Читать книгу Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze - Elizabeth Foreman Lewis - Страница 5

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Autumn’s sombre days became the darker ones of winter. Rain fell daily. Fu Be Be unceasingly voiced complaints: “True, indeed, is all that I ever heard of this city’s weather. In my village I believed with difficulty that rain and mist could fall anywhere without end. But so they do here. As for the sun, I see it so seldom that I jump at the sight of its rays. The very walls sweat dampness, and mildew discolours all of our possessions. To live thus is like dwelling in a grave!”

Her son grinned, “But not so lonely!”

And then, one morning there was a rift of blue in the sodden sky, and beyond the Yangtze the hills stood out in unexpected beauty of detail. Heavier rains followed, but days of glistening sunshine broke their monotony.

At Tang’s the quality of weather made little difference. Trade flourished. Constantly, prospective patrons sat at the two square tables in the shop and sipped tea while Small Den ran about displaying selections suited to their demands. Young Fu and Small Li delivered orders, or, accompanied by the accountant, hurried through the streets to wealthy homes whither they had been summoned, and unwrapping their samples in the rooms reserved for tradespeople, awaited the buyer’s pleasure. On one or two rare occasions, Tang paid these calls, but usually he trusted the business to the clerk, on whose ability to get a fair price he could depend.

For Young Fu these errands were thrilling experiences. He it was who carried the heaviest brasses, he who lifted them about as the patron ordered, he who squatted on his heels in silence while the accountant pursued the delights of bargaining. He would not have exchanged positions with anyone in the Middle Kingdom. This life gave him an opportunity to see marvels that exceeded imagination.

At first he could not conceal his expressions of pleasure. “Certainly, there can be no dwellings finer than these in all the land,” he said with an intake of breath.

The clerk lowered one eyelid in disdain. “When you have lived a few more years, you will not make such foolish remarks.”

Young Fu said nothing more, but his opinion remained unchanged. Gatemen led them over intricate garden paths to the low, spreading buildings. Young Fu peered through carved lacquer doorways into rooms whose walls were hung with priceless scrolls and tapestries. Ebony tables and chairs, porcelain jars from which flowering trees lifted gnarled branches, tall vases a thousand years in age, vied with one another in attraction. In the spring of his ninth year, his mother had taken him to a temple several li from their farm. For a month afterwards Young Fu had been able to think of little else but the grandeur of the place. Compared with the magnificence of these homes, that of the temple now seemed on a level with his own village hut.

Sometimes it was the women of the household who wished to purchase, and the gateman would lead the tradespeople to the rear wings of the building, and there the eldest mistress of the family would receive them in the servants’ gallery. Voices of younger women filtered through the thin walls, but none of these ever appeared to make their own selections. The small satin-clad and jewelled figure designated with a flourish of a tiny pipe what was desired, and in the bargaining frequently worsted Tang’s representative. Young Fu, his gaze directed to the ground as was the custom in a lady’s presence, found it difficult to control his amusement at such times. These old mothers, for all their wealth, differed not at all from Fu Be Be in her dealings with the shopkeepers.

Children ran along these garden paths, playing at hopscotch with persimmon seeds for counters, or using their toes to kick a feathered shuttlecock an indefinite number of times. At one place a boy of seven was engaged in clownish antics in the effort to entertain a small girl. As the others approached, he stopped and stood in embarrassed dignity. Young Fu’s glance roamed from him to the little maid. Her cheeks were streaked and her eyes red from weeping. She sat on a wooden stool and swung her feet mechanically to and fro. They were swathed in bandages that told their own story.

Girls always cried during the tedious moons of foot-binding. He had seen them often enough in the village, though a few of the farm-women kept their daughters’ feet of natural size that they might help in the fields. But this was not common. Every one agreed that it was better to stand the agony of foot-binding than the stigma of possessing large feet. And even though deformed feet permitted a woman to work only around the house, they were important in getting a husband. Ever since that day centuries ago when an Empress had first bound her feet and then named the crippled results Golden Lilies, all of China’s women had followed the fashion. He, Young Fu, was glad that his mother’s feet were small; that she was not a coolie woman was plain for all to see.

In some of the homes they would find teachers instructing the boys of the family in the Classics. Sometimes these youths attended private schools in the city. Small, ill-lighted rooms set between shops on busy thoroughfares and presided over by one venerable scholar, they offered much the same subject-matter and methods that they had used two thousand years before. A hundred feet away, one could determine their location. At the top of their lungs, students memorized and recited lessons, and the noise rose in waves above the other sounds of the street. Young Fu wondered at times what it would be like to have time in which to do nothing but study and play. He did not envy them, but neither did he forget that he had set himself the task some day of learning to read and write characters. It did not occur to him to tell Wang Scholar, whom he met on the kerb each evening, that he wished to write. An apprentice did not trouble a gentleman with such small affairs. Moreover, it was his duty just now to learn all that he could of Tang’s business, the other would come in time.

