Affairs in Order

Colin Tolbert was a man who kept his affairs in order.  It was a lesson his father taught him as a boy.   Constantly reminded of his father’s golden rule when he shadowed his father in the fields, the apple orchard and the barn.  Amos, his father, told him to keep his affairs in order, because you never know when the good Lord will knock on your door.  Be ready for that hour, because you never know when He will come for you.  His father’s hour came after a long illness. In his final chapter, there were loose ends that Colin had to take care of before interring his father into the family plot next to Lauren, his wife, Colin’s mother.  

The journey from his farm to the train depot would take most of the day since he was taking his reliable quarter horse and wagon rig traveling almost twenty miles on a two lane country road.  With harvest coming in two weeks, Colin could not afford to lose the day if he was going to keep his affairs in order.   

He tugged on Maybelle's leather harness as they walked along the rural two lane road that led to the train depot in Dryden, New York.  The wagon rig hitched to Maybelle’s harness, clanged with each step she took. Maybelle had done her share of hauling over the past twenty years, but this was different.  She could tell by how each step Colin took seemed like a chore.  Every so often a car whizzed by,  kicking up dust and gravel as it passed.

"Hey girl, we have about two more miles to go before we get there." He rubbed her behind her ear just like she liked it.  Colin was anxious because in two weeks his farm would be a beehive of activity as a couple dozen hired apple pickers would be filling bushel baskets for the market.  

The real reason for his sour mood was the Western Union telegram he had tucked in the breast pocket of his overalls.  Telegrams seldom contained good news and the one he got was no exception.

To:  Colin Tolbert, Dryden, NY

From: American Embassy, Canton, China

<Confirm death of Virgil Tolbert <STOP>  Remains returned to Dryden with body of spouse Chai Xing. <STOP>

The last time Colin had seen his younger brother, he was waving from the train departing from the train station at Dryden to New York City where he would catch a flight to China.  

The last letter he got from Virgil was two years ago when he was at A mission on the banks of  the Gongshui River near Xiayao Village.  In that letter he included A crude black and white photograph of Chai Xing with his arm around her shoulders with the caption, "Love of my Life." He folded the telegram over that photograph.

Ever since he could remember, his brother Virgil was a rebel.  He bucked  authority.  He rejected the better judgment of those who had his best interests at heart.

"You are his favorite." Virgil confided in Colin as they sat in the barn to wait out a summer rainstorm when Colin turned fifteen years old. "I am just the kid who won't listen." 

"Why, Virg?  Just do what I do." He advised Virgil.

"And what's that?" He said out of the side of his mouth.

"Just nod and smile."

"I can't do that, Coll." He groaned.

"It takes practice." Colin instructed his brother. “I’ll teach you.” 

"Like keep your affairs in order?" Virgil turned his head so Colin could see the scowl on his face.  Lightning lit up the sky, turning it from blackness into A dazzling white light. “What a crock that is.  Life is too interesting to get tied up in such trivial nonsense.” 

"One day we will run this farm." Colin said with excitement in his voice.

"I don't see myself working on this farm when I grow up." His laugh was cruel. At that moment of time, it was apparent to Colin, Virgil would not stick around to help Colin maintain the farm.  

"Maybelle, let's take a break under that oak tree over yonder." He pointed to A shady spot on the side of the narrow road away from the traffic.  "It won't be much longer, girl."  

He put his hands on her featherly mane as she nodded her head as if she understood what he was saying. Pulling a jug of water from the rig, he gave her a long drink. It was a hotter than usual late summer day and the sun was straight overhead.  Checking his pocket watch, Colin confirmed that it was now past noon.  He estimated that they would get to the depot at about one o'clock. 

He saw her at the grange hall when he came back from the war in Italy and then Germany in September 1945.  Still wearing his uniform, he saw Emily Crestwell with a couple of other women sipping on straws set in icy glass Coke bottles.  She looked up at him as he edged his way over, her brown eyes scanned him in his army uniform. Clearing his throat, he bowed his head before asking, "My name is Colin and I was wondering if you'd do the honor of dancing the next number with me?"

She looked at her friends who all nodded in agreement before smiling and answering, "It would be my pleasure, I'm sure."

They were wed a year later in a small Presbyterian chapel in Dryden.  A few months later, she was pregnant.  The fairytale, however, ended abruptly when she lost the child.  A month later her doctor discovered a tumor in her uterus. Before the operation, Emily held his hand as she sobbed, "You deserve children, Colin."

"All I want...all I pray for is that you will survive so we can spend the rest of our lives together." He said, wiping the tears from his eyes.  

