Nanjing Requiem

FOUR

The Grief Everlasting



35




MRS. DENNISON CAME BACK to Jinling in mid-March 1939. With her was Aifeng Yang, who served as her assistant and had taught extensively at the college, including horticulture, children’s education, and domestic hygiene. Minnie gave them a welcome-home party, attended by all the faculty and staff. People were excited to see Mrs. Dennison again.

Officially the old woman was just an adviser at our college, but she thought of the college as hers. Already sixty-nine, she was healthy and in good shape despite her grizzled flaxen hair and a little stoop due to chronic back pain. She looked much thinner than before. When she spoke to you at length, she’d gesticulate unceasingly, her longish face would begin adopting an expression between smiling and crying, and her tawny eyes would turn fiery. Yet most of the time she looked miserable, as if something unfortunate had just happened to her. She told us that many wealthy families in the States that used to donate to Jinling had become reluctant to give on account of our school’s uncertain future, so she was resolved to restore the college and to attract American donations again.

The next morning I took her around campus. We went to the poultry center, where Rulian enthusiastically greeted Mrs. Dennison, who had once taught her. The old woman was satisfied to see that Rulian still conducted experiments and to hear that some hens could lay two eggs a day. Imagine what an extraordinary contribution this project would make to China’s larder if a third of the hens in our country were that productive! Suddenly a chicken broke out cackling. “That must be Matchmaker,” Rulian said, rolling her almond-shaped eyes, and went into the shack of coops. She had named every bird in her charge. Matchmaker, a black pullet, often brought other young hens to roosters.

In a flash Rulian came back with a huge brown egg. “See, this hen often lays a double-yolk thing.” She showed it to Mrs. Dennison.

The old woman held it with both hands. “Oh dear, it’s still warm.”

“You can have it,” Rulian said.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely, a double-yolk egg can’t hatch.”

Mrs. Dennison took out a linen handkerchief and wrapped it around the egg. Rulian found a pastry box and handed it to her. “This is good,” the old woman said, putting the bundle into the small paperboard container.

We went to the gardens in the back of campus, where the damage left by the refugees was still visible, although the trees were all leafing and some shrubs were fluffy with wet blossoms. After looking through various parts of the college, the old woman was not pleased, except with the two-hundred-yard macadam road that ran through the expanse between the front gate and the quadrangle—Minnie had gotten it paved for only one-third of the regular price.

“This still looks like a refugee camp,” Mrs. Dennison said, furrowing her brow.

I didn’t reply, knowing she must dislike the large number of poor students in the Homecraft School. We were standing on the short bridge over the creek that meandered from the pond behind the Library Building to the pond beside Ninghai Road, near the Faculty Residence. Below us a flock of white ducks paddled by, all in silence. In the bushes nearby, orioles were twittering merrily as if crazed with spring joy, but in the south a squadron of bombers was droning, now visible and now lost in the clouds billowing above a wooded hill. Some city, such as Ningbo or Fuzhou, would be bombed today.

“We must bring the college back,” Mrs. Dennison said, and shook her head. Her face was slightly gray while her eyes glazed with pain and anger.

“Yes, we must,” I echoed.

“Damn the Japanese—they destroyed everything.”

“Do you think they’ll let us restore the college, given their anti-Christian policy?”

She gave a deep sigh. “I don’t care. I just want Jinling to be what it was.”

Minnie had assigned Mrs. Dennison the large provost’s office. For the time being, the old woman and Aifeng lived at the South Hill Residence, in a five-room apartment on the first floor. They both liked the arrangement. Mrs. Dennison didn’t teach, but Aifeng started a course in child guidance in the Homecraft School. Many students who were mothers wondered how this unmarried woman with a lithe figure, a flat belly, and smiling eyes could teach them childcare and child welfare, but after a few classes they were all eager to listen to her, amazed that she knew so much about the subject. I liked Aifeng, who was easygoing and didn’t gossip.

Minnie sent Alice to the U.S. embassy to fetch Mrs. Dennison’s wedding silver. The large portmanteau, recovered by a Russian diver from the sunken Panay, was misshapen and the silver pieces were tarnished, but the old woman wasn’t upset and merely said, “I’ll sell the whole set if someone offers a good price. Our college needs funds anyway.”

I admired her largesse. Mrs. Dennison praised Minnie for having our college’s most important documents duplicated before sending them away, particularly those that were ruined in the water-damaged portmanteau. I was glad that the two women seemed to be getting along.

Then, a week later, the old woman came down with an illness no doctor could diagnose. I was worried that she might have had a stroke, for she suffered some kind of emotional incontinence: she was unable to control her tears and laughter even in front of visitors. According to Aifeng, Mrs. Dennison was heartbroken about the condition of our college, and when alone, she couldn’t help sighing and often wept. She confessed to Aifeng, “Even when my husband died, I didn’t feel so sad. It’s like my life is over.” She lay in bed most of the time and took her meals in her bedroom. We all knew she had always wanted Jinling to be the number one women’s college in China. From the outset she had emphasized, “We aspire to become China’s Wellesley.” That had pleased Madame Chiang, who had graduated from Wellesley, so much that the first lady, together with her two sisters and in memory of their mother, donated the funds for a dormitory building and the Practice Hall, both of which were built under Minnie’s supervision.

