The Valley of Amazement (33 page)

“I thought I was being morally good by marrying her,” he said, “and goodness had punished me. I told Minerva I would never love her. And she said in turn that if I tried to divorce her, she would kill herself, and to prove her threat was real, she ran out into the frigid night wearing only a nightgown. Later, after she thawed, I said I was leaving, and she should divorce me on grounds of abandonment, and if she did not, she would live out her days like an untouched childless widow. I left the house and came home only occasionally—whenever I received her letters claiming my father or mother was gravely ill. We never shared the marriage bed ever again. That was six years ago. My mother has actually become fond of her. She encourages me to return from wherever my latest adventures have taken me so that I can resume fathering a child. It’s a sad arrangement, and all of us have played a role to make it so.”

“Including her uncle,” I said.

When it was time to return, I had no idea how to take the same hopscotch route back to Shanghai. Edward, I learned, had an indelible geographic memory. He was like a living compass and map. He remembered all the turns, the detours, the potholes, and the smallest landmarks—a notched tree, a large boulder, and the number of whitened walls in each village. He claimed his indelible memory did not extend to memorizing what he had read. He had to work hard to learn the poems from
Leaves of Grass,
he said. But once he learned them, he could retrieve any passage that perfectly suited the view or our mood.

I had grown fond of him. He depended on my companionship, and I was delighted to provide it because he treated me as his friend. Yet I also worried that he might one day wish to become my suitor, and then we would no longer be friends, but a courtesan and her customer, who met with different expectations. Intimacy of that kind would not strengthen friendship.

We often talked about the war. We walked up Bubbling Well Road two or three times a day to a café or bar to hear the latest reports. He admired the leaders of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen and Wellington Koo. He admired Woodrow Wilson even more. In his opinion, those three had what it took to finally return the German Concession and Shandong Province to China. He hoped to enlist in the service. If he could not find a navy recruiting station in Shanghai, he might hitch a ride aboard one of the ships taking Chinese workers to France.

“Why didn’t you enlist while you were in New York?” I asked.

“I tried. But my father and mother did not want me to be drafted and risk having their only son killed. My father sent off a letter to a bigwig general. It said I had a serious heart murmur and it was signed by a well-known doctor. I was not allowed to join.”

“Do you really have a heart murmur?”

“I highly doubt it.”

“Why would you not know for sure?”

“My father turns lies into the official truth. Even if I had nothing whatsoever wrong with my heart, the doctor wouldn’t tell me if I asked.”

One afternoon, when he returned me to the house, he asked if I had any free evenings available. I had seen the signs in his eyes. The time had come and I was sad that we were going to exchange friendship for business. He knew that my evenings were booked with parties and that I had suitors whom I invited to my boudoir. He had certainly given me enough gifts to be treated with favor. “I can set aside any evening you would prefer,” I said.

“Wonderful!” he said. “I want to take you to a play that the American Club is putting on.”

I felt oddly disappointed.

O
N THE FIRST
warm spring day, two months after we met, we drove to Heavenly Horse Mountain in the southwest corner of Shanghai. The mountain was not high, but it spread itself wide over the land with a graceful skirt of green trees, shrubs, and wildflowers. Edward said we could hike to a spot where a tunnel-like cave would lead us to a different world on the other side. He had gone once by himself. As we set out on our hike, I thought of the poem he had recited when we first met.

Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.

You must travel it by yourself.

It is not far. It is within reach.

Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.

Perhaps it is everywhere—on water and land.

This time, I felt no haunting loneliness. I was with a friend who calmed me. We walked side by side through a forest of bamboo, white oak, and Chinese parasol trees. The forest was thick with shrubs and fragrant wild jasmine. When the path narrowed, I walked behind him. He wore a knapsack, and his brown leather journal peeked out of the top. I watched him take long strides as he leaned forward into the mountain. The path grew rocky and steeper. Our walk had become more strenuous than what I had in mind. I removed my short jacket. My blouse was already damp with perspiration. My skirt felt heavy and cumbersome. When we finally reached the cave, I proposed an early lunch, and we sat on boulders. While eating our sandwiches, I saw his travelogue lying to the side of his knapsack and reached for it.

