The Silver Lotus (39 page)

Lady Yee stayed with her husband and son as much as possible, but she could be found at night sitting by her son's bedside, holding his hand and whispering to him. In fact, she was doing just that the very night little Nathanial Silver Hammond died peacefully in his sleep. His heart had simply failed.

Having grown up in China, and in Canton particularly, Lady Yee was intimately familiar with infant mortality and the premature death of children from disease. In most instances the poor suffered the worst of it, and if cholera or typhoid was at the root, the numbers of dead children could be absolutely staggering. But even armed with this knowledge, Lady Yee was not prepared to acknowledge that her son was like other children. He was the son of Lady Yee, and no power on earth had the right to deprive her of his life. She cursed the gods, she cursed the plague-infested island, she cursed the sea, and she cursed herself for going back to China at all. Then she broke down completely and collapsed in tears by the side of her son's bed. The presiding doctor gave her a strong sedative and placed her in his care for her own good. Again Lady Yee slept for many hours, but when she awoke she seemed quite composed and lucid. She called for the doctor and made him promise
not to mention the death of her son to her husband. She feared the news would only distress his mind further, and thereby weaken his condition. The doctor agreed that this was probably a very good idea, and promised to say nothing. She also insisted that the time wasn't right for Macy to know the truth either. Her invention was necessary, but rested on a jewel of truth. She told Macy that her brother was very ill, but he was now under the care of the most important doctor in the world. She said he would be away for quite some time, but all would be well in the end. Macy seemed to take this in stride, but it hardly dampened her curiosity about details, and Lady Yee was hard-pressed to invent plausible particulars.

Captain Hammond and the two other crewmen were declared ambulatory in about seven days, but none would say they were fully recovered. Captain Hammond was still very weak, and sometimes complained of sharp intermittent pains in his chest and legs. However, he did begin to eat a better diet, and after a while it seemed he was always hungry, which was taken as a good sign.

Captain Penn visited often, always bringing gifts of fruit or cold marinated lobster tails, which he knew his friends very much enjoyed. He privately conferred with Lady Yee about the arrangements to take her son's body back to California, but she confessed that until she informed her poor husband and daughter of the tragic passing of little Silver, she was at a loss to know just what to do. Captain Penn promised to look after any arrangements she chose to make, but he kindly advised her to inform her husband of the truth. He was not a man to appreciate evasion, no matter how well meant, and it was best he not hear of the sad tidings from some other source. Lady Yee agreed.

The news of his son's death left Captain Hammond speechless, heartsick, and stunned. He just sat quietly in his bed weeping and shaking his head for hours. He refused to eat or speak to anyone for three days, and slept only when exhaustion set in. His doctor administered
a sedative, and when Captain Hammond awoke twelve hours later he had composed himself considerably.

Lady Yee harbored private fears of culpability, and though hardly pragmatic on the subject, she convinced her husband that the will of heaven rules the destiny of all mankind, and to kindly remember that he still had a beautiful, intelligent daughter who desperately required her father's love, strength, and compassion if she were to survive this tragedy spiritually intact. This last revelation seemed to gradually draw the poison from the captain's grief, and he once again became himself. He soon came to remember his place in the chain of dependencies, and even chose to take on the soul-rending brief of telling Macy what had happened to her little brother.

But then something quite remarkable happened. While Lady Yee and her husband sat together on the hospital's veranda pondering the very question of this painful revelation, Li-Lee brought Macy to the hospital for a visit. The maid had sent ahead an urgent note for Lady Yee saying that she thought it very important that she speak with her daughter. Li-Lee wrote that Macy had been deeply troubled by a very powerful dream the previous night, and though she wouldn't talk about it, she seemed deeply disturbed, and begged to see her father and mother at once.

