Nanjing Requiem

44




ON SEPTEMBER 18, John Allison invited Minnie to the U.S. embassy for tiffin. She asked if she could bring me along, and he welcomed me. When we arrived, Allison was still at a meeting but had us sent into the dining room, which had wide windows, a swirled stucco ceiling, brass revolving fans, and two pots of cacti in the corners. A moment later he joined us.

A few minutes after we had started eating creamed spinach and macaroni mixed with seafood, the host opened his briefcase, took out a small brocade box, and placed it in front of Minnie. “I’m supposed to present you with this,” Allison said, and spread his palm toward it, a chased ring on his fourth finger.

“For me?” she asked.

“Yes. Open it.”

She did. Inside the box’s silk interior, a gold medallion was perched like a sunflower, its center inlaid with lambent blue jade. “How many of us got a medal like this?” she asked Allison, pointing at the gold corolla.

“Only you and John Rabe, the Living Buddha.”

“I wish Holly Thornton got one too.”

Allison grinned, revealing his strong teeth. “Maybe Holly will be among the next batch of recipients. To my mind, Lewis Smythe also deserves such an award.”

“John Magee should get one too,” Minnie added.

I picked up the medallion, turned it over, and saw Minnie’s name engraved on its back. Together with the medal was a certificate inside a leather-covered booklet. I opened it and saw the citation saying that the Chinese Nationalist government had awarded her this prize for saving ten thousand lives in Nanjing. “It’s gorgeous,” I said.

Allison smiled and put down his fork, his domed forehead shiny. “This is called the Order of the Jade, the highest honor the Chinese government can bestow on a foreigner.”

“What does this mean?” I asked him.

“It means that the recipient is China’s honorable friend and is welcome to live anywhere in this country.”

I said to Minnie, “Congratulations!”

“I just did what I was supposed to do. Any one of us would do the same given the circumstances.”

Allison continued, “I want both of you to be quiet about this award. The public mustn’t know of it until the war is over.”

“Sure, I won’t let it slip,” I said.

“You feel the war will be over soon?” she asked him.

“I don’t think so. The Russians have just invaded Poland. The situation in Europe looks dire and a war might break out there.”

This was the first time we had heard about the Russian invasion, although we knew that the Germans had already occupied western Poland. We were so dumbfounded that we both could only gasp.

Beyond the window screen the hissing of cicadas was swelling and ebbing. A donkey brayed on the street, shaking its harness bell fitfully. “People seem to have lost their minds,” Minnie said with a sigh.

“Why does evil always get the upper hand?” I said.

“We prayed for peace every day,” she went on. “Evidently the prayers didn’t help.”

“No one in Europe is prepared to stop Hitler,” Allison said. “I’m afraid there’ll be a world war.”

“How about Stalin?” asked Minnie.

“He looks in cahoots with Hitler.”

For the rest of the lunch we talked about the situation in China, where the Japanese invasion seemed to have bogged down, but a peaceful solution was unlikely. The Communist troops kept harassing the Nationalist army, and that forced Chiang Kai-shek to fight the Reds as well. The generalissimo was also bedeviled by the scandal that resulted when the Nationalist army had breached the dike along the Yellow River at Huayuankou the previous year to stymie the advancing Japanese forces. According to newly revealed statistics, eight hundred thousand civilians had perished in the flood—no military strategy could justify that. In addition, the Nationalist government had levied too much from the poor farmers in the northern provinces who had been struck by droughts and famine. It was reported that some people in the countryside, unable to pay the heavy taxes, had begun to support the Japanese.

When lunch was over, Allison hugged us and climbed the carpeted stairs to the third floor for a meeting. We walked back to Jinling, talking about the ominous future of Europe, foreshadowed by the German and Russian invasions of Poland. We knew Mrs. Dennison planned to visit Germany the next summer and might have to cancel her trip to Dresden, Vienna, and Prague. I teased Minnie, saying she’d better find a safe place for her medallion or someone might steal it.

“I would sell it if I could,” she said. “If Mrs. Dennison hears of this, she’ll get madly jealous.”

“That’s true. We must keep it secret.”

This topic discomfited Minnie, so she changed the subject, talking about some projects we had to undertake in the fall, such as storing enough rice and fuel for the two schools and providing shoes and winter clothes for some children of poor families in the neighborhood.

Before the first frost we’d need to buy a lot of vegetables for the women in the Homecraft School to pickle. We would also organize them to make quilts and cotton-padded clothes. I’d have to get more coal, because Mrs. Dennison had instructed that no more trees be felled—we would hire people to guard them against thieves if need be. She said it took just a few minutes to cut down a tree that had resulted from many years of growth, so we’d better protect them.

I had tried to buy coal from some mines but without success, because the Japanese, besides controlling the supply, shipped a good amount of the product directly to Japan. The coal dealers I had spoken with all told me they would only retail it, selling two or three hundred pounds at a time. I guessed that must be more profitable for them.

Finally, about a month later, I managed to get twelve tons of anthracite. This meant that at least the offices would be heated in the winter.

DR. CHU WROTE to Minnie that the Japanese germ warfare program, codenamed Unit 731, was headed by General Shiro Ishii, known as “the Doctor General.” It was located in the Pingfang area south of Harbin City. Some foreigners—Russians and Koreans—were also confined there, being used as test subjects. Since the research project was top secret, Dr. Chu had the note carried by Ban directly to Jinling and instructed that the messenger boy must destroy it, either by swallowing it or tearing it to bits, if he was detained by the Japanese on the way. He also urged Minnie to burn the note after reading it and not to divulge its contents to anyone. She read it twice, then shared it with me because she wanted to hear my opinion. After I read it, she struck a match and set it afire.

For days she’d been thinking about going to the northeast, fantasizing that her visit might help get Yulan out of that place. Minnie revealed her thoughts to nobody but me.

I vehemently objected to her plan. “Look, this is insane,” I told her. “Why run such a risk? Your very presence there will endanger yourself and others.”

“How so?”

“The Japanese will jail you too and won’t let you go until you tell them how you came to know about their secret program. In fact, they might even kill you to eliminate an eyewitness.”

“I don’t care what happens to me. It’s in God’s hands—if I’m supposed to die, I’ll die. But do you think my being there might help Yulan get out?”

I shook my head and sighed. “To be quite honest, you’re too obsessed. We don’t even know if Yulan is still alive. The truth is that once they put her in there, she’ll never be able to come out.”

“So I should just give up?”

“What else can you do? Also, you must consider the repercussions of such a trip. Your absence from campus will cause a sensation, and all sorts of rumors will fly. What’s worse, Mrs. Dennison will take you to task if you’re lucky enough to come back. Your trip will just give rise to a scandal.”

Finally Minnie saw the logic of my argument, so she agreed to drop the plan. Yet thoughts about Yulan kept eating away at her. She couldn’t help but imagine other possibilities of rescuing her and often discussed them with me. “Don’t be so obsessed,” I reminded her. “Sometimes we must learn to forget so that we can keep on going.”

All the same, she remained tormented and couldn’t stop talking about Yulan when we were alone.