Nanjing Requiem

26




ONE MORNING in early October I found Luhai waiting in my office. He looked anxious but was well dressed as usual, wearing a checkered necktie and leather shoes. He took a folded sheet of paper out of his pants pocket and said to me, “I came across this yesterday evening.”

I skimmed the article. It was a short piece printed on a flyer titled “White Devils, Go Home!” I’d seen similar, though less insulting, writings in recent newspapers—apparently some locals, maybe backed by different political factions, had been campaigning against the foreigners. I put the sheet on the desk and said to Luhai, “Thanks for sharing this.”

“I’m afraid there might be secret moves against our friends,” Luhai said, his high Adam’s apple bobbing.

“Yes, we should let them know. I’ll pass this on to Searle Bates.” I knew that most Americans in town frequented the professor’s house.

Luhai was also worried about how to come by coal for the winter. He had just gotten Minnie’s permission to take down some trees in case the coal from Wuhan didn’t arrive and we had to heat classrooms on the coldest days. The trees on the border of our college’s grounds could be felled by thieves at any time.

Luhai left half an hour later. I liked him better than I had before. I used to think that he was a little callow, probably on account of his young age—twenty-six—but in the past months he seemed to have grown more mature and less talkative. Teachers and students thought well of him, especially the girls, some of whom even had a crush on him, despite his little limp and the fact that he was married and had two small children. Once in a while he spoke at the chapel and taught people hymns. He still talked about how he hated the Japanese. Who could fault him? He’d lost relatives outside Dalian City the previous fall. His cousin, a kung fu master, had defeated a Japanese officer at a sports meet and was celebrated as a local hero. But the next day a platoon of Japanese soldiers went to his home, caught him and his only child, tied them to a tree with iron wire, poured a can of kerosene on father and son, and set them aflame.

The article left by Luhai attacked the foreign men on the former Safety Zone Committee, claiming that they had conspired with the Japanese to oppress and persecute the Chinese, so the neutral zone had never been neutral. The author cited several examples of the Westerners’ collaboration with the invaders, such as disarming the Chinese soldiers and then handing them over to the Imperial Army, attending its celebratory ceremonies and concerts, and teaching Japanese in Christian schools. The article claimed that some of these foreigners often visited the Japanese embassy and even feasted there while making evil plans against China, and that, more outrageously, they’d made a huge profit from selling food to the refugees despite the free rations they had obtained from the former municipality. It was a fact that a white face could serve as a pass and a guarantee of personal safety here. The article singled out Lewis Smythe as a key collaborator, claiming that he’d met with the Japanese officials as often as twice a day. It also highlighted an incident at the police academy when 450 cadets were “betrayed” by the white men. “Those young officers were well equipped with German-made rifles (not handguns), and even their uniforms, helmets, and brass-buckled belts were German in style,” the author wrote. “We all knew how strong and well trained those men were. If they had put up a fight, they could at least have resisted the enemy to earn the precious time for the Chinese army to withdraw fully, or for more of them to break away. But the American missionaries lied to those men and said that the Japanese had granted them clemency, so they all laid down their weapons and capitulated. Later, we saw the Japanese take them through the streets. Most of them were stronger and better fighters than their captors, but they were disarmed and roped together, given the illusion of safety. All had their hands up in the air, and they were marched to the riverside and mowed down by machine guns so that the Japanese could dump them into the water without bothering to bury them. Fellow compatriots, who should be blamed for their stupid deaths and for our tragedy? The American missionaries, who are not our friends but a gang of double-crossers.”

I wondered whether the Communists were behind this article, since they were also eager to see the Americans leave.

When I showed Minnie the flyer, she was not disturbed, having seen this type of attack before. That evening she called on Searle. I accompanied her because I wanted to thank him personally for saving my husband’s life. Yaoping had been depressed ever since we received our son’s letter, and I had urged him to go out and meet some people to ease his mind, so he’d begun frequenting Nanjing University and had even resumed teaching a course in Manchu history there. A week ago, as soon as his class was over, a group of Japanese soldiers arrived and grabbed hold of him, saying he could speak their language and must serve as a part-time interpreter. Obviously someone had ratted on him. As they were dragging him away, Searle appeared and blocked the door, insisting that Yaoping was on the faculty, so as the provisional head of the History Department, he could not release the lecturer to anyone. The leader of the group cursed Searle, but he wouldn’t give in. Finally the Japanese became so angry that they pushed both Searle and Yaoping down the stairs. Seeing the two men lying on the landing, Searle groaning and Yaoping unconscious, they left without him. These days my husband stayed home, too frightened to go to the university again, though he promised he would resume teaching in a week or so.

