Wanderlust (21 page)

No, she shook her head, I don't think so. But think of it ' think of these children as though they were ours. Could you ever respect me again if I abandoned them?

He smiled at how idealistic she was. She didn't understand the Orient at all. And perhaps it was best that she didn't. This is China, Audrey. Most of these children have been abandoned, or were sold by their parents for a bag of rice. They would just as soon sell them or let them die as feed them. The very thought made her ill and she shook her head, as though to deny the truth of what he was saying to her.

I can't let that happen to them.

And I can't stay. Now what do we do?

You go home, Charles, back to London, just as we planned before this happened. And I stay for a little while, until the nuns come. And then I go home via Shanghai and Yokohama. And with luck, by the time I get home, you'll be ready to come to San Francisco for a visit.

You make it all sound so simple. What if something happens to you, for God's sake? He couldn't even bear the thought.

Nothing will. Leave me in God's hands. It was the first religious thing she had said to him and he was touched, but the last time he had done that with someone he loved, it had been Sean, and '

I'm not sure I'm as trusting as you are.

You have to be. She sounded perfectly calm.

What about your family? Don't you think you owe it to them to go home now? He was playing on everything he could, but that didn't work either.

With any luck, I might still get home by the end of the year. If the nuns turn up in November, I could make it home before Christmas.

You're crazy, Audrey. he had been afraid of that, you're being totally unrealistic. This is China, not New York, Nothing happens on schedule. I told you, those nuns could take months to come.

I can't help it, Charlie. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears again, she was tired of reasoning with him, I can't do this any other way. And suddenly as he watched her, she dissolved beneath his eyes and stood crying in his arms as he held her.

Audrey, please ' darling ' I love you ' . And he did, but he couldn't stay here with her. He had to get back to his own work and responsibilities. This thing had gone too far, and now he just couldn't see it through with her. But he was terrified to leave her alone in Harbin. Please, sweetheart, be sensible ' come home with me ' .

I can't. Her damp eyes met his and he saw a determination there that stunned him.

You're serious, aren't you? His heart sank again. She was. There was no changing her mind. She was staying.

He stayed on for a full week after that, and did everything he could to convince her, but she was entrenched now. She was totally involved in taking care of her young charges, and she had even developed a very competent system. Ling Hwei and Shin Yu were invaluable to her, and she even put Charles to work more than once baby-sitting for half a dozen of the orphans while she milked the cow, or prepared a meal, or went out with the others for some air as they played in the snow in their little fur-lined boots and goatskin caps. The nuns had even knitted them mittens.

Charlie thought as he watched her that he had never seen her as content since he'd met her and he realized now that she was a woman who was used to taking charge, and not in the least afraid of the burden of responsibility. He admired that about her. In fact, he loved everything about her and he dreaded the day he would leave her.

Their last night together was a night neither of them would ever forget. Audrey quietly braced a chair against the door to their room, and they made love until morning in the frigid air of the tiny room, and at last they simply clung to each other and they both cried. He didn't want to leave her and she didn't want to be left, but they were each doing what they had to do. He felt he had to go back to finish his work, and she had to stay here to care for the orphans. It was a decision that hurt them both, and both felt conflicts and regrets but clung steadfastly to their decisions. She was less frightened than sad, and she left Ling Hwei in charge when she took Charles to the station in the morning. She stood beside him, wearing the funny clothes they had bought together in Peking, and he looked at her with tears in his eyes, almost unable to speak as the train chugged slowly into the station. It was heading south to Peking, and then Tsingtao, where he would take the boat back to Shanghai to begin his long journey west. But neither of them were thinking of any of that as they kissed for a last time, and he felt her breath on his face as she spoke his name and smiled through her tears. It seemed incredible that they were finally leaving each other, and she couldn't imagine a moment without him.

I love you, Charlie. I always will. She could hardly speak, she was crying so hard. I'll see you soon. But now, even to her, it sounded like an empty promise.

He could feel his heart pound beneath the jacket he wore, and he longed for her again. He couldn't leave her here ' he just couldn't ' a pair of armed Japanese guards patrolled the station and he looked down at Audrey again. Will you go with me, Aud? I'll take the next train if you will. But she only shook her head and closed her eyes with the pain of seeing him go. She wondered suddenly if she would ever see him again. Suddenly she really did feel as though she would never see her own world again, and he felt it too.

