A Choice of Evils

by Meira Chand

  By the next day the typhoon had veered away. The clouds cleared, and the sticky heat returned.

  ‘I hate August,’ said Lily. ‘So hot all the time you could die.’ She threw herself on the bed. ‘l’m so bored. We can’t do anything because of this war.’

  ‘When we were small we went to the sea at Tsingtao, remember? Now Mother has no time, she’s working too hard. Next year, when things are normal again, we’ll tell her to take us there,’ Flora replied, sitting before a trunk, preparing to unpack all they had packed up the previous day. The heat pressed about them in the room.

  ‘Will there really be war?’ Lily asked, catching Flora’s tone of bravado.

  ‘Probably,’ Flora attempted to keep her voice light. She left the trunk and came to sit on the bed beside Lily, picking up a mirror and a pair of tweezers.

  ‘I’ll tell Mother you’re at it again,’ Lily remarked, watching Flora pull stray hairs from her eyebrows. Martha was not for improving nature in the interest of vanity.

  ‘No you won’t,’ said Flora.

  ‘If there is war, will we die?’ Lily asked, staring up from where she lay on the bed at Flora.

  ‘We are not Chinese. It’s not our war,’ Flora replied, immersed in clearing the unsightly merger of her eyebrows. She realised immediately what she had said.

  ‘What about me?’ queried Lily, sitting up promptly.

  ‘What about you? Aren’t you an American? Look at your passport,’ Flora tried to defuse her mistake.

  ‘Yes, but . . .’ Lily fell silent before the confusion corroding her. She frowned, putting her thoughts in order.

  ‘At school they don’t think I’m American. They say I’m Chinese.’ She spoke the words in a rush.

  ‘I’ve told you before to take no notice of that.’ Flora looked up from her mirror.

  ‘How would you know what it’s like?’ Lily replied. It was the first time she had talked in this way to Flora. She was fourteen and suddenly everything raised a query.

  ‘They also think I’m strange at school,’ Flora reassured. ‘At home we don’t go to parties or picnics or have new clothes each week, like Shanghai girls. We speak Chinese and know about things up country.’ The life of smart schoolgirls in Shanghai was another world. Flora was pointed out at school as the daughter of William Clayton. Her father’s death at the hands of bandits was a well-known tale. She had no memory of her father, yet she carried his death like a badge of the bizarre upon her.

  ‘Well, you are not as strange as I,’ Lily interrupted.

  ‘I’ll be even stranger in America,’ Flora said, lowering the mirror at the thought. She dreaded that hidden landscape. She had never been to America and her patchy vision of it was intimidating. In spite of letters from great aunts and second cousins, it remained a distant place.

  ‘I don’t want to go back to that school without you. What’ll I do?’ Lily asked.

  ‘You’ll do very well,’ Flora replied, raising the mirror again. She wished this uncomfortable talk would stop. She did not want to think of the battles Lily must fight now on her own.

  ‘Mother doesn’t love me like she loves you,’ Lily announced suddenly. The thought had appeared abruptly, like a piece of debris in a well, released to rise to the surface. Once it had the shape of words she saw the thought had always been with her.

  ‘How can you say such things?’ Flora replied, discarding the mirror and tweezers in shock.

  ‘Because it’s true. Sometimes, I wish Mother had never adopted me but left me to be eaten by dogs as my real parents intended when they abandoned me. She says it’s a miracle she discovered me. Because of me all her orphanages were founded. I was a stepping stone to many things. She didn’t adopt me because I was me.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re saying this,’ Flora was lost for a reply. The guilt she felt at not being adopted gave her relationship with Lily a special dimension, and overwhelmed her now.

  ‘Perhaps if she hadn’t found me, my real mother might have come back for me,’ Lily mused.

  ‘By then it would have been too late,’ Flora snapped. A memory returned to her suddenly, of sitting as a small child on Martha’s lap watching Lily playing with a doll on the floor beside them. Even then she had understood the exclusiveness of the love between her mother and herself.

  ‘Why should she have adopted you unless she loved you?’ Flora argued, suddenly desperate. ‘I love you. They say I cried and cried until you were allowed to stay with us for ever. Don’t forget it was me who found you.’