Macy's parents were not quite prepared for what they saw when their daughter rushed into their arms. She was not crying, but she looked as though she had suffered a severe bout of weeping. And there was also something very different about her deportment. She looked older, which was a shock, and she no longer moved with the animated rapidity of a child. Her gestures seemed more deliberate and gentle. Without preamble of any kind, Macy grasped her parents' hands and said she was sorry for it, but she had sad news to impart. Macy wiped away the edge of a tear, and said that little Silver would not be going back to California with them. Her parents looked shocked and understandably
perplexed. However, without a pause to register their response, Macy calmly announced that last night her grandfather had come to her to introduce an imperial envoy of the Celestial Emperor. This messenger, she said, was made of many colored lights, was magnificent to look at, and was very gentle. The envoy informed her that Silver had been called to the heavenly court of the Celestial Emperor to fulfill his duties in the Jade Palace. Macy suddenly looked very sad, but she steadied herself and continued. She said Silver had been chosen because he was bright, innocent, kind, and brave. Macy looked up at her parents and said she knew this would make them very sad and unhappy, but they were not to worry, as the celestial messenger had told her that Silver was now among the immortals.

Lady Yee was more surprised by the expression on her husband's face than she was by Macy's pronouncement. His whole physiognomy seemed to melt with grief. He suddenly clutched his daughter to his breast and began to weep. He tried to speak, but could find no words at first. Macy begged him not to cry, but her father seemed not to hear her. In a few moments his despair found voice through his tears and bemoaned the passing of his beautiful son. As though speaking to the universe, he vowed to have his vengeance to assuage his broken heart. When Macy pressed her point and insisted that Silver hadn't gone anywhere, and that he was among the immortals, her father's distress almost fired his temper, and he insisted that no dream could change the fact that his son was dead. Macy pulled back and looked to her mother for support. Lady Yee, setting aside her own tears, nodded in agreement. Then she reached over and drew up her husband's face so that he could see her expression clearly. She was calm but very serious. She looked deep into her husband's eyes.

“It is true,” she said. “What Macy has told you is the truth. It has the blessings of innocence and insight. She sees more clearly than we do, and to be angered by the truth won't change that.”

Captain Hammond wiped away his tears and looked down at his beautiful daughter. “To be sure,” he said, “I know she's right, just as you say, my dear. I apologize for doubting you, Macy.”

Macy smiled and reached into her pocket and withdrew something, which she handed to her father. It was a small seashell of a type he had never seen before. “That's Silver's favorite thing in the whole world,” Macy said. “Grandfather gave it to him, and told him it was for creating magic that would make people happy. Silver wants you to have it now, so you can make people happy too.” Then she moved back into her father's embrace and said, “Would you like me to read to you, Father? I brought you our favorite book,
The Tales of Sun Wukong and His Journey to the West.
”

“Yes indeed, my darling Macy. I would like that very much.”

The captain decided to take his son's body back to Monterey, and informed Captain Penn of his decision and his wish to keep the matter confidential. And though he by no means hardened his heart to his own grief, or that of his family, Captain Hammond assumed his wife's aura of dignified emotional restraint. And though he accepted all condolences politely, he never voluntarily spoke of his son's death again; like his wife, cold thorns of guilt haunted the captain like a red tide, and this sealed his lips and guarded his innermost thoughts from any and all inquiries.

The voyage back to California was a sad affair. Quite unexpectedly, Macy became somewhat morose, quiet, and unresponsive to almost everyone. Even Lady Yee found herself cut off from her daughter's inner thoughts, and Macy went from being a child of voluminous expression to one of guarded sentiments. The only people who seemed to be able to make the child laugh were Li-Lee, Ah Chu, and Captain Penn, and she stayed in their company as much as possible.

The Hammonds eventually returned to Monterey, but it was weeks before anyone but Dr. Neruda and his family knew of it. Dr. Chun and
his wife were installed in the smaller of the two staff houses, and it was with great relief that Lady Yee discovered that the two doctors got on marvelously. They shared many of the same theories on medical practice, and both had grounding in traditional Asian pharmacopeia. Mrs. Neruda and her daughter warmly welcomed Mrs. Chun into the fold and did all in their power to make her comfortable. They tried to help explain all the mysterious incongruities of life in California. The women found it easier to work together than the men. A universally shared female history of cooperative efforts toward rational goals, and similar backgrounds in education and aspirations, bonded the three women from the beginning and made them a formidable alliance.

