The Bund was crowded with distracted people rushing toward boats and docks. Rickshas rolled past him, piled high with cheap furniture and bedding. Men and women clutched their crying children and shouted at the sweating pullers as they ran. Motor cars loaded with trunks and lacquered boxes and fine carved furniture and satin-garbed people, silent and white-faced, rushed by. Farther away, toward the north of the city, there was a dark mass of something which was not cloud.
“Is there a fire?” he asked I-ko immediately, pointing to this mass.
He had sent a radio from the ship telling of his coming, and here was I-ko to meet him. He was glad I-ko was alone and that the German was not with him. I-ko stepped out of his father’s great American car and was now standing very handsome in a new uniform of dark blue cloth. He turned to speak to the White Russian chauffeur, who answered with a sharp salute.
Then he answered I-wan’s question. “You must grow used to that. There is a fire every hour somewhere,” he said.
On the dock I-wan’s cabinmate stood diffidently to one side. He had come out very cheerfully to tell I-wan good-by, since he went on to Hong Kong. I-wan had taken a great liking to this strange little American-Chinese. But Jackie Lim, seeing I-ko in his magnificence, was now abashed. He seemed to shrink still further inside his garments.
“I-ko, this is Mr. Lim, from America, who is come back to fight,” I-wan said.
Lim put his hand out at once. But I-ko, bowing slightly, pretended not to see it, and Jackie Lim put his hand in his pocket and giggled. Upon his flat nose a sweat broke out.
“Write to me, Lim,” I-wan said, throwing an angry look at I-ko. “Tell me how you find your grandfather and let me know what regiment you join.”
“Sure,” Jackie said, grinning. “I’m not much of a hand at writing, but I guess I can do that.”
They shook hands, and Jackie went back on board, and I-wan, stepping into the car, saw him staring earnestly at the shore, his face solemn.
“A good man,” he told I-ko. “He’s going home for the first time to see his old grandfather in Canton. Then he will enlist as a soldier, simply to fight.”
I-ko must understand the heroic quality in this foolish-looking fellow. But I-ko only said impatiently, “There are plenty like him—too many! Fools, full of enthusiasm and nothing else! They have almost ruined us, I-wan—well-meaning fools! They’ve dropped bombs on our own men, and yesterday they bombed an American ship—oh, by accident, of course, thinking it was Japanese—as if we hadn’t trouble enough, without having to read and answer American protests and paying thousands of dollars out in indemnities! I tell you, I haven’t found any reason to be proud of being a Chinese since I came home!”
I-ko’s handsome profile stared coldly ahead. Had his German wife, I-wan thought, helped to make him ashamed? I-ko leaned over and shut the glass partition behind the chauffeur, and went on. “The truth is, I-wan, the Japanese have beaten us on every point. In the air we can’t cope with them. Our air force is nothing—rotten to the heart—and a woman at the head of it!” He gave a snort of laughter. “It’s ridiculous! What other country has a woman at the head of the national air force? I don’t care if it is the great Madame Chiang! What does she know about aviation? I’m glad to go to Canton.”
“Are you going to Canton?” I-wan asked. There was, he perceived, a great deal that he did not know.
“Yes, we’re all going, except Father. Frieda went three weeks ago. She disliked living here. Foreign women,” I-ko said complacently, “are very sensitive.” I-wan wanted to laugh. That woman sensitive! But he was glad he need not see her, at least. “As for me,” I-ko was saying, “I am to take a post in Canton under General Pai—Chiang’s orders. And it is not safe here any more for the old ones. I take them with me tonight, though of course they will not live with us. Frieda finds them difficult—as they are. I agree with her entirely.”
The car stopped to let a stream of rickshas pass.
“I suppose these people are all running away,” I-wan remarked…. If I-ko agreed with her there must have been trouble in his father’s house. But he would not ask of that.
“No use staying to be bombed by both sides,” I-ko returned.
They did not speak while the car swerved in and out among the crowded streets. I-ko asked him nothing, either, and I-wan had, he felt, nothing to tell I-ko. He sat in silence, thinking, and looking out of the window. This was much worse than he had imagined. They were passing through streets of charred and roofless buildings. He forgot the German woman.
