The Last Mandarin (11 page)

The same car drew up. Again the American flag. Two men this time, the long one with silver glasses and another, younger and angrier, whose eyes darted to the women. He too! Kanamori rejoiced: he too! It was Jack Burnham. He cursed the soldiers in Japanese, defiling them for monkeys, promising them that they would die in fire, their flesh wither, their balls pop. With a rifle butt Ito knocked him down. To Kanamori's pleasure, the foreigner's nose bled.

Burnham was full of hate. For days and nights, helpless, he had watched the unreasoning slaughter. The rapes above all. To interrupt the rape of a servant or a friend, and see the beast laugh. Soldiers of Japan with drool on their chins and trousers about their knees. Twice he was held at bayonet point and forced to watch. His old amah was raped. Fourteeen years he had known her. From her he had first learned Chinese. Her brother had taught him to ride a horse. She was sixty, a woman of Peking, and had not wanted to come along on this ill-timed excursion to Nanking. At the house where the Burnhams stayed the fish pond was clogged with bodies, and the fish floated dead beside them. The Burnhams had roamed from house to house protecting whom they could.

Sprawled and bleeding, Burnham spoke: “‘If you affect valor and act with violence,'” he said in Japanese, “‘the world will in the end detest you and look upon you as wild beasts.' Do you recognize that? You—the sublieutenant.”

“It is from the Imperial Precept,” Kanamori said angrily. “The old General Orders.”

“Wild beasts,” Burnham said. “Nevertheless cowards.”

“My name is Kanamori Shoichi,” Kanamori said, “and you stared at the women. I saw you! Animal! Kyose, take one here for the edification of the foreigners. Ito, if this one moves, bash him again.”

Burnham did not move. Beside him he heard his father praying. Kyose took one of the girls and Tateno held her down. Kyose dropped his trousers and showed his swollen member to the foreign woman, who turned away with a cry. Burnham did not know the girl, but for a moment she was all Chinese girls. Burnham had never needed to rape. Foreigners charmed and seduced. Young lust, he had thought, was brother to joy, not to rape. Now he wept.

When Kyose finished they prodded all the women onto the truck, took them to the post office and caroused. The women screamed and bled and then were silent.

Next day Kanamori's unit was ordered into fresh uniforms. General Matsui held a religious service for the dead. He made a statement of sympathy for those who had suffered the evils of war, but now, he said, the Imperial Way had come to offer rebirth to China. He urged the Chinese to consider the advantages of order and Asian solidarity. (General Matsui was later decorated for meritorious service on this campaign. He was angry that foreigners had spread vicious rumors about the Japanese army. Still later he was hanged for war crimes.)

Kanamori saw the long man with silver glasses and gray hair once more. There was work to do, a city to administer, and electricity was essential. Kanamori's regimental colonel sent for him, asked his head count, and was jovial. Kanamori informed him respectfully that he had not added to his head count in Nanking, which was not truly combat. The colonel approved, and invited Kanamori to accompany him on a visit of protest to the foreigners; they had sheltered trained technicians, and must now give them up for the good of Nanking and its beleagured citizens.

There were half a dozen of those foreigners in a library, one of them the long man with silver glasses. He did not seem to recognize Kanamori.

The colonel was cold and firm. In particular he required the release of electrical engineers and technicians to restart the power plant at Hsia Kuan.

The long man with silver glasses made proud teeth and stood tall. His gray hair was cut short, and his face was gentle, lined and sorrowful. “You killed them,” he said. “You took them from their refuge, stood them on the bank of the Yangtze, and killed them with machine guns for no reason.”

The colonel was taken aback. To save face he turned upon Kanamori. “Is this true, Kanamori?”

Before Kanamori could speak, the American said, “Ah, Kanamori. Is that Kanamori Shoichi?” And looked at him with those outlandish blue eyes.

The colonel was pleased. “You see! Kanamori is famous! You must tell Kurusu!”

The American said no more, nor did Kanamori. The colonel grew fierce and blustered, but then led his men away. The engineers and technicians were indeed dead.

