The Library of Legends

by Janie Chang

  There was an audible intake of breath.

  “The Legends are part of our identity,” the professor continued. “Now I have a task for each of you. I ask you each to carry one book from the Library so that you’re responsible not only for your own safety but the safety of our heritage. I’m also giving you all the assignment to read the stories as we travel.”

  There was excited conversation as the students queued up. Shen handed out the precious books, each volume wrapped in brown paper. Some students put away the books in their rucksacks, others sat down to read, turning the pages with great care.

  Three whistles again and a different voice called out for attention. Minghua’s director of student services climbed onto the stage. His square, ruddy face shone down at the students.

  “Students of Minghua!” Mr. Lee said. “Our group includes 114 students and 9 professors, 123 in all. Plus 16 servants and laborers. On this historic journey, we’re not just a school. We’re also comrades in arms.”

  There was scattered applause and the stocky man beamed again. “Before we leave, let’s give our group a name,” he said. “It adds a bit of team spirit.”

  Suggestions came from all sides. Minghua Departments of Agriculture and Literature Wartime Campus was shouted down as too unwieldy. Minghua Refugee Convoy sounded too dismal. All agreed that using “Minghua” without qualification implied their group represented all of Minghua. In the end, Minghua 123 won the vote, the “123” for the number of students and faculty in the group.

  The clatter of idling engines and squeal of gears told the assembly that trucks had pulled into the campus. The professor walked outside to greet the young army officer who had been organizing their evacuation. Then a last roll call, and the vehicles rumbled out the gates. Riding at the front of the jeep with the young officer, Professor Kang resolutely resisted turning around for a last look at the campus he had come to think of as home.

  THE PADDED VEST Professor Kang wore over his long scholar’s gown kept out the night chill but couldn’t hide his thin frame. One hand tugged absentmindedly at his wispy goatee as he gazed at the skies, then over to the barges where workers were unloading wagons and carts.

  It was a moonless night but the stars shone brightly enough that he could see across the river, where crowds of fleeing citizens swarmed the same ferry docks that Minghua 123 had departed an hour ago. The exodus out of Nanking thronged all the roads leading to the Yangtze River. On the muddy banks, khaki-clad soldiers pushed back the crush of people, only letting through those with tickets for the ferry. Even from this distance he could hear frantic shouting, as men and women clamored to get their families across.

  The professor turned at the sound of his name. The army officer was calling for him.

  “The Japanese have escalated air raids over Nanking and the surrounding countryside,” the young officer said. He was clean-shaven and not much older than the senior students. “They’ve been bombing boats used for troop transportation.”

  “And you think these riverboats might look like military transports to them?” Professor Kang said.

  “The waterways are risky right now, sir,” the young officer said. “Moon or no moon, some Japanese planes are following rivers, using them for navigation. Last night’s group narrowly missed getting strafed. You should take a different route. I advise the road through the hills, under the cover of Laoshan Forest. It’s a longer trek, but right now it’s the safest option.”

  “And when we’re back on the open road?” the professor asked. “Surely we would be safe. The enemy wouldn’t attack civilians, would they, Captain Yuan?”

  “There’s always the danger that an overexcited pilot mistakes you for a military convoy,” the captain said, “or they deliberately attack even though they can see you’re civilians. It’s been known to happen. Travel on moonless nights whenever possible. You’ll get used to walking by starlight.”

  “I will take your advice,” Professor Kang said. “Captain Yuan, can you tell me anything at all about transportation once we’re farther inland? Any trains or trucks? Otherwise it’s twelve hundred miles to Chengtu. We’ll be on the road for months.”

  “You’ll have to ask along the way.” Yuan shook his head. “Others will be making those arrangements and quite frankly, you can expect the situation to change constantly. Use the military maps I gave you. They’re very detailed. Towns, temples, water sources such as streams and wells. The towns are marked with population counts, so hopefully you can stop in places large enough to accommodate your group.”

  “Very helpful,” the professor said, “thank you.”

