Peony: A Novel of China (2 page)

Something of this, perhaps, came from her father, the Rabbi. A man of great height and spare frame, he was clothed with saintliness as with a robe of light. Years ago he had caught a disease of the eyes from which many Chinese suffered, and since no cure was known, he had become blind. Being foreign, he had no immunity, and upon him blindness fell quickly. He had not seen his dead wife’s face after she was thirty years of age, and Leah and Aaron he had seen only as little children. Whether, not able to see these human faces, he was compelled to look only upon the face of God, or whether from his natural goodness, he appeared now to be all spirit and no more flesh. His hair, which had grown white soon after he became blind, framed his white and beautiful face. Above his long white beard his high nose and sunken eyes were proud and calm.

Thus they sat at the feast table and Peony saw every movement and smile. She saw David look at Leah across the table and look away again, and she repressed the pang this gave her. He was Leah’s equal in height, and Peony thought him even more beautiful. At nineteen David ben Ezra was nearing the fullness of his young manhood. His Jewish garments became him; this Peony had to admit, although she did not like them because they made him strange to her. On usual days he wore Chinese robes because he said they were more comfortable. But tonight he wore a blue and gold robe, and on his head his blue silk Jewish cap pressed down his dark short curls. She could not keep from looking at him, and then he caught her eyes and smiled at her. Instantly she bowed her head, and turned away to bid Old Wang, the eldest manservant, to fetch the Passover wine jug.

“Take it to the Master,” she directed.

“I know,” he hissed. “You need not tell me after all these years. You are as bad as my old woman!”

As he spoke Wang Ma, his wife, came in with more servants, bearing basins and pitchers of water, and towels ready for the ceremony of hand washing. But Ezra, instead of blessing the wine, rose from the heaped cushions of his chair and filled the Rabbi’s glass.

“Bless the wine for us, Father,” he said.

The Rabbi rose and lifted his glass and blessed the wine, and they all rose and drank. When they were seated again Wang Ma led the servants and they poured water into the silver basins, and each person at the table washed and dried his hands. Then each took a bitter herb and dipped it in the salt and ate it.

It was all familiar to the Chinese servants and yet always strange. They stood about the room, silent, their dark eyes watching in fascination and wonder and respect. Under their gaze Ezra was not wholly at ease as he proceeded with the rites.

“David, my son, Leah is younger than you, and she will ask the four questions this time,” he said.

And Leah, blushing a little, said the questions four times in her deep and sweet voice, which still was somehow childlike.

“Wherein is this night different from other nights?”

Four times she asked and four times the answers came from those about the table, the Rabbi’s great solemn voice louder than any:

“On all other nights we may eat leavened bread but on this night only unleavened.

“On all other nights we may eat other kinds of herbs but on this night only bitter herbs.

“On all other nights we need not dip an herb even once, but on this night we do so twice.

“On all other nights we eat sitting upright, but on this night we may recline.”

When the four questions had been asked and answered, Ezra said, “Tell us the story now from Haggadah, Father.”

But here Madame Ezra spoke with reproach. “Oh, Ezra, it is you, the father of our family, who should tell the story! I do believe you have forgotten it, for every year you will not tell it. If only you read Hebrew you could read it to us.”

“I would not dare, in the presence of the Rabbi,” Ezra said, laughing.

So the old rabbi told the ancient story of how once their people were bondmen in a foreign land and how one of them named Moses rose up to set them free, and how he bade his people bake bread quickly without leaven and kill a lamb and mark their doorposts with its blood, and how after many plagues the last plague came upon their rulers so that the first-born son in every family died, and at last the king of that country bade them go. Thus forever each year this day was their festival of freedom.

“Until,” the Rabbi said, lifting his head high, “until we return to the land that belongs to us, our own land!”

“May it be soon!” Madame Ezra cried and wiped her eyes.

“May it be soon,” Leah said gravely.

But Ezra and David were silent.

