Dreams of the Red Phoenix (2 page)

Her friend Kathryn appeared at her elbow and patted her
sleeve. “Good to have you back, my dear. But next time, the choir
should meet in the chapel. You don't need us traipsing through
your home.”

“I must grow used to it again.”

“They say it's good to have people around after a certain
amount of time,” Kathryn offered.

“But what amount of time, they never say.”

Kathryn brushed a stray curl from Shirley's forehead. “You
look better. Your eyes are less puffy.”

Shirley doubted it but thanked her as they made their way to
the front door, opened the screen, and stepped out onto the wide
verandah. She noticed for the first time that full summer was
well upon them, the night air thick and close with no breeze from
across the plains. Crickets already sawed madly in their fever,
and in the lantern light that shone from the Reeds' front porch,
silhouettes of a few spindly stalks of corn and sturdy sunflowers
rose above the communal vegetable garden: proof that time and
the world had carried on without Shirley, without Caleb. Lost
in mourning, she had somehow missed the month of June alto
gether.

Her husband had always been the first with a hoe and rake,
but Shirley could see now that this year someone else had stepped
in to take over the task. Shirley wished it had been she. Instead,
she had passed the spring and early summer beneath her bed's
silk canopy, tangled in embroidered sheets and tossed about on
a sea of tears, sleep, and morphine-induced oblivion. If concern
for her teenaged son had not periodically bobbed to the surface of
her mind, she might still be lost to the shore.

“You haven't seen Charles, have you?” she asked.

“Not to worry, we've all got our eyes out for him.” Kathryn
tucked an arm into hers. “He and your cook's son have been
hanging about up on the wall.”

“I hope they aren't getting into trouble.”

“I can't imagine a flock of pigeons causing trouble. Just be
thankful he's not like us at his age. He could be lolling about in
opium dens or gambling with the White Russians in town.”

“We were never as bad as that. A cigarette behind the bleach
ers hardly compares.”

“Or a flask in hand,” Kathryn said as she squeezed Shirley to
her side. “But he's a young man now, and you should be aware of
the proliferation of prostitutes since the Japanese influx. There's
one on every corner, and that's during the day. I can only imagine
what goes on at night. Russian, Japanese, Chinese, you name it,
there's a girl of every nationality. A young fellow like Charles can
get the clap just by stepping outside.”

“Please, Kathryn.” Shirley let out a soft moan and pressed
her cheek against her friend's bony shoulder. “I just thank
heaven he's still a boy. By the time he reaches that age, we'll be
long gone.”

Kathryn offered a discordant grunt. Although two years
younger and almost a full foot shorter, with straight raven hair
instead of Shirley's light-brown curls, Kathryn had always been
Shirley's match in intellect, if not in appearance or opinion. The
two often locked horns but only became closer for it, their devo
tion to one another deepened by their differences.

“The Lawtons offered to take him out to the countryside with
their brood, but he refuses to go.”

“He doesn't want to leave you. He's worried about you. We
all are.”

“But I'm worthless to him. I'm worthless to everyone so long
as I'm here.”

“It'll be different back home. We just need to get you there.”

“God help me if Cleveland has become my salvation.” Shir
ley shifted away and went to the porch railing. “Have a cigarette
handy?” she asked.

Kathryn laughed a little. “Lighting up in plain sight now?
Mourning has changed you. I think Caleb would be proud of
your independent thinking.”

“Oh, please,” Shirley said. “He had far more important con
cerns.” She looked out at the empty courtyard. “Besides, no one
seems to be around at this hour, and even if they were, they'd
leave me alone. When you're in mourning, you can get away with
practically anything. I could have stayed anesthetized in bed for
another half a year, and no one would have bothered me.”

“Not true. Charles and I were already conspiring to drag you
out of there.”

“You were, with Charles?”

“I did my duty as a loving auntie while you were laid up,”
Kathryn said as she rummaged in her Chinese silk purse. “I came
around quite often to make sure the boy wasn't going hungry. I
even told him he needed to start shaving. I think he was morti
fied, but someone had to point it out.”

She placed a monogrammed flask on the porch railing, pulled
out the matching monogrammed cigarette case, then dropped the
flask back into her purse and yanked shut the silk tassels. Shirley
smiled at the familiar sight of the tarnished silver. Before China
had ever entered Kathryn's plans, she had cavalierly broken off
an engagement to a lackluster college boyfriend and accidentally
driven her coupe into a ditch after too many old-fashioneds at
the country club. As her father prepared to roundly discipline
her, Kathryn concocted a punishment far greater than any he
could have mustered: she announced her intention to take up the
Christian cause with, in Cal James's words, a group of uptight,
sanctimonious teetotalers halfway around the world. Before
she left America, he gave her the monogrammed silver set and
a bottle of fine Kentucky bourbon. Shirley would have liked to
reassure him now that Kathryn had come to care deeply for the
Chinese children she had gone all that way to teach.

