The China Lover

by Ian Buruma

  The last scene was set in a hospital room, re-created in the kitchens of the Hotel Moderne, where the Russian stepfather was dying with his stepdaughter by his side. “It’s time to go back to your real father,” he croaked. “Japan is a beautiful country, a great country, the country of the gods. You must return to your own soil.” Ri burst into tears, crying, “Papa . . . Papa . . . Papa!” Shimizu, overcome with emotion, dabbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his coat. Dimitri, when it was all over, took the young girl in his arms. Ri did a girlish little twirl and smiled, proud of her performance.

  The wrap-up party was held in the hotel ballroom. I was not in a festive mood. The hotel now bore the smell of death. But Ri, the director, Hotta, and the Russian cast were excited about the prospects of their musical film. Rivalries seemed to have melted away, as everyone sang sentimental Japanese and Russian songs. Dimitri sang an aria from Faust, and Ri gave a rendition of “My Nightingale” in Russian, and then “Ah, Our Manchuria!” Speeches were made about international solidarity and a new world order, and Ri expressed her hope that we could all live in peace.

  The film was never shown. Our government censors decided that a Russian musical, entirely lacking in fighting spirit, was not suitable for distribution at a time when our empire was fighting for its survival. As the censors put it in their official document: “Stress on individual happiness goes against the wartime regulations laid down by our Imperial Government.” I found this profoundly silly, but was not entirely displeased with the verdict. Ri should never have wasted her time on this wretched picture. As for the others involved in this disaster, I hated the lot of them.

  20

  BY 1943 IT began to dawn on many of us that our empire might not survive for very much longer, even though it was dangerous to voice such an opinion in public. Shanghai was seedier than ever, with beggars on every street. Bodies of people who had frozen to death used to be carted away every morning. Now it sometimes took days for the corpses to disappear, which didn’t matter so much in December, but from March onwards the stench became unbearable. Even the old French Concession was looking like a slum, with thousands of rats feasting on the garbage. Stores were running out of supplies. More and more theaters went out of business. Quick sexual relief, standing up against a wall, sitting back in a taxi, stretched out on a barbershop chair, could always be had for a few dollars in Shanghai. Now it was available for a crust of bread, and not just from poor Chinese. You could possess a woman of any race for a pittance. And I must confess that I possessed many. The flesh is weak, and those poor girls needed to make a living. I still had my pick of the starlets, so in a way my lapses on the street were a form of charity.

  Ri was back in town. We drove to a narrow lane off the far end of Weihaiwei Road. There was a bar I knew, where the food was still passable, and one could talk without drawing unwelcome attention. The master of this establishment was a fellow named Old Zhou, who was protected by the Green Gang. We had known one another for a long time. At Old Zhou’s I felt safe, and he often gave me useful tips. I had my usual brandy cocktail. Ri drank a fruit juice. From a private room, to the left of the bar, we could hear the clacking of mah-jong tiles, and Ri’s nostrils quickly picked up the sweet whiff of the merciful poppy. She pulled a face. So much had happened in the last ten years. But instead of inspiring good cheer, our shared recollections made Ri melancholy. Something was disturbing her. I didn’t probe, but waited for her to confide in me. Never one to keep her feelings to herself, I didn’t have to wait long.

  “Uncle Wang,” she said, “perhaps it’s time to give it all up.” I asked her what she could possibly mean, give it all up?

  “I’m tired of lying,” she said.

  “Lying about what?” A tear slipped slowly down her cheek. She looked at me as if I were the only man in the world who could help her. I waited patiently for her to resume. The mah-jong tiles were still click-clacking in the background. “Why must I pretend to be Chinese?” she said. “Why should I carry on this charade, just to please Amakasu and the Japanese army? I know they love me in Japan. But nobody trusts me in China. Don’t think I don’t notice how my Chinese colleagues lower their voices as soon as they see me coming. They think I’m some kind of spy. It’s unbearable, Uncle Wang. I want to be myself again.”

  I told her that she was herself. Ri Koran was part of who she was. To be a great actress was to be herself.