Four times during the long story Peony had motioned to the servants to pour wine, and four times all drank in memory of what she did not know, but she knew the wine must be poured. The very meaning of the word “Jew” Peony did not know, nor did any Chinese know, beyond the fact that these foreigners, who prospered so well in the rich city, had come long ago from a far country, Judea, or as it was called, the Country of the Jews. Through Persia and India they had come by sea and land to China. At many times in history, in one generation after another, they had come as merchants and traders in a small steady human stream. But every now and again they came in a sudden crowd of some hundreds at a time, bringing their families and priests with them. So had Ezra’s own ancestors come, scores of years ago, one of seventy families, through India, and bringing with them bolts of cotton goods, which was treasure to the Chinese, who only knew the making of silk. This gift, presented to the emperor of that early dynasty, had won them favor, and upon them he bestowed the Chinese family name of Chao, by which surname Ezra was known to this day in the city of K’aifeng.

The Chinese in the city viewed these modest invasions with tolerant eyes. They were a clever people, these Jews, full of energy and wit, and often a Chinese, indolent with years of good living, employed a Jew to manage his business. Almost as often he gave a second or third daughter to the Jew for his wife, but the Jews never gave their daughters in return.

“Quick, you turnip!” Wang Ma now whispered to Old Wang as the Rabbi sat down. “Fetch the eggs!”

Wang Ma had been a bondmaid, too, in this house, and even as Peony now watched, so had she in the days when she was young and pretty. Too kind, too old now to be envious of Peony, yet sometimes she stepped forward before the family.

Old Wang ran to the door and shouted and two servants came in with bowls of eggs boiled hard in salt water and peeled. Each one at the table took an egg, and in silence they ate.

“Signifying our tears and our hope,” the old Rabbi murmured, and his deep voice echoed about the table.

When the eggs were eaten Ezra clapped his hands. “Now, now,” he called, “let us have the feast!”

Wang Ma and Old Wang had gone out during the eating of the eggs and the other servants with them, and at this moment they pulled back the curtains and a procession of servants came in bearing dishes of all kinds of fish and fowl and meat, except pork, and set them upon the table in a wide circle. Taking up his chopsticks, Ezra waved them and urged all to begin, and he himself placed upon the bowls of the Rabbi and Leah those tidbits that he thought most delicious.

So all ate and Ezra ate and drank until the veins stood out red on his neck, the whole time talking and merry and pressing food on everyone. Of all of them, only Aaron sat silent and pale. Yet he ate voraciously and quickly, as though he had not for a long time had enough, and Leah looked at him reproachfully for his greediness, but he did not heed her. Once, catching her eyes, he made a sullen face at her, and this David saw with indignation, but he said nothing. He searched with his chopsticks and found a tender bit of flesh on his own plate, and he put it on Leah’s plate for her. This Peony saw.

The feast went on its usual course. Ezra grew merry as he ate and drank, and even Madame Ezra laughed at his jokes and nonsense. The Rabbi smiled his dim high smile and Aaron snickered and David threw back joke for joke and Leah laughed with joy, until David began to crack his jokes only to make her laugh the more, while his parents admired him. This Peony saw.

She made no sign. A sweet fixed smile was set upon her lips and she busied herself, dismissing the servants at last. Alone she kept the wine cups filled and replenished the sweetmeats until the feast was over and the guests gone. Then she ran ahead and made ready David’s bed, turning down the silken quilts and loosening the embroidered curtains from the heavy silver hooks. But she did not stay to greet him. She went away to her own room, and upon her narrow bed she lay long awake, remembering David’s face as he had turned to Leah, and remembering, she could not sleep.

The next morning Peony woke early, and there upon her eyelids was still the memory of David’s face when he had looked at Leah the night before. How foolish I am! she thought restlessly. She rose and washed and dressed herself and braided her hair freshly, and having made her room neat for the day she went into the peach-tree garden. It lay in the silence of the spring morning. Under the early sun the dew still hung in a bright mist on the grass, and the pool in the center of the garden was brimming its stone walls. The water was clear and the fish were flashing their golden sides near the surface.

