The Keys of the Kingdom (21 page)

Morning came at last. He rose. Taking his chalice from its cedar box, he made an altar of his trunk and offered up his mass, kneeling on the stable floor. He felt refreshed, happy and strong. The arrival of Hosannah Wang failed to discompose him.

‘Father should have let me serve his mass. That is always included in our pay. And now – shall we find a room in the Street of the Netmakers?’

Francis reflected. Though he had stubbornly made up his mind to live here till the situation cleared, it was true that he must find a more fitting centre for his ministrations. He said: ‘Let us go there now.’

The streets were already thronged. Dogs raced between their legs, pigs were rooting for garbage in the gutter. Children followed them, jeering and shouting. Beggars wailed with importunate palms. An old man setting out his wares, in the Street of the Lanternmakers, spat sullenly across the foreign devil’s feet. Outside the yamen of justice, a peripatetic barber stood twanging his long tongs. There were many poor, many crippled and some, blinded by smallpox, who tapped their way forward with a long bamboo and a queer high whistle.

It was an upper room Wang brought him to, clumsily partitioned with paper and bamboo, but sufficient for any service he would conduct. From his small store of money he paid a month’s rent to the shopkeeper, named Hung, and began to set out his crucifix and solitary altar cloth. His lack of vestments, of altar furnishings, fretted him. Led to expect a full equipment at the ‘flourishing’ mission, he had brought little. But his standard, at least, was planted.

Wang had preceded him to the shop below and as he turned to descend he observed Hung take two of the silver taels which he had given him and pass them, with a bow, to Wang. Though he had early guessed the worth of Father Lawler’s legacy Francis was conscious of a sudden mounting of his blood. Outside, in the street, he turned quietly to Wang.

‘I regret, Hosannah, I cannot pay your stipend of fifteen taels a month.’

‘Father Lawler could pay. Why cannot the Father pay?’

‘I am poor, Hosannah. Just as poor as was my Master.’

‘How much will the Father pay?’

‘Nothing, Hosannah! Even as I am paid nothing. It is the good Lord of Heaven who will reward us!’

Wang’s smile did not falter. ‘Perhaps Hosannah and Philomena must go where they are appreciated. At Sen-siang the Methodys pay sixteen taels for highly respected catechists. But doubtless the good Father will change his mind. There is much animosity in Pai-tan. The people consider the
feng shua
of the city – the Laws of Wind and Order – destroyed by the intrusion of the missionary.’

He waited for the priest’s reply. But Francis did not speak. There was a strained pause. Then Wang bowed politely and departed.

A coldness settled upon Francis as he watched the other disappear. Had he done right in alienating the friendly Wangs? The answer was that the Wangs were not his friends, but lick-spittle opportunists who believed in the Christian God because of Christian money. And yet … his one contact with the community was severed. He had a sudden, frightening sense of being alone.

As the days passed this horrible loneliness increased, coupled with a paralyzing impotence. Lawler, his predecessor, had built upon sand. Incompetent, credulous, and supplied with ample funds, he had rushed about, giving money and taking names, baptizing promiscuously, acquiring a string of ‘ rice-Christians’, filling long reports, unconsciously the victim of a hundred subtle squeezes, sanguine, bombastic, gloriously triumphant. He had not even scratched the surface. Of his work nothing remained except perhaps – in the city’s official circles – a lingering contempt for such lamentable foreign folly.

Beyond a small sum set for his living expenses, and a five-pound note pressed into his hand by Polly on his departure, Francis had no money whatsoever. He had been warned, too, on the futility of requesting grants from the new society at home. Sickened by Lawler’s example, he rejoiced in his poverty. He swore, with a feverish intensity, that he would not hire his congregation. What must be done would be done with God’s help and his own two hands.

Yet so far he had done nothing. He hung a sign outside his makeshift chapel; it made no difference: none appeared to hear his mass. The Wangs had spread a wide report that he was destitute, with nothing to distribute but bitter words.

He attempted an open-air meeting outside the courts of justice. He was laughed at, then ignored. His failure humiliated him. A Chinese laundryman preaching Confucianism in pigeon-English in the streets of Liverpool would have met with more success. Wildly he fought that insidious demon, the inner whisper of his own incompetence.

