The Last Mandarin (10 page)

“And what became of him? Did Olga tell you?”

“He disappeared.” She hesitated. “He is dead.”

“Do you know this?”

“I know this.”

“You saw?”

“Well,” she said, “I heard. There are a few like him still here, the dregs. Also in Tientsin, and in the northeast. This country is full of Japanese.” She waved in dismissal of those invaders. “But I no longer hear anything. I am no longer at the center of society.”

“Do you know an inspector of police called Yen Chieh-kuo?”

She laughed harshly. “Him I know. Who does not? A famous guardian of morals, a flogger of students. Is he also after this Japanese?”

“Yes.”

“Then I am on the side of the Japanese.”

“Yüü!”

Aunt Chi snorted rudely: “There is little difference between one man and another. With the exception of my foster son Burnham they are all nasty brutes, and I care very little what they do to one another.”

“But you did not know Kanamori yourself?”

“No. I tell you the truth.”

“You always did. Listen: I have spoken to others about this one. They know more than they will say.”

“So you did not come here first.” She grinned, evil and sly.

“I make my important visits late in the day.”

“You always did.”

“And none more important than you.”

“Even now?”

“Even now.” He patted her hand.

She grunted, but her smile softened. “Well, then.”

Younger Brother entered: the ricksha man was well and would wait. Was more tea desired? “Go be warm in the kitchen,” Aunt Chi said. The boy left. “And what do your friends tell you?”

“The usual murky poetry, the usual coded secrets. The Americans told me too little; there must have been more. My Chinese friends tell me politely to go home. I am perhaps to make a friend of the beggars.”

Aunt Chi radiated astonishment: “Beggars! Beggars of the street?”

“Beggars. I want to see Head Beggar.”

She shrugged. “These I do not know. These do not—did not—come here.”

“Nevertheless, help me if you can. Do you know the place they call the Beggars' Hospital?”

Now she nodded. “I know of it. In the lower city. It heals those no one else will heal.”

“Is it Christian?”

“No.”

“Government?”

“No.” She scowled, in the annoyance of the gossip balked. “A clinic. The very poor go. Chiefly for children.”

“And whence flows the money?”

Again the scowl. “I do not know. It is perhaps …” She made the finger sign for eight.

“That would surprise me. What do you think of them?”

“The Communists?” Again she waved in impatience and scorn; how many governments had come and gone in her lifetime! “We need
something
,” she grudged. “But these Communists are ungenerous with their seed! They do not differentiate between yang and yin! They hump principles!”

“Will they harm you?”

“Who can tell? I am an old woman with bound feet. They will show me and make speeches. I will eat and be warm. I do little more now.”

“You have money, surely.”

She peered, as if to verify his identity: yes, it was old Burnham, the goat with two pizzles, who had drunk and pranced and scattered gold. “I have money,” she said. “Why do we speak of my money?”

“If you truly sell,” he said reasonably, “it behooves old friends to buy.”

“You sweet boy,” she sympathized. “What do you need?”

“‘Need' is perhaps too strong. ‘Desire.' Stylet, pipe, a hundred pellets—what sort have you?”

“Heavy yang-t'u,” she said immediately, “from the Plaine des Jarres, and light ch'uan-t'u.”

“Ch'uan-t'u? They still run it up from Szechuan, do they?”

“Roundabout. The caravans march always, nothing stops the caravans. And goods arrive at staging points. It is like a great river and many small tributaries. And winter, as you know, is the good season. In summer opium stinks, and the officials pounce on hidden stores.”

“It will be banned, you know, when the Communists win. A matter of weeks,” Burnham said smoothly.

“What is this now?” Aunt Chi pretended outrage.

“It will be illegal and troublesome to possess,” Burnham cautioned her. “In truth I do you a favor to take it from you.”

“Hsüü! Trader! Thus you dicker with your second mother!” She glowed with the fun of this. “Men died to bring it here! I risk execution for your pleasure!”

“You risk execution if your inventory comes to light,” he said. “Furthermore, I offer hard currency.”

“Hard currency is in your favor,” she conceded. “But you save time and trouble dealing with old friends; you spare youself wanderings and chafferings; moreover, you can trust the goods.”

“All that is in your favor,” he grumbled. “I might go twenty dollars.”

