The Ginger Tree (15 page)

I find Armand most entertaining, more so really than Marie. He never fights to rule the conversation like his wife, but waits for the right moment to say something, and when he does it often stings with wit. Mama would be outraged by almost everything Armand says and at first I, too, was a little shocked at times. But no longer. He has a warm heart. I think he finds me restful, perhaps because I do not advertise myself. I really have nothing to advertise.

Now they are quarrelling, in French. It is noisy, but I am sure that anger for both of them does not go deep. When Richard and I disagree we don’t say much, but there is a column of coldness in me and in him, too, because I can feel it. It is better to shout at each other. Marie wants back at once to Peking and people again, she is utterly bored stuck in a temple in the Chinese hills where the only excitement is some kind of new leaf
from a prehistoric tree. Armand has just told her that she will return to the city when he thinks it is right that she should, and not a minute before. It sounds as though she has upset the table on which her patience cards were set out. I think I had better go for a walk.

In the evening

There is something wrong with the wick of this lamp, it keeps smoking and blackening the chimney. I went my walk. Count Kurihama’s temple looked deserted as I passed. It is the highest of all, the last building on this hill. Up there the winter winds have stunted the trees and I saw a pine with its branches touching the ground, like arms put down for support. It was very hot this afternoon but I went on climbing to get the view back over the plains to Peking, for I have been told you can sometimes see the sinking sun reflected in such a way that it looks as though the city was burning. Flies kept me company and a horrible, much bigger insect repeatedly swept down like a kestrel on its prey, some relation of what we call a cleg in Scotland, but even more vicious. I was wearing a white canvas hat with a floppy brim but could have done with more shelter from the glare, which seemed to radiate off the leaves and the very earth of the path. I have given up carrying a parasol in China. There are times when these are useful, but I think we look so silly holding the
frilled-edged
things over our heads, especially when riding in rickshas from which they stick up in Chinese street traffic like flags of identification. I took with me one of Armand’s sticks because I have no intention of meeting another snake on these paths without some weapon.

The end of the trees and the point from which I could get my view was probably less than half a mile beyond the last temple, but it felt more in that heat and because of the steep climb. I came around a clump of
wind-flattened
rhodys to find Count Kurihama half leaning, half standing against a rock outcrop, as though he was taking from it as little support as possible. His crutch was propped beside him but he wasn’t touching it. He must have been hearing my coming for some minutes.

I didn’t need to imagine how I was looking, my face moist, and not just my face, either. He had obviously been standing for some time where
the breeze reached him, hatless, his face very brown except for the white scar. His dress was almost formal, a white pongee suit, light enough, but with a button up to the neck collar which gave it the look of a uniform. The only casual things about him were his shoes, white canvas with rubber soles. I could see that most of his weight was on one leg, though the other was still put quite firmly on the ground.

I might have pretended complete astonishment that he was here in the Western Hills, but have no confidence in myself as an actress, so all that happened was a polite exchange of good-afternoons as though we had been neighbours meeting when one of us was out to post a letter. I then said that it was very hot and moved into the shade of the rock, though some distance from him. My heart was thumping from the exertion of the climb and I used one of the large men’s handkerchiefs that I now always carry in the hot weather, patting my forehead and cheeks. The view I had come to see was hidden by a haze.

It was a shock when the Count suddenly apologised for having said his prayers at a point so near the path, thus disturbing my early walk. He had not thought European ladies came out alone to see the sunrise. I don’t know whether he was mocking me or not. I said that we had heard about his wound and hoped it wasn’t troubling him too much now. He said no, it was nothing. Without looking at him, I asked where he had been hit. The wound was in his upper leg, made by a piece of shrapnel, but all that was necessary now for a complete cure was exercise. He added that it was shameful for a soldier to live in idleness while others were fighting for their Emperor. I wondered why he had come to China instead of
convalescing
in Japan and his answer was that he hated hospitals and rest homes. Also, he wanted to be quite alone for some time in order to offer prayers of apology to the men under his command who had died. It might not have been necessary for so many of them to die if he had given better orders.