Due to the  physical trauma she suffered and the radical weight loss, she would not survive her operation.  Colin hitched up Maybelle, who was a much younger quarter horse back then, and took Emily’s body to the family plot.  Located on the south side of the barn under a spreading  elm tree, Colin laid Emily to her eternal rest,  right next to his father.  It was raining as Reverend Adam Kelche said a few words over her grave.  Colin remained silent as the rain fell on them throughout her service mixing his tears with raindrops. 

"Harvest is coming." He stood up and wiped the sweat off his neck with a bandana he kept in his hip pocket. "Things are going to be busy for sure, girl."

He grabbed her harness and led her back to the side of the road to continue on their journey.  The sun continued to beat down on them as they continued to walk along the route that offered little or no shade.  Colin felt relieved as they turned the bend in the road, he could now see the depot come into view.  

He could see a train pulled into the station as they descended the hill into Dryden.  Colin suspected that it was the train that carried his brother's body along with his Chinese wife.  

His letters were infrequent at best, but Virgil wrote about the political upheaval the country was going through.  The Japanese were ruthless and cruel during their control of the country, but from what he was able to gather from his brother’s last letter, the man in charge of the country called for a Cultural Revolution.  This revolution would extinguish the old ways along with any people who dared oppose the revolution.  

One of the targets of this man's revolution was Christianity who he blamed for the regression of his country.  From what Colin had read in the newspaper, this man had slaughtered more of his people than the Japanese oppressors had.  Among his victims were his brother and his wife.  

"I am going to China." Virgil announced when he got the letter from the church.   

"Congratulations?" Colin hugged his brother. "Are you going to tell dad?"

"Are you crazy?" He shook his head,"Have you told him you are going into the army?" 

"Naw.  What about the Japs?  Do you think they are going to let you in?" Colin asked.

A flash of anger streaked across Virgil's face, "God will protect me." 

As it turned out, he did, because Virgil made it to St. Jude's Presbyterian Mission in October 1942.  It was a small community that subsided on their rice crop, flooding the fields from the Gongshui River.

In one of his rare letters, Virgil enclosed a photograph of the rice fields along the river that helped feed the village with a group of local people with his fair skinned brother mugging it up for the camera. He taped the photograph to the General Electric refrigerator.

Sam O'Neal saw Colin and Maybelle approaching the station where he served as the station master.  Dressed in his starched blue station master uniform, Sam pulled out his pocket watch and saw they were right on time.  Sam had known the Tolberts all his life.  He had gone to school with Colin.  He was a young station master when Colin left for the army and Virgil left for his journey to china. 

"Sam." Colin waved before tethering Maybelle's reins to the hitching post in front of the station.

"I'd normally say 'It's a pleasure to see you Colin,' but under the circumstances, let me just say you have my condolences." He shook his head.

"Thanks, Sam, have they arrived?" Colin asked.

"On the platform.  I'll have the boys help you load them in your flatbed." He yanked his thumb toward the platform in back of the station.  Colin walked up the steps and followed Sam inside the station.  The room was dark except where there was a large window that overlooked the platform.  There were two wooden boxes stacked on the platform.  An icy shiver went through Colin like an electrical current.    

"I will have the boys get the boxes loaded for you." Sam assured Colin. "John, Charlie and Chris, get those boxes loaded into Mr. Tolbert's wagon." 

Three young men appeared from the back room. Colin estimated they were around seventeen years old, but they were scrappy and eager to please.  They all nodded and dashed off to do what Sam had told them to do.

"They are my sister's grandkids, but they are nice boys." He assured Colin.  He bowed his head, "Colin, there is someone who wants to talk to you." 

"Really?" He watched as the trio lifted the first box and began toting it toward the wagon.

"Yes, he has something he wants to tell you." Sam shrugged.

"Monsieur Tolbert." A voice echoed in the nearly empty station.  The speaker had a French accent.  When Colin turned he saw a priest tapping a cigarette against a metal case before lighting it.  Taking a puff, he said, "I am Father Simon Clement." 

He moved with purpose, his angular face was intense and he carried himself like a man who commanded respect. 

"What can I do for you, father?" Colin glanced at Sam, but he did not offer any clues about what Father Clement wanted.

"I have a letter from my consulate in regards to your brother and his wife." He handed the envelope to Colin.

"It's from Belgium."   Colin shrugged.

"Oui." He coughed, "We were allowed by the Chinese authorities to go into the mission and reclaim the bodies of those who had been executed.  Most were Chinese nationals and we had no jurisdiction over them, but we found your brother's body."

"Virgil?" 

