Pearl was grateful that the local people thought to honor her mother with their ancient traditions. She participated in the piety ceremony, where she lit incense at Carie’s altar and prayed for the comfort of her mother’s spirit.
I asked Pearl where her husband was.
“Lossing is an American…” Pearl said. “And he has been very busy.”
I sensed she was upset.
“Lossing should have been here for you, if for no other reason.”
Pearl appeared hurt, although she explained, “I told him that he didn’t have to come if he was busy.”
“Pearl.” I made her look at me. “What is going on?”
Reluctantly, she replied, “Lossing complains that I am too demanding. He didn’t even think that I should come. He wanted me to stay in Nanking and take care of Carol.”
I shook my head.
“Carol is not getting better…” Pearl broke down. “I don’t want to believe what I see. But I am forced to. My daughter doesn’t talk and doesn’t respond to me. I have tried to teach her, but I am not reaching her… Lossing thinks it is my fault. And I think it’s my fault, too… I didn’t make Carol right in the first place. I don’t know what happened… Lossing is devastated. He can’t believe that she is his child. He left us last week, again, for a field trip in the north. Maybe it’s for the better-we don’t have to fight endlessly… Lossing will be gone for three months, maybe longer. I am afraid that he won’t return…”
“Lossing will return,” I comforted her. “He is Carol’s father. Give him time.”
“You don’t know the truth of our marriage, Willow. It hasn’t been working. Carol’s trouble is like salt on top of a wound. I thought I could take it. I don’t mind Lossing taking his anger out on me. But when he is mean to Carol, I…”
I let her sob on my shoulder.
“I can’t see myself living with him anymore,” she continued. “Carol doesn’t know what is wrong. She doesn’t deserve her father’s cruelty.”
“You need Lossing at this moment,” I said.
She agreed. “We need money to pay Carol’s doctors in America.”
Pearl ’s searching for Carol’s cure would eventually end. After years of disappointment, she would accept her fate. Pickled in sorrow, she began to imagine her own accidental death and contemplated suicide. I wrote her as much as I could.
Pearl told me that writing had become her salvation. It was the only way that she could take her mind off her daughter. If she couldn’t fix Carol, she could fix the characters in her novels.
After Carie’s death, Absalom traveled deep inland, sometimes a year at a time. As a result, more Christian churches were established. Carpenter Chan followed Absalom. He brought his wife and children with him.
Papa continued to be responsible for the Chin-kiang Christian community. His recent achievements included the conversion of the richest man in Chin-kiang, the head of the famous Chin-kiang Vinegar Company. Receiving handsome contributions, Papa transferred the money to Absalom, who in turn funded Christian schools inland.
Besides being publisher and editor of the newspaper, I was also in charge of the Chin-kiang Christian Girls’ Middle School. I followed Carie’s original curriculum and added Chinese history, science, and mathematics.
I wasn’t aware of the Chin-kiang Independent’s popularity until I received a letter from the Nanking Daily offering me a position as its editor.
I accepted the offer without hesitation because I had always admired the Nanking Daily. The paper was as prestigious as the Shanghai Daily, and its readership reached all of southern China. The offer would expand my horizons and also enable me to reunite with Pearl.
As if our childhood had returned, Pearl welcomed me to Nanking. We climbed the famous Purple Mountain together. Beneath our feet spread the city of Nanking. Temples, shrines, and the tomb of the fourteenth-century Ming emperor were scattered over the mountainside. The city had a twenty-four-mile-long wall and nine elaborately decorated, forty-foot-high gates. Running beside the city was the Yangtze River, which flowed on to Chin-kiang.
“I love the winding cobbled streets and the little shops glimmering with candlelight at night,” Pearl said. “I adore the flickering oil lamps that light the streets. I can’t help but imagine the family life of the people within these ancient walls.”
After I settled into my small apartment near the newspaper office, we began to visit each other regularly. Pearl lived in a three-room brick house. It was modest compared to the residences of other foreigners. The house belonged to the university compound occupied mostly by faculty. Lossing had been living here for four years now. Like Carie, Pearl tended to her garden. Besides roses and camellias, there were tomatoes and cabbages.
I was pleased to see Carol again, although I was sad to witness her condition. She was five years old. I tried to communicate with her, but she did not respond. I also saw Lossing. His skin was whiter than I had remembered. He taught in the classroom, where he felt that he was wasting his time. He longed to return to the field.
“Please, Willow, stay for dinner,” Pearl insisted one evening. “It will be no trouble for me at all. The servants do everything for three bags of rice at the end of the month. It makes me feel guilty even though almost every white family in the city enjoys such help. My chef is from Yangchow, but he can also cook Peking and Cantonese style.”
It was at the dinner table that I witnessed the couple fight. Lossing needed Pearl to be his translator for his new field experiment, but Pearl refused.
“I no longer know who this woman is.” Lossing turned to me, speaking half jokingly. “She certainly doesn’t need a husband. She is having an affair with her imagined characters.”
“Perhaps writing eases her anxiety.” I tried to make peace.
Lossing interrupted me with laughter. “No, you don’t know her, Willow. My world is too small for this woman. Vanity and greed are the true demons here. And yet if Pearl has ambition, she has little skill or training. She wants to be a novelist, but she has no academic training and no material. She is lost as a mother, and she is bound to lose if she tries to make it as a writer.”
Pearl stared at Lossing, disgusted.
Lossing ignored her and continued, “It is destructive when a hobby turns into an obsession.”
“Stop it, Lossing,” Pearl said, trying to control her anger.
“You have a responsibility,” Lossing went on. “You owe this family!”
“Please, stop.”
“I have the right to express myself. And Willow has the right to know the truth.”
“What truth?” Pearl ’s eyes were burning.
“That this marriage is a mistake!” Lossing said loudly.
“As if we even have a marriage!” Pearl responded.
“No, we don’t,” Lossing agreed.
“You have no right to ask me to give up writing,” Pearl said.
“So you have made up your mind.” Lossing looked at her. “You have decided to ignore my needs and abandon this family.”
“How have I abandoned this family?”
“You disappear mentally when you write. We don’t exist. I know I don’t. You refuse to work with me to support this family. You well know that without your help I can’t do my job. You treat your writing as if it is a job, but all I see is an amateur at play. Let me remind you, I am the one who earns the money, who pays for the rent, all the living expenses, and Carol’s doctor fees!”
“Writing helps me stay sane.” Pearl was on the verge of tears.
“It doesn’t seem to be helping on that score.”