  “I wish I could do more,” Captain Yuan replied, “but universities all over eastern China are evacuating and transportation is tight. I’ll see what I can do, but I must get back to my unit in Nanking.”

  “You’ve done more than enough already for your alma mater, Yuan.” Professor Kang smiled and held out his hand. “It’s good to see you again after all these years.”

  But the officer didn’t shake the professor’s hand. He dropped to his knees and touched his forehead to the dock three times.

  “Teacher,” he said, “in case we don’t meet again, thank you for the honor of having been your student. May favorable winds attend your journey.”

  “My dear boy,” Professor Kang said, no longer smiling. There were tears in his eyes. “You’re the one who will need favorable winds. You and your comrades.”

  AS THE UNIVERSITY’S laborers hitched donkeys to carts and secured baggage onto handbarrows, the professor watched another overloaded ferry cross from the city side of the river. Dockworkers barely had time to put down the gangplank before the passengers surged off. Some rushed to the riverboats, pleading to get on. Some took the open road heading west. Others headed into the forest.

  A man pulled a handcart loaded with trunks, furniture, his wife, and four children. An old woman with bound feet rode in a rattan armchair tied to a pair of bamboo carrying poles shouldered by two men, her sons. A young mother trudged by, a baby slung across her back, a basket of provisions on one arm. A boy followed, a toddler clinging to his back. The professor wondered what the woman had left behind so that she could bring three children.

  Finally, the convoy was ready to move. The students lined up single file, each following the person ahead. Some of the carts carried lamps. They entered the forest, taking a road that cut through the hills of Laoshan Forest. Pine trees and foliage provided cover from the enemy, but between the darkness and the travelers ahead of them, the students made slow progress.

  They faced a journey of more than a thousand miles, some of it through terrain that might be safe one day and enemy occupied the next. Yet from the murmured conversations Kang overheard, the students seemed more concerned about the distance they’d have to walk than danger from the enemy. For them, it was the greatest adventure of their young lives. They were so touchingly confident, believing they would all make it safely to Chengtu under the university’s protection. The professor offered a silent prayer to the gods that it would turn out so.

  Chapter 5

  They finally emerged from Laoshan Forest just as dawn broke. The convoy halted and some of the students threw themselves on the ground and pulled out their canteens. Lian counted some twenty wagons and carts. The ones pulled by donkeys carried the heaviest items. One was stacked with pots and pans, another with fragile laboratory equipment. Three of the wagons carried books and reference materials the students would need for classes while on the journey. Their luggage was lashed to handbarrows and carts. Some staff members had brought their families, and children slept squeezed between luggage and rice sacks. There were several handbarrows and carts drawn by laborers, glad for the pay and a chance to evacuate with the university.

  Like all the other students, Lian carried a canvas rucksack on her back. She pulled out her volume of the Legends and opened the brown paper to look at the book again. Tales of Celestial Deities. She had wrapped this one herself several d
ays ago. She looked around at the rest of the group, suddenly overcome by the knowledge that she and the other students were more than classmates now. They were caretakers of the Library of Legends, bound by a common duty. This realization lifted some of the numbness that had gripped her emotions since the terrible morning at the railway station.

  “Surely the gods will protect us for looking after the Library of Legends,” a voice beside her said. “I’m going to interview Professor Kang and write an article about the history of the Legends. It deserves a piece in our school newspaper. When we manage to print Minghua News again, that is.”

  It was Yee Meirong. She dropped down cross-legged on the ground beside Lian and smiled.

  “Actually, there’s already something about the Library of Legends’s history,” Lian said, somewhat apologetically. “By Professor Kang. It’s printed up in a pamphlet available from the university library.”

  “Obviously, I didn’t go to the library often enough,” Meirong said. “All right then. I’ll write something when we get to Chengtu about the further adventures of the Library of Legends on its epic journey out of Nanking.”

  “There are copies of the pamphlet somewhere in the book carts,” Lian said. “I’ll find one for you, if you like.”

