by Janie Chang
She walked slowly, taking note of landmarks in case she had to retrace her steps, but Sparrow’s map proved accurate. From the corner of Hankow Street and Honan Road, she looked across the street to the offices of Xinwen Bao, the newspaper where Shao’s father worked. The newspaper that Shao’s family owned, she corrected herself.
She opened the door of Xinwen Bao. Rows of desks filled the space behind the reception counter, some empty, others crowded with men reading out loud and talking over each other. A haze of cigarette smoke drifted near the ceiling.
“I’m here to see Liu Sanmu,” she said to the clerk. “I have a message from his son.”
“Which son?” he said. He looked her up and down. “He has so many.”
“It’s from his youngest son, Liu Shaoming,” she said and pulled the letter out of her pocket. She pointed at the seal stamped on the envelope and the clerk put his pen down.
“Wait here,” he said and vanished up the staircase. A few moments later he came down the steps and beckoned her to follow.
The door to the office was open. The man inside came around the desk and held his hand out. Shao’s father was extremely handsome, and the family resemblance was very strong: a lean, square jaw and high forehead. Lian gave him the letter. He opened the sheet and frowned.
“This letter isn’t in my son’s handwriting,” he said.
“Sparrow wrote it because he was too ill to sit up,” Lian replied. “But he’s on the mend now and quite safe at your house in Wen-chou.”
Liu Sanmu looked up from the letter. “Well, at least he’s seen a doctor. And Sparrow is with him. But why did you all leave Minghua University?”
“He left because he’s worried about his mother,” she said, “and I left because I need you to save my friend.”
SHAO’S FATHER PACED up behind his desk, looking out the window. Lian fidgeted in the chair across, taking a gulp every so often from the glass of chrysanthemum tea he had poured for her.
“One of the challenges is identifying just the right person,” he said, turning to Lian. “I don’t have any contacts who can pull strings with the Juntong.”
Lian understood. The indispensable connections nurtured by families for personal and business advantage ran on the exchange of favors. Shao’s father didn’t know anyone at the Juntong who owed him a favor. Or else he did but was unwilling to spend the favor on her, a girl whose family could offer nothing in return. If only Shao were here, pleading Meirong’s case to his father.
“Mr. Liu, it was Shao who suggested asking you for help,” she began.
He held his hand up. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t help. I need to find someone who knows the right person. Leave it with me.”
“Thank you so much,” Lian said. “Please convince the authorities in Changsha that Yee Meirong is just young and idealistic. She rushes in without thinking. But now she’s had a scare and she’ll know better. Please do whatever you can, Mr. Liu. I’ve heard terrible things about those reeducation camps.”
“Well, my son risked his life to help get you to Shanghai so it must be important to him,” he said. His expression softened. “Don’t worry, I’ll look into this. My family does have some influence, Miss Hu. It’s only a matter of finding the right contact. Your friend will be released as long as she hasn’t done or said anything rash in the meantime.”
That was exactly what worried Lian and she bit her lip. Meirong could be so very outspoken. But all she said was, “Whatever you can do for her, I’m in your debt, Mr. Liu.”
“I’m the one who is in your debt, Miss Hu,” he said, “for looking after my son all the way from Shangtan to Wen-chou. You’re a good friend, and not just to this Yee Meirong.”
“You should thank Sparrow,” she said, standing up. “She’s the one who looked after both of us, I’m embarrassed to admit.”
“Where are you staying, Miss Hu?” Mr. Liu said. “How can I contact you if there’s news?”
She didn’t want him to know she was using Mrs. Deng’s flat. Not until Shao was back in Shanghai and could vouch for her right to be there.
“I’m staying with friends,” she said. “But I can come by every week. Every Thursday? But I don’t want to bother you if there’s no need. Perhaps you could leave a message with your clerk downstairs if there’s news.”
IT WAS WELL past noon by the time Lian found Mrs. Deng’s flat, on the third floor of a building near the western end of Connaught Road in the International Settlement. The street was a busy mix of apartments, restaurants, and shops.
