“And the people?” Ling Tan asked.
“Into pieces,” Wu Lien replied, “as though they, too, were made of clay. Here an arm, there a head, there a piece of a foot, a leg, entrails, a heart, blood and ends of bone.”
Then there was silence. Each looked at the other, but none could fully believe who had not seen.
“But why?” Jade cried for them all.
“Who knows?” Wu Lien said. “The sky is over us all.”
His wife was weeping again and so were Orchid and Pansiao and down Wu Sao’s old cheeks were running tears and none could give comfort, for none could say from where death had now come. Death they all knew, for each knew his end, but a kind death, a gentle death stealing like a dream upon the old or like healing upon the sick, leaving the body whole and a thing to be tended and cared for and laid in its bed and honored in the grave. But this new death was monstrous, a destruction beyond the mind of man.
In silence each rose and went at last to his task, the women to preparing the food and caring for the children, and Ling Tan and his sons to the field. Only Wu Lien sat alone and apart, for of fields he knew nothing, nor of plow nor beasts. He was a merchant and when he had no wares he was idle. But this idleness was worse than any he had ever known for he saw no end to it.
… Now Lao Er and Jade had made their own meeting place under the big drooping willow that stood on the far side of the pond. They had found it that day by chance when Lao Er had seen Jade before the tea house, and they went back to it again and again. From morning until night they had no moment when they could meet, these two who loved each other. In the house there were always others in every room except their sleeping room, and they were ashamed to go to that room in the day, for these others would have thought it shameful, and if it had been heard of in the village there would have been laughter because they could not wait for the night. So that day Lao Er had seen the deep shadows under the great old willow and he saw how the branches hung down their strands like a curtain and so now he bade Jade come here sometimes and wait for him, and they talked or they only sat in each other’s presence, looking at each other and smiling, or he put out his hand to take hers, and so their day was not so long.
This day when Lao Er went out with his father to work he nodded to Jade and she knew that when it was midday she must go and wait for him under the willow. This she did and she came there before him and sat on the mossy ground to wait for him. It was very still, and the only sound was of a frog leaping into the pool because she was there, that and the steady long drone of a cicada, rising and then falling into a hot whisper and then into silence. It was hard to believe that the world in this valley was not as it had always been, and yet she knew it was not. By the strange chance of the book that her husband had bought for her Jade was able to understand how peace was lost among men, and what men did to each other then. Lust and fighting and killing were what they did in war and even to torture and the eating of human flesh, and all those wild and beastlike things that men do when peace is lost.
“How shall we be saved from this?” she thought, “and how shall we save our child?”
And then she thought of the young man at the tea house that day who had asked the people if they were able to burn their houses and their harvests so that the enemy would not profit by them and how she of all had stood up and said “We are able!”
“But then I had not my child in my belly,” she thought.
And she sat and mused on this and wondered that now life itself seemed precious above all else because she was a woman and she was creating new life. What she was made to do must be finished and done and she must put it above all else.
At this moment Lao Er parted the long green fronds of the willow and took his seat beside her and wiped the sweat off his brown body and his face.
“I have been wondering at the change in me,” she said, “and how I think of nothing except the life of our child.”
“But if it were not so,” he said, “there would be an end to all of us. While I worked I thought and now I know what I must do. We will not stay here. We will go away where the enemy cannot reach us, and you shall fulfill your time there.”
“Leave your father’s house?” she cried. “But what will he say to it?”
“I shall not tell him until I have found an answer to what he will say,” Lao Er replied.
He took her hand and held it a while, thinking how sweet it was to have her gentle as she had been ever since she knew she was to have the child. And she sat clinging to his hand and thinking how sweet it was when she had her task to do to know that he would watch over her and make her safe while she did it. The old wilful restlessness had gone out of her for the time. “Whatever you think I should do I will do it,” she said. “And I will do it with you,” he said.
It was enough for them for the moment. He rose and went back to his work and she went back to the loom which she was learning. Waste it was, perhaps, to learn it, if she were going away, but still some time it might be useful to her to know how to make cloth.
“Where were you?” Ling Sao asked when she came in.
“I went out to meet my husband,” Jade replied calmly and let the mother wonder why she was not ashamed to say it, and so she too went back to work.
… Now it happened that the next time the flying ships came back Ling Tan himself was in the city. In their ignorance it is true that he and his sons and even Wu Lien thought the ships were finished when they came and went and that they would come no more, and so did many people in the city think so, and they began building and mending and making what they could out of their ruins. Not one of them thought that the evil would come again any more than an earthquake would return the next day or a thunder storm or any other evil sent by heaven. Thus Ling Tan that morning had told his sons to work without him because he was going into the city to see what was to be seen. He went alone, that two need not leave work, but when he had left his house he heard behind him footsteps running in the dust, and turning, he saw his youngest son.
“Now, then!” Ling Tan cried.
“Father, let me come with you,” the lad panted.