  “Thanks. You know, Lian, there are only twenty of us girls in this group. We must look after one another.” Meirong beamed, a smile so wide and sincere Lian couldn’t help but warm to her. Meirong gave her a nudge. Mr. Lee was making his way up the line.

  “Nearly there, nearly there,” Mr. Lee called. “Let’s move, Minghua 123, let’s move! Just two more hours to Shingdian Village and we can eat and sleep.”

  There were groans but no words of complaint as students got up and slung packs over their shoulders. Lian adjusted the straps on her rucksack and fell into line, Meirong beside her. A laborer pushing a handbarrow came alongside them, the barrow’s single center wheel rumbling over the rough road. One side was stacked with crates marked “Lab Equipment—Agriculture Department,” the other side held a middle-aged woman with her arms around two sleepy children, legs dangling over the side. A professor’s family.

  Behind them, someone had pulled out a harmonica. Lian recognized the tune after just a few notes. A spirited march would’ve been more suitable for their situation, but perhaps the musician was feeling sad. She never thought a harmonica could play the “Blue Danube Waltz” so wistfully.

  And despite her best efforts to push it down, a childhood memory surfaced. From before Japan took over Manchuria and turned it into a puppet state. From a time when her family had lived there in Harbin, a city she remembered as lively, the streets noisy with voices speaking a dozen languages, the scent of baked bread and roasting chestnuts warming the icy air. From the days when she had taken happiness for granted.

  LIAN WAS NOT quite eleven years old that winter night. Her parents had come back from ice skating and couldn’t stop laughing. Faces glowing pink from the cold, they sang at the top of their voices and waltzed through the courtyard of their home, gliding their feet as though still twirling on the frozen lake. Lian had been entranced. She stood with her amah, child and nursemaid equally bemused, giggling as they watched her parents spin.

  Then her father ran over and swept her into his arms. “Your mother was the most beautiful woman and the best skater,” he said, kissing her. “Everyone on the ice, Chinese and foreign, they all stared to admire her.”

  Whenever this memory of her parents surfaced, Lian could see their elegant figures dancing across the courtyard. She could see her mother’s head thrown back in laughter, but her father’s face was indistinct, a blur under the fur hat. She felt, rather than saw, his smile. The only way she could anchor his features in her mind was by looking at the framed photograph beside her mother’s bed. The lock of hair that fell across his forehead, the well-shaped nose and high forehead.

  A month later, on her birthday, everything changed.

  Their cook had made panfried dumplings for lunch, her favorite. Lian carefully cut and set aside a piece of cake for her father, who had been away all week, but would be returning later that night, after her bedtime. Her mother had been wiping cake crumbs off Lian’s chin, gently scolding her for making a mess, when the discreet jangle of bells told them the gatekeeper had let in a visitor.

  Holding hands, mother and daughter hurried to the room in the main hall where the gatekeeper sent guests to wait. When her mother stepped over the threshold, the man standing by the elm wood chair bowed. Lian didn’t recognize him, but in his old-fashioned scholar’s gown of dark-blue silk he seemed quite elderly to her. He glanced down at her, and then looked at her mother.

  “Lian, go back and finish your cake,” her mother said. She stood very still, not taking her eyes off the man. She didn’t ask him to sit.

  Obediently, Lian left the room. But once around the corner, she crept to the window and peered in. She could see their faces in profile, her mother’s and the man’s, both still standing. The man’s words were indistinct, his voice quiet but urgent. What he was saying made her mother stiffen, clasp her hand tightly on the chair back, holding on as if for support. The man strode across the room and took her mother’s hand in his. He patted it awkwardly, hesitantly. Only after he left did her mother sink down to the chair, head in her hands, shoulders shaking.

  Then her mother stood up and wiped the tears from her eyes. Lian abandoned the window and ran as fast as she could to the dining room. She had just finished the last mouthful of cake when her mother came in and sat beside her, apparently quite calm. Then she told Lian that her father had died.