  ‘You see, that’s it,’ Lily replied in a pert voice. ‘If you hadn’t cried, Mother would have put me in an orphanage.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ Flora screamed.

  ‘It’s true,’ Lily said.

  ‘How can you say such terrible things?’ The tears were all in Flora’s eyes. Lily remained unmoved.

  ‘I hope this war lasts forever. Then I need never go back to school,’ Lily decided.

  Flora stared at her sister. The war faded suddenly. Nothing now seemed more terrible than Lily’s impassive face.

  The day was punctuated by radio bulletins from Shanghai. In Martha’s sitting room hospital staff gathered to listen to the unfolding events. An extra fan was brought in and refreshments served. There was an atmosphere of subdued partying.

  In Shanghai the bombing had begun, but not in the way expected. The Chinese Air Force took the offensive, with American-built Northrops and inexperienced pilots. Their aim was to annihilate the Japanese warships on the Whangpoo. Instead, inept and ill-trained Chinese fighter pilots bombed but failed to damage some Japanese owned cotton mills, and fell short of the flagship Izumo, anchored off the Bund. By Saturday lunchtime the rooftops of Shanghai were packed with spectators, avid to view the show. On the streets below, the weekend crowds were in a holiday mood. The familiarity of the radio announcer’s voice was now that of a trusted friend.

  ‘I could hear the crowds cheer as the bombers soared up and then the booing as they missed their targets. Their bombs dropped harmlessly into the river. Shanghai is in a state of great excitement.’ The radio announcer was hoarse across the crackle of interference. When the carnage began in the afternoon, incredulity preceded all other emotions.

  ‘Three bombs have been carelessly and accidentally dropped on the centre of Shanghai by China’s own Air Force. Even the Japanese could not have done worse. How is this possible?’ the announcer pleaded. At last people had begun to realise the extent of the Chinese Air Force’s ineptitude.

  ‘The first bomb landed on the roof of the Palace Hotel and the next across Nanking Road on the Cathay Hotel. Fifteen minutes later the third bomb fell on the crossing of Avenue Edward VII and Thibet Road.

  ‘The air is foul with smoke and burned flesh. Shanghai is in shock. Terrified crowds of fleeing refugees are blocking bridges and roads. Everywhere are streams of blood and the mutilated bodies of men, women and children. At a traffic light a line of vehicles has been caught by the bomb, their drivers burned to a crisp. I have seen a disembowelled child and a European, his head cut cleanly from his white linen suit. Craters and falling masonry and glass are all around. The blood of victims drenches the sofas and chairs of the Palace Hotel. Furniture vans are carrying away the dead. Foreigners and Chinese lie dead together. In this hundred-degree heat the smell is excruciating. The pavements are sticky with blood. This is going to be worse than 1932. Already they are calling today “Bloody Saturday”. And the Japanese have yet to attack. This is unbelievable slaughter by the country’s own Chinese troops.’

  Martha sat silent before the radio. Fatigue spread through her. The war had started with such stupidity it could only mirror the way ahead. All the years of turmoil littering her life in China seemed to culminate in the description on the radio. In her mind she could already see the hospitals in Shanghai, the amounts of morphine needed, the bodies left to die in corridors, the endless amputations. Outside, on the street the stench of blood would not be put down by sand and disinf
ectant. How would they bury so many, so quickly? She made a note to order coffins and extra morphine for her own hospital. Until now she had refused to notice the sandbags and dugouts appearing about Nanking. Before they had even struck, she saw now the Japanese might make short work of the Chinese Army. As the main broadcast ended people began to leave the room, returning to work in the hospital.

  She must get the girls inland. The thought was like a stone. It did not occur to Martha to leave; she had never left any situation. As always in emergencies, her mind moved about a structure, and fear retreated. She turned to Nadya, who sat with clenched hands.

  ‘You must leave the country,’ Martha told her.

  ‘Where will I go? I have not even a passport,’ Nadya protested, her agitation clear. Picking up her bag, she prepared to leave for the university. ‘I must see the Encyclopaedia finished.’

