Dreams of the Red Phoenix (15 page)

Nighttime was another matter. During sleepless hours in the
damp cave, his family haunted Caleb and caused him to cry as he
hadn't since he was a boy. He had always been a proponent of the
school of life that believed in slogans such as
Stiff upper lip! Pull
up your socks! Carry on!
—words that were now seared through
with irony and even despair. How could one possibly have a stiff
lip and dry eyes in a world so fraught with misery? How could
one keep the chin tucked and the back stiff when it was literally
broken?

Caleb let the tears come now. He swallowed them down, and
his lungs, which were already dangerously compromised, filled
again, which led to another choking fit. Each time this happened,
Cook appeared at his side. The old fellow was at a loss to soothe
him. Caleb wished his Chinese servant would no longer rescue
him but, instead, that the earth would rise up and drown him in
a sea of sorrowful memories—sorrowful precisely because they
were so happy. More and more often, Caleb could imagine the
dreadful satisfaction of choking to death on one's own tears.

S
hirley and Captain Hsu stood at the bedside of a young lady,
a girl, really, who had been raped who could guess how many
times and remained unconscious. They whispered, though it was
unclear whether the patient could even hear them.

“We must be prepared for more wounded from the country
side. We will need this bed for my men. Please see to it, Nurse
Carson.”

“What would you have me do with her? I can't toss her out
into the courtyard as if she was bathwater.”

“If you are unable to do this,” Captain Hsu said, “I will take
care of it.”

She had noticed over their weeks of working side by side
that the captain wasn't a callous man, just straightforward and
no-nonsense. But she also recalled that in China, the birth of a
daughter was sometimes met with condolences; it wasn't un
heard of for baby girls to be drowned or left to die. Shirley felt
determined to protect this damaged girl, even from the captain,
because in all likelihood she had never been protected before.

“No,” she said, “leave it to me.” Then she called over a pair of
young men she assumed to be soldiers whom Captain Hsu had
assigned to help her. “Please carry this young lady upstairs to my
bedroom,” she told them. “Be very careful with her. Do you un
derstand?”

She looked about for Lian and found her across the hall, ban
daging a broken arm. Lian had proved indispensable in the clinic
and had taught Shirley a trick or two from her country ways:
simple though surprising treatments such as how to create poul
tices for burns out of rhubarb, herbs, and dung, something Shir
ley had never dreamed of before. Shirley then noticed Dao-Ming
seated cross-legged in the corner, rocking over a pad of paper and
scribbling with the nib of pencil she must have found in Charles's
school things. The poor creature, she thought.

“Dao-Ming,” she called.

The girl did not look up. Shirley took off her apron, hung it
on the coat stand, went over, and gazed down at her. Her chubby
feet were covered in crusted yellow mud. Her hands appeared to
be rubbed raw, the fingernails and cuticles bitten to the nibs. She
had nasty-looking bites up and down her arms, no doubt from
fleas. Dao-Ming continued to rock, now with her eyes shut, and
let out an occasionally hoarse and phlegmy cough.

“Dao-Ming?” she asked again in a calm voice so as not to star
tle her.

Nevertheless, it did. The girl scrambled clumsily to her feet,
pawing at the air. She scampered into the corner with her thick
arms up over her eyes.

“It's all right,” Shirley said. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

Dao-Ming panted, and her brow furrowed into anxious ridg
es. Shirley glanced around for Lian again, and when she turned
back, she saw that Dao-Ming had been looking for her, too.

“Lian is busy, but we'll be all right without her, won't we?”

The girl whimpered.

Shirley crouched so they were eye to eye. Dao-Ming's black,
straight hair fell in ragged bangs over her eyes. When Shirley
brushed them aside, the girl flinched. Her breathing sounded
troubled, a fraught wheezing. In addition to her other challenges
in life, Shirley realized, she must have asthma.

“Do you see that young lady over there?” Shirley pointed to
the unconscious girl. “She needs someone to take care of her, to
sit beside her bed, stroke her hand, and speak to her.”

Dao-Ming's narrow eyes narrowed further.

“Or,” Shirley corrected herself, “if not actually speak to her,
then communicate. You may squeeze her hand or comb her hair.
Do you think you can do that?”

Dao-Ming nodded, and her bangs flung forward and back.

“Grand,” Shirley said and stood again. “Go along, then, and
help the young men get her settled in my bedroom.”

Shirley started to step away, but Dao-Ming tugged on her skirt.

“What is it?”

Dao-Ming pointed upstairs with a worried expression.

“I know, I don't usually allow strangers onto the second floor,
but this will be our little secret, all right?”

Dao-Ming mouthed the word as if she had heard it before and
relished the sounds.

Shirley stepped outside for a smoke. On the verandah, Tupan
Feng reclined in one of the rocking chairs, his eyes half closed.
Since the arrival of the Chinese into her home, Shirley had seen
the old warlord shuffling about more often, using his cane to
point their visitors in the proper direction and telling them what
to do. He seemed to enjoy his new role, although it appeared to
have also exhausted him.

