Peony: A Novel of China (8 page)

She went without another word, and that whole day she busied herself in silence. The little house next to the synagogue was always as clean and neat as she knew how to make it. But she cleaned it again, and prepared the noon meal for the three of them. Aaron did not come home, and she saved his portion and put it aside into a cool place. At the table she and the Rabbi ate almost in silence. He sighed when he heard that his son was not there, and then told her to bid Aaron come to him at once when he returned. After her father had eaten he slept, and while he slept, Leah put her few clothes together into a small leather trunk. Then she bathed herself and washed her thick curling hair. This was scarcely done when she heard a knock at the door, and she opened it. There stood Rachel, the serving woman, and a man with a wooden box holding her possessions.

“Madame Ezra bade me come here,” she said simply.

“You are expected, Rachel,” Leah replied. She led the woman into her own room. “Here is where you shall live,” she went on. “It is near to my father. Have you eaten?”

“Yes,” Rachel said. “I came early enough for you to tell me everything before I cook the night meal, for Madame Ezra said you were to go to bed early tonight and be ready in the morning soon after sunrise. You will sleep in your own bed this last night, and I shall sleep in the kitchen.”

There was something very comforting about this strong, stout, dark-faced woman, and Leah sat down with her on the bed and told her all she could, what her father ate and did not eat, how he liked his things left upon the table untouched, and how often hot water must be brought to him for washing, and the care of his hair and beard. Then she told Rachel of the cleaning of the synagogue and of the dusting of the tablets and the ark, and of the velvet curtains, which were old and must be tenderly handled. Then last of all she told her of Aaron.

“He is not a good son,” she said sadly. “I had better tell you, so that you will not lean on him.”

“Leave him to me!” Rachel said firmly.

“You will be better for him than I have been,” Leah said.

“I am older,” Rachel replied. Then she leaned forward, her plump hands on her knees. “You poor lamb,” she said, “led to the slaughter.” She shook her head.

Leah gazed at her, not comprehending. “But it is a pleasant house,” she replied. “I used to go there very often when David and I were children.” Her clear skin flushed in spite of herself and she laughed. “There is nothing else for me to do, when my father and Madame Ezra combine to command me.”

“She speaks for man and he for God,” Rachel said humorously. Then she was grave again. “But never marry a man you cannot love,” she said. “It’s too hard in a house like that of Ezra, where they do not allow concubines. Marriage is not such a burden in a Chinese house—if you do not like your husband, you can get a concubine for him without losing your place in the family. But to have to be a wife to a man you loathe—how disgusting!”

“No one could loathe David,” Leah said gently. The flush was brighter.

Rachel looked at her and smiled. “Ah, in that case—” she said. “I had better see what you have in the house for supper.”

In this last night in the small square room near her father’s, Leah could not sleep. On the opposite side of the court was Aaron’s room. He had not come to the evening meal, and it was after midnight before she saw a candle flicker against the latticed window. The pale beams glimmered upon the white curtains of her bed, and she rose and looked out of her window and saw him moving like a shadow about his room. Ordinarily she would have gone to him to ask if he were hungry or to know where he had been. But tonight she felt herself already separate from him. Her life in this house had stopped and tomorrow it would begin in another. She went back to her bed and lay quietly, her hands clasped under her head.

She tried for a while to think of what her father had said, how she was to be God’s instrument, but she doubted that this could be, however much she longed for it to be true. She had been too busy since her mother died to read the Torah as much as she should. It was long ago that she had been left, so long that she could not remember her mother’s face unless she put everything else out of her mind. Then against the gray curtain of the past she thought she could see a pale thin face, the eyes too large and too black, and the thin mouth sad. But she could remember very well this one thing her mother had told her, when she called her in the last night she lived.

“Take care of your father, Leah—and Aaron.”

“Yes, Mother,” she had sobbed.

“Oh, child,” her mother had gasped suddenly, “think of yourself—for no one else will.”

Those were her mother’s last words, and Leah did not know what they meant then or now. How could she care for others if she thought of herself? She sighed and put away this question that she had never answered, and she began to think instead of David.

