorrow. He washed himself and brushed back his hair and left his head uncovered. He put on a long robe of bright blue Chinese silk and girdled it with a wide piece of soft red silk. On his feet he put white socks and black velvet Chinese shoes. In a very few minutes he was ready and he went to the gate, where Ezra was.

Ezra looked at his son with overwhelming love. He felt ready to defy anyone to protect his life—yes, even God Himself. His son was his own and he would not yield him up.

“I am not Abraham,” he said suddenly. “I will not sacrifice you, O my son!”

He put his arm around David’s shoulders and together they went out into the moonlit courts, through the gates, and into the street. On foot they went together toward the lake. The hour was late, but not too late for merrymaking. All sober souls were in bed and asleep, but the young and the old who were lovers of life were making the most of the moon. Summer was nearly gone, the autumn was near, and the lotus flowers floating upon the water would die, the pods be split, and the seed scattered. It was the hour to seize joy with both hands.

Thus Ezra walked with David through the streets, quiet except for a few women still sitting on doorsteps and reluctant to go into their houses. They sat suckling their children and dreaming in the moonlight. So they came to the lake, two men, father and son, and there Kung Chen met them with his own two eldest sons, debonair young men eager for pleasure. The older son looked like his father. He had the same broad face and small kindly eyes and smooth lips. The younger son was slight and pretty, and he reminded David of his sister Kueilan. That little one! Her face rose in his memory, and his blood quickened. The two brothers shouted with lively pleasure to David and clasped his hands and argued with boatmen, while the two elder men stood on the bank waiting.

“We are men of the same mind,” Kung Chen told Ezra. “I was about to send a manservant to you to ask you if you would enjoy the moon with us, and he met your man on the threshold.”

“My son has been studying too much of late,” Ezra said with some reserve. “He needs to forget his books.”

Kung Chen was altogether aware of what Ezra meant, but he left further talk until later in the night when they would be mellow with wine. He made no sign even to David that earlier in the day they had met. Each hour unto its own.

By now the young men had the boat they thought best and the boatman held it to the bank with his hooked pole and they all stepped upon its broad flat deck and took their seats. Ezra and Kung Chen sat under the silken canopy but the young men stretched themselves on the deck under the sky. At the stern the boatman’s elderly wife fanned the coals in a small earthen brazier and heated water for tea.

“Where will you lords go for your feast?” the boatman inquired.

“Why not have the feast brought on the boat?” Kung Chen suggested. Thus it was decided, and the boatman rowed toward the restaurant called The House of the Golden Bird.

Never had the night seemed so sweet to David, or companionship more pleasant. At first he was quiet. He lay on his back, looking up at the clear and glowing sky. Beneath him he heard the soft sound of the great lotus leaves brushing the sides of the boat. He turned and leaned over the side and plucked a pod and tore it open. Inside the pith was white and dry and embedded in it were the seed pods in orderly rows. He took them out one by one and peeled the green skin from them and ate them, and the cream-white kernels were sweet to his tongue.

The boatman stooped and took the empty pod and thrust it carefully under the lotus leaves. “That son of a turtle Old Liu has bought the lotus this year in advance,” he explained. “He commands that the lake police are to fine everyone who picks a pod. But eat what you like, Young Master—the more you eat the less Old Liu will have! Only I beg you to give me a little silver to put into the palms of the police.”

Everyone laughed and no one reproved. And David lay on his back and gazed at the moon. He wanted to think no more, to puzzle and doubt and struggle no more with his soul. Let him only live and enjoy his life.

By now the boat was approaching the lower bank where the restaurant stood, and the two young Kungs were arguing over the foods to be chosen.

“Crabs, of course,” Kung the First said.

“Fried in oil, not steamed,” Kung the Second amended.

“Be sure you young lords order a very potent wine to eat with our crabs,” the boatman advised. “They are hearty food, our crabs, for they feed on the refuse that the feasters throw from the boats. Rich fare makes rich meat.”

