Hers the Kingdom (99 page)

     Several weeks later we received another letter. In it was a photograph of Porter in his dress uniform, and Ch'ing-Ling in a Western dress of white crepe with a peplum, and a tiny hat with a veil. They were standing on a small bridge in what appeared to be a formal garden. She was holding a bouquet of flowers, ribbons trailing from it. Their smiles were fixed, for the camera. The letter that accompanied it was in Porter's hand, and it said: "We were married yesterday in a civil ceremony. I had not understood, until now, what a capacity for happiness I have. In two days I leave for Chungking, two more days of Paradise. Ch'ing-Ling sends her warmest regards. Someday, maybe she will become American enough to send hugs and kisses and a great deal of love, as I do now."

     Three months later, Ch'ing-Ling was on her way to join us in San Francisco, where Kit and Lucy and I were staying with Sara. Pregnant with Porter's child, Ch'ing-Ling came to us. "I want our child to be born in the States, with you and Kit to help Ch'ing-Ling," Porter wrote. "In a manner of speaking, the future is in your hands."

     So we wait, five women in a
petit palais
on Nob Hill, in the summer of 1942. Porter is attached to General Stilwell's staff in Chungking. We know he flies regularly over the Hump to Ramgarh in India, where Stilwell is training an army to retake the Burma Road.

     Kit is mounting what seems to be a one-woman war effort of her own. She drives for the Red Cross and heads a civilian board assigned to find housing for those people who are pouring into the city to do war work. Her own house in Pacific Heights has been turned into a hostel for wives of servicemen. That is why she is living at Sara's with the rest of us.

     Lucy is teaching biology at Balboa High School, there being a shortage of teachers now that the men are off to war. We have become accustomed to finding handsome young officers on our
doorstep. Sara accuses Lucy of spending more time at the Top of the Mark than she does in class.

     I wait with Ch'ing-Ling; I try to raise her spirits, knowing how difficult it must be, far away from all that she knows. She is a gentle creature, beautiful in her pregnancy. Still, the only time I glimpse excitement is when Porter's letters arrive. I only wish they did not have to be apart, not now with the baby coming.

     We walk, she and I, in the park each afternoon. An old, elegantly dressed French woman takes her daily walk at the same time. Yesterday she told Ch'ing-Ling she was certain that the child would be a boy because, she explained, waving her hands, "you carry it so high."

     After the woman continued on her way I asked Ch'ing-Ling, "Do you want a boy?"

     Without hesitating she answered, "Naturally, a boy. For a Chinese it is important to have sons. But I think you know that," she added, touching my arm ever so gently.

     I thought of Soong then, of the day I gave him his son. I cannot help but wonder what they will say to each other, Porter and Soong, when they meet as father and son.

     In the midst of so much that is uncertain, I feel strangely at peace. I have come to welcome sleep, perhaps because so often of late I move, swiftly and softly, into dreams—lovely, summer dreams. Sometimes I am on the porch at Porter Farm, and a summer storm is gathering. The trees are blowing, bending in the wind, and the sky darkens and there is a sense of something tremendous about to happen. The Little Boys are tumbling down the grassy hillock in front of the farmhouse. They are wearing their Sunday best white blouses, and long green grass stains have begun to appear on them. Still they roll, laughing, over and over down the little hill.

     Sometimes Thad is with them, sometimes Rose and Pablito and Wen and Kit and Porter . . . they all laugh and tumble together, and I smile to see it.

     A strange, melodic tune is playing—the sort of music played by the sing song girls in Shanghai, a simple tune of great purity. I listen and watch and smile as the children play, even as the storm approaches.

     Then the first big raindrops splash onto the porch and I call out to the children. They run, flinging themselves at me, gathering round, and we move back from the edge of the porch, where the rain is pounding . . . it drips off the chinaberry bush, it falls in great silver sheets, and we huddle together, close together, and watch, and wonder.