by Aimee E. Liu
“I am no soldier,” Jin would say, clasping his bony fingers around one knee, “but I believe China’s fate lies with its generals.” And Paul would light a cigarette and begin to smoke, a habit he had discarded in America but resumed while in Peking. Hope, watching silently over her sewing across the room, thought she detected an aggrieved brightness in his eyes.
“Generals are bandits,” he said. “They care only for riches, and they will buy or sell their own families if this bring them personal gain. It has always been and always will be. If our country’s fate lies with these warlords, then China has no future.”
“But Father, Sun’s revolution was won by soldiers—”
“And handed to a warlord, and look at us now!”
Jin’s liquid gaze met Hope’s in bemusement. Poor boy, she thought, he must have been raised on stories of his father’s heroic idealism. And here Paul’s become a pessimist.
August arrived as usual, muggy and hot. The leaves of the plane trees hung motionless. Even the most lightweight clothing stuck to one’s skin, and even the children grew listless. But the rebel fighting along the river droned on, and Paul was engaged in endless secret meetings with Sun Yat-sen, who had returned to Shanghai after Sung Chiao-jen’s assassination but still refused to end his “retirement” and take a public stand against Yüan. In this atmosphere, the slightest breeze, even a whisper of relief from the stalemate of weather and politics inspired celebration. And so, one Saturday after a morning thunderstorm, Hope invited Jin to come out for a stroll in the cool, freshened air. Yen had taken the children to a moving picture show, and this was a rare chance for them to talk alone.
She tucked her camera into her purse, lifted her oiled paper parasol against the lingering drizzle, and turned arbitrarily toward downtown. Jin walked with his hands thrust into his pockets, a flat-brimmed derby worn so low that it folded the tops of his big ears. He kicked a ginkgo nut as he walked, head down, and though they were attracting the usual disapproving stares from foreigners and predatory harangues from vendors and beggars and rickshaw pullers, Jin did not seem to notice. He had Paul’s ability to withdraw into himself, to pull the shutters down against everything around him. Hope supposed they both had developed this skill as a defense against Nai-li’s raucous invasions, but, if so, this only made her more resentful at having it used against her.
“You said the other night you were no soldier,” she said. “What will you do, then, when you complete your studies?”
He gave her a sidelong look. She had thought the question innocuous, but it seemed to disconcert him, and when at length he mumbled, “I am undecided,” she suspected this was not the case at all.
She was trying to think of something reassuring to say when a loud boom issued from the riverfront. Across the avenue a man in a straw boater with red, white, and blue ribbons tooted the horn of his roadster at a young brunette carrying a lace parasol. Hope got the Kodak up in time to capture the pair just as the bloom of gunsmoke rose in the background.
When she lowered the camera, Jin was watching her with such undisguised envy that she asked if he wanted to try a picture himself. He hesitated only a moment, but once the Kodak was in his hands, he seemed overawed, examining the pebbled leather casing, the hardware and lens, as if the contraption were some priceless wonder.
“It’s only a Kodak,” she said. “It won’t break easily, and even if it did, it’s not costly to repair.”
He sighed. “Do you know this man Diga?”
Hope thought hard, but finally shook her head.
“He paints pictures,” Jin said softly. “First he uses the camera. Dancing girls. Singsong girls. Some old men. Then he makes paintings.” He made a circular motion with the camera. “I see photographs of these paintings he makes from photographs.”
“And you like them?” Hope smiled.
“Very much.”
Perhaps it was the wistful tone of his voice or his tremor as he lifted the camera to his eye, or the way he absently wet his lips as he trained the lens now on a flame tree blooming over a garden wall, now on an elderly gentleman taking his canary for a walk, now on a young Chinese girl in bright embroidered silks and her Western-dressed beau—but suddenly Hope said, “Are you thinking of Edgar Degas?”
Jin returned the camera with a respectful bow. “Shih,” he said. “Diga.”
They resumed their walk. The sun, forcing its way through the mist, made the air quiver with the threat of resumed heat, and the traffic now seemed to speed up, as if to pack in as much activity as possible before the next onslaught of lethargy. It was risky to push Jin, Hope realized, but having gained this unexpected opening, she could not resist. She said, “Do you have any of your drawings here in Shanghai?”