Two days later Kanamori was sent west of the river to combat, and this was a relief but it came too late. He had entered the last house for one last rape or robbery, shot a husband, and was raping the pregnant wife when she went into labor. Kanamori Shoichi, sublieutenant, of the village of Saito on the River Omono near Akita, son of a noted warrior and heir to all the samurai, broke the bag of waters with his virile member.

He hung there on his knees, at first annoyed, and as the sticky fluid welled his annoyance became discomfort, and as the canal distended his discomfort became horror, which was a new emotion. He shrank away, and the horror became fury, and he plunged his knife into the woman's belly again and again. He breathed curses. He cursed all Chinese. He cursed his mother. He scrambled to his feet and left the three of them dead. He returned to headquarters talking to himself, heated water and bathed. In the morning he went to the post office and learned that he was posted to combat with Ito and Kyose and Tateno and the lot. “Ah, this was a time!” Ito said. The men cheered Kanamori and wished him well, and he laughed with them, but the laughter was tinny in his own ears.

Combat! He thanked the gods for combat! For months then he fought like a hero. He met Kurusu; they agreed to omit Nanking, and he beat Kurusu to one hundred and fifty. He was mentioned in dispatches and was decorated; there was talk of a promotion. He dreamed confused dreams. He dreamed one dream many times, of that child, who was born and was a man immediately, and challenged Kanamori to battle with the saber, and Kanamori was afraid, and woke up cold and shivering. But combat cleansed him somewhat; other corpses supervened. In the end he was not destroyed. No immediate remorse crippled him; his soul did not soften, nor did doubts enfeeble him.

In June of 1938 Kanamori was wounded, but remained in the line. In July he and his men were returned to Nanking for rest and reassignment, and he learned that he was to be transferred to the General Staff, where important responsibilities awaited him.

10

Gunfire pattered as they rode south. In the night sky Burnham saw bursts and tracers; a distant siren sang. He imagined the scene: dark streets thronged with chanting students, a bonfire of flickering orange light, bullet-chipped government buildings, shattered windows, men in leather and olive drab, the police uncaring, obeying orders. Some would die, perhaps many, and in a month the Reds would be here, and the battle, the fury, the lives cut short, would lose all meaning.

Feng's way wound through shadow and tangle, and the alleys were almost empty. In the ivory glow of a full moon Burnham's breath blew white; a cloud blanked the moon, and he sniffed coming snow. The gates along the way, slabs of wood or the graceful joined semicircles of moon gates, were shut; here an iron gate, and there a sentry box. Once a black car slithered past.

“Feng.”

“Sir.”

“I need beggars.”

The san-luerh slowed and stopped. Feng's face shone like ivory in the moonlight. “The gentleman is pleased to jest.”

“I need Head Beggar really, but he is difficult of access.”

Feng was disillusioned. “The gentleman keeps low company.”

“Like ricksha men?” Burnham made teeth in the night. Pricking the snobbery of the poor was a rich satisfaction; solidarity was all they had, and they squabbled like warlords.

“The gentleman rebukes me,” Feng said.

“It is the hour. I ask pardon.”

They started up again and traveled in silence until Burnham said, “He may know what I need to know.”

“Then you will pay for it.”

“I planned to. Though I have heard that Head Beggar is a rich man.”

“So they say.”

“He will prove to be fat.” Burnham sighed. “And he will quote the ancient books.”

“Is he at the Ch'ien Men?”

“I have no idea. The first step is to find a collection of beggars. I thought perhaps Gold Street or Embroidery Street.”

“At this hour?” Feng slowed. “The gentleman is indeed weary.”

“Then where?”

“Whore Street.”

“Then let it be Whore Street.”

Feng took them into a dark and narrow side street out of the flow. A wineshop was open. A clam-and-mussel shop was just closing. Two women tripped along, bearing what seemed to be huge bundles of laundry. A late, forlorn noodle merchant noted the foreigner and stared. Above them a few stars struggled in a heavy sky.

Whore Street was brighter lit: bulbs, lanterns, windows. From the Nagging Wife Wine Place came a gust of laughter. Burnham knew the street and was worried only that there would be foreigners, perhaps one who knew him. Such accidents could spoil a day and evoke gossip.

Feng drew up. “If the gentleman would descend and display money.”

