“At least it would be he and I against you, you naughty demon,” the old woman said.
The truth was that now, slowly, the old woman had begun to grow fond of the tall young soldier, and she had today made up her mind that it would be better indeed if her young mistress married him, for who else but a soldier would marry so free and wild a thing? A decent man wanted a quiet and obedient woman, and would she ever be a good wife to any usual man? Liu Ma could not believe it. So she had made up her mind secretly that when Sheng came next time she would let him know that she had changed and that now she favored him. She waited for him with impatience, never doubting that he would come as he had come every day to ask if there were any word of Mayli.
He did not come. All that day he did not come, and the old woman grew anxious. “It cannot be that the Big Soldier has gone off to war somewhere?” she asked Mayli in the afternoon of the second day. “He has not stayed away so long as this before.”
“What do we care if he is gone or not?” Mayli asked, pulling her dog’s ears. “We do not care do we, little dog?”
“I am used to that long radish,” Liu Ma said unwillingly.
“You like radishes better than I do, then,” she said, still laughing.
But Mayli would not acknowledge even to herself that she, too, wondered why Sheng did not come.
From that day, Mayli spoke no more of Sheng. There was no time indeed, for early the next morning Mayli was summoned by messenger to come to her superior, Pao Chen, to receive her orders.
When that message came she deemed it time to tell Liu Ma what lay ahead, and so when she had eaten and when the old woman came in to fetch away the bowls to wash, she lit a cigarette and said,
“Liu Ma, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell on, then,” the old woman replied. She stood waiting with her hands folded under her apron upon her middle.
“I am going away,” Mayli said abruptly. “I have received a command from the Ones Above to do a certain work I cannot tell of, but I must do it.”
Liu Ma did not speak, but her jaw dropped and she stared at Mayli.
“What day I go is not yet known,” Mayli said, “but that messenger who came this morning brought me the order from my superior and there I must go and see what is wanted of me. As for you, you will stay here until I return and keep the dog and this house. If you are lonely you may find another woman to stay with you.”
Now Liu Ma was used enough to change in her long life and, hearing whence the commands came, she did not dream of crying out against that, but still she did not like what she heard and because she could not protest the larger she protested the smaller.
“Why should I want another woman here to be fed and spoken to and noticed all the time? I had rather stay alone with the dog whom I know.”
“You shall do as you like,” Mayli said with good humor. “All that I ask is that you keep the house for a home for me.”
“I do not know whether it is well even for me to do that,” the old woman said, wanting to feel peevish. “This is not my native earth and water and how shall I know whether you will come back or not? You may change your wish and here I shall be waiting for you until I die and die, perhaps, with nothing but a dog beside my bed.”
“Now you are being troublesome,” Mayli said laughing. “I say then that you are only to stay if you wish to stay and, when you go, lock the gates and take the dog or leave it, and in all things do only as you wish, good soul.”
Thus she took away all cause for discontent, and this made the old woman more peevish still. She clattered the bowls as she picked them up and she said, “Why is it you are being sent for a work? Even in a dream I could not guess.”
“You must ask the lady that,” Mayli said. “I too wonder why I am sent, but I am sent and so I must go.”
“She does not know you,” Liu Ma exclaimed. “A willful rootless man-woman sort of thing you are,” Liu Ma went on, “and what will you do — hold a gun and march beside that big soldier?”
Now this pricked Mayli very deep and so she grew angry and leaning over she slapped Liu Ma’s cheek. “Hold your jaws together,” she cried. “I do not even know whether I am being sent where he goes or not. How evil an old mind that always runs upon lust and lechery!”
Liu Ma drew herself still at this. “I am a decent woman,” she bawled, “and what my mind runs on is getting you wed and made decent, too, instead of running everywhere loose. The only decent woman is one wed to a man and behind walls and made the mother of his children.”
“You dream, old woman,” Mayli retorted. “Is this a time for marriage and having children and being locked behind walls?”
Now that she spoke so sternly Liu Ma was frightened and so she held her peace and went on about her work though she thrust out her lip in a most sulky fashion. And Mayli made ready to obey the summons she had been given, and her anger made her silent, too, and she felt righteously that she was not going westward because of Sheng but truly enough because she wanted to go for what use she could be.
So she went on foot to the place where she had been told to go, and when she reached the gate she saw other women going in, too, all young and strong and grave-faced. She joined them and went in with them to a large room where two men sat behind desks and took their names and sent them to the right and left to wait.
When her turn came she was not sent with the others but straight ahead through an open door and there she found the same man who had been the only other passenger in the plane with her a few days past. She wondered when she saw him that he had not spoken to her that day beyond the commonest greeting. But still it was so that he had not chosen to speak, and now she did not recall herself to him. She stood before him until he bade her sit down, and then she sat and waited while he looked at a paper before him. Then he put it down.
“You have been told your duties,” he said.
“I have been told only part of them,” she replied.
“Here is all your other responsibility written down,” he said, and he took the sheet of paper and handed it to her. “Read it,” he commanded, “and tell me what you do not understand.”
She read it carefully, and there was nothing she could not understand. Indeed all was written down and numbered. He waited motionless while she read.
“Is all clear?” he asked.
“It is clear,” she replied.
“It is your duty to see to each of these things,” he said, “and if any fails to be done I shall look to you. Your co-worker will be the head doctor, Chung Liang-mo. Together you two will be responsible for all that concerns the sick and the wounded and the nurses will work under both of you. In this he will be responsible for the medical and surgical matters, but you will be responsible for all that concerns the nurses, the food, the quarters, the supplies. Where you disagree, you will come to me and I will decide between you. I do not expect disagreement.”
She bowed her head in assent. He struck a bell on the table and a soldier came in.
“Invite Dr. Chung to come here,” he said.
He sat silent and without moving until in a few minutes another man entered the room. Now Mayli waited with some impatience for this man, for this was the one with whom she must work side by side, and if she disliked him from the beginning the work would be the more difficult. But the moment he came in she liked him. Chung Liang-mo was a man short and strong in the body, and his head was round and his face round and he had a patient mouth and patient good eyes, and yet intelligence was the light behind the eyes. He was neither shy nor bold. He greeted Pao Chen as though they were friends and sat down, and Pao Chen seemed to wake into new interest and he said,
“This is your co-worker, Wei Mayli, of whom you have been told. She has received her orders and you have received yours, and it would be well for you to draw apart and talk together awhile. Go into this next room while I proceed with what I have to do.”