Nanjing Requiem (26 page)

I showed the photograph to nobody but Minnie. “What a nice picture,” she said. “Mother and son look so content. What does Mitsuko do for a living?”

“She teaches primary school.”

“If I were you, I’d go see them right away.”

“Minnie, you’re American, but few Chinese can do that while the war is going on. Please don’t reveal my family’s Japanese relations to anyone, okay?”

“Sure, I’ll keep my lips zipped.”

We went on to talk about the three teenage girls—Meiyan and two classmates of hers—who had just run away, claiming that they wanted to join the resistance force in some interior region. Our staffers intercepted them at the train station in Hsia Gwan, because they didn’t have the travel papers necessary for purchasing tickets and were stranded there. I reprimanded the girls and wanted to make them do kitchen duty for a week, which Big Liu supported, but Minnie intervened, saying they had to take the finals they had missed. She gave them a few days to review their lessons.

Meiyan came to our home to see Liya that evening, to return the ten yuan she had borrowed from her for the secret journey. They were friends now, but Meiyan would remain reticent in my presence, so I stayed in the kitchen feeding Fanfan while listening in on the two of them in the sitting room.

“Sorry I didn’t tell you my plan,” Meiyan said. “I was afraid your mom would let my dad know.”

“No big deal,” Liya replied. “If I didn’t have a child, I might run away too.”

“Where would you like to go? To join your husband?”

“I have no clue where he is. I just want to join our army.”

“Which one—the Nationalists or the Communists?”

“It makes no difference as long as I can fight the Japanese. They killed my baby, and I still see my daughter now and then.” Liya believed that the lost baby had been a girl, perhaps because she’d never had morning sickness during the pregnancy.

“I’m glad you’re not mad at me.”

“Where were you three headed?”

“We just planned to go upriver. We really didn’t have a concrete destination in mind.”

“Didn’t you want to join the resistance force?” asked Liya.

“We did, but to be honest, I wouldn’t mind settling down in a peaceful place where nobody knows me. I want to live a quiet life too.”

“Where can you find a place like that now?”

“That’s the problem—the only option left is to join the resistance. If there were a convent that’s intact, I wouldn’t mind going there.”

“Come on, don’t you want to find a good man and have a family?”

“Not until we drive the Japanese out of our country.”

I mulled over their conversation, which changed my impression of Meiyan somewhat. I used to think she was just a hothead, but now I could see that she was also longing for a normal life.

SOON AFTER CHRISTMAS
, a former schoolmate of Yaoping’s back in Japan came to see him. The man was tall and well turned out, wearing a business suit and patent-leather shoes. He looked like a middle-aged dandy, his hair pomaded shiny and his face somewhat bloated, but he was agreeable, spoke amiably with a northeastern accent, and called me sister-in-law. He used a long umbrella as a walking stick. Yaoping took him into our inner room, where they talked over tea and spiced sunflower seeds for hours, deep into the night. Now and then I went in with the teakettle and refilled the pot for them. I didn’t go to bed but instead drifted off in a chair in the sitting room. Their voices rose and fell; at times they seemed to be arguing.

After the man left, my husband became restless, pacing the floor and smoking his pipe. He let out a long sigh and shook his head.

“What did he want?” I asked Yaoping about the visitor.

“They’re preparing to establish a new national government, and he asked me to join them.”

“So they offered you a job?”

“Yes.”

“In what office?”

“The Ministry of Culture or the Ministry of Education.”

“Doing what?”

“A vice minister.”

“That’s big!”

“I know. Obviously they’ve run out of candidates for the top jobs. Under normal circumstances no one would think of me for a position like that. But I mustn’t serve in a puppet government. That would be treason and no one would forgive me for that. Imagine what would happen to me if China wins the war.”

“Do you believe we will win?”

“I’m not sure, but the uncertainty doesn’t justify any official role in a puppet government. I cannot ruin our family’s name that way. Besides, our son’s already in the Japanese clutches.”

“I agree. Did you decline the offer?”

“Of course not. I couldn’t turn it down flatly. That would be suicidal, so I told him I would seriously consider the offer. The man talked at length about saving our country by taking a roundabout path.”

