River of Dust (27 page)

    "I know, senseless things," Mai Lin tried, "but you can melt them down. Real silver!" She lifted a spoon with a florid W engraved upon the handle and bit it with hard gums.

    One of the grandfathers shuffled closer and inspected a spoon. "Very fine," he said, and Mai Lin thought that at least the old man had not lost his sense.

    The younger man glanced again at the gleaming treasure— all of the Watsons' place settings sent to them after their wedding, mailed in a wooden crate all the way from the town of Cleveland in a province called Ohio. Mistress Grace had cried the first time she had shown Mai Lin how to polish it. Such a sentimental and homesick girl, her mistress had been back then.

    "What do you want for this junk, old woman?" the young swaggerer finally asked.

    Mai Lin bristled at his rudeness and sucked harder on her betel quid to keep from mouthing back. "A camel."

    The fellow let out a deep laugh that echoed against the empty shelves. His friends in the back of the store paused over the gambling table, but when they saw that their leader was only dealing with an old woman, they returned to their mah-jongg.

    Mai Lin placed her eye upon the young man, and although it took a few moments, he stopped his foolish laugh and grew quiet. He placed a finger to the white scar under one eye. It glistened, and Mai Lin knew that it now burned. She stared harder, and Swagger blinked several times.

"I have a camel," he said. "But it's not for sale."

"I will borrow it, then," Mai Lin said.

    He started to chuckle again, then caught himself. As he considered her proposal, she reached into one of the deep pockets of her skirts and pulled out the child-sized skull. She placed it on the counter and turned it to face him.

    "What is that thing, you witch?" he asked as he shifted so the hollow eyes would not find him. "Get it away from me."

    The grandfathers moved closer. They nodded and muttered to one another, but none reached out to touch it.

    "Fine," she said. "I will put it away."

    And she did. The grandfathers watched her carefully now, and Mai Lin wondered why none of them spoke up and told the young man who she was. They knew, the elders knew, but they were cowards, every one of them.

    She had seen the pistol tucked into the young man's belt. That thing wasn't worth her concern. Her time had not come yet, she knew this. But these grandfathers had lost all of the old understanding. They were too intimidated by the new generation to teach them as they needed to be taught. No wonder the young thought they could rule, when really all they could do was swagger.

    "I will borrow your camel for one day in exchange for all this silver," she announced.

    The young man, finally coming to his senses, looked at the elders. Although still mongrels and rogues, they nodded their approval.

    "Good," Mai Lin said.

    Then she turned and started toward the door, avoiding the indolent women sleeping on the floor. She had barely noticed them on her way in and now could see that they were not worth seeing. Pathetic creatures who sold themselves for men's pleasure, they deserved to be spat upon, but Mai Lin refrained. Several lay sprawled on a thick carpet of fur. Mai Lin paused and knelt down to touch the flea-bitten hide. Her ancient eyes did not deceive her this time.

    "Get away from us, you old hag," cried a girl who showed too much flesh.

    Another said, "Don't let her touch you with those disgusting hands!"

    Mai Lin chewed on her lips to keep from spewing forth at the nasty girls. She sensed young Swagger standing over her now, his hand on the pistol. Mai Lin pushed herself to stand, and of course the rude fellow did not help her up.

    "I want this wolf hide, too," she said.

    "You want this, you want that," Swagger said, pointing the gun at her. "You better leave before you get something you don't want."

    The girls tittered at this, but Mai Lin studied the young man with calm eyes. She could see that his time was soon to come, maybe not this day, but soon. She shuffled over to one of the other empty counters and yanked a satchel off her shoulder. She reached inside with both hands and poured out onto the dusty wood many bars of lye soap. On top of the heap, Mai Lin tossed wads of toweling material torn into small squares. Washcloths, the Americans called them.

    "What useless things are those, old one?" young Swagger asked. He laughed, and the girls laughed, too.

    "You smell worse than cattle," Mai Lin said.