“I only lived in that apartment for a week before coming to Wen-chou,” Mrs. Deng had said when she handed over the key. “But it’s clean and there’s food in the pantry. Rice, flour, cooking oil.”
The Star’s sister had come down to Earth as soon as Sparrow, Lian, and Shao decided they’d go to Wen-chou. She found Liu Tienming in Shanghai and put herself in his path.
“That was quick work, Sister,” Sparrow said.
“What incredible luck,” Lian said, “that Shao’s brother found you an apartment so quickly. And at a time like this when rooms in Shanghai are so scarce.”
“That wasn’t luck. The Lius own property all over the city,” Mrs. Deng said, “and this apartment is one of them. I believe someone’s mistress lived there years ago and it’s been empty since. So Liu Tienming reserved it for my use whenever we’re in Shanghai. He doesn’t like hotels.”
Lian couldn’t fathom such wealth. To own property that didn’t need to earn its keep. To have a flat sitting empty, casually available for the convenience of a mistress. To have servants who arrived at a moment’s notice to clean rooms and stock the pantry. Mrs. Deng urged Lian to use whatever was there.
“I won’t be returning to Shanghai,” she said, waving off Lian’s protests.
There was an elevator in the lobby but a nanny was herding several children in. To avoid their inquisitive eyes, Lian took the stairs to Mrs. Deng’s flat. Mrs. Deng. What else could she call the Star’s sister? It felt strange enough addressing a celestial being as “Sparrow” but that was what the Star said to call her. It was her name in this life, she’d said.
How frustrating it must be for Sparrow, to live an immortal yet powerless existence.
Lian turned the key and pushed open the door to a dim, high-ceilinged space. To quiet. To serenity. Long velvet drapes covered tall windows and muffled street noises. She pulled the drapes open to bring in the sunshine and saw the room’s gracious proportions. There was hardly any dust on the parquet floors and the large crystal chandelier reflected back sunlight.
The living room was furnished traditionally with elegant lacquered tables, chairs of bent elm wood, and inlaid cabinets. Beside it was a small formal dining room with a round table and six chairs arranged below a smaller chandelier. The tiled bathroom held a white porcelain tub, a marble counter lined with soaps and fragrant oils in glass bottles of European manufacture, luxuries she had only seen in shop windows. There was a small kitchen equipped with an empty icebox and a two-burner stove connected to a gas bottle. There was rice and flour in the pantry, jars of pickled vegetables, bags of beans, and dried fruit. Mrs. Deng had stocked all the basic necessities. There were even boxes of foreign biscuits and tinned meat. It was more than what her mother’s pantry in Peking contained, most days.
Feeling like an intruder, Lian peeked in the main bedroom, took in the four-poster bed and matching armoires, their carved and gilded ornamentation. Inside were beautiful clothes in both Chinese and Western styles, all new. Possibly not ever worn. Stylish suits and casual skirts. Cocktail dresses and evening gowns. A wardrobe purchased by a man besotted.
The second bedroom was much smaller and to Lian’s eyes, more comfortable. She put her bag down beside the bed, a modest traditional platform of rosewood with drawers built under the bed. The window looked down on a lane between buildings and she opened it just enough to allow some air in, then sat on the edge of the bed.
She had done as much as she c
ould for Meirong. The relief of having found Shao’s father and the flat gave way to fatigue and the reality of her circumstances. She had a place to live, but not very much money. Shanghai was a city in turmoil, and her mother could be anywhere. She would rest for a moment, then go to the Red Cross and begin her search. She couldn’t wait to tell her mother that her father’s name had been cleared. That there was no longer any need to live like fugitives.
She lay down on top of the bedcovers, just for a moment. When she woke up, it was morning.
LIAN BEGAN THE day at the Unity Mission refugee camp. The American woman there did recall Lian’s mother coming to pick up the letter from Minghua University.
“We were already overcrowded, my dear,” she said, apologetically. “We didn’t have a place for her to stay or enough food. I remember her. We suggested she ask the Red Cross.”
