No Certain Home

by Marlene Lee

  “The pertinent question is: what do your parents think of me?”

  “Oh, they criticize most of my friends,” Florence said. “With you, I think they were stunned.”

  “Why did you introduce us?”

  “I keep hoping they’ll look below the surface.”

  Agnes got up on one elbow. “Your parents and people like your parents are not going to look beneath the surface because the surface serves them too well.” She lay back down. “Your parents are all right,” she added, seeing Florence’s expression. “Personally, they’re all right. It’s their class that’s so awful.”

  Florence had turned pensive.

  “You asked me what I thought,” Agnes said. She got up on her elbow again. “Tell me,” she said. “Why do you live in Greenwich Village in a tiny apartment when your parents would give you any accommodation you want?”

  “I don’t really know,” Florence said. “I’m not like my parents. But I’m not as radical as my friends, either. I’m somewhere in the middle, but I don’t know where.” She lapsed into silence.

  “Don’t worry, kid,” Agnes said. She reached up for the curtain and began to draw it around her couch. “Life will teach you. Not your psychiatrist. Life.”

  Florence reached out and stopped the curtain. “How?”

  “Go to jail,” she said. “Jail clarifies everything.”

  “How does it clarify everything?”

  “When I went to jail I was confused and very unhappy. I’d foolishly cooperated with—” She stopped.

  “With what?”

  “With someone who used me.”

  “Who?”

  Agnes didn’t answer.

  “Are you happier now?”

  “No, but I’m not confused.”

  “I’m confused,” Florence admitted.

  Agnes opened her eyes. “Go to jail and you’ll know who your friends are. People helped me because I suffered for a just cause. It wasn’t really me they were helping,” she added more gently. “It was justice.”

  After a rare and thoughtful silence, Florence said, “I’ve spoken to some of my friends at The Call. I told them you’ve written some wonderful character sketches of women prisoners and that you need money.”

  Agnes half-listened to the prattle.

  “I’ll introduce you to the staff,” Florence added magnanimously.

  Agnes sat up. “In jail,” she continued, “I had to ask myself why I was working for India, a country I’d never been to, with people who are so different from me and my upbringing.” She glanced at her roommate. “People ask me that all the time. India was the first thing I suffered for from choice. I was not just reacting, trying to save myself from a bad situation. I was expressing my own self through work.” The practical light in her eyes grew almost mystical. “I had chosen the work myself, you see.”

  “I’d like to work,” said Florence. “I’d like to have a job.”

  “In fact”—Agnes swung her feet onto the floor and pushed up the sleeves of the old silk pajamas Florence had given her—“one of the mainstays of Western capitalism is the subjugation of Asiatic people.”

  Florence began absently twirling the ribbon on the bodice of her nightgown.

  “India is the base from which the West dominates China, the Near and Middle East, and part of Africa. So I’m working for liberty in the West as well as for justice in the East.”

  There was a silence before Florence changed the subject. “I want to teach children,” she said.

  “What’s stopping you?”

  “Well … .”

  “Your parents? Your psychiatrist?” Agnes turned her back on Florence. “Make a decision.” She lay back down, closed her eyes, and fell asleep without bothering to pull the curtain the rest of the way around herself.

  “Where do you go?” Florence risked asking one night when they’d roomed together for more than a year, “on those nights when you don’t come home?”

  Agnes shot her a glance that held both secrecy and humiliation. “Working late at the FFI.”

  “But all night?” Florence pursued the subject. “Agnes, you have a boy friend, don’t you?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Well, then—what?”

  Agnes turned onto her stomach and buried her face in the pillow. The cast-off pajamas of light green silk gleamed in the lamplight.

  “The FFI,” she said in a muffled voice. “I’m at the FFI.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Friends of Freedom for India.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Agnes lay very still. Florence moved over to her and perched on the edge of the make-shift bed. “You’re tense,” she said, and began to massage Agnes’ shoulders. “These old pajamas are just the thing for you,” she crooned. “They fit you better than they ever fit me.”

  “I’m not always at the FFI.”

  “Well, what?” Florence worked her thumbs at the base of Agnes’ neck.

  Agnes lifted her head. “Don’t play psychiatrist with me,” she said and lowered her head again. A fire truck’s claxon sounded in the direction of Washington Square. “I used to be terrified of sex,” she said into the pillow.

  “I’m still terrified of it,” Florence said.

  “You can get over being scared.”

  “How?”

  “Once you know you’re not going to have a baby and you’re not going to get married, it’s not so bad.”

  Florence returned to her chair. “It’s very modern to have sex.”

  “People have always done it, Florence.”

  “But now we can be open about it,” said Florence. “Can’t we?”

  Agnes rolled over onto her back and drew up the covers. She closed her eyes and pretended to be tired.

  “On those nights when you don’t come home, you’re out doing it,” Florence declared. “You and all the other free and modern women in Greenwich Village. I’m the only one sitting at home alone, still a virgin at twenty-one.”

  “It’s not because you haven’t been asked.”

  “I just can’t abide the thought,” Florence said frankly. “I wouldn’t know what to do.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, you don’t have to do anything!”

