The Distant Land of My Father

by Bo Caldwell

  I knew one thing my father was doing. He was shopping. When he came home late in the day or early evening, he carried in package after package. There was a random, frantic quality to his buying, and his purchases were completely unpredictable, sometimes practical, sometimes pure extravagance. Either way, he was gleeful as a child, his eyes too bright as he unwrapped what he’d bought. There was a new toaster set, and a waffle iron. He said he hadn’t had homemade waffles in years, and couldn’t we teach Chu Shih? A few days later he arrived flushed and excited and showed us a new camera and a Cine Kodak 8 for home movies. My mother seemed shocked; my father had never really seemed the snapshot or home movie type. Other nights brought Arrow ties, a Remington Rand portable type-writer, which would come in handy, he said, if he ever needed to do some work from home. There was a Speed Sled Snow Racer for me, though we rarely saw snow in Shanghai. And the Taylor Auto Altimeter would tell us how high we were as we drove, he said, a gadget that made no sense whatsoever in the flat landscape that was Shanghai. The Grosvenor Stormoguide had an automatic signal device that sounded when the barometer rose or fell, warning of us a coming storm.

  And then he presented my mother with boxes from Prosperity and Good Fortune, a jewelry store on Hardoon Road, and Chine Tai & Company on Yates Road, a lingerie shop. My mother accepted the boxes nervously and opened the jewelry box, where she found three carved jade bracelets, which she slid over her hand and onto her wrist as smoothly as though they’d been made for her. She moved her wrist so that the bracelets made a quick clicking sound. “They’re beautiful, Joe,” she said, and although she smiled, she still looked apprehensive.

  My father beamed and looked as though the best was yet to come. “Open the other one.”

  My mother did, and inside she found a chiffon negligee. “It’s the Circe model,” my father said proudly, as though he were describing some sort of machine. “That color’s called crushed rose, and it’s the latest.” He held it up to my mother and appraised her. My mother was unable to hide her confusion, and when she saw that the midriff of the gown was embroidered with the words Bonne nuit, she looked as though she might cry.

  He seemed drunk on his new acquisitions, a feeling that I understood, for I was giddy with anticipation every time he came home. Even Chu Shih peered out the window eagerly when he heard the Packard drive up, and all of us thought the same thing: What has he bought now? When he wasn’t purchasing, he talked about what he might buy next. There was a new set of the complete works of Shakespeare he was interested in, and he said it was time for me to have a bicycle, and it would have to be a Schwinn. General Electric had a new automatic glass coffeemaker he said looked very handy. And then there was the car.

  It was at dinner one night in December. He was quiet for most of the meal, and finally he mentioned that he was thinking of a new car, a Bugati. He held up an ad he’d torn out of Life magazine. “Ostrich skin interior,” he said, “a rosewood dashboard.” He looked at my mother, then at me. “Well, what do you think?”

  My mother did not meet his eyes. “It’s a bit much, don’t you think, Joseph?” She carefully cut a carrot into thirds, as though the act required great precision. “And we don’t really need it,” she continued. “We don’t even know how much longer we’ll be here. It’s hardly the time for a new car.”

  My father laughed. He looked at me and winked as though we understood something my mother hadn’t grasped. “It may be exactly the time for a new car,” he said. And then he added that he had a phone call to make, and he excused himself from the table.

  The next morning, the first Saturday in December, he woke me early and told me to get up and get dressed.

  “Where are we going?” I guessed the answer could be just about anywhere. Maybe we were leaving for Los Angeles. Maybe we were buying a new car. Maybe we were just going downstairs.

  “Out,” he said simply, as though that said it all, and although I nodded, I was confused. My mother had said that he wasn’t supposed to take me on what he called “outings.” It was a point of disagreement between them, one of a growing list. He said it was good for me to get out, and that there was no reason for any American to be afraid. She said it was dangerous; anything could happen these days. As I pulled on thick black tights and a tartan skirt and wool sweater over long underwear, I wondered how he had changed her mind, and I marveled at his abilities.

  He was waiting for me when I came into the kitchen. He wore his heaviest overcoat, the dark tweed one with the shiny black leather buttons that looked like chocolate mints. He had on a brown felt hat, and his breath puffed in the cold kitchen, where it was too early for Chu Shih to have lit the fire. Shanghai winters were harshly cold, and we were having what Chu Shih called a “four-coat winter”—days the color of slate, where you could hardly remember the sun. My father held my wool coat for me, then leaned close and buttoned every button, even the top one, which made the coat feel scratchy against my neck. Then he took my wool hat from the counter and pulled it on too low, so that I felt as though I were looking out from underneath something, but I said nothing. He was all business.

  Mei Wah was waiting in the car, and as my father and I got into the backseat, he glanced back at us angrily, why I didn’t know. If my father noticed, he didn’t let on. He gave me a slice of French bread and a thermos of Hershey’s cocoa he’d made, and he explained that we were going to Hongkew to look at a piece of machinery that the owner of a printing shop was claiming had been destroyed. On the seat next to him was what he called his grip, a battered leather briefcase that he would never replace because it had been a gift from his father. It was open, and I saw his new camera inside.