It took Lian an hour to walk from the Unity Mission camp to the Red Cross office on Ming Yuan Road, then another two hours to wait in line. She had to start somewhere, get something useful, to begin her search. She was not leaving without information.
But the young woman seated behind the desk looked up at Lian and closed her eyes for a moment, as if exhausted. Then she looked at the stack of papers on the table in front of her. Lists and lists of lists. The young staff member, surely not much older than Lian, was one of a dozen sitting behind tables arrayed along a ground-floor corridor of the Shanghai Red Cross office. If not for the guards at the door letting people in and out, the tables would’ve been stampeded by supplicants.
“I want you to understand the situation,” the Red Cross staffer said. She put her elbows on the table and looked up at Lian. “To find one woman, your mother, will be very difficult.”
“I’m prepared to go to every single camp to find her,” Lian said. “Please, what I need is a list of the camps’ names and addresses.”
“There are more than one hundred fifty camps in the Settlement,” she said. “But those are just the ones registered with the city. There are also camps run by small churches, commercial guilds, and native-place associations. They don’t bother registering with us.”
Lian’s heart shrank at the thought of searching through so many camps. What if her mother was at one of the unregistered shelters?
“You’ll have to make your own copy of the lists,” the young woman said, “I can’t spare the time.” She gave Lian a wry smile that showed she was sympathetic. “And here,” she said, handing over another list, this one typed in English, with Chinese notes in the margins, “these are the refugee camps run by foreign churches.”
Lian scanned the list. “My mother said she was looking for work at a camp typing up reports.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” the staffer said, taking back the first set of pages. “That narrows it down. Only the foreign camps use typewriters.”
THE NEXT DAY, Lian only managed to visit two camps. She didn’t want to spend money on rickshaws or buses. She had bought a map, but Shanghai was such a big place. And her list had grown longer. At the second camp she visited, the French nun at the desk spoke perfect Chinese and asked to see her list.
“Here are some other foreign refugee camps and reception centers,” the woman said, adding more names and addresses. “Some are privately funded and others are attached to mission schools and orphanages.”
When Lian got back to the flat that evening, she ate standing up in the kitchen, a bowl of soup noodles from a small restaurant around the corner and a handful of dried fruit. She had bought vegetables, a block of tofu, and two eggs. She would use what was in the pantry very carefully. She understood how to be frugal. It was the only way she knew how to live.
Her mother had taken secretarial work in Peking with an American company. Lian now realized her mother’s English and typing skills must’ve earned her a relatively good wage. Yet they’d always rented cheap rooms and her mother’s only good clothes were the ones she wore to work, plain and modest. People said her mother spoke English with an American accent. Lian circled a few names on the list that seemed American. The American Baptist Mission camp. Yale University Mission. The American Society of Friends Mission. She would try those first. She should’ve thought of this sooner.
She sat up in bed and studied the list more closely, trying to remember the tidbits her mother had mentioned of her early years, the mission school that had educated her, giving her a way out of poverty. But her mother had never talked much about her past. When Lian thought about it, her mother had always lived under a veil of secrecy, even when they’d been happy.
Chapter 32
After Shao came out of his fever and delirium, he still needed a few days of rest, good food, and more antibiotics before he felt confident enough to make the trip to Shanghai. He stood at the prow of the freighter as it lurched its way through the waves, the muddy yellow stream of the Yangtze River merging with Hangchow Bay’s darker waters. They were nearing the mouth of the Yangtze River and the wharves of Shanghai. He wore clothing borrowed from his brother’s closet, a warm, fur-lined coat over a woolen sweater. A year ago, they’d been the same size. Now he was so thin he could’ve worn another padded tunic underneath and it would still have been loose. Shao leaned against the railing, ignoring the cold wind that scoured his face.
Before they left Wen-chou, his brother’s mistress had come into the room while Sparrow packed their bags for the journey to Shanghai. He still couldn’t believe that she had stayed behind in Wen-chou while Tienming was in Shanghai. His brother must be thoroughly infatuated to indulge her preference of remaining in Wen-chou.