Her mind roamed, remembering him as far back as she could, when perhaps once in a month Wang Ma had come for her and had taken her to Madame Ezra, to be looked at, to be questioned, and then to be given sweets and fruit and released to play in the courts with David, the beautiful little boy, always so richly dressed, so gay, so charming. Her memory of him was one of laughter so continuing that wherever he was, the very air was bright with his presence. Her own home had been always sad, her father absorbed in scriptures and prayers, and Aaron whining and half ill, dependent upon her and cruel to her at the same time. And they were poor, always poor, and she had had to patch and mend and save and learn as best she could how to cook and clean. There had been a servant woman in her childhood, but she had gone away when Leah was not more than twelve, and since then she had been alone except for an old Chinese man who did the marketing and made a small kitchen garden in the back court and took out garbage and the waste from the household. He was a deaf-mute and lived out his days in silence.

The house of Ezra was therefore the one happy place of her childhood, and she could not but be glad that it was God’s will, and her father’s, that now she return to it. But I shall come home often, she thought, and I shall make everything here much better than it has ever been. And if I really do marry David—

Here her thoughts grew shy and humble. If she did, if such heaven were granted to her, she would thank God all her life and be so good that He would never regret it. She would move David’s heart to rebuild the synagogue and to fulfill all her father’s dreams. The remnant of their people, who were so scattered, would be brought together again in the new synagogue, and David would be the leader of them, and Aaron would be looked after and helped, and perhaps he would grow better than she feared, and all would be well—with everybody, she thought fervently.

Somewhere on the edge of her dreams there stood the shadow of a young Chinese girl, the little girl who had played near David, a pretty child with big almond-shaped eyes and a small red mouth. This child gradually became a slender young girl, still more pretty, who served David and her with tea and plied them with cakes, and was always near. Peony—Peony! But Peony, Leah reminded herself, was only a bondmaid.

And so near dawn Leah fell asleep, her cheek on her folded hands, and Rachel, stealing in, had not the heart to wake her. The good woman went into the kitchen and started the fire in the charcoal stove and heated water and set rice to boil for breakfast, and cracked three eggs into a bowl.

She did not waken Leah, indeed, until she heard the clatter of someone at the gate, and when she opened it there stood Wang Ma, and behind her chair bearers carried an empty sedan.

“Come in, Elder Sister,” Rachel said. “No one is awake yet here.”

Wang Ma came in, looking almost like the mistress of a house herself. She wore a dark blue coat and trousers of homespun silk, and there were gold earrings in her ears and gold rings on her middle fingers. Her oiled black hair was brushed into a round knot on her neck and held by a fine black silk net, and she had plucked and darkened her eyebrows, and rubbed her cheeks so clean that they were still very red.

“Not awake!” she echoed. She knew Rachel and they were good friends in the solid fashion of women who are respected in whatever households they serve. Both of them obeyed Madame Ezra above all others, Rachel because Madame Ezra had given her money at times when her husband was ill or idle, and Wang Ma because she knew that Madame Ezra ruled the House of Ezra.

“The Rabbi is old,” Rachel said, “and the young man did not come in until after midnight, and Leah, doubtless, the poor young thing—”

Wang Ma’s black eyebrows went up. “Why poor young thing?” she demanded. “She is lucky to come into our house.”

“Of course—of course,” Rachel said peaceably. “Come in and drink some tea, Elder Sister. I will wake her.”

“I will wake her,” Wang Ma said firmly. “Do you attend to the two men. We had better make haste, lest today the caravan comes. The gateman told me when I passed that a runner reached our house the second hour after midnight, to say the caravan had reached the Village of Three Bells. But say nothing to the young lady. Our mistress does not wish her distracted.”

“Has the caravan come indeed?” Rachel exclaimed. “How lucky are you, Elder Sister, to be in that household!”

“So I am, in some ways,” Wang Ma replied. “In other ways—well, let us do our duty!” She shrugged her shoulders. Rachel nodded and led her to Leah’s room.

So it happened that when Leah opened her eyes, they fell first upon Wang Ma’s handsome rosy face. She was half bemused with her dreams, and she faltered.

“Why—why, but I am still at home—”

“Up with you, Young Lady,” Wang Ma said briskly. “I am sent to fetch you.”