Soon after they arrived home, Captain Hammond and Lady Yee quietly buried the small coffin of their son by the west-facing wall of the fruit orchard. At Lady Yee's instruction, the gardeners had prepared a special grotto surrounded by fragrant roses transplanted from other parts of the garden, and a young flowering cherry tree was set nearby to someday give shade. Macy was not told any of this, however, as Lady Yee had determined that her daughter's memory of the events encompassing her brother's passing should remain foremost in her mind. The dream was true and must remain so. Thus, on the day of interment, Macy was sent off with Li-Lee and Ah Chu to enjoy a picnic at the beach, so that besides the captain and Lady Yee, only a Taoist priest was present to perform a modest ceremony. As she so aptly described it to her husband, they were in fact interring only a shell. “The creature that once lived within, though departed from us now, lives on in our recollections, and beyond that, as our Macy so adamantly affirms, now dwells among the immortals in the celestial halls of the Jade Palace, where he is also well-known and much loved. I hope the same thing can be said of the two of us one day.”

Despite all attempts to maintain strict privacy, word did get out, and many private gifts and sentiments of condolence came in from the
Chinese community. Aside from that, few people in Monterey were ever aware that anything sad had happened, and the Hammonds preferred to keep it that way.

Macy was remarkably composed through it all. She seemed to have decided to follow her mother's example and said nothing that might reveal her true feelings. Her father didn't think this was necessarily a good thing for a child, but he had to admit that Macy was becoming more like her mother with every passing day, and he could think of no viable alternative to the inevitable. Macy spent many hours seated in her brother's grotto and could often be heard talking to him as though he were alive. This behavior bothered the captain at first, but Lady Yee gently reminded him that this was common practice in China, and Macy had just spent a year deeply immersed in Chinese culture. She said it was only natural to want to believe that someone you love can hear you speaking from beyond the pale. Her husband nodded and never mentioned it again.

It was obvious to everyone that Captain Hammond was not recovering either his health or his spirits with any appreciable ease, and Dr. Neruda and Dr. Chun made a studied point of attending to this problem. They adjusted the captain's diet and prescribed a number of herbal remedies that were aimed at balancing his digestive, respiratory, and adrenal functions. They also recommended an increased consumption of onions and garlic whenever possible. Bread was to be avoided at all costs, as well as spirits made from grain or corn, while rice and vegetables in any form were encouraged. And in that vein they even suggested that a cup of mulled rice wine in the evening would be very efficacious and soothing for the nerves as well as the digestion. But however brilliantly the two doctors might exert themselves to be of assistance, Captain Hammond knew with utmost certainty there was no medical solution to his disease, for it was a dark, guilt-haunted torment of the
soul that leached away at his stamina, shivered his spirit, and hobbled his aspirations to a standstill.

The captain chose to be alone more and more, and he began to read a great deal. In fact, he spent whole days shut away in his study just reading his ever-growing collection of books. His choice of reading material proved eclectic. In one stack, Lady Yee noticed titles that included the works of Spinoza, Dickens, Marco Polo, Voltaire, Edmund Burke, Captain Cook, William Blake, Mark Twain, Lao-tzu, Walt Whitman, and Shakespeare, and three large technical volumes on hydrology, tides, and celestial navigation. And that was just one stack. New boxes of books arrived from San Francisco every month, and the captain had to call in carpenters to build new bookcases wherever space allowed. He even had cabinet bookcases constructed for the parlor.

When Lady Yee questioned him about this notable change in his habits, her husband replied that he had spent his entire life working and making money. As a result, he had never taken the time to study all that he thought was important for a man to know. He said they now possessed all the money they could possibly want or need, and thanks to Hammond, Macy & Yee, more money was being banked all the time, and without much effort expended to do so. That was enough. He frankly admitted that business now bored him, as did many other things deemed valuable to fashionable society. He declared that he no longer wished to go among such people, or even keep company with their standards and values. He said he preferred to stay at home with his family, and hopefully acquire the education he was never privileged with in his youth. He felt he had earned that right, and Lady Yee, who wasn't primed for an objection in the first place, heartily agreed. She knew it would take a long time for her husband to set aside his grief, and until then it was proper to allow him to go his own way. In all, she counted herself lucky that he hadn't chosen rum or opium as a remedy.