He prayed, he prayed most desperately. He ardently believed in the efficacy of prayer. ‘Oh God, you’ve helped me in the past. Help me now, for God’s sake, please.’

He had hours of raging fury. Why had they sent him, with plausible assurances, to this outlandish hole? The task was beyond any man, beyond God Himself! Cut from all communications, buried in the hinterland, with the nearest missioner, Father Thibodeau, at Sen-siang, four hundred miles away, the place was quite untenable.

Fostered by the Wangs, the popular hostility towards him increased. He was used to the jeers of the children. Now, on his passage through the town, a crowd of young coolies followed, throwing out insults. When he stopped a member of the gang would advance and perform his natural functions in the vicinity. One night, as he returned to the stable, a stone sailed out of the darkness and struck him on the brow.

All Francis’combativeness rose hotly in response. As he bandaged his broken head, his own wound gave him a wild idea, making him pause, rigid and intent. Yes … he must … he must get closer to the people … and this … no matter how primitive … this new endeavour might help him to that end.

Next morning, for two extra taels a month, he rented the lower back room of the shop from Hung and opened a public dispensary. He was no expert – God knew. But he had his St John’s certificate, and his long acquaintance with Dr Tulloch had grounded him soundly in hygiene.

At first no one ventured near him; and he sweated with despair. But gradually, drawn by curiosity, one or two came in. There was always sickness in the city and the methods of the native doctors were barbaric. He had some success. He exacted nothing in money or devotion. Slowly his clientèle grew. He wrote urgently to Dr Tulloch, enclosing Polly’s five pounds, clamouring for an additional supply of dressings, bandages, and simple drugs. While the chapel remained empty the dispensary was often full.

At night, he brooded frantically amongst the ruins of the mission. He could never rebuild on that eroded site. And he gazed across the way in fierce desire at the pleasant Hill of Brilliant Green Jade where, above the scattered temples, a lovely slope extended, sheltered by a grove of cedars. What a noble situation for a monument to God!

The owner of this property, a civil judge named Pao, member of that inner intermarried community of merchants and magistrates who controlled the city’s affairs, was rarely to be seen. But on most afternoons his cousin, a tall dignified mandarin of forty, who managed the estate for Mr Pao, came to inspect and to pay the labourers who worked the clay-pits in the cedar grove.

Worn by weeks of solitude, desolate and persecuted, Francis was undoubtedly a little mad. He had nothing! He was nothing. Yet one day, on an impulse, he stopped the tall mandarin as he crossed the road towards his chair. He did not understand the impropriety of this direct approach. In fact he knew little of what he did: he had not been eating properly, and was lightheaded from a touch of fever.

‘I have often admired this beautiful property which you so wisely administer.’

Taken wholly by surprise, Mr Pao’s cousin formally viewed the short alien figure with its burning eyes, and the soiled bandage on its forehead. In frigid politeness he bore with the priest’s continued assaults upon the syntax, briefly deprecated himself, his family, his miserable possessions, remarked on the weather, the crops, and the difficulty the city had experienced last year in buying off the Wai-Chu bandits; then pointedly opened the door of his chair. When Francis, with swimming head, strove to return the conversation to the Green Jade land, he smiled coldly.

‘The Green Jade property is a pearl without price, in extent more than sixty mous … shade, water, pasture … in addition a rich and extraordinary clay-pit for the purpose of tiles, pottery and bricks. Mr Pao has no desire to sell. Already, for the estate, he has refused … fifteen thousand silver dollars.’

At the price, ten times greater than his most fearful estimate, Francis’ legs shook. The fever left him, he suddenly felt weak and giddy, ashamed at the absurdity into which his dreams had led him. With splitting head, he thanked Mr Pao’s cousin, muttered a confused apology.

Observing the priest’s disappointed sadness, the lean, middle-aged, cultured Chinese allowed a flicker of disdain to escape his watchful secrecy.

‘Why does the Shang-Foo come here? Are there no wicked men to regenerate in his own land? For we are not wicked people. We have our own religion. Our own gods are older than his. The other Shang-foo made many Christians by pouring water from a little bottle upon dying men and singing “ Ya … ya!” Also, by giving food and clothing, to many more who would sing any tune to have their skins covered and their bellies full. Does the Shang-Foo wish to do this also?’