  In between sobs, her dainty hand on my knee, she told me about the dreadful private dinners she was forced to attend with Kanto Army officers, who reprimanded her about her relations with the Chinese, or as they put it, “dancing with Chinks.” She had even been accused by one officer of being a spy for Chiang Kai-shek. “Imagine,” she said, “even my own people don’t trust me. What does friendship between nations mean, if you can’t make friends?”

  I sympathized with her, of course. There were just too many stupid people in this world, and a large number of them happened to be running around in China. I told her to be patient. Things would be all right. But I wasn’t even convinced of this myself. “I can’t take it anymore,” she cried. “I have to come clean, tell my public that I’m Japanese and quit the Manchuria Motion Picture Association. That’s the only way, Uncle Wang, the only way. I’ll have a press conference, and then I can be myself again, just plain Yamaguchi Yoshiko.”

  I patted her arm. There was more at stake here than the feelings of an innocent young woman. The end of Ri Koran would be a disaster for our war effort. So I told her not to let down all her fans, all the people who paid their hard-earned money to see her perform, the millions of Asians who believed in her. Just imagine the consequences if they knew that she had tricked them. It was too late to turn back now. She had to carry on. Without her, what hope would there be for some goodness to come out of our mission in Asia? No, no, no, she said, stamping her foot on the wooden floor so hard that it stopped the mah-jong game. I was worried that we were attracting unwelcome attention. No, she repeated, she was sick and tired of being a fake Manchurian star. She would go to Shinkyo, talk to Amakasu, and resign. Hotta would help her. He always knew what was best for her.

  It was as if she had stuck a knife in my heart. I told her that Hotta was a dangerous man, a subversive element. She lifted her hand from my knee. It was the first time I had seen her so cross, and with me of all people, her trusted adviser. “What about you?” she hissed. What about me? “Don’t you know that you’re a marked man, that they no longer trust you, either? I’m always being asked questions about you, ever since that business with Yoshiko . . .”

  I didn’t want to discuss this any further, perhaps because I was shocked that she knew so much, or perhaps because she was right and I didn’t want to face the truth. So I switched the subject back to Ri’s career. I had an idea, I said. And I must confess it was a good one. Why not stay here, in Shanghai, the real center of Chinese films? Why not join a Shanghai studio and be an authentic Chinese movie star, not a phony one? I would talk to my friend Kawamura. He would cast her in his films. Indeed, he had already said as much. And no one accused him of producing propaganda films. It would be quite different from working in Manchukuo, or Japan. Ri Koran, or rather Li Xianglan, would be famous all over China as a patriotic star. Shanghai would be at her feet.

  Ri’s sobbing slowly subsided. Her big eyes lit up in the way I had always adored, so full of hope and goodness. “I want to meet Mr. Kawamura again,” she said, suddenly determined. And so you shall, I assured her. “When, when?” It could be arranged very easily, I replied. She looked worried. But what about the contract with Manchuria Motion Pictures? What about Amakasu? I said that I’d go to Shinkyo and take care of that personally. “Thank you, Uncle Wang, thank you. I knew I could depend on you. You’re the only one who understands my feelings. You’re the only one.” In that instant, despite all my problems, I felt something like perfect happiness.

  To say that Amakasu was furious would be an understatement. He got drunker than I had ever seen him.
The waitresses at the South Lake Pavilion fled in terror as he overturned the table, sending food and drink crashing to the tatami floor. Stumbling round the room like a crazed beast, he punched the walls with his fists and smashed every piece of crockery in sight. “I’ll shoot that bastard Kawamura,” he screamed, “and I’ll take care of you too!” But despite all his huffing and puffing Amakasu knew he was beaten. The government in Tokyo had already approved of a film production to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Opium War. The Asian Pictures Company was going to produce it, and Ri Koran’s casting had the backing of General Tojo himself. A film about the Opium War would help to convince the Chinese that we were joined together in the same battle for survival against the white race. Besides, there was no greater admirer of Ri Koran than General Tojo. He even talked about setting up a Ri Koran Fan Club in Tokyo to rival the one in Shinkyo. Tojo had never liked Amakasu, anyway. And there was nothing Amakasu or the Kanto Army could do to reverse his decision.