“Why not?” Burnham asked, stepping down. He extracted his wads of paper money and made a show of riffling and counting. “Here, take a bundle. These ruffians may do me in.”

Two beggars approached as if on cue, and beyond them more glided from crannies and doorways. Feng accepted the sheaf of bills, and tucked it away. The beggars did not touch Burnham, but whined. “I starve.” “The great lord will take pity.”

Burnham's flesh seemed to contract. This too was the smell of China, and not so romantic: pus, skin disease, the body's careless wastes. The men were skeletons in rags, one disfigured by pockmarks, the other by slashed scars. One limped. “I have money,” Burnham said loudly.

The two became six, then more. Their soft whine was scary; he wished they would jabber and shout. Through the robe he touched his pistol. “You listen,” he said, “all of you.” The whine continued. “There is money,” Burnham said, “but first silence.” Slowly the keening whimper subsided.

All his life Burnham had known beggars, and still they horrified him. Maimed scarecrows outside all law, scarcely human, yet reminding him what men and women might become. Dull faces, only the gleam of avarice; twisted bodies, hands like birds' feet.

“I have traveled a thousand li,” he began. He had traveled thirty thousand li, but the number must be reasonable. “I have come a thousand li to speak with Head Beggar.” He had said kai-t'ou; now he used the second name, “the chi-t'ou.” They gazed stupidly. “There is money,” he repeated. “But I must find the kai-t'ou.”

One murmured, “Who knows the kai-t'ou?”

“You know your district leader.”

The scarecrows stood silent, cold.

“Then your neighborhood leader.”

They blinked and spat. Again Burnham was overcome by the night, the dreamlike street, sinister shadow. Somewhere a woman spilled silver laughter.

“There is no way,” a beggar said.

“There is always a way,” Burnham said. “Come here now. All of you.”

They stepped closer, their stench with them. Quickly Burnham peeled bills: “Here. One each. For this you will do me a service. I am the only foreigner at the Willow Wine Shop in Stone Buddha Alley. The chi-t'ou may find me there. You will tell others, and they will tell still others. There are lives to be saved or lost, do you understand?”

They snatched at the bills. Burnham's breath came shallow, and he stood tense: if they jumped him?

“It is mysterious,” one said.

“And irregular,” another said.

“Still, it can be done,” a third said.

“With luck.”

The third said, “Very well. You have raised the wind, but do not hope for immediate rain.”

Burnham breathed easy. “Go, then.”

They melted away like phantoms.

“Yüü.” Feng sighed. “It is perhaps not so bad to be a ricksha man.” He raised his right hand; the knife gleamed faintly.

“A scary moment,” Burnham said.

“They are evil men, and will take you by hidden ways. They will steal your money and send you to the house of the long sleep.”

“That journey may be taken anytime,” Burnham said, “though I confess I am in no hurry. Still, he who hunts the tiger must not fear stray dogs.”

“If they send for you,” Feng said, “you will take me along.”

“No. If the worst is to be, then you must survive to tell the story later of the foolish foreigner who stood in Whore Street at night with a bag of gold.”

“The gentleman is not foolish,” Feng muttered, “and not a foreigner.”

“I thank you for that, my friend Feng. If you believe it, then will you, in the name of all the gods, stop calling me ‘the gentleman'?”

“But what then?” Feng protested. “‘Elder brother'?”

“It must be thought about. Meanwhile you may take me to the Beggars' Hospital in Rat's Alley.”

“As the gentleman says.”

Burnham descended from the pedicab and hesitated. His package lay on the seat. Accidents. A heart attack or a stray bullet, and Feng left to explain this odd parcel. Burnham tucked it under one arm. “Once again I may be some time.”

Feng showed the open hands of acquiescence, pedaled toward the cumbersome two-wheeled wagon, ranged himself alongside and took the passenger's seat. Burnham saw the bright eyes roving: Feng liked to know where the exits lay.

Burnham too. He walked back to the open entrance and the admissions office. A distant machine gun clattered. He knocked and entered. In the glow of a feeble bulb he saw a desk, and at the desk, asleep, the dumpy woman of the sharp tongue.

From the shadows a figure glided to him: another woman, gray-haired, a surgical mask, a black gown of medium length over the padded black trousers. She placed a finger to her lips.