Dreams of the Red Phoenix

by Virginia Pye

  Twenty-two

  Charles woke to pounding on the door. He untwisted his pajamas and threw on the dragon-patterned silk top but didn’t bother with the buttons. Before hurrying downstairs, he checked for his mother in her room. The bed appeared not to have been slept in, and he saw no signs of her return. Out the moon window on the stair landing, autumn sunlight struck the mission wall, less harsh than in summer, more golden. He assumed she was making her way back to the mission through that soft haze over the plains. But it wasn’t lost on him that he now had not one but two parents missing out there. The thought no longer made him feel weak in the knees or panicked. Instead, a hard resolve tightened in his chest.

  In the front hall, Kathryn and two of his mother’s choir friends had been let in. Mrs. Reed and Mrs. Carr whispered to one another as the nurse’s assistant in the Red Army trousers and cap eyed them, her arms crossed.

  Kathryn called out to Charles as he joined them, “We have come to take you home, dear boy!”

  He wiped sleep from his eyes with his elbow and pulled the loose shirt around his ribs. It had gotten too small, leaving his middle exposed. As Kathryn studied him from his bare toes to the top of his head, Charles regretted not dressing properly.

  “My, he has grown, hasn’t he?” Mrs. Carr said.

  “We’d best lock up our daughters,” Mrs. Reed whispered.

  Kathryn planted a damp kiss on his cheek and took his hand. “Ladies, I shall take full responsibility for him from now on.” Then she turned and patted his chest through the wrinkled shirt. “Are you packed?”

  Charles nodded, his eyes on the hand that remained on his chest.

  “We’re counting on you to escort us. The men won’t come along until later. The plan is for women and children to meet at the southwest gate at noon. Bring only what you can carry. Reverend Wells is trying to see if some of our possessions and furniture can be shipped home, but I’m sure your mother knows about that. Where is she, anyway? Somewhere around here, I assume?”

  The ladies peered into the quiet clinic, where one or two assistants tended to a handful of patients. All but a few of the beds were empty now. No new influx had come for days, perhaps weeks, the military action having moved even farther away from town, Charles guessed. Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the muslin curtain rustle at one of the front windows. Dao-Ming turned at the dining room corner and headed for the basement steps.

  Mrs. Reed peered into the clinic and said, “I had no idea Shirley had this going on.”

  “We were overrun with Chinese at first, too,” Mrs. Carr said, “but I can’t imagine still having them in my home.”

  “She lost her husband so recently, poor dear, and must have needed to fill the void.”

  Charles wanted to speak up on his mother’s behalf but didn’t. He hoped Kathryn might defend her, but instead she asked, “Any idea where she is, Charles? Or have you lost track of her like the rest of us?”

  “I’m sure she’s around somewhere. She’s terribly busy and has a great deal to manage. We’ll be at the gate at noon. No problem. Thanks for telling us.”

  He escorted Kathryn and the ladies out, shut the heavy door, and leaned against it. The smoky scent of the dark carved rosewood enveloped him, so familiar and commonplace here. He wanted to let out a shout. He was finally departing, leaving behind every strange, exotic smell and sight he had become accustomed to over the years. But where was his mother? She must be on her way home, he thought, and would surely arrive at any minute. At least he desperately hoped so, and he pushed from his mind any thought otherwise.

  Charles strode to the top of the basement steps and called down for Dao-Ming, thinking she might know his mother’s whereabouts, but no answer came. Perhaps she had helped his father with the pigeons, but he couldn’t imagine how she had been of any use with the radio. Though now that he thought about it, he recalled her slipping into the cellar many times. He had always assumed it was to collect the root vegetables that Lian stored down there, but who knew the real reason? Charles headed into the clinic. He stood over the young Communist nurse in khakis and Red Army cap as she knelt beside a grandmother stretched out on a cot.

  “Good morning, miss,” he said to the nurse.

