Hers the Kingdom (82 page)

     The tone of urgency in her letters was enough to send me on my way, with only one day's pause in San Francisco—scarcely enough time to begin to answer Porter's questions about Soong and the complicated political situation in China, which Porter assures me no one in this country is able to comprehend. Still, in all the confusion of homecoming, I could see that something was troubling Kit. She was wan, terribly quiet, and had lost weight she could ill afford. Porter says it is her work at the mission, the depressing conditions in Chinatown. He says that he has been after her about it, but I know Porter well enough to know he is not being forthright. Sara has promised to get to the bottom of it, and I am sure she will.

     In my absence the Big House—which is not a house at all but a Moorish castle, of sorts—has nonetheless been renamed the Casa Blanca, since it's been painted a luminous white. The style is Mediterranean, with tile roofs and open courtyards and terraces everywhere. Tile makers brought over from Italy have set up a small factory near the old pier, where they are producing the most beautiful tiles of every imaginable shape and design. My favorite place is the tiled terrace that sweeps out to the west, offering a long view of the sea. Each tile requires examination: some have figures of mythical beasts, of antelopes, of spring-winged eagles, in shades of purple and blue and yellow. When it is finished, Willa's castle on the top of Peregrino Hill will be a crown for the Malibu. Work on the ballroom and upper
floors continues. There is to be a widow's walk, and a children's playroom and a music room. Only the east wing is complete. Thad occupies one apartment with his companion (I made the mistake of calling him a caretaker, much to the young man's distress). Willa has another, Aleja and Trinidad share another, and three are left for the rest of us. It seems to me that we rattle around in the expanse already, but Willa hasn't noticed. At times, I get the feeling that she expects the house, someday, to be filled.

     Willa is, these days, consumed by blueprints and plans. She drives the workmen quite mad, checking everything—changing her mind at times, offering suggestions and opinions. I said to her yesterday that she reminds me of Owen. "He would have loved this house, think of the entertainments he would be planning!"

     I sat on the terrace yesterday and realized how very quiet the world can be, so entirely different from the teeming, stinking streets of Macao. Here the earth smelled fresh; I breathed deeply the clean, country smell. I had had little time, since my return, to think of that other world. I smiled, remembering. Soong and I had been able to be seen together in public for the first time in our twenty-five years together. I was amazed that no one registered surprise that we should be together. It was thrilling to be seen in the company of such an impressive man. In that world, his world, Soong is revered.

     I walked to the edge of the sprawling terrace and sat on a stone bench. I could hear the eucalyptus trees creaking as they stirred in the breeze. Rose's grave was but a few feet below, out of sight. I sighed, and tried to remember Soong's face our last day together in Macao: lined, weathered, yet stronger, somehow. And if not happy, determined.

     
Happiness
, he had said to me, only partly in jest,
that is why I call on you now and then. You are my one source of happiness.
And I had said that he spoke of it as he would of petrol, a practical kind of necessity, and somewhat mundane. We did not, this time,
speak of our future. Perhaps we have none. (I do not believe that. It is inconceivable that I should not see Soong again.)

     Since my return to the Malibu, Willa has talked only of two things—the house and Thad. She has, on three separate occasions, noticed with what she describes as "some certainty" a change in him. Once, it had to do with the expression on his face. "There was nothing very noticeably different," she told me, "but something . . . as if some thought were occurring to him." Another time it had to do with a tone of voice, another with the way he walked. She was excited and wary at the same time.

     "We can't know all that Thad has been through," she explained, "In the war and all . . . I wrote to Thad's battalion commander, and he answered that Thad was in the worst of it, that other of his men suffer as Thad suffers. I know that is so, but I can't help wonder if what happened here, before he disappeared—the bullfight—if that hadn't happened if he would be so . . . he's had such a dreadful time."

     She pulled her arms around herself, thinking. "He is alive, and yet not alive . . . I feel that if we can bring him back, no matter how hard it might be, there is a chance the Malibu can heal him. He loved the ranch so, you remember that, Lena. It was important to him, and I have to believe that it can be again . . . that is what I am hoping."

     Something sad shifted inside of me and settled more deeply into place. I could not offer comfort, I could only promise to watch closely now.

I decided to have one of the horses saddled to ride to the beach that afternoon, hoping to intercept Aleja and Trinidad upon their return. The sun was high and warm, but the afternoon breeze had risen so I sought a sheltered place behind some large rocks, with a view of the road to my rear.

     It was a favorite spot, that section of beach. We came here often for picnics, besides which Thad fished here almost every afternoon, so I might have a chance to observe him.

     I settled into my beach chair, removed my shoes, and began to riffle through the notes I had made in Macao. The note-taking was a kind of self-protection. Porter, I knew, would expect me to remember my conversations with Soong verbatim; he grew impatient with me when my memory lapsed. Soong was working in the south of China, near Canton, with easy access to the Portuguese treaty port of Macao. We had spent the whole of the summer there, Sara and I, in heat that was at times unbearable . . . yet in spite of the heat and the hordes, it had been a precious time.

     I scanned my notes. As usual, they began with great detail and, near the end of my stay, became quite abbreviated as I felt an urgent need to spend every possible minute with Soong.