  He tapped it lightly. “We’re going to take a picture, you and I, so that the insurance company doesn’t pay for something they shouldn’t. If the machinery’s ruined, they’ll pay. If not, they won’t. You see, Anna?”

  I nodded.

  He laughed. “You’ll be some businesswoman someday,” and I made a face, certain that I would not like business, nor it me. “Not just anybody can do this, you know,” he added, and there was pride in his voice.

  I thought of my mother’s instructions that he not take me out, and I misunderstood his meaning. “Can we?” I asked.

  He nodded. “You bet. We’ve got a pass from the Japanese authorities.” He held out a piece of paper that was stamped several times in an angry and authoritative red. And then he said, “And after that, we’ll go to Liu and Company.”

  I forgot my mother instantly. “The paper store?”

  He nodded. “Sure thing. Soon as we’ve got our pictures.”

  I sat back in the seat, sure that it was going to be a good day. The paper store was a favorite of mine, and I had not been there in months.

  At the Garden Bridge, the Japanese sentry motioned for us to stop. No foreigners were allowed in Hongkew without a pass, and no Chinese were allowed, period. The sentry ordered us out of the car, then searched my father, Mei Wah, and the car. My father held out his pass. The sentry stared at it disdainfully, then threw it back at my father and motioned for us to be off.

  We crossed the bridge and entered Hongkew, which had been taken over by the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy as the site of their barracks and naval headquarters, in part because it had been the Japanese section of the International Settlement, nicknamed “Little Tokyo,” but more importantly because it was the location of most of the city’s industry and utilities—the waterworks, the power station, the jail, the larger warehouses and go-downs. Japanese flags were everywhere: on buildings and wrecks of buildings, on boats and sampans, on factories and apartments and offices. As we drove up Broadway, past the brick Astor House Hotel and the Russian, German, and Japanese Consulates, I spotted Broadway Mansions—our lookout in the past—and I asked my father if we were going to stop. He grumbled, “Not anymore,” and when I asked what he meant, he explained. The Foreign Correspondents Club on the top of Broadway Mansions was now the officers club for the Japanese generals.r />
  Broadway, Hongkew’s main street, used to be lined with cabarets and theaters and cafés, then small redbrick terraced houses. But now we passed block after block of ruins with only chimney foundations and a few telegraph poles left. Wires hung over the wreckage as if in mourning, and a Sikh wearing one rag of a coat on top of another searched through the rubble, for what I couldn’t imagine. A red scarf was tied around his neck, the only color in this world of gray.

  We drove further, down narrow streets that had turned to slushy mud. We turned northeast, following the curve of the Whangpoo to the warehouses and factories, and my father pointed out wharves that were piled high with scrapped machinery that he said would be shipped to Japan. I could see Japanese freighters moored along the river, but almost no junks. I missed their bows, painted with eyes that always seemed friendly. When I asked my father, he said that the Japanese took care of fishing now. The junks had become practice targets for the Imperial Navy’s gunboats and destroyers.

  Finally we reached an industrial area that housed warehouses and factories and cotton mills, all of them flying Japanese flags. My father leaned forward and pointed to a low building at the end of a dismal street. “There,” he said, “Hsin Hung Chong. That’s their warehouse. Stop here.”

  Mei Wah parked the car and my father opened his door and got out of the car, then waited for me to follow, which I did with reluctance. We were close to the Whangpoo, and the wind was freezing, the sky dark gray. My father took my hand and led us to the build-ing’s entrance. He tried the metal door and found it locked, and he rapped on it loudly. When nothing happened, he knocked again, and this time we heard steps, and when the door was pushed open, a Sikh guard glared at us. My father spoke to him in sharp Mandarin, asking for someone, and the guard finally held the door open for us.

  Inside there was almost no light, and the vast place smelled damp and cold and uninhabited. When my eyes adjusted to the grayness, I saw that the warehouse was filled with boxes and crates, stacked next to each other, on top of each other, every which way. My father said something else to the guard, and he led us to the back corner, where a machine the size of a small car was pushed against the wall. My father said something else, and I heard the same name as before, Matsumoto. The Sikh told us to wait, and he left us.

  “Who do we have to see?” I asked.

  “The guy in charge,” my father said vaguely, then he looked at the machinery in front of us, and he laughed softly. “So here it is, you see? Not destroyed at all.” He set his bag on the concrete floor and took out his camera and snapped a few pictures.

  And then there was a banging at the door and shouting and the place grew less gray from the doors being opened. There was more shouting, and then footsteps coming close. When we turned to see who it was, we faced four Japanese gendarmes.

  My father’s expression told me that this was not at all what he’d expected, and I was immediately terrified. I’d heard too many whispered stories not to be, and a part of me expected to be bayoneted on the spot. For a long moment, they simply stared at us. Then the one who seemed to be in charge said something and my father shook his head; he didn’t understand. The man repeated himself, and when my father shook his head and shrugged, he made a sudden movement toward my father as though he might strike him. But he stopped a foot away.