  “Love will show the way, I guess,” said Florence.

  “Lust will be even more helpful.”

  “Aren’t you in love when you sleep with a man?”

  “No.”

  “You sleep with men you don’t love?” Florence asked, surprised.

  “You have to be careful about love,” said Agnes.

  “Why?”

  “If you’re in love you might want to get married and have children.”

  “Is that a warning for me? Or for you?”

  Agnes rolled onto her side so that her back was toward Florence. “Both of us,” she said. “All women. I’m warning all women.”

  Florence remained in the wing-back chair. “Agnes?” she said after a lengthy silence. “Are you asleep?”

  “Yes,” said Agnes. “I’m dreaming that no one is bothering me.”

  “If you don’t love him, what’s the point of doing it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Because it feels good?”

  “I hope you have sex soon so we can stop talking about it.”

  “When I do,” said Florence, “it will be in my own bed, and I won’t keep it a secret and go slinking around in the dark of night and not tell my best friend.”

  Agnes slowly lifted her head. “I do what I do, Florence,” she said. “And I don’t have a best friend.”

  20

  China 1937

  Although the soldiers still wore winter padding in their ragged jackets, spring was coming on. Afternoons lengthened and branches of trees were knobby with buds.

  “The men look rested,” said Zhu De. “They are putting on weight. We have lived through another winter. We will live through many more.” He and Agnes climbed the terraces that snaked up the
loess cliff. Agnes wrote as she walked, pausing to complete a phrase, half-running to catch up to the short, strong commander who never hurried, never rested.

  “You are teaching the ‘little devils’ to read,” said Zhu De. “Little devils” were young boys who hung onto the shirttails of the Red Army, eager to become soldiers when they grew older. Many were orphaned in the civil wars that raged among the monarchist, Kuomintang, and private warlord troops.

  “I am teaching Chinese, though I barely read it myself,” Agnes said. “There is a saying in English, ‘the blind shall lead the blind.’”

  Zhu De threw back his head and laughed. “In China we express the same thought,” he said, stopping in front of his cave. “It must be that throughout the world the blind are leading the blind.” He stepped through the doorway, brought out one straight chair, and set it on the dirt terrace.

  “You do not wish to sit?” Agnes said.

  “The blind shall stand,” Zhu De said. “You see, I make up a Chinese saying!” They settled into a comfortable silence. “Today I will tell you what I learned as a young teacher in Ilunghsien.”

  “The year was 1907. The school where I taught was hated and feared by conservative families in the town. We had only twelve students, all boys. They called us ‘fake foreigners’ for teaching science and politics and body training. The body was all very fine for animals and peasants, they said, but the sons of gentlemen educated their minds.”

  The general squared his shoulders. “I made a speech in which I explained that China and all Chinese must become strong, stronger than the foreign countries that are trying to control us. But my speech did not help. Feudalistic forces in the town brought us to court. They accused us of treason against the dynasty. At the end of the year our school was closed and I made plans to enroll in the Yunnan Military Academy. My family was bitterly disappointed. I was not to be an official in the dynasty after all. I had betrayed them.”

  In a tree at the top of the cliff a single bird sang as if it, by itself, could bring an end to winter.

  “I, too, was a teacher,” Agnes said. “I, too, left my school.”

  “Was yours a revolutionary school?” asked Zhu De.

  “Hardly. I was fired for being a Socialist.”

  “I see,” Zhu De said with interest. “And did you develop confidence in the struggle against feudalism?”

  “Not exactly. I developed confidence in the power of administrators to fire radical teachers.”

  “America is not China. America does not need you as China needs you.”

  Agnes met his eyes. “America needs me. America needs to learn about China.”

  “There is a saying,” Zhu De said. “Eating Yunnan bitterness.” It took Agnes a moment to realize he had resumed his narrative. “There, walking through Yunnan on my way to the military academy, I saw peasants with great goiters hanging from their necks. They lived with their sheep and goats and tended their poppies. Three-quarters of the population was addicted to opium. I believe they were the most miserable people on the face of the earth.”

  Sounds of women singing drifted up to them, Lily Wu and the theatre troupe rehearsing for the evening’s performance.

  “At the academy I joined the secret revolutionary society, the Tung Meng Hui. While I was waiting to be admitted— for I was not a Yunnan native and at first was denied entrance— I read and discussed political matters with officers and students in secret.” Zhu De stopped and listened to the women. Then he turned and looked down at his soldiers exercising on the drill ground near the foot of the cliff. “But the Tung Meng Hui, though revolutionary, was made up of intellectuals,” he continued. “They thought peasants were animals. They did not understand that peasants are the backbone of China.”

  “And were you admitted into the academy?”

  “Yes,” Zhu De said, “but I failed to progress in a straight line. I, like China, made mistake after mistake.”

  “What kinds of mistakes?”

  “Mistakes.”

  “Yes. What were they?”

  “The Canton uprising failed, and though our Yunnan revolt succeeded—the dynasty was so rotten that when we blew on it, it collapsed—we marched no farther than Szechwan, when we should have persevered to Wuchan.”

  “You were a soldier by then?”