Aunt Chi all but split a gusset. Her laughter trilled and echoed in the bare room. “Burnham,” she said finally, “you were always a man of great good humor. Many a jape,” and she shook her head, and swabbed at tears.

“Now, now,” he said. “After all, this is not a yen kuan, not a low opium den where addicts yearn and clutch. I can do without.”

“The Communists occupy the countryside, and will not accept squeeze. Little comes through, only by the caravans. And where there are no Communists there are rapacious officials. The bribes are extortionate. My last such sale was a hundred dollars. Perhaps a hundred and ten; memory dims. I might consider less; you are my foreign son.”

“Only filial affection offers thirty. One does not offer one's mother gritty rice.”

“Fifty must do,” Aunt Chi said firmly. “Think what you have saved by the absence of singing girls.”

“Fifty is impossible,” Burnham said. “It is too soon gone, too soon smoke, and after the easy doze, the empty purse. No. Forty, all told.”

“That cannot be,” she said sadly. “There is a question of principle, of morals. To maintain pride and to regulate the traffic. Even overpowering fondness is no excuse: you are the son of my heart, but if I lose on the deal, I have allowed you to cheat your mother. Yet I have an idea!” Her brows flew up, her mouth opened in silent glee. “I sell you the pellets at fifty. It is my bottom price. But because you are my son, I
give
you the pipe! A good one I have. Of brass, with a jade mouthpiece.”

Burnham was overcome: “But that is too honest.” His voice trembled. “That is watering your horse and throwing cash into the river.”

“For you,” she said, “I would do more, if only this world were not jang-jang chiao-chiao. We have seen some good times together.”

“That we have,” Burnham said. The deal was not bad, and with MacArthur's money at that, or Truman's. Odd: he could almost smell the stuff, yet he wanted whiskey more. Also he was tired. A long day. He seemed to have been in Peking at least a week. “About that other matter: if gossip comes your way, I can reward it.”

“What I hear is yours. But no one comes to see me.”

Firmly he said, “I shall come to see you.”

“You prince. Let me go now and make a package for you. One thing I did hear.” She rose, creaking gracefully, all in red, old but imperishable. “The students will march and riot. The streets will not be safe.”

“I too heard. Aunt Chi: one thing.”

She spread her hands. “I am yours.”

“Do not mind. It is only that I think of you often, and wonder. How did you start your life of hospitality?”

Her cobwebbed smile was all mischief. “You ask how I became an old bustard.”

“No. A young bustard.”

“Well, it is not a indelicate question. When my husband was killed, you see, I was first wife, and had charge of four others.”

“Like the painting!” Burnham was delighted.

“The painting was no accident. We had it done years ago. At any rate, there we were, penniless and the house looted, four ladies of quality and fashion, with only one talent. Thanks to my rabbit of a husband, the talent was notable. Yü! I took charge; we rented a small house; we began humbly but always with style, the best wine, fresh fish, Kansu melons. Those were great days, with gold and silver for money, and strings of cash.” Now she shrugged. “So.”

“So. You survived.”

“And had some good times. None of us regretted the life. Our husband had been a gangster of sorts, and the house was always swarming with knaves.”

“A rare woman,” Burnham said. “When was he killed?”

“In the Boxer times. He was a great friend of the foreigners.”

“Boxer times!” Burnham was truly shocked; it was as if she had said “the Middle Ages.”

She understood. “Oh yes. I am about eighty, you know.”

“Hsü. One would not know. The mind is sage, but the body flows with youthful grace.”

“I am about eighty,” she repeated thoughtfully, “and you are the biggest liar I ever met.”

9

In December of 1937 only two of three dozen foreigners remained in Nanking. Some of the most concerned, who fought hardest for decency and humanity—or at least mercy—were Germans. Letters streamed, memorials, protestations. The Japanese command ordered its men not to molest foreigners. The order rankled. Why, Kanamori wondered, was a French or American woman less to be violated than a Chinese woman? Not that foreign women were in themselves alluring, with their long legs and crinkled hair and eagles' noses. Motor cars. Servants. Houses of many rooms.

The Safety Zone was a mile square, between the great lake and the great river. Within it lay many government offices, the Supreme Court, embassies, the Drum Tower and the Overseas Club. The boundaries were sketched for every company of soldiers: Hankow Road, Chung Shan Road, Sikang Road. There were a quarter of a million refugees in this square mile. Ginling College, the Bible Teachers' Training School, the War College and the Law College, the great Nanking University. Rumor said that six thousand disarmed soldiers had sought haven in the Zone.