“Let the crabs be steamed,” Kung Chen said from under the canopy. “The flavor of the meat is then clear.”

So after more argument and talk, crabs were ordered and then roasted duck and vegetables to suit, and hot millet with dates and red sugar for a sweet. This order Kung the First gave to the keeper of the restaurant, who ran down the steps to the water’s edge when the boatman shouted, and he stood there, his fat face shining in the moonlight, all smiles and good humor and shouting, “Yes, yes” to every dish. Then he said, “Sirs, will you not have music, too? To eat crabs, as I cook them, with my wine, under such a moon, and all without music, is to marry a wife without a dowry.”

They laughed and Kung the Second said boldly, “Send us three singing girls with the food.” He turned his head to look at his father slyly. “Will three be enough, Father?”

“Plenty—plenty,” Kung Chen said with his slow smile. “We will look at your girls and listen to them sing and that is enough for us old ones, eh, Elder Brother?”

“Plenty,” Ezra agreed. He leaned back and sighed with pleasure. “Life is good,” he said suddenly.

“For people such as we are,” Kung Chen amended. “We who are rich, we who have plenty, why should we be unhappy? There is no suffering necessary for us.”

Outside on the wide flat deck the young men lolled on the silk cushions that the boatman had put down for them. The moonlight, flowing about them and over them, gilded them until they were like gods at ease. On the shore the restaurant was bright with lanterns and the mellow light glowed at every window. Voices mingled with singing and the sound of flutes and the beat of drums.

Ezra had looked at the scene scores of times, but tonight its meaning penetrated him. Happiness was waiting to be chosen. In this city there was such happiness, and yet here too was the eternal sorrow of the Rabbi, reminding his people of woe. It was within a man’s power to choose happiness and to reject woe. True, it was not within the Rabbi’s power. He had chosen sorrow, the endless sorrow of a man haunted by God. He had even transmuted such sorrow into strange dark joy. He was most happy when he suffered most deeply, like the moth that flutters near the flame of the candle. Yes, the likeness was true. Man scorched his very soul in that ecstasy of God. But must all men find happiness in the same way? Let the Rabbi find his own pleasure where he would, but he should not compel the young men—and above all not the one who was his son.

“You are meditating deeply,” Kung Chen said suddenly. “I feel a fever in you.”

“I am meditating upon happiness,” Ezra said frankly. “Can it be for all?”

Kung Chen pursed his full smooth lips. “For the poor, happiness is difficult,” he replied. “For the one, too, who fastens his happiness wholly upon another being. Poverty is the external hazard and love the internal. But if one can surmount poverty and can love in moderation, there is no obstacle to happiness for anyone.”

“When you say ‘being,’ ” Ezra said, “do you mean human or God?”

“Any being,” Kung Chen replied. “Some love a human being too well and are made subject by that love; others love their gods too well and are subject to that love. Man should be subject to none. Then we are free.”

This talk was interrupted by a flutter at the door of the restaurant. Three pretty girls came down the stone steps, carrying lute and cymbals and a small hand drum. They were like flowers in the wind, their pink and blue and green robes flowing, and they held their little dark heads high. Behind them waiters brought baskets of food and the boatwoman set up tables. There was a bustle everywhere but in a little while all was ready and the boatman pushed the boat away into the middle of the lake again. The brightly lit shore lay in the distance and soon the voices were only echoes.

Now Kung Chen invited everyone to eat, and the waiter and the cook did their part. The three girls sat down at the bow, their backs to the moon and facing the feasters, and each with her instrument began to play, and they sang in unison a melody so tangled among them and so bewitching that the young men could not keep from laughing. The girls seemed part of the night and the moon, fey and exquisite. Their high sweet voices wandered in and out of the melody, but always in unison, and the young men listened and looked at them, seeing them together, their white pretty faces alike, their wide dark eyes passionless. The exceeding beauty of the night, the delicacy of the music and of the singers, the fine food, each dish seasoned to its capacity and none heavy with oil or sugar, the pleasure of all these stole into David’s heart. Grossness would have offended him after the long days with the Rabbi. His soul had been tuned too high and he could not move too suddenly from Heaven to earth. But tonight earth spoke enchantment and Heaven was still.