“May I?”

He looked hesitant at first, then nodded. I turned to the page where his pencil had been inserted. He had lovely smooth handwriting that demonstrated an assured rhythm, as if he had never hesitated in writing his words.

When the rice fields flooded and turned the roads into slow rivers of mud, our beasts of burden—both men and mule—sank and became stuck. The carters were cursing. I was still on the cart, and saw that a plank of wood on the side of the cart had been dislodged when the cart sank. It was about five feet long. I instantly devised a plan. I placed the plank over the mud. I would walk to one end, swing it out like a clock dial, and then walk to the other end and swing it out again. Once I reached the mule, I would place the plank in front of the beast and encourage it to take the first step, and with one foot extricated, it would have the momentum to haul itself out.

As I stepped onto the board, one of the carters held up his hands and gestured for me to stop. I ignored him. They watched me with skepticism etched across their faces. They mumbled to one another and grinned. I did not need to speak Chinese to know they were belittling me for trying.

I took my second step, then a third. My plan was clearly a good one. What a clever lad I was! Yankee ingenuity. Reader, I am sure you are smarter than I in knowing what was about to happen. When I crouched to spin the board around, I heard a loud sucking noise as the board pulled away from the mud. The teeter-totter tipped me face forward into the mud and I received a good whack at the back of my head to teach me not to ignore Chinese advice again.

I had laughed throughout, and I saw how pleased he was that I liked it. “Stupidity must be rendered with subtlety,” he said.

I turned back the pages to read more, but he snatched it from my hands.

“I would like to read it aloud to you later when we visit those places that inspired the words.”

I was glad that he spoke of future adventures. There were many pages yet to read. We finished our lunch quickly. He took my hand as we went into the dark cave. The coolness of the cave sank into my damp clothes. Halfway in, I could no longer see Edward in front of me. He must have sensed my trepidation. He squeezed my hand. He moved steadily, and I was glad I could depend on him. This was the safety and trust I had grieved for in my heart. I wanted to stop in this dark place and simply stand there with Edward holding my hand. But we continued to move ahead, and in a short while I saw the soft light of an opening around the curve. We emerged into a beautiful bamboo forest with green and yellow light. This was the other world, a peaceful place, more lovely than the sex-wracked Peach Blossom Spring. We moved forward along a slippery path. He laced his fingers more firmly through mine. His hand was warm. My damp blouse, which had felt unbearably hot, now chilled me. “Careful,” he said every now and then, and squeezed my hand. The forest was thick with vegetation covering the ground. There was no path that I could make out. I was confident that Edward would know how to return us safely. At that moment, I was filled with longing for him. It was not sexual. I wanted the physical comfort of being held. I wanted to feel protected and safe. Giving my body was the only way I could express what I needed. And yet, in the past, once I had done so, the brief comfort and safety the man had provided became tawdry, merely sexual urges satisfied, which left me feeling foolish and lonelier than ever. Golden Dove had warned me not to close off my heart because of bitterness. Loyalty had told me that I should take love and kindness when they are offered. Had love ever been offered? He claimed it had. Was a contract love? Was inconstancy love? Maybe the kind of love that would comfort me did not exist. Perhaps I expected too much of love and no one existed who could ever meet my unceasing and bottomless need for it. I certainly would not find it with a vagabond who took no responsibility for anyone. Yet I still wanted his arms around me.

“It’s cool in the shade,” I said, and shivered. This was not a lie.

“Are you cold?” he said.

“Could you wrap your arms around me to keep me warm?”

Without hesitation his arms enclosed me. I lay my face on his chest. We stood in the green light, still and quiet. I could hear his fast heartbeat. I felt his warm breath over my neck. His rigid penis pressed against me.

“Violet,” he said. “I think you know how happy you make me.”

“I know. I’m happy, too.”