When Minnie and I arrived at Searle’s, we found both Lewis Smythe and Bob Wilson in the historian’s spacious study, which was full of the fragrance of incense but topsy-turvy, books and framed photographs scattered around and the walls bare. The previous day the Japanese police had ransacked Searle’s home because they suspected that he had contributed to a book just published in London about the war atrocities in Nanjing and other southern cities. Minnie had disclosed to me that Searle did write under a pseudonym a portion of What War Means: The Japanese Terror in China. The police found few of the documents and eyewitness statements they were seeking, because Searle had deposited the materials in the U.S. embassy.

“So they didn’t take anything?” I asked him.

“They took some of my books and the calligraphy scrolls,” he said with a grimace, his chin slightly cleft. “I should’ve sold them. They also confiscated my son’s toy popgun. He’ll be mad at me.”

I knew he had owned some rare books, which must also be gone. He had filed a protest with the police headquarters, but it would be of no use.

He was still wearing a sling for a dislocated shoulder. I handed him a bag of pork buns and thanked him for rescuing my husband.

“This is great,” he said. “Thank you for these buns, Anling, but there’s no need to bring me these. Yaoping and I are friends and I ought to help.”

He placed the bag on the coffee table strewn with soda bottles. As Lewis and Bob reached out for the buns, Searle said, “No, no, this is for me only. You just wiped out my pumpkin stew.” He hugged the bag and then put it under the table. These grass widowers had sent their families away and ate irregularly nowadays, wherever they could find a meal. The three of them had aged quite a bit lately, and Bob, merely thirty-two, had lost nearly all his hair.

I sat down near a window while Minnie showed them the flyer, which they had heard about. But when he read it, Lewis looked quite shaken, became pale, and his eyes flickered, moist. He frowned and said, “I knew something like this might happen, but I didn’t expect to be labeled as a major collaborator. I went to the Japanese embassy every day to file protests. It’s true I walked with Tanaka on the streets from time to time, but that was just to show him what the soldiers had done.”

He covered his face with one hand and fought to maintain his composure. “This hurts, really hurts. It gets me right here,” he moaned, and his left hand touched his heart.

Silence fell in the study. Minnie went into the bathroom, brought back a clean hand towel, and gave it to him. “I know this is awful, Lewis,” she said. “But don’t let this rattle you. That’s what they’re hoping for.”

“Yes, we must take heart, Lewis,” Searle said. “We’ve done nothing we should feel ashamed of and can hold our heads high.”

“Thanks, thanks, I’ll be okay,” Lewis mumbled, and wiped his face with the towel.

A moment later Bob said, “I saw this sort of propaganda crap in Shanghai too, in the newspapers.”

“Do you think the Communists have something to do with this article?” Minnie asked.

“The puppet municipality is more likely behind it,” Searle said.

“But only the Reds dare to condemn the Japanese and the Americans like this author,” Bob went on.

Minnie agreed. “This does sound like Communist propaganda.”

“I’m not that sure,” Searle said. “There’s no way we can identify the author or authors—anyone can use a pseudonym.”

Lewis told us that the Autonomous City Government had been trying to break up the International Relief Committee, because the IRC had too much local power, organizing more than fourteen hundred members to do charity work. The puppet officials didn’t want to take over the task of helping the needy, but they were eager to get hold of the resources that the IRC had inherited from the former Safety Zone Committee. Some of the puppet officials had been reaping huge profits from one kind of monopoly or another. For example, those in charge of the city’s housing had seized vacant homes and other buildings and had rented them out. For every thousand yuan they collected, the Japanese allowed them to keep four hundred, so the officials had grown unscrupulous in possessing properties. Similar monopolies occurred in other trades as well, such as foodstuffs, medicines, alcohol, and fuel.

The four Americans fell to talking about the brand-new cars that were appearing in the city these days, mostly German-made Fords, Mercedes-Benzes, and Buicks. All of a sudden Nanjing seemed full of officials, who all had chauffeurs and servants. To me, those bigwigs looked more like opium addicts and ne’er-do-wells from wealthy families. Minnie said, “I don’t understand why so many Chinese are willing to serve their national enemy.”

“The rich must find a way to protect their wealth,” Lewis explained, “so their sons must control the government.”

“That must be true,” Bob agreed. “The other day I ran into one of those sons in the city hall. His dad presented a fighter-bomber to Chiang Kai-shek on his birthday two years ago.”

“To be fair,” Searle said, “some of the officials in the puppet municipality are not necessarily bad. They may have been disillusioned by the Nationalist regime. I know a man in charge of cultural affairs. He graduated from Rikkyo University, a very fine man who knows Greek and Latin and writes beautiful essays. He doesn’t like his current role, but he has to survive.”

“That’s true,” Bob said, waving his large hand. “If I had eight mouths to feed, I’d work for whoever paid me. The belly cries louder than principles.”

We all laughed.