Francis gazed at the other in silence. His thin face had a worn pallor, there were deep shadows beneath his eyes. He said quietly: ‘Do you think that is my wish?’

There was a strange pause. All at once, Mr Pao’s cousin dropped his eyes.

‘Forgive me,’ he said, in a low tone. ‘I did not understand. You are a good man.’ A vague friendliness tinctured his compunction. ‘I regret that my cousin’s land is not available. Perhaps in some other manner I may assist you?’

Mr Pao’s cousin waited with a new courtesy, as if anxious to make amends. Francis thought for a moment, then asked heavily: ‘Tell me, since we are being honest … Are there no true Christians here?’

Mr Pao’s cousin answered slowly: ‘Perhaps. But I should not seek them in Pai-tan.’ He paused. ‘I have heard, however, of a village in the Kwang Mountains.’ He made a vague gesture towards the distant peaks. ‘A village Christian for many years … but it is far away, many many li from here.’

A gleam of light shot into the haggard gloom of Francis’ mind.

‘That interests me deeply. Can you give me further information?’

The other shook his head regretfully. ‘It is a small place on the uplands – almost unknown. My cousin only learned of it from his trade in sheepskins.’

Francis’ eagerness sustained him. ‘ Could you procure directions for me … perhaps a map?’

Mr Pao’s cousin reflected, then nodded gravely. ‘It should be possible. I shall ask Mr Pao. Moreover I shall be careful to inform him that you have spoken with me in a most honourable fashion.’

He bowed and went away.

Overwhelmed with this wholly unexpected hope, Francis returned to the ruined compound where, with some blankets, a water-skin and a few utensils purchased in the town, he had made his primitive encampment. As he prepared himself a simple meal of rice, his hands trembled, as from shock. A Christian village! He must find it – at all costs. It was his first sense of guidance, of divine inspiration, in all these weary, fruitless months.

As he sat tensely thinking in the dusk he was disturbed by a hoarse barking of crows, fighting and tearing at some carrion by the water’s edge. He went over at length, to drive them off. And there, as the great ugly birds flapped and squawked at him, he saw their prey to be the body of a newly born female child.

Shuddering, he took up the infant’s torn body from the river, saw it to be asphyxiated, thrown in and drowned. He wrapped the little thing in linen, buried it in a corner of the compound. And as he prayed he thought: yes, despite my doubts, there is need for me, in this strange land, after all.

Two weeks later, when the early summer burgeoned, he was ready. Placing a painted notice of temporary closure on his premises in Netmaker Street, he strapped a pack of blankets and food upon his back, took up his umbrella and set off briskly on foot.

The map given by Mr Pao’s cousin was beautifully executed, with wind-belching dragons in the corners and a wealth of topgraphic detail as far as the mountains. Beyond it was sketchy, with little drawings of animals instead of place names. But from their conversations and his own sense of direction Francis had in his head a fair notion of his route. He set his face towards the Kwang Gap.

For two days the journey lay through easy country, the green wet rice-fields giving place to woods of spruce, where the fallen needles made a soft resilient carpet for his feet. Immediately below the Kwangs he traversed a sheltered valley aflame with wild rhododendrons, and later that same dreamy afternoon, a glade of flowering apricots whose perfume prickled the nostrils like the fume of sparkling wine. Then he began the steep ascent of the ravine.

It grew colder with every step up the narrow stony track. At night he folded himself under the shelter of a rock, hearing the whistle of the wind, the thunder of snow-water in the gorge. In the daytime, the cold blazing whiteness of the higher peaks burned his eyes. The thin iced air was painful to his lungs.

On the fifth day he crossed the summit of the ridge, a frozen wilderness of glacier and rock, and thankfully descended the other side. The pass led him to a wide plateau, beneath the snowline, green with verdure, melting into softly rounded hills. These were the grasslands of which Mr Pao’s cousin had spoken.

Thus far the sheer mountains had defined his twisted course. Now he must rely on Providence, a compass and his good Scots sense. He struck out directly towards the west. The country was like the uplands of his home. He came on great herds of stoic grazing goats and mountain sheep that streamed off wildly at his approach. He caught the fleeting image of a gazelle. From the bunch-grass of a vast dun marsh thousands of nesting ducks rose screaming, darkening the sky. Since his food was running low, he filled his satchel gratefully with the warm eggs.