by Geling Yan
It was only many years later that Shujuan found out what had happened to Cardamom. In an archive she came across a photograph that had been recovered after the war in the notebook of a Japanese POW. In it, a girl was bound to an old-fashioned wooden chair, her legs forced apart and her private parts exposed to the camera lens. The girl’s face was out of focus, probably because she was struggling so hard and would not keep still, but Shujuan was convinced it was Cardamom. The Japanese soldiers had not only violated her and condemned her to a lingering death, they had immortalised her humiliation in a picture. The notebook also contained a description of what had happened.
Shujuan closed her eyes and tried to imagine the last moments of the girl who had been barely older than she was. Out in the streets at dawn, alone and drunk, Cardamom would have had difficulty getting her bearings. She had been shut up in the brothel since early childhood, no better than a slave. It was even harder for her to find her way now that the invasion had ravaged Nanking, leaving its houses in ruins or burned out, its streets blocked with overturned carts and the shops emptied of people and goods. She must have wandered about, increasingly confused. Then the Japanese soldiers came.
Shujuan knew what happened next from the soldier’s account. They chased after her but Cardamom threw off her pursuers by slipping down a narrow alleyway. That was when she stumbled over a mound of something soft, the spilled entrails of a dead woman. With a shriek of horror, she stood frozen to the spot, trying to shake the ice-cold sticky mess from her hands. It was her undoing. The soldiers had given up the chase but now they were on her. They were joined by a platoon of cavalry camped nearby who had been alerted by the girl’s cries.
In a looted shop, a large crowd of Japanese soldiers formed an orderly queue in front of a heavy old wooden chair which they were using as an instrument of torture. Cardamom was tied to it and the soldiers, wearing only loincloths, waited their turn to enjoy her. Cardamom’s arms and legs were bound to the chair rests, her legs stretched wide. She swore and spat until the Japanese boxed her ears to shut her up. Then she quieted down, not because she was ready to capitulate but because she suddenly thought of Wang Pusheng. Only the night before she had promised to spend the rest of her life with him. As soon as she finally had four strings for her pipa, she had whispered to him, she would play him sonatas, like ‘River on a Spring Night’ and ‘Three Variations on Plum Blossom Melodies’. ‘I can sing you Suzhou folk tunes too,’ she had told him. But now she never would.
Shujuan remembered listening to Cardamom playing ‘Picking Tea’ on her one-stringed pipa. At the time it had sounded to her like a dirge. Now she thought of it as the most beautiful music she had ever heard.
About the Author
Born in Shanghai in 1959, GELING YAN served with the People's Liberation Army during the Cultural Revolution, starting aged 12 as a dancer in an entertainment troupe. She published her first novel in 1985 and has now written over 20 books and won 30 awards. Her works have been translated into twelve languages, several have been adapted for film, and she also writes film scripts (including that for Zhang Yimou's adaptation of 13 Flowers of Nanjing). She may be the only person in the world who is concurrently a member of China's Writers' Association and Hollywood's Writers' Guild of America. She currently lives in Berlin.
Also by Geling Yan in English Translation
White Snake and Other Stories
The Lost Daughter of Happiness
The Uninvited
Copyright
Other Press edition 2012
Copyright © 2006 by Geling Yan
First published with the title Jingling Shisan Chai in 2006
English translation copyright © 2012 by Nicky Harman
English translation first published in Great Britain in 2012 by Harvill Secker
This publication was assisted by a grant from China Book International.
Special thanks from Other Press to Rebecca Carter of Harvill Secker for her dedication, promptness, and generosity.
Production Editor: Yvonne E. Cárdenas
Design revisions for this edition by Cassandra J. Pappas
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from Other Press LLC, except in the case of brief quotations in reviews for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. For information write to Other Press LLC, 2 Park Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10016. Or visit our Web site: www.otherpress.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Yan, Geling.
[Jin ling shi san chai. English]
The flowers of war / Geling Yan; translated from the Chinese by Nicky Harman.
p. cm.
Summary: “December 1937. The Japanese have taken Nanking. A group of terrified schoolgirls hides in the compound of an American church. Among them is Shujuan, through whose thirteen-year-old eyes we witness the shocking events that follow. Run by the Father Engelmann, an American priest who has been in China for many years, the church is supposedly neutral ground in the war between China and Japan. But it becomes clear the Japanese are not obeying international rules of engagement. As they pour through the streets of Nanking, raping and pillaging the civilian population, the girls are in increasing danger. And their safety is further compromised when prostitutes from the nearby brothel climb over the wall into the compound seeking refuge. Short, powerful, vivid, this beautiful novel transports the reader to 1930s China. Full of wonderful characters, from the austere priest to the irreverent prostitutes, it is a story about how war upsets all prejudices and how love can flourish amidst death.”—Provided by publisher.
eISBN: 978-1-59051-557-0
I. Harman, Nicky. II. Title.
PL2925.K55J5613 2012
895.1′352—dc23
2011047424
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