He pretended not to understand.
“I’ve tried drawing,” she persisted. “I’m not very good, but I admire artists.”
He answered without breaking stride or looking at her. “This kind of art is despised in China.”
“Surely not! Painting is honored here. Like poetry.”
“Classical painting,” he said in a voice raw with contempt. “Classical verse.”
So that was it. Jin had fastened his ambitions on Western art. She could just imagine what his grandmother would say about that!
Another cannonade rumbled across the city as they came to Nanking Road. The busy shoppers hardly looked up, but the servants and vendors, whose families lived in and around the Chinese City, studied the skies with concern. Jin turned abruptly. “Please do not tell my family about this conversation.”
The guilt in her stepson’s eyes seemed vastly out of proportion to his transgression, yet Hope chided herself for presuming that she understood anything of the pressures on Jin to conform, obey, uphold his family’s expectations. Pressures perhaps even more over-bearing for his father’s revolutionary ambitions. And for Paul’s violation of Nai-li’s will by taking an American wife. “No,” she said. “No, of course not.”
Suddenly it occurred to her that Jin might enjoy meeting Jed Israel. They weren’t far from the photo shop now, and the boy seemed in no hurry to go back, so she turned up Chapoo Road.
Sarah and her little Gerald were poised to leave Denniston’s when Hope and Jin entered. Sarah was little interested in photography unless she was the model, but, like Hope, she had gravitated to the guilelessly American Jed Israel as a pal, and now he was infecting Sarah’s six-year-old with his passion for the camera. Hope often ran into the two of them here, and since Paul still tacitly disapproved of Sarah, she was glad for these neutral and unplanned meetings. She was not, however, glad for the opportunity of introducing Sarah to Jin.
“What a lovely young man, Hope,” Sarah gloated. “Is he yours?”
Hope felt herself turning a dark purple under Jed’s amused watch. “Sarah Chou,” she said coldly. “This is Paul’s son Jin.”
“Ah!” Sarah pressed her lips together and dipped her head. “Honored to meet you Mr.—eh—Liang, I suppose it is.”
“Yes,” said Hope. “It is.”
Jin bowed noncommittally, and Hope nudged him on to Jed. She explained her stepson’s interest in painters who worked from photographs, and soon the two of them were nose deep in Jed’s library.
“He’s a beauty,” Sarah whispered. “Can you keep him?”
“Must you?” said Hope.
Sarah feigned a pout and smoothed her son’s dark curls. “I’m soft on men. Can’t be helped.” They stood awkwardly for a moment as Gerald demonstrated the pinhole camera Jed had given him.
“You’re making inroads with his family, then?” Sarah asked, the mockery gone.
“Only with Jin.”
“Well, be careful. Chinese families are like two-headed snakes. Just when you’ve got one head tamed, the other whips around and bites you.”
“I’ve known that for years,” said Hope.
“Still bears keeping in mind.”
Having completed his demonstration, Gerald was tugging at his
mother’s skirt, impatient to get outside where he could experiment with his toy in the light.
“It’s good to see you, Hope.” Sarah made a fist and brought it against her mouth, frowning. “Oh! I know what I wanted to tell you. That doctor we like so well. Mann? I heard the other day he’s moving on.”
Hope felt a confused twinge, remembering the doctor’s kindness that day at North Station—but also the strange hard tension in his eyes as he signaled Paul’s safe passage. “What do you mean, moving on?”
Sarah sighed. “Tragic loss, isn’t it? I don’t really know. Up the coast or upriver, going to run his own hospital or something. Seems he got himself in a bit of a ruckus with some of the municipal fathers.”
“His work with the street children,” Hope suggested.
Sarah straightened her hat. “I wouldn’t know, but at least he’s still in the country, there’s hope. Oops!” She giggled. “No pun intended.”
Hope groaned, and embraced her. “Sarah, you are incorrigible.”
“Do my best.” Sarah waved to the preoccupied men and hurried after her son.
