In a dingy north-facing room, ten-by-twelve, next to a latrine and at the top of a staircase, an old woman lay or rather collapsed on a bed by the side of the only window. The room was crammed with two beds laid at right angles and the remaining space was taken up by old furniture, trunks, boxes, utensils and knick-knacks. On the small table beside the sick woman's bed were bowls and pots, half filled with food, and bottles and packages of medicine and drugs. A middle-aged woman with a plain honest face was sitting on the other bed, casting anxious glances occasionally at the ailing woman. By the crepuscular light the old woman's face could be seen, wrinkled and pale like wax. It was pockmarked but otherwise the features were regular. The continuous groaning suddenly stopped and the sound of cannons and rifles could be heard very distinctly in the distance. The old woman opened her eyes and feebly asked for the time.
“It is nearly six o'clock. They will be home in a jiffy", said the companion. She resumed her groaning and the old clock on the wall ticked in antiphony with the spasmodic outbursts of distant guns.
An hour elapsed; steps were heard on the stairs. Neither person in the room moved but the old woman stopped groaning momentarily and her companion raised her eyes in expectancy. A well-dressed couple entered. The man switched on the light and, nodding at the seated woman, looked at the invalid with an anxious expression such as one would have expected from a doctor, a friend or a visiting relative. The young woman smiled sweetly round, took off her overcoat and things, sat down and asked in a whisper: "How is Ma?" As a reply the elder woman smiled and shook her head and, looking at the young man, said: "Sit down, Brother, Ma has been expecting you all afternoon. How are things outside?"
"Seems they can hold the city," said the youth. "Reinforcements are said to be on the way end the shops are beflagged for the welcome." He if left for his own room in front.
A few minutes later he returned in a dressing gown and slippers, seated himself on the only comfortable chair, took a cigarette from his silver case and started to smoke in silence. All looked at the octogenarian on the bed and listened to her regular glottal sounds without speaking a word. "Some senior members in office," said the youth to his sister at last. "have been transferred to the south and I have been allotted a four-room flat. Wonder when we can move." The face of the young woman brightened up at the topic and gave the other woman a description of the apartments they had gone to see in the afternoon. The talk droned on for some time, during which the old woman never once opened her eyes.
A maid came in on tiptoe and gestured that dinner was ready in the other room. The three rose and left, leaving the maid in temporary attendance.
They ate in silence. After dinner they remained in their seats and discussed the merits of the new abode, its fine surrounding, the spacious rooms and the comfortable furniture.
The elder woman, eager to please, helped on the conversation with ejaculations of delight and suggestions of decoration and arrangement. But shadows of grief passed over her face and finally she drew the talk to the gloomy topic on her mind. "It is a pity that Ma shall not be able to go. I am afraid she is doomed." "Yes," agreed the youth, "that is regrettable. But no one can yet cure cancer." On leaving the couple, she informed them that she had got everything ready for the inevitable moment, such as a paper sedan chair, joss, candles, incense-sticks, dresses for the deceased and the mourners.
The night passed as many nights had passed in this household for nearly a month. The light in the sick room burned till dawn; the moanings of the patient, the uneasy snoring of the tired attendant and the ticks of the aged time-piece intermingled consonantly with the far-off gun firings. The refreshing morning brought relief and hope to many, not excluding the couple in the front room.
In the afternoon the old woman's face suddenly radiated with colour and life and her frail body seemed to be endowed with new strength. She opened her eyes and squirmed up. The daughter looked on her, wondering. She asked for a drink, cleared her throat and prepared to talk. Her eyes seemed to shine with rejuvenated lustre. In a clear voice she directed her daughter to prepare some food and then, reclining against the piled-up pillows, looked at the sky outside the window and became lost in meditation.
The nonplussed daughter heated the food in the pots, looking all the time at her mother, with silent amazement. She handed the food to her hesitatingly, as if doubting the sensibility of her own action. With firm hands the old woman took hold of the bowl and the chop sticks and fed herself voraciously with diabolical appetite and haste. The had-frightened woman tried to stop her but she motioned her away with her eyes, which almost gleamed with delight.
After eating she sat back with contentment. Looking at her companion she gathered strength for talk but the effort was too much for her. She resigned to silence and looked in turn with keen interest on every piece of furniture and other articles in the room, dwelling longer on some than on the others. Her feverish face revealed her inner thoughts by expressions of changing emotions.
