Hers the Kingdom (40 page)

     "Ah," Owen said, "yes, I admit I find it difficult also. Perhaps it is only because I have always had a good deal of wealth. I do see how it affects others—men tend to think it can do anything, that it will transform their lives."

     Owen's voice had become removed, hard. "Some men, of course, will sell their souls for profit."

     Willa could not be sure what he was thinking, who he was talking about. "And women, too, I suppose," she murmured, bringing the conversation back to the point at hand.

     "You mustn't judge Arcadia too harshly," Owen said, seeming to reverse his judgment. "I think the only lesson I have truly learned in this life is to allow people to make mistakes, and forgive them."

     Willa did not know if he was speaking of her or of Arcadia. "You are right," she said without enthusiasm. "Of course, Cadie is good and so is Joseph. I am only sorry they have been tempted. I think the old woman is cruel," she repeated.

     "Or perhaps simply lonely and afraid in her old age?" Owen asked. "When money is not involved, we call it duty."

     Willa sighed once more. "I suppose cruelty and fear are close relatives," she said, Arcadia is such good company, so lively and quick, she fills a house with her presence. That big place would be terribly empty without her, I am sure."

     "You see," Owen put in, "it is always necessary to examine motives. It tells you so much about a situation."

     "Still, it is ghoulish," Willa insisted. "Their life cannot begin until the Señora is dead. I would hate it."

     "You wouldn't do it," Owen said simply.

     She looked at him with surprise. "How can you be so sure?" she asked.

     "Oh, I am sure of you in some ways. I do know that courage is the one thing you have in abundance, your only real fault."

     She looked at him, puzzled. "Fault?" she asked.

     "It can be," was all he said.

     She did not know what he meant and she decided not to ask. She would, however, puzzle over his words for a very long time. She would write them down, even, so that she might study them, but her studies never seemed to enlighten her.

My days were filled with the sounds and smells and routines that are part of the care of a new baby. Days and weeks and then months went in a rush of bathings and feedings. I was content, absorbed,
happy. Trinidad was full to overflowing with mother's milk, having been delivered of yet another boy child. She took great pleasure in nursing the blonde baby with her tight little ringlets and blue eyes which looked up at her, solemnly, as she nursed. Trinidad was all smiles for this
angelica nene
, as she called her. For the
bonita Rosa
, she was a fount of plenty.

     Sara was as enchanted with the child as I was. She called her a "fairy baby" and seemed not to tire of looking at her. Sometimes, when she came to visit, she would carry Rose in a sling in front of her—like a native working in the fields—and we would go for picnics in the eucalyptus grove.

     More often Rose and I passed our afternoons in the arbor, shaded by the leaves of the grapevines which rustled in the breeze and made light patterns play over her. I would do some needlework while Rose napped in the wicker pram, or made quiet cooing sounds as she attempted to catch the shifting patterns made by the grape leaves. Wing Soong fashioned a plaything of shiny seashells, which hung above the pram and rocked gently in the breeze, making a pleasant tinkling sound that caused Rose to laugh.

     "There is something about the child," Soong said to me one day, "that reaches into the memory."

     He did not elaborate, and I knew that I should not probe for information.

     I kept Soong supplied with newspaper and magazine articles about his homeland. American businessmen had begun to call for a policy which would allow all nations equal trade in China, and I thought this should please Wing Soong. I was mistaken.

     "It would be good for American business, yes," he said. "I suppose it will become American policy—there has been talk of the Open Door, as they say, for some time. It makes the politicians feel self-righteous—the idea of 'preserving China's territorial integrity.' But the motives are base. They want simply to make sure they are not shut out by the European powers. China and its people have little enough to do with it."

     I felt in such an odd position when Wing Soong spoke in that manner. It seemed I should defend my country, but when I did I felt naive, or that patriotism, in me, was slightly preposterous. When I spoke of this to Sara, she laughed at the seriousness I gave it. So absorbed was she with her art work that she faced Europe, rather than Asia. Her chief interest in Wing Soong was in what she called his "incredible picturesqueness."

     In truth, I was not so much interested in the politics as I was in being a friend to this unusual man. I knew that strange Celestials from nearby Chinatowns were making their way into the ranch to talk with Soong, and that occasionally he went outside on some venture involving his countrymen, but I was interested only because it was of interest to him. He spoke to me of these occasions in only the cloudiest of terms when I would inquire. He neither confided nor concealed.

     I suppose he knew that I had no interest in the world outside the Malibu. The house, the woods, the garden were my world. China seemed a figment of someone's imagination. I would not offend Wing Soong by saying so, but his great interest in his homeland seemed to me to be useful only in that it kept a particularly sharp and active mind occupied. If I wished, I could travel to China—having the freedom and the funds to do so. I could go wherever I wished in the world. Wing Soong could not.

     Soon enough Rose was able to crawl about—not the usual baby crawl, but rather in a side motion, raising her small backside high, as if what she really wanted was to be up and running. It would not be long, I knew, before I would have to chase her. Even crawling, she could cover distances with amazing speed.

     One afternoon we stayed later than usual in the garden. Soong was on the far side, hoeing. I was working on a cross-stitch sampler for the child's first birthday, which was fast approaching. My eyes lingered too long on my work, and when at last I glanced up, it was to see Rose—one small hand lifted—about to touch a great
tarantula which was making its way toward her. I tried to call out, but the sound stuck in my throat.

