by Amy Kwei
Silver Bell told them of the death of Little Jade Bell and Winter Plum.
Purple Jade was further devastated when she learned that Dr. Rankling had died in the concentration camp. Her true advocate and one source of edification was gone. Desolation awaited her in Shanghai. She felt she was groping in the storage room of her Hangzhou house. Shafts of dusty light sifted through the window vents and she saw in the corner a single petal dangling on a once-blooming peony. Oh, dear Buddha, she groaned inside, where has the light gone? Must I stand quite so alone?
“She might not have been willing to leave her patients in the camp anyway,” Comely Brook murmured, as much to herself as to the others.
Yes, I will always have Orchid. Out loud, Purple Jade mumbled Tu-Fu’s poem:
“Fame of a thousand years may be imperishable
But it remains a small after-life affair.”
Comely Brook shuddered, knowing her mistress was trying her best to minimize her loss. She whispered, “Dr. Rankling has gone to her heavenly reward.”
Purple Jade kept very still, but other lines by Tu Fu came unbidden:
If I knew where Heaven was
I would not linger here.
My home is the humble assembly of my loved ones. I’ll be crushed if I lose them. Still, Orchid and baby Coral Bell came from my prideful choice. I owe them life and dignity. But my lonely boat, as ever, is moored to the heart that longs for home.
“I hope I’ll meet her again in the next life,” she whispered.
Purple Jade’s silent thoughts seemed to have filled the air with somber anguish.
“I apologize for the crimes of my compatriots,” Lt. Kamasaki spoke, lowering his eyes to the ground.
“War is never decent. All soldiers loot and burn throughout history. Oh what bitterness!” Righteous Virtue muttered. “Let’s hope we can all leave this soon.”
“I cannot leave. The lives of my parents and the honor of my family in Japan make me a hostage to the military objectives. But I will help you escape if you have any idea where you want to go.” Lt. Kamasaki looked at the worried faces before him. “I plan to go with Iris and Miss Tyler to Saigon. From there, I’ll send them on to Calcutta, where Miss Tyler can get in touch with her mission and go back to the States. My country has gone crazy. They’ve declared war on the world!”
“My place is by your side,” said Iris. “I will remain with you in Saigon. Perhaps the Huangs will go with Miss Tyler.”
“Our thanks will never repay your kindness.” Righteous Virtue bowed deeply to their former maid and her husband. “We’ve had many hours of discussion during the last weeks. We wish to send Silver Bell to the States to join her sister.”
“Yes.” Miss Tyler nodded. “I can place Silver Bell in a high school near Syracuse University.”
“No!” Silver Bell cried and clung to her mother. Purple Jade held her in a fierce embrace, as much to console her daughter as herself.
Righteous Virtue continued, “Comely Brook and the baby should not endure the hardships of interior China. Purple Jade has agreed to take them back to Shanghai. For myself, I cannot sit idle while the country burns. I must go inland and help the Nationalist effort in Chungking. We have already arranged a fishing junk to take me to Hainan.”
“Then this shall be done,” Lt. Kamasaki answered right away. “Silver Bell will leave with us for Saigon next week as Miss Tyler’s servant. There will be no problem getting her papers ready. A ship leaves for Shanghai this afternoon at three. It will fly a flag identifying it as a refugee ship, so it will be safe from the Allied planes. I will wire Mrs. Chou Ling in Shanghai to meet her cousin, Comely Brook and the new baby. For yourself, Mr. Huang, I’ll need a few days to find a good cover.”
He paced back and forth, making jerky turns. “The South China Sea is patrolled thoroughly by the Japanese Imperial Navy, where I have no influence. You’ll never pass as a fisherman.” He came to an abrupt stop and extended an open palm. “Yes, I have it. I’ll give you identification as a special agent of the Kempetai under my command.”
As Righteous Virtue thanked Lt. Kamasaki, Purple Jade stood tall to fortify herself. The parting she dreaded had come. Ignoring the anguish in her heart, she commanded coldly: “Silver Bell, kneel before Miss Tyler!” She pointed an imperial finger at the floor. She straightened her shoulders and held her breath. “From now on you shall honor, obey and serve Miss Tyler as your mother!”
