Pearl of China (5 page)

“Yes, Mr. Kung,” Pearl answered humbly, and winked at me.

Papa celebrated the day Absalom made him a “Clergy.”

“I thought my best luck would be to become the church’s gateman.” Papa wept as he sat on the doorsill.

NaiNai was overwhelmed with happiness. “Promise me, son, you will honor Absalom by weathering the storms with him.”

Papa promised like a son of true piety. He told NaiNai that Absalom had started training him to be in charge of the Chin-kiang church.

“What will Master Absalom do when you take over?” NaiNai questioned.

“Absalom will work on expansion. He plans to go deep into the countryside.”

Papa told NaiNai that although he felt honored, he was having difficulty committing himself to God.

“Absalom has assigned a dog to be in charge of catching mice,”

NaiNai sighed. She worried that her son would let Absalom down.

Papa tried his best to play the part. He said that he would never admit that he was in it for the money. Papa told NaiNai that his promotion came as a result of Absalom’s fight with another man of God.

“Is there another God’s man?” NaiNai and I asked.

“A new missionary who called himself a Baptist,” Papa explained.

“Is Absalom a Baptist as well?” we asked.

“No, Absalom is a Presbyterian.”

Regarding the difference, Papa said that he was confused himself, although Absalom had explained it to him.

“As far as Absalom is concerned, Chin-kiang is his territory,” Papa concluded.

The Baptist was a red-haired heavy fellow with one blind eye. He often came by our church and told the crowd that Absalom had it all wrong. He pointed out, for example, that Absalom only sprinkled the heads of his converts when he ought to soak their heads in the water.

This made sense to the Chinese. The logic was that if a little water was good for the soul, more water should be better, and that a deep soaking would be the best way to go.

Absalom was convinced that the Baptist was here to destroy his work by snatching away his converts. “He is planting doubts in their heads about me,” Absalom complained to Papa.

I didn’t know how to deal with the Baptist when I met him outside the church. By walking away, I would insult him. So I waited until he finished his preaching about immersion.

Our encounter upset Absalom. He vowed revenge.

NaiNai predicted rather gladly, “The fisherman profits when a crab and a lobster are locked in a fight.” By fisherman, she meant Papa.

Papa agreed. “I heard Absalom shout at his wife,” he reported, mimicking Absalom. “‘I have taught, labored, and suffered all the troubles of instilling the fundamentals of Christianity into the heathens! It is nothing short of religious thievery when my future members would be added to the Baptist’s glory!’”

“Is it that serious?” NaiNai wondered.

“Oh, yes, for Absalom,” Papa said. “How otherwise would I receive my promotion as a Clergy? Absalom is no fool.”

“You’d better not meddle,” NaiNai warned.

Papa smiled. “I would benefit more if their fight continues.”

NaiNai shook her head and said, “Being a crippled donkey walking on a broken bridge—you are going to fall sooner or later.”

“I am no longer the same rotten character you think,” Papa said. “I’ll not be the one to bring Absalom’s church into contempt. Absalom will win.”

“I just want to be able to have a clean conscience when I die.” Tears filled NaiNai’s eyes. Papa took out a string of copper money and laid it by NaiNai’s pillow.

“Absalom paid me for your medicine, Mother.”

NaiNai cupped her face in her palms and began to weep.

“Where is Absalom now?” I asked Papa.

“He is touring the countryside. Perhaps he is in the middle of conducting a study class.”

“Does he teach?”

“Yes.”

“What does he teach?”

“Absalom teaches Bible history, philosophy, religions, Greek, and Hebrew. He spreads the Gospel.”

“Does he take women disciples?”

“No, Absalom’s disciples are men only.”

“How far does he travel?”

“As far as he is able to reach.” Papa paused for a moment and then added, “The man is ambitious. I have little doubt that his Christian God will conquer China one day.”

Papa told me that he was amazed by the fact that educated Chinese youths were willing to follow Absalom.

“Absalom has converted even Chinese Muslims.” Papa scratched the back of his head in disbelief. “I believe it is the way Absalom wages the war of God that attracts young people. He is absolutely committed and stubborn. A zealot, so to speak. The young worship his energy and determination. More than anything else, he sells God’s victory. People want to follow a strong man, a leader.”

I asked Papa, “How can you be a Clergy if you don’t believe in God one hundred percent?”

“Keep your voice down, my daughter.” Papa was embarrassed. “Be the keeper of my secret. According to Absalom, God will call.”

“Have you been waiting?”

“Yes, I have, and I must be patient.”

“I hope you mean it.”

“I do,” Papa swore.