  He didn’t know her name but had overheard his mother and Captain Hsu discussing the diligent way she performed her work. She seemed all right, a little plain and far too serious. He wondered if he could get a smile out of her.

  “So, what’s the story, morning glory?” he tried.

  She didn’t look up.

  “I bet you don’t even know what a morning glory is. How about, hey, good-lookin’, what’s cookin’? Nothing, right? Hardly any food around here at all.”

  “Go away, we are busy,” she finally said, still not looking up.

  “I’ll leave you alone, but I wonder if you’ve seen my mother?”

  The young Communist nurse finally glanced up at him, and the edges of her lips rose slightly.

  “Hey, I got a smile out of you,” he said. “You like my outfit?”

  Her expression became stern again. “No Nurse Carson here,” she said and stood. “She has served her purpose and is no longer needed. We are better off without her.”

  “Gee, that’s rude,” Charles said. “She set up this clinic, you know? It’s our house.”

  “This is not your house. Never your house.”

  “How ungrateful. After all she’s done for you.”

  The young woman turned back to her patient. “You are a young, insignificant boy. Leave us alone.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” he said and touched her shoulder.

  The woman jumped up and put her hand on the butt of the pistol tucked into her Red Army belt. She began to shout, “Get out! No more foreign devils here! America business steal North China coal, become rich, while we Chinese starve. You and Mother do nothing to stand up to the yellow sons of whores from Japan! You are bad people, not good! Get out before I shoot you!”

  The woman waved her pistol in the air as Charles stumbled out the front door and onto the porch. He held on to the column, his head dizzy from her crazy words. A searing hunger bit into him. As he caught his breath, he noticed that only a few Chinese passed by in the empty courtyard below. For days, he had seen them packing up and departing. The ground they left behind was hard and cracked from their many footfalls. As the last of the campfires died out, litter remained strewn throughout the compound—scraps of newspaper, old sheets of tin, wooden planks, and piles of rubbish everywhere.

  Across the way at the Reeds’ house, Charles saw the Reverend lugging his wife’s and daughters’ straw suitcases down the porch steps. The vegetable garden to the side of their home had been trampled and used as a bathroom for weeks, but one lone sunflower still hung its dried head over the churned-up soil.

  Each spring, Caleb Carson had been the first to farm that small plot. Charles would follow his father outside and helped push the seeds deep into the thick yellow clay, patting down the soil and shaping it around each thin stalk. He could practically feel the dampness of it between his fingers. Charles rubbed his hands together now. His father had been swallowed up by that same entrapping earth. Charles wrapped his shirt tighter around his ribs and knew that the unsettled air meant rain.

  When he was young and the autumn storms finally came, he and Han used to splash in puddles that formed quickly in the parched dirt. They painted each other’s faces with mud in great slashes like war paint, becoming Indians on the American Western plains and doing war dances in the rain. Charles wondered why they had never pretended to be characters from Chinese lore. He had insisted on cowboys and Indians, and Han, being a good guy, had gone along with it, playing Tonto to Charles’s masked man. They never switched parts because why would they, when Charles was the leader and Han the follower?

  Charles felt his cheeks flame. As they grew older, Charles had imitated suave leading men, Cary Grant or Clark Gable, while Han was always cast as his trusty manse
rvant. He spat over the side of the porch now and slapped his palms on the railing. “Damn,” he said to no one and let himself wonder if maybe the Communist nurse was right: he and the other Americans had been squatters all along. Outsiders who never knew the truth but barreled ahead anyway, insisting on their way. His mother had tried to help with the clinic, and the Chinese had followed her instructions, but she had never been in charge. Captain Hsu, and now this young Communist nurse, and perhaps other Chinese whom Charles didn’t even know about, actually ran the show. Charles and his mother had thought they were the leading actors, when really he could see now that they were but extras in China’s fast-moving play.

