Peony: A Novel of China (21 page)

“
Abraham, the patriarch who founded the religion of Israel, was of the nineteenth generation from P’anku Adam
.”

“You see,” the Rabbi broke in. “P’anku is the Chinese first man. Yet even those who carved these tablets put his name with Adam.” David smiled and read on:

“
From the creation of Heaven and earth the patriarchs handed down the tradition that they received. They made no image, flattered no spirits and ghosts, and believed in no superstitions. Instead they believed that spirits and ghosts cannot help men, that idols cannot protect them, and that superstitions are useless. So Abraham meditated only upon Heaven
.”

David’s strong young voice fell silent. But to meditate upon Heaven was what his Chinese tutor also taught him! For some weeks now he had not gone to the Confucian, but the last time he had gone was on the midsummer feast night. The sky had been full of stars, and the old man had lifted his face to them.

“We can meditate upon Heaven,” he had murmured, “but we cannot know it.”

“The synagogue has twice been swept away by flood from the Yellow River,” the old rabbi said, not knowing David’s thoughts. “Yet these great stones have been preserved. Our God does not allow the name of His people to perish.”

They walked on slowly. The sky had darkened, and looking up, David saw hovering above the walls black clouds edged with silver.

“It will rain and then the air will be cooler everywhere,” he answered.

The Rabbi paid no heed. “Come with me into the Holy of Holies,” he said with solemn excitement. “I want to put the Torah into your hands, my son.”

They stepped over the high threshold and into the dim innermost chamber of the synagogue, and crossing the smooth tiles of the floors, they went toward the Ark. Before it stood a table, and above it was an archway, made in three parts, upon which was written:

          
Blessed be the Lord,

          
The God of Gods, the Lord of Lords,

          
The Great, the Mighty and Terrible God.

These words the Rabbi spoke aloud in a deep voice, and suddenly, like an echo from heaven, thunder rolled through the synagogue. The Rabbi stood still, lifting his face until his beard was thrust high. Then in the silence after the thunder he parted the curtains, and David saw the cases that held the Torah. They were gilt-lacquered, and the hinges were gilded, and there was a flame-shaped knob on each cover.

“These are the sacred books of Moses,” the Rabbi said in his grave voice, “and there are twelve, one for each of the tribes of our people, and the thirteenth is for Moses.”

So saying, he opened the thirteenth box, which like the others was in the shape of a long cylinder, and he set it upon a high carved chair, which was the Chair of Moses. Then he opened the cylinder and he took out the book.

“Put out your hands,” he commanded David.

David put them out and the Rabbi placed upon them the ancient book, shaped like a roll of thick paper.

“Open it,” he commanded, and David opened it.

“Can you read it?” the Rabbi asked.

“No,” David said. “You know the letters are Hebrew.”

“I will teach them to you,” the Rabbi declared. “To you, my true son, I will teach the mysteries of the tongue in which God gave the law to Moses, our ancestor, who carried the law down from the mountain to our people, who waited in the valley.”

The thunder was rolling again around the synagogue and the Rabbi bowed his head. When there was silence he spoke on. “It is you who will speak to our people in the words of the law, a second Moses, O my son.”

Then lifting his head and raising his hands high above it, the Rabbi cried out words that were used by the people when they worshiped in the synagogue.

“Hear ye, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One!”

His great voice drew out the solemn word One into a long wail, and again the thunder roared.

Who can say how this thunder, echoing the Rabbi’s voice, might have sealed the soul of David, the son of Ezra? But even as his soul trembled, even as he waited for the still small voice of God to come out of the storm, his eyes fell upon an inscription carved into a little tablet. There were many such inscriptions set into tablets, the gifts of Jews who had wished through hundreds of years to leave something of themselves in the synagogue. This tablet was less than any other, a dusty bit of marble without ornament. But upon its face a Jew, now forgotten and dead, had put this part of himself into these words that now fell under David’s eyes:

Worship is to honor Heaven, and righteousness is to follow the ancestors. But the human mind has always existed before worship and righteousness.

