The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel (39 page)

Faithful said that he knew someone who could help me, and brought to the shack a man who believed that he could entirely rid me of the disease. He was not a doctor but called himself a healer. He earned his bread by removing warts and moles from his patients and from bloodletting with leeches. Syphilis, he said, could be cured with a new drug that had been specially developed for it called penicillin. He had seen it work on more than one occasion and due to its efficacy he had entirely lost the fear of the disease himself. Penicillin was hard to come by unless you were rich, but he had contacts at a hospital that used it and, for the right price, he would get me some. He was a slimy creature with boiled gooseberry-like eyes and a mean mouth, but I had no choice other than to deal with him. If I was to get myself out of China and home to Japan I needed to be well. We bartered until I had to part with over half of the money I had left, which he complained allowed him little, if any, profit for himself. As I didn't trust him to return with the medication, I sent Faithful with him to ensure that he brought me back the treatment.

Miraculously, within a couple of weeks of taking the drug, the sores on my hands and feet disappeared along with the raw throat and high fevers that I had been running. One moment there had been a sword at my stomach, the next I was reprieved. My good fortune turned my mood to optimism and to hope for the future. It felt wonderful to be better, but the cost had been high and I was finding it hard to keep up the payments to the twins for my protection. I could not eat their terrible congee and sent them daily to the market for fresh meat, fruit and sake, which seemed to increase in price at every visit. I decided not to indulge in opium until I was in a safer position, and so I slept badly, suffering dreams of drowning in the dirty water of the river that the twins caught their horrible fish in.

I dispatched the brothers to the city to try and find Kim, in the hope that we could be of use to each other. Worryingly, they stayed away for two nights and I couldn't sleep for concern at what their absence meant. But eventually they returned with the good news that Kim had become the mistress of the Chinese merchant Chi Ming, who, due to his secret financial support of Chiang Kai-shek, was now in favour with Peking's new masters. I remembered the man from my early days in Peking, when Li had introduced him to me as someone who gave excellent business advice. I recall that he had liked the Japanese well enough then. Kim had been wiser than me, she had suspected what might happen and had made her plans. I had been blinded by my belief that Japan would always succeed, and that trust had been my downfall.

Chi Ming was older than Sumida, with thin hair and rotten teeth, but he had long desired Kim, who I knew would weigh his ugliness against his power to protect her. I shuddered at the thought of her sweet firmness in his thin old arms. She was set up in a small house on the road between the zoological gardens and the Five Pagoda Temple, a popular district with the mistresses of the rich.

Faithful told me that Kim had said that she would do her best to help me, but I must not go to her house until she sent a message that it was safe to do so. At Chi Ming's insistence she had signed her properties and shares over to him and it wasn't easy to get money out of him. But she promised that she would find a way to help me and urged me to be patient. I was elated that my prayers had been answered. With Kim under the guardianship of the old merchant my chances of escape had suddenly increased. I was relieved that she was safe and I trusted her to be as good as her word. Life in the shack was so dreary that I knew it would be hard to be patient, but I had no option, I had to live off what I had and wait for her to contact me.

Faithful said that Chinese troops were everywhere in the city, and that those Chinese who had been obliging to their Japanese masters had been harshly dealt with. They were either dead or suffering at the hands of their victorious countrymen. Apparently, the Hotel de Pekin had become a dull place, full of sour-faced officers who had no sense of fun or any idea of how to enjoy their victory. He added spitefully that nobody missed the Japanese.

It wasn't long before I had to sell my jewellery to live. As I couldn't take the risk of being recognised I had no option but to trust the twins to sell it for me. One bangle fashioned from almost pure gold brought so little money that I suspected Faithful and his brother of keeping most of the profit for themselves. They knew the money was running out and were debating whether they should go on harbouring me. I promised them that when I got back to Japan I would send them enough gold to live on comfortably for the rest of their lives. I am sure that it was only that promise that kept them in my service at all.