“What does that mean?”

“He said we should cooperate with the Japanese so that we could at least prevent some parts of China from being totally destroyed and annexed. I couldn’t contradict him.”

“That kind of talk is based on the assumption that Japan will win the war.”

“True, but what should I do?”

“When are you supposed to give him an answer?”

“In three days.”

“Can’t you hide somewhere? Say, go to Searle’s or Lewis’s?”

“Well, the national puppet government will be established here, so if they find out I’m still in town, they’ll never leave me alone. Heavens, it looks like I can’t stay here anymore.”

I was glad Yaoping wasn’t swayed by the temptation, though he used to talk a lot about how he liked Japan, even Japanese things (he had once owned a Seiko pocket watch with a compass on the inner side of the copper lid). But this wasn’t just a matter of his personal integrity or preserving our family’s name. If he served in the prospective puppet government, he might be killed by the underground partisans. Even if they didn’t finish him off, he would eventually be punished by the Nationalists or the Communists. He would become a public enemy and our family would suffer on his account.

Having talked for hours, we decided that he should leave for Sichuan to join his university there. We considered whether all of us should go with him, but thought that this would attract too much attention. Besides, I could not abandon my job here. I urged him to set off without delay.

The next evening he left for Cow’s Head Hill in the south, where he could stay with a friend temporarily. He took along a handbag and a duffel stuffed with half a dozen books and two changes of clothes. Having no travel permit, he would walk and hitchhike to get out of the areas occupied by the Japanese, and then eventually take a boat or train inland. I gave him all the cash we had, about eighty yuan, and told him not to drink too much tea, which might aggravate his arthritis. Before getting on the rickshaw, he hugged me, Liya, and Fanfan, saying he would miss us terribly. Then he climbed into the vehicle, waving at us. We watched his lean face blurring in the dark until it vanished.

33

R
UTH CHESTER WROTE BACK
, saying they’d found a place in Shanghai for the five blind girls. We were delighted, and Minnie asked Rulian to send the girls there. The blind girls were reluctant to leave, but we assured them that they’d be better educated and better cared for in the specialized school. Better yet, Shanghai was safer than Nanjing. Minnie gave them each three yuan; the cash had been donated by a Japanese officer, Major Toshikawa, who had visited Jinling twice and was moved by the classes, saying that his daughter was going to a Christian school in Kobe. We didn’t tell the girls, or anyone else, where the money was from, but the five recipients were happy.

On the afternoon of January 4, we set out for the Hsia Gwan station in a large car Minnie had borrowed from Lewis. She was at the wheel. I always admired her ability to do things most Chinese women couldn’t do: driving, cycling, playing ball games, keeping a dog, hiking. When we had pulled onto Ninghai Road, I reminded Minnie, “Remember when you said you’d teach me to drive?”

“I haven’t forgotten. Of course I’ll do that. When the war’s over, I’ll build my own house here and buy myself a little car.”

I was pleased to hear that. If only I could be as capable as she. A lot of people here regarded her as “a real man,” respecting her stately physique and her ability as a leader.

When we had passed Fujian Road and were approaching Yijiang Gate, we saw more houses leveled—the area was more desolate than it had been the previous winter. The site of the former Communications Ministry was now an immense compound fenced by barbwire, in which more than a dozen huge shacks stood as storehouses for military supplies. Along the way most of the deserted buildings had been torn down, the bricks and wood piled up ready to be shipped away. But the area near the train station was alive with people. Peddlers were hawking goods, while small shops lined the streets, offering soft drinks, fruit, snacks, cigarettes, and liquor. A handful of scalpers hung around the station, a three-story white building topped with a cupola and a spire, and were waving tickets at passersby.

All the trains ran on Tokyo time now, an hour behind China time. Inside the hall of the station, people were standing in two lines for tickets. One was short and only for Japanese passengers, while the other was long, with more than one hundred Chinese people waiting. At its end was Rulian. But the wicket at the head of the long line remained shut, and only the short line was moving. Near us stood a slim Japanese clerk in a blue uniform and a cap with a shiny black peak. We worried that Rulian and the girls might miss the train. Minnie went up to the man and said, “See those words?” She pointed at the slogan pasted above the front door, which declared in big characters:
WE MUST UNITE TO BUILD A PROSPEROUS EAST
ASIA!