During all this we didn’t look at each other, or at least I didn’t look at him, and I am sure that he, too, was staring down at the plain. I had never heard of a soldier sending messages to the spirits of those killed under his command asking to be forgiven for his errors as their leader. It seemed
wild and strange to me, but it also suggested a kind of brotherhood that was utterly different from the way in which I have heard Richard speak of the men under him when he was with the regiment. Perhaps this is the secret of Japanese success against the Russians, that military rank does not prevent a man from being one in spirit with all those serving the same cause.

We began then to talk about the war, or rather I asked questions and he answered them. He has no doubt at all that, in spite of the huge numbers of men the Russians are sending east via the Trans-Siberian railway, the withdrawal on Moukden indicates their complete defeat soon. He said the defensive war is always the lost war, and that any lines drawn up just to hold the enemy’s attack mean inevitably that the enemy will break through. He has complete contempt for the way the Russian fleet has refused to do battle, mostly staying hidden in Port Arthur. The rumours of a huge new Russian fleet coming from Europe do not trouble him, either; he says that if it ever arrives in these waters Admiral Togo will sink all their ships. The arrogance of that was a strange contrast to his humbleness over the men under him who had died.

I was sure his leg was giving him pain, but that he would never show the slightest sign of this in front of me. I thought of the rough path he had to use to get back to his temple, but knew what he would say if I offered to give him help down it. I said that I would have to be getting back and that I was staying with Armand and Marie. He showed no interest in them. I did not think he had any interest in me until I had said goodbye and was already on the path down, with my back to him. He called out: ‘Mrs Collingsworth, please come to tea tomorrow afternoon.’

He would never have issued such an invitation to a Japanese wife. Perhaps they think we are all loose women at heart.

Western Hills
September 14th

God forgive me, I went to him. I have no excuse for myself. He kept saying ‘Good, good?’ making this a question. I did not really answer him, but I
wanted to. All I can think of in this madness that has taken me is his body. Armand and Marie still do not know he is here. I won’t tell them. I will never tell anyone. We have five more days. His name is Kentaro.

Western Hills
September 17th

I stayed too long today. I’m sure Armand is beginning to wonder about my walks, always taken in the heat of the afternoon. Supposing he should decide to have a look at the empty temple above ours, in case there were some interesting plants in its old garden? He may have done this. We would not have known if he had.

Western Hills
September 18th

I think Armand knows. There are a number of ways he could have found out. Kentaro has supplies delivered to his temple only once a week, but a pack mule came up yesterday, past our temple. Armand was out walking at the time and could easily have seen where it went. I cannot look at him. I don’t think he has told Marie. I am certainly not going to stay with them in Peking, I could not. I am glad they go to America soon. Kentaro and I have only one more day. It is impossible for us to meet in Peking, and he is only to be there for a short time before he goes back to Korea for headquarters duty until he is fit for the front again. I can only pray that the war is over by then. His leg still hurts him badly. He has never let me see the wound, always with a fresh bandage on when I come. I do not know whether this is love. I do not know.

Western Hills
September 19th

Our last day. I did not care if I stayed too long. I did not care how Armand looked at me when I got back, or Marie. Kentaro sat out on the verandah
wearing only a loincloth, his bandaged leg thrust out in front of him. After a while I put on the cotton kimono he gave me to use and went to him. He had a sheet of white paper flat on the boards and was using a long brush dipped in black ink for the sweeping strokes of Chinese characters. When I asked what he was writing he said a poem. After he seemed to have finished I asked for a translation. He said the poem was not one he should have been writing in this place. I wanted to know what he meant by that and he told me he had come here to prepare himself for duty. He had broken solitude. I asked if he was ashamed of this and he said not as much as he should be. It was like having riddles given back instead of answers. I asked again for a translation of the poem and in careful printing, as though he needed this to help him, he wrote down the Japanese words in English letters. Afterwards, taking a long time, he used the brush again to write the English words:

I began to cry. He caught hold of me and said: ‘Do not cry, Mary.’ I cannot believe that we will never meet again. I cannot believe that today is today and tomorrow is nothing. It must not happen like that. What can we do?

I came back down the hill carrying his poem rolled like a scroll. He did not watch me go, turning back into the temple. It was nearly sunset. When I got here the trees were shadowing the verandah but I could see the glow of Marie’s cigarette from one of the chairs. No one called out to me.

