The Keys of the Kingdom (23 page)

With Joseph beside him, Father Chisholm set a good round pace. He felt his faith restored, gloriously fortified. His breast throbbed with fresh hope.

The summer which followed their return to Pai-tan had passed. And now the cold season fell upon the land. With Joseph’s help he made the stable snug, patching the cracks with fresh mud and kaolin. Two wooden bunks now buttressed the weakest wall and a flat iron brazier made a hearth upon the beaten earth floor. Joseph, whose appetite was healthy, had already acquired an interesting collection of cooking pots. The boy, now less angelic, improved upon acquaintance: he was a great prattler, loved to be praised and could be wilful at times, with a naïve facility for abstracting ripe musk melons from the market garden down the way.

Francis was still determined not to quit their lowly shelter until he saw his course ahead. Gradually a few timid souls were creeping to his chapel room in Netmaker Street, the first an old woman, ragged and ashamed, furtively pulling her beads from the sacking which served her for a coat, looking as though a single word would send her scurrying. Firmly, he restrained himself, pretended not to notice her. Next morning she returned with her daughter.

The pitiful sparsity of his followers did not discourage him. His resolve neither to cajole nor to buy his converts was tempered, like fine steel.

His dispensary was going with a swing. Apparently his absence from the little clinic had been regretted. On his return he found a nondescript assembly awaiting him outside Hung’s premises. With practice, his judgement, and indeed his skill, increased. All sorts of conditions came his way: skin diseases, colics and coughs, enteritis, dreadful suppurations of the eyes and ears; and most were the result of dirt and overcrowding. It was amazing what cleanliness and a simple bitter tonic did for them. A grain of potassium permanganate was worth its weight in gold.

When his meagre supplies threatened to run out, an answer came to his supplication to Mr Tulloch – a big nailed-up box of lint, wool and gauze, iodine and antiseptics, castor oil and chlorodyne, with a scrawled torn-off prescription sheet crumpled at the foot.

‘Your Holiness: I thought I was the one to do doctoring in the tropics! And where is your degree? Never mind – cure what you can and kill what you can’t. Here is a little bag of tricks to help you.’

It was a neatly packed first-aid case of lancet, scissors, and forceps. A postscript added: ‘For your information, I am reporting you to the BMA, the Pope and Chung-lung-soo.’

Francis smiled at the irrepressible facetiousness. But his throat was tight with gratitude. With this stimulation of his own endeavour and the comfort of Joseph’s companionship, he felt a new and thrilling exaltation. He had never worked harder, nor slept sounder, in his life.

But one night in November his sleep was light and troubled and after midnight he suddenly awoke. It was piercing cold. In the still darkness he could hear Joseph’s deep and peaceful breathing. He lay for a moment trying to reason away his vague distress. But he could not. He got up, cautiously, so that he might not wake the sleeping boy, and slipped out of the stable into the compound. The frozen night stabbed him: the air was razor-edged with cold, each breath a cutting pain. There were no stars, but from the frosted snow came a strange and luminous whiteness. The silence seemed to reach a hundred miles. It was terrifying.

Suddenly, through that stillness, he fancied he heard a faint and uncertain cry. He knew he was mistaken, listened, and heard no more. But as he turned to re-enter the stable the sound was repeated, like the feeble squawking of a dying bird. He stood indecisively, then slowly crunched his way across the crusted snow, towards the sound.

Outside the compound, fifty paces down the path, he stumbled on a stiff dark shadow: the prostrate form of a woman, her face sunk into the snow, starkly frozen. She was quite dead, but under her, in the garments about her bosom, he saw the feeble writhings of a child.

He stooped and lifted up the tiny thing, cold as a fish, but soft. His heart was beating like a drum. He ran back, slipping, almost falling, to the stable, calling in a loud voice to Joseph.

When the brazier was blazing with fresh wood, throwing out light and heat, the priest and his servant bent over the child. It was not more than twelve months old. Its eyes were dark and wild, unbelieving towards the warmth of the fire. From time to time it whimpered.

‘It is hungry,’ Joseph said in a wise tone.

They warmed some milk and poured it into an altar vial. Father Chisholm then tore a strip of clean linen and coaxed it, like a wick, into the flask’s narrow neck. The child sucked greedily. In five minutes the milk was finished and the child asleep. The priest wrapped it in a blanket from his own bed.