Thoughts of escaping Peking and getting back to Japan were constantly on my mind, but the Chinese had secured every exit and everything I thought of seemed doomed to failure. I wondered about stealing a plane and flying myself to Japan, but the airfield was heavily guarded and even if I managed it the plane would have been shot down anyway. All boats and trains were inspected and had Chinese guards on them. I no longer enjoyed the friendship of those with influence, nor had I enough money to bribe my way out of my problem and China. It was against my nature not to act, but I believed my best chance of escape lay in Kim's hands.

Soon the good food and drink that I enjoyed became too expensive for my purse. I had no choice but to live on the same muddy fish and poor quality rice as the brothers. As my funds diminished, Faithful and Chou became rude and reluctant to follow my orders. They would disappear for hours, leaving me alone to fear what they might be up to. With the gift of familiarity I no longer smelled the peasant smell of congee or noticed the dirt in the shack. But it had become my prison, a hateful damp place that brought out the worst in me. When not angry at my fate, I was in misery at the treachery of those I had considered to be my friends.

Faithful told me that there was a rumour in Peking that I was being harboured and that there was a reward for my capture. He said I was referred to as the spy and war criminal responsible for the murder of Chinese babies and their mothers.

'They call you Japan's whore,' he laughed.

Despite my notoriety, I was surprised that I was being actively hunted. The thought of it so terrified me that I stopped going out in the hours of daylight, even to sniff the air. I made do with as little sleep as possible and developed a habit of listening for unexpected sounds. I was ready for flight, but to where I didn't know. Sometimes at night I would walk along the riverbank, thinking of my past and longing for a future. In the moonlight, without the sun's cruel exposure of its shabby banks and slum dwellings, the river looked deep and mysterious. On those night walks I could pretend that the world was still beautiful. For an hour or two I would breathe in the marshy air, my thoughts unpolluted by the horrible fear that usually invaded them. Despite the fact that I had heard nothing from Kim I still trusted her to help me, and it was that trust that kept my spirits up.

I often thought of simply continuing my night walk, going from village to village until I reached the sea, where I might stowaway on a boat to Japan. But I knew that to be an unlikely means of escape. I had a small amount of money set aside for extreme emergencies and I considered paying a forger to make me an American passport and papers. With a new identity I might bluff it out with the authorities, go to America and become Jack's girl again. But as I no longer trusted the twins to organise it for me and did not dare be seen in the capital, it was hard to know how to enact the idea. In any case, no plan that I thought of came with any guarantee of success. Those that had the best chance needed more money than I had at my disposal. I never stopped thinking of ways to escape but I always returned to the plan of waiting for Kim.

Five weeks after first hearing from her she sent news with a trusted servant that she had money enough to pay for my escape. She said that she had contacts who would help me and that I must do exactly as she said. I should wait a week before going to her as her lover would be away on business in Canton then and our chances of success would be greater in his absence. I should come at night when the dark would better disguise me and she was longing to see me, her true friend. It hurt to hear her words of friendship and I wept like a child. I had been without affection for so long that I hardly knew what to do with the emotions her words had inspired in me. Kim, my loyal friend, had come to my aid; she was my hope, my compass, and I thanked the gods for her.

But bad luck haunted me and on the morning of the day I was due to go to Kim, I woke suffering a violent stomach bug brought on by bad fish. I was vomiting every few minutes and the pains in my stomach were so bad that I couldn't stand. I decided that if I were not better by nightfall I would have to sleep one more night in the shack and leave the following evening. Faithful and Chou were poor nurses and left me alone with my sickness. They said they had to get word to Kim that I would be delayed and that they would return for the dusk meal at the usual time.

I had sewn my emergency money into a pocket of my dress and had a bag packed with my few possessions ready at my feet. I longed to go but was too ill to move. My ribs ached with retching and, when I finally had nothing left to vomit, I slept. I had a dark dream where Mari and I shared the riverbed with strange ugly water creatures. They floated through our hair and nibbled at our bodies as we swayed with the rhythm of the current. Mari seemed oblivious to the creatures as she smiled a hollow smile.