“Tell me exactly what is happening,” he said to I-ko.
I-ko shrugged his epaulets slightly. What sort of uniform was this he wore, I-wan wondered. Not a common soldier’s, certainly!
“Exactly what you see,” I-ko said contemptuously. “People are running hither and thither and everything is going to ruin. There is no organization anywhere. Nothing is ready. Chiang sits up there in the capital at Nanking like a spider in the middle of a net. Only he catches no flies!” I-ko laughed harshly at his own words.
“But surely he plans something,” I-wan said anxiously.
“I have seen no plans,” I-ko replied. “When I left Germany I thought of course I was returning to an organized national army. What do I find? Hordes of untrained men, each separate horde obeying its own little head—no national conception of any kind! Obey? They don’t even obey their own generals! There is no discipline. A band of men rush out on their own impulse to attack the Japanese army when it is not the time to attack, when nothing is ready at the rear to support such an attack, when it is a foolish waste of men and ammunition—then everybody gets excited and calls them heroes!”
I-ko’s clear pale face grew suddenly flushed with pink.
“It seems strange to hear you speak of discipline,” I-wan remarked.
“I’ve learned what it means,” I-ko said shortly. He went on after a moment. “Of course the Japanese army’s efficiency is simply because of its discipline. They learned from the Germans, too.” And then after another moment he added again, “We’ll not only never win—we’ve lost already.”
I-wan said nothing. He knew perfectly what I-ko meant. He knew these people of his! It was true that they never believed the worst would happen. And if it did, they believed then that nothing could avert it. They had not prepared for this, he knew. But he would not believe they could lose.
Above them three planes suddenly appeared. I-ko shouted to the chauffeur through the speaking tube. The chauffeur drew up to the curb and waited. The planes began to swerve downward, roaring. And then I-wan saw for the first time bombs dropping. They shone long and silver in the sunshine as they drifted downward into the Chinese city. It was impossible to be afraid of them. And yet after each disappeared there was a second of silence, then explosion and a cloud of smoke and dust rose in the distance. The planes mounted again and flew west.
“Go on now,” I-ko commanded the chauffeur.
They went on. Neither he nor I-ko spoke. How many people had been killed in these few minutes? Suddenly, before he could think, they were at the door he remembered so well. He went up the steps at I-ko’s side feeling strange but somehow not afraid. He would have to see people dead, perhaps, before he could be afraid of bombs.
“Everything is in confusion,” I-ko told him brusquely. He rang the bell. “The old lady is so nearly dead I doubt she lasts the trip,” he added impatiently.
Then the door opened. And immediately I-wan smelled the old sickish sweetness of his grandmother’s opium, and with it all memory rushed over him again. A maid stood at her open door, stirring the stuff in a small bowl with a tiny silver spoon. She stared at I-wan. She was not in the least like Peony, whose place she had taken, this high-cheeked, coarse-faced country girl. Peony! He had not thought of her even in coming home. But now it seemed she must be here with all else.
“Was anything ever heard of Peony?” he asked I-ko.
I-ko was taking off his jacket.
“No,�
� he answered sneeringly. “That was gratitude, wasn’t it? Treated like a daughter, almost, for all those years!”
“She earned what she had,” I-wan said abruptly, remembering. He turned aside to his grandmother’s room. “I’ll go in here first,” he said.
“She won’t know you,” I-ko answered, half-way upstairs. But I-wan went on.
No, his grandmother was long past knowing anything now. She lay in the bed, a shriveled nut of a human creature, her flesh brown wrinkled leather on her skeleton as small as a child’s. She was blind, he saw. Her eyes were gray with cataracts. He called to her loudly.
“Grandmother, it is I—I-wan—come home again!”
But she could not hear him. He put out his hand and touched hers. It was cold and dry as a bird’s claw. When she felt his touch she opened her blue lips and whined a wailing cry. He dropped her hand quickly, half frightened. Could human beings become this in their uselessness? And then he heard a footstep behind him and there was his father come to find him. He had grown stouter, I-wan saw instantly; his look was quieter and his hair almost white, but his face looked the same.