She felt extremely fit and there was not a pain in her body. Thank Buddha, she was fully recovered. Her memory returned suddenly and clearly and her mind could not only remember the past occurrences but also visualize the main events and associate them with the material things she had kept around her during the past forty years or so. She saw herself as a maiden and her marriage at twenty-six to the man, whose photo was still hanging on the wall at the foot of her bed. Their wedding suits were still in the trunk at the top of the pile in that corner. Yes, she must not forget to give her gold hair-pin she wore at the wedding to her daughter-in-law and the jade clasp her husband used on his belt to her son as souvenirs when she should eventually die. Her first boy's birth and quick death flitted over her mind and she remembered where she had kept a lock of his hair in one of the boxes. The life of her second son was crystal-clear to her like a picture on the screen: he grew up strong and healthy, finished his schooling, found a job, got married and left her. It was now almost ten years since she had seen him last, but he was a self-reliant man who could look after himself and she need not worry about him. He had not been very dutiful, it was true, but he had only a small income and had his own family to look after. The third daughter she liked and pitied most, because her whole life had been one of hard work and harder fortune: she and her husband never seemed to get anywhere and she had not given birth to any children. It would have been best if she could stay with her all the time, not off and on as she had been doing. The fourth girl had served her dutifully but after her marriage she had given her whole attention to her husband and had neglected her duties as a daughter, which, after all, was a minor point as compared to the duties of a wife. She was glad that they lived comfortably and in opulence. She remembered how she nearly failed to save her little life when the house completely burnt down. This thought brought her eyes to look at the old clock on the wall, which was the only household article her frantic husband saved from the burning house. The following difficult years she and her husband had in re-establishing their home and bringing up the children and the ups and downs of fortune with him until he died prematurely at forty-seven then occupied her mind. The death of her husband filled her eyes with tears once more and the hard, up-hill struggle she had in caring and bringing up the youngest child hardened her face with determination and courage. Then she looked at the bureau standing against the wall to her right and her thoughts were centered completely on the son, who had been living with her during the past twenty years.
She was carried back to the rainy night when he was born, a reddish thin baby, which nearly suffocated itself in the pre-natal struggle. It was difficult to keep him well fed because at her age she had not enough milk, so that he passed his first three years in continuous indisposition and nearly succumbed to measles at six years of age. As the weakling and the youngest of the family he received her closest loving attention and his peevish temperament was always ascribed to his constitutional weakness and was gladly overlooked and humored. He was a spoiled child, but he was so handsome, so lovable and so clever. His manners and ways were always distinctive and nothing could be too good for him.
When his father died he was fifteen pursuing his studies at a secondary school. The misfortune did not seem to disturb his tranquil and methodical life. He was then a tall boy, fine-looking and delicate but agile like a greyhound and before he reached puberty he had formed his own character. Always self-centered and unconventional he knew what he was after and his ideals were the highest and the best. You could see from his photo on that wall that he was the handsomest boy in the world; he was a precious pearl from an old mollusk, as the saying went, but he was so stand-offish and distant to her that she often wished she could hold him back again in the shell like an oyster. He would stand no foolery or intimacy and, when interfered with, always said: "You are bothering me," and went his own way. And his ways more than often proved to be right and fruitful. She learned to be an observer of his actions and to cater only to his material wants in food and clothing, harboring in her heart a love which she did not know how to express.
He was so assiduous in his studies that he burnt his lamp deep into the night and often she found him asleep in the chair. That was the reading desk he used and you could see that the polish on the edge had been rubbed clean away by his sleeves. When she wakened him up and hurried him to bed on such occasions, he always said: "You are bothering me!"
She remembered the morning when he went north to complete his education. He packed his own things, got a ricksha, said goodbye in a matter-of-fact way and was off, never looking back once. During the four succeeding years he returned home twice during summer vacations but he never confided to her any of his plans or propects.
Four years later, he returned to work, moved the home into a better house, provided her with money, married off his remaining sister and, without her previous knowledge, got married himself. He looked happy but was never hilarious and she could never get into his confidence. After the birth of the children she tried to be helpful but he preferred to employ more servants and trust them to manage the house. He always treated her with respect and left her no wants; but they drifted farther and farther apart in thought and understanding. She escaped to Buddhism and spent most of her time in her room in worship and prayers. The idols and other religious paraphernalia on the long table kept her company for the last two decades, during which she was not lonely but lonesome in heart.
During the first ten years, he prospered greatly and she moved with him from one fine house to another. Fortune turned for the worse after the Japanese war, but she was never worried by any material want for he always managed to provide for the household. She did feel, however, that conditions were bad and were no longer as they used to be. In her secret heart she wished he would entrust her with his anxieties and let her experience help him and his family.
The end of the war seemed to bring back his luck and now she heard with her own ears that they were moving out of those crowded rooms to new quarters. She was glad that she could recover in time not to delay the removal. A satisfied smile lingered on her face.
When the son returned in the evening, he noticed the change. He was not bewildered or deceived like his sister and wife; he knew it was the last flicker of an expiring flame. Before retiring for the night, he warned his sister and asked the maid to stay in the room.
After midnight her face became crimson red and she was hard of breathing. The frightened daughter asked the maid to wake up the couple, but she motioned them to desist from disturbing their sleep. Her breathing became harder as each minute ticked by and all of a sudden she opened her eyes wide as if searching for somebody. "Call the Little One," she said. The couple hurried in. She looked at her son with a fixed gaze for a precious moment, moved her lips, closed her eyes, exhaled her last breath and was gone. Two big tears rolled slowly down the nose to the chin and dropped onto her breast.
The old clock on the wall clicked and sporadic rifle firings could be heard distinctly. By the morning the Communist Army had occupied and a new order, worse than death, was ushered in.