“You have more than they do.”
Jin pointed to a mess of human excrement in the road and Leo stepped around it, used to such obstacles, since none of the buildings in Hongkew had flush toilets. He tried to move the bedding to the top of his head so he could see in front of him, but he didn’t have the dexterity to keep his head straight under the weight.
“Before the Europeans and the Americans were put in internment camps, the coolies said, ‘Take ride, sir,’ and a few other phrases, but now most of the white people around this neighborhood are Jews,” said Jin. “They had to learn a few more words. Maybe they’ll be speaking German soon. Or Yiddish.” Jin nodded to the next row of rickshaw drivers waiting for fares close to the Hartmanns’ new apartment. They were thin as reeds, with clothes so ripped, Leo felt he could see straight through to their bones. “Listen, they’ll say the same thing.” As if planned, another driver screamed out, “We treat you good, Jewish!” as Jin mouthed along and grinned. “Come on, Jewish,” he said. “We better hurry or you know who won’t treat you good? Your father.”
The two young men, both in their early twenties, tried to skirt the chaos of people, vendors, and trash in front of them but got stuck behind a military car pushing its way through the narrow street. There were few cars on the roads, since most Westerners had been made to turn theirs in to the government. They moved closer to the rickshaw pullers to be out of the way. The pullers kept yelling at passersby, oblivious to the soldiers, until the car stopped in front of them and a Japanese officer climbed out and approached them. He bent to examine the worn carts, then took the pillows out of the rickshaw belonging to the oldest of the men, who was leaning on his cart as if he could barely hold his weight up otherwise. The officer was shouting furiously, and Leo turned to Jin for an explanation.
“The soldier—whose Chinese is surprisingly good—said the man is standing on the wrong part of the road. That the rickshaw line can only be so long and since he is on the end, he’s at fault.” Jin listened for a minute more and said, “He says he has the right to punish the driver by confiscating his pillows.”
They watched as the officer took the worn seat cushions in his hand and ripped out the stuffing, letting it drop on the dirty road. The driver fell to his hands and knees, scrambling to pick up the cotton that was being shredded. Leo again looked at Jin for translation, as he had been doing almost every day since the two became friends at St. Francis Xavier’s. They were two non-Catholics in a Catholic school, just as he and Emi had been.
“The driver. He’s saying what they all say. That he’s a nobody from the country and has nothing but the clothes on his back. No home, no family, and that he won’t be able to eat tonight because of the officer taking his pillows and shredding them. No customers will ride on the bench without pillows when they can just climb into another rickshaw in the line.”
Jin shook his head and gestured for Leo to keep walking. “People here, the Chinese and especially the Japanese, view the coolies as one step above animals. And even then, it depends on the animal. They are the faceless donkeys who keep this city going. And they’re always going to be treated badly, no matter what we try to do about it. So stop staring and let’s go.”
“Their desperation,” said Leo, walking on the other side of the car, away from the officer. “I’ll never get used to it.”
“Of course not,” said Jin. “I’ve never lived anywhere but Shanghai, and I’m not used to it. To be sickened by their treatment is what keeps you human. Half the men here, they are no longer human beings. I may have more money than you, Jewish, but I get treated far worse than you do, money or not.” Leo thought about the bridge between the International Settlement and Hongkew. There were two Japanese soldiers placed on it at all hours and while he was allowed to walk past them without any acknowledgment, as all Westerners were, Jin and the other Chinese had to bow deeply before the guards, every time they crossed the bridge. Even rickshaw pullers had to stop, suspend their loads, and bow. Leo shook his head in agreement and tried to look away from the line of men and their carts.
Before the war, Jin had been educated in the British school system. He had finished in the Catholic school since most of the British schools were being abandoned as the teachers were locked up in the Lunghua internment camp, a camp full of Brits, and a few Aussies, out of town on Minghong Road. They were corralled and imprisoned there by the Japanese after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese authorities policed the British school, controlling the curriculum and locking up teachers at random, so Jin’s father moved him to the Jesuits. Now Jin’s role had gone from student to teacher, given the hours he spent every week writing down Chinese and English words for Leo. Leo’s English had been poor when his family had arrived, and he’d had to improve it quickly. With Jin’s help, he was able to finish school with far better than passing grades.
Jin looked at Leo and told him to hurry. “I know what you’re thinking when you stand in the street quiet like that,” he said. “Don’t. It won’t help anyone.”
Leo nodded and resumed walking, but he couldn’t stop his thoughts turning back to that awful day.
Two years before, when Jin and Leo were walking from school toward the French Concession, where Jin’s father owned a very popular and sordid nightclub, they saw a poor Chinese laborer, his back permanently bent at a 45-degree angle, step on the heel of a Japanese officer’s boot with his bare foot. The officer had turned and yelled at him, then slapped him in the face when he apparently deemed the man’s apology not respectful enough. Then, in the shuffle of the crowd, the Chinese man had accidentally done it again, kicking the officer in the calf the second time. Irate, the officer spun around, took his pistol from his hip, and shot the man twice, once in each foot from less than a yard away. The Chinese man fell to the ground, screaming in agony, and Leo and Jin could see one of his big toes, severed from his foot, lying next to them on a pile of rotten vegetables. The soldier had walked away, stopping to buy a length of the delicious braided dough boiled in oil that was sold on the street. He ate it while watching the man scream and writhe in pain and then left the area whistling, as calm as if he were picking flowers.
“It’s terrible to be a coolie,” Jin said to Leo. He pointed at Max and Hani, who were within their line of sight again. “It’s terrible to be anyone living under the Japanese, but at least we are all alive. That’s what the world has come to now hasn’t it? Living or not living. It’s no longer living well, living humbly, it’s just life or death. Even the coolie we saw that day. He could still be alive.”