"Oui." He dropped his cigarette and crushed it out with his heel. "I informed the American consulate in Canton and they wanted us to reclaim the body, but then the record showed he had a wife who was a Chinese national. Upon further review, we were able to identify her body."

"Why did they murder those people?" Colin watched as the trio of boys carriedy the second box to his wagon.

"Mao is insisting that his people make a great leap forward and those not willing to leap must be exterminated." His face showed slight irritation as he spoke.  He glanced at Sam, but  Sam did not betray his feelings with his facial expression in this matter.  "All I can tell you at this point is the country is in turmoil.  Nothing is settled and everyone is on edge. Condolences on your loss.  Did you know your brother’s wife, Chai?"

"I'm afraid not." He closed his eyes for a moment.

"She was a good wife.  They were very happy together." Father Clement stared out the window at the empty platform with his hands behind his back.

"It is good to hear." Colin said softly.  Sam patted Colin on the back.

"They loved each other very much." He smiled for the first time, "I performed their wedding. When they faced their execution, they were holding hands."

"I am happy to hear it, but I have to be getting on.  Sunset comes earlier these days." He tipped his hat, "Sam, hope to be back at a happier time."

"You'd better stick around A bit." Sam put his hand on Colin's shoulder.

"What for?"

"Sister Agnes, would you join us?" Father Clement called out.

"You will see." Sam pointed toward the door of the backroom.

The door opened slowly as a nun wearing a long black habit, stepped out from the backroom.  Father Clement nodded.  Sister Agnes nodded in response.  Stepping back into the backroom, she reappeared holding the tiny hand of a young child.

"Say hello to Chueng." Father Clement squatted, smiling at the boy.  The boy spoke Chinese with the priest. "He is almost five years old.  He is Virgil's and Chai's son, your nephew."

Colin stood there, frozen like a statue staring at the little boy speaking to the priest in a language Colin did not understand.

"Ounkle Collen." The boy said in words that sounded as if they did not belong on his tongue. He took a step back and  looked up at Colin.

"Sister Agnes smuggled him out in her suitcase, because they were searching for children exiting the country.  If she would have been discovered, she  would have been executed." Father Clement said nonchalantly.

"I can't-" Colin stammered.

"He will be put in an orphanage." Father Clement shrugged.

His father had stressed the importance of keeping your affairs in order.  Having a child was not in keeping with the rule, but looking into Cheung's eyes, he could not turn his back on the child.  

"Well?" Father Clement shrugged.

"I can't care for him." Colin shook his head.

"He need you." Sister Agnes spoke up, "He want to see his uncle."

Colin shifted from one foot to the other without taking his eyes off of Cheung.  The boy, likewise, did not take his eyes off of his uncle.  He thought of Emily and how she wanted to give Colin A child.  He thought of his brother who defied his father to live his life in the service of others.  He reached down with his rough calloused hand and gently took A hold of Cheung's hand.  The boy looked up at Colin and smiled. 

"I guess we will be heading home." He announced.

"Sister Agnes and I will be making our way back to Belgium." Father Clement shook Colin's hand and then bent over kissing Cheung on his cheek. "I will miss you, Cheung, but you will be forever in my heart." 

He embraced the child one last time as Sister Agnes, with tears in her eyes, took her turn to bid Cheung farewell.  Together they left to wait for their train on the platform.

"Colin, you should be ready to go." Sam was valiantly fighting off his own tears, "Best of luck to you both." 

"Mr. Tolbert, we have you ready to go." Charlie said, pointing to Maybelle and the skiff.  There were two boxes in the skiff.

"Thank you, boys." He said as he placed Cheung on Maybelle's bare back.  Maybelle turned her head to see who the passenger was and then began to move at her usual slow pace.  Sam stood at the top of the stairs waving as the wagon pulled away with A Chinese boy sitting on the quarter horse with the boxes containing the bodies of his parents.  

When he got home, Colin would make sure to get all the affairs in order including hand painted signs advertising for apple pickers and making sure Cheung was comfortable in his new room.    

A few days later, Reverend Adam Kelche came to provide a funeral service for Virgil and Chai Tolbert while Colin stood next to Cheung.  Watching the boy, Colin sensed he was grieving for his parents even if he did not know what grieving even was.

The harvest was a success and even Cheung helped out as his English continued to improve.

Still Colin Tolbert became known as the Yankee farmer with the Chinese son.  He would never correct them since over time, Cheung did become the son he was promised by Emily.

Historically, cultural revolutions are often very violent affairs as societies try to cleanse and change what is perceived as evil or repugnant.  But there are some cultural revolutions that occur in a different context and setting that does not require a violent upheaval. It could be as simple as a boy riding a horse while his father holds the reins on their way into town.