    Swagger stepped toward her and puffed out his chest. "You are one to talk, foul woman."

    "That's right, I am an foul, old woman. Not a handsome young buck like you, who should not be covered by filth and lice."

    He glanced down at his pistol and spun the cylinder, but Mai Lin could tell he was listening.

    "And these lovely ladies," Mai Lin could not help spitting that incorrect word in their direction, "they should not be disgusting like me. They are not rancid old women. Not yet, anyway."

    "All right, all right," he said. "I will keep the bars of soap. Now, get out of here before I decide you have lived too long."

    Mai Lin glanced at the grandfathers and grandmothers who slouched on the barrels and benches around the edge of the room. None of them even looked up, that was how far things had gone in this land. Mai Lin turned back to Swagger.

    "I will take the dead animal hide for the soap and rags. That is a fair trade."

    He raised the pistol and pointed it directly at her forehead. Mai Lin did not flinch or turn away or say a word. His hand trembled ever so slightly, not enough for the others to notice. After a long moment, she reached out and gently pushed the gun aside.

    The young man waved it toward the girls reclining on the rug and shouted at them, "Get up, lazy bitches. Bath time outside, now. Move!"

    Their robes fluttered after them as they scurried out the door.

    With his pistol, he pointed at the hide. "You can see by the bullet holes that it didn't do what it was supposed to do. My idiot brother thought this mangy thing would protect him. He was a romantic fool and got what he deserved. Go ahead, take it, old witch."

    "And you will get what you deserve, too," she could not help saying.

    Then she sucked on her quid and made herself stop speaking. Instead, she hobbled to the hide, grabbed a tattered corner, and dragged it over the dusty floorboards.

    Outside, she gave the last bar of soap to a boy who helped her up onto the camel. His thin arms strained as he heaved the wolf hide over the emaciated animal's back. As she set off for the compound, she glanced back and saw that the boy was biting into the lye. There was no end to human ignorance, she thought. It was rampant all around and surely meant to drive her mad.

L
ater that afternoon, they struck out, Mai Lin seated at the

front of the sorry camel and Grace holding on to her. She had

         taken a chill, and the heavy hide felt good over her back. She even pulled the animal's jaw to cover her fallen bun and wore it like a hood. With each step of the camel's stiff legs, the bells and amulets slapped against her chest. She didn't mind being burdened so and even allowed herself to sway back and forth with the animal's stride.

    As they passed through the open iron gate of the compound, Grace glanced back. The yellow brick buildings caught the light, and the yellow dust of the courtyard reflected it. All was golden and solitary. The swallowtail eaves of the nicest home in the compound rose as handsomely as ever. It was a beautiful, though melancholy, sight. How long would these buildings last, she wondered, with no one here to tend to them? No movement stirred, and with their departure this day, the mission was now empty.

    It was hard to imagine that such a blank and monochromatic setting had once bustled with life. The children, Grace wondered, as she had so many times, where were the dear children? She turned front ward again and looked up the road to the desert, where she suspected they had lived all along.

    Mai Lin hummed one of her toneless tunes and mumbled to the camel in some tongue that only they understood. Grace had given up trying to grasp what took place around her. Her mission was no longer to grapple with this barren world. She needed simply to find her son. She felt certain that some clue on the dry road and dusty plains ahead would lead her to him.

    They had not gone far, with Grace dozing and Mai Lin muttering peacefully, when she heard a man's voice calling after them. Mai Lin's hearing was no longer reliable, so it fell to Grace to look back.

    Behind them came Ahcho. He limped quite noticeably but pressed forward as best he could in their direction. He was a righteous man. Grace understood that now. He was her husband's most ardent follower, and she felt chagrined for having quarreled with him that morning when she had realized that she must make this trip to Yao dao ho. In her grief, she had behaved childishly.

    "Mai Lin, stop!" she shouted.

    The old woman pulled the reins and glanced over her shoulder. "We wait for him?" she asked.

    "Of course we wait for him."

    Mai Lin spat into the dust.

