Authors: Anchee Min
The roles of host and guest were reversed from the beginning. Hsu Chih-mo was getting more attention than his distinguished guest, Tagore. The two stood shoulder to shoulder onstage in front of a podium. Tagore read his poem
Gitanjali
as Hsu Chih-mo translated. Listeners packed the hall. Students applauded at each of Hsu Chih-mo’s sentences.
Looking like a brass temple bell, Tagore was wrapped in a brown blanket. Although he was only in his fifties, the Chinese thought him older because of his chest-length gray beard. In contrast, Hsu Chih-mo was slender, youthful, and stylish. One could easily tell that he was what the crowd had been waiting for. He was the reigning prince of Chinese literature.
Tagore grew increasingly uneasy as the students cheered Hsu Chih-mo. Turning to Hsu Chih-mo, Tagore said, “I thought the crowd was here to see me.”
“Yes, sir,” Hsu Chih-mo assured him. “The people have come to celebrate your work.”
Pearl and I sat in the front row. I wore my silver Shanghai-style coat with a crimson silk scarf. Pearl had arrived late. She wore her wrinkled brown jacket and black cotton skirt and was in a pair of Chinese peasant shoes. Her socks were so worn they hung loose at her ankles. From the disarray of her hair, I knew she’d just had a problem with Carol.
“I can’t believe it. You didn’t bother to dress up,” I whispered in her ear.
She cut me off. “Just be glad that I am here.”
I wouldn’t let her off easily. “It’s Hsu Chih-mo, for God’s sake. How often do we get to meet with a celebrity?”
She gave me a tired look.
“What?” I asked.
“Don’t.”
“Say it.” I held her elbow.
“Fine.” She turned and whispered in my ear, “I wouldn’t have minded missing Hsu Chih-mo. Tagore is the one I came for.”
“How about I take the young one and you take the old?” I teased.
“Shush!”
The duet on the stage continued. Hsu Chih-mo translated Tagore’s last poem:
I am only waiting for love to give myself up at last into his hands
That is why it is so late and why I have been guilty of such omissions
They come with their laws and their codes to bind me fast
But I evade them ever
For I am only waiting for love to give myself up at last into his hands
People blame me and call me heedless
I doubt not they are right in their blame
“Tagore is lucky,” I whispered to Pearl.
Nodding, she agreed. “Hsu Chih-mo is particularly good at reconstructing Tagore’s sentences into Chinese.”
“Tagore doesn’t seem to fully appreciate it.”
Hsu Chih-mo continued,
The market day is over and work is all done for the busy
Those who came to call me in vain have gone back in anger
I am only waiting for love to give myself up at last into his hands
Pearl and Hsu Chih-mo stood together in front of her class. She had invited the poet to speak to her students the day after his appearance with Tagore. This was before they knew what was going to happen—long before historians wrote about this moment.
I could tell that Hsu Chih-mo was surprised by the excellence of Pearl’s Chinese. Except for her Western features and the color of her hair, Pearl was Chinese in every way.
“My apologies for the humble reception, but our hearts are sincere.” Pearl smiled and gestured to one of her students to come pour tea for Hsu Chih-mo.
“Long Jing from Hangchow,” Pearl said, taking the tea to Hsu Chih-mo. She bowed lightly after placing the cup in front of him.
In retrospect, it was I who didn’t see that Hsu Chih-mo was attracted to Pearl the moment he laid eyes on her. Her ease and confidence caught him.
“Where are you from?” Hsu Chih-mo asked Pearl, ignoring the class.
In a perfect Chin-kiang dialect, Pearl replied, “The pig is from River North.”
He understood her joke and laughed.
Many southern Chinese called coolies, drifters, beggars, and bandits River North Pigs, because they came from the northern, unfertile part of the Yangtze River and were poor and a lower class. With this joke, Pearl revealed two facts about herself. First, she was a native. Second, she identified with the people. If she had wanted, she could have spoken perfect Mandarin with an Imperial accent.
