Hers the Kingdom (92 page)

     "Enough shop talk," another of the group said. One of the ladies —wearing a gardenia in her hair—tucked her arm in Porter's and said, "Hasn't anyone told you—it is eat, drink, and be merry time."

     "For tomorrow . . ." Porter began.

     "No," she said, "there is no tomorrow."

Sasha introduced Porter to some of the city's more exotic pleasures. He took him, Soong told me in confidence, to the Foochow Road to enjoy the company of the willowy sing song girls—young women who played a two-stringed lyre and were trained as courtesans. Now and then, when Sasha and Porter took short trips away from the city, Soong would stay the night with me. On one of these occasions I awakened at dawn to find him gone from our bed. He was in the garden, shadow-boxing. I watched, amazed at the elegance of movement, amazed at his physique, his strength.

     "I must keep my body strong—I need to be strong physically," he explained, "if I am to survive the revolution."

     We drank our tea from glasses, the steam curling up and warming my face. At that moment I felt content. I must have smiled, for Soong asked what I was thinking.

     "I was pretending that this was our house, that our son was away on holiday, but would return soon and we would live here together, the three of us."

     Soong came around behind me and began to massage my shoulders and back, his hands gentle on me.

     "Do you know what I once dreamed? Long ago, when I first came here from California, I used to tell myself that one day soon the revolution would end and that I would have served well enough to have earned a small house and a plot of land somewhere in the south, perhaps near Macao or Hong Kong, where the mixing of races is more acceptable. And you would come to be with me then. We would grow old together working in our garden. We'd grow flowers and vegetables. That is the dream that carried me through the worst times."

     I could not see his face, so I put my hands on top of his and we remained so for a long time, that cool November morning in 1929.

     When finally Soong spoke his voice was not steady. "There is a word the people here, in this city, use. It is not Chinese, but Portuguese. The word is
maskee
and it translates to something like 'things are bad but they are sure to get better.'"

     I looked at him then, wondering what he was trying to tell me. And then I knew, and wished I did not.

     "When must we go?" I asked.

     "Soon," he said. "The situation deteriorates. I need to be able to move quickly, and I do not want to have you here without me."

     "Have we compromised you? Has our being here endangered you?" I asked, worried.

     He took my hands in his, kissed them. "I have not been able to let you go. I am not sure now that I can."

     I held his hands tightly in mine and told him we would leave as soon as we could book passage. And then I held close to him, as close as ever I could, pushing away the outside world for a few hours more, knowing it would be all that was left to us in this lifetime.

"I will not say goodbye," I told him, stubbornly.

     "No," he answered.

     "Instead, I'll think about the house and the vegetables."

     "Peppers," he said, "sweet red peppers."

     "And snow peas . . ."

     "Yes, snow peas."

     The last sight he had of us was of Porter with his arm around me, waving.

In Japan, a cablegram reached us. Porter read it, stumbling over the words. From Sara, it said:
Connor missing ocean swim stop presumed drowned stop Willa here.

     We boarded for the return voyage in a mist of sorrow. As our ship moved slowly across the winter Pacific, I think I should not have been able to persevere, had not Porter been with me. He was tender, attentive, denying his own hurt by ministering to mine. Occasionally he would blurt out "Damn," and add, "they had so little time together."

     I could not let my mind dwell on Connor.
Dear Connor
, whose life had been inextricably tied to mine. And Kit, to suffer so. My mind returned, again and again, to Soong and the life we would never have.

     Porter sat with me, making me play endless games of checkers—my mind unable to concentrate on anything more demanding. He made me read aloud, passages that he would select from books, or he read to me. It was as if by distracting me, he could distract himself.

     A young woman passenger made several overt attempts to catch his attention, and for the first time I witnessed how rude he could be. Having managed to get herself seating next to him at our table, she proceeded to chatter constantly throughout the meal. The other diners, embarrassed, said little. I could see the anger growing in Porter, and I shot him a glance to show that I commiserated. Perhaps that is all that he was waiting for, for he said—looking down at the woman's hand on his arm—"I think you
should know that shipboard romances are highly overrated. You'd do better to read a book or two, so you have something to talk about next time out." As if on cue, I rose and we departed.

     "Sorry to have made a scene," Porter said.

     "Sometimes it is necessary," I told him.

     We talked then—about Soong and my long friendship with him, how Soong had been a substitute father in much the same way as I had been a substitute mother in their early years, his and Kit's. Porter believed, or so he told me often enough, that I had what he called "a positive genius" for friendships. I think it had not occurred to him that my feeling for Soong might be something more. I became convinced of this when he asked me, after considerable clearing of the throat, if Willa and Soong were ever "anything special" to each other.