  Nadya too clung to the structure of work, as to a raft in an uncertain sea. But she had not, like Martha, an optional world, a country to return to. Her past was like a cupboard to which she had thrown away the key. A sudden fear pulsed through her. Dark memories of childhood filled her mind. She saw again the file of convicts struggling against the frozen land, and later the crack of guns in the streets of Blagoveshchensk. Mayhem had driven her from Russia, and now stood before her again. She knew the fear of a cornered animal, unable to run in any direction.

  ‘Then go with the girls when I send them inland. They should not stay here. I cannot go, I shall be needed in case of attack,’ Martha replied, ignoring her daughters’ terrified protestations. Nanking was the capital of China, Chiang Kai-shek himself lived in the city. There was now no doubt in her mind that Nanking, not Shanghai, would be the real theatre of Japanese interest.

  ‘In Shanghai they say Father Jacquinot has set up a safety zone for the Chinese who cannot go inland,’ Martha continued. ‘There is talk amongst a group of us here, doctors and missionaries mostly, to do the same in case the Japanese take Nanking.’

  ‘How long will the war last?’ Lily demanded, shaking Nadya’s arm.

  ‘Who can say,’ Nadya replied, trying to keep her voice steady. She brushed a stray hair off Lily’s brow, wishing there was some way to alleviate the stress in the child’s face.

  ‘I want it to last for ever, and never go back to school.’ Lily turned fiercely upon her mother. ‘Why must you send me away? Is it because I am Chinese? They won’t bomb you, but they might bomb me? Am I a danger to you all?’

  ‘Lily,’ Martha frowned. ‘You are an American. I want to hear no more of this.’ She had no energy, in the midst of panic, to deal with Lily’s confusion.

  Smoke was thick upon the air and drifted through the university windows, settling in drifts below the skylights of the great hall of the TECSAT department. The sun pushed down in smoky shafts upon Bradley Reed and Nadya as they stood sorting through piles of paper.

  ‘All those, I think, can safely be burned. I have already sent copies to America.’ Bradley waved his hand at a box of papers. He drew on a cigar, gritting his teeth about it as he spoke, his hands filled by sheafs of documents. The university was in chaos. Bradley Reed had rushed up to Nanking on a night train, leaving the hostilities in Shanghai, bringing news of events first-hand. He explained the situation as he and Nadya worked together.

  ‘The International Settlement and French Concession will not be touched. We will be all right, I think. Shanghai is a treaty port. There are too many foreign nationals in the Concessions, too many foreign powers who might be angered and encouraged to join the fray on China’s behalf. The Japanese do not want that. They will be careful to ensure the safety of all foreigners. But Nanking is another matter. This is a Chinese town, no Foreign Concessions here, nor even many foreigners. A few hundred at the most I should think. They will not discriminate here where they bomb. We must get everything out of Nanking quickly. I want you back in Shanghai. You will be safe there in the Settlement. And besides, there is work to be done. We must be through with the printing of TECSAT before the city falls.’

  Huge boxes now filled the rooms of the TECSAT department. The miles of shelves were emptied of their yellowing paper. Each time she entered the great room with its vaulted ceiling Nadya was filled by desolation. The rows of desks where the compilers had worked now lay empty before her. Footsteps echoed. What was not packed to be sent inland or stored in cellars, was burned outside the building. This dismantling of the long-established department unsettled her greatly. It laid bare as nothing else the brutal probability of the future.

  Bradley interrupted her thoughts. ‘Chiang Kai-shek has sent the cream of his troops to Shanghai. Those German-trained boys know how to fight, not like the rest of the Chinese Army. The Japanese will not get to Nanking too quickly if they come at all. There is time to clear up before you return to Shanghai. Of course, the railway may be bombed, then you will have to travel by road.’

  ‘The railway bombed?’ Nadya echoed.

  ‘This is war, my dear, although there has been no declaration. The surprise of it has people reeling. Nobody thought the Japanese would decide to attack Shanghai. The city is unprepared for war, but Nanking has time to ready itself.’ Bradley began to cough with the smoke. Outside the windows the flames of bonfires sprouted high above the yard.

  The packing and burning went on for days. Eventually the fires grew less and smoke diminished in the courtyard. Bradley Reed returned to Shanghai with the bulk of the TECSAT manuscript. Nadya was to follow with the remaining proofs.

