China to Me (17 page)

Madame's house was set on a steep bluff above the ocean, with terraces and tennis courts around it. The taxi took a startling nose dive down the driveway and fetched up in the disconcerting way of Hong Kong cars, nuzzling the front door. A houseboy stood there bowing and smiling. Two bodyguards lounged in the courtyard next to the garage and glanced up as if they were expecting us, and didn't particularly care. They were big husky men.

In a very long room full of french windows that led to a veranda and a view Sinmay's aunt was sitting. She seemed quite at home, and indeed the house failed to live up to my frightened expectations of splendor. (Houses of rich Chinese always do, I have learned.) The furniture was chintzy and pretty, the place was not cluttered, but otherwise the whole effect was that of a modest Victorian interior. It wasn't even a very big house. I would have breathed easier except for the fact that Alice Chow came in just then, and she spoke of Mme. Kung in a tone of muted, frightened adoration that set me off shivering again. At last there was a light step on the stair, and I jumped to my feet.

She wasn't nearly as tall as I seemed to remember. But perhaps that was because Bernardine had made me notice with what dignity she moved, years ago at that Shanghai reception; perhaps I had had the wrong idea then. She looked now like a pretty little woman. Those are the exact words. She is shorter than I am, with incredibly tiny hands and feet. She has a smooth skin, darting black eyes, black hair piled high (because she doesn't like being small), and a good figure. As long as any of us may live in China I think we are still a little bemused by Chinese ladies, just because they are Chinese. We can tell ourselves that it is nonsense, but still we are fascinated by the romance of their Chinesiness. It is something in the way they smile, perhaps; politely, never with abandon even when they giggle. Mme. Kung gave me her hand and smiled, and I was promptly bemused.

She carried a soft little feather fan. All the while we talked she waved the fan gently. I remember the fronds stirring in the electric fan's breeze, and I remember little else of that important afternoon. We didn't talk very much about the book — enough, but not very much. She told me that she had gone so far as to grant the interview, in spite of her dislike of publicity, because of John Gunther. John is a friend of mine, and I was sorry he had incurred such anger. In his Inside Asia he had spoken of her mistakenly, she declared. He had never met her, so how could he have known what she was like? In that book he had described her as a corrupt, scheming financier, striding like a tigress up and down her room when she was thwarted. Mme. Kung's voice shook when she talked about it. Her sister Mme. Chiang had been disturbed even more than she herself, she said. And I, Emily Hahn, had told her in my letter that I was anxious for the truth about the Soongs. The truth, she repeated — did I mean that?

I said that I did. I promised to be careful of my facts. I tried to explain to her how a newspaperman works: the roundabout ways he must go in getting his information. “What John wrote,” I said, “was told him by people he met in Shanghai and Hong Kong. He thought he was getting the truth. He doesn't know China and he wasn't on his guard, I think, against the distortions that you find out here.”

“But how can he take hearsay like that, when it means so much, and put it into print? It's wrong. It's wicked. My sister is very much upset, and we have decided that perhaps I have been at fault in not coming more to the front. I live a secluded life. I don't like going out in crowds. Well, this is my punishment. I know I have many enemies; oh yes, I have, Miss Hahn. Well, I must fight them instead of ignoring them. But I have always had a horror of newspapers and that sort of thing. My friend” — she put an affectionate hand on Aunt's arm — “says you are a kind woman and an honest one. I know you have helped Mr. Zau very much during the war in Shanghai. The family is grateful. If I could be quite sure of your judgment … I know I can trust your feelings. …”

“Suppose we arrange it like this, madame,” I said. Later she told me she had been amused at my quick offer to protect her. She knows her power fully. “I don't want to hurt you. Let me start to work on the book and show you the beginning. I can't promise to let the Soongs dictate it — ”

“Of course not.”

“But I do promise this: if you don't approve of the book as a whole when it is finished I won't publish it. Is that satisfactory?”