“Why should you come?” Ling Tan asked. “I have not heard that it is a feast day.”
His son circled his toe in the dust, and stared down at the mark.
“I want to come,” he said sullenly.
Ling Tan looked at him and weighed whether he would make a quarrel with this half-grown man. The day was so bright and good that he decided he would not, for he hated quarreling even in evil days, and always went on one side of a quarrel if he could.
“Come then, curse you,” he said, and laughed, and his son lifted his head, and they set forth, father and son, over the cobbled roads, walking easily on their sandaled feet. The day before had been gray and though there was no rain the clouds had hung almost to the roofs of temples and pagodas. But today the air was like autumn instead of mid-summer and soon Ling Tan and his third son could no more keep down their hearts than a bubble can be kept under water. Their hearts would rise and be gay under such a blue sky and in the midst of such good harvests everywhere as they saw promised.
When they entered at the south city gate at first there was nothing to tell them what had happened except the grave looks of the people who came and went. Now this city was a place famous for the gaiety of its people. It was an old city but for centuries it had been the place where rulers lived, kings and emperors and all those who can be idle and eat well and spend the people’s money and so give it back to them again freely. Laughter and music were to be heard anywhere night and day and there were beautiful young women to be had for the rich and even good enough ones for the poor, and upon the lake there were pleasure boats of carved wood and there were great temples and several fine pagodas. These were the old things.
Since the revolution there had been no more kings and emperors but still there were rulers and these too built fine new palaces and houses of a new sort where water came out of the walls
and fire lay waiting to burn at a touch in the lamps and they took the people’s money too and gave it back to them freely in feasting and pleasure, and so there were still gaiety and good living and great new shops opened themselves everywhere and there were things now to be bought in this city which a few years ago had not been seen nor even heard about. Common fellows who pulled rikshas or carried loads on their shoulders could now buy self-burning lights to hold in their hands at night instead of candles in paper lanterns, and no winds could put these lights out. Such things kept the people merry, for who knew what new thing tomorrow would bring before their eyes? And all knew that these good things came from across the sea, and so the people admired those foreigners who made such things and thought them good men and to be admired. But this was before the flying ships came over the city.
Today Ling Tan heard men say sullenly on the street and in a tea shop where he stopped to refresh himself and his son, that they had rather do without all other good things from abroad if they were to have such evils as this, that their city was to be ruined.
“Where is the ruin?” he asked the waiter, and then he was amazed because the waiter burst into loud weeping.
“I had a little house of earth and straw leaning against a rich man’s house on the Street of the North Gate Bridge,” he said, “and his house and mine are gone, and I do not know who is dead in his house but all in mine are gone, and I would have been with them had I not been here, and I wish I were with them! I had two little sons, born in two years.”
Ling Tan gave him an extra coin for comfort and then he and his son went toward that street to see for themselves. When he reached the place nothing he had heard could have made him ready for what he now saw. A score of men working for a hundred days together could not have done what here was done in the space of a breath drawn in and out again. He stood gazing, for the street was full of bricks and mortar and beams and dust, and upon these rough heaps mourning people dug with their hands and with pieces of iron and a few with hoes, and even as he watched a great wail went up from a woman who saw her husband’s foot show out from between the ruins others had uncovered.
“Would I not know his foot anywhere!” she wept, and it was all she could know, poor soul, for when they dug still further, there was no more of him than this and a bit of leg.
Staring at what he saw with his heart beating in his bosom until his body shook, Ling Tan suddenly heard a violent retch and turning he saw his son vomiting.
“It is too much to bear,” Ling Tan said, “and I do not blame you. Have it up, my son, for if it goes down it will poison you.” So he waited while the lad had up all he had eaten, and then he led him away to the tea shop again to wash his mouth and to take into his emptiness a little hot tea. He saw that the proud boy was ashamed of his weakness and he was gentle with him and said:
“It is no shame to be sick at such sights as these. A man if he is honorable ought to be sickened and angry. Only wild beasts cannot know shame at what has been done here to innocent people.”
And they both sat very heavy and silent and Ling Tan the worse because he could not keep from asking why this destruction had come about and what was its meaning. Even as he sat wondering and asking himself there came into the tea shop a young man, and he was one of the students who were everywhere these days among the people, and when he saw twenty men or so in the shop he climbed on a bench and began to talk to them.
“You who love our country,” he said, “listen to me. Yesterday the enemy flew over the city and dropped the bombs which destroyed houses and shops and killed men and women and children. The war has begun. We must be prepared for it. We must fight against the enemy. We must resist until we are dead and then our sons must resist after us. Listen, brave men! The enemy is succeeding at first but they shall not succeed at last. They have taken our land one hundred miles deep, but we must not let them take the second hundred miles. If they take it in spite of us then we must hold the next hundred miles. Fight! Fight!”
Now when Ling Tan’s son heard these brave words he cried out, “Good!” and so did other young men. But Ling Tan looked at his empty hands.
