Nanjing Requiem

22




IT WAS ALREADY beastly hot by the end of May, the air muggy and stagnant. The sun beat down on everything relentlessly, fueling the internal fire in every creature. Sometimes I saw the soldiers on the streets sweating so much that their uniforms were dappled with wet patches. Some of them, heat-raddled, would unconsciously scratch their throats as they walked, as if they were having difficulty breathing. I hoped it would get hotter and hotter so the semitropical heat Nanjing was famous for might drive them away. The Japanese didn’t know what they had bargained for and would have to live in this “furnace” for many years before they could acclimate themselves. I bet a lot of them would have heatstroke and sweat rash this summer. Surely the heat would get rid of some of them just as it had killed thousands of Mongols centuries before.

The hot weather, however, made the children in our camp comfortable, especially small boys who scampered around barefoot—some didn’t have even a stitch on, not in the least bothered by the mosquitoes that were becoming ubiquitous. As Minnie and I were standing outside the Faculty House, a clamor went up on the side of the pond behind the Central Building. A naked boy, six or seven, had been caught by a group of women who were attempting to force him into a new pair of pants. “I won’t, I won’t!” he hollered, kicking and struggling to break loose. Around them, people were laughing, some whooping and clapping their hands. His mother yelled at him, “Don’t you feel ashamed? You’re too big to run around like a wild animal! If your dad were here, he’d spank the pee out of you.” But the boy kept bawling and resisting and finally managed to get away, still buck naked.

“Goodness, that boy has lots of lung power,” a woman said.

“He should join a church choir,” another told his mother.

Minnie had just presented nine pairs of children’s shoes to some mothers who were about to leave the camp. They’d definitely have a hard time breaking their kids of going around barefoot. Or perhaps they shouldn’t trouble themselves about that at all. When the cold weather set in, the children would automatically wear shoes. I didn’t mind seeing the boys barefoot, but I thought they ought to wear something to cover up their weenies. I said to Minnie, “There should be a law forbidding anyone older than six to go naked in public.”

Rulian, smiling and clucking her tongue, came and joined us, followed by a puff of midges that began circling around our heads. We talked about the men and boys promised to be released. Would Tanaka have lied to us? Minnie was certain that he’d been in earnest; otherwise he wouldn’t have come in person to deliver the news. We also discussed how to help those refugees who had no home anymore, and those who did but couldn’t support themselves and their children. Our college had received some small funds recently, and Minnie had been giving them away to a few women who didn’t have any means of livelihood. She gave each person five or six yuan with which they might start a small business, like a little laundry, or a tea stand, or a stall selling fans, soaps, incense, pencils, and candles.

There was so much to talk about that we decided to go to the main office and resume conferring there. Seated at the president’s desk and on straight-back chairs, we began reviewing the cases of the women and girls in need of support. A few days earlier, Minnie had proposed to the International Relief Committee the plan for a summer school for one hundred “students,” a kind of professional training program, which would be called the Homecraft School, the same as the one we used to run for the local peasant girls whose parents were too poor to give them a formal education. Minnie had kept the proposal on a small scale because she didn’t want the campus to continue resembling a refugee camp, but now evidently there were many more who had nowhere to go and therefore our plan had to be expanded to include them. After considering some cases, we figured that there’d be more than two hundred refugees remaining here. For them, some educational program would have to be formed to justify their presence at Jinling.

In addition, Minnie had agreed to take in eighty young women from the Dafang camp, which was shutting down. All together there would be about three hundred refugees on campus, though they’d be called “students.”

“Well,” Minnie said, “it looks like we’ll have to reinstate our Homecraft School, in combination with a kind of folk school.”

Rulian and I agreed, because we also wanted to help the refugee women achieve literacy. By “folk school,” Minnie had in mind something like the public education programs popular in northern Europe, which she had visited in the summer of 1931. She’d been impressed by the folk schools in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, where people would attend the adult classes a few months a year, studying sciences, literature, arts, and practical skills without the burden of earning grades or taking exams. In those small countries people went to that type of school just to improve themselves and enrich their lives. Since that trip, Minnie had often talked about how to adopt that model in our country, where only fifteen percent of the populace could read. Ironically, now we had an opportunity.