Six months of this life had slipped by when he awoke to the realization that Chungking was not made up of magnificence and entertainment alone. On his way home at dusk one day, he noticed a crowd collected in the hollow space made by an abrupt angle of two compound walls, so built that evil spirits, which are able to travel only in a straight line, might butt themselves against this sudden obstruction and have an untimely end. Every one knows that devils are stupid and that simple expedients like these often save a whole family from disaster. As he came nearer, the crowd dispersed. Most of them wore frightened faces, and some muttered ominously to one another. Alive with curiosity, he pressed on and found himself almost alone with a half-dozen soldiers.

In their midst was a load-coolie, his back pressed to the wall, his breast pinned by the muzzle of a rifle. His face was ashen as he attempted to reason with his persecutors.

One of the soldiers interrupted him. “I will count ten,” he said. “If by that time you still refuse to carry our bedding——” he smiled cruelly.

“I dare not, Honourable Military,” wailed the coolie. “I am late with my load for my master. If you do not let me hurry on, he will give me less than my due in payment, and already my family starves for lack of food.”

Young Fu’s gaze shifted from the miserable man to the paving. There were several bundles of bedding belonging to the soldiers, and close by sat two round baskets filled with rice, on the top of which rested the coolie’s carrying pole and ropes.

“One, two, three, four, five,” counted the soldier.

The coolie’s face was contorted with fear. “Sirs,” he begged.

“Six, seven, eight, nine, ten!”

“Sirs! What will you do——” There was a deafening report and the load-bearer’s last protest died away in a faint scream. He slid silently to the ground.

Stricken with horror, Young Fu stared at the bundle of reddening rags that only a few seconds earlier had been a man intent on earning food for himself and family. The youth felt suddenly cold; he began to tremble. He wished for nothing save to escape from this revolting scene of violence, but his feet refused to move.

The soldiers were now quarrelling over the deed; each blamed the other for the man’s death; one in particular seemed worried. He kept murmuring that this had not been necessary, that their captain must not hear of the matter.

He who had done the shooting sneered, “Of what importance is a coolie?”

A coolie, an eating-bitterness man as he was called—what did he matter? The question burned into the youth’s numbed mind. But the man had done nothing except to refuse to carry bedding that belonged to these soldiers. He had been delivering rice for his master, and because he would not leave that in the street and take up this bedding, he had been killed.

Young Fu puzzled over the injustice of the affair. And the soldiers would go unpunished; no one was ever strong enough to punish the military. First they had killed his father by destroying the crops; that had taken several years of exposure and overwork. Now this man had paid with his life, and in less than a minute of time. And if he did not slip away before they awoke to the knowledge of his presence, they might shoot him, also. He took one step when a heavy hand gripped his shoulder.

“What are you doing here?” a gruff voice demanded.

Young Fu winced in terror. “Nothing,” he stammered.

“Let the boy go!” commanded the one with the worried expression.

“No,” was the reply, “he looks strong. We shall, until we find help elsewhere, have to carry our bedding, but he can bring this fellow’s load of rice. We can use that to good advantage.”

The youth listened in a daze. He could not carry that rice. It must weigh twice as much as any of the brasses Tang had taxed his strength with, and his muscles had strained under them. “I have not the strength for this,” he began, “perhaps, the bedding——”

“Do you wish to be the second to lie there?” The soldier pointed to the body.

Shivering, the boy stooped down, caught up the dead man’s pole, slipped the ropes over each end, and tried to lift the baskets clear of the ground. The pole cut into his shoulders and he staggered under the painful pressure. With the unexpected jolting, a small shower of rice slid from the surface of each basket. His tormentor cursed, struck him across the back with his rifle-butt, and dared him to be so careless again.

The worried man interfered, and a bitter quarrel ensued. The others shrugged their shoulders, then cautioning haste, picked up rolls of bedding and started on down the street. Young Fu, hedged in between the brawling men and the grain-baskets, sought desperately for a way of escape, but there was none. Behind the baskets rose the stone wall; blocking him in front were the two soldiers. He turned hopelessly to the load.

As he did so, the worried one shook his head, motioned for his antagonist to have his way in the argument, and reached for a roll of bedding. Marshalling every ounce of strength in his young body, the boy at last managed to lift the load from the ground, and the three followed in the path of the others.