The great low-built house that surrounded the garden was still in sleep. Birds twittered in the eaves undisturbed and a small Pekingese dog slept on the threshold like a small lioness. She had lifted her head alertly at the sound of a sliding panel, and when she saw Peony, she got up and moved with majesty toward her mistress, waiting in the path until Peony stooped and touched her head with delicate fingers.

“Hush, Small Dog,” she said in a low voice. “Everyone is asleep.”

The dog, receiving the caress without humility, lay down again, and Peony stood smiling and gazing about her with delight, as though she had never seen the garden before, although she had lived so many years in this house. Once again, as often before had happened, the oppression of the night vanished. The many joys of her life grew bright again with the morning. She enjoyed comfort, she loved beauty, and of both this house had much. If she were not in the main stream of its warmth and affection, yet the abundance of both overflowed upon her. She put aside her fears of the night, and then, tiptoeing along the stone path, she approached a peach tree about to bloom at last, and began to cut a branch with a pair of iron scissors she had brought with her. Her coat and trousers of pink satin were the same shade as the blossoms, and in the midst of pale pink and tender green, her black hair, combed in a long braid and coiled over one ear and fringed above her forehead, her large black eyes, and her ivory skin made her face as clearcut as a carving. She was slender and short, and her round face was demure. Her eyes were lively, the black pupils unusually large, the whites very clear, and her mouth was small, full, and red. Her hands, stretched above her head, were dexterous, and her pink sleeves, falling away, showed round pretty arms.

She had barely cut the branch when she heard her name called.

“Peony!”

She turned and saw David as he came from another part of the garden, and instantly all her hurt was gone. Did she not know him as none other did? He was tall, almost a man, but behind his new height she saw him the child she had always known. His height showed him foreign, she thought, and so did his full dark eyes and his curling dark hair, his skin dark, but without the golden tinge of a Chinese. This morning he wore a Chinese robe of thin dark blue silk tied about him with a white silk girdle, and she thought of him as her own. His handsome mouth was pouting and still childish.

“Why didn’t you answer me when I called?” he demanded.

Peony put her finger to her lips. “Oh—you promised me you wouldn’t come into the garden after me!” she breathed. “Young Master,” she added.

In a low voice he demanded fiercely, “You have never called me Master—why have you changed since yesterday?”

Peony busied herself with peach blossoms. “Yesterday your mother told me I must call you Young Master.” Her voice was faltering and shy, but her black eyes, dancing under their long straight lashes, were naughty. “We are grownup now, your mother said.”

It was true that yesterday morning Madame Ezra, beset by a gust of temper in the midst of preparations for the feast, had rebuked Peony suddenly.

“Where is David to sit?” Peony had asked, very carelessly.

“Dare to call my son by his name!” Madame Ezra had cried.

“But, Lady, have I not always so called his name?” Peony had asked.

“Let it be so no more,” Madame Ezra had replied. “You should have been the first to know that you are not children now.” She had paused and then had gone on, “And while I speak, here is more—you are no longer to go to his room, for any cause, if he is there—or he to yours. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, Mistress.” Peony had turned away to hide her tears, and Madame Ezra had relented.

“I do not blame you, child, for growing up,” she announced. “But I teach you this: Whatever happens is always the woman’s fault.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Peony had said again.

“Oh, you know my mother,” David now grumbled.

Peony darted a shrewd look at him. “She will scold you for wearing your robe tied around you like that. Only yesterday she told me I must help you to be neat—‘a bondmaid’s duty,’ she said.”

She put the peach blossoms carefully on the ground as she spoke and went to him. He laughed a young man’s laughter, lazy, amorous, teasing, and standing beside her, he submitted to her nimble fingers. He was so tall that he shielded her from the house, but he threw a quick look over his shoulder.

“Whose bondmaid are you?” he demanded.

She lifted her long lashes. “Yours,” she said. Then her lips twitched. “That’s not to say I’m worth much! You know what I cost when they bought me for you—a hundred dollars and a suit of clothes.”

“That was when you were a skinny thing of eight,” he teased. “Now you’re worth—let’s see—seventeen, pretty, but very disobedient and still a handful of a girl. Why, you must be worth ten times as much!”