Cloud Mountain

by Aimee E. Liu

  “I understand.”

  “But I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t trust, Mr. Mitsuru.”

  “Then we must wait.” He went to a mirrored bar in the corner and brought back a brandy, which she refused, and a bowl of peanuts, which she attacked with unexpected appetite. Seeing this, he announced that he had not yet dined and invited her to join him for a simple meal, which he ordered through the white-jacketed servant stationed outside the door.

  “Provisions are sparse,” he explained. “The radicals have applied pressure on merchants to discourage their supplying us.”

  Hope didn’t answer. Mitsuru’s impenetrable control made her feel like an exposed nerve, but she would not let him know that.

  The consulate dining room was even less furnished than the salon.

  The long table and chairs, bilious green carpet and electric candelabras were still in position, but there were empty spaces where the sideboards and more decorative pieces must have stood. The cries of the protesters, which had been bare whispers in the other room, here were clearly audible.

  “You’re preparing to evacuate,” she said.

  A servant brought bowls of miso soup and Mitsuru gestured for her to start. “It is only prudent. But the greater wrath of the masses has been directed toward the British. You understand, they are the true aliens here, the invaders. The Europeans are colonizers and imperialists, and therefore a far greater enemy to China than her brethren in Japan.”

  Hope grimaced at the soup’s pungent saltiness. He sounded, for all his earnest intensity, like a wind-up toy. “When did you last see my husband, Mr. Mitsuru?”

  “It was in October, shortly after he arrived in Hankow. He was in good health—trim, fatigued from the Expedition, but in excellent spirits. I remember him saying that he believed Dr. Sun would have been very pleased.”

  “About the success of the Expedition.”

  “Yes. The unity.”

  Hope sighed. “I’m afraid that optimism has always been Paul’s Achilles’ heel.”

  “Paul?”

  She shunned his questioning glance. “Po-yu’s American name. He—he rarely uses it outside of the family.”

  Mitsuru nodded.

  “And how did you first get to know my husband?”

  “We were students together at Seijo Gakko.” He lifted his napkin to his lips. “I am ashamed to say that our friendship began when we alone of all our class failed at target practice.”

  “I’d say that’s to your credit.”

  “Ah yes. I remember Po-yu once telling me that his American bride was a pacifist. I find it amusing that the same nation that produced the cowboy and Indian wars now champions the cause of peace.”

  He remained unflappably gracious even as their conversation now acquired a distrustful edge. He apologized again for the poor quality of the food and she lodged the mandatory protests that, no, the dishes of pork and cuttlefish were excellent—a culinary feat all the more astounding considering the hour and circumstances. But Hope’s appetite had left her, and she refused the warm rice wine he offered. Though they did not speak again of Paul, her husband remained at the center of her thoughts, and she was relieved when one of Mitsuru’s assistants interrupted.

  “I must excuse myself,” he said, “but you please remain here as our guest tonight. I have sent—discreetly—for information. As soon as we learn anything you will be notified.”

  At that he gave her over to a maid who showed her to a dimly lit guest chamber on the second floor. It was after midnight. Heavy woven shades covered the room’s two vertical windows. She shut off the lamp before pushing them aside. The room faced the front of the consulate and, beyond the circular entry court, she could see the encampment of protesters, including several women and children huddled beneath dark blankets, with pamphlets and posters scattered at their feet. It was a forlorn and desperate scene, yet frightening as well. These impoverished creatures were responsible for driving the all-mighty British from one of their prize strongholds. They were ignorant, starving, cold, and angry—in short, they had nothing to lose.

  Hope scanned the edges of the demonstration fruitlessly for some shadow or movement that might be Jin or Paul, then let the shade swing back. She had so decisively rebuffed Mitsuru’s suggestion of sending an armed guard. Why? She wasn’t sure except that she knew, instinctively, Jin alone had the better chance of rescuing his father—and, especially in the current climate, they could not risk bloodshed by Japanese troops on Paul’s behalf. She lay back staring at the outline of the motionless ceiling fan, recalling the shock in Jin’s eyes when she had instructed him to bring Paul here. He despised the Japanese as the revolutionary rhetoric had trained him, and in that look she had seen every fiber in him straining against this solution. Was it possible that he would rescue Paul and take him elsewhere? No. The Western Powers had already demonstrated that they would not fire back even to protect their own, and there was nowhere else Paul could be assured of protection. If there had been, surely Jin would have gotten him out before … Surely.