“I have a letter for your brother,” she said, holding out an envelope to Shao. “Would you please give this to him?”
“Of course,” he said. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear from you. I’m sure he misses you.”
Mrs. Deng paused at the door. “Shanghai’s too noisy. Too bright. You can’t see the stars at night.” She smiled at Sparrow. There was wistfulness in Sparrow’s returning smile, and something stirred in Shao’s memory. A dream of two shimmering figures.
THE RIVERFRONT WAS utterly changed. The freighter passed Shanghai’s industrial districts, once a hive of industriousness. Factories and mills, schools, shops, and temples. Tenements that were home to workers and their families. Now there were only ruins and an eerie silence. Closer to the city’s wharves, within the safety of the International Settlement, the shores were lined with hundreds of shacks, a sea of straw-mat roofs.
A car waited for them at the wharf on the Bund. Shao recognized it at once, an American Ford motorcar his father had imported for his mother’s use. Which she no longer used. The driver opened the door and a familiar figure stepped out. Shao felt a surge of warmth at seeing his father, but in the crush of the Bund and with so many curious eyes, all he did was greet his father with a formal bow. Then he climbed into the back seat of the car beside his father. Sparrow moved to sit at the front with the driver, but Liu Sanmu stopped her.
“Come sit in the back with us, Sparrow,” he said. “I want to hear everything, your story as well as his.”
But it was Shao’s father who did most of the talking on the way home.
His mother had been losing weight for months. Their doctor believed her complaints were purely due to a nervous disposition and worries over her sons. Even though she obediently drank nourishing broths and soothing herbal teas, she grew thinner and weaker. She complained of being in constant pain.
“For your mother’s sake, it’s good that you’re home,” his father said. “Once she worries less, she’ll get better.”
The car turned down a treelined street. The gates to the Liu estate opened and the car entered the gardens Shao had known all his life. After months of winter in central China, he’d forgotten that coastal Shanghai’s climate was so much warmer, more temperate. He had traveled into spring. Trees and shrubs bursting with new growth lined the long arc of the circular driveway that swept past all eight mansions. The fresh greens of emer
ging leaves, the creamy white of flower buds tinged with colors yet to be revealed.
The car’s tires crunched along the pea gravel drive to the accompaniment of shouts from their head gardener. “Third Young Master is home! Third Young Master is home!”
Stepping inside his house, a cluster of servants welcomed him, including Amah Fu, who pinched his cheeks as though he was still five years old. She left only after he promised to visit her next door, where she was now amah to his cousin’s new baby.
Upstairs, the door to his mother’s room was slightly ajar. When she was awake, his father explained, she liked listening to what was going on in the house. Even before Shao entered the room he could smell the faint fragrance of her perfume, freesia and bergamot. The drapes were open. He couldn’t recall the last time he had seen this room so bright with daylight. The nurse sitting at his mother’s bedside stood up when he and his father entered. The trolley beside the nurse held a jug of water, folded white towels, small brown glass bottles.
Shao took the chair beside the bed while his father and the nurse whispered in conversation. His mother was beyond thin. If not for her clean face and hair, the fine cotton nightgown, she could’ve been one of the emaciated refugees they had seen on their travels. He took her hand and she opened her eyes briefly. Her eyes were unfocused, her smile merely polite, devoid of recognition.
“Let’s go down for lunch and you can come back,” his father said. “Your mother will be awake by then.”
The smells in the dining room, so familiar, almost made him swoon with hunger. After months of eating all his food piled into a single bowl of chipped enamel, the table’s place settings seemed extravagant. Linen napkins, ivory and silver chopsticks, porcelain spoons and bowls glazed in a design made exclusively for his family.
The head cook personally carried in a huge tureen. “Welcome home, Third Young Master!” he said, beaming.
Throughout lunch, family members from the other houses came by and put their heads in the door to greet him. Some stayed to eat and chat, their faces familiar and comforting. Here, it was easy pushing sad memories to the back of his mind. The numbing cold of the open road. The destruction after an air raid. Shao wanted to leave those memories behind, if only for a day.