Say hello to Violet and James for me. But he didn't answer her, the lump in his throat was too large. He only clung to her until the stationmaster shouted out in his singsong voice and they both knew what it meant. For an instant, they both felt panic sweep over them, and regret, and all the tenderness they had felt for each other for months now. She couldn't bear the thought of seeing him go, but she had to. She knew she couldn't leave those children, and although she hadn't said it to him, she secretly felt that if they had been put in her path, then there was a reason for it. She couldn t imagine what it was now, but she couldn t simply get up and walk away. They were too tiny and helpless, but she was giving up so much just to stay there with them. She was giving up the man she loved, and she felt as though her heart would break as he pulled away from her and hurried toward the train. He had to run up the three steps as the train began to move, and he stood there holding out an arm to her. He would have gladly pulled her up and taken her along, without any of her belongings, but she stood where she was, with tears streaming down her cheeks, waving as he hung out from where he stood, slowly waving an arm, tears pouring down his own cheeks as he left her.

The weather in Harbin grew colder day by day, until they couldn't even keep any milk or water anywhere outside. It froze almost instantly and couldn't be used until they thawed it. The children almost never went outside now, and Audrey thought she had never been so cold in her life as November gave way to December, with no sign of the promised nuns. Charlie had been right. This wasn't the orderly life she had been used to in the States. Nothing ever happened on time or when it was supposed to.

The Japanese had come to see them several times to check her passport and question her as to how long she would stay, and she gave them the same explanation each time, until the nuns come. They seemed satisfied and left her alone, although one of them had been inclined to linger and eye Ling Hwei, but his partner had spoken to him harshly in Japanese and they hadn't returned after that and she had blushed furiously when Audrey warned her to be careful. She had worn voluminous shapeless clothes since Audrey had arrived but now Audrey suddenly noticed that she had begun to grow round, and in December she confessed, her eyes full of tears, her head bent with shame, begging Audrey not to tell her sister, although it couldn't remain a secret for too much longer. She had lain with the Japanese soldier in June, she thought, or perhaps May, which meant that the baby would come in February or March, and Audrey sighed at the thought. She hoped that the nuns would be there by then and she would be long gone. She had already written half a dozen letters to Charles in the two months he'd been gone, and a long-winded saga to her grandfather, begging his forgiveness for staying away so long, and promising never to do it again, but also expressing her gratitude that he had let her come at all. She felt certain that it had satisfied whatever hunger she'd had in her soul. She promised she would never stray far from home again, but even as she wrote it, she thought of Charles and wondered when they would be together again. Surely not as they had been for those months, crossing the wilderness of Persia and Tibet and Turkey and China. A time like that would never come again, she was sure, and she was grateful she had had it. In some ways, what she had done was shocking, and had anyone ever known, it would have branded her forever, but no one ever would, hopefully, if the Brownes didn't talk. But she didn't care about them now. All she could think of was Charlie. She didn't regret a moment of what they'd done. She knew he was the only man she'd ever love, and somehow she felt as though they'd wind up together, no matter how insoluble the problem seemed now. But just thinking about Charlie made her heart sing, and just the thought of him made her smile now, in the bleak Manchurian winter. And she was still wearing his ring on her finger.

It was a shock when she realized two days before that it was nearly Christmas, and on Christmas Eve, she sang carols to the children who sat and stared. Only Ling Hwei and Shin Yu knew Silent Night, and most of the songs they knew were French, but the little children were enchanted as the older ones sang, and Audrey tucked them all into bed that night, with a motherly kiss and a tender hand. Three of them had had bad coughs for weeks, and with no medicine and so little heat, she worried about them. She took two of them into her bed later that night and they coughed and coughed and coughed, but she wanted to keep them warm with her own body, and in the morning one of them was better. The other had red eyes and a dull look to him, and he didn't answer Ling Hwei when she spoke to him. She was quick to come to Audrey to tell her. I think Shih Hwa very bad. We call doctor?

Yes ' yes ' . She was always grateful for Ling Hwei's help, the girl was barely more than a child herself, but she seemed to have unlimited love for her sister, and these children, and now for Audrey. She had given Audrey the only treasure she owned, as a Christmas gift, it was a delicately embroidered handkerchief that had been her mother's, and Audrey had been moved to tears as she held it in her hand and hugged Ling Hwei. There were moments when she was glad she had stayed, and there was no turning back now anyway. She had cast her lot with these children, and she would live or die with them, until help came. But she wasn't thinking of herself now, only Shih Hwa who was gasping and gray. He was too feverish to hear when she called his name. And she bathed his forehead with towels filled with snow, as she waited for Shin Yu to return with the doctor. She hadn't wanted Ling Hwei to go in case she fell and hurt herself and the baby.