The wickedness in these last words shook the soul of David as though he had heard laughter in this sacred place. Some old Jew whose blood was mixed too strongly with ribald Chinese blood had written those words and had commanded them to be carved upon stone and set even into the synagogue! David laughed aloud, and he was not able to keep back his laughter.

The Rabbi heard it and was shocked. “Why do you laugh?” he demanded, and his voice was very sharp.

“Father,” David said honestly, “I see something that makes me laugh.”

“Give me back the Torah!” the Rabbi said angrily.

“Forgive me,” David said.

“May the Lord forgive you!” the Rabbi retorted. He took the Torah from David’s hand and fastened it into the case and put it into its place in the Ark. He felt confused and wounded. All his ecstasy was stopped, giddiness seized him, and he leaned upon the chair.

“Leave me,” he said shortly to David. “I will pray for a while.”

“Shall I not wait for you?” David asked, ashamed but still smiling.

“I will find the way alone,” the Rabbi said, and so stern was his voice and look that David left him.

A clear cool wind swept through the synagogue as David walked away, and he breathed it in. He was dazed by the sudden change in the air, in himself, and he scarcely knew what had happened.
The human mind has always existed before worship and righteousness
—the human mind, his mind! He stood at the gate of the synagogue, at the top of the steps, and his spirit, held taut and high for so many days, was suddenly loosed like a stone from a sling. The storm had passed over the city and the air was cool and bright, the sun was shining down on the wet roofs and upon the wet stones of the streets, and the people looked gay and cheerful and busy.

At this moment as the sun poured into the streets after the storm he chanced to see Kung Chen. The merchant had been held in the teashop by the rain beyond his usual hour for drinking his mid-morning tea, and now he was choosing his path over the wet cobblestones toward his countinghouse. He was his usual calm and satisfied self, and in the new cool air his summer robe of cream-colored silk was bright and his black silk shoes were spotless. In the collar of his robe he carried his folded black fan, and his dark hair was combed smoothly back from his shaven forehead and braided in a queue with a black silk tasseled cord. A handsomer man of his age could not have been found in the city, or one more pleasant to look upon. His all-seeing eyes fell upon David and he paused to call his name.

“How is my elder brother, your father?” Kung Chen inquired.

“Sir, I have not seen my father this morning,” David replied. He ran down the steps, drawn to Kung Chen as inevitably as a child is drawn to a smiling and cheerful adult. Indeed, it was comforting to allow himself to feel young and even childish before this powerful and yet kindly man. In these days when he had been so closely with the Rabbi he had been stretched and lifted beyond himself.

“Have you been worshiping your god?” Kung Chen asked in the same voice that he might have used in asking if David had been to a theater.

“The Rabbi has been teaching me,” David replied.

Kung Chen hesitated. Then he said in a voice of curiosity, “I have always wanted to see inside your temple, but I suppose it would not be allowed.”

“Why not?” David replied. “If it is your wish, please come in now.”

He had no desire to return to the synagogue, and yet he was glad of a reason to stay with Kung Chen, and so half proudly he led the way up the steps again, and the old gateman, looking doubtful, opened the wide doors and let them pass in.

How different did the synagogue now look! The sun was pouring down upon it out of a bright sky, and Kung Chen did not feel fear or reverence but only courtesy. He looked at everything with lively eyes and he read the inscriptions in a loud cheerful voice, approving all.

Thus he read aloud from the vertical tablets such lines as these:

Acknowledging Heaven, Earth, Prince, Parent, and Teacher, you are not far from the correct road of Reason and Virtue.

When looking up in contemplation of what Heaven has created, I dare not withhold my reverence and my awe.

When looking down, in worship of our ever-living Lord, I ought to be pure in mind and body.

These sayings were hung on the pillars of the central door of the Front Great Hall, and Kung Chen admired them very much. He turned to David and said with surprise and pleasure, “Why, young sir, your people and mine believe in the same doctrines! What is there different between us?”

And before David could answer he read aloud another that said this:

From the time of Abram, when our faith was established, and ever after, we the Jews of China have spread the knowledge of God and in return we have received the knowledge of Confucius and Buddha and Tao.