During the class Hsu Chih-mo discussed his effort in translating Tagore.
Pearl was charming, although her questions were daring. She challenged Hsu Chih-mo on the Indian rhythm compared to the Chinese. She also asked him to explain the art of his translation, especially the difference between being “faithful in appearance” and “faithful in essence.”
Infatuated with Hsu Chih-mo, I was blind and deaf to what was truly happening between him and Pearl.
“What influenced you to become a poet?” a female student raised her arm and asked.
“Craziness,” Hsu Chih-mo replied. “My mother said that I was a spooky child. My eyes were open and my lips uttered strange words at night. Poetry to me was like rocks and cards were to other boys.”
A male student with glasses asked, “You are called the Chinese Shelley. What do you make of that?”
“It doesn’t mean anything to me.” Hsu Chih-mo smiled. “But I am honored, of course.”
“What do you do to make your poems successful?” Pearl asked.
Hsu Chih-mo thought before he replied. “I feel very much like a tailor making a pair of pants. I first study the fabric so I know how to cut it. A good pair of pants takes a great deal of fabric. I make sure that my cuts go with the grain instead of against it.”
A loud voice came from the back of the room. “Mr. Hsu, what is your view of the literary movement in our society today?”
The question threw a boulder into a calm pond. Hsu Chih-mo was stirred. “It disturbs me that our country debates whether or not the Chinese language should be made accessible to the peasants!” His voice resonated. “As we all know, the emperor we overthrew thirteen years ago spoke a private language, which nobody but he and his tutor understood. Our proud civilization and heritage become ridiculous when our language is used to create not communication and understanding, but distance and isolation.”
As the editor in chief of the
Nanking Daily
, I created, sponsored, and produced the news program
China Literary Front
. The program was syndicated across all of China. I was able to travel, dine, and converse with some of the brightest minds of our time. But what I enjoyed most was my time with Hsu Chih-mo. He was guarded at first, but I earned his trust. By the end of our work together, we had become good friends. I asked him about the inner force that drove him.
“The inner force is far more important than talent,” Hsu Chih-mo revealed. “Writing is my rice and air. One shouldn’t bother picking up a pen if that is not the case.”
“That is exactly the case with my friend Pearl Buck,” I said.
“You mean the River North Pig?” He smiled remembering her.
“Yes.”
“What has she written?”
“She has written essays, poems, and novels. She is my special columnist. I’ll send you copies of her articles if you are interested.”
“Yes, please.”
As we continued talking, Hsu Chih-mo asked how Pearl and I had become friends.
The problem with people who end up digging their own grave is that they often have no idea they are digging it. Such was my case as I told Hsu Chih-mo stories about my friend.
After Tagore went back to India and Hsu Chih-mo returned to Shanghai, I felt inspired and enlightened. Against my better judgment, I gave in to my emotions. If I had never believed in fate and coincidence before, it wouldn’t be long before I did. When the Nanking University board asked me to help invite Hsu Chih-mo to come back and teach, I did everything within my power to make it happen.
Pearl didn’t think that Nanking University stood a chance of getting Hsu Chih-mo. “He has been teaching at Peking University and Shanghai University,” she reminded me. I decided to play a card that at the time I thought was brilliant. As friends, Pearl and I together wrote Hsu Chih-mo a personal invitation.
A few weeks later, Hsu Chih-mo responded and said he was on his way.
After Hsu Chih-mo’s arrival, the center of China’s literary society shifted from Shanghai to Nanking. Nanking University became the main stage of the New Cultural Movement. I hosted weekly events featuring journalists, writers, and artists from all over the country. I was so busy that I ate my meals standing up. I hadn’t had time to visit Pearl for weeks, so one evening I decided to drop by.
She surprised me with the news that Lossing had moved out.
“He is living with Lotus,” Pearl said in a subdued voice.