A few minutes later the Chinese clerk returned from an errand and Jed announced he was due for a break. Why didn’t they take their cameras to the Bund and see if they could get some pictures of the fighting? Hope’s better judgment was no match for Jed’s enthusiasm. Ten minutes later they were hanging over the stone embankment by the river, aiming across the glittering tin godown roofs and snapping pictures of a crew of Chinese rebels like small black spiders overtaking a German gunboat.
Hope and Jin shared her camera. Jed showed them various ways to frame and focus. The cannons thundered. The flags along the Bund snapped in the breeze. The fighting seemed disconnected, harmless.
“It’s obscene to be having such fun in a war zone,” Hope shouted over a spurt of gunfire.
“We are not in a war zone,” Jin reminded her. “Only watching.”
“I g-go closer s-sometimes,” said Jed. “Better shots when y-you can see the soldier’s face—”
He was interrupted by a sudden escalation of shelling. Downriver, upriver, toward the opposite shore—the commandeered gunboat’s artillery men were firing anywhere but toward the arsenal where the rebels had doubtless ordered them to fire. The shrapnel started rattling the trees along the Bund, and the photographers beat a prudent retreat.
“Not in a war zone, eh?” said Hope.
But all three of them were laughing and breathless, still more exhilarated than afraid. And Hope agreed as readily as Jin when Jed Israel asked if they would come out “scouting” with him again sometime.
On the tram back to the house, Hope and Jin made a pact. Hope would not reveal Jin’s secret ambitions if Jin would not tell his father what they had done today.
By September, the “Second Revolution” had gone down in defeat. Troops loyal to Yüan Shih-k’ai celebrated their victory by looting, raping, maiming, and generally sacking the city of Nanking for three straight days. Hundreds of Kuomintang members were executed throughout the country, and in Peking the few governors left with Kuomintang ties were replaced by Yüan Shihk’ai loyalists—the so-called Republicans. Sun Yat-sen once again took refuge in Japan.
In October the ministers of the Western nations formally recognized Yüan Shih-k’ai’s government, and President Woodrow Wilson sent personal congratulations on Yüan’s election as President. One month later Yüan ordered the dissolution of the Nationalist Party, canceled its parliamentary membership, and dismissed all Kuomintang members of the assembly. Paul at last withdrew from politics and accepted lecture positions at Shanghai, Fudan, Nanyang, and St. John’s University, where Jin had entered the freshman class. He taught political science, Chinese poetry, and New Meiji and American literature. Before the first firecrackers marked the Chinese New Year, the Leons were expecting their next child.
6
Shanghai Native Hospital
August 13, 1914
Dearest Mary Jane and Dad,
Short and sweet, we have a darling baby girl! Weeks overdue, she was painfully big, but with a thick head of hair and round pink cheeks. This time I had lots of company and support, what with my friends Sarah Chou and Daisy Tan and everyone at this hospital so jolly. Yes, Paul was here and a prince with Morris and Pearl. And Paul’s son Jin was on hand—the nurses all went into a swoon over him! The embarrassing thing is, we can’t decide what to call our new princess. I think maybe Jade (goes so well with Pearl), or perhaps she’ll be a flower—Rose or Lily or Jasmine. Anyway, Paul says not to worry. The Chinese custom is not to name a newborn until the one-month mark—like giving a boy baby a girl’s name or heaping false insults upon a little one, it’s one of a thousand tricks the Chinese play so the evil spirits won’t try to take their children.
Well, here comes little no-name now for her supper. I just wanted to dash this off to let you know how very happy and well we are. Will write again after were settled back home.
With all my love,
Hope
1311 S. Hill St., Los Angeles
August 25, 1914
Dearest Hope and Paul,
We are writing with sad news. We made a visit up to Berkeley last week and found the Wall house boarded and empty. A quarantine notice was flapping around the yard, and the neighbors told us Li-li and her baby had died of the influenza. Thomas apparently went on a rampage, putting his fist through windows, building a sort of pyre with all Li-li’s and the child’s belongings and setting it afire in the backyard. He howled for days, they said it sounded like an animal being strangled. Finally, when the news started about the war in Europe, Thomas said there was nothing left for him to live for, but maybe there was something yet worth dying for. And the next anyone knew he was gone.