“How shall I fight?” he called out.
That young man had already stepped down and was gone on his way and there was none to answer him, for all were as empty-handed as he.
And then as though to mock these empty hands suddenly out of the east there came the sound that these people now knew as well as they knew the beat of their own hearts.
“The ships—the flying ships—” men gasped, and before Ling Tan could stir, the room was empty and there were left only he and his son and the waiter.
“You, sir, had better hide yourself,” the waiter said.
“Where can I hide from such evil as this?” Ling Tan shouted. “And why do you not hide?”
“I have no need to hide,” the waiter replied, “since I have lost everything except myself.”
And while the hateful roar came close the waiter went about the empty shop wiping off the tables and pouring the tea out of the bowls the men had left half full, and setting the benches straight. Nearer the din came until when Ling Tan tried to speak to his son he could not hear his own voice. He had been about to speak because his son’s face was fixed in horror, and he wanted to tell him that he was not to be afraid for no man can die until his right end comes. But since his voice was lost he put out his hand and laid it on the boy’s arm, and so they sat until the waiter came and by motions told them to creep under the table at least, for then the falling tiles would not hurt them. So they crept under the table and crouched there while the waiter came and went about the room, making it neat and ready for the return of those who had gone, and Ling Tan wondered that he could do this, when at any instant the roof might fall and cover him and all the tables with its ruin. And he knew that in spite of all he himself was afraid and he heartily wished himself at home again.
For now they heard great thunders of noise and having heard and seen the thing that burst in his neighbor’s field Ling Tan knew what was happening. He hid his face not only because he felt his own end near but because he knew that with every burst some died. His eardrums swelled and quivered as he listened and his eyeballs swelled and the breath would not come out of his bosom. He looked at his son and the lad crouched with his head between his legs and his knees pressed against his ears and his arms wrapped about himself.
So they endured instant by instant and the evil passed over their heads at last and went on and after what seemed like half the day there was silence again until they heard a new noise and now it was fire.
“Come,” Ling Tan cried to his son, “let us get to our home and out of this place.”
So he crawled out, and with his son’s hand in his they went out. And yet, when Ling Tan thought of going, how could he leave a fire blazing and remember the screaming of people caught in the ruins, and the weeping of those who saw their homes burned and those they loved dead?
“No, we must see what can be done,” he told his son. And so against all he knew of old wisdom which bade him leave distress to take care of itself lest he be held responsible for any life saved or lost, he led the way to the fire. Yet what could any mortal do against such ruin? A few men had buckets and poured out water, but the flames laughed and leaped at them, and so at last in their despair the people only stood and gazed into the flames and the fire went on until it reached a wide new road, and there grumbling and hissing, it died at last to smoke and then to ashes. Those new roads had caused the people grief enough when they were made, for the new rulers after the revolution had planned them so that they were straight and wide, and if there were homes in the way, then homes must be razed, and if there were shops then shops must go down and even temples. That was ruin, too, and the people complained bitterly, and they were helpless then as now, having no guns in their hands. Yet today they were glad, for the wide road stopped the fire, and they knew this ruin was worse than the other for it was done by the enemy.
Ling Tan went quietly away at last and his son with him. Never had they been more glad for fields and earth than now. Ling Tan said not a word, and so his son did not speak, but the younger behind the elder they walked the long way home. It was evening when they reached the village and as they went down its single street men called to Ling Tan to know what he had seen. Then he stopped and told them and they gathered there in the narrow cobbled road and listened to him. Not a word was said while he spoke, nor for a while after he had finished. Then an old man spoke, and he was the oldest man in the village, ninety when the new year came around again, and he said:
“The old ways were best, the old days, when we stayed in our own country and the foreigners stayed in theirs. There are those who say the foreigners are good, but I say this evil that has now come upon us comes from them and it is greater than all their good. I wish that we had never seen a foreign thing and that they had stayed where the gods put them, across the seas from us. The seas are not without their meaning, and the foreigners have broken the will of the gods when they crossed them.”
They heard him out because he was so old and then in sadness each man went into his own house. In Ling Tan’s house that night it was as though one of their own had died, there was such mourning and sighing. At last Ling Tan saw that he must take some sort of authority over these women and children, and over the men younger than he and so he told them to be silent, and to listen to what he was about to say.
They sat all of them together, and for once the men and women were not separate, because they all craved to be together. They were in the court where the table was. There had been food but little eaten, for who could eat? Around them sky and field were calm with summer and the night was hot and still. But none thought of anything except the evil that had fallen on them all and through no fault of their own.
Ling Tan looked around on these who were his, and his heart was soft in him as he saw their eyes all turned to him. “What can I do to save them?” he thought. From other troubles he could have saved them, from famine and flood, from sickness even perhaps, and from poverty and from the evils of usury and of cruel magistrates and all those evils that are common to man. But what could he do now?