     I heard the sharp cut of the hoe before Rose's amazed cry. Soong killed the thing and scooped her into his arm in one long motion. He carried her to me before she even had time to cry out. I rose to take her and swayed. He caught me in his other arm, held me firm, and moved us both to the arbor.

     I do not know what words Soong said to me in the minutes that followed, only that they soothed me, slowed my racing heart.

     I held tight to Rose, who sat quiet in my lap, perplexed. Wing steadied us; my hands were shaking and my body shivered. "If you hadn't been there," I whispered, "oh, Soong . . ."

     "I was there," his voice echoed from somewhere, "I will want always to be there."

     His words had a strange, comforting effect. I wasn't sure why until Sara, one day, said to me jokingly, "What very strange parents little Rose has—a tiny auntie and a tall Chinaman." I laughed, but I understood that she was, in part, correct. Soong and I shared the responsibility for this child, just as we shared the garden, and the afternoons.

     He planted a daisy bush for Rose. When Thad remonstrated with his little sister for pulling off the heads of the flowers and planting them in a row, Soong told the boy, very gently, that he was sure the flowers did not object.

     Rose was content to stay in the garden. She found all manner of things to occupy her. One day, when she was occupied with a long game that involved two cloth animals, I reminded Wing Soong that he had, quite a long time ago, said that he would tell me about his childhood.

     "My childhood?" he said, as if the idea that he should have had one was novel.

     "You told me once when I was homesick that you had been too," I reminded him, "now you must tell me the rest of the story."

     "You were not happy then, and now you are," he rejoined, "now there is no necessity to comfort you."

     "You promised that you would," I insisted.

     "I promised?" he repeated, maddeningly, and I was about to thunder at him in exasperation when Rose laughed out loud, a sound so perfectly interjected that it made both of us laugh as well.

     The whole long afternoon stretched before us. Willa and Owen had taken Thad for an overnight encampment to the new ranch headquarters at Zuma. Soong was working methodically on the flower garden so that the flow of talk need not be interrupted by his task. He began to talk in that curious voice, English yet with the Chinese inflections that rendered it soft and melodic.

     "My father, as I told you when we first met, was a British naval officer, assigned, however, to a German treaty port in my home province of Shantung. He was a liaison, I believe, something of the sort. He did not, however, approve of the Germans, which may be why he sought out the company of my mother. He was, I should think, quite isolated, and thus lonely.

     "My mother was tall and, as I remember, quite beautiful. She had been trained to be of comfort to life's lonely men." He glanced at me to see if I understood and was offended; seeing that I was not, he continued. "I do not know all of the details, you must understand. What I was told by my grandfather could be only part of the truth, and there is much that I will never know, cannot know. My grandfather said that my father was greatly fond of my mother, that he was generous, and that when I was born he took a great interest in me. Of that I am reasonably sure, since he taught me to speak English and to read it at a very young age. I was, perhaps, an entertainment for him, a way to pass long hours."

     "Do you remember him at all?" I asked.

     Soong turned a leaf, plucked a large, fat green worm from the underside and put it, carefully, in a jar he kept for that purpose. He meticulously washed the tips of his fingers in a cup of water, and dried them on a linen square. I watched this ritual with a certain fascination; Wing Soong's hands were remarkably clean for a gardener's.

     "I have a memory of a tall man, towering over me, smelling of leather and wool—strange, foreign smells."

     "Did you like him?" I asked.

     He shrugged. "I don't believe children like or dislike. I think they accept. At any rate, when I was ten years old, he left. And then my mother went away, too."

     "Where?" I asked.

     "She died," he said, "by her own hand."

     I could not think what to say, so I said nothing.

     "It was not a dishonorable act, not in China. My grandparents accepted it. My father had been recalled to England, where he had a family. He left Mother a sum of money which my grandfather then used to bring us to the gold fields of California. We were to return as rich men, you see. We said goodbye to my grandmother and my uncles. I remember it clearly, the harbor—my grandmother's face."

     His voice drifted off; I think he had forgotten that I was there. I coughed, and he stirred.

     "My grandfather was sure we would be welcomed," he went on. "He was certain that the barbarians would recognize our innate superiority. The Chinese feel that way, you know."

     "I didn't," I said, truthfully.

     "Of course," he answered, "how could you?"

     We lapsed into an uncomfortable silence; something was churning in my mind, something that was not quite worked out, but Soong started talking before I could think what it was.

     "My grandfather died in what the Spanish so elegantly call 'Calle de los Negros'—the Yankees call it Nigger Alley—in a massacre the summer I was twelve. They hung him with a rope from the wooden awning in front of William Slaney's shoe store."

     "Dear God," I blurted, "and you, where were you when it happened?"

     "There," he said calmly, "watching. There was a group of us trying to get into Mr. Slaney's store—he was protecting others inside, to his great credit. But the mob got to us first, I tried to hold
onto my grandfather's hand, but I couldn't. They just took him, and I could tell he didn't have any idea at all what was happening to him, or why. I watched them put the rope around his neck, then someone pulled me from behind and I found myself in the cellar of Judge Wilson Gray. The judge hid me and twelve others. The mob was out to kill every Chinese in Los Angeles—two hundred, about. They got nineteen in all, my grandfather among them."

     He stood, reached for a pail and went for water. I watched his walk, watched the muscles in his strong arms, the loose blue garments flowing, and found myself wondering—quite absurdly—what he would look like if he were dressed like one of the ranch hands, in denims and a checkered shirt.

     When he returned I asked him what started the massacre in the Calle de los Negros (delicately refraining from using the name which was more familiar).