I went by a side way to my room and sat on the camp bed looking at a wall. Next door Meng was singing to Jane, a harsh voice that sounds as if the vocal cords had been strained at some time, but the baby seems to like it. The singing became softer as Jane showed signs of going to sleep. I waited for Marie to come in to say how disgusted they were with me, but she did not. It was Armand who called me to supper. We had it on the
card table with the usual two candles stuck in bottles which Marie says are better than the glaring lamp. Armand mixed the salad and made the dressing as carefully as usual. I did not try to explain why I had been away from two until nearly six, saying very little. The talk between them was in French, mostly Marie going on about what they would and would not take to Washington. I ought to beg them not to talk about me in the Legation Quarter before they go. I don’t think they will, but I have spoiled a friendship. If there was any explanation I would give it, but I have none for myself.

I am afraid to put out this light and lie back. If only there was something you could do to make yourself numb.

We did not have any wine at supper, the champagne is finished. I want away from these hills. I will never come back to them again. I must blot out the picture of a path climbing through bamboo. I must never say a name. I must never say it. I will not look at the scroll.

157 Hutung Feng-huang, Peking, China
November 27th, 1904

Dr Hotchkiss is looking as though he needs another long leave in
England
, too old for active duty in the Far East, but not too old to be practically certain about my condition. I am to have another child. The doctor told me how delighted my husband would be, and we might hope for a boy this time. He asked when Richard would be back from his duties with the Russian forces and I told him that my husband was now sealed up in Port Arthur by the Japanese siege of the place. He said this was unfortunate but that I should try to get the news to Richard some way, for it ought to make him very happy.

Recently a few devils have been getting around our stone screen and one of them seemed to have travelled to the surgery with me. I said that I didn’t think my news would make Richard very happy since I hadn’t seen him since July. Dr Hotchkiss was turning away as I spoke. He stopped dead but did not turn back to look at me. There was no need for him to do any arithmetic in his head; the woman now sitting up on his
leather-covered
sofa was nothing like five months pregnant.

When I saw him walking slowly over to the washbasin I felt sick with shame. He washed his hands, then went to the desk and was a long time writing a prescription which he said, determinedly keeping his voice normal, that I could have made up at the new pharmacy which had just opened. For all that he has been in medicine for nearly forty years, he has stayed a simple man who believes that the rules for living are all laid down and properly indexed, so that in any situation you have only to look up
the regulations which apply to your case and abide by them. As I have not done.

While I dressed I thought about Mama receiving the news, as she must one day, that her second grandchild was half-Japanese and born out of wedlock. I could not begin to picture how she would take it in that house where the windows have a layer of lace against the glass to foil prying eyes, and all the talk, at least Mama’s, is carefully watched to provide nothing at all that wagging tongues might use. She will probably hate me. I cannot see her having any other feelings but deep anger. I hope I am wrong.

Dr Hotchkiss tried very hard to be kind. Without exactly reminding me that his surgery is as sacred as the Confessional which Marie uses so blithely, he said he would help in any way he could and was there anything I wished to tell him? I shook my head. I am sure he was relieved that I had not burdened him further with a confidence.

157 Hutung Feng-huang, Peking
December 13th, 1904

I have had a letter from Mama, in answer to one I wrote from the Western Hills, in which she is quite shocked that I took Jane to such a dangerous place, and what would Richard think if he knew? Also, she wondered if it was quite wise to make such close friends of a
French
couple in a place where there were many British available? She says she loses sleep over the thought that we are so near to that horrible war in Manchuria and that in spite of what many people in Britain are saying about them, she cannot feel any sympathy for the Japanese. After all, the Czar’s family are cousins of our own Royal House, and in recent years the Japanese have seemed rather pushing and too sure of themselves, which could bode ill for the future.

Every word that Mama writes now seems to come to me from a place that is a thousand light years from where I live. I suppose if you look at a map the war in Manchuria does seem to be taking place quite near to us, but in Peking everything has quietened down again, the Empress Dowager having decided against listening to the wild voices urging her
to action. She is now back in the city after having prolonged her stay at the Summer Palace, which may have been because she was making up her mind as to whether or not she should take China into the war.