  The superior spoke to one of the others, who walked to the door of the warehouse and leaned out and yelled something. A minute passed, and he returned with a fifth gendarme. The superior spoke to him, and he nodded. In Mandarin, he said to my father, “Ni tso shenme shêngyi?” What is your business?

  My father answered, “Wo tso ch’u-ju-kou shang-i,” I am in the import-export business, but the gendarme waved frantically. “Mann mhan,” slowly, and my father repeated his answer.

  And then the gendarme began asking questions in a broken, uned ucated Mandarin that was worse than mine—what was he doing, where was he going, what was his business, where did he live? My father answered each question slowly, then he gestured to his grip. The gendarme shook his head and barked an answer, and my father tried again, more slowly. I understood the words maimai and baohsien, business and insurance. Then he smoothed my hair and added, “nüerh,” daughter.

  The translator nodded and spoke to his superior, who stared hard at my father. Then he nodded, and my father opened his grip and took out a huge black book that he always carried with him on business, the Directory of Businessmen in the Orient. He held the directory out to the translator, who handed it to his superior. My father’s hand tightened around mine.

  Finally the superior said something that caused the soldiers to laugh. My father’s hand relaxed slightly, and for a moment, I thought I must have misunderstood, because everything suddenly seemed all right. The gendarme reached down and picked up my father’s grip and held it out to him as though returning it, and my father moved to take it. But before he could, the gendarme turned it upside down, emptying it and letting my father’s possessions clatter to the concrete floor. The camera hit with a sharp crack, and the Japanese laughed harder and stared at us as though we were in on the joke.

  My father stood rigidly next to me and held my hand so tightly that it hurt, but I was too afraid to tell him. The Japanese laughed for another moment, and the superior said something to the translator, who laughed, then looked at my father and said, “Shihku,” accident, and shrugged in mock apology. They turned as though ready to leave, but then the superior turned back and said something and pointed to the camera. The translator picked it up and handed it to him, and he laughed again.

  And then they were gone.

  My father remained silent, not moving for perhaps a minute. I was freezing. My teeth chattered and I could feel the flat coldness of the concrete floor through my shoes. My thick tights seemed no better than thin cotton socks, and my nose was starting to run. Finally my father knelt on the floor and began picking up his things and putting them back into his grip—papers, folders, a monogrammed linen handkerchief, his black leather gloves. And the boar-bristle brush that my mother had given him years ago, which he always kept with him.

  When he had finished, he stood and took my hand. I could feel myself shaking, partly from the cold, but more from fear, and though I tried to stop, I couldn’t.

  He looked down at me, then knelt and smoothed my hair from my forehead. “What’s this?” he asked, his voice worried. “Are you cold?”

  I nodded and felt my eyes fill with tears.

  “And you’re afraid?”

  I nodded again.

  “Now look,” he said, and the sudden sternness in his voice frightened me more, but when he continued, his voice was gentle. “You don’t have anything to be afraid of,” he said. “Don’t you know that, Anna? Don’t you know you’re safe with me? I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

  I took a breath and looked at him and was startled at the fierceness in his blue eyes. I nodded and whispered, “I know.”

  He pulled me to him and carried me toward the door, holding me tightly. Mei Wah was waiting for us outside. My father put me down and said nothing as we walked to the car, but when we were perhaps twenty feet away, he squeezed my hand and glanced at me. Then he stopped. He knelt next to me and said, “Can you keep a secret?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you know what they were looking for, those gendarmes?”

  I shook my head.

  “They were looking for yen,” he whispered, “but they didn’t find it, did they, Anna?”

  “No,” I whispered, as though I were in on it.

  “They thought they had us, but it’s right here, you see?” He tapped his chest over his heart, then he took my hand and held it to his chest. “You see?”

  I felt the smooth coolness of his pressed shirt. And something sturdier and harder than flesh underneath. I looked at him and he smiled. When he unbuttoned his shirt and held it open, I saw the dark black canvas of the money belt from his office.

  “We tricked them, all
right. They don’t own me. Nobody owns Joseph Schoene.” He stood and flung open the car door, whistling again, as though we had reason to be jubilant.

  My father told Mei Wah to let us out on the Bund side of the Garden Bridge and to pick us up in an hour. The walk would do us good, he said, and he added that we could buy something sweet. I was still cold, but I didn’t argue. My father stopped at the first street vendor we reached and bought a sack of twenty li sing dong, lotus seeds, that were as fat and round as grapes, fried and coated in sugar. They didn’t make me warmer, but they made me happy as we walked.

  Liu & Company—a stationers that I just called “the paper store”—was near my father’s office on Szechuan Road, and it fascinated me. I’d never tried explaining that fascination to my mother; it was far too practical for her. I had told only my father and Chu Shih about it, and from time to time, my father indulged me and let me wander in its small, crowded aisles. As my father and I neared it that day, a new worry presented itself: what if the store wasn’t there anymore? Storefront after storefront had simply been boarded up with plywood, and we hadn’t been there since before the battle. What if it was gone?

  We turned onto Peking Road, and when we turned onto Museum Road a block later, I spotted Liu’s crimson banner, the wind making it dance as if in greeting. The door opened as someone entered, reassuring me. I looked up at my father and whispered, “Look. It’s still here.”