she no longer knew. She wasn’t a woman given to crying. After her father had died and life became so difficult for her family, she hadn’t shed a single tear. But on this day the floodgates burst.
Ninth Brother must have gone crazy, or, as the Bible says, “been set upon by Satan.” That same night she went to the West Gate church and even before the pastor and his wife had brought her upstairs into the sitting room, Second Sister again choked back her sobs. “Pastor, Mrs. Chen, I beg you, pray for Ninth Brother and ask God to save him!”
“Dear Heavenly Father, dear Lord Jesus, your child asks you to comfort the heart of our sister Guo. Let her no longer be sorrowful. Help her pass through the pain and suffering of being separated from her husband. Bless and protect Brother Lin with a safe departure and a safe return.”
This prayer uttered by Pastor Chen greatly surprised Second Sister. She plucked up her courage to look at him and then at his wife. Why weren’t they asking the Heavenly Father to keep Ninth Brother from going? Surely they didn’t support the idea of his forsaking wife and children? Uh…Pastor Chen, don’t you say in your sermons that a husband should not leave his wife? The words coming from the pastor’s mouth were the will of God, and she didn’t dare to oppose this. Second Sister held back her tears.
As Ninth Brother’s good friend, Pastor Chen knew full well that Ninth Brother’s decision was no overnight impulse. He had seen with his own eyes how this thought from deep within Ninth Brother had formed into something resolute and strong, as a tiny seed grows day after day into an unshakable tree.
The second year after Ninth Brother’s return to Old Town, China’s three eastern provinces fell under the guns of the Japanese. After this, the war moved south and Shanghai fell. Ninth Brother had several schoolmates and good friends in Shanghai who threw on military uniforms and rushed to the Song-Hu Battle. 9 One of these perished in battle as he was rescuing the wounded. How China’s armies lacked doctors! And they especially needed Western-style ones on the battlefield. As he thought of the world beyond Old Town, Ninth Brother could not put words to his feelings of restlessness and distress. Here was a happy family as though from some tale of heaven: every evening his wife sewed in the lamplight of the parlor and the three children would sit around him in the sky well under the liquid moonlight. His daughter in her colored skirt sang country lyrics, “Shiny, shiny moon / shine on the parlor / bring out a bench for Dad / please, Dad, hear me sing a song.” The sweet, lovely voices of the children were like honey, like grape wine, intoxicating him, entrancing him, so he couldn’t tell heaven from earth. This was the peak of happiness and satisfaction for him. But every time he was alone, guilt, like poisonous vines, crept round and tangled in his heart. Countless nights Ninth Brother remained sleepless. While Second Sister breathed evenly beside him, he would sink into deep self-reproach at his life in this cowardly fool’s paradise. The only person in all of Old Town who could listen attentively to his inner struggles was Pastor Chen. Over these past few years he had wanted to go north to fight but didn’t. It was as if he realized that there would come a day when he would break the hearts of his wife and children, and so he especially treasured every day he spent with them. He wanted to give them a kind of advance overdraft account of all his love for them.
In the summer of 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident ignited the general explosion of China’s War of Resistance against Japan. Old Town’s own evening paper published the entire text of the National Government’s Declaration of the War of Self-Defense and Resistance. It covered the entire page in boldface and read as follows:
“China today seriously declares that its territorial sovereignty has been flagrantly violated
Ninth Brother must have gone crazy, or, as the Bible says, “been set upon by Satan.” That same night she went to the West Gate church and even before the pastor and his wife had brought her upstairs into the sitting room, Second Sister again choked back her sobs. “Pastor, Mrs. Chen, I beg you, pray for Ninth Brother and ask God to save him!”
“Dear Heavenly Father, dear Lord Jesus, your child asks you to comfort the heart of our sister Guo. Let her no longer be sorrowful. Help her pass through the pain and suffering of being separated from her husband. Bless and protect Brother Lin with a safe departure and a safe return.”
This prayer uttered by Pastor Chen greatly surprised Second Sister. She plucked up her courage to look at him and then at his wife. Why weren’t they asking the Heavenly Father to keep Ninth Brother from going? Surely they didn’t support the idea of his forsaking wife and children? Uh…Pastor Chen, don’t you say in your sermons that a husband should not leave his wife? The words coming from the pastor’s mouth were the will of God, and she didn’t dare to oppose this. Second Sister held back her tears.
As Ninth Brother’s good friend, Pastor Chen knew full well that Ninth Brother’s decision was no overnight impulse. He had seen with his own eyes how this thought from deep within Ninth Brother had formed into something resolute and strong, as a tiny seed grows day after day into an unshakable tree.
The second year after Ninth Brother’s return to Old Town, China’s three eastern provinces fell under the guns of the Japanese. After this, the war moved south and Shanghai fell. Ninth Brother had several schoolmates and good friends in Shanghai who threw on military uniforms and rushed to the Song-Hu Battle. 9 One of these perished in battle as he was rescuing the wounded. How China’s armies lacked doctors! And they especially needed Western-style ones on the battlefield. As he thought of the world beyond Old Town, Ninth Brother could not put words to his feelings of restlessness and distress. Here was a happy family as though from some tale of heaven: every evening his wife sewed in the lamplight of the parlor and the three children would sit around him in the sky well under the liquid moonlight. His daughter in her colored skirt sang country lyrics, “Shiny, shiny moon / shine on the parlor / bring out a bench for Dad / please, Dad, hear me sing a song.” The sweet, lovely voices of the children were like honey, like grape wine, intoxicating him, entrancing him, so he couldn’t tell heaven from earth. This was the peak of happiness and satisfaction for him. But every time he was alone, guilt, like poisonous vines, crept round and tangled in his heart. Countless nights Ninth Brother remained sleepless. While Second Sister breathed evenly beside him, he would sink into deep self-reproach at his life in this cowardly fool’s paradise. The only person in all of Old Town who could listen attentively to his inner struggles was Pastor Chen. Over these past few years he had wanted to go north to fight but didn’t. It was as if he realized that there would come a day when he would break the hearts of his wife and children, and so he especially treasured every day he spent with them. He wanted to give them a kind of advance overdraft account of all his love for them.
In the summer of 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident ignited the general explosion of China’s War of Resistance against Japan. Old Town’s own evening paper published the entire text of the National Government’s Declaration of the War of Self-Defense and Resistance. It covered the entire page in boldface and read as follows:
“China today seriously declares that its territorial sovereignty has been flagrantly violated
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