Oh, this is a hard, hard burden. That man was golden. Seemed everything he touched was beautiful and good. Especially Li-li and that baby—imagine if this were your own Morris! We think of this over and over, and pray that such a tragedy never strikes your babies, Hope. But it tests one’s faith to see two such souls as Thomas and Li-li so doomed.
Even as we write this, a check of the calendar tells us that you must have your new one by now. A baby girl or boy? We pray for health for both of you, and are glad for your last piece of news that Paul would be there with you this time.
Here, times are hard. Mary Jane’s investments have been dashed to pieces by the market, and it’s slow to grow a practice with money so scarce. But we take comfort from each other. In spite of everything there is still much to cherish and be thankful for.
You have all our love and dearest wishes,
Your Mary Jane and Dad
39 Pushi Road, Shanghai
September 30, 1914
Dearest Mary Jane and Doc,
I have just received your letter of August telling this sad news about Thomas and Li-li. You will forgive me, I do not to show this to Hope just now. You see, our own new baby is no more and I do not think Hope will bear to know more sadness.
We had little warning. Hope and the child were home. All was well. In the night the baby amah came to us, very worried. The baby has a fever so high she does not cry, all her bedclothes wet. The foreign doctor came. The Chinese doctor came, but no remedies could help. In one day the little heart stops beating and last week we laid her in her grave.
The foreign doctor has given Hope medicine to make her sleep. You remember her quiet grief after our first child died. She is this way again, but more. She does not weep or speak, barely eats. She stands at the window and watches Pearl and Morris at their play and forbids them to leave our home. She will not see her friends, does not even touch the camera you sent, of which she has become most fond. I can give her no comfort except to sit and quietly hold her hand. She tells me this helps, though I see no change.
I trust you will not think me hard, my wife’s parents, but I do not know what to do. I think no man can comprehend a mother’s bond to her child—a bond that grows like a vine even before the bir
th, and multiplies its growth in every day that follows. This child lived long enough for Hope to think of her as a daughter, and so for her this is not the loss of possibility, as it seems for me, but the loss of a true person. She blames me, then, for not understanding and for caring more about her than about our lost child. But I cannot change this. I will do anything to restore my wife, yet I do not know what to do.
Please forgive me. I will deliver your letter to Hope as soon as she will come back to herself. Thank you for your kind thoughts and wishes.
Yours,
Paul
VII
RENEWAL
PEKING
(1914–1916)
1
While Hope grieved for the child that, by Chinese custom, had never existed, the world was rapidly changing. In June, Serbian nationalists in the Balkans had assassinated an Austro-Hungarian Archduke. Now all of Europe was spiraling into war, and the Continental powers that had been so intent on dominating China were forced to turn their attentions back home. Britain, France, Belgium, and Russia summoned back their warships from the Shanghai delta, their key diplomats from the treaty ports, their fittest young soldiers from prime Asian garrisons to battle the troops of Germany’s Kaiser on distant fronts with names like Marne and Ypres, Tannenberg and Verdun. In Shanghai’s International Settlement, on the streets, in cafés, on the trams, and in Paul’s university classes, all talk turned toward Europe, with betting decisively in the Allies’ favor.
That August, when Japan seized Germany’s underdefended treaty port in Shantung, Paul and his friends were outraged but hardly surprised. Japan’s position in China had long been that of a kindred adversary. The two countries were both Asian, shared many similar customs and attitudes, in particular a suspicion of Westerners. Yet when Paul had studied in Tokyo, he was impressed by Japan’s modernization and by her ability—unlike China—to turn Western ideas and technology to her own expansionist goals. Unfortunately, most of this expansion was at China’s expense. Twenty years ago the Japanese had taken Korea and Formosa from Chinese control. Later, Manchuria. Now Paul saw clearly that the real reason Japan had declared war against Germany was to gain Shantung—a prize toehold on China’s central coast. At the same time, Japanese attachés were descending on Peking to offer their “support” to Yüan Shih-k’ai. It looked to Paul like a ploy to turn Yüan into Japan’s puppet.