Kathryn handed Shirley a cigarette, took one for herself,
and shimmied up onto the porch railing, her pencil skirt strain
ing as she crossed her long legs. She really was a fine-looking
gal, Shirley thought, deserving of far more attention than she
received here in this hinterland. It was all for the best they were
heading home before Kathryn's window of opportunity began
to close. Shirley would set her mind to finding Kathryn a good
catch once they got stateside. Wasn't that the sort of thing that
a widow did with her time? They thought of others instead of
themselves.

She inhaled slowly, her head bent and spirit worn. “Caleb was
always so generous and so full of life and vitality. Far more than
I am.”

“Oh, now, that's not true,” Kathryn said.

“I've always been too—” Shirley looked at her friend, whose
cheeks in that moment appeared especially rosy, her blue eyes
sparkling. Really, she thought, not for the first time, Kathryn
and Caleb would have been better suited to one another. They
were easygoing and warm, nothing like Shirley in temperament.
“I've been stingy with my heart,” she announced. “I'm sure Ca
leb stayed out on the trail because of it. I didn't show my love for
him nearly enough. And this is my punishment. I will never love
again.”

“Oh, for goodness' sake, “ Kathryn said, “don't talk nonsense.
You're my oldest friend, and you know perfectly well how to
be loyal and dear. Your husband has died recently, so of course
you're miserable. But you must eventually face the fact that your
own life is not over.”

“It might as well be.”

“That decides it.” Kathryn hopped down from her perch on
the railing. “Tomorrow morning, I'll impress upon Reverend
Wells the need to hurry our papers along. We can't wait another
month. He has to find us passage sooner. And it's time for you to
focus on something else. How about your son for starters?”

Shirley let out a sigh. “Don't remind me what a negligent
mother I've been. But do tell Reverend Wells I'm concerned for
Charles. This is no place for a teenaged boy without a father.”

“According to my father,” Kathryn said, “this is no place for
anyone. Another telegram came from him begging me to return
home. Apparently everyone but us knows that we're living in a
danger zone.”

Shirley turned and studied the still courtyard. It seemed re
markably peaceful. The tan brick pathways divided the yellow
soil where ginkgo and cherry trees had been planted thirty years
before. A calm and idyllic setting, she thought, just the way the
early missionaries had envisioned it: the Congregational mission
resembled a quintessential small college campus, dotted with
fanciful Chinese elements to gently remind the visitor of what
existed outside the high brick walls.

The Chinese Boys' School loomed at one end of the quad and
the Girls' School at the other. Just across the way, in the center
of the mission, the chapel resembled a pagoda with an eccentric,
Chinese-inspired steeple. The roofs of the buildings flipped up
ward at the corners, and ornate lead decorations climbed each
ridge with colorful sculpted dragons at the peaks. On each wall,
moon windows intersected by Chinese wave patterns balanced
nicely with standard Western-style rectangular frames. And at
the entrance to the wraparound porch of each mission home
stood a moon gate, etched with Chinese characters that offered
words of welcome and promises of good fortune to all who en
tered.

Shirley shut her eyes and pictured Caleb dashing through
their moon gate, bounding up the steps to kiss her on the lips.
When she opened her eyes, her lashes were moist again, and a
frightening stillness surrounded her. No one stood gazing up at
the evening stars or strolling on this summer's eve. Earlier, Shir
ley had assumed that the choir ladies had slipped out quickly af
ter practice to be sensitive to her, but now she wondered if they
had hurried home for another reason.

“Are we under a curfew?” she asked.

Kathryn took her hand. “Oh, my dear, you really haven't been
paying attention, have you? Of course we are. I've spared you the
news, but things don't look good for our Chinese friends.”

As Kathryn began to explain the situation, Shirley intended
to listen but quickly became distracted by the sight of the chips
of glossy paint littered across the porch floorboards. She loved
the red-coffered ceiling and the intricately painted timbers of her
home and the gaudy gold details around the heavily carved front
door. But apparently in her weeks of mourning, her house had
started to crumble around her. The heavy spring rains could do
that—peel the paint right off the walls.

Caleb had always seen to upkeep. It didn't matter to Shirley
anymore how the place looked except that its demise served as
a reminder that he was truly gone. She let out a final stream of
smoke and flicked her cigarette over the railing and onto the
courtyard ground. In the past, she would have hidden her ex
tinguished butts under the porch, but now, she didn't care who
knew about her unladylike habits. So little mattered anymore
except that Caleb was gone, and she would be leaving soon, too.

“Even though they're supposed to be united, they hardly trust
one another,” Kathryn was saying, and Shirley realized she had
missed her friend's subject altogether.

“Sorry, who is united?”

“The Nationalists and the Communists, dear. At least that's
their intention, but out here in no-man's-land, it's all up for
grabs.”

“And people think it's good that they're united?”

“A desperate move.” Kathryn stubbed out her cigarette on the
porch railing and flicked it under the porch. “But necessary.”