Before leaving that afternoon, she practically forced me to change into a pair of her light beige summer shoes. I carried the white plastic handbag that Brother Dafei had brought back after training in the States and given to my mother. Such bags were never seen in the rear in those days, and my mother gave it to me when I started university, but I never took it out of my suitcase after arriving in Leshan. It disappeared during the “great theft” soon thereafter. Later everything was “discovered” under one of the girls’ beds, and the bag returned to me. Fortunately, the bag was considered decent foreign goods, especially because inside were money for a boat ticket back to Chongqing, sufficient travel funds, and some “farewell funds.” The first time I left for Wuhan University, my father cautioned me, saying, “If a boy invites you out to eat, you should try to return the favor. You don’t want to take advantage of others.” Therefore, I could cover all my expenses with confidence.
I remember looking in the mirror at the clothing shop and not recognizing myself, although I wore just a creamy, short-sleeved blouse and red skirt; it was the first time in my life that I had bought fashionable clothing. The scout uniform I wore in junior high had been handed out by the school; the long robe I wore from winter to summer in the high school, my mother had had made by a local tailor according to the specifications of the school. At the university, I had a couple of extra-long robes in different but solid colors. None of the female students wore bras, and all our underwear was hand-sewn. After we entered high school, several “princess lines” were sewed in our upper garments, making small curves. After changing clothes, I spent a number of days feeling very awkward. Mr. Yu’s little sister greatly praised my “modernization” and went even further to say, “When my older sister came in with you yesterday, I didn’t know what was wrong with Peter. Seeing you smile just now, I now understand why he likes you.”
When he returned home to his family in Shanghai, Mr. Yu’s name reverted to Peter. No one called him by his Chinese name except me. His mother addressed me as Miss Chi. He was the only person I relied on in those days; having arrived from far-off Sichuan, where we had shared our deepest hurts and secrets, we had developed a certain closeness. It was on account of him that I had a good first impression of Shanghai, that huge, strange, cold, and aloof city.
During the day, he took me walking everywhere, and I saw many streets planted with European sycamores, the schools he had attended, his voice teacher’s house, and the Yangtze River from its mouth at the Bund to where it flowed into the sea. After dinner, we would sing and pray in the living room. He took me up to the attic, which was his father’s library and also his room, and showed me a copy of Kipling’s The Light That Failed, which had been left open at the page his father was reading the night he died. Then we sat on the sofa by the window, whispering about our feelings.
On my fourth day in Shanghai, a Monday, Mr. Yu took me to see my father after breakfast.
Anyone who has never encountered troubled times cannot understand my frame of mind in those days. And I, who had never really experienced the difficulties of the real world, suddenly found myself in a place like Shanghai, and only then did I realize how weak the links were holding my family and me together. All I knew was that since victory, my father spent half his time in Nanjing preparing for the government’s “return to the capital”; returning once to Chongqing, he told my mother that when he went to Shanghai he would stay with the Dings and if anything came up, she could write to his old friend Wu Kaixian, who would forward the letter (his son also attended Nankai). Uncle Wu was the first to go home to Shanghai, where he served as director of the Bureau of Social Affairs and was responsible for recovering all the property stolen by the Japanese in the English and French concessions, resettling the people, and other things. I saw Uncle Wu and told him I wanted to see my father. Startled, he said, “You’re a pretty capable young lady. The schools in the war zones just let out and the boats have been coming down the Yangtze one after another from Sichuan to Wuhan and then to Shanghai, but the students’ turn hasn’t yet come. How did you get to Shanghai? It’s perfect. Your father should be arriving any day now from Nanjing. I’ll have a huge surprise for him!” In a few days, my father showed up at the Yus’ where he found his daughter. He thanked the Yu family for looking after me. Three days later, I accompanied him to Nanjing on the evening express train.
READING THE BOOK OF REVELATION AGAIN
Nanjing is the closest thing to a hometown for me, at least in my memories. I attended primary school there, but more importantly saw my parents reunited there. My mother had managed a comfortable and happy family, bearing my three little sisters, and the house was filled with laughter. The Chi family house on Ninghai Street had been a sanctuary for countless homesick northeast students of the Whampoa Military Academy, who had gone there on Sundays to eat a home-cooked meal and be cared for by my parents. Therefore, our flight in early winter of 1937, the tragedy of our country defeated and our home lost, and the massacre the Japanese carried out when they occupied Nanjing were not just a national tragedy but a personal one as well.
After arriving in Nanjing, we lived in a temporary government hostel. In those days, many organizations that squeezed into Shanghai and Nanjing added the word “temporary” to their name. My father went to the office in the morning and I would go out in the rain and walk around alone, seeking our old home and my primary school of eight years before.