Darkness was softening the outlines of the street. It covered from curious eyes a pitiful bundle of rags which lay quietly in the hollow space made by the right angle of two compound walls. The body within the rags would not again handle a load-pole; as for its family—they would have to find some other way of earning rice. Chungking’s great wealth did not prevent most of her inhabitants from living always on the verge of starvation.

To the fourteen-year-old boy now attempting to carry the load which the dead man had laid down, each movement was torture. Sweat poured from him, and his heart responded with increasingly painful thuds. Every few paces he was compelled to halt, release his neck for the moment from the weight, and fill his exhausted lungs. Shop-fronts were closed and the streets almost deserted. If it were day, he might appeal for help, though this was a small hope. Who in this city, however kind of heart, would consider him of sufficient importance to risk a quarrel with soldiers about him? Dully he went on, moving more slowly each moment. At last, the soldier ordered him to stop, and bowing over his load for this brief respite, Young Fu waited for the next word.

A loud guffaw roused him to the presence of others. He looked up to see soldiers all about him. They filled a whole section of shops, sitting about tables, eating, gambling, loud in discussion. He had heard that the army had quarters in one end of the city, but he had not seen them for himself. He was seeing them now and, perhaps, for the last time, for they would surely kill him—if not by rifle, then by forcing him to bear burdens like this one.

Several men rose and moved closer. There was more harsh laughter followed by speech. “Lin steals the newborn from their mothers to carry grain for him!”

“Where did you find that rice?”

“Look, the babe faints by the load!”

Young Fu struggled to command his senses. His head was whirling.

“What shall I do with him?” asked Lin, now surly over the amusement at his expense.

“Do with him? Send him away. Do you think our captain would let you keep him here for your slave? A year ago, perhaps, but now he wishes to win the favour of the new Government at Nanking, and they have foolish ideas about children and law-abiding citizens! If I had my way, these greedy Chungkingese would be relieved of some of their treasure. Such food as they give—they would starve their defenders!” The speaker sifted rice through his fingers. “This is good grain you have brought in, Lin. Where did you get it?”

“From a grain merchant, naturally.”

The youth, strength flowing back into his veins, seethed with indignation. He did not care if they killed him, he would tell where this liar had found the rice. He opened his lips to speak, but a hand pulled him swiftly to one side. In the shadow of a neighbouring doorpost, the worried one, who had remained silent throughout this conversation, ordered sharply: “Close your mouth, young fool! I saw what you would do. Do you think it matters to my companions that a coolie died? Or that they would not kill you, if they wished? And had you spoken, your life would have paid for it. They would have feared the tale might later reach the captain, who desires a good name in this city and, in time, Nanking. Run, and run swiftly, before they realize that you are gone!”

For a second Young Fu stood where he was. “Why do you do this for me? Your heart is good!”

The other cursed the delay and pushed the boy along, “Because, fool, I was your age when they tore me from my father’s house!” He watched the youth disappear, then stealing quietly away from Lin and the circle about him, he joined a group of soldiers several doors down the street.

After a weary hour of stumbling about unfamiliar thoroughfares, Young Fu found himself once more on Chair-makers’ Way. Before the doorway to Dai’s house stood Fu Be Be and Wang Scholar. His mother was crying openly, and the old gentleman greeted him with grave concern. “Thy mother carries a heavy heart,” he chided.

“Where have you been?” demanded Fu Be Be.

Her son sank down on the sill. “It was not my fault,” he offered by way of explanation, and could say nothing more. He felt deathly sick. He rested his head on his arms and shook with chill.

Fu Be Be hovered above him. “Where is your pain?”

“A bowl of hot tea is what he needs now,” suggested the scholar. “Later, he will be able to tell you what happened.”

The mother rushed within and returned with the bowl of steaming liquid. Young Fu gulped it down. After a time he ceased shaking, and Wang Scholar, aware that he could be of no further assistance, went to his room. In their own quarters the boy told the story. Fu Be Be wept.

When her son was safe in bed, she went through the doorway and down the street to a small, bare space where there was erected a shrine to Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. On the pungent, grey curls of smoke that ascended from lighted incense, she offered her gratitude to the kindly-looking little statue within. In the future she must remember to be more faithful about these offices; experiences such as her son had known this night were common to a great city. How she disliked the place with its crowds and noise!

As for her work with the bristles! She caught her breath. She must not be ungrateful. Her work meant food. And her son was learning fast. The more she heard of his master, Tang, the better satisfied she was about the apprenticeship. And her own unpleasant work was a small affair when she remembered from what grave danger her son had just been saved. She stopped in the middle of the road; she had neglected to ask Kwan Yin’s special protection for that soldier. Hastily she retraced her steps to the shrine.