I get the news from Edith Harding who has been faithful in attending me here, which I’m sure she would not have been if Marie had said anything to her or to anyone about what happened in the Western Hills. I did not go to any of the farewell parties for the de Chamonpierres, even the one which Edith gave, rather grudgingly I thought, my excuses quite acceptable; one that while there was any remnant of unrest in the city I did not like leaving Jane at night here; and two, that if I went to the Quarter in the evening it meant some reluctant husband being detailed off to see me safely home again. No one was so desperately anxious to have me as a guest that they tried to beat down these defences.

I know that I should not stay sealed up in this house the way I am doing, and a few times I have gone for a ricksha ride just to get out, but I have been uneasy until I was in through this gate again. It is not that I care for the house very much, and I haven’t tried to do to it the things I could have while Richard was away, but it is the only shelter I have. For how long?

When I try to look at the future I can’t see a thing. This has never happened to me before; even when I had no idea what was coming I could imagine something. I could always make up a picture to fill up the empty space on the wall in front of me. Now I can’t. That wall stays blank. I had a dream in which I went up to it and touched it, and it dissolved away like steam blowing from a kettle, but beyond me again was another blank white wall waiting and I knew if I went up and touched that one it would dissolve, too.

It must be that for all of us there has to be an apology available that we can make to ourselves for anything we do. It doesn’t matter so much about an apology to others, pride may block this, but we must have that one for ourselves, to be able to say: ‘Yes, I did that,
but
…’ If you can’t put the ‘but’ after what you did then you are in a sort of way lost. There is no ‘but’ that I did not know what I was doing when I went up that path to take tea with Kentaro. I went knowing what he was going to think of any
woman who accepted an invitation issued as he had done. In his eyes she was there to be used. Also, I don’t think I really wanted what was to come, for I had no idea of what this was going to mean to me. I wanted an end to what I had, to Richard, to my life here in Peking, to the Legation Quarter, to growing old in a narrow groove that might lead me one day to sitting in a house like Mannington, like his mother does, with a few people she knows and accepts because of how and where they were born, and a whole world beyond of which she knows nothing. You kiss your cousins and never complain about the arthritis which is crippling you.

This is what Richard would want for me. His worry is that I will not fit in as his wife should, so I have to be trained to make certain I do. It would have been so much wiser for him to have married someone who had already received the necessary training and was fixed in it. He has never really been at ease with me, even for short periods, or I with him. Perhaps this is why he always waited to come down the passage to my bed in the dark. The lamp was out and he would never let me light even a candle. He came when he had to, perhaps half hating me, because he felt his need a weakness.

Oh God, I do not hate him! I did not want to hurt him by what I did, it was not anger at Richard, it was the trap we both are in. I wanted to tear it open. Well, I have. I sit now in the wreckage made by me, waiting. I can do nothing but wait. What else is there? Should I take Jane and run, to have my half-Japanese baby in Scotland, from my mother’s house?

157 Hutung Feng-huang, Peking
December 15th, 1904

Yao knows. I do not think it is because I show much yet, and I have been careful about what I wear. There is an almost unmanlike gentleness in him that you would never expect from a gaunt figure and that strange, off-putting face. Marie could never stand him. She said it gave her the shivers to have him open the hatch to her, and certainly those unbalanced eyes are a bit alarming to have peering at you through the observation slit. His shaking is considerably better these days. My few words of Chinese
and his few of English mean that we can never really say anything to each other, not even the communication of a mistress to her servant, but somehow words are not really necessary. I have known he was my friend ever since that day when I made him laugh. I still do not see much of the others, Yao manages everything, ruling the house in Richard’s absence and, in the long evenings when he should be in his own quarters, makes little visits to the drawing-room to see if I need anything. He is now watching what I eat, and if I clearly like something I get it again and again, too often. My appetite is very good. I have none of those bouts of feeling dreadfully ill that I had from early days with Jane. Perhaps these will come.

Jane continues to put on weight. There is a stove in her nursery which keeps it very warm, but I have her playpen brought to the drawing-room each afternoon, insisting that Meng take time off and leave the child with me. Jane seems quite content with the arrangement, she cries very little these days, and I find myself conducting one-sided conversations with her. It is probably very silly but she does not seem to mind.