Miss Tyler did not move. She understood the honor conferred upon her. She would have embraced Purple Jade, but that would rob her of her dignity. When Silver Bell Kowtowed, Miss Tyler lifted her and hugged her. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks; she was unable to speak the words of reassurance surging through her mind.
Purple Jade refrained from clasping Silver Bell to her when the girl broke loose from Miss Tyler and pressed wordlessly to her mother’s side. I shall never let her go if I held her, she thought. She gently pushed Silver Bell to Miss Tyler again.
Then she walked to the bureau and took out the passbook for Silver Bell’s American savings account. She held it out to Miss Tyler with a bow.
“Thank you,” she said in English, surprising everyone. She bowed again and gave her face a quick swipe. She wobbled toward the stairs as if her bound feet were again a torment.
Comely Brook knelt at the foot of the stairs, blocking her way. “Tai-tai, I must abide by your decision, but I know what you’re doing for Coral and me.” She wept so bitterly, she could not continue.
“Rise up Brook-mei. Come and help me pack.” Purple Jade raised her. “Be strong, you are my only support now.” Together, they tottered upstairs, weeping quietly in each other’s arms.
When they came down, Purple Jade and Comely Brook were both dry-eyed. Purple Jade carried the three gray scarves. She bowed deeply to Righteous Virtue and gave him the large, plain piece. “My master, you’ve taught me decency, harmony and peace. Let this remind you of our time of grace.”
Righteous Virtue accepted the silk with downcast eyes, trying to maintain his composure.
Purple Jade gave the scarf with the peony flower that she had embroidered herself to Silver Bell. The luster on the silk was gone, but the peony flower took on an ashen sheen that melded into the gray scarf. “Yes, we are the silk. We should remain supple and gracious.” She gave her little heart-and-liver a brave, small grin. “This is your silk; never forget who you are.”
When Silver Bell reached to grab her mother, Miss Tyler drew her to her side, and placed the silk on her shoulder.
Clutching Little Jade’s scarf with the orchid, Purple Jade whispered, “We are ready to go.”
Comely Brook held her head erect, imitating her mistress’s stateliness. She bowed to Righteous Virtue. She allowed Silver Bell and Iris to embrace Coral Bell one last time and followed Purple Jade and Lt. Kamasaki out the door.
Purple Jade wore a blank mask of dignity and walked stiffly toward the waiting car. Fingering her silk all the while, she did not look back.
Like that of many other early peoples, Chinese civilization developed along river valleys. The fertile plains of the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers nurtured a sophisticated culture thousands of years before the West learned of its existence — a culture that flourished, remote and undisturbed, largely thanks to the protection of its geography.
To the north and northwest, the sere Mongolian deserts shielded China, while the Himalayan Mountains loomed to the south and southwest. Along the eastern shore, a rugged coastline ran from Siberia to the jungles of Southeast Asia. The vast Pacific Ocean was an effective obstacle against intrusion from that direction.
It was not until the thirteenth century and the famous travels of Marco Polo that the Europeans were alerted to the fabulous wealth of this empire in the inaccessible Orient. The advent of the Renaissance saw every major European sovereign launching his galleons — including those of Christopher Columbus — to find a shorter trade route to the fantastic riches of the East.
By the ninete
enth century, when the industrial revolution poised the Western powers for mercantile imperialism, the Chinese were experiencing the twin ravages of deforestation and overpopulation. The Chin (Pure) Dynasty (1644-1911), a Manchu government, had ruled the majority Han race for almost three hundred years, and its vigor would soon dissipate under the control of Tz’u Hsi (1835-1908), the corrupt, capricious consort of the Hsien-feng Emperor. The Empress Dowager maneuvered herself into absolute power by allying with conservative officials and powerful court eunuchs, who helped her suppress badly needed reforms.
At a time when the West had acquired a taste for tea, silk, porcelain, and other fineries of China, the Chinese were weak, divided, and incapable of safeguarding their treasures. When the Western flotilla arrived in the nineteenth century to end China’s “splendid isolation”, China was introduced to the world community under the muzzle of the gun.