The winter of 1899 was brutally cold. Sky and hills merged in one bitter whirl of wind and snow, which was rare in southern China. In the mornings the valleys were silent under their blanket of whiteness. The weather helped Papa achieve the attendance he had promised Absalom. Attracted by the church’s warm fire, the poor gathered under the portrait of Jesus Christ and prayed.

The way Papa preached the Bible was different from Absalom. Papa told it the way he would a Chinese story. He prepared his material carefully so that it would always have a suspenseful beginning and a satisfying end.

When Absalom returned from his trips, he was bothered by Papa’s exaggeration and invention. Especially when Papa compared Jesus to the Chinese folk heroes, even the fictional Monkey King. Papa argued that the Monkey King had the same kind heart as Jesus. Papa’s aim was to do whatever it took to keep the audience coming back.

“Stick to the Bible from now on,” Absalom ordered Papa. “Emphasize that the journey of the faithful will be over a lifetime of poverty and sacrifice.”

Papa convinced Absalom to at least allow him to mention Buddhism. “I’ll use the concept as a tool to ease people toward Christianity,” he promised. Answering Absalom’s doubts, Papa said, “Nobody likes to be told that their religion is bad and silly.”

People attended the church, but no one agreed to the conversion. Calling on his wits, Papa became inventive. Inspired by the local fortune-teller, Papa copied drawings from the Bible onto cards with which he played with the locals. The rewards for joining the church and obeying God would be good harvests, sons, and longevity. For punishment, Papa described scenarios borrowed from the Chinese hell, where men and women were chopped to pieces and fed to beasts.

Pearl burst out laughing when Papa exchanged the names of Chinese gods with Christian saints. For example, Guan-ying as Mary.

“Absalom will tear out his hair for this one,” Pearl said.

I asked if she missed her father when he was away. She said that she didn’t. “I don’t know him enough to miss him.” She adored Papa and thought that he was funny and creative. Pearl especially enjoyed the New Year’s couplets and riddles Papa created. The phrases were from the Bible. Papa gave Bible Sticks for people to draw—an idea he stole from the Buddhist temple, where drawing fortune sticks was part of the worshipping ceremony.

Absalom continued to complain, and even threatened to fire Papa. But he was impressed with the results. Church attendance soared. The Chin-kiang church was now known throughout the province, although there were still not enough converts.

Pearl and I were told by our fathers to influence our playmates. I didn’t feel comfortable talking about a foreign god. Pearl shared my feelings. We bribed our playmates with games and food in exchange for promises that they would show up at the church on Sundays. The trouble was that once the children became too familiar with Papa’s Bible stories, they wanted different stories or they would stop coming. In the meantime, spring arrived—and the laborers left for home to work in the fields.

Papa worried that when Absalom returned from his latest trip, he would find the numbers down. Papa didn’t want to lose his job. Every night, Papa worked hard on refreshing the Bible stories.

For several Sundays, Pearl and I sat in the back of the church listening to Papa speaking to an almost empty room. Pearl didn’t seem to be bothered by the declining numbers. She continued to bury her face in her books.

I wondered what we would do if Papa lost his job. NaiNai’s illness had worsened during the winter. The medicine no longer had any effect. NaiNai was reluctant to call for a doctor for fear of going deeper into debt. At the thought that I might lose NaiNai, tears came to my eyes. As I raised my chin to push back the tears, I noticed something strange was happening to the church’s ceiling. The beams were covered with brown-colored spots. I went to Pearl and pointed out what I saw. She wondered if the spots were bugs.

For the next few days we watched. The bugs did not move. A week later we found that the bugs had swelled and were turning into green leaves.

“The leaves are growing!” Pearl and I looked at each other and were excited.

In a week, the green leaves took up the entire corner of the ceiling. They began to spread over to the window and then to the top of the doorsills. We called all our friends to come and look. They came. They went home and told their parents about the green miracle on the church’s ceiling.

Eventually we learned that the green growth was willow sprouts. The beams had been made of willow trunks. Although the trunks were stripped bare, the warm spring had brought them back to life.

The news that the foreign god was showing signs of his existence brought people rushing back. Papa called the church’s ceiling God’s Garden. The place was packed the day Absalom returned. The willow beams were flourishing. The new sprouts were five and seven feet long. With the breeze from the window, the leaves swayed like dancers’ sleeves across the room.

With Absalom by his side, Papa read from the Book of Revelation. The crowd listened while enjoying the miracle of God at work. Bees, butterflies, and birds flew in and out of the room and drove the little children wild.

C
HAPTER
5

We dressed up for the performance. I wore a blue floral cotton gown and Pearl wore a purple silk dress embroidered with pink butterflies. Pearl carefully stuffed her curly hair under the black knitted cap. From the back, we looked like twin sisters. We made necklaces with fresh jasmine buds. Hand in hand, we walked toward the riverbank where the performance was to take place.