“I always want to be your friend.” He stopped and was quiet. I could feel his heart beating faster. “Violet, I’ve
held back saying something because I don’t want you to think that my feelings for you as your friend are not true. But now that you’ve allowed me to hold you, I must tell you that I desire you, too.”

I was light-headed, anticipating what would soon follow. I remained still. He tipped up my face, and I must not have shown what he had hoped to see.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have presumed.”

I shook my head and stepped back. I watched his face change from confusion to gratitude as I unbuttoned my blouse and camisole to reveal my breasts. He kissed each breast, then my lips and eyelids. He embraced me once again. “You make me so happy,” he said. We moved deeper into the forest, and when we saw an old tree with a thick trunk that listed to one side, we hurried toward it. He gently leaned me against it and lifted my skirts.

Our lovemaking was simple and necessarily brief, owing to the discomfort of an upright arboreal bed shared with ants. I did not lose my head to wild sexual desire, as I had experienced with Loyalty. I was elated that our friendship, which was so dear to both of us, had safely crossed the threshold into intimacy. We had shared the same neediness. We were glad to let go of loneliness. We were happy to make each other happy.

All the way home, we talked exuberantly about places we wished to visit, and the emotions we had at dawn and dusk—the expectations of the new day, the reverie at dusk—often tripping over each other’s words. But when we returned to the house, our mood turned awkward. Evening was coming, and I would have to prepare for the parties. Once again, I would become a courtesan with suitors waiting to gain my attention and my favors in bed. I decided immediately that tonight there would be no suitors.

“Can you come to my room?” I asked. “I must attend the parties, but I will return alone.”

That night he memorized the geography of me: the changing circumference of my limbs, the distance between two beloved points, the hollows, dimples, and curves, the depth of our hearts pressed together. We conjoined and separated, conjoined and separated, so that we could have the joy of looking into each other’s eyes, before falling into each other again. I slept tucked into him and he wrapped his arms around me, and for the first time in my life, I felt I was truly loved.

In the middle of the night, I felt a shudder followed by three smaller ones. I turned around. He was weeping.

“I’m terrified of losing you,” he said.

“Why would you fear that now?” I stroked his brow and kissed it.

“I want us to love each other so deeply we ache with the fullness of it.”

He had expressed the kind of love that I had nearly convinced myself did not exist, except in the spiritual twin of my own self-being.

He fell quiet, then took a deep breath and slipped out of bed and began to dress.

“Are you leaving?”

“I am preparing for you to ask me to leave.” He sat down on a hard chair and buried his face in his hands. And then he looked at me and said in hollow voice: “I’m damaged, Violet. My soul is damaged, and if we were to join our souls, I would damage you. There is something about me you should know. I’ve never told anyone about it, but if I kept it from you, I would feel vile that I had accepted your love. Once you learned what I had been hiding, it would poison your soul. How could I let that happen to you? I love you too much.”

I immediately put up the old ramparts that had shielded my heart and waited. I still wanted to believe that nothing he would say could be as dire as he felt it was.

He looked me in the face. “I’ve told you my family is rich. I was privileged, spoiled. My parents and grandparents gave me whatever I wanted. I didn’t have to take responsibility for anything. They acted as if I could never do wrong. I’m not blaming them for what I did later. By age twelve I had my own conscience. I could have chosen to do right or wrong.

“What I did happened on a beautiful summer day. My parents and I had gone for a walk in the mountains, to a place called Inspiration Point, where we would have a clear view of Haines Falls. My father had a painting of that waterfall. In fact, he had many paintings of waterfalls, and the one of Haines Falls was not even particularly special. When we arrived, we saw that a family had beaten us to the spot and set up a picnic. I heard my father say ‘dammit’ under his breath. They were exactly where my father had wanted to stand to see the falls. It was an outcropping of flat rock, set back a safe distance from the cliff, about twenty feet. The man and woman greeted us. They had a son about my age, and a girl who was perhaps six or seven. The girl had a large porcelain doll seated next to her, and it looked like her—the same blue dress, curly blond hair.