After eight years of foreign occupation, the “temporary” attitude toward living of those returning after fleeing for their lives or those who were newly arrived made the capital, which was once at the forefront of a new life movement and filled with excitement, into a wasteland. Young as I was, this all made me hesitant. Only the Drum Tower was still recognizable. Coming down the grassy slope there and turning right, you gradually found yourself in an old, damaged avenue with ruined houses, which had once been the prosperous heart of the city. Xinjiekou had been a land of cultural inspiration—I had been taken there to buy books by my father’s sullen servant Song Yichao, and went with my grandfather to see my first movie, A Bible Story. Continuing a little way, I suddenly saw a horizontal banner suspended on a church:
Commemorating the First Anniversary of Zhang Dafei Giving His Life for the Country
Those words were like daggers that pierced my eyes and stabbed my heart. I stood dumbly on the street wondering if I should go inside, wondering if I had been led there by his departed soul. Less than ten days before, I had unexpectedly made the long journey across the country, returning from Sichuan to Nanjing, where we had first met. Had he led me at that moment to see the evidence of his life and death at God’s holy church?
A person standing at the open door of the church watched me standing dumbly there in the rain for a while before walking over and asking if I was a friend of Zhang Dafei’s. He invited me in to attend the ceremony and join them in remembering him.
As if in a dream, I followed him across the street and into the building, never even noticing the name of the church. Inside was a silk register to sign, which I hesitated to do before signing my brother’s name, Chi Zhenyi. Today, sixty years later, I am still asking myself why I signed my brother’s name and not my own. In the ten long months from the autumn of 1944, when he stopped writing letters to me, to May 1945, when he was shot down over Xinyang, Hunan, I never ceased trying to guess what sort of people were around him while he was alive, and who were now holding a memorial ceremony for him. Would they understand the significance of my name in his life?
At the end of the war, millions of bleeding hearts remained unhealed. At that very solemn ceremony, people recalled how he had maintained his calm and purity in the precarious life in the military and respected him for it. From the scriptures someone read a passage from the book of Revelation: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.… And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor
crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” These words of scripture have helped me surmount many difficulties in life. I sat in the last row and left as soon as the ceremony ended.
I’ll never be able to explain why I went to Xinjiekou that day and saw that memorial banner. Every person has some private miracles in their life that need not be explained. Since fleeing Nanjing at the end of 1937, I have only returned twice. The first time, I attended Zhang Dafei’s memorial service; the second time was for three days in May 1999 when, with the assistance of my junior high school friend Zhang Fei, I found the Air Corps Martyrs Cemetery and ascended the steps to touch that black granite memorial on which was inscribed the year of Zhang Dafei’s birth and the year of his death.
BEIPING, OUR TEMPORARY HOME
Three days later, my father took me back to Shanghai. He was actively preparing to revive Time and Tide in Shanghai, Beiping, and Shenyang, but he didn’t foresee, amid the joy after victory when everyone left Chongqing and went their separate ways, and while cherishing the aspiration to publish nationwide, that the glory days of the magazine were over and would not return.
On the train I told him about how I had stumbled upon Zhang Dafei’s memorial service. Face to face, we sighed continuously with grief.
My father said that since he had come south after the defeat of Guo Songling in 1945, his voice had fortunately been heard by the central government and he had been charged with organizing the anti-Japanese underground resistance work, ensuring that the people of the fallen Manchukuo would not forget China. Seeking students for Whampoa Military Academy at Sun Yat-sen Middle School had been done in order to foster a recovery of national strength. In fifteen years, many had come from the northeast to serve in the military—some, like Zhang Dafei, had sacrificed themselves for the country, and now their remains couldn’t be returned home—and they now hoped that my father would return early and comfort their families. Russia only declared war on Japan a week before the Japanese surrendered. Thirteen days later, the Japanese Kwantung Army accepted the Potsdam Declaration of the Allies and surrendered to Russia in Harbin. Russia took Pu Yi, emperor of Manchukuo, prisoner, while capturing 590,400 Japanese soldiers and announcing the “liberation of Manchuria.” A full year after victory, the industrial equipment that was seized in the northeast had been shipped to Russia, and all important areas, ports, and military equipment handed over to the Chinese Communists to assist them in their fight against the army of the central government. The situation in the northeast had become increasingly difficult, and the sacrifices made during the War of Resistance were not going to be exchanged for peace and happiness. When would the survivors of those who died for their country be looked after?
Our conversation on the train was the first time my father had treated me as an adult, and he talked with me for a long time. We had many long talks about life and the times that deserve to be remembered, up to the time he died in Taiwan.
Returning to Shanghai, I stayed with the Yus, which seemed to have been prearranged between us. I had only been gone three days, but my trip to Nanjing gave me a shock and made me reconsider my frame of mind in Shanghai, which had undergone significant changes over the past ten days. That deceptive show of prosperity made me uncomfortable, and I knew I was an outsider who would never fit in. Mr. Yu, who wished to show me Shanghai, was still the young man who had sung while carrying a torch down White Pagoda Street, and he had never stopped telling me stories on the riverbank about “the world outside.” But he was gradually returning to his old circle of friends and to the city he had grown up in. On the prosperous streets, I often longed for Chongqing and Leshan at the confluence of three rivers.