  “Yes. I had graduated from the academy. I was an officer, but for the next two years my duties were confused. I fought bandits hired by the French who were trying to occupy Yunnan.”

  “France, monarchists, Kuomintang, warlords”—

  “China was nothing but hundreds of pockets of confusion,” Zhu De said. “Everyone struggled to take control. I grew depressed. China signed Japan’s Twenty-One Demands, attaching our country as a protectorate.”

  Zhu De disappeared into the cave and brought out a second chair. He sat down, back straight, hands resting on his knees.

  “A teacher whom I greatly admired died, my wife died, a close friend died. I began to do official work that was tainted by the local warlord.” He rubbed his knees. “I grew comfortable and well-to-do. I had a private library. I collected musical instruments. Still, I joined revolutionary study groups, hardly aware that I was splitting myself in two—a military man who was inactive, a revolutionary who loved comfort.”

  Agnes did her best to translate his Chinese into English and then into shorthand. His flow of words allowed her no time to look into his face.

  “I stuffed my brigade with relatives. I assured my parents who now lived with me that my brothers would be safe in battle. When they were killed, I too felt dead.

  “My parents left my fancy house. They did not like the city. They longed for the country. But before they reached home, my father died.” Zhu De stood. “Sun Yat-sen, father of the revolution, made alliances with one warlord, then another, trying to avoid the greater evil. Always he was betrayed.” He turned and faced Agnes. “I saw that I was as confused and impotent as China itself. I decided to go to the West and find out why they could maintain independence and democracy while China could not. But before all else, I must conquer my opium habit.

  “I made a plan. First, enter a hospital. Next, visit the centers of China I had never seen: Shanghai, Nanking, Beijing. In Shanghai I saw the great wealth of the few.” He smiled a crooked smile. “I stared into space and daydreamed of leading a great army through the rich sections of Shanghai, killing and burning. I met Sun Yat-sen who offered me much money to organize the Yunnan army and overrun Canton, but I could not. I continued with my plan to travel to the West. I left for France.”

  “Did you think of going to America?” Agnes asked.

  “No. America was too expensive.”

  By now the sun was a weak light low in the sky. Zhu De walked around to stand at the back of his chair. “I had been in France for a few weeks when I met students from my country who told me of a young Chinese man living in Berlin. He was in his mid-twenties. I was nearly forty. But by now I had no false pride.” Zhu De picked up the chair and turned toward the entrance of the cave. “After talking with them I felt I could learn much from this person. And so in 1922 I set out for Berlin to meet Chou En-lai.”

  21

  Berlin 1921

  The short, muscular man with the head of thick gray hair, ears cocked at an angle, and a habit of lifting his face high when he spoke his lightning-fast, near-perfect British-Indian-accented English, looked at Agnes and said, “We have been eager to meet our sister from America. We have heard many good things of her.”

  Agnes studied this man, Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, who had rescued her from the customs officials at Danzig Harbor where she jumped ship.

  “We can offer you accommodation here in Berlin while you look for rooms.”

  “I cannot pay—”

  “There is no need to pay. Germany has provided us with a home in Berlin.”

  Agnes tried to smooth her hair. “I didn’t sleep much on the trip over.” She didn’t expect to sleep in Berlin, either. Nearly-starv
ed Germans creeping about the streets affected her deeply. It was impossible not to see the veterans with missing legs and arms who sat on benches and curbs in stunned dejection.

  Chattopadhyaya put up one hand. “Bitte … .” He returned to his fast, articulate English. “Please feel free to rest. You are no doubt quite tired. I will cook curry for you when you are hungry.”

  As if she had slept in the pause that followed and was now rested, he leaned forward. “Tell me how matters go in New York. How is Taraknath? Salindranath? We read your news information service regularly. We follow your articles about India in other publications. Your work is splendid. I congratulate you.”

  “The British Secret Service reads my work, too.”

  Virendranath Chattopadhyaya held up his hand in a command, a plea. “I hope you will say no more. We do understand. I know what it is to be followed; to be interrogated.” A shadow passed across his face. “It would be wise to find rooms as soon as possible. Our arrangement with Germany is no longer certain.” The shadow lifted. “Did you have a difficult passage from America?”

  “It was difficult,” Agnes replied. “I was deck stewardess. For two weeks I did nothing but run here and there on command.” She found herself speaking well with this intense man. “I’ll have that curry now, Mr. Chattopadhyaya.”

  “Please call me Chatto.” He stood up nimbly. “Come to the kitchen and we will talk while I prepare food.”

  “Tell me,” Chatto said on the second day as they waited for the streetcar near the Hallensee U-Bahn. “What do you find in India, in us, to call forth such loyalty?”

  Coming from him, the question did not annoy her. “I met a great Indian teacher. My friends are Indian. I love India.” She looked him in the eye. “And I’m always for the underdog.”

  “The underdog,” Chatto repeated. If he did not at first understand the expression, he soon grasped its meaning. “I am not an underdog,” he said. “That must be understood.”

  “I am a fighter,” she said. “That must be understood.” The streetcar rolled toward them, its silent wheels locked onto its rails.