The Japanese entered the Zone, ignoring the orders they knew they were intended to ignore. By midweek Nanking was a Japanese city. They flooded in: tanks, artillery, trucks, cavalry, swarms of impatient infantry. Shopfronts, whole neighborhoods, were systematically destroyed. Kanamori and Ito commandeered a wagon and four coolies. On the wagon they piled coal, small stoves, a drum of oil, bolts of brocade, bags of rice, bags of rings and bracelets, stone jugs of wine, bottles of foreign spirits, a crate of dressed ducks, small chests and ornamental boxes, and a rain of silver: coins, knives, picture frames, platters, goblets. They were barracked in a post office. Behind a counter they heaped their booty.

At first staff officers led a tentative invasion of the Zone in search of the disarmed Chinese soldiers. They announced in the name of the High Command that these soldiers would not be harmed. The foreigners published their promise. Kanamori assumed that even Chinese soldiers would prefer to die fighting, but these believed the foreigners' assurances and turned in their arms. The Japanese then removed thousands, and further announced that ex-soldiers who volunteered for the Military Labor Corps would be amnestied. One afternoon they took two hundred such volunteers from the Zone and executed them. Of the thousands more—those they were obliged to ferret out—they disposed of many by machine-gun fire. They bound others in large groups and used them for bayonet drill. Some they bound in packed circles, and as the outer ranks sagged they thrust over them; those at the center were shot. Others were roped in long dense lines and attacked from both sides; one Japanese soldier was killed across such a line by a friendly bayonet. Smaller bound groups were doused with gasoline and set afire. Still smaller groups were sabered. Little piles of heads accumulated. Kanamori did not participate in the sabering, feeling that Kurusu would scoff; Kurusu, he learned later, had refrained for a similar reason.

The foreigners protested. The Chinese protested. The Red Swastika Burial and Safety Society smuggled men and women to freedom, and gathered up corpses.

It was ordered that all Chinese bow to all Japanese.

The Japanese cut open the bank vaults.

The foreigners demanded food for the Safety Zone; the refugees were starving.

Then the Japanese invaded the Zone in force. They despoiled houses, colleges, courts. They rounded up more thousands, men and women. Kanamori and Ito entered one fine house and found a dozen women, teachers and students. The oldest of the women squawked angrily, and Ito knocked her down. Kanamori called in the squad. As the women were removed to a truck, a foreigner drove up, the American flag flapping from his radiator cap. He was a long gray-haired man wearing silver glasses. His name was Burnham, but Kanamori did not know that and would not have cared. Burnham leaped out to protest. Ito held him while Kanamori slapped him. “Fuck you! Go!” That was much of Kanamori's English: hello, good-bye, come, go, fuck you, passport, dollar, Roosevelt. The man stood by his car weeping and shouting, perhaps cursing.

They tore down foreign flags.

They burned a YMCA.

They executed the servants of foreigners. It was not meet that Asians serve whites. It was difficult to make the Chinese understand this.

They went to Ginling College. The men cheered; their eyes glittered. They were tipsy and skylarking. They took a truck to one of the dormitories. Tonight they would select, not herd. The city was all excitement, everywhere streaks and billows of flame, the tang of smoke, and the streets lined with corpses, many headless. The truck picked its way among clumps of dead. Smashed carts, everywhere smashed carts, spokes like fingers reaching into the headlamps.

At Ginling College a foreign woman came to the door and they pushed her inside. Women were packed in, bedding on the floor, as if assembled for Japanese pleasure. Oil lamps flickered. They rounded up twenty or thirty, marched them outside, and ordered them to strip for inspection. The rape was nothing without the humiliation. In the glare of headlamps they disrobed. Some were slow; these the soldiers struck. A dance, a ceremony, theater. Gowns and robes off, bloomers off, and the breast halters, foreign, coarse cloth like a fruit seller's sling. Naked, the women huddled and sobbed, and the foreign woman raged. It was a spectacle to quicken the blood: a score and more of youthful Chinese women naked in the harsh light. Ito and Kyose and others moved among them like buyers, prodding and cupping.