Gift of the Golden Mountain (42 page)

     First, the background. Kit and May decided some months ago that we would all gather at the Malibu ranch this Christmas. Back in the 1950s, Kit restored the old family home which sits back into the mountains, in the middle of the four hundred acres that remain of the family property. She and Porter grew up in this house with its wide verandahs and dusty grounds filled with great trees, and I think Kit felt it would make a good retreat from the troubles that were plaguing Porter at the time.

     Kit flew into action early in December. She had the house cleaned inside and out, all the upstairs guest rooms opened and aired and made ready. The caretakers—Josepha had grown up on the ranch with Kit and Porter, she and her husband Julio have lived here for thirty years—went out into the hills to gather the wild berries and fragrant boughs that had been part of the Christmas decorations in the old days.

     Kit had wanted me to fly down with her but I convinced her to let me come in the van with Israel. I wanted to approach the Reade home slowly. It has figured so largely in the family history, and thus in my life these past decades. To be honest, I never thought I would get to see the old place, and there were times when I was not sure if I wanted to. I was afraid the reality might be disappointing.

     I need not have worried. As we drove up the dusty road, the old house appeared at the end of a long avenue of trees, exactly as I had imagined it. A huge wreath of bright red dried peppers hung on the front door and inside, in the cool depths of the hall, the scent of pine mixed with the sharpness of eucalyptus from the great boughs decorating all the doorways. Josepha held the door open for us, all smiles. Israel pushed my chair over the threshold and we were in that other time. For a moment I forgot to breathe.

     The next day Israel ferried between Los Angeles International and the ranch, bringing Kit and Karin and Thea in the first trip, then Emilie, Phinney, and the twins. May has been in South America these past weeks and since she didn't know when she would be arriving, she rented a car and drove herself, getting in early on the morning of the 23rd.

     Arrivals are so wonderful: laughter and hugs and excitement, together again with so much to say, everyone tripping over their own words, their own wonder. Emilie and I holding hands, tightly, watching all the others, knowing we would talk later, when we would have time alone. And then the plans: Kit herding everyone into the front parlor where a great tree was already in place, waiting to be decorated.

     "Let me tell you a little bit about the few arrangements I have made," Kit said, "and then we can all do what Phinney tells us to do."

     Cheers, catcalls from the twins, May and Karin. Thea, who had only just met my son-in-law, looked astonished. Phinney took her hand, held it high in the air. "Pay them no mind, sweet maiden," he said, with a Shakespearean flourish. "Thea is to be the angel in our Christmas pageant."

     It was the first any of us had seen of May since September. She had covered the southeastern section of the Pacific rim; postcards arrived from Colombia and Peru and Chile. Now we gathered round her, rapt, to listen to her adventures. She was wearing white shorts and a T-shirt and—seated as she was in a white wicker chair with
a bright yellow cover—I was amazed at how dark she had become. "The sun is closer in the mountains, not so much atmosphere to filter it. I really do pass for a native now," she laughed.

     She told about hiring a small plane to circle the 20,000-foot Mt. Chimbarazo in the Colombian Andes, and—her hands lifted in a kind of supplication—described her first glimpse of El Misti in Peru, with a plume of white vapor trailing out of its perfect cone.

     "Where are you going next?" Karin wanted to know.

     "To the Philippines," May told her, "with a stopover in New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, then back to Hawaii. I'll wait till summer to swing north to the Aleutians. I want to hike into the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes." The look on Amos's face made her add, "Want to come along, college man?"

     "Don't tempt him," Emilie answered for him, "he's already talked us into flying lessons—I don't think I can manage that and have him dodge volcanoes too!" We all laughed, Emilie too, though I knew she did not find Amos's adventuresome spirit much of a laughing matter.

     "What about northern California—doesn't the Ring of Fire come close to home?" Kit asked.

     "It does," May answered, looping her leg easily over the chair arm, "in the Cascade range—you find the Vesuvian type of cones where the magma is viscous and the gases are trapped inside, so when one blows it really blows.

     "But those were active in the late Tertiary time and became extinct in the Pleistocene ice age. Not much action there, I'm afraid. Right now, more is going on in South America and the Philippines—which have volcanoes in the solfataric stage."

     "Speak English," Annie told her.

     May nodded. "Right. It's the stage when gas is being emitted, and that's usually a signal that something is going on. You know," she winked at Annie, "all that rumbling and grumbling down deep in the bowels of it."

     "Sounds like a bad Cole Porter tune," Annie offered, attempting sarcasm.

     "It does sound as if it could be dangerous," I echoed Emilie's concern.

     "For me? No, the chance of my being there when one blows without warning is infinitesimal. It's the people who live in the villages on the flanks of those mountains who run the risk. A lahar can be horrifying—that's an avalanche of liquid mud, a mix of hot volcanic debris that comes boiling down the mountainside at high speed—you can't outrun it, it buries everything in its path."

     "Sounds simply wonderful," Annie deadpanned.

     "Yes," May laughed at her, "terrifying, but in an awful way, almost wonderful."