“Father!” he said.
“My son!” his father replied and grasped him by the elbows. “The best thing that could have happened! Only why have you not answered my letters these last months!”
“I had no letters!” I-wan exclaimed. “And I did write!”
His father stared at him and shook his head. “I do not understand Muraki anymore,” he said. Then he let him go. “Well, you are here,” he went on. “We shall need no more letters.”
It was hard to find something to say to his father. There was so much to say.
“Your grandfather is waiting for you in his room,” his father told him.
“Grandmother doesn’t know me,” I-wan replied. He wondered if his grandfather, too—
“You’ll find him much as he was,” his father said. “He is feeble, of course. But he is sitting there dressed in his best uniform and all his medals, ready to go six hours hence. He is full of advice on the subject of the Japanese.” He stopped to laugh. “The last time I went to confer with Chiang Kai-shek in Nanking he sent a long plan of his, showing how in three months we could rid ourselves not only of the Japanese but of all foreigners!”
His father laughed again and then sighed, and they turned. The old woman began wailing as they left and Mr. Wu spoke to the servant sharply.
“Give her the stuff—get her quiet!”
“Yes—yes, sir,” the girl stuttered, hurrying.
“There is nothing to be done with the old who are like that,” his father said. They were going upstairs. “Waste—waste—” he muttered.
I-wan did not answer. He felt a change in his father. He was gentler and yet somehow stronger.
“How is my mother?” he asked.
“She is just getting up,” his father replied. “She overslept herself—the bombing last night kept her awake. She is terrified when that begins.” He stopped, his hand on the door of the old man’s room. “By the way,” he told I-wan, “when she says you are to go with her to Canton, do not say you will go. You are not to go. You are to stay here. Chiang Kai-shek has plans for you.”
He listened to this, watching his father’s face. Chiang Kai-shek, the man whom he had once to escape, who had perhaps killed En-lan! But everything was changed, so why not this?
“Very well,” he told his father steadily, and they went in.
The old general sat by the window, the sun falling across his glittering breast.
“Ah, you’ve come!” he said to I-wan, exactly as though I-wan had left only yesterday.
“Yes, Grandfather,” I-wan answered, smiling.
The old man trembled now with a slight palsy, so that all his medals jangled faintly. But he was as lordly as ever.
“Sit down, both of you,” he ordered, and they sat down. The old man reached to a table and took up a small scroll which he unrolled.
“Now, as soon as I reach Canton,” he went on pontifically, “I shall present my plans in person to Pai. The nut of the idea is this—let the Japanese have their way. They tell me ten thousand people have been killed in Shanghai. But I say there are millions of people here. So we have plenty left. Let the Japanese exhaust themselves. When they are exhausted, then we will invite them to return to their own country, not all at once, but so many each year. And, so that they will not lose face—for it is well to be courteous with the enemy—we will request the persons of other nations to return also, and since we will not be exhausted by fighting, we can, having saved all our resources, then use force if necessary!”
The old man gazed at them proudly. I-wan looked at his father. But he was looking at the old man with eyes tolerant and benign.
“What do you think of it, I-wan?” the old man demanded.
“It is perhaps a little hard on the people now being killed,” I-wan said cautiously. How was it possible for generations to recede from each other to such distances!
“Nonsense!” his grandfather said loudly. “In the first place, they are already used to famine and to wars, though on a smaller scale. In the second place, even if every Japanese moved into our country we would only feel it as we might some extra flies. Our country is too vast to be conquered, especially by such a small one. And besides, our people can grow used to anything.”
His voice was definite, as though he expected no answer. So I-wan gave him none.
The old man suddenly thought of something else.
“I’ve lost one of my medals,” he said to his son. His voice was now wholly different. It was childishly complaining.
“Which one?” Mr. Wu inquired. He went to the velvet-lined case where the old general kept his medals hung upon hooks and opened it.