I woke in a panic and listened for the footsteps of Faithful and his brother, which I had trained myself to recognise. The night was still and I heard only the lapping of the water against the river's bank. The darkness that was beyond dusk had fallen while the air was cloyed with the wetness that was usual between midnight and dawn. The brothers' absence concerned me, but I felt too bad to do anything about it and fell once more into a deep sleep.

I was woken by the sound of whispering outside the shack, then, before my eyes could adjust to the gloom, the door was kicked in and Chinese troops surrounded me. As I lay in the foetal position on the dirty bedding, a full sick bowl at my side, I was shouted at hysterically, pulled to my feet by my hair and dragged from the hovel. My own bodyguards, those fish-eating twins born in the Year of the Monkey, had betrayed me to Chiang's police. Not for money, as I later found out, but to ingratiate themselves with the new police force who were looking for recruits to keep law and order in Peking. I felt ashamed of how I was found and thought that the least I could have expected from the brothers, considering I had employed them at their time of need, was that they might have allowed me to be captured with some dignity. But I shouldn't have been surprised, for history is littered with such betrayals.

During my first year of incarceration in Peking Number One Prison, the Soviet Red Army moved into Manchuria and Pu Yi abdicated as Emperor of Manchukuo. He fled to the Korean border from where he hoped to escape to Japan. Instead he was seized by the Russians and flown to Siberia.

Wan Jung, abandoned yet again, was left terrified and fearful for her future. Yet I suspect that she was relieved that she no longer starred in the drama of the deposed Emperor's life.

In that same year General Okamura Yasutsugu surrendered all Japanese armed forces in China to General Ho Ying-chin, completing Japan's humiliation, as well as my own.

Three years have passed since that time and I am still in Number One Prison where I never know in what spirits I will wake. Sometimes, whatever the awful reality of my situation, I am filled with the certainty that all will be well, but mostly I am without optimism. I have adapted to my poor surroundings and these days I hardly notice the damp walls oozing lime or the drowned mice sometimes found floating in the urine of my night pot. There are times, though, when I am overwhelmed with rage. Caged like Miura's little canary, I have too much time to think of the past, to regret how many wrong roads I took in pursuit of an interesting life.

I have used up what few possessions I had left to barter for cigarettes and sake, which for a while I thought I could not do without. Now, like my fellow inmates, I survive on the weak vegetable broth which is a constant in this place, and the dusty drinking water that is rarely insect free. My night guard Suk-Ping is kind and sometimes gives me cigarettes. He never leaves me without a pencil and paper and once he brought me a duck egg, which I ate raw, hoping to take the sting out of my dreams.

In my second year of captivity I was brought before one of Chiang Kaishek's military tribunals and tried for treason and espionage. The chief prosecutor said that I deserved death because I was a traitor, but most of all because I, a mere woman, had flown over my homeland in Japanese aircraft and looked down in contempt on the good earth of China. It was no surprise to me that the highest court found me guilty and sentenced me to death. China is run now by Chiang's so-called 'elite' who share his animosity towards anyone connected to the Qing dynasty. I expect no more from them, for how can those from rural farmlands understand the ties that bind the high-born together?

I bore up well, I think. My captors have never seen me cry, but if they could share my dreams they would enjoy the torment I have endured. No matter how many times I have insisted that I am Japanese and cannot be considered a traitor to China, the court will have none of it. They refer to me as the 'Arch Traitor', as though I had no given name. As I do not trust the advocate the court has assigned to me, I have spent this third year of my imprisonment working on my appeal. If I can prove myself to be a Japanese citizen I will be returned to Japan and not have to suffer execution at the hands of the Chinese. With this in mind I wrote to Kawashima, asking him to send the documents of my adoption to the court. In his letter of reply he said that he did not consider me to be his daughter, that I had never officially been adopted by him and that there was no mention of me in his family's registration records. He added that I had come to live in his household at the age of eight and he supposed that, as the majority of my years had been spent in Japan, most people might regard me as Japanese. The county commissioner in Tokyo had stamped the letter officially as being true and correct. As it failed to prove that I was Japanese and only stated that I might be regarded as so, Kawashima's cold missive had signed my death warrant.