  Amakasu’s rage had left him exhausted. He revealed a side of his character I had not seen before. With tears in his eyes, he began to whimper, as though oblivious to my presence in the room: “How could she? After all I’ve done for her! Don’t young people understand the concept of loyalty anymore?” I told him, as best I could, that this wasn’t a matter of betrayal, but a way to help our dream of Ri Koran survive. She needed to move on to a bigger stage. I don’t know whether my words had any effect, but he slumped to the floor, groaning in self-pity: “But her stage is here, here in Manchukuo. We’re building the New Asia, right here, in Shinkyo, this is the big stage.” I left him sprawled on the tatami floor. There was nothing more to be said. I could still hear his moans in my ears as I walked into the cold morning air outside the South Lake Pavilion. I felt pity for him. His heart was sincere, but he didn’t realize there was a wider world out there. In the end, he too was a frog in a well. He never could see that Ri Koran was bigger than either of us and would be remembered long after Amakasu, or I, had slipped away into the long dark night.

  21

  PERHAPS I SHOULD have seen it coming, but one never does, I suppose. The loud knock on the door when one least expects it, men in civilian clothes going through one’s things, dropping books on the floor, ripping through the furniture, confiscating letters, while I stood by helplessly, and after that was over and done, the bundling into an unmarked car with the engine running. I should have been terrified. In fact, absurdly, I thought of the fresh flowers I had just arranged in my living room, and of Mei Fan, a lovely new actress from Dairen, with a tight little bottom. She was going to think that I stood her up for our dinner appointment, I who had never stood up a beautiful woman in my life.

  My cell, which I shared with two other Japanese, was at least kept a bit cleaner than the cells for natives and foreigners. Our daily ration of watery gruel was served in tin bowls, rather than thrown onto the cells to amuse the guards, who took turns to watch the spectacle of desperate natives licking bits of broth from the filthy floor. Even though we were not alone, we were not allowed to talk, and were forced to sit all day on our knees. I never found out who my cellmates were. Black marketeers, perhaps, or subversives of some kind.

  Interrogation came almost as a relief, were it not for the stupidity of the interrogators. Nothing is worse than extreme physical pain. I had seen with my own eyes what the men of our Special Higher Police could do to people. If their victims survived at all, their lives were no longer worth living. I was in the hands of the Thought Section of the Special Higher Police. My interrogator was a handsome brute with slicked-back hair, the type of man who in different circumstances might have run a moderately successful brothel. I feared the worst, but in fact, apart from frequent smacks or thumps in my face, I was not physically harmed, at least not at first. More than anything else, my interrogations were unbelievably tedious.

  Imagine being stuck with a crashing bore in a train compartment, not for an hour or two but for days on end, a simpleton who bores relentlessly, on and on, and who has total power over you, every second of the day and night. I had to listen to this moron, this jumped-up pimp, lecturing me about patriotism and moral behavior. His main purpose was to make me confess to things I could not possibly have done. To be accused of “decadent behavior” that was “contrary to military ethics” was one thing. I had no trouble writing a confession on that score. But I couldn’t confess to “spying for the enemy” or “conspiring to undermine the mission of our national polity.” Whenever I asked for proof of my spying activities, I got a smack and was told that I should know the details of that better than anyone. This game, to which there could be no conclusion, went on for hour after hour after hour.

  Once in a while, he rose from his desk, came to where I was tied to the chair, and screamed in my ear: “Which side are you on? Are you Japanese or a Chink? Who the fuck do you think you are! You fucking Chink spy! You fucking puppet of the stinking Chinks! You degenerate drug addict and whoremonger! You’re a scandal to the Japanese race. How can we fight a war with perverts like you?”