The stage was next to the riverbank. It was an abandoned temple with four columns. The crowd began to gather at sunset. Some people came with boats and others watched from rooftops. There were also people watching from a faraway hillside. With Pearl and me on either side of NaiNai, we pushed through the crowd. We settled near the stage. NaiNai took out roasted soy nuts for Pearl and me to share as we waited for the curtain to open.

The curtain moved aside. The stage warmers entered. A string of cartwheels followed. The chorus singers introduced the story. A moment later the actors appeared. The star actor, who played the male lover, the handsome Liang, was a girl. She wore heavy makeup. She was dressed in a splendid sun-colored costume with long jade beads. Her voice had what opera fans would call a copper sound to it, considered the highest quality for a young male voice. Her Wan-Wan tune brought joyful tears to NaiNai’s eyes.

My eyes followed Liang’s every move. His lover, Yin-tai, was a supreme beauty. The actress was wrapped in a long-sleeved pink silk costume. She moved like a goddess stepping from the clouds. Although her breath seemed a little labored, her voice was sweet.

The evening deepened. The stage was brightly lit with lanterns. In front of our eyes, the love story unfolded. The lovers proclaimed their passion and fought the feudal force that tried to separate them. Pearl and I both wept at the end—the lovers had taken their own lives in the face of society’s brutality.

The dead lovers came back to life as butterflies. They reunited and lived happily ever after. It was a tragedy with a happy ending. Spreading their giant wings, the lovers danced and sang:

After the performance, we escorted NaiNai home. Pearl and I went back to the stage and waited at the exit, hoping to steal glances at the actors. We were fascinated that the entire cast was female. A turtle-faced, bald-headed lady was in charge of the girls. She had played the evil rich man in the opera. Pearl recognized the actor who had played Liang and the girl who had played Yin-tai, her partner. Without makeup and costume, she looked bone-thin. She went and sat on a stool. Her head rested against the wall. She was pale and looked ill. Liang helped her remove her boots and then folded the costumes and packed them into cases.

We learned that the troupe lived in two boats docked by the lower bank. This was where the night soil and trash were dumped. Although the air stank, we didn’t want to leave until the turtle-faced lady threatened to send for our parents.

Pearl and I talked about the opera on our way back. We entertained ourselves with the Wan-Wan tune and the opera’s theme song. We danced as the butterflies, swinging our arms up and down.

The next afternoon Pearl met with me again. We visited the troupe before they departed for the next town. We witnessed something we didn’t expect: The troupe girls were forced to practice their acrobatic skills on the stone pavement. Pearl and I felt fortunate that our parents had not sold us.

Finally we located Liang, who was washing a bucket by the water.

Pearl introduced herself and expressed our admiration.

Liang gave a grateful nod but lowered her eyes. We saw tears running down her cheeks.

“What happened?” Pearl asked. “Where is your friend, Yin-tai?”

“She is sick.”

“Maybe she is just exhausted,” Pearl comforted her. “Give her a day to rest. I’m sure she’ll recover.”

“No, there is no hope.”

“What do you mean?”

“She is dying of tuberculosis,” the actor sobbed. She pulled over the clothes she was washing and showed us a bloodstain.

Pearl and I were shocked.

“Isn’t she supposed to perform tonight?” we asked.

“The performance has just been canceled.” The actor broke down. “The doctor said that she wouldn’t make it through the night.”

We didn’t know what else to say.

The beautiful actress died. Having no money for a proper burial, the turtle-faced lady dumped the body into the river. Since the girl had been sold to the troupe at a young age, neither her parents nor any relatives had been notified about her death. After Pearl told Carie what had happened, she called Absalom and Papa. Both men went to the river and brought the body back. Absalom conducted a modest ceremony and the actress was buried in the back of the old church. NaiNai, Wang Ah-ma, and Lilac washed the young actress and dressed her in the dress I had worn to the opera. I was comforted to see that she fit my dress perfectly.

Liang came for the farewell. She was sorrow-stricken. For a moment my mind went back to the stage scene where he expressed his undying love for her as she lay dying.

Pearl couldn’t stop weeping. Weeks later, she went to Absalom demanding an answer. “Why didn’t God do something?”

Absalom told her that “one has to work to earn God’s protection.”

The distressed Pearl came to NaiNai. She took her to the Buddhist temple and asked to read a chapter from the Buddhist scripture. The title was “Heavenly Deaths and Circle of Life.” Afterward, Pearl and I burned incense and prayed for the actress’s soul.