T
HE RABBI DID NOT
return to the house of Ezra. When he knew he was alone in the synagogue and that David had gone, he went into his own house. Rachel was surprised when she heard his step, and she came in from the kitchen.

“Well, Old Teacher!” she called.

“I wish to be alone,” he told her. “Send word to Madame Ezra and tell her that I will not return. And bid my son come home.”

“What of Leah?” Rachel asked.

The Rabbi considered. “Let her remain where she is,” he said.

Rachel stared at the old man. He looked exhausted to the heart. His face was white and his beard was unbrushed. His hand, clutching his staff, was trembling, and she saw a slight palsy of his head, which she had not seen before. All this alarmed her and she took him by the sleeve. “Before I go I will make you a bowl of hot millet soup, and you must drink it and rest yourself.”

So saying she led the Rabbi to his room, where she kept all ready for him. The old man yielded to her and he let his staff fall and he wiped his blind eyes on his sleeves. “Ah, it is good here,” he sighed. “I was not happy in the halls of the rich.”

“You are not happy unless you are miserable, and that is the truth about you,” Rachel said cheerfully. “Lie down, old man, and rest.”

A look of indignation made his face strong again. The Rabbi came to himself suddenly. “What have you done to my bed?” he cried. He had laid himself down on his narrow bamboo couch but now he sat up.

Rachel stood with her hands akimbo. “I put an extra quilt under the mat,” she said firmly. “Those old bones of yours with nothing under you!”

But the Rabbi rose to his feet and turned on her with his sightless eyes. “Take it away, woman!” he commanded.

Rachel shrugged her shoulders, shook her head, and made many signs of refusal that he could not see, but so loud and clear was his voice that she did not dare to say aloud that she would not obey him. At last there was nothing for her except to take the quilt away and spread the mat on the hard bamboo. Then the Rabbi lay down again, sighed, and folded his hands on his breast. “Go away, woman,” he commanded her, his deep voice as firm as ever. “Go away and leave me to the Lord.”

So Rachel went away, disapproving very much; and muttering to herself against the stubborn old saint, she put the quilt into a box. But she was angry and she did not go at once to give his message to Madame Ezra. Instead she kept everything to herself until the next day. When the Rabbi asked her whether Aaron had come home, she told a comforting lie and said that Leah had begged that he be allowed to stay for another day or two with her. The Rabbi sighed at this but said no more. He rose early the next morning, ate his millet porridge, and sat repeating to himself the pages of the Torah.

When the day wore on nearly to noon and she knew that Madame Ezra would be ready, Rachel went to give the message. She found Madame Ezra superintending the cleaning of a fish pond by the kitchen. The angry fish were swarming in tubs while two men raked the muddy bottom. Madame Ezra was scolding fish and men alike, and she was in no good temper to hear what Rachel had to tell her.

“Now what has happened?” she cried when Rachel stopped to take breath. “All was well yesterday—why has he left my house?”

“I know nothing except that the old man came home yesterday alone from the synagogue,” Rachel said.

Then Madame Ezra called Wang Ma and Peony to come in. Wang Ma knew nothing and Peony knew only that David had come home late last night with his father.

“You should have come and told me,” Madame Ezra said.

“Mistress, I thought you knew everything,” Peony replied.

There was nothing now to do but to dismiss them all, and this Madame Ezra did, except that she held Peony back to give her a command.

“Go and fetch me Leah, while I go to my room and clean myself.”

So Peony went to fetch Leah while Madame Ezra gave her last commands to the two men and went to her own court.

As for Peony, she made herself all servant, and she coughed before she entered Leah’s door, and when she heard Leah’s gentle voice, saying to come in, she went in and bowed and said only this: “My mistress asks for you to come to her.” Then she bowed and went away again, and now she went to her own room and thought for a while. What had happened between the Rabbi and David? Did Leah have a part in it?