     Three days after our arrival in June, I wrote: "Soong has come here from the Chinese Communist party's Third Congress. He is quite disturbed. As a member of the party, he resisted the Russian Comintern's edict that the Chinese Communist party should work from within the Kuomintang—the Nationalist party that Soong has written so often to me about. The Third Congress has, he tells me, declared the Kuomintang to be 'the central force of the national revolution.' Soong does not agree. It is his fervent belief that the Communist party and the Kuomintang are opposing forces, with conflicting goals. Yet he must, once again, content himself with waiting—in the face of what he believes to be certain error. He has no choice, if he is to remain in the party, but to follow the Russian edict. He is sure, though, that the result will be a struggle for power from within—and once more the long-delayed reforms must wait, and the revolution stagnates. He is sick to death, he says, with petty, power-hungry men who talk revolution and spend their energies amassing private power and private fortunes. Even men of good will and ability are corrupted, he says.

     "Soong understands the Western world's great horror of communism, and wants us to know why he has chosen this path. For a very long time, he said, he had hoped that China might find a way to achieve the kind of social democracy that exists in some Western nations—that it might evolve through a gradualist, reformist program. Now he is certain that can never be, not in a country so mired in feudalism. He believes that the only hope of bringing China into the twentieth century, of creating a better life for its long-suffering peasant class, is through Leninism.

     "He has traveled twice to Moscow in the past several years. He does not believe that the Russian communists, who guide the Chinese party, have a grasp of the nature of peasant society, or the importance of the countryside in the coming struggle. Even so, he feels communism to be the most reliable answer left to a country so desperately in need of salvation."

     I read these words over, trying to understand. Soong, a communist. I would not tell Willa, she would be appalled. I did, however, tell Porter, and was at once besieged with questions about Soong's rationale. His
rationale.
Dear God. Still, I would try. I would get some sense out of my notes, I promised myself.

     All the while I was mildly distracted by a noise, worrisome in the way of bees buzzing close to one's ear, or a fly that won't quit circling. Now the noise grew loud enough to demand my full attention. Not far offshore—in fact, just beyond the breakers—thousands of sea birds were gathering to feed. With each new minute, scores more arrived. A school of herring was running, I guessed, and the birds were engaged in a frenzy of feeding. Gulls and snipes and pelicans gathered, converged, some riding the waves, others diving—beating the water and making it roil as they dived for fish. I watched, transfixed. In the midst of this scene, Thad came down the beach and stood staring at the orgy. It would mean good fishing. He must have thought the same thing, for more quickly than was normal for Thad, he began to pull on his high boots to wade into the surf.

     I contemplated joining him, if only to get a closer look at the birds, but the breeze had picked up and it deterred me. Thad's tackle box was open. He had turned, his back to the sea, to rummage through it, when an errant wave swept in with force and spilled much of the fishing gear into the water. Thad's face contorted; for a time I could hear nothing above the raucous cacophony of the birds. And then a wail, one sustained, inhuman note that cut through the sound, shrill and chilling. Thad was standing, screaming at the wind and the birds and the sea.

     I watched as he screamed at forces he could not control, and I understood, for one flashing moment, the frustration, the terrible frustration, pent up in this man.
Que lástima
, the
rurales'
woman had said that day,
the gringo's manhood, gone.
I thought of the quake that morning, of the rumbling forces deep within the earth, and I wondered what it meant, what any of it meant?

     The cacophonous cries of the birds seemed to swell; I put my hands over my ears. Perhaps the birds had made it seem more than it was; perhaps I was seeing more than was there. I watched the explosions on the water as the birds dived, watched one come up with a fish only to be robbed of it by a bigger bird. The noise was such that I didn't hear the motorcar until it was almost upon me, and I had to scramble to make myself seen.

     "A bonanza, Miss Lena," Aleja called to me, "three letters— two from over the waters."

     One from Soong, I knew that. And one, I hoped, from Sara. I was not disappointed. The third letter, however, was a mystery. I did not recognize the big, square hand.

     Sara wrote: "Kit is working hard at the mission, yet I have satisfied myself that is not the cause of her malaise. As a matter of fact, it was Dina Cameron—who is enormously fond of Kit—who suggested what I suspect is the truth. Kit's trouble is a matter of the heart. The symptoms are classic, and severe. This is no ordinary affair, I think. Kit has not yet confided in me, but I feel that soon she will, and then we will know what we might do to help her. I
admit to being somewhat relieved to learn the cause of her grief is something so universal. Still, it is hard for me to imagine the man who would turn Kit down. Perhaps he is married."

     I shook my head, and smiled in spite of myself.
Perhaps he is married.
Dear Sara. I read on.

     "After having spent the summer in the most sweltering climate in perhaps the whole world (in the name of love) I can only wonder if it is worthwhile. I tease, you know that. One has only to look at you after your weeks with Soong to be convinced of love's beneficial effects. I must say that I can hardly wait to transfer some of the Oriental images I sketched to canvas. I am planning a whole new Eastern series . . ."

     I folded Sara's letter without finishing it, I would want to savor the details of her artistic plans later, when I could give them my full attention. At the moment, I was curious to open the letter with the unknown handwriting. It was to send me reeling with the third tremor of this shocking day.

     "Dear Lena," it began, "you once wrote to thank me for being of assistance to you and the twins, on the occasion of the Preparedness Day Parade in San Francisco, in the year 1916. I hope now that you are willing to come to my aid. I have not wanted to trouble you, but I find no other way.

     "I have only recently learned of the birth, and death, of the child Rose. I have been able to discover some of the facts of her life—the dates of her birth and her death, and the cause of death. The date of her birth told me much.

     "I know that you reared the child, and were deeply affected by her death. I do not wish to cause you more distress than you have already suffered, yet I have some questions that I feel I must ask. I shall be deeply grateful if you will see me, for the purpose of sharing with me your memories and, perhaps, photographs or memorabilia of the child. I have no wish to speak to anyone else on this matter; what you tell me is for my own peace of mind, nothing more.