“This is the character hua, and it is the only word for China and for the Chinese that has nothing to do with any Emperor, any Dynasty, anything that demands slaughter and sacrifice. Although both the People’s Republic and the Republic put it in their names, it is far older than they and belongs to neither of them. Hua originally meant ‘flowery’ and ‘magnificent,’ and it is the shape of a bunch of wildflowers coming out of the ground. See?
“The ancient Chinese were called huajen by their neighbors because their dress was magnificent, made of silk and fine tulle. But I think that’s not the only reason. The Chinese are like wildflowers, and they will survive and make joy wherever they go. A fire may burn away every living thing in a field, but after the rain the wildflowers will reappear as though by magic. Winter may come and kill everything with frost and snow, but when spring comes the wildflowers will blossom again, and they will be magnificent.
“For now, the red flames of revolution may be burning on the mainland, and the white frost of terror may have covered this island. But I know that a day will come when the steel wall of the Seventh Fleet will melt away, and the penshengjen and the waishengjen and all the other huajen back in my home will blossom together in magnificence.”
“And I will be a huajen in America,” ?Teddy added.
Mr. Kan nodded. “Wildflowers can bloom anywhere.”
? ? ?
Lilly didn’t have much of an appetite for dinner. She had had too much fish and mutton stew.
“Well, this Mr. Kan is no true friend of yours, if he’s going to ruin your appetite with snacks,” said Mom.
“It’s all right,” said Dad. “It’s good for Lilly to make some native friends. You should invite them over for dinner sometime. Mom and I should get to know them if you are going to spend a lot of time with this family.”
Lilly thought this a splendid idea. She couldn’t wait to show Teddy her Nancy Drew books. She knew that he’d like the beautiful pictures on the covers.
“Dad, what does ‘thalassocracy’ mean?”
Dad paused. “Where did you hear that word?”
Lilly knew that she wasn’t supposed to look at things from Dad’s work. “I just read it somewhere.”
Dad stared at Lilly, but then he relented. “It comes from the Greek word for sea, thalassa. It means ‘rule by the sea.’ You know, like ‘Rule, Britannia! Rule the waves.’?”
Lilly was disappointed at this. She thought Mr. Kan’s explanation was much better, and said so.
“Why were you and Mr. Kan talking about thalassocracy?”
“No reason. I just wanted to see him do some magic.”
“Lilly, there’s no such thing as magic,” Mom said.
Lilly wanted to argue but thought better of it.
“Dad, I don’t understand why Taiwan is free if they can’t talk about 228.”
Dad put down his fork and knife. “What did you say?”
“Mr. Kan said that they can’t talk about 228.”
Dad pushed his plate away and turned to Lilly. “Now, from the beginning, tell me everything that you talked about with Mr. Kan today.”
? ? ?
Lilly waited by the river. She was going to invite Teddy and Mr. Kan to come for dinner.
The village boys showed up, one after another, with their water buffalo. But none of them knew where Teddy was.
Lilly got into the river and joined the boys as they splashed water on each other. But she couldn’t help feeling uneasy. Teddy always showed up at the river after school to wash Ah Huang. Where was he?
When the boys started to go back to the village, she went with them. Maybe Teddy was sick and stayed home?
Ah Huang was pacing in front of Mr. Kan’s cottage, and he snorted at Lilly when he saw her, coming closer to nuzzle her as she petted his forehead.
“Teddy! Mr. Kan!” ?There was no answer.
Lilly knocked on the door. No one answered. The door was not locked, and Lilly pushed it open.
The cottage had been ransacked. The tatami mats were overturned and slashed apart. Tables and chairs were broken and the pieces scattered around the cottage. Pots, broken dishes, chopsticks littered the floor. There were papers and torn books everywhere. Teddy’s baseball bat was carelessly lying on the ground.
Lilly looked down and saw that Mr. Kan’s magic mirror had been shattered into a thousand little pieces scattered about her feet.
Did Communist bandits do this?
Lilly ran to the neighboring houses, frantically knocking on their doors and pointing at Mr. Kan’s cottage. The neighbors either refused to answer the door or shook their heads, their faces full of fear.
Lilly ran home.
? ? ?
Lilly could not sleep.
Mom had refused to go to the police. Dad was working late, and Mom said if it wasn’t just Lilly’s imagination and there really were bandits about, then the best thing to do was to stay home and wait for Dad to come back. Eventually, Mom sent Lilly to bed because it was a school night, and she promised that she would tell Dad about Mr. Kan and ?Teddy. Dad would know what to do.
Lilly heard the front door open and close, and the sound of chairs sliding on the tile floor in the kitchen. Dad was home, and Mom was going to heat up some food for him.
She knelt up on her bed and opened the window. A cool, humid breeze carried the smell of decaying vegetation and night-blooming flowers into the room. Lilly crawled out the window.
Once she landed on the muddy ground, she quietly made her way around the house to the back, where the kitchen was. Inside, Lilly could see Mom and Dad sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. There was no food on the table. In front of Dad was a small glass, and he poured an amber liquid into it from a bottle. He drained the glass in one gulp and filled it again.
The bright, golden light inside the kitchen cast a trapezoid of illumination upon the ground outside the kitchen window. She stayed beyond its edge and crouched below the open window to listen.
Amid the sound of the fluttering wings of moths striking against the screened window, she listened to her father’s voice
? ? ?
In the morning, David Cotton told me that the man I had referred to them had been arrested. If I wanted to, I could go help with the interrogation. I went over to the detention compound with two Chinese interrogators, Chen Pien and Li Hui.
“He’s a tough nut to crack,” Chen said. “We’ve tried a few things, but he’s very resistant. ??We still have some heightened interrogation techniques we can try.”
“The Communists are very good at psychological manipulation and resistance,” I said. “It’s not surprising. ??We need to get him to tell us who his accomplices are. I believe he came to Taiwan with a team of operatives.”
We got to the holding cell, and I saw that they had worked him over pretty good. Both of his shoulders had been dislocated, and his face was bloody. His right eye was swollen almost completely shut.
I asked that he be given some medical attention. I wanted to have him understand that I was the kind one, and that I could protect him if he trusted me. They fixed his shoulders and a nurse bandaged his face. I gave him some water.
“I’m not a spy,” he said, in English.
“Tell me what your orders were,” I said.
“I don’t have any orders.”
“Tell me who came to Taiwan with you,” I said.
“I came to Taiwan alone.”
“I know that’s a lie.”
He shrugged, wincing with the pain.
I nodded to Chen and Li, and they started pushing small, sharpened bamboo sticks under his fingernails. He tried to stay silent. Chen began to hit the base of the bamboo sticks with a small hammer, as though he were hammering nails into a wall. The man screamed like an animal. Eventually he passed out.
Chen hosed him down with cold water until he woke up. I asked him the same questions. He shook his head, refusing to talk.
“We just want to talk to your friends,” I said. “If they are innocent, nothing will happen to them. They won’t blame you.”
He laughed.
“Let’s try the Tiger Bench,” Li said.
They brought over a narrow long bench and laid one end against a supporting column in the room. They sat him down on the bench so that his back was straight against the column. Bending his arms back and wrapping them around the column, they tied his hands together. Then they strapped his thighs and knees down to the top of the bench with thick leather straps. Finally, they tied his ankles together.