  She thought of the military drill Jin was wearing, the ease with which he passed through Borodin’s villa—the fact that he knew the Chekka had met, that Paul’s name was on the blacklist. But that hug. She had to believe … she did believe.

  She pressed her knuckles hard against her closed eyes until the darkness exploded. The silence was deafening. Not the tick of a clock. No clapping watchmen or clattering honeycarts. Not even the groan of a settling floorboard. It was as if the entire city were in a state of suspension.

  She started once more to think of the children, but she stopped herself and forced her thoughts forward. She had no choice but to rely on Mitsuru. If dawn came and still—

  “Hsin-hsin.”

  Paul stood in the doorway. Unharmed.

  At dawn the next morning, disguised as an evacuating Japanese couple and escorted by two consulate Marines, they made their way through snow flurries to a Japanese merchant vessel docked within view of Borodin’s villa. When the port official asked for papers, the Marines supplied documentation for Tokutomi Ichiro, a Yokohama haberdasher, and his wife, Nomi. The official mentioned an embarkation fee, which the Marines translated for the “Ichiros,” who unfortunately spoke no Chinese, and “Tokutomi,” whose face was masked against the snow and cold, made an impatient motion and deposited three times the named fee in the official’s moth-eaten glove. The official bowed, turned on his heel. Fifteen minutes later the Kuriyama was underway, chipping ice with her bow and shooting plumes of white steam into the steel wool sky.

  They spent the next week in the narrow cubicle designated as their compartment. They spoke haltingly of their children, the long months that had passed between them, the letters they had written that were never received. They touched. They wept. And then he told of the gunshots, the cries of his gate man being pistol-whipped, finally the terror that had driven him to break through the thin plaster wall behind the Kitchen God’s altar, to find his son digging toward him from the other side. Then the race to asylum with the Chekka’s shouts ringing in their ears, and Jin’s haste as he slipped back into the night, promising to meet Paul in Shanghai.

  Of her own role, Hope said only that Jin had summoned her, to smooth things with Mitsuru. Jin saved your life, she told him.

  XII

  BETRAYAL

  SHANGHAI

  (1927–1932)

  1

  The Shanghai to which the Japanese steamer returned them was a changed city. Even before they reached port, they had seen the gunboats and riverboats stuffed to the bulwarks with pale-faced refugees, mostly men now following the earlier evacuation of women and children from the interior. Through the Kuriyama’s crew Paul learned that the surrender of Hankow to the National Revolutionary Army, followed by the fall of Kiukiang on January 7, had sparked panic among the taipans. Standard Oil, Jardine Matheson, Butterfield, Royal Dutch Shell, U.S. Steel, Asiatic Petroleum, American Tobacco—all the major “imperialist” enterpris
es had recalled their employees from the interior to the one city in China where there were sufficient foreign troops to protect them.

  As soon as they stepped onto the pier, Hope could see that those troops had multiplied many times over, just in the days she’d been gone. The streets were now thronged, not only with refugees and beggars and Concession patrols, but Punjabi police shipped from Bombay, British Bluejackets, French Annamites, Japanese and American Marines. A three-foot-deep barbed-wire barricade now ringed the foreign compounds, fortified by sandbags, tommy guns, and armored cars. When Hope’s and Paul’s rickshaws were stopped at the checkpoint, the British officer turned up his lip and demanded identification. Paul had nothing but the Chinese clothes he was wearing when he fled his home in Wuchang. Hope pawed through her carpetbag. When she had left Shanghai, no documentation was required. At last she hauled out Cadlow’s letter. It gave the address on Rue de Grouchy and implied that—present Chinese garb notwithstanding—she was an American. She said merely that Paul was “with her.” The officer grudgingly let them pass but warned them, from now on, to “carry credentials.”