At the bottom of the steps, Captain Hsu was conferring with
several men. When they left, he joined Shirley on the top step as
she lit up.

“I don't know how you manage so much,” she said to him.
“Yet you never seem hurried. It's as if you had all the time in the
world.”

“Time is not an issue if you believe in what you do.”

Shirley dusted a stray thread of tobacco from her lip and won
dered if that was true. She had certainly never experienced it. She
hitched herself up to sit on the railing and inhaled slowly. “You'd
be surprised how many Americans race about, forever feeling
they don't have enough time.”

“They lack conviction,” he said matter-of-factly. “That is
their problem.”

She let out a long stream of smoke.

“What did you do in America, Mrs. Carson?”

Her life back home seemed strangely distant and faded now,
especially compared with the vivid, all-consuming days in the
clinic. “I was a student, of course, and good at it. I might have
liked to go on and study further.”

“A society needs its scholars,” the captain said as he started to
pace before her. “But for most, being a student is just a phase. We
must step forward into life. Your decision to become a nurse is for
the good of society. A wise choice.”

“I suppose so,” she said. “But I dropped it as quickly as I could
when I married Caleb. I didn't feel like working anymore.”

Captain Hsu stopped and stared at her. Shirley thought he
could have done better at hiding his disappointment. Perhaps his
frankness was a sign of their deepening friendship, though she
suspected it was more an indication that he was starting to fray at
the edges from working so hard.

“Captain,” she said, “why don't you have a seat here beside
me? Rest a moment.”

“I must get back to my duties,” he said. “I don't have time to
discuss decadent American lives.”

She let out a laugh. “Is that what I was describing, my deca
dent life?” She flicked her dying cigarette onto the hard soil.

“You felt like quitting as a nurse, so you did—just like that.”
He snapped his fingers in the air.

He must be joking, she thought, but when she looked at him,
his stern expression startled her. His knuckles whitened around
his leather belt, and he said, “I think I will leave the Eighth Route
Army today because I feel like it. Yes, that is what is best for me.
I quit!”

“Oh, come, now, Captain.”

He pressed on, his face reddening. “Capitalism convinces you
that you are lucky to make this choice. You call it freedom. But
think of the waste of human potential!” He slapped the railing
with his palm. “All those American lives with no purpose. We
fight for a new China to free not only ourselves but our brothers,
too, from poverty and lives like yours of no purpose. We do not
choose to sit on the sidelines because it is more comfortable to do
so. We do not quit because we feel like it!” He pushed off from
the railing and headed to the steps. “I can't understand how you
and your people are not ashamed of yourselves.”

He bowed abruptly and wished her good day. Before Shir
ley had a chance to stop him, Captain Hsu was making his way
through the crowds camped on the grounds. A high, light cackle
came from the seat behind her, and Shirley turned to see Tupan
Feng's shoulders shaking.

“What are you laughing at?” she asked.

“Captain is correct,” Tupan Feng said. “Americans are lazy!”
He shifted in the rocker and tipped too far forward, then scram
bled to right himself. “But so are the people of my province. Hsu
thinks they will work hard for the good of the country. They will
not work hard for anything! Believe me, I tried to make them
work.” He started to cough and couldn't stop.

“Don't get yourself too riled up,” she said and patted his back.

As his coughing fit subsided, he sputtered, “Revolution is all
well and good, but they should keep the old system in place, too.
Bring back the warlords, I say!” He swung his cane in the air, and
Shirley sidestepped it. “I will lead their revolution!”

“There's an idea,” she said. “Why don't you suggest that the
next time you see Captain Hsu?”

Tupan Feng set down the cane. She lifted the tartan throw
from where it had fallen at his feet and tucked it around his neck.
As she headed into the clinic again, the captain's words settled
slowly over her, coating her thoughts like the dust that slipped
under closed doors and changed every surface in summer in
North China. She watched the dozen Chinese nursing assistants
busy at their patients' bedsides or cleaning and restocking the
storage shelves. They knew the tasks required of them and coor
dinated their efforts well. She wondered if she had ever felt more
purposeful than now, working alongside these women and men.
Perhaps the captain was right: she had had to leave America be
hind and come all this way to a distant outpost in a foreign land
to fully experience a genuine sense of conviction.

She tied on her apron and went to the nursing station to check
the patients' charts, and just as she was choosing the next bed to
visit, Kathryn appeared at her elbow. Shirley set down the rough-
hewn clipboard and offered her friend a hug. Kathryn responded
with limp arms and stepped away quickly.

“How do you like it?” Shirley asked.

Kathryn studied her up and down.

“No, not me,” Shirley said, spreading her arms toward the
clinic. “The setup here. Look at all we've done since you were
last here. We're going full guns. A total of thirty beds and various
other triage spots around the house. My assistants are remark
able. Very quick learners, the Chinese. And Captain Hsu says
we're making a genuine difference. Our patients leave with their
bodies at least somewhat restored and their morale boosted. Isn't
that something?”