     I looked at him oddly. "What do you mean?"

     "Well . . . Kit told me the whole story about Connor and Mother and the baby, Rose."

     I nodded, having assumed that Kit would tell him.

     "Well, I thought . . . if it were possible for Mother to have had a child by Connor perhaps it might be possible . . ."

     "Oh, no, Porter. No. No." I was shaking my head to emphasize how wrong he was. "There was never anyone else with Willa. Only that one unhappy episode with Connor. Oh, no."

     He nodded as if to say it was foolish for him to even think such a thing. "I know, Kit doesn't look anything at all like Soong. I just thought . . . well, maybe I hoped . . ."

     Having regained my composure, I asked how he had happened onto that particular idea.

     "Several times in Shanghai people who didn't know me would ask where I was from—and it turned out they expected me to say Hong Kong. They were convinced that I was Eurasian. You know how I've always been teased about my eyes looking Asian. I thought maybe that had something to do with why you've always maintained such a close friendship with Soong—that maybe he should
be important to me in some . . ." He did not finish the sentence.

     "Even as a little boy, you used to say that Soong and Joseph were your fathers. But remember, Owen Reade was a tall man with eyes not unlike yours." I was extremely careful with my wording. I wondered if Porter would notice that I had said "Owen Reade" rather than "your father." He did not.

     "Is there something else, Porter," I suddenly asked, surprising myself a little, "something that is on your mind? Other than Kit and Soong?"

     "Something, yes . . . well," he hesitated. "I suppose I would like to tell you about it," he said, as if he had just that moment decided. "Yes, I will."

     What he told me explained the long hours he had spent away from Sasha's during the closing weeks of our Shanghai stay.

     "I was out on Bubbling Well Road one day, it was crisp and cold and I had been moving about the city feeling—I don't know how to explain it, but I was feeling fine. Shanghai was exciting, being around Soong was exciting. Anyway, I noticed this girl . . . young woman. She was exceptionally pretty. Chinese, yes, and with that smooth face and high cheekbones and, well . . . she was just about the most exquisite woman I think I have ever seen." He looked at me, to see what I thought of what he was saying, and I was careful not to smile. I nodded for him to continue.

     "She was standing with a dark little old lady, her amah, who was chattering away like some fierce little magpie, chastising the girl for lifting her eyes to look at me when I walked up. They spoke in Mandarin, and it didn't occur to them that I might understand, I was so obviously a 'white devil,' so I didn't let on. I gathered that the girl had wanted to visit a shop on the road, and the amah had insisted on going with her as a chaperone, which had embarrassed the girl somewhat, though she was remarkably kind to the old woman, I thought. I suppose I was having a hard time taking my eyes off the girl, because the amah began scolding her—because I was looking at her.

     "As I said, I was in high spirits that day. I guess I just felt like doing something crazy—so I walked over to them and asked if either of them happened to speak English. The girl lowered her eyes, as modesty demanded. The amah was almost apoplectic. She told me to get my Big Nose out of there and leave them alone. All in Mandarin, of course, but I didn't want them to know I understood so I tried to look puzzled, and maybe a little bit badly treated.

     "I thought I detected a smile on the girl's lips, however, so— don't ask me why—I started speaking to her in English, above the amah's chatter. I told her she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, but I tried to make my voice sound as if I were talking about the weather or asking directions. I said something about her having a beautiful mouth, and eyes and . . ." He looked at me shyly, an embarrassed smile on his face. I smiled back, and motioned for him to continue.

     "Well, the old lady just kept up this stream of invective, and then two rickshaws came along and they got in, the girl in the first one. And as she was pulling away, she looked back at me and said "Thank you for the compliments," in perfect English.

     I had to laugh then. "What did you do?" I wanted to know.

     "I chased the rickshaws—I followed them all the way into the International Settlement, to a very large estate. I don't know how the rickshaw drivers do it—I was almost dead by the time we finally got there."

     "I believe it," I said, chuckling, "but did you get to meet her?"

     "Not then," Porter continued, "but I knew where she lived, and I knew it was a good sign, her living in the Settlement. That would mean her father had Western connections, and might be more friendly to a Westerner. I asked around among the newspaper people I've met—and sure enough, the father is well-known. His background is interesting, as a matter of fact. He is wealthy, old Chinese wealth. He is a scholar who was educated in France. While he was there he became enamored with the idea of democracy. When he returned to Shanghai he started a magazine called "The
New Youth"—
La Jeunesse.
It explored the idea of how Western ideas could be applied to ancient Chinese culture. He attacked Confucianism, and spoke out for human rights and social equality and individualism—unheard of, for China. He was, in effect, calling for an ethical revolution."