I had made up my mind quickly. It wouldn't, of course, be the same sort of book that a person would write from the outside looking in. But such a book as that wouldn't have anything in it that you couldn't pick up in the market place anywhere. Anyone could write a hearsay book. If I had to err on the side of the Soongs — because what censor can be thoroughly ruthless about himself? — I would at least have much more information to offer, given me by the Soongs themselves, than could any historian who wrote a detached account of them from outside the city gates. I trusted Mme. Kung immediately. There was something about her that made me know how strong she was inside, with a toughness that makes for honesty. This strength was not belied by the softness and delicacy of her personality. It is not only strident women who tell the truth. If the Japanese hadn't ruined the word I would call her sincere.

We had tea, then, with American pie, and afterward we took our leave. I was ready to go home that afternoon before I might say something to spoil the atmosphere. I was still as careful of the situation as if it had been blown in thin glass. Even at my most pessimistic, however, I admitted that things looked promising. Mme. Kung had not said yes, exactly, but she had certainly not said no. Alice Chow, the devoted hoverer, was to see me later in the week to give me a definite reply.

“And you think it will be all right?” I demanded of Sinmay for the tenth time as Mme. Kung's big car drove us back along the winding road.

“Of course it is all right. Already it is settled. I heard from my aunt; she likes you very much and is willing. That is because of my aunt, who prepared Mme. Kung. Tomorrow we will go to thank her.” He was silent a moment, smiling. “But she has charm,” he said suddenly. “I did not realize that. One doesn't hear enough of Soong Ai-ling's charm. When she laughs and hides her face behind her fan it is very nice. A sort of flirtatiousness, not too much. I had an uncle who admired her as a girl and now I see why.”

“Well,” I said impulsively, “I love her.”

I have never changed my mind about that.

Madame's mind worked away at one problem until she settled it to her satisfaction. There was never any nonsense of starting a thing and then dropping it because she was away after another interest. She figured out how to go about collecting the material I needed, and how to fit her sisters into the program. Any hesitation she still felt about the project she referred, as I heard later, to Mme. Chiang up in Chungking, because it was her youngest sister's desire that John Gunther's misconception be cleared up in the shortest possible time, and as completely as could be done. Only Dr. Kung and Soong Mayling, perhaps, understood how much those paragraphs had horrified and hurt her.

Up there in the foggy wartime capital, in absentia, I was instrumental in interrupting the work of the busiest woman in China. I get quite proud of myself when I think of it, because I know now what her office is like when she really gets down to business. I can imagine what happened; Donald, coming in with his notebook, ready to take down shorthand notes, was greeted by a question something like this: “Don, what are we going to do about this American woman — Hahn, her name is — who has got in to see Mme. Kung?”

“Never heard of her,” Donald probably replied. So they turned the files over until they found my first request, and the notes that had been made on the matter. I can imagine that Mme. Chiang made a bitter remark about my persistence.

“If anyone is to write the story of my life,” she said, perhaps for the millionth time, “I will do it myself. What do these people think?”

“Yes, but you won't get around to it for years,” said Donald thoughtfully. (From now on I am not guessing; he told me about it himself.) “You know, there's something in what she says here. Somebody is bound to write this book sooner or later; you can't stop 'em. Why not let this woman try it, then? She's willing to co-operate. She isn't going to dig around looking for dirt as she would if she belonged to the other camp. I don't know — why not give her a chance? What can you lose? Nobody can write your autobiography, after all, but Soong Mayling.”

“I should think not. … All right, if it doesn't take too much of my time.”

So that was settled, and the job so many people had tried to get fell into my lap.

I met Alice a few days later at the Hongkong Hotel and she made the announcement with much drama. I like Alice, but in her emotional moments she is a little overpowering, and if I hadn't been very fond of Mme. Kung her worship would have put me off, just from sheer human orneriness. “I am to help you all I can,” she said. “It is a sacrifice for me, I tell you frankly, because I have always wanted to write a book about Mme. Kung myself.”

