Nanjing Requiem

17




ONE AFTERNOON in late February, a fortyish refugee woman named Sufen came to the president’s office and said she had spotted her fifteen-year-old son in a labor gang in the Model Prison downtown. Surprised, Minnie asked her, “Are you sure he was your son?”

“Absolutely, he called me Ma and hollered he missed home. Principal Vautrin, please help me—help get him out of jail.”

“Relax. Tell us more about that place.”

That stumped Sufen, who turned tongue-tied.

“How many men are in there?” I asked her, having stepped out of the other inner room, which was my office.

“Hundreds, some wearing burlap sacks like rain ponchos. Some are just teenage boys like my son.” As she spoke, Sufen’s large eyes shone with excitement and her sunburned nose quivered. I knew she had filed her petition with Big Liu.

“What else did your son tell you?” Minnie went on.

“Nothing more. Two guards took them away before he could say another word. I’m gonna wait for him there tomorrow morning.”

“Try to find out something about the other men too.”

“Sure I will.”

“Don’t tell others you saw your son there yet. We must figure out what to do before we spread the word.”

“I’ll do whatever you say.”

I admired Minnie’s discretion. If we broke the news at once, we might bring about a chaos among the petitioners that Big Liu and his team would not be able to handle.

Sufen dragged herself out of the office, her shoulders bent and her knees knocking a little as she walked. I remembered speaking with her weeks ago, and knew that she had come with a group of refugees from Danyang and that her husband was a chef in the Nationalist army, though the man was somewhere in the southwest of China now. That made me feel closer to her because my son-in-law was also in the army. Sufen told me that a shell had landed in her backyard and killed her mother-in-law, who had been feeding a milk goat there. The moment Sufen and her son carried the old woman indoors and covered her with a sheet, word came that the Japanese were approaching. So she and the boy took flight with the other villagers. But before reaching the road that led to a nearby town, they were intercepted by a company of soldiers, who detained all the able-bodied men among them, saying that the Imperial Army needed “many, many hands” and would give them good food and pay them handsomely. Sufen begged an officer to spare her son. He was just a kid, not even fifteen yet, skinny like a starved chicken. “Please, please don’t take him away!” she pleaded, holding both hands together before her chest. But the heavyset officer kicked her and threatened to cut off her ear if she made any more noise. She was too frightened to say another word, and all she could do was give the boy the biscuits and water she carried.

Now the information about her son in the Model Prison, a standard penitentiary built by the Nationalist government but used as a military jail by the Japanese, cast a ray of hope on the petition. It also made me see the reason for Minnie’s insistence on the endeavor. If my son were behind bars, I’d have done anything to get him out. I thought that I ought to be more involved in helping those poor mothers and wives.

Minnie and I wondered if the jail also held other men and boys belonging to some petitioners’ families. She called together Big Liu, Holly, and me and floated the idea of sending scores of women to the Model Prison to see if they could find their menfolk as well. Both Big Liu and Holly thought that this might be too rash and might endanger the women.

I believed that we could make the petition a much stronger case if more men and boys were found in that jail. Maybe we could send over just three or four plain-looking women? I suggested. They all seconded my suggestion.

With the help of Lewis Smythe, Minnie got in touch with Dr. Chu, who had his clinic in the center of downtown and was well connected and eager to help the women get their menfolk back. Most of the foreigners thought highly of this man, though I had mixed feelings about him. He had earned his medical degree from the University of Leipzig and spoke fluent German but very little English. Reverend Magee said Dr. Chu was warm and trustworthy—unlike most Chinese, he never minced his words and always cut to the chase. Despite working for the Autonomous City Government, he had a decent reputation among the locals, partly because he held no official title and spent most of his time seeing patients. Magee had recommended him to several Americans as a family physician. On a windy afternoon in early March, Minnie and I arrived at his office downtown, carrying the six hundred signatures and thumbprints of the petitioners.

To our surprise, Dr. Chu had met with Big Liu two days before and was familiar with the case. He was in his late thirties, with urbane manners. His three-piece suit was baggy on him, though his boots were shiny. He spoke while drumming his long fingers on the glass desktop as if tapping out a telegram. “I went to the Model Prison yesterday and chatted with an officer,” he told us in a low-timbred voice. “The man said that fifteen hundred prisoners were held there as forced labor. Many of them are civilians, and more than forty are young boys. But the officer wouldn’t let me speak to any of them. He feared that his Japanese superior might suspect him of leaking information.”

“Do you think there might be a way we can get some of them released?” Minnie asked. I was amazed that he was already involved.

“That’s possible. Try to get more women to participate and send the petition to Shanghai if the Japanese here ignore you. There must be a way to push them.”

“We’ll do that.”

“The prisoners are underfed and malnourished. Some were too ill to work. Maybe you should have some rice and salted vegetables delivered to those recognized by the petitioners.”

“So far only one boy was spotted by his mother,” I told him.

“I’m pretty sure more will be found.”

“We’ll try our best,” Minnie said.

“I’ll do everything I can to help.” He sighed, his eyes dimmed, and his patchy brows drooped.

Dr. Chu was one of the best doctors of Western medicine here, and even some Japanese officers had gone to him for treatment since he had come back to Nanjing a month before. With his help, we hoped that our petition might produce some results.