The next day the camp was closing, and most of the women and girls were leaving. Some slung their bedrolls over their backs, and some carried their belongings with shoulder poles. I admired the husky ones among them, who would become good farmhands back in their villages. Many of them came to thank us for their six months’ stay at Jinling, which was an experience they cherished. Around ten a.m., a large crowd assembled before the Central Building to say good-bye to Minnie. She hurried out to meet them.

At the sight of her, the four hundred women and girls sitting on the ground in a semicircle rose to their knees. Rulian stood up and shouted in a strong voice, “The first knock!”

The crowd kowtowed, their heads touching the ground.

“The second knock!” Rulian cried out again, and the crowd repeated the same act. Unlike them, Rulian, our Lady Fowler, was on faculty, but she acted as if she too were leaving.

“Get up, get up, please!” Minnie shouted, standing in the middle of the semicircle and gesticulating, her palms upward and her fingers wiggling, but nobody listened to her. Holly stepped aside and joined me. I was watching with my hands crossed on my abdomen, wondering how in the world Rulian had become their leader.

“The third knock,” she chanted, and the crowd kowtowed again.

“Rulian, tell them to get up!” Minnie pleaded.

By now the crowd had begun crying in mixed voices, “Good-bye, the Goddess of Mercy!”

“Long live our savior, Principal Vautrin!” a voice called out.

The crowd repeated in unison, some swaying their heads from side to side.

“Long live our Goddess of Mercy!” the same voice went on.

All of them shouted together again.

Dumbfounded, Minnie didn’t know what to do. I saw Luhai standing in the back of the crowd and smiling, a cigarette tucked behind his ear. He seemed to be relishing this sight.

Minnie took a deep breath and addressed the crowd loudly: “All right, get to your feet now. I have something to say.”

They began picking themselves up, some rubbing their knees and some lifting their bedrolls. “Although you are leaving today,” Minnie began, “you have all stayed here for several months and have become part of the Jinling family. Remember our motto: ‘Abundant Life.’ From now on, wherever you go and whatever you do, you must carry on the Jinling spirit to cherish and nurture life and to help the needy and the underprivileged. You must also remember that you are Chinese and the fate of your country rests on the shoulders of every one of you. As long as you do not despair, as long as you all do your share to serve China, this country will survive all misfortunes and will grow strong again.

“When you have an opportunity, do come back to see us. The gate of Jinling will always be open to you.” She had to stop because a rush of emotion choked her.

I stepped forward and cried to them, “Now, you all go home to be loving mothers, devoted wives, and filial daughters. Good-bye, everyone, God bless you all.”

As the crowd was dissolving, Minnie grabbed hold of Rulian, whose face was filmed with perspiration. “Why did you let them do that?” Minnie asked her.

“They made me lead them—they wanted to express their gratitude. What else could I do?”

Holly and I went up to them. “Minnie, it’s over,” Holly said. “You handled it perfectly.”

“They made me uncomfortable, as though they turned me into an idol.”

“Come now,” I spoke up, “we all know they love and respect you.”

“But they should show that kind of love and respect only to God,” Minnie said thoughtfully.

“God’s spirit is embodied in humans,” I continued sincerely.

Holly giggled and slapped Minnie on the shoulder, saying, “Our Goddess of Mercy, what a wonderful title. I wouldn’t mind if they dubbed me that. I’d do my darnedest to live up to it.”

Minnie reached out and gave Holly’s ear a tweak. “Ouch!” Holly let out.

“I hate to see them confuse humanity with divinity,” Minnie said. “It’s not right to be called a goddess while I’m doing mission work.”

The previous week Miss Lou had told us that a woman of eighty-seven in the neighborhood, blind as a bat, would at night sit in the lotus pose and pray to Minnie’s photograph, wishing the American principal a hundred years of life so that she could help and protect more poor women and girls. Many Chinese cannot think of divinity divorced from humanity. Indeed, for them anyone could grow good and better and eventually into a god or goddess.