  She could see, looking over to the other rickshaw, how furious Paul was at this ultimate insult, but within minutes they had reached the house and her own anger gave way to relief at seeing the children. With a cry, she scooped Teddy out of Ah-nie’s arms and surprised the others at a game of rounders with some neighbors in the backyard. The children gave their father a restrained, uncertain glance, Hope a more genuine hug, and asked, wasn’t it exciting with all the soldiers, and did they think there might really be a fight? The Eurasian Volunteer Corps conducted daily drills in front of the house, and Morris reported that Gerald Chou said he could enlist in three months, soon as he turned fifteen.

  Suddenly Jasmine burst into tears. Two days earlier she’d left the gate open, and the dogs had run off. No one had seen them since.

  February 25, 1927

  I have had my fill of this madness. Getting Paul back alive was excitement enough to last me two lifetimes, but there is to be no end to the uncertainty, it seems. Last weekend Shanghai went on strike again—nearly half a million workers walked off the job. No trams. No dockworkers. No factory whistles. Chapei was a ghost town, the concessions under siege. Almost the only sounds were the cries of the student protesters, the soapbox organizers haranguing the “masses” as everyone insists on calling them. Of course, the schools were closed, though I wouldn’t have let the children out in any event. Paul spent most of these days closeted with Eugene Chou, who seems to have become a close ally in the aftermath of Wuchang. I am afraid that Paul’s loathing for Borodin may be driving him into league with equally detestable, though opposite, men. I’ve never trusted Eugene as far as I could see him. All his money, I suppose, and the shabby way he treats Sarah—the latest is he’s arranged a marriage for Ken, and according to Sarah he’s promised to turn her out on the street without a cent if she opposes him. She says she’s less afraid of poverty than that Eugene will set some local thug against her—and has sent Gerry to seek his fortune in the States rather than risk his attempting to protect his brother. Apparently Eugene is financial “advisor” both to Shanghai’s most notorious mobster, Tu Yueh-sheng, and to our local warlord, Sun Chuan-fang. Paul’s affiliation with Eugene sickens—and frightens—me almost as much as Sarah’s marriage does, but Paul is as dismissive as Sarah is sanguine. She laughs; Paul nods and closes his eyes. The children play, and the workers strike.

  We all go along in our separate universes, scheming, worrying, fantasizing, and accusing, and the only times our interests ever truly intersect are when the blades are drawn and the guns begin, as they did again last night. There was no violence in the concessions, of course, and if Paul had his way we’d never learn what happened, but Jin came this afternoon. His clothes were torn, he was bleeding from the neck and covered with mud. Paul was in his study, but Jin begged me not to tell him he’d come. I cleaned him up and gave him fresh clothing—the wound was superficial. I instructed the servants to keep the children away and made Jin tell me everything he’d witnessed. Of course, it was retaliation for the strikes, only this time the British got the warlords to do their dirty work. Instead of foreign troops firing at students, the execution squads—and the methods—were Chinese. Two of Jin’s close friends were beheaded as they were trying to get back onto St. John’s campus. A dead Chinese baby was hurled over the gates of the Episcopal mission, and an old man—a mere street peddler—was shot for crying out “Cakes for sale!” because in Shanghainese this sounds like “Overcome the soldiers.” Anyone handing out leaflets was paraded through the Chinese City, then lined up by Sun Chuan-fang’s troops and shot. In retribution the Communists have been killing off any worker who dares to oppose unionization. Jin was so scared he was shaking. It was worse than Wuhan, he said, and I thought, of course, he would think that. In Wuhan, his father’s life was at stake and only secondarily his own. I wish they could both see that, in spite of so many divisions and striations, we really are in this together.

  But Jin refused to stay for fear Paul would come down and they would get in a shouting match. I took Teddy onto my lap for a story. Jasmine sat down to listen. Morris was in the corner working on a model automobile. Then Pearl came in with her hands full of knitting, and every so often I’d glance up and see those long needles … I felt as if we were inside a cocoon, while outside the silkworms had all gone mad, and soon we alone would survive.