  The next day four strangers crowded into the same room. The men rested uneasily on the elm wood chairs, their backs straight and rigid as tombstones. They spoke, softly at first, then sternly. Her mother shook her head repeatedly, her gaze never flinching, her chin lifted slightly. Defiant.

  A few days later, less than a handful of people stood with Lian and her mother at her father’s funeral. It was early in the morning, the ground still hard, grass and leaves still crusted with frost. After brief murmured condolences, everyone hurried away, leaving Lian and her mother to watch the gravediggers pile soil over her father’s cremated remains.

  A young man climbed the path toward them, carrying a small wreath of white chrysanthemums. He wore Western garb, a heavy wool greatcoat unbuttoned over a dark suit. His hair, when he took his hat off, was cut very short, military style. Her mother lifted her chin and stared directly at the stranger.

  “Your mistake, my husband’s life,” her mother said. Then she spat on the ground and took Lian’s hand. They walked away from the grave, the stranger still standing there with his wreath.

  That night, Lian woke to the sound of sobs and screams. Her amah tried to get her back to bed. “Don’t go, Little Miss,” she begged. “Leave her be.”

  But Lian struggled out of the nursemaid’s grip. She ran along the hallway then paused, suddenly feeling like an intruder as she stood in front of her parents’ bedroom door. It was shut, but light shone through the space between door and floor. The cries stopped, replaced by gasping sounds. It couldn’t be her mother making those dreadful, strange noises. She had to see for herself. She slid quietly on bare feet along the hallway to the adjoining bathroom. The bathroom was dark, but the inside door connecting to her parents’ room stood ajar.

  Lian knelt cautiously beside the thin wedge of light and peered in. Her mother crouched on the floor, face veiled by her unbound hair. She rocked back and forth, something dark and bulky clutched to her chest, eyes fixed on the wall between two windows. The wall where her parents’ wedding photograph hung in a black-lacquered frame. Then her mother began sobbing again. The gasping noises, Lian realized, had been her mother catching her breath. Her mother’s sobs turned into cries. The howls of a wounded animal, of a woman on the edge of madness. No longer defiant.

  Unable to move, Lian crouched mesmerized. Helpless to comfort her mother. Ashamed to be spying. Finall
y, her mother collapsed and the bulky object she had been cradling dropped to the floor with a thud. It was one of her father’s old boots, scuffed brown leather.

  Lian ran outside, her small feet scarcely feeling the cold. It had been raining all evening, but now light from a full moon gleamed on the courtyard’s slate paving stones. Raindrops glittered from shrubs and trees, and she saw each one with perfect clarity, saw how precariously they clung to bare branches. When her amah caught up to her and wrapped her in a quilt, Lian didn’t protest at being carried back to bed.

  This was why Lian didn’t object when her mother took them away from Harbin a week later, leaving behind the courtyard home, her school friends, and her amah. Why she obeyed without a word as they moved from one shabby Peking neighborhood to another. Why she never complained when her mother insisted on an idiosyncratic and secretive life.

  “We must be invisible as foxes in hiding, Daughter,” she said. “It’s the only way for us to stay safe.”

  Lian didn’t argue because she was willing to do anything, absolutely anything, never to see her mother like that again.

  Chapter 6

  Mr. Lee billeted them in an ancestral hall belonging to the largest clan in the village of Shingdian. Minghua 123 squeezed into all four of the buildings around the single small courtyard as well as the dining hall and servants’ quarters. Lian was so tired she could hardly wait to fall onto the bedroll she’d spread out on the floor. She’d already forgotten what the cook had fed them. Steamed buns stuffed with something. Meirong was sound asleep, curled into a tight ball, blankets pulled over her head to block the sunlight streaming in through carved window shutters.

  They would travel like this day after day, Lian realized as she drifted into exhausted sleep. Walking by moonlight and starlight, sleeping in temples and ancestral halls because in some towns those were the only buildings large enough to house them all.