The clerk nodded without speaking. Minnie continued, “Don’t you think the way you’re treating these Chinese passengers may contravene Japan’s policy and undermine the union of East Asia?”

He grinned knowingly, showing his tobacco-stained teeth, but he still said nothing. Then he slowly sauntered back into the office, and a minute later the other wicket opened, selling tickets to the Chinese in line.

Outside the windows a train pulled in, shuddering a little as it came to a stop and disgorged hundreds of passengers. The new arrivals didn’t have to wash their hands in Lysol or rinse their mouths with disinfectant anymore, and the guards frisked only two young men as they exited. Life was returning to normal, though the police still checked everyone’s papers.

Rulian came back with six train tickets and two platform tickets, and together we led the blind girls out of the hall. After checking in their baggage, we reached track 2; at the west end of the platform, about four hundred Japanese soldiers were lounging around, some lying on stretchers and some sitting on the ground paved with concrete slabs. A few men flailed their arms, groaning and shouting. Twenty or so young Japanese women—some in their late teens—moved among them, handing out rice cakes and water in canteens. A few fed the soldiers who were all bandaged up. Beyond them stood a sleeping car, in which some wounded officers were smoking and drinking tea, while others played cards. The windows of the car were partly fogged—it must be warm in there. Although the wounded men on the platform were cared for, to me they still looked like bundles of garbage scattered around in the glaring sunlight. The scene reminded me of the wounded Chinese soldiers I’d seen here just over a year ago. What a different sight this was. Yet these men were in some fashion similar to those Chinese men abandoned by their generals. Every one of them looked miserable, wasted, and aged.

Ahead of the sleeper for the officers stood three flatcars loaded with vehicles—trucks, sedans, ambulances, steamrollers, jeeps—waiting to be shipped to Japan. Now I understood why the Japanese confiscated automobiles driven by the Chinese.

The train to Shanghai came, and Rulian and the five blind girls got onto the third car. A window went up, through which they waved at us. Minnie stepped closer and said to them, “Take good care.”

“We’ll miss you,” one of the girls said, a catch in her voice.

I stepped over and touched their hands too. A locomotive whistled, panting heavily and crawling into the station on the other track. Before we could say more, a conductor shut the door and latched it with a clank; their train let out a long guttural hiss and a puff of vapor, then pulled away. Four hands, three small and one larger, reached out the window, waving. Minnie blew a kiss to them and I followed suit.

On our way back, we were drawn aside at Yijiang Gate because Minnie didn’t have her cholera certificate; without the papers, newcomers were not allowed to enter the city. An officer took her to a cabin nearby and ordered her to receive an inoculation. She protested, insisting that she was not a new arrival and had accidentally left her medical papers at her home inside the city. “Look,” she said to the man with a pimpled face, “I don’t have any baggage in my car. I’m living here, a resident of Nanjing.” After she argued for five minutes or so, he let her go without receiving the injection. He warned her that from now on she must carry all her vaccination certificates when she passed the city gates.

34

T
HE MIDDLE SCHOOLERS
had left campus for the winter break. Now our staff and faculty could relax a little. Donna and Alice had gone to Shanghai for vacation. Plumer Mills left Nanjing a week after the New Year. With the International Relief Committee disbanded, he felt he was no longer needed here. Plumer had told us that in Shanghai he would look for a way to get the six IRC men out of prison. Minnie asked him to include Yulan in the group as well, and he agreed, though he said he was still unsure how to make her fit in. Every day Minnie checked the mail, hoping Plumer had made progress. She had confided to me that from now on she would lump Yulan with the six IRC men whenever we appealed to the Japanese for their release. I thought this might be a productive move to get the madwoman out of incarceration. Despite lack of word from Plumer, we were positive that he’d been working hard on the case. He was a fine man, honest and trustworthy.