River of Dust A Novel - By Virginia Pye Page 0,98
a steamer stood a proper and upright couple at the prow. They each held the hand of a small girl, a toddler somehow now, although when Grace had last seen her she had been but a babe in arms. Still, the couple kept the girl between them and pointed out at the endless water and squinted. Grace did so, too, and thought she could just make out America on the horizon.
The handkerchief danced in the swift breeze around this new family, but it was the child who spotted it and reached up to catch it in her small hand. She touched the worn, soft fabric to her cheek, and Grace realized that she could turn away now.
She gazed up the dirt road that led west from Shansi Province. On and on the land rolled, eventually arriving in the great Gobi Desert. The Reverend had told her how remarkable it was to come upon a section of the Great Wall, or the famous Ming Tombs, or the extraordinary monoliths known as the Sand Buddhas. Farther beyond those sights lay the tribal provinces where men in woven costumes herded sheep at the edge of steep cliffs. Bent farmers tended verdant crops and orchards on stepped terraces. Nomads, not all of them rogues, roamed the unpaved byways, hopping rides on ferry barges that crossed forgotten rivers.
Her husband had seen all of this and more. Grace wished with all her heart that she had traveled with him on his many journeys. But it was all right now, for soon she would join him in that mysterious land ahead.
Grace set off, knowing well how far she had left to go. She didn't want to delay a moment longer. She marched with purpose in her step, a modern woman on a road less traveled, but no longer frightened because of it. Indeed, she felt quite grand as she walked on, deeper and deeper into the adopted desert of her dreams.
Author's Note
My grandfather, the Reverend Watts O. Pye, was amongst the first missionaries to return to Shanxi Province in northwestern China less than a decade after the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. During his tenure in Fenchow as head of the Carleton College Mission and in conjunction with the Oberlin-Shansi Program, he helped build a hospital, roads, schools, and a library. I gather from Reverend Pye's journals that he was a fervent evangelist who recorded his success by the number of converts he made while roaming the region. He was the first white man to visit many of the villages and wrote with both humor and respect for the peasants he encountered. In romanticized prose, he recorded the stark and eerie beauty of the land. And while riding on donkey back over the rough terrain, he truly did read and recite aloud from the Romantic poets.
Reverend Pye and my grandmother, Gertrude Chaney, had three chil dren in Shanxi. Their two daughters died young. My father, Lucian W. Pye, was the only offspring to survive into adulthood. The Reverend Pye's death occurred when my father was five, the same year he lost a sister. Not long afterward, young Lucian suffered an illness similar to rickets that kept him bedridden with limp bones for a year. Gertrude, a strong Midwesterner, managed these trials and stayed on in the mission compound in Fenchow with my father even under Japanese occupation. A year after Lucian left for college in the United States, Gertrude was finally forced to abandon China on the neutral Swedish ship Gripsholm, which left from Shanghai after the attack on Pearl Harbor. She always wanted to return but never did.
My father soon returned to China as a translator for the U.S. Marine Corps, and thanks in part to the G.I. Bill, he studied at Yale and went on to become a prominent sinologist in the field of political science. He authored over twenty books on China and the postwar developing countries of Asia. He always said that political scientists were frustrated novelists, but I think he was just being kind to me— although his scholarly approach did center on hard-to-quantify subjects such as the Chinese political mind and spirit.
Although I have never been to China, I was steeped in its aura. I grew up in a household decorated with Chinese objects, and they carried with them the feeling of an earlier time. My grandmother Gertrude doted on me as the youngest, and together we held tea parties using her finest porcelains from Shanxi. Families pass down wisdom and pain often in equal measure, and I sensed my father and grandmother's losses in China. Like many American families, the earlier generations survived experiences that we can hardly imagine, yet strangely inherit. This book is a fictional expression of that distant, haunted time and place— one that exists in my mind and not precisely on any map.
Acknowledgments
Like many debut novels, River of Dust has many generous people behind its creation. I am deeply grateful to Greg Michalson for his insightful and wise editing and for deciding that this story was worthy of Unbridled's excellent name. Much appreciation, too, goes to my agent, Gail Hochman, for taking on this project with enthusiasm. I especially want to thank Nancy Zafris, brilliant author and teacher, for her invaluable help redirecting my energies so that I wrote this manuscript in particular, and also for seeing that it was read by the right person at the right moment.
For a number of years, I worked on a previous manuscript set partly in China. While that book did not find its way to publication, many kind friends read part or all of earlier incarnations: Margaret Buchanan, Patty Smith, Nathan Long, Susann Cokal, the late Emyl Jenkins, Rosemary Ahern, James Marcus, Kirk Schroeder, Phyllis Theroux, Brian Deleeuw, Meg Medina, Julie Heffernan, Jonathan Kalb, Kate Davis, David Heilbroner, Karl Marlantes, and Robert Goolrick. Additional authors Gigi Amateau, Leslie Pietrzyk, Belle Boggs, James Prosek, Dean King, Suzanne Berne, Sheri Holman, and Arielle Eckstut also generously extended a hand to help me join their ranks.
For many years I have benefited from the encouraging company of writers and publishing professionals through the literary nonprofit organization James River Writers. The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, WriterHouse, the Tin House Writer's Workshop, and the Acadia Summer Arts Program have each offered time, fine company, and a place to work.
My siblings, Lyndy and Chris, have offered generous support over decades, as have my in-laws, Carol and Earl Ravenal. I wish that my mother and father were here to enjoy this publication. My mother, Mary Toombs Waddill, was a crackerjack editor and reader, and her wisdom, goodness, and love continue to guide me always. My father wrote prolifically for decades, sometimes with a Red Sox or Celtics game on the TV, and showed me that writing can be both a discipline and a joy.
And, finally, this novel is dedicated to my immediate family: Eva, for her bright spirit and abiding faith in me and herself; Daniel, for his clearheadedness, humor, and solid love; and, most of all, John, who has been at my side for thirty-plus years and has helped us to make a hopeful life together where I could pursue what I wanted most.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title and Copyright
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Author's Note
Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
Cover
Title and Copyright
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Author's Note
Acknowledgments