Meanwhile, Minnie received word from Plumer Mills that the six IRC men might be released from prison soon, though there was no progress in Yulan’s case. In his letter Plumer wrote that the madwoman was classified as a mental patient, so the Japanese would not consider releasing her on the basis that she might disrupt public order. Plumer said farewell to us, as he was about to leave for the States.

Minnie and I went to see Yulan again. The young woman looked sickly and six or seven years older than her age; evidently they wouldn’t let her out for fresh air and sunlight. She was now kept in a small room with a teenage girl, who was also demented. They each had a cot, and with permission, visitors could go in and see them. Minnie handed Yulan a bag of dried persimmons, which the madwoman tore open with her teeth. She took a bite of the sugar-frosted fruit, and said, “Wow, this is amazing! I haven’t tasted anything like this in ages.” Her elongated eyes glittered, and her chin moved from side to side as she munched. In spite of the warm weather, she still wore Minnie’s light woolen coat, though its fur collar was gone. What happened to the jacket we brought her last time? I wondered, but didn’t let the question out.

“I’m glad you like it,” Minnie said about the fruit, seated on the only stool in the room while I was sitting on the other girl’s cot.

Yulan asked her ward mate, “Little Catty, d’you want some?”

“No, I eat fresh fruit only,” the teenager muttered, and kept picking her ear with a long matchstick.

“Actually she only eats rice, not even vegetables,” Yulan told Minnie. “Sometimes she won’t eat for two or three days in a row, so they have to tie her up and force-feed her.”

“What happened to her?” Minnie asked.

“She’s a mental case. The Japs killed her folks in front of her and stabbed her in the neck.” Indeed, on the girl’s nape was a purple scar that still looked raw.

Minnie asked Little Catty, “Do you want me to bring you something when I come next time?”

“Bring me a knife, a long sharp knife,” the girl said through her teeth, her eyes glinting.

“See, see, she’s a crackpot,” Yulan cried. “But I also could use a big knife so no man will dare to come close to me.”

After promising Yulan that we would come to see her again and bring her another jacket and a dress, we left. Stepping out of the doorway, for some reason Minnie said, “I wish we could set this building on fire so in the middle of the mayhem, we could smuggle Yulan and Little Catty out of here.”

“That’s a great idea,” I said.

She grinned and the corners of her mouth crinkled a bit.

We stopped by Tianhua Orphanage to see Monica, who welcomed us effusively, but her cheeks were flushed, her blond hair thinner than before and the rings under her eyes darker. She confessed that she had tuberculosis; yet she smiled, saying, “If God wants me back, I’m ready—I’m willing to go anytime.” She spoke as though longing for relief, dabbing her mouth with a hand towel whenever she coughed.

I wondered whether it was appropriate for Monica to stay with the children. Wouldn’t she spread the germs and give them the disease? The Japanese were obsessed with sanitation and hygiene—why wouldn’t they intervene in this case? Well, to them, these babies must be no more than bastards.

We didn’t touch the tea a nurse had poured for us, but chatted with Monica for a good while. The orphanage kept fewer children now, seventeen in total; eleven of them couldn’t walk or talk yet. They all looked undernourished, and some stared at the grown-ups with dumb, unblinking eyes. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were retarded.

“This boy’s father is Japanese,” Monica told us, pointing at a bony baby whose face was a little shriveled.

“You mean his mother threw him away?” Minnie asked in surprise.

“Yes, some Chinese women, especially the unmarried ones, are too ashamed to keep babies fathered by Japanese soldiers.”

“I don’t blame them, but it’s a sin to abandon innocent children.”

Monica heaved a sigh. “We have eight babies of mixed blood.”

“I can’t tell a Chinese baby from a Japanese baby,” Minnie said.

“Neither can I,” I put in.

“It’s hard to differentiate them indeed,” Monica told us. “Five of them were given to us by their mothers, and three were brought over by a Chinese policeman, who picked them up at the doorstep of a temple.”

“What happened to those older orphans?” Minnie asked.

“You mean those six- and seven-year-olds?”

“Yes.”

“They were sent to our mission school in Changsha.”

Minnie’s face brightened. “Monica, you’ve been doing an angel’s work.”

“You think I don’t know what you’ve been up to?” The nun smiled, her deep-set eyes gleamed, and her gaunt face wrinkled a bit but was calm. “Be careful. The Japanese and their flunkies hate you. They don’t want Christianity to take root and flourish in China.”

“I’ll try not to be afraid,” Minnie said.

“Right, to be afraid is not a way of living. If the soul lives forever, death is no more than a stage of life and we have nothing to fear.”

“You’re right.”

I was impressed by Monica’s remarks. The nun was in her late thirties at most but exuded so much serenity that the orphanage, shabby as it was, reminded me of an oasis in tumbling waves.

Back on campus, I filled a glass jar with cod-liver oil. I was in charge of two large barrels of it, given to us by John Magee long ago, and every student at Jinling had been taking a teaspoon of the oil a day since last winter, as Robert Wilson had instructed after he’d examined some of the girls. Minnie dispatched Ban to deliver the cod-liver oil to Monica with a note saying she needed to take it every day.