About a week later, my father bought me a ticket on a military transport plane (during demobilization after the war, civil service employees and university students were allowed to take them) to go to Beiping to rejoin my mother and sisters, who had just arrived from Chongqing. The temporary military airfield on the outskirts of Shanghai was surrounded by nothing but reeds and consisted of a runway and a few small sheet-metal buildings. Mr. Yu saw me to the gate and watched as I walked onto the tarmac with the soldiers in full combat gear. As the prop plane taxied the runway just before taking off, I looked out the small window and saw him running through the reeds in his khaki pants, waving to the plane, until he vanished from sight.
Two rows of aluminum seats were arranged against the walls behind the flight cabin of the small transport plane. There were eight seats with canvas straps to hold the passengers in; the rear end was filled with cargo. After we took off, I seemed to daydream about the person running through the reeds; however, I was aware that the person sitting next to me was staring at me. Finally he spoke.
He said, “Miss, your seatbelt is not fastened tightly.” I looked at the belt and saw that it was on the last hole, but still loose. All I could say somewhat apologetically was, “That’s probably because I only weigh a little more than eighty pounds and don’t meet the standards for military aircraft.” He laughed loudly, and even the people in the pilot’s cabin turned to look at me. He apologized and tried to comfort me. Before we crossed the Yellow River, he already knew my name and academic background. He also gave me the first name card I ever received in my life. His official title as stated on the card was: “Major & Staff Officer, Northeast Public Security Command.” He said when he graduated from university he had heeded the call for “100,000 youth people for 100,000 troops” and joined the army. I said I was from the northeast. He immediately asked, “Is Chi Shiying your father?” Startled, I replied, “How did you know that?” He said, “Although I am from Guangdong, I was sent to the northeast with General Liang Huasheng. Shortly after victory, your father returned home as a representative of the central government to reassure the people. The newspaper said he had led anti-Japanese underground activities when it was Manchukuo. He is very famous, so of course I know who he is. Not many people have the surname Chi, and those who can get tickets on planes like this are even fewer.”
When the plane landed at the Beiping Airport, he insisted on taking me to the Dayangyibin Hutong on the east side of the city in his jeep. When my mother saw me return home as if dropping out of the sky, and saw a handsome and armed young officer standing beside me saluting her, she must have nearly fainted (in the past, she had frequently fainted). She spent several days trying to figure out how someone would take her skinny daughter, who seemed reluctant to grow up, all the way from Sichuan to Shanghai and then, after arriving in Beiping by plane from Shanghai, insist upon driving her to her home.
Beiping never really felt like home to me. This was not simply due to having only spent two summers there but also because of its oppressive atmosphere. My mother took a civilian plane to Beiping directly from Chongqing for two reasons: she and my father wanted my grandmother (whose coffin was temporarily placed in a temple) properly buried as soon as possible; and she had to arrange how she was going to look after two aunts in the future.
The older aunt’s husband was Shi Zhihong, who was one of the wealthy Shi family from Tieling County and a handsome intellectual. Husband and wife had both studied abroad in Japan, and on my father’s account he had been involved in the anti-Japanese underground and had donated a lot of money. The husband of my second aunt was Zhang Niangtao, who was also in the underground. After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, both had to leave Beiping. My older aunt was left behind to take care of five children and my second aunt to take care of two. They had a difficult time for eight years and had taken care of my grandmother until she died. Both uncles died shortly after arriving in Sichuan, and my father felt deeply responsible for his two younger sisters. Upon arriving in Beiping he rented a house large enough for three families and hired a housekeeper by the name of Mama Li, a doorman called Old Li, and his own driver, Li Xin. The day after I arrived in Beiping, I returned to wearing my Chongqing hemp qipao, more suited to the depressing tenor of the city and my own frame of mind.<
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In those days, Beiping and Shanghai were poles apart—to send a letter and receive a reply took ten days. After I left the south, Mr. Yu wrote daily and went on about how he missed me. When his older sister received my thank-you letter, she replied immediately and said that in the days after I left, her brother scarcely had energy to climb the stairs. He sent several books of fairy tales in English for my ten-year-old sister. My father returned to Beiping from Shanghai at the same time as my brother returned from Shenyang. We went and had our only family portrait taken. My youngest sister and I had our photo taken together as well, thinking I would send it to Mr. Yu. He soon wrote to say that he had obtained a job at the electric power plant in Shanghai and went to work every day on the outskirts of town. Gradually, he wrote about what happened at work, his friends, and parties, and began to live in a Shanghai with which I was entirely unfamiliar. And I was living in an unimaginably large family with little space of my own. At our big place in Beiping we followed the worsening situation in the northeast, and it soon became a place of refuge for relatives, friends, and underground comrades fleeing through Shanhaiguan. Wave after wave of people were mercilessly forced to flee, with countless harrowing stories. Leading different lives with different concerns and different expectations for the future, Mr. Yu and I gradually had less and less in common to talk about in our letters. We finally understood that the water of three rivers wasn’t going to carry me to join his life in Shanghai. I couldn’t just sever myself from my parents and their great concern for me.
The Great Flowing River Page 26