47
A FEW DAYS LATER we set out for the southwestern end of Jinling’s property to see the land Boren was offering. Apple and pear trees were bulky despite their leafless branches, and in the depths of the orchard some rooks were cawing like crazy. Old Liao appeared, trundling a load of bricks in a wheelbarrow. Even on such a wintry day the gardener wouldn’t stop working. He seemed ignorant of idleness, a typical peasant. Pointing at a path he’d newly paved with bricks, Mrs. Dennison said, “Nice job.” The man smiled without a word, then nodded at Minnie.
The land Boren offered was bumpy and overgrown with brambles, different from what we had expected. It would have to be leveled before it could be used. Also, because it was separated from Jinling’s property by a brook, it wouldn’t be easy to incorporate the land into the campus unless our college owned a length of the stream as well. Mrs. Dennison puckered her brow while the outer corners of her eyes drooped. I could tell she had misgivings.
“We will discuss this with the trustees and will let you know our answer soon,” Mrs. Dennison told Boren.
“Sure, no need to rush,” he said.
When the two women talked about the offer again, Mrs. Dennison was against buying it, saying it was just an acre of wasteland. Actually, it was 1.3 acres, at half price — four hundred yuan. Despite its bumpiness and its separation from our campus, Minnie believed we should jump at this opportunity. She said to Mrs. Dennison, “We’ll figure out how to use the land eventually. Let’s grab it.”
“No. At this time we mustn’t acquire anything we don’t need.”
“We have the money.”
“We must be frugal. The renovation will cost a fortune. You never know where an extra amount will have to be put up.”
“Please, it’s just four hundred yuan, a bargain.”
“No, I don’t want it.”
“I’m the dean of this college — my opinion doesn’t count at all?”
“Well, I don’t have to listen to you.”
“Don’t you remember how hard you used to haggle with those landowners over tiny parcels of land?”
“That was then. Things have changed and we have to concentrate on the task at hand.”
“Since when have you become so shortsighted?”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Can’t you see this is a windfall? We’ll need a lot of land for future development.”
“I don’t want to spend the money now.”
“It’s not your money.”
“Neither is it yours. If you love that piece of dirt so much, why not buy it for yourself?”
Mrs. Dennison’s last sentence put Minnie in mind of acquiring the land on her own. She talked with me about this. Since she wanted to spend the rest of her life here, she could build her home on that slope beside the babbling brook. From that spot you could see a good part of campus and enjoy peace and quiet. If the college provided her with a bungalow someday, the land still wouldn’t be wasted — she could donate it to Jinling or build a small folk school on it. She had been making one hundred yuan a month since the previous winter and had saved about eleven hundred yuan, too little to build her own house. But she would save more and buy the lot first.
Her reasoning made sense, so I encouraged her to buy the land. At such a low price she could sell it and make her money back whenever she wanted. We went to Boren’s three days later and wrapped up the purchase. The man was elated and even called Minnie “the goddess of generosity” when she told him she was acquiring the land for herself. This unnerved her. “Please don’t call me that,” she said, but he merely grinned, showing his square teeth.
48
MONICA BUCKLEY DIED in early February, and the missionary community, regardless of denomination, assembled in the Shigu Road Cathedral for her funeral. The nave had a domed roof and stained-glass windows, which were high and narrow with arched tops, the panes iridescent like peacock feathers. More than two hundred Chinese also attended.
Reverend Wei presided over the ceremony. People stood up and sang the hymn “O Thou Whose Own Vast Temple Stands.” Next, Pastor Daniel Kirk read out Psalm 23. Minnie was moved by the solemn, serene poem, which she said she’d never before thought so sublime. Then a few friends of Monica’s went to the chancel lined with winter plum blossoms to deliver their eulogies and to reminisce about her. Among them was Alice, who had started her missionary career at the same time as the dead woman back in Anhui, though they belonged to different denominations. She told the audience that Monica had often missed her hometown in rural Pennsylvania but never lost sight of her real home in heaven, in God’s mansion, because she believed we were all virtually foreigners or guests on earth. After Alice, a tall American man with graying hair and sagging cheeks spoke. He declared that he’d known Monica for almost two decades, and in spite of her languid appearance, she had a good sense of humor and an extraordinary memory, and she enjoyed telling stories, especially to children. Once he’d told an anecdote from his childhood in which a man got drunk and exchanged his ulster for a puny catfish. A few weeks later he heard Monica telling the same story to a group of small girls but with a more dramatic ending: the man gave away his team of mules and wagon for a salmon, so now he couldn’t go home anymore and had to sleep in the open air with snow falling — he almost froze to death and lost two fingers. What had happened was that Monica had overheard him in the adjacent room when he was telling the anecdote. “Now,” the man concluded, “I hope she will entertain angels up there with all the jokes and stories she can make up with such grace and ease.”
That brought out laughter among the foreigners, while most Chinese remained quiet, bewildered. Indeed, a funeral was a sorrowful, solemn occasion. How come these foreigners wisecracked and gave belly laughs?
After the reminiscences, Searle, his face freshly shaved and his hair combed back, went to the pulpit and delivered a sermon in honor of Monica titled “The Christian Duties in the Time of War.” He spoke in Mandarin about the Japanese annexation of some Asian countries and about their brutalities. I knew that the Japanese kept a watchful eye on him because of his writings about their exploiting the narcotics business, and that they had also demanded that he surrender all the paperwork of the International Relief Committee — including the records of nine hundred cases of murder, rape, and arson within the Safety Zone perpetrated by Japanese soldiers during the first weeks after the fall of Nanjing — but he had told them that Eduard Sperling had taken all the files back to Cologne. Searle talked about the situation in Europe. He said, “Under the threat of a world war, what should we Christians do? First, we must strive to make peace and oppose war. Some of you were here when Nanjing fell two years ago and saw with your own eyes what it was like. Men can be more vicious than beasts of prey if they’re put in the extreme situation of war. No rules will be followed, and all kinds of evil will be unleashed. War is simply the most destructive force we human beings can produce, so we must make every effort to prevent it.
“However, if we survey human history, we can see that there were times when war was unavoidable, even necessary. There have been some wars that can be called just wars. For example, if people take up arms against foreign invaders, can we blame them? Should we attempt to dissuade them from fighting their national enemy? Of course not. Therefore, the Christians in those countries should fight like common citizens and should combine their fulfillment of Christian duties with the survival of their nations. As for those Christians whose countries are aggressors, they should do the opposite — work against war and do their utmost to make peace.”