Kung Chen wagged his big smooth head in approval, and so he went from one tablet to another, increasing his approval of each. But the one that he liked best was one that said:

Before the Great Void, we burn the fragrant incense, entirely forgetting its name or form.

Side by side David and the great Chinese walked through the synagogue, and the heart of each pondered its own desires. Kung Chen said to himself that he need not fear to give his daughter to a house where the wisdom was so nearly that of the Sages, and David felt that the weight that had descended upon him in the days since Kao Lien came back from the West was somehow gone. The very presence of Kung Chen was cheering and enlightening, and the bands about David’s spirit loosened. Surely this good man could not be altogether wrong, and perhaps the Rabbi was not altogether right. Small glints of hope and comfort began to creep into the crevices of David’s being, and after these many days without pleasure he longed for it again. He longed suddenly to go out into the sunlit streets, where the dust was laid by the rain, and wander about in his old idle fashion. He felt as if he had been away on a journey into a dark land and that he was home again. And he knew that it was Kung Chen who made him feel so, this ample, slow-moving, kindly figure at his side.

Now as they walked, Kung Chen admired all he saw, stone monuments and memorial archways, the big lotus-shaped stone bowls placed in the courtyards, the bathing house, and the slaughterhouse. Of these last two he inquired of David, wondering that in a temple these should be found. When he heard that the Jews believed the body must be clean before the rites were observed, he nodded his head, approving, but he wondered when David said that their faith demanded that the sinews be plucked from an animal killed for sacrifice, and he asked why this was. When he heard the story of one called Jacob who wrestled with an angel, he smiled his unbelieving smile. “For myself,” he said, “I am inclined against taking life even for worship.” Then he laughed aloud. “So I say, and yet when a dainty dish of pork is set before me, I eat it as eagerly as the next man does! We are all human.”

By this time David was beginning to be troubled lest the Rabbi had not left the inner chamber. What if he were there, and what if he were angry that David returned bringing a Chinese with him? He walked slowly and delayed at every possible place, but he was compelled at last to come to the door of the Holy of Holies, and there indeed he saw the Rabbi before the Ark, in prayer. To his shame he was glad for this moment that the old man was blind, so that if he lifted his head he could not see. Kung Chen stopped on the threshold and looked at David.

“The old teacher!” he whispered.

“He is praying,” David whispered back.

They were about to withdraw, but the Rabbi lifted his head. His hearing was very acute and he had heard both footsteps and whispering voices.

“David, my son,” he called in a loud voice, “you have come back!”

The Rabbi had regretted his anger and he had stood before the Lord, praying that David come, and he thought now that his prayer was answered. He went toward the door, his hands outstretched. David would have drawn back, but Kung Chen’s ready mercy overflowed and he stepped forward.

“Old Teacher, please be careful,” he said.

The Rabbi stopped and his hands dropped. “Who is here?” he demanded.

Kung Chen felt no wrong, and so he answered at once. “It is I, Kung Chen the merchant. I saw my friend Ezra’s son at the gate, and being curious, I asked him to bring me inside your temple.”

At this the Rabbi was suddenly overcome with rage. He cried out to David, “How is it that you bring a stranger into this place?”

Kung Chen might have let this go as the superstition of an old priest, but he felt it only just to defend David, and so he said in an amiable voice, “Calm yourself, Old Teacher. It was not he who asked me to come. Blame me.”

“You are a son of Adam,” the Rabbi said with sternness, “but he is a son of God. The blame is on him.”

Kung Chen was much surprised. “I am no son of Adam,” he declared. “Indeed, there is no such name among my ancestors.”

“The heathen people are all the sons of Adam,” the old Rabbi declared.

Now Kung Chen felt his own wrath rising. “I do not wish to be called the son of a man of whom I have never heard,” he declared. His voice was mild, for he would have considered it beneath him as a superior man to show his anger, especially to an old man. But it boiled in him, and he had much trouble to hide it as he went on. “Moreover, I do not like to hear any man call only himself and his people the sons of God. Let it be that you are the sons of your god if you please, but there are many gods.”