  It did not take long for Japanese bombings to target Nanking. The first strikes were aimed at the aerodrome and military installations, but soon Nanking’s Medical Centre was hit. It was chosen as the target of the first two thousand-pound bombs. The attack was a failure, leaving two craters in a field of red mud. No one was hurt.

  ‘It’s a miracle,’ said Martha, shaking her head as she walked round the grounds, inspecting the damage with a group of medical people. It was her first experience of bombs. Their use against civilians was almost unknown. The buildings were the pride of Nanking. It shocked Martha to see the smashed wall of the auditorium pocked by sharpnel, but the greatest shock was to her illusions. In all her years in China she had never known a hospital singled out for attack.

  ‘Do not bomb us,’ Martha cried out, waking in terror later that night.

  She poured a drink of water. It had been only a nightmare. Yet the fear it released forced her to face the immediate dangers of the situation. She really must arrange for the girls to go inland. Yet, each time she began preparations the same enormities appeared. What if she were killed in an air raid? What would the girls do then? Even her dream she realised, had resounded with images of Bill. She saw again his last wave of goodbye. How could she have known then that she would never see him again? How would she now part with her girls? She sank her head in her hands, and heard Lily’s absurd, accusatory words about being Chinese and a danger to them. She thought again of how Lily had come to her.

  It had been October and over a year since Bill’s death. Winter already filled the early mornings, frosting the hoof marks of water buffalo. Each afternoon she walked with Flora along the wide path atop the walls of Tsingkiangpu, the town they lived in then. Here Dr Keswick, Martha’s father, had built his hospital. Buildings huddled below them as they walked, clouds swooped near their heads. They found some wild flowers and Flora had knelt to pick them. Many feet below was the moat, green and sluggish with lichen. It was Flora who saw the baby, lying naked in the mud.

  ‘It’s alive, Mama. I saw it move,’ she said. Martha looked down at the still body and did not believe it lived.

  Usually she did not take Flora to that part of the wall. Much of her own childhood had been spent in this town, and she knew it well. She had walked this way each day to the schoolroom and passed the place for throwing out babies. Female children were regularly discarded. None were ever buried. The Chinese believed that if a child was buried before cutting its teeth, evil spirits woul
d return for another. There were always small corpses in the mud of the moat and scavenger dogs abounded.

  As a child, her father had used Martha’s horror of those small bodies to compare the callousness of heathendom to the kindliness of Christianity. It did not comfort her. Once, she had seen a man carrying a small bundle across the moat to the field of grave mounds. He had stood a while beside the body before he turned away. When Martha returned from her lessons dogs were already devouring the corpse. She threw stones at the animals and they ran off, one carrying the head, the others dragging the body. She knew then that, Christian or heathen, it made no difference. It was not easy for anybody to leave a baby to be eaten by dogs. She remembered the stance of the man as he stood in the field, and knew callousness was not in him. She had been eight years old, and angry her father did not understand her feelings.

  ‘See, it’s alive,’ said Flora.

  Below them the child moved. In the distance a dog approached. Martha left the wall and ran through the nearby gate to where the baby lay. Above her, Flora peered over the ramparts. The child breathed and gave a cry. Its eyes were yellow with pus, green flies covered its body, already blue with cold. Martha wrapped it in her cardigan. In the hospital the child was cleaned; it was white and thin, and wheezed when it breathed. ‘She may not live,’ Martha warned Flora, as if they had found a stray puppy.

  ‘We must hope and pray God will let it live,’ Dr Keswick told his granddaughter. ‘But it may be better if He takes it home, out of this vale of sin and tears, where its parents cared no more than to throw it away before it even died.’

  Flora hung her head and prayed. In the morning the baby was still alive. By the end of the week she had gained new strength and the pus had cleared from her eyes. Flora visited the child each day. Soon, she was well enough to be moved to an orphanage.

  ‘No,’ Flora cried. ‘She’s mine. I found her.’

  ‘We cannot keep her,’ Martha explained.

  ‘She will grow to lead a useful life. He has let her live so that her soul may be saved and won to Him. Rejoice in this, Flora my child,’ Dr Keswick remonstrated.