I murmured polite protests and assured her of my gratitude. The advisability of showing this gratitude, indeed, seemed to grow with each letter I had from Alice, written in her capacity as Mme. Kung's secretary. As each bit of information was tucked away in my notes I thanked her more extravagantly, until one day when I was with Mme. Kung she said:

“You needn't feel so grateful to Alice as all that. She isn't doing this purely out of kindness, you know. She's my secretary, after all.”

Well, put like that, I could see her point, and I relaxed. Relations between Alice and me grew less emotional thereafter, and much more workmanlike. It was my first experience with one of the biggest difficulties one encounters when dealing with the great of this world — battling through the crowd of adorers. The great themselves are helpless to deal with the situation. I have seen things you wouldn't believe in Chungking, when one faction whose leading goddess was Mme. Chiang came to blows with another whose bright particular star was Mme. Sun. As chief custodian of Mme. Kung's claim to goddessness, Alice worked overtime, and she probably trembled in her boots at the suspicion that I was after her captaincy. I think she was probably not displeased when she had occasion shortly after the beginning of everything to write me a hint of a rebuke.

The Chinese, as I have said before, revel in gossip. Not only do they use it as a harmless pastime, but they know well how to make a weapon of it. Mme. Kung had a horror of being talked about; this may sound odd and inconsistent when you consider that she consented to a book about herself, but people aren't always consistent. At those early stages she had the idea that the public shouldn't know we were good friends. It would invalidate the book, she insisted. I argued that she was being unnecessarily squeamish, since it would be obvious in the text that the Soong family were co-operating with me, showing me private records, talking to me at length, and all that. In the end she lost her timidity and was much happier about all of it, but during that summer she started and trembled at the very hint of a whisper of conversation about her, no matter how innocent.

One evening we had dined and talked and it was still early. She suggested suddenly that we drive into town and see a movie. I accepted with pleasure, and the simple little expedition took place. The housekeeper came along too, and we slipped into the theater in the dark so that nobody would recognize us and make a fuss about her presence. Probably someone did see her, just the same, or another chauffeur recognized the limousine. Naturally I didn't speak of it around town myself, because I knew how touchy she was. However, a few days later I received a remarkable letter from Alice, telling me that the town was seething with gossip over the fact that we had gone to the movies, and that Madame was terribly upset. She reminded me that Madame's nerves were in a dreadful state anyway. She conveyed a reproach, delicately hinted, that I had been so crass, so mad as to broadcast to the world the secret fact that we had gone to the movies. I was warned . …

A similar incident is recounted in Ralf Sues's book. Shark's Fins and Millet, which ended on a more drastic note than did my experience. Myself, I just wrote to both Alice and Madame, assuring them of my innocence in regard to the base charge. Perhaps my impatience and natural anger with such foolishness showed between the lines; anyway, the teacup tornado blew over in a hurry. I used to rage when these things happened, and always I drove straight to the center of authority to get them ironed out. It was the only way to deal with the intricate windings of intrigue as she is played in Hong Kong. The British are as good as anyone at the stupid game.

“People work her up on purpose,” I said once to Mme. Chiang, after her eldest sister had become agitated over some similar trifle.

“They do,” she assented. “That's why I think this book may be good for her. Anything that will force her out of that unhealthy seclusion ought to be good. I know what all this is like. I have the same sort of problems in my own organization; I spend most of my life, it sometimes seems to me, settling household and office quarrels.”

I am anticipating, however; all of this happened much later, on my second trip. During this summer month's visit in Hong Kong I saw Mme. Kung only twice, and the rest of our contacts were made through the mail. I was busily employed in collecting as much personal material as I could about her father, Charles Jones Soong, a remarkable man whose personality reached out across his grave and took hold of my imagination. I heard nothing direct either from Mme. Chiang or Mme. Sun, but I had the word of Mme. Kung that I would at least not be hindered by her sisters in my preparations. I might even be helped, she said. In the meantime I was to go back to Shanghai and see what sort of beginning I could make.