It seemed hours before Shin Yu returned and when she did, it was with an ancient little man in a funny hat with a long beard. He spoke in a dialect Audrey had never even heard, and Shin Yu and Ling Hwei never raised their eyes to look at him. They only nodded and when he left, they cried, as Audrey insisted that they tell her what he had said.

He say Shih Hwa die before tomorrow. She could see that much herself and she was furious that he was what passed as a doctor. She put on her own jacket and boots and hurried out in the snow a little while later, determined to find the best Russian doctor in town. But when she reached his home, she was told that he was out. It was Christmas they reminded her, and she begged the serving woman to ask the doctor to come to the orphanage when he returned. But he never did. The death of Chinese children caused no one any concern at that time, except their parents, and in this case Ling Hwei, Shin Yu, Audrey, and the children who were old enough to understand when Shih Hwa died in Audrey's arms that night, as she cried for him as she would have her own child. Four more died within the next two weeks, of what she suspected was croup. It seemed insane that there was nothing she could do. But she couldn't even provide them with adequate steam to loosen the phlegm that was strangling them.

There were only sixteen children there now, including Shin Yu and Ling Hwei, which meant fourteen really, as the two older girls were more helpers than charges. But all of them had heavy hearts after the death of the two little boys and three girls, not one of them older than five, and the youngest barely more than a year old. Audrey had sat raging at a heartless God as the baby died in her arms, and it made her think of Ling Hwei's baby now. What would she do with a half-Japanese child, or any child at all for that matter? Children were often sold for as little as a bag of flour. And Ling Hwei herself was barely more than a child, and she hardly looked more than nine or ten. She was delicate and slight, with narrow hips, and tiny graceful hands, and a quick smile now that she was coming to know Audrey better. She loved to play tricks and make jokes, and she always made the others laugh even when they were hungry or sad, and she struggled to learn as much English as she could with Audrey. She was obviously gifted with languages, as she had learned French from the nuns, was learning English now, spoke several dialects of her own tongue, and Audrey realized when they were visited again by the Japanese, that she spoke their language, too, but it was embarrassing for her to admit it. It would have been considered traitorous by the others had they known that. But she had learned it from the boy who had fathered her baby. She said that she had met him in the spring, and he had come to the orphanage to visit her often. She had met him at the church, and the sisters had liked him. He brought them chickens, and the goat they still had had been a gift from him. He had been nineteen years old, and she knew that he really loved her. But he had been sent away in July. And she did not know yet about the baby. Now she had no idea where he was and she had never heard from him again, just as Audrey hadn't heard from Charles since he had left in October. It had been several months and she would have thought that she would have had a letter from him by then, although it could have taken that long for a letter to reach her. She had only just then heard from her grandfather at last, who was irate at what she had done, and all but forbid her to come home. He hadn't dared go that far, for fear that she would take him at his word, but she could almost hear his voice tremble in fury as she read the letter, and his hand had shaken as he held his pen. She felt certain that it was rage and not ill health that accounted for the shaky hand she read, and he was so angry that she almost laughed. It was a taste of home just reading the insults and the outrage that she saw there, and she wrote him a long, contrite letter in answer, promising to be home very, very soon, as soon as the nuns arrived, which she felt sure would be at any moment. She had sent another wire to France after Christmas, inquiring as to their progress. And as yet, there had been no answer. Undoubtedly they thought she was being impatient, or they had no further word of the two nuns they must have sent some time before. But it was difficult crossing China in winter, as Audrey knew only too well. She had never endured such frigid weather in her entire life as she did in Manchuria that winter. She wouldn't even let Ling Hwei go out now for fear that the intense cold was bad for the baby. And it was no secret now, her huge belly told its own tale, and her sister had questioned her with wide eyes. Ling Hwei had told Shin Yu that the baby was a gift from God, just like the little Jesus the nuns talked about, and her sister had been extremely impressed. Afterward, she asked Audrey if she thought she had done a terrible thing to tell her that and Audrey smiled.