  I said: “I’m Japanese and I’m fighting for the unity of Asia.” His fist hit my already swollen mouth. Blood was streaming down my chin. “Shut up!” he screamed. “Shut the fuck up!” And he hit me again, and again. As much as the beating, it was the constant screaming that became unbearable. “Unity of Asia! Those are just fancy words. You’re a liar, a fucking liar!” I still had just enough strength left to contradict him. “They’re not lies, it’s our imperial mission. You’re contradicting the orders of our Imperial Majesty.” Another blow to my head: “Fucking liar, fucking Chink spy! Either you’re a Japanese, or you’re with them. Confess that you’re with them!”

  When the brute got tired of trying to extract a confession, he was replaced by another man, a schoolmasterly type in glasses, who chainsmoked cigarettes. He had big feet and wore large brown shoes with thick rubber soles that squeaked when he stood up. There was no shouting this time. He said little and waited for me to talk, striking me only when I was about to lose consciousness. When you have been tied to a chair for a day and a night, without any sleep, with a lamp shining in your face, eventually your mind rebels. At first you feel like crying. Then your vision starts playing tricks with you; you no longer know what is real. And you feel humiliated because you are no longer in control of your bodily functions, and finally, reduced to a wreck, you no longer know where or who you are. Only the pain feels real.

  I craved sleep in the way a parched man craves a drop of water. I would do anything, even write a confession, tell them anything they wanted, just to be able to close my eyes without being woken by a slap in my face. A few minutes’ rest was all I wanted. The schoolmaster handed me a piece of paper and a pen. My hand was shaking so much that I could barely write. But I managed to put down that I had been decadent, had fraternized with our enemies, and leaked secrets. I returned the paper, desperate to close my eyes. The schoolmaster took his time, smoothing the paper in the fastidious manner of a railway clerk, adjusting his glasses, moving his lips as he read my words. He slowly pushed it back to me. “It’s no good playing tricks with us. We’re not stupid. We can tell when you’re just writing words to please us. We want more conviction. You have to believe what you confess. Until you do, I’m afraid we’ll have to continue this interrogation.” I wanted to howl but no longer had enough strength even for that.

  I was woken up, after several hours, or perhaps less, I don’t know, in my cell by a bucketful of cold foul-smelling water, and ordered to sit up straight and reflect on my crimes. The water quickly froze on the wooden floor and the extreme cold was the one thing that stopped me from falling asleep again immediately, that and the ever vigilant guards who beat me with a bamboo cane whenever I so much as moved. I tried to meditate, as if I were a monk instead of a prisoner, but my mind was a whirl of incoherent and sometimes terrifying images. I just couldn’t think straight. I thought I was hearing voices of people I had known, some of them calling
my name, telling me to confess. I could hear screams, but didn’t know whether they were just in my own head.

  I don’t know when it was, or how long I had been in prison, but it was after I had written many drafts of my confession, all turned down for being “insincere,” that I thought I heard Ri, singing in Chinese, something about selling candy, “tasting sweet, so sweet.” Perhaps I had lost my mind and was imagining things, but I didn’t care anymore—it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, the voice of my very own Goddess of Mercy. Only later did I realize that it had in fact been her song playing on the wireless, somewhere in the prison. It was called “The Candy Girl,” from her latest film, Opium War. While I was locked away, this song had made her famous all over China, just as I had predicted. We didn’t realize it then, but everyone knew it, from Canton to Harbin, in the areas under Japanese occupation as well as the Red strongholds and the provinces under Nationalist control. Chiang Kai-shek must have heard it, and so must Mao Zedong. It penetrated even the walls of the basement cells at the Special Higher Police Headquarters in Shinkyo. I think, perhaps, it was only Ri’s sweet voice that kept me from going insane.

  But I knew I couldn’t hold out for much longer. One day, or night, I had no idea which, I was dragged out of my cell for what I thought would be another session with the schoolmaster, or the brute. I was pushed into an interrogation room. The rooms had all looked more or less the same, but this one was different. I hadn’t been there before. It was more like an office, with framed images on the wall of the Manchukuo and Japanese flags. Even more astonishing was the cup of barley tea that was held to my lips, which I gulped down so fast I was convulsed with hiccups. I tried to focus my eyes on the man sitting on the other side of the table. He had a familiar face: the tiny eyes, the fat lips, the short, rubbery neck.