Philip caught a flight from Minneapolis where he had delivered a paper, and arrived late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. Dinner that night was formal; dozens of candles lit the huge old dining room. There was enough of a chill to justify a fire in the fireplace, and it crackled and glittered, reflected in the mirror that hung over the sideboard. We gathered in the front parlor for sherry. Annie, who was finally coaxed into giving up her tattered jeans for a dress, announced that she felt as if she had walked into an Agatha Christie film and couldn't wait to see if the butler did it. I could feel Emilie flinch, but Philip set things right by riposting: "I would say Henry James. One of the BBC productions—maybe
The Golden Bowl.
You would make a splendid Maggie Verver, Annie."

     "Oh no—Charlotte. Annie would have to be Charlotte," Kit chimed in, joining in the game.

     "I agree," Phinney answered, raising his sherry glass as if for a toast, waiting for the rest of us to raise ours and only then pausing dramatically, "except . . . if I remember correctly . . . Charlotte was the one who did it."

     Phinney's joke caught Karin unawares. Half choking, half laughing, she leaned against Philip, who patted her briskly on the
back and then hugged her to him. For once, Annie had no comeback, I suspected because she hadn't a notion what they were talking about.

     "It would serve her right," Emilie whispered to me a few minutes later, "if someone put a copy of
The Golden Bowl
in Annie's stocking."

     The talk moved to other subjects, humming low. I listened to Kit tell Thea about some of the antique decorations on the tree . . . a plump old Father Christmas that her father had brought from Germany when he was a boy. And then the humming stopped, and a hard silence brought us to attention: May had appeared in the doorway, dressed in a yellow silk chong san, her dark hair loose about her shoulders.

     Philip was the first to regain his composure. "May," he said, "you look absolutely stunning."

     But it was Annie who blurted what we were all thinking: "You look absolutely Chinese!"

     "That's the idea, Annie," May said, obviously pleased. "I thought this would be a good time to make my announcement. Henceforth, I am Wing Mei-jin." She paused and, sensing our confusion, added, ". . . known to her friends as just plain Mei . . ."

At dinner she explained, eloquently, her decision to live, as she put it, "the Chinese part of her heritage."

     "I've had the idea of it for a long time," she said, "but until recently, it seemed so theatrical, so forced . . . I had, after all, a wonderfully WAS Pish upbringing. Look at all of you," she laughed, charmingly, "—my family, for sure, and not a . . ."

     "Slant eyes?" Amos offered, grinning wickedly.

     May almost shouted: "Yes! Not a slant eyes in the group." When the laughter died down she went on, "Then, when I started traveling in countries which were not English-speaking I discovered
that, somewhat regularly, I was thought to be Asian. And it was this easy acceptance that convinced me that it wouldn't necessarily be playacting to develop that identity, the one I know so little about. For the first time, it seemed as if I could step out as the me that is Wing Mei-jin . . . I hope this doesn't sound either too schizophrenic or hysterical. I would just like to learn to feel as comfortable with Wing Mei-jin as I do with May Reade, both of whom, by the way, are . . . is," everyone laughed at her confusion, ". . . extremely happy to be sitting here right now, in the embrace of the Reade family history, with all of you."

     "A toast," Kit said, raising her glass, "to Wing Soong, grandfather of our Wing Mei-jin . . . he would have been so pleased, and so proud, of you tonight. As I am, as we all are."

     "Here, here," Phinney and Philip echoed, and I would have joined them, had I been able to speak.

     I have felt Wing Soong's presence in this house. There have been times, these last days, when the past has seemed to embrace the present.

     After dinner Phinney led us in Christmas carols and Annie gave a wonderfully robust reading of "A Child's Christmas in Wales," Amos's choice. On Christmas morning Israel, looking especially hilarious in a makeshift red Santa suit, passed out gifts.

     When it was all done and everyone had scattered, I stayed behind to collect the ribbons and fold some of the prettiest pieces of wrapping paper to use again, an old habit. Kit found me there, and I knew from the look on her face that she had something on her mind. For a while we rolled ribbon and folded paper in silence. Then she said, "May asked me once if I thought she could pass."

     "Pass?"

     "She meant, could she look Chinese enough to pass in China. I think she is planning to go in—secretly."

     "To find her mother?"

     Kit nodded. "And it troubles me terribly. I think she could probably manage to get a visa, eventually anyway. But she thinks
it could put her aunt—Wing Soong's daughter Rose, in China—at risk. It is also true that if Rose is in disfavor, it would almost certainly mean that the visa would not be issued for her American niece. At least that's what my China contacts in Hong Kong tell me, and I can't discount their advice. I wish I knew what I could do."

     "All you can do is tell May everything you know, give her your best counsel. She has to do this, Kit. You can't do it for her. That's the hardest lesson any mother has to learn."

     It took her a moment to realize what I had said. Then her eyes filled. As she leaned over to hug me, the Christmas papers crinkled between us. "Thank you," she whispered in my ear.

     Daniel Ward arrived late in the morning, having driven over from his school where he had chosen to spend the holidays. Karin told May that she had to plead with him to get him to come at all. By the time he arrived, Thea was thick with Annie and Amos. She tried very hard to bring Dan into the group, and I must say my grandchildren were cooperative, all of them urging Dan to join them for a hike into the hills. When he wouldn't, Thea stayed behind but those of us who witnessed the scene could tell she was tom. "Go ahead," Dan told her, "these are boring hills, but you can't expect Eastern dudes to know any better—you can still catch up to them." Emilie overheard, and so did Philip.

     "Those 'Eastern dudes' could teach you more than a few things, boy," Philip snapped, "starting with manners."