“What about Carol?” I asked.
“Lossing said that Carol wouldn’t know the difference. He insists that she doesn’t even know that he is her father.”
I tried to comfort her. “The important thing is that you are doing the best you can.”
She shook her head.
“You have your own life to live, Pearl.”
“Carol doesn’t deserve this. Her own father abandoning her . . .”
“Carol may not be aware . . .”
“But I am!” she almost shouted.
I went quiet.
She began to sob.
I walked to the kitchen to get her a cup of water.
“Pearl,” I said gently. “You have to comb your hair and dress yourself, and you have to eat.”
“I would like to simply slip away, to die,” she responded. “I need to be released from this trap.”
“Have you been writing?” I asked.
“I can’t do anything else but write. Here.” She tossed me a stack of pages. “From last week. Two short stories.”
I glanced at the titles. “The Seventh Dragon” and “The Matchmaker.”
“You have been productive, Pearl.”
“I was going crazy until I started typing.”
I asked if there was any interest from publishers.
“No. One editor from New York was kind enough to send me a note of explanation after rejecting my manuscript. What he said was no news to me. Lossing has been telling me the same thing all along.”
“That Western readers are not interested in China?”
She nodded.
“Well, perhaps they are only accustomed to stories of little merit. It may take time to convince them that what you write is different,” I said. “Have you tried Chinese publishing houses?”
Have you “Yes.”
“And?”
“I made a fool of myself,” she sighed. “The right-wing Chinese houses want pure escapism, while the left-wing want nothing but Communism and Russia.”
“And you don’t care about either of those?”
“No.”
“Unfortunately, you still need money.”
“Unfortunately.”
I invited Pearl to come with me to a New Year’s party hosted by the
Nanking Daily
. Pearl didn’t want to go, but I insisted.
“Hsu Chih-mo will be there.” I could hardly contain my excitement.
“Too bad he is your interest—not mine.”
“He’s the only one who hasn’t read you. He told me he wants to read your work.”
“I am not going.”
“Please. I don’t want to look desperate.”
“Desperate? Oh, I see.”
“Will you come?”
“Okay, I’ll go for tea only.”
Hsu Chih-mo stood on a chair waving his arms. “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to present my best friend, the great hope of China’s new literature, Dick Lin! He is the seventh translator of Karl Marx’s
Communist
Manifesto
and the editor of the
Shanghai Avant-Garde Magazine
.” Hsu Chih-mo was dressed in a Western black silk suit with a Chinese collar and Chinese cotton shoes. His hair was neatly combed from the middle to the sides.
The crowd cheered. “Dick Lin! Dick Lin!”
Dick Lin, a short and broad-shouldered man with black-framed glasses, came to shake hands with Pearl and me. He was in his thirties. He had a pair of lizard eyes and a crooked nose. The corners of his mouth drew downward and gave him a serious, almost bitter expression.
“I admire your work at the
Nanking Daily
,” Dick blurted out to me. “How about working for us?”
Though I was flattered, I was taken aback by his directness.
“You will be guaranteed your own page plus the weekend edition,”
Dick continued. “You can run it any way you want. We’ll match your current salary and add a bonus.”
I turned to Pearl. My eyes said, “Can you believe this man?”
She smiled.
Dick turned to Pearl and began to speak English with a Chinese accent. “Welcome to China,” he said, bowing with exaggeration. “It is my honor to meet you! Hsu Chih-mo tells me that you came to China in diapers. Is that true? No wonder your Chinese is flawless. Do you know Chinese is a very dangerous language for foreigners? One slip in tone and ‘Good morning’ becomes ‘Let us go to bed together.’”
The debate was moderated by Hsu Chih-mo. The topic was “Should novelists write for people or write as people?” The discussion soon became heated.
“A novelist’s duty is to wake society’s conscience,” Dick insisted. “He must make the peasants learn shame—I am talking about those who bought and ate the bread made of the bodies of the revolutionaries!”