Leah sat up and brushed back her long hair. “Oh—oh,” she whispered in distress. “Today of all days to oversleep!”

“Never mind,” Wang Ma said. “Put something on and come along. Our mistress has new garments ready for you. You need bring nothing.”

“Ah, but my box is packed—I am ready!” Leah exclaimed.

So saying, she got quickly out of bed. Then she looked shyly at Wang Ma. Never in her life had she taken off her clothes before anyone, and she could not now. But Wang Ma would have no shyness.

“Come, come,” she said, “no silliness, Young Lady! If you are to stay in our house, I shall have the washing and tending of you, at least until our Peony learns, and you have nothing that old women like me cannot see.”

So with her back turned to Wang Ma, Leah undressed and washed herself at a basin and ewer, Wang Ma all the time telling her to make haste.

“You need not be too careful,” Wang Ma urged her. “I shall wash you again and perfume you before we put you into new garments.”

Then Rachel brought a bowl of hot rice soup, and so between them Leah was ready. But there were the farewells to be said. No one could help her with those. She went tiptoe into Aaron’s room, and he lay still asleep. She stood looking down at him, the tears gathering under her eyelids. Her brother lay before her in his weakness and in his too slender youth, and his pale ugly face touched her heart. Who would love this brother of hers? There was nothing in him to love. Her own rich love, always ready to well up at the sight of someone needy and weak, came up now, and she bent and kissed his cheek. His breath was foul and his hair smelled unwashed.

“Oh, Aaron,” she murmured, “what shall I do for you?”

He opened his small dark eyes, recognized her, and pouted at her. “Don’t wake me,” he muttered.

“But I am going away, dear,” she said.

He lay, half uncomprehending, staring at her.

“Take care of Father, Aaron,” she begged him. “Be good, won’t you, dear Aaron?”

“You’ll be back,” he said thickly.

“Every few days, if I am allowed,” she promised. “And Rachel is here.”

“Well, then,” he retorted, and turned and burrowed into his bed again.

So Leah left him, closing the door softly, and then she went into her father’s room. The Rabbi had got up and dressed himself, and was at his prayers.

“Father,” she said, and he turned. “They have come for me, Father.”

“So early?” he answered. “But let it be so, child. Are you ready?”

She had come near him and he touched her, head, face, shoulders, her hair and dress, his delicate fingers telling him how she was. “Yes, you are ready. And have you eaten?”

“Yes, Father, and Rachel is ready for you to come and eat.”

She wavered and then laid her head against his bosom. “Oh, Father!” she whispered.

He smoothed her hair. “But you will not be far away, child—you will be back every day or so, and think how much better everything will be for us all.”

So he comforted her, and she lifted her head and shook the tears out of her eyes and smiled at him.

“Don’t come to the gate with me, Father. Let me leave you here, and Rachel will come and fetch you.”

So she left him. She did not look back, and with a last word to Rachel she went out of the gate. Yet when the curtains of the sedan were closed about her, she felt that she was going on a far journey, from which there might be no return.

At the house of Ezra Peony waited in the outer court. So Madame Ezra had commanded her through Wang Ma.

“Am I to be a lady’s maid to this foreigner?” Peony had asked when the command came that early morning. She widened her eyes at Wang Ma.

Wang Ma had come near enough to flick Peony’s cheek with her thumb and forefinger. Her sharp nails left a tiny spot.

“If you have any wisdom inside that head of yours, you will not ask what you will do and what you will not do,” Wang Ma advised her. “Had I asked such questions I would not have been in this house today. Obey—obey—and do what you like. The two go together—if you are clever. And now mind that you hurry! The caravan is near. Our master left before dawn to meet it.”

“The caravan?” Peony cried.

“Yes, yes,” Wang Ma said impatiently, and went away. “But Leah is not to know—our mistress commands it.”

Peony had been braiding her hair when Wang Ma came and went, and she finished the long braid. The excitement of the caravan filled her mind for a moment. Then suddenly she forgot it. What had Wang Ma said? “Obey—obey—and do what you like. The two go together—if you are clever.” Strange words, full of meaning! She pondered them, and the meaning began to sink like precious metal into the deep waters of her soul. She smiled to herself suddenly until the two dimples danced on her cheeks.