  Late in March, Shanghai’s labor unions called for another general strike, and workers throughout the city began arming themselves. At noon on the twenty-first, Jin stopped by—jubilant—to announce that the strike had begun and throughout the Chinese neighborhoods union pickets were routing the gray-uniformed troops and police allied with Shanghai’s warlord, Sun Chuan-fang. Though the workers were armed only with clubs, axes, and small arms, Jin’s report proved accurate, and exactly twenty-nine hours later, all Shanghai outside the foreign settlements was under Nationalist control. Even before the fighting ceased, the streets were festooned with blue and white Kuomintang, red Communist flags, and banners welcoming the troops of the Northern Expedition, which arrived just in time to celebrate.

  To Paul’s dismay, Chiang Kai-shek played no part in this victory. The uprising had been organized and executed by the students and Communists, and so was perceived primarily as a Communist rather than a Nationalist triumph. There was widespread talk that Chiang was finished, that the Communists were poised for a takeover of the Kuomintang. Thus, instead of calming fears within the concessions, the arrival of the Northern Expedition, for which Paul had worked so hard, was heightening the foreigners’ alarm.

  In the weeks that followed, Paul ruminated endlessly over these developments. Often as he lay awake into the night, he would turn to Hope, reciting some article he had read in the North China Daily and asking if his interpretation of editorial mistrust for Chiang Kai-shek was correct. Since Wuchang he solicited her opinion more than ever in the past, and though he did not say so outright, she knew he was trying to plan his own next political alliance. Since the uprising, Chiang Kai-shek had appointed Sarah’s husband, Eugene Chou, to his inner cabinet and abruptly recalled William Tan from his ambassadorship in America to serve as commissioner of foreign affairs. It was only a matter of time before Chiang reached out for Paul, but whether Paul would—or should—agree to serve was far less clear. Hope said he had read the papers correctly and reminded him, tersely, that Chiang had been strolling about Kuling with Borodin while Paul was under house arrest.

  “He may not have sanctioned your execution,” she said, “but he certainly didn’t lift a finger to stop it.”

  “He did not know. I am not important.”

  “You were important enough for Borodin to order you killed! Why? Because he felt a personal vendetta, or because he believed you’d already allied yourself with Chiang? Either way, Chiang should have thought you important enough to rescue, shouldn’t he?”

  But the shr
illness in her voice seemed to weary Paul. He would confide his ambivalence, but rarely his choices, and in retracting from her he would invariably fall back on that hated phrase, “You do not understand.”

  Then, one evening as she was getting ready for bed, he said, “We must celebrate.”

  “Celebrate?”

  Paul’s reflection in the dressing table mirror showed him sitting at the foot of the bed, elbows planted on his pajamaed knees, the stem of his neck sunk between his shoulders. His hair stuck up in graying tufts, and his voice had a strange, metallic timbre. He seemed to be talking to the wall. “A simple dinner. Chinese style. To celebrate William and Daisy’s homecoming and the new appointment. I will ask Eugene Chou. You will like to have Sarah—” his eyes flicked in her direction “—so you are not too much in Daisy’s company. And Jin will come.” He drew a cigarette from the lacquer box beside the bed and prepared to light it.

  “Jin!” Hope half turned toward him. “Is that wise, with Eugene?”

  Paul replanted his elbows on his knees, smoking. “William will want to know everything that has happened. He enjoys the details of battle. Jin was in the streets during the uprising. He can tell about it. Don’t worry, Hope. I will instruct him.”

  “But Eugene is notorious for his hatred of the left. And you know how outspoken Jin can be, especially when his back is to the wall. Why risk it?”

  The corner of the room around her husband was sliding behind a haze. “Jin will come.”

  “You sound as if you’ve already asked him.”

  “I have told him.”

  “But why?”

  Paul held the cigarette inelegantly between the pads of forefinger and thumb. At length he stood and looked at her. “This is between Jin and me, Hope. Do not trouble yourself.”

  “Trouble myself! Paul, you don’t—”

  “No!” The ash from his cigarette dropped to the floor. He flicked it irritably with his bare toes, then ground the stub into an ashtray on her table. “You do not question me. Jin will come. You arrange the meal, whatever you like. You talk to Sarah. Talk to Daisy about America. You do not question me and Jin.” He pulled his robe from the back of the chair, then, a measure more softly as he shrugged it on and stepped into his slippers, “I will be in my study. You go to sleep.”