“It was the one I had made in gold plate,” the old man said, “after the one the Italian ambassador wore—don’t you remember? Why, it was less than ten years ago I had it made—it was one of my new ones! A servant has stolen it. He must be found and dismissed.”
Mr. Wu did not answer. He thrust two fingers behind the velvet.
“Here it is,” he said. “I feel it, but I can’t get it.”
“Let me,” I-wan said. He rose and thrust his fingers down, which, being longer, could just catch the ribbon of the medal and bring it up.
“That’s it—that’s it!” the old man crowed. “Give it to me. This is its place—here by the one with the eagle. I was going to show it especially to Pai when I went south. It would be well if he copied it for his officers.”
They left him, laughing, and then out in the hall a door opened, and here was I-wan’s mother. She cried out when she saw him.
“I-wan, you are come!”
“Yes, Mother,” he answered. He saw she had changed very much, being now very fat. Her small pretty features were almost entirely lost in her face. But she seized his hands and smelled them as she used to do when he was a child, and he thought of her as she had seemed to him then, beautiful and wise and far stronger than he. He used to run to her then and hide in her bosom. Now she was even a little repulsive to him. He had grown so far beyond her that he saw her from the terrible distance of his own maturity and knew that there was neither wisdom nor refuge in her any longer for him. It made him sad. Would Jiro some day feel so to him? … Only her voice was unchanged, sweet and rushing.
“Now, I-wan,” she was saying, “do not unpack your trunks. You are to come on with us tonight to Canton. It is fearful here. We are bombed every day and every night. Your father will not come. I’ve cried and cried—but when did he ever hear me? So you are to come and be with me. I-ko—oh, I-ko is lost to me. Oh, that woman! But I must have someone. I can’t take care of these two old things alone.”
“You are taking all the servants except two,” Mr. Wu reminded her.
“But servants must be looked after!” Madame Wu cried.
“I cannot go, Mother,” I-wan said plainly. Much better to speak plainly and at once! “I came home t
o fight, Mother.”
Her small underlip, still as red as a girl’s, trembled.
“You are just like your father,” she said, “so stubborn!”
She was about to weep, but at that moment a servant came out with her arms full of furs.
“Shall we take these, Mistress, or shall we leave them?”
“Surely we will be back by winter—leave them,” Madame Wu said.
“Take them,” Mr. Wu said.
“I haven’t enough boxes,” Madame Wu wailed.
“Buy what you need,” Mr. Wu said.
“Oh—it’s such worry,” Madame Wu said distractedly. She turned back into her room, forgetting everything else.
I-wan turned to his father. “I think I will go to my own room now and refresh myself.”
He wanted suddenly to be alone. His father nodded and he went on to his own door. And I-wan opened the door to the old familiar place.
It seemed at first as though Peony must be there. It had been strange not to see her anywhere about the rooms, and not to see her here was strangest of all. But there was no touch of her, anywhere. The windows stretched tall and bare, and there were no flowers in them. And on his table there was no pot of hot tea. Everything was clean enough, except for a surface of light dust. No one had come here this morning as Peony would have done to make all fresh before his coming. The bed, the books, the cushions on the chairs, everything had the still and unused look of a room long empty. It would be difficult, he felt, to make this room his own again—he had been so young when last he left it. He had thought once that he would leave it to be destroyed in the revolution. But it was still here—perhaps to be destroyed finally by a Japanese bomb! Who knew the end of such things? Not he, at least.
Then he remembered something else. Long ago En-lan had written his own story for him to read, and he had thrust it far into the back of this drawer, behind his copy books. He opened the drawer quickly and thrust in his hand. It was not there now. No one had touched the books or this drawer and it was full of dust. But the sheets of folded paper were gone. Someone had taken them. Was it in that way that they—the band—were discovered? He felt sweat begin to break out on his forehead. Had his father somehow—but his father never came into this room. And Peony only took care of his things. Surely it could not have been Peony—he sat down, feeling a little sick. Surely it could not have been Peony who had betrayed them all—Peony, whom he had told! He could not rid himself of this fear, once it had come to him. It kept him sleepless half the night though he told himself over and over again that whatever had happened was now finished.
The Patriot Page 29