Nanjing Requiem

13




FIVE DAYS after Christmas, Minnie went to the Japanese embassy and delivered the letter. As soon as she came back, Cola, the Russian man, arrived with two blind girls, one eight and the other ten, both wearing tattered robes and boots too large for them. The younger one held a bamboo flute while the older one carried an erhu, a two-stringed violin. They had performed with a small band at teahouses and open-air theaters to eke out a living since coming to the city the previous summer, but the other musicians in the band had fled and left them behind. Cola chanced on them outside Zhong Hua Girls’ School, took them in for a few days, and found boots and woolen socks for their bare feet. He thought that our camp might be more suitable for them, so he brought them to Minnie, who had no choice but to accept them.

Cola often said he didn’t like the Chinese because some businessmen had cheated him, but he’d told the other foreigners that he might be more helpful here once the city fell. On top of that, he owned an auto-repair business, which was booming even now. He used to believe that the Japanese, or the Greeks of Asia, as they called themselves, should rule China because he thought they could make this country a better place for business. Yet he was horrified by the soldiers’ brutalities and joined the Safety Zone Committee to help the refugees. He could serve as an interpreter since he knew some Japanese.

“Thank you, Miss Vautrin. There’s no way I can keep them,” he said in Mandarin, and pushed the two bony girls toward Minnie’s desk a little. “Only you can give them a home.”

“Jinling has been ruined by the Japanese too.” Minnie turned to the girls and held their small chapped hands, saying, “You’re safe here. Don’t be afraid.”

She then told me to give them the special room in the main dormitory, but I had to attend to a young mother in labor, so Holly led them out of the office, holding their hands as the three of them walked away.

AT LAST Ban began to talk. In the evening about twenty people gathered in the dining room to listen to him. He ate normally now, but he still wouldn’t move around campus and slept a lot during the day.

He said, “That afternoon when Principal Vautrin told me to go tell Mr. Rabe about the random arrest in our camp, I ran to the Safety Zone Committee’s headquarters. As I was reaching that house, two Japanese soldiers stopped me, one pointing his bayonet at my tummy and the other sticking his gun against my back. They ripped off my Red Cross armband and hit me in the face with their fists. Then they took me away to White Cloud Shrine.…”

Three evenings in a row he told his story to different groups of people. Sometimes, while speaking, Ban would break down, weeping wretchedly and flailing his thin arms. He would also tremble from time to time as though someone were about to strike him. We decocted some medicinal soup for him every day, made of dried tuckahoe, wolfberries, mums, and other herbs, to help him sleep well and to restore his wits.

He got better a few weeks later but still dared not step out of the compound of our college. Minnie told Luhai to assign him only domestic chores.