Before we left, Searle told his fellow Americans to take precautions and avoid mixing too much with the puppet officials lest the Japanese attack them through the hands of their Chinese stooges and then blame it on the Communists. As Americans, they needed to appear neutral. Searle gave Bob and Lewis each three of the pork buns I’d brought him. He then offered to accompany Minnie and me back to Jinling, but we wouldn’t let him, saying it wasn’t nine o’clock yet and it was all right to walk back by ourselves. Besides, Minnie had a long flashlight.

We said good night to them and stepped out onto the dark street littered with sycamore leaves. Two pairs of searchlights like four giant rapiers went on stabbing into the depths of the moonlit sky, although no Chinese planes had come for more than a month. I wondered why the Japanese seemed fearful and on the defensive—perhaps because there were not enough troops to defend Nanjing at this time. As we walked along, Minnie talked about the situation in Europe, where she felt a holocaust had just been averted by the Munich Conference. She said, “I’m so glad that a lot of young men’s lives have been spared and many cities and towns have escaped destruction.”

“Everyone hates war, I guess,” I said.

“Even politicians?” she asked.

“Sure, few people are really hungry for blood.”

“How about the Japanese?”

“I’m still thinking whether I can take them as human beings.”

“Come on, Anling. You shouldn’t let hatred rule your life.”

Along Hankou Road not a single house had a light on. It seemed as if no one were living here, though from time to time a child’s cry would rise from somewhere. This small street used to be a sort of promenade for lovers, especially for university students in this area. Young couples would come here at night, strolling hand in hand or arm in arm or nestling with each other on the benches under the parasol trees. Sometimes they’d sing love songs in low voices. Now, most of the benches were gone, and we did not encounter a single soul here. I couldn’t help wondering if this place would ever be the same again. That seemed unlikely. Most things can’t stop changing once they have been changed.

As we were approaching Ninghai Road, two Japanese soldiers appeared, cackling with gusto. One was squat and the other skinny. They wobbled up to us and blocked our way. “Girls, purty girls,” the scrawny one shouted in Mandarin.

Minnie shone her flashlight on them. Neither carried a gun, but each wore a three-foot-long saber on his waist. The squat one shoved Minnie in the chest and snatched the flashlight from her while the other man stepped closer and put his hand on my shoulder. As the bar of light was scraping our faces, I began trembling, too petrified to say a word. They both looked drunk, and the alcohol on their breath mixed with the smell of raw turnip and boiled peanuts. The thin man burped resoundingly, then lowered his hand to my chest, fondling me. I was too transfixed to make any noise and tried to step aside, but his comrade rushed up and clutched my arm.

“Purty girl.” The squat one patted my backside and pinched me there.

“Stop!” Minnie said, and wedged herself between them and me. “Look, she has gray hair.” She pointed at me. “She isn’t a girl, she’s a grandmother.”

“Chinese women must serve Emperor’s soldiers,” the dumpy man said, still holding my wrist.

His comrade gripped my other arm again. “Yes, we need her service. She can do laundry for us.”

I was struggling to get out of their clutches but in vain. Minnie pushed the scrawny man, who attempted to kiss me, and shouted, “Damn it, you can’t harass women on the street. I’m going to report you to your higher-ups tomorrow morning.”

They both looked amazed but continued dragging me away. Minnie began yelling at the top of her lungs, “Help, help! Police, come and stop these hoodlums!”

The stocky man slapped her on the face while the other one took out a pack of unused Old Sword cigarettes and handed it to me, saying, “We pay for your service, lots lots.”

I was still in shock and just kept shaking my head speechlessly, my heartbeat rattling in my throat. Minnie went on shouting, “She’s working for me, all right? She’s an employee of the U.S. embassy.”

“Embassy,” the squat man stammered while the other one let go of me.

“Yes, she’s our interpreter.”

“Interpreter, eh?” the skinny man asked.

“Yes, I work for Americans.” At last I found my words in English. “Please let me go, officers.”

They could tell that I was speaking a foreign tongue, which suddenly worked magic. They looked at each other and bowed a little at us. “Working at embassy?” the stocky man mumbled while nodding his head. “Good, good, smart woman.” His index and middle fingers cranked at his temple.

“If you don’t leave her alone,” Minnie went on, “I am going to report you to Mr. Tanaka first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, okay, we know Tanaka. No trouble, no more trouble.” The squat man bowed and pulled his comrade away. They both had bowlegs. Perhaps they were cavalrymen stationed nearby.

I hugged Minnie and burst into tears. “It’s over, Anling. It’s all right now,” she murmured, patting my back.

Leaning against her shoulder, I followed her and headed back toward Jinling. Now and again I cried and giggled uncontrollably. I was kind of hysterical and kept trembling. My right calf had cramps, which forced us to stop twice on the way.

“Damn those bandits, they took my flashlight,” Minnie muttered when we reached campus.