  He set off down the steps and across the courtyard, slipped down the alley, and came out in the servants’ quarters. The same eerie emptiness met him there. He didn’t bother to turn toward Han’s house. He knew that his friend would be on the front lines by now: happy to choose his own role and not have it assigned to him by his American friend.

  Han had been the braver of the two, Charles realized now. Han had worked hard since he was a boy, been loyal to his father, and always performed his duties with care and respect. By comparison, Charles had never been leading-man material at all. He caught his breath and leaned a hand against the rough-hewn wall of Lian’s quarters, as he had that day when he had stood over Li Juan and tried to appear handsome and debonair. The poor girl had just come from the dangerous countryside, and he had tried to impress her with his new sneakers.

  He turned and peered into the darkened room. Lian stood with her hands on her hips in front of her mother, who lay on a straw mat with her arms crossed over her chest. The old woman had finally died, Charles thought. As he joined Lian, he wanted to offer his condolences and for once be of help to her and not the other way around. But he pulled up short when he saw that the old woman’s eyes remained open, her face set in a grimace.

  “Mother,” Lian said, “you are behaving like a stubborn old mule.”

  “That is what I am. Nothing more.”

  “Hello, Lian,” Charles said softly. “Everything all right?”

  “Do not bother us now, Charles-Boy. We must leave right away, but Mother refuses to go another step. She prefers to lie here and be raped and murdered. She wants my two precious daughters to be kidnapped by dwarf bandit soldiers and taken away on their trains to a life of servitude and misery. This is what happens when you are stubborn, Mother, and refuse to do what is best for all!”

  Charles didn’t know what to say, but a bright voice responded from the kitchen area.

  “I say we leave her,” Li Juan said.

  Lian snapped her fingers hard. “If you think that, you are no child of mine. We bring her.”

  Li Juan stepped closer. “I’m not carrying her.”

  “We will find a way. This cot will serve as a stretcher.”

  Charles cleared his throat and ventured to ask, “Can she walk at all?”

  Li Juan ignored him and headed for the door, dragging a bundle made of a sheet with his mother’s initials monogrammed on it. Charles followed close on her heels as she stepped into the alley.

  “I came to say good-bye,” he said.

  Li Juan finally looked at him and giggled. “What are you wearing?”

  He looked down at his ill-fitting colorful pajamas. “Nothing, it doesn’t matter. I just want to say thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “I—” he glanced into Lian’s small, dark room and then up the rutted path with ditches on both sides that stank of human waste. He wanted to say for everything. For absolutely everything. “I’m not sure,” he offered. “But thanks.”

  “My stubborn grandmother is going to get us all killed.”

  “Please take our horse if it’s still there.” He reached for Li Juan’s hand. “And our cart. Yes, take it, too.”

  Lian appeared on the threshold, and Charles stepped away from Li Juan, who didn’t seem to mind one way or the other when he let go of her limp fingers.

  “The horse and cart are long gone, Charles-Boy. Weeks ago.”

  “How about the mule?” he asked. “I want you to have our mule.”

  “We were going to use it, but somebody stole it last night. But thank you,” Lian said and smiled very slightly. “You must go. Mission women and children leave at noon.”

  “I know. I’m ready.”

  “You are not such bad boy after all,” she said.

  With that compliment, Charles found himself throwing his arms around his old amah. He had to bend far over to do it, but his large hands held on to her sturdy back. He wanted her to know something very important. She had kept watch over him and spent years setting him on the right path. But now she pushed him away, and he didn’t mind. That was just her curt manner. When he stepped back, he saw that she had tears in her eyes, too.

  “Thank you, Lian,” he said and bowed.

  She did not bow in return, which struck Charles as somehow right. Instead, she appraised him.

  “Charles-Boy, you look like monkey in that outfit. Go home and change right away. You disgrace the family name. I did not raise you to look a fool. Go!”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll change right away. I apologize, esteemed Lian,” he said and started to leave but then stopped again and asked, “But do you know if my mother got back to the mission last night?”

  “She is not back yet?”