He was deeply moved. The strangeness of his premonition, the simplicity of the coming of the little thing, into the stable, out of the cold nothingness, was like a sign from God. There was nothing upon the mother’s body to tell who she might be, but her features, worn by hardship and poverty, had a thin, fine Tartar cast. A band of nomads had passed through the day before: perhaps she had been overcome by cold, had fallen behind to die. He sought in his mind for a name for the child. It was the feast day of Saint Anna. Yes, he would name her Anna.

‘Tomorrow, Joseph, we shall find a woman to take care of this gift from heaven.’

Joseph shrugged. ‘Master, you cannot give away a female child.’

‘I shall not give the child away,’ Father Chisholm said sternly.

His purpose was already clear and fixed. This babe, sent to him by God, would be his first foundling – yes, the foundation of his children’s home … that dream he had cherished since his arrival in Pai-tan. He would need help of course, the Sisters must one day come – it was all a long way off. But, seated on the earth floor, by the dark red embers, gazing upon the sleeping infant, he felt it was a pledge from heaven that he would, in the end, succeed.

It was Joseph, the prize gossip, who first told Father Chisholm that Mr Chia’s son was sick. The cold season was late in breaking, the Kwang Mountains were still deep in snow; and the cheerful Joseph blew upon his nipped fingers as he chattered away after mass, assisting the priest to put away his vestments.
‘Tch!
My hand is as useless as that of the little Chia-Yu.’

Chia-Yu scratched his thumb upon no one knew what; but in consequence, his five elements had been disturbed and the lower humours had gained ascendancy, flowing entirely into one arm, distending it, leaving the boy’s body burning and wasted. The three highest physicians of the city were in attendance and the most costly remedies had been applied. Now a messenger had been despatched to Sen-siang for the
elixir vitae:
a priceless extract of frog’s eyes, obtained only in a circle of the Dragon’s moon.

‘He will recover,’ Joseph concluded, showing his white teeth in a sanguine smile. ‘ This
hao kao
never fails … which is important for Mr Chia, since Yu is his only son.’

Four days later, at the same hour, two closed chairs, one of which was empty, drew up outside the chapel shop in the Street of the Netmakers, and a moment later the tall figure of Mr Pao’s cousin, wrapped in a cotton-padded tunic, gravely confronted Father Chisholm. He apologized for his unseemly intrusion. He asked the priest to accompany him to Mr Chia’s house.

Stunned by the implication of the invitation, Francis hesitated. Close relationship, through business and marriage ties, existed between the Paos and the Chias, both were highly influential families. Since his return from the Liu village he had not infrequently encountered the lean, aloof, and pleasantly cynical cousin of Mr Pao, who was, indeed, also first cousin to Mr Chia. He had some evidence of the tall mandarin’s regard. But this abrupt call, this sponsorship, was different. As he turned silently to get his hat and coat, he felt a sudden hollow fear.

The Chia house was very quiet, the trellised verandahs empty, the fish pond brittle with a film of ice. Their steps rang softly, but with a momentous air, upon the paved, deserted courtyards. Two flanked jasmine trees, swathed in sacking, lolled like sleeping giants, against the tented, red-gold gateway. From the women’s quarters across the terraces came the strangled sound of weeping.

It was darkish in the sick-chamber, where Chia-Yu lay upon a heated
kang
, watched by the three bearded physicians in long full robes seated upon fresh rush matting. From time to time one of the physicians bent forward and placed a charcoal lump beneath the boxlike
kang.
In the corner of the room, a Taoist priest in a slate-coloured robe was mumbling, exorcising, to the accompaniment of flutes behind the bamboo partition.

Yu had been a pretty child of six, with soft cream colouring and sloe-black eyes, reared in the strictest traditions of parental respect, idolized, yet unspoiled. Now, consumed by remorseless fever and the terrible novelty of pain, he was stretched upon his back, his bones sticking through his skin, his dry lips twisting, his gaze upon the ceiling, motionless. His right arm, livid, swollen out of recognition, was encased in a horrible plaster of dirt mixed with little printed paper scraps.

When Mr Pao’s cousin entered with Father Chisholm there was a tiny stillness; then the Taoist mumbling was resumed, while the three physicians, more strictly immobolized, maintained their vigil by the
kang.