We ought to get out more, but it is very hard to establish a baby’s routine of the European kind. For one thing we have no baby carriage, there would be no point in it, the lane’s rough-surfaced and there are no parks to go to. She was put outside in the summer, but now, though the winter sunshine is bright enough, it is below zero all the time, the air wonderfully dry, but still icy. So we hibernate, Jane and I. Only Edith comes to visit from the Quarter. The others have probably forgotten I exist and I have no wish to do anything to remind them. With Armand and Marie gone, I’m sure that every Legation party is exactly like every other party. Edith tells me that the successors to the de Chamonpierres have arrived but she does not think they will be so popular. I look at Edith sometimes when she is here and wonder what she will be saying about me in a few months’ time. Could I find sanctuary with them if I need it? I think not.

157 Hutung Feng-huang, Peking
December 17th, 1904

A letter from Marie written on board the SS
Empress of Japan
bound for Vancouver has taken its time in reaching me. It is four pages of Marie’s chatter which is not as effective in the written word as it is spoken, but then the purpose of her letter is plain enough; she wrote to reassure me, without even one reference to our time in the Western Hills, that there will never be from Armand or from her the slightest hint forthcoming about what happened up there. It is very good of her, but I can see now that she probably had her own reasons for great discretion on the matter while still in Peking. Probably I am being ungenerous towards a good friend. These days I don’t feel very generous towards anyone.

It is almost two years exactly since I went up the gangway of the SS
Mooldera
at Tilbury. That girl would have been horrified at the idea of being forced to share a cabin with the woman I have become.

157 Hutung Feng-huang, Peking
December 19th, 1904

Still no letter from Richard and the Quarter has had no word from him either. I sent a chitty in requesting that the Legation let me know anything they heard and had a reply from Sir Claude himself, very kind, saying that if they had been in possession of any reliable information they would certainly have passed it on to me, but they really know nothing. The explosions of mines laid in the waters outside the harbour of Port Arthur have damaged the submarine cables, which are no longer operating, and of course the overland telegraph lines have been cut, the only news coming out being by the occasional courier who manages to get through, plus the stories of Chinese refugees from the fighting areas, of whom there are a great many. The official reports are all from the Japanese side, and speak of great slaughter, both in their ranks and the Russian. Apparently, after being repulsed in various areas around the outer defences of Port Arthur, the Japanese have now taken to mining
and have blown up some forts by this method. As Sir Claude said, it is turning into one of the most savage and brutal wars in human history. He assures me that the Legation is very much aware of me living alone in the Chinese city, and that if I am at all unhappy about this arrangement I am to let him know and some place will be found for me in the Quarter. I will thank him for his very real kindness, but what he suggests is the last thing I want at the moment.

Sir Claude did not sound as though he was very worried about Richard’s safety. I’m not either. I don’t really allow myself to think about him, because when I do a kind of dread comes, too. I haven’t been successful in putting Kentaro out of my mind. With his wound healed, he will have demanded to get back to active service with his regiment, and if he is not killed we still will never meet again. There can be no help for me from there. I do not dream about him but quite often, awake in the night, I give way to the temptation of going back to that temple high above the others, and we are lying side by side resting from the heat of the
afternoon
, and our own, not touching, except that he has my hand lightly cupped in his. Behind us, beyond a shutter half closed, a cicada is making its loud, harsh sound.

157 Hutung Feng-huang, Peking
December 21st, 1904

A chitty from Edith Harding saying that I must certainly come to them for Christmas since there would now seem to be no hope of Richard getting home, and that they will somehow make room for Meng in the servants’ quarters so that Jane can be properly looked after while I am there. Edith has a real talent for making her words ring with Christian charity while at the same time clearly showing that duty is prodding her along a course she would avoid if it were at all possible. I sent her servant back with the message that her great kindness was more of what I had come to expect from her, but that I was suffering from a digestive complaint which, though not serious, made it sensible for me to be very quiet over the festive season. There could have been no more polite
rejection of the Harding plum pudding, and, half an hour after the servant left here with my note, I received by telepathic communication Edith’s sigh of relief. I think her next visit here will now be postponed until into the new year, but I am not happy about that prospect for I am beginning to show, and even with let-out waistbands and loose skirts she is likely to spot my condition, with the kind of reaction I can only too easily imagine.