  Charles shook his head.

  “That’s very bad news. We received word about trouble at camp out on the plains.”

  Li Juan took her mother’s hand.

  “But even if she is not back in time, you must leave.”

  “I will. But how do you know what’s going on out there?”

  Lian waved his question away. “What matters is Captain Hsu and others will protect your mother. I will radio them to say that she has not returned here.”

  “You know how to do that?” he asked. “Who else used that radio?”

  She wiped her hands on her apron as she always had when it was time for him to stop pestering her. “Charles-Boy, there is much you do not know and much you will never know. Off you go, now.”

  He bowed for a final time and dashed up the alley again. He would change out of his childish clothing, gather his things, and meet the others at the southwest gate at noon.

  Twenty-three

  Yellow dust blew in sideways from the Gobi. Shirley held an arm up to protect her eyes and kept her mouth shut to avoid swallowing loess, the sticky topsoil that was inescapable at this time of year. Scraps of paper, dried leaves, and other detritus whirled across the desolate streets. For days the Chinese had been packing their belongings and fanning out into the countryside, but she couldn’t imagine how they had fled so completely. The Japanese Imperial Army had returned to town, its soldiers standing in shadowed doorways and on street corners.

  The two soldiers motioned for her to dismount. The older one used the butt of his rifle to push her up the steps of the former municipal building. Yellow light poured down from the open door, and Japanese soldiers streamed in and out. None of them seemed to notice the thinly clad foreign woman holding on to her torn shirt, blood and bruises dotting her limbs. Shirley feared that they considered her just another body, a nameless victim to be finished off when the order was given. She wondered if the British missionary mother had thought the same thing or if she and her family had been set upon too suddenly.

  Once inside, they prodded Shirley down a hallway and into a storage room, the door abruptly locking behind her. She crumpled with her back against a damp wall. As in the antique shops she had browsed in Peking, Chinese furniture was stacked to the ceiling—teak tables with angular legs, high-backed scalloped chairs, and even old Tupan Feng’s elegant daybed. She had heard that like hedonistic emperors of ancient times, he used to lie upon it when meeting his subjects here in the government building. His sins of excess and greed seemed childlike to her compared with the Japanese now.

  Fear and exhaustion swirled over Shi
rley, and before she knew it, she was asleep. After some time, Japanese soldiers returned and pushed her back into the hall, where more soldiers hurried past. Someone had her arm and yanked her to stand before Major Hattori. His eyes roamed down her body. Shirley held her tunic closed and tried to control the shaking. Hattori signaled for the soldiers to prod her up the steps and into the general’s office. As the two officers chuckled at her, Shirley did not lift her eyes from her bruised and dusty feet. Her knee had bled down her leg in shocking red rivulets, and her arms trembled as she squeezed her ribs. The major turned and left the room, closing the door behind him. Shirley felt certain that no one would question the general—Princeton-educated or not—if he chose to finish the job the soldiers had begun by the stream.

  “You have wasted our time,” he began in his perfect English.

  Shirley finally dared to look up. General Shiga sat in the banker’s chair with his boots on the desk, his uniform as crisp as before and his lip curled back. Only his eyes seemed different. They appeared gray and unflinching and dull. She tried to remember him as a boy back in college but could not. This man before her had become as impenetrable as that foreign Asian boy in America had once seemed vulnerable.

  “We are done with you.” He took a sip from a fine white teacup and set it on his orderly desk. “I should let my men do as they wish.”

  A shiver started in her shoulders and made its way swiftly down her back. Her knees began to buckle, but she righted herself. She wanted to stand tall as she always had in moments of difficulty. She felt a tear roll down her cheek, and when she wiped it away, blood stained her fingers. Words had fled her mind. Only one thought raged.

  “I need to find my son,” she whispered.

  The general tapped the cup with his heavy gold class ring—a cruel and taunting sound. “They have left the mission,” he said. “We let them go. We have other concerns.”