Supported by the British sovereign position in India and its supreme naval forces, the East India Company cultivated poppy plants in India and shipped opium to China in defiance of Chinese imperial prohibition. China went to war in October 1839, and lost. Hong Kong became a British colony. There followed one unequal treaty after another, until the major powers — Russia, Germany, Japan, France, Portugal, and Britain — all held Chinese territories as concessions in which Chinese sovereignty was waived and extraterritorial rights and privileges granted to the interlopers. Although the United States did not acquire territorial rights in China, traders participated in the opium trade alongside the British, and benefited consistently from advantages gained by the British through the unequal treaties.
The Chinese’s early encounters with the unruly European sailors confirmed their opinion of foreigners as barbarians. Traditional Chinese esteem for the liberal arts and disdain for military matters further blinded them to the power of Western technology. They stubbornly refused to open the country to foreign trade. In 1860, England and France sent another expedition to Beijing to force the government to open North China and the Yangtze Valley to trade. The Chinese handled the delegates with brutality. The response was the invasion of the capital. The Emperor’s favorite residence, the Summer Palace (Yuan Ming Yuan — Round Bright Garden) was burnt to the ground. England and France not only achieved their objectives, but received eight million dollars each from China for added indemnities. Russia pretended to mediate the conflict, and for its non-interference it received the confirmation of treaty advantages it had gained in Manchuria, including the Ussuri River territories. The Chinese town of Haishenwei became Vladivostok.
Japan defeated China in the war of 1894-1895. The treaty of Shimonoseki forced China to cede Taiwan and the Penghu Islands and to pay a huge indemnity, recognize Japan’s hegemony over Korea and allow Japanese industries in four treaty ports.
The ignorance and corruption of the Dowager Empress’s court fed upon the foreign intrusions, and engendered a hatred for foreigners that simmered, steamed, and finally boiled over into the court’s fatal support for the Boxers. The Boxers claimed to hold sufficient magic in their bodies to withstand bullets and guns. The court sanctioned the massacre of missionaries in late 189l. By June 1900, the Boxers’ siege of the legations brought on the punitive invasion of Beijing by twenty thousand troops representing eight foreign nations. In September 1900, the Forbidden City, the Emperor’s residence, was sacked. Chinese and Manchus alike, regardless of social rank or guilt, suffered looting, rape and other atrocities. Priceless national treasures were carted off to Europe, vandalized or destroyed.
At the turn of the century, the Japanese and European scramble for territorial concessions had reached its zenith. China was saved from dismemberment only through competition and jealousy for spoils among the invading powers.
Altogether, Chinese history in the early twentieth century was a study in national humiliation and defeat. Out of the chaos, stirred by internal strife and foreign aggression, rose Nationalism. Nationalists saw the need of a modern state to liberate China, not only from Manchu rule but also from foreign imperialism. Under the leadership of Dr. Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), the first Republican government was born in 1911.
The Western democracies refused aid to the young revolutionary party. In the summer of 1918, the Soviet government announced that it was freely abandoning the privileges extracted under the Tsarist regime. It retained the territories in the Maritime provinces, but assisted the Chinese Nationalist party (Kuomintang) with money, training and military organization. The divisive interests of the workers and peasants on the one side, and the land-owning gentry, the businessmen, and the warlords on the other soon shattered the united purpose of the Nationalists. By 1930, the Kuomingtang, under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), had begun large-scale campaigns to extirpate the Communists.
Both Japan and China helped the Allied causes during World War I. The Paris Peace Conference of 1919, nonetheless, confirmed Japan’s claims to the Shangdong Province, which it was already occupying. Massive student demonstrations broke out in Beijing and Shanghai to protest against Japan, the Allies and the inept Chinese government. This was the unifying Nationalist May fourth movement.
Japan seized Manchuria in September 1931 and established the puppet regime of Manchukuo in 1932. It soon annexed Jehol and cultivated opium in almost all its arable land. Opium became so plentiful in China that the poorest coolie could buy a day’s supply for a few Chinese pennies.