The crowd clapped.
“China is where she is because our intellectuals are selfish, arrogant, decadent, and irresponsible,” Dick continued. “It’s time for our novelists to demonstrate leadership . . .”
Pearl raised her hand.
Hsu Chih-mo nodded for her to speak.
“Have you ever thought,” she said, “that it might be the author’s choice to write
as
the people? No matter how you justify the horror of an act like the one you just used as an example, the fact is that China’s majority is made of peasants. My question is, Don’t peasants deserve a voice of their own?”
“Well, you must pick a worthy peasant to portray,” Dick responded. “Like harvesting a fruit tree, you pick the good apples and throw away the rotten. Again, you have an obligation toward society, which needs a moral compass.”
“Does that mean you won’t publish authors who write with the voice of the real people?” I asked.
“Personally, I won’t.”
“Then you are denying representation to ninety-five percent of China’s population.” Pearl’s voice was pitched.
Holding firm in his view, Dick declared, “We deny these small-minded, ill-mannered characters a voice.”
“Who will you publish then?” I asked.
“The authors who are committed in their fight against Capitalism,” Dick replied. “In fact, we are aggressively seeking to publish works by authors that represent the proletarian class. We’ll assure these authors’ success.”
“Dick wants to change the world,” Hsu Chih-mo teased.
“Shouldn’t it be up to the readers?” Pearl challenged.
“No,” Dick said. “Readers need guidance.”
Smiling, Pearl disagreed. “Readers are smarter than we think.”
“Mrs. Buck.” Dick lowered his voice, although it was still loud enough for the room to hear. “I was the editor who rejected your manuscript. I am sure you have tried other publishers without success. My point is that we, not readers, decide.”
Pearl got up and quietly walked out of the room.
I rose and followed her.
Outside in the hall, Pearl rushed toward the door. Hurrying my steps, I suddenly heard footfalls behind me. I turned and there was Dick Lin, coming my way.
I paused, thinking that he might wish to apologize for his rudeness toward my friend.
“Willow,” he called out as I stopped. “Willow, when can I see you again? I would love to buy you a cup of tea sometime.”
I sneered and turned, making my way toward the door.
Hsu Chih-mo’s wet hair fell across his face. He stood in front of me by the garden door. His hand reached up to his face to wipe away the rain. “I come to apologize to Pearl for my friend if he has offended her.”
I said, “Pearl Buck has told me that she no longer wishes to be part of the Nanking literary circle.”
“Dick didn’t mean to attack.” Hsu Chih-mo insisted that he have a chance to speak with Pearl face-to-face.
I stood looking at him and wanted time to stop. My emotions churned and I started to feel sick inside. I kept telling myself: The man has no interest in me! But my heart refused to listen. My eyes luxuriated in the sight of him.
Hsu Chih-mo looked away uneasily.
“I will pass the message,” I said like a fool.
Pearl sat by the table and drank her tea as if she was lost in her own thoughts. I had torn her away from her writing and brought her to my house so that Hsu Chih-mo could talk to her. I was sure that Pearl would leave as soon as he delivered his friend’s apology. I waited impatiently for my own private time with Hsu Chih-mo.
“Dick is oblivious.” Hsu Chih-mo leaned forward, holding his cup in both hands. “He is combative by nature, but he is good-hearted. He is a genius. To have a conversation with him is like planting seeds together. Wisdom will sprout once you allow sunshine. Only those who appreciate honesty can enjoy Dick. He is passionate about what he believes.”
“So you are here to deliver Dick Lin’s message?” Pearl’s eyes were on the tree outside the window.
“No,” Hsu Chih-mo said so gently that it was as if he had merely breathed. “I come to deliver my own message.”
She didn’t ask to know.
He waited.
I found myself tortured by the fact that he tried to get her attention, tried to get her to turn her head.