Bent over the unconscious child, his hand upon the burning brow, Father Chisholm knew the full import of that limpid and passionless restraint. His present troubles would be as nothing to the persecution which must follow a futile intervention. But the desperate sickness of the boy and this noxious pretence of treatment whipped his blood. He began, quickly yet gently, to remove from the infected arm the
hao kao
, that filthy dressing he had so often met with in his little dispensary.

At last the arm was free, washed in warm water. It floated almost, a bladder of corruption, with a shiny greenish skin. Though now his heart was thudding in his side Francis went on steadfastly, drew from his pocket the little leather case which Tulloch had given him, took from that case the single lancet. He knew his inexperience. He knew also that if he did not incise the arm the child, already moribund, would die. He felt every unwatching eye upon him, sensed the terrible anxiety, the growing doubt gripping Mr Pao’s cousin as he stood motionless behind him. He made an ejaculation to Saint Andrew. He steeled himself to cut, to cut deep, deep and long.

A great gush of putrid matter came heaving through the wound, flowing and bubbling into the earthenware bowl beneath. The stench was dreadful, evil. In all his life Francis had never savoured anything so gratefully. As he pressed, with both hands, on either side of the wound, encouraging the exudation, seeing the limb collapse to half its size, a great relief surged through him, leaving him weak.

When, at last, he straightened up, having packed the wound with clean wet linen, he heard himself murmur, foolishly, in English: ‘ I think he’ll do now, with a little luck!’ It was old Dr Tulloch’s famous phrase: it demonstrated the tension of his nerves. Yet on his way out he strove to maintain an attitude of cheerful unconcern, declaring to the completely silent cousin of Mr Pao, who accompanied him to his chair: ‘Give him nourishing soup if he wakes up. And no more
hao kao.
I will come tomorrow.’

On the next day little Yu was greatly better. His fever was almost gone, he had slept naturally and drunk several cups of chicken broth. Without the miracle of the shining lancet he would almost certainly have been dead.

‘Continue to nourish him.’ Father Chisholm genuinely smiled as he took his departure. ‘I shall call again tomorrow!’

‘Thank you.’ Mr Pao’s cousin cleared his throat. ‘It is not necessary.’ There was an awkward pause. ‘We are deeply grateful. Mr Chia has been prostrate with grief. Now that his son is recovering, he also is recovering. Soon he may be able to present himself in public!’ The mandarin bowed, hands discreetly in his sleeves, and was gone.

Father Chisholm, strode down the street – he had angrily refused the chair – fighting a dark and bitter indignation. This was gratitude. To be thrown out, without a word, when he had saved the child’s life, at the risk, perhaps, of his own … From first to last he had not even seen the wretched Mr Chia, who, even on the junk, that day of his arrival, had not deigned to glance at him. He clenched his fists, fighting his familiar demon: ‘O God, let me be calm! Don’t let this cursed sin of anger master me again. Let me be meek and patient of heart. Give me humility, dear Lord. After all it was Thy merciful goodness, Thy divine providence, which saved the little boy. Do with me what Thou wilt, dear Lord. You see, I am resigned. But, O God!’ – with sudden heat: ‘You must admit it was such damned ingratitude after all!’

During the next few days Francis rigorously shunned the merchant’s quarter of the city. More than his pride had been hurt. He listened in silence while Joseph gossiped of the remarkable progress of little Yu, of the largesse distributed by Mr Chia to the wise physicians, the donation to the Temple of Lao-tzu, for exorcising the demon which had troubled his beloved son. ‘Is it not truly remarkable, dear Father, how many sources have benefited by the mandarin’s noble generosity?’

‘Truly remarkable,’ said Father Chisholm dryly, but wincing.

A week later, when about to close his dispensary after a stale and profitless afternoon, he suddenly observed, across the flask of permanganate he had been mixing, the discreet apparition of Mr Chia.

He started hotly, but said nothing. The merchant wore his finest clothes: a rich black satin robe with yellow jacket, embroidered velvet boots in one of which was thrust the ceremonial fan, a fine flat satin cap, and an expression both formal and dignified. His too-long fingernails were protected by gold metal cases. He had an air of culture and intelligence, his manners expressed perfect breeding. There was a gentle, enlightened melancholy on his brow.

‘I have come,’ he said.