Opium poisoned vital segments of Chinese society. Its government, industry, and economy were perverted by the addiction. Ambitious foreign elements wasted no opportunity to exploit the complicated struggle within the country. They played one power faction against another, supplying one warlord with arms, another with opium trade privileges, a third with ideologies. Communism, fascism, Nazism, Christianity, and democracy all claimed rival adherents.
The Communists and the Nationalists were nominally united after the Xian incident in December 1936. Faced with Japanese aggression and Communist unrest, Chiang had stated to Theodore White in an interview: “Japanese are a disease of the skin, and Communism a disease of the heart.”
This novel begins in 1937, when Japan proclaimed China its exclusive protectorate. In July of the same year, Japan invaded China openly and the stage was set for World War II.
A list of Chinese terms, idiomatic expressions and historical/political events referred to in the novel.
amahs — Female servants.
“Arise, those who not be slaves” — A patriotic song sung during the Second World War. It is now the national anthem of the People’s Republic of China.
become a vinegar bottle — Become jealous.
bitter labor — A literal translation of “coolie”. During the First World War, hundreds of thousands of Chinese “coolies” were sent to the European continent to dig trenches, build bunkers and clear minefields for the British and French armies.
bonsai — The Japanese term for the ancient Chinese art of penjing, or the cultivation of plants in shallow pots. These miniature trees are living sculptures.
book-fragrant — Learned.
bride price — Gifts of food, furniture, bedding, fineries and sometimes cash that the groom’s family is expected to present to the bride’s family. The troth is confirmed when the bride’s family has accepted the gifts.
Brook-mei — It is the polite way of addressing Comely Brook as a younger-sister.
brown dwarves of East Ocean — The Japanese.
Bund — The waterfront in downtown Shanghai, located in the British concession.
bureaucracy of the Chin Empire (1644-1911) — The bureaucracy that for centuries, from one dynasty to the next, administered the Chinese government. Positions in the bureaucracy were acquired through competitive examinations. In theory, this was democratic, because the government consisted of people who have demonstrated cognitive skills and literary appreciation. In practice, however, the custom discouraged creativity and concentrated power among the rich who could afford the long years
of study and cultivation of the mind.
“by cultivating oneself” — The popular quotation taken from “Ta Hsueh” (Great Learning), a chapter of the Li Chi (Book of Rites). It was attributed to Tseng Tzu, a disciple of Confucius.
catties — A standard of Chinese measurement, about 1.3 lbs.
cheongsam — A lady’s straight sheath with a high mandarin collar, and a slit on each side reaching the knee to facilitate movement. The hemline of the sheath followed the fashions of the time. In the 1930s, it fell to just above the feet. Cheongsam is translated from the Cantonese dialect because it is the form popularly known in the States. In mandarin, the official dialect, it is called a chi pou.
chi — Breath, or the life-giving energy. The Chinese consider it the dominant principle of health.
Chiang Ching-kuo (1910 - 1988) — Son of Chiang Kai-shek by his first wife. Ching-kuo was sent to study in Moscow in 1925, when his father was the head of the Soviet-trained Kuomingtang army. He twice denounced his father’s anti-Communist activities while in Soviet Russia. He returned to China in 1937 with a Russian wife, shortly after the Xian Incident, to help negotiate the integration of the Chinese Communists into the Nationalists’ anti-Japanese effort. In later years he claimed that he had been detained in Russia, and forced to denounce his father. He was the president of the Republic of China in Taiwan from 1975 until his death in January of 1988.
Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) — Ruler of China from 1928 to 1949. He remained president of the Chinese government in exile on Taiwan until his death. He was popularly referred to as the “Generalissimo.
Chou En-lai (1898-1976) — A prominent revolutionary who became a communist during the twenties while studying in France. He later served as the premier and foreign minister of the People’s Republic of China.
concubine — In the old days, it was customary for Chinese men to have several wives. The first wife held a position of power while the other wives or concubines owed her services and deference. This is no longer legal in China.