    Ahcho was slow to reach them, but when he did, Grace reached down and took his aged hands into her own. "Bless you, Ahcho," she said.

    He bowed, and she could see that he was much fatigued.

    "Are you all right?" she asked.

"I'm fine, now that I've reached you," he said.

    "If you're not too tired," she asked, "would you be willing to escort us the rest of the way?"

    Ahcho bowed and replied in his proper manner, "If you will permit it so."

    "I would be most honored," Grace said.

    Then Mai Lin reluctantly turned the reins over to Ahcho, and he began their slow trek onward. After a short while, the heaving of the camel's stride lulled Grace back to near sleep.

    "Mistress," Ahcho said as his step slowed and he strode alongside the camel.

    "Hmmm?" Grace asked from a dreamy place.

    "I have prayed all night, and my prayers have led me here to join you."

    Grace nodded. Such a good man. Such a good and honest man.

    "I believe," Ahcho continued, "that it has fallen to me to tell you about the origin of the child's skull. I must be honest, even if it hurts me to bring you pain. This is what the Lord Jesus tells us we must do to achieve the gates of heaven."

    Grace's eyes opened only slightly. Ahcho's gaze was upon the cracked earth, and his shoulders sloped.

    "Don't worry so," she said. "Of course you may tell me, my dear man. There's no doubt that you shall see heaven when your time comes."

    "But this is about the Reverend," Ahcho began, "and something he never told you."

    Grace suddenly felt fully awake, although she did not show it so that he might continue. "Yes?" she asked, as if with vague interest.

    "Years ago," Ahcho said, "when your belly was ripe with little Wesley, I accompanied the Reverend into the plains and hills on a visit to the outlying churches. He was intent on rebuilding them since their abandonment after the Boxer Rebellion."

    So far he was telling her nothing she didn't already know, but Grace offered an interested sound to help him carry on. Ahcho seemed so uneasy, and yet what could he possibly have to say to warrant such nervousness?

    "The Reverend Watson was most brave and determined as he tried to help the heathens know the great Jesus."

    "Yes, he was quite zealous at his task," Grace said. "Go on, then, tell me what you recall."

    And although her eyes remained shut, she listened most attentively. She let her head loll to one side and occasionally muttered an encouraging word so that he would continue. With each step, Ahcho revealed the tale of what had happened many years before in the insignificant hamlet of Yao dao ho.

A
ll those years ago, the door to a hovel had swung open and the whitest man ever to enter a miserable hamlet west of Shansi had ducked his head below the lintel and stepped inside. After him came an almost equally tall and thin Chinese man. Ahcho shut the door behind them, and the Reverend removed his Western-style bowler hat and held it in his large hands. Inside the room, the peasants who lived there did not appear awed or even surprised. Instead, they carried on as if unaware of the remarkable strangers in their midst. Ahcho had rarely seen such lack of interest before but supposed it was because they were preoccupied with the dying boy.

    A Chinese medicine man let out a low, mournful cry as he swung a smoking lantern slowly back and forth over the child who lay on a straw mat on the floor. The pungent smell of incense drifted across the room. The medicine man wore a matted sheepskin vest, tattered robes, and several belts across his chest, each bearing animal-skin flasks and silk pouches. Two elders stood nearby, one with his eyes crusted over from blindness, the other frowning down at the scene. The boy's mother knelt at her child's side and held his fingers, which resembled brittle twigs.

    Ahcho spoke to the elders in their dialect. "We are on a great journey, Grandfathers, and have stopped for the night. Your neighbors told us about the dying boy. The Reverend here would like to help the child to be saved," he said.

    Torches appeared at the window just then, and a row of faces pressed against the soot-covered panes. The elders conferred with one another. Finally, the one with blind eyes shook his head. "We want no help."

    They turned back to the sick boy, and the medicine man rubbed packed herbs and oils onto his chest.

    The Reverend whispered in English to Ahcho, "They seem to be performing some sort of primitive last rites. That can't be doing any medical good."