“I am learning what is gay as well as what is terrible,” Pearl said, as if to herself. “I’ll accept the Buddhist notion that all that is truthful is beautiful.”

Dysentery claimed countless lives during the Year of the Rat. NaiNai was among the sick. The local doctor refused to let Absalom and Carie treat NaiNai with their Western medicine. He insisted that the effect of the Chinese herbs that he prescribed would be disturbed.

Papa spent all his savings. NaiNai continued to get worse. I was with Pearl in the hills when a neighbor came and told me that NaiNai was about to depart. By the time I reached NaiNai’s bed, she was almost unconscious. “Carie . . .” she kept calling.

I flew from the house and went to Carie. Without saying a word, Carie picked up her medicine box and came.

“My mother is possessed by evil spirits,” the panic-stricken Papa warned. “If you touch her, bad luck will follow you home.”

“What a shame that my husband converted you!” Carie was disgusted. “You certainly don’t sound like a Christian.” Opening her medicine box, she ordered Papa, “Stay away.”

Taking out her needle and tube, Carie administered a shot for NaiNai. “The dose will do the job,” she said. “Let me know if it doesn’t. I’ll fetch the doctor at the embassy.”

By midnight, NaiNai was asking for water. At sunrise, she said that she was hungry.

While Papa got down on his knees to express his gratitude to Carie, Absalom said that it was God’s will that NaiNai lived.

“It has nothing to do with my wife,” Absalom insisted. “It’s the church members’ collective praying that God answered.”

If Papa was a fake Christian, he changed at that moment. So did NaiNai, who officially said good-bye to the little Buddha statue in her room. She replaced it with a clay figure of Christ—a gift from Absalom.

Still, some things would never change. In NaiNai’s Christian heaven, angels took the form of peach flowers, butterflies, and hummingbirds. God himself lived in a Chinese landscape where lakes reflected clouds and bamboo and pine covered the mountains. What amused Pearl and me the most was that NaiNai’s Christian God traveled on the backs of deer and rode a crane if traveling great distances.

By the time I turned eleven, Pearl knew almost everyone in Chin-kiang. Our favorite person was the popcorn man, who made it to our town the first week of every month. The man spoke a northern dialect and his skin was the color of coal. Dirt thickened his hair and he wore the same canvas clothes with patches on top of patches year after year. Although he never smiled, he couldn’t have been a nicer fellow. His fan-shaped nose was forever smeared with coal dust. Pushing his little cart, he wandered from village to village.

On the popcorn man’s cart was a cannon-shaped cooker made of iron. The firebox was made of tin cans. Connected to the bottom of the firebox was a wooden bellows with an aluminum pipe. A crate of firewood was on the side. On top of the wood sat a cotton sack. We got excited when the man started to heat up the cannon. We watched the flames shoot high. We kept our distance after adults warned that the cannon might explode.

Pearl and I stood by the popcorn man and watched for hours on end. He rotated the cannon with his left hand and worked the bellows with his right. The man needed no clock to tell him when it was time to pop the corn. When he felt that the temperature was just right, he picked up the cotton bag and covered the cannon with it. Using an iron pipe, he pried the cannon open. The sound of an explosion followed. This was what the children had been waiting for.

“Pop!” the man would shout right before the explosion.

While small children covered their ears and some closed their eyes, Pearl and I enjoyed the sound of the explosion. Following the sound came a delicious smell. The cotton sack was instantly full. To us, it was pure magic—a can of corn or rice could be made many times its original size.

Pearl and I jumped for joy the day Carie finally agreed to give us a can of dry corn. It was already dark and the popcorn man was gone. We caught him and begged him to pop the corn for us. The man shook his head and said that the stove was already shut down. We begged and begged. We offered to help him.

We were thrilled when he finally agreed. I worked the cannon while Pearl pulled and pushed the bellows. The flames blazed. Pearl kept looking at the popcorn man—she didn’t want the cannon to explode. About ten minutes later, the moment arrived. The man took over.

We heard the grand sound of the explosion. It felt as if we might go deaf.

That night, the popcorn tasted better than ever.

It became our passion to follow the popcorn man. We were like two fools, said Carie. Her rice jar was our target. Before long, Carie found out that we had been gradually emptying her grain storage. When the popcorn man came, Carie showed up. She called him a crook. Her opera-like voice was heard by the entire town. Carie grabbed the popcorn man by the arm and demanded that he leave.

Pearl and I were embarrassed. We each held Carie back as the man collected his things.

Carie yelled, waving her fist, “Don’t you ever come back and steal from my children!”

The man hurried away, dragging his cart.

For days Pearl and I were sad. We could not forget the popcorn man. We felt guilty about ruining his business.