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.”