She had her letter to Dr. Wu delivered to Bob Wilson and asked him to mail it from Shanghai, where he’d go that Saturday. After the messenger left, Minnie resumed working on the accounts. Somehow, hard as she tried, she couldn’t balance the books for October. A twenty-six-yuan difference was still there. If only we could hire a bookkeeper, but that was impossible. The capital used to have all types of professionals, and yet nowadays you couldn’t find a decent accountant. Small wonder that even the Japanese complained that they didn’t have enough capable Chinese to run the government. Big Liu often said he wished his daughter, Meiyan, had studied accounting.
The messenger returned at noon and said that some people belonging to the International Relief Committee had been apprehended. Minnie telephoned Searle and Lewis and found out that the arrests were prompted by a murder at the Japanese embassy. Someone had slipped poison into a samovar there the day before; two guards died and several people were hospitalized, including a diplomat. The police rounded up some Chinese employees and interrogated them. Then they went to the IRC and arrested six of the leaders, all of them Chinese, on the grounds that they had participated in anti-Japanese activities. Now the police declared that these men were involved in the murder. Lewis and Searle were certain that none of them had had anything to do with it and that the Japanese were just exploiting the case as a pretext to disband the relief organization. One of the six IRC men was a part-time math teacher here, and three of them had their daughters in our middle school. The girls begged Minnie to intercede for their fathers.
Minnie spoke with Lewis, who helped her compose a letter of protest demanding the immediate release of the six men. The next day she delivered it to Vice-Consul Tanaka at the Japanese embassy, where she learned that the six men were being kept in the prison downtown. Even though they’d been tortured and their feet had been shackled, they still refused to admit any wrongdoing.
30
THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY of Nanjing’s fall was approaching, and the city was under martial law again. People were warned not to assemble in public during the next few days except for celebration; at Jinling, the students, especially the middle schoolers, had been talking about how to commemorate the shameful day.
On the evening before the anniversary, Minnie gathered the girls in the auditorium in the Central Building. She urged them not to endanger themselves and the school. Instead they should study hard and help others, especially the destitute. That was the best way to serve China, which needed capable and rational people, not mobs. Besides, they mustn’t let hatred run their lives.
The girls listened quietly, all of them staring at Minnie; none dared speak against her. Even when she was done and invited them to voice their opinions, nobody let out a peep, but I could feel the tension in the hall. We’d thought of having a special service to commemorate the day, but, afraid that it might stir up the students’ emotions, we decided against it. Minnie told Luhai to make sure the front gate was guarded strictly.
The next morning, many girls wore black armbands. Both Donna and Alice reported that their students did the same. To Minnie’s dismay, Shanna also had on a crape. “You shouldn’t be such a leader,” Minnie reproached her.
“I might wear this even if they didn’t,” Shanna said, touching the black cloth safety-pinned to her sleeve.
Surprised, Minnie went on, “I understand your feelings, but it’s too risky to do this. Some turncoats might snitch on us.”
“I’m also Chinese.”
At that moment I loved the girl for saying those words, though I didn’t wear a black armband mainly because I wouldn’t create more trouble for Minnie. I was worried about the students’ safety besides. Fortunately, Luhai and the gatemen did a good job of preventing the girls from going out — however loudly they chorused patriotic songs and whatever slogans they chanted, they were kept on campus. We felt somewhat relieved. If the officials demanded an explanation, we could say that the school had taken measures to discourage hostility toward Japan, but many students had lost family members and mourned their losses spontaneously.
Some girls also fasted that day, and Meiyan fought with another student whose father served in the puppet municipality.
Miss Lou came early that afternoon and said that Yulan had disappeared. For several days the madwoman had wanted to go downtown, saying she must protest the Japanese occupation on the first anniversary of the city’s fall. Massaging her forehead with her claw-like fingers, Miss Lou said, “I stopped her a couple of times, but she slipped out this morning.”
“Any idea where she might be?” Minnie asked.
“She must’ve gone downtown. When she heard about the martial law, she couldn’t stop spouting curses. She said she would run away to join the guerrillas, but I didn’t take that seriously and thought she couldn’t possibly figure out where the Reds were. It was my fault — I should’ve been more vigilant and shouldn’t have let her visit my neighbors.”
Minnie had a number of people called in and asked everyone to go out and look for Yulan. I said, “That mad girl is our curse. We should’ve washed our hands of her long ago.”
“Anling, that’s rubbish,” Miss Lou said. “Now’s not the time to speak like that.” I glowered at the evangelical worker but couldn’t find a word to counter her.
Big Liu said, “I hope the girl won’t fall into Japanese hands again.”
In spite of her insanity, Yulan was somewhat good-looking, so we feared she might get hurt. We set out to look for her.
Minnie and I walked east along Zhujiang Road. The minute we passed the half-burned building that had housed the Justice Ministry a year before, we saw that most houses had disappeared, and where they’d stood were piles of bricks and stones. The Japanese had been tearing down homes to get the materials for building roads. For each house they paid two yuan as compensation; whether the owner accepted it or not, he had to move out and surrender the property. We’d heard about that operation but hadn’t expected to see such large-scale demolition.
It was a sullen wintry day, the gray clouds threatening snow. The sycamore and oak trees along the street were swaying and whistling as gusts of wind swept through them. A rusty sheet of corrugated iron tumbled across the street and fell into a roadside ditch. Here and there scummy puddles, like giant festering sores, were encrusted with ice on the edges. In the distance firecrackers were exploding while drums rolled, suona horns blared, and an array of Japanese flags flitted across the thoroughfare — a celebration of the occupation was in full swing. About a thousand Chinese, including some school pupils, were waving tiny flags and shouting slogans in support of the Japanese rule. Some even chanted “Banzai, banzai!” while a procession of men and women was performing a dance on stilts, wearing green and vermilion gowns and waving fans. The cacophonous music jarred the ears like shrieks and screams. On the sidewalk ahead stood a truck, from which a photographer pointed a bulky camera at the celebrators, the black cloth over his head and shoulders. I panted, “I hope those traitors will be rounded up and sentenced to death when our army takes this city back.”
The second I said that, I remembered my son, Haowen. A piercing pang gripped my heart and made me speechless.
Minnie shook her head in silence. As we turned a corner near the former Central Hospital, a crowd gathered ahead of us. We caught sight of Yulan and hastened our steps.