The Library of Legends

by Janie Chang

  She held her arms out but Duckling shrank away, small fists clenched tighter than ever.

  Little Duck, Little Duck,

  Sing the moon, dance the stars!

  Lian clapped her hands softly as she sang. Duckling’s lips moved hesitantly, forming the words in silence. The tiny hands, one still clutching the ribbon, began to clap. Then finally a breathy childish voice joined Lian’s.

  The skies shine out from the pond tonight,

  Come with us, Little Duck!

  Inside Lian’s heart, locks and latches fell open. She began crying, a silent deluge. She held the little girl to her chest, rocking back and forth as she held back her sobs so as not to frighten Duckling. She cried for Private Fung and his comrades, for their awkward friendly grins and naïve confidence as they’d marched off to battle. For Wei Daming and the soldiers he tried to save. For Meirong, whom she couldn’t save. For Mr. Shen and Wang Jenmei, on opposite sides of China’s politics but each a patriot. She cried for all the sorrows she had seen.

  She cried because she would never see Sparrow again.

  Gradually, Lian became aware of her mother’s arms around her, enclosing Duckling in their circle. “We’re not leaving her, Mother,” she said, choking back tears. “We’re taking her home with us. She won’t be abandoned again. I won’t have it.”

  Even just one person, Miss Mason had said. If each of us could make a difference to just one person. Why couldn’t her one person be Duckling? Lian stifled her sobs and finished undressing Duckling. All around her, there was more talk, murmured discussions in both Chinese and German, between the foreigners, her mother, and Dr. Mao.

  Then a woman’s voice, her words authoritative and oddly inflected.

  “We would rather she went to a family that cares about her than someone who will raise her to be a servant,” the woman said. One of the German missionaries.

  There was more conversation, then Lian heard Dr. Mao say, “My wife and I will adopt her. I’ve heard about this little girl.”

  “Thank you, Stepfather,” Lian said and closed her eyes for a moment in relief. The sorrows she’d witnessed still continued. There was still brutality and darkness. But also a small shining point of light. Duckling squirmed, then giggled as Lian splashed warm water over her.

  Together, Lian and her mother bathed Duckling, who now seemed quite content to let go of the red ribbon. They dressed her in clean clothes and socks, then took her to the orphanage dining room. The orphans had been given a snack when they’d arrived so unexpectedly, but now a real dinner was ready for them. Already charmed by the toddler, her mother walked ahead, carrying Duckling over her shoulder. Lian walked behind, making silly faces to coax a smile from Duckling.

  A hand tapped her on the shoulder and she turned to see Shao smiling down at her. She caught her breath at the sight of him. He seemed different somehow. There was a lightness to him, a new clarity in his eyes.

  “I hear you have a new sister,” he said. “That little girl from the riverboat.”

  “It’s a miracle, but it really is Duckling,” she said. “Come meet her. My mother’s just taken her to the orphanage dining room.”

  “Not yet,” he said. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  The skies were dark now but the marquee on the Mission’s front lawn glowed with strings of lights. The charity auction was in full swing, the auctioneer’s voice bellowing out from a megaphone, “Dinner for ten at the Cathay Hotel, a selection of fine wines included!”

  At a long table under an awning, volunteers outside the marquee were packing away auction items that had been sold. Shao walked to the end of the table where a set of books was being put into boxes. He picked one up and held it out to her. The bindings were beautiful leather, custom-made for a private collection.

  THE LIBRARY OF LEGENDS

  A Collection of Myths and Folklore from the Jingtai Encyclopedia

  Minghua University Press

  “I asked my father to donate these to the auction,” he said. “He’s here somewhere with my brother. Turns out this is one of the charity events he attends every year.”

  “This is so generous of him,” Lian said, stroking the leather binding. “If I owned these, I could never bear to give them up.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Shao said. “We’ve another set at our summer home in the Moganshan Mountains.”

  “And someone has bought them,” she said. “I hope they go to a good home. And that the Mission got a good price.”

  “The Mission did very well,” he said. “I bought them for you. They’re yours now, Lian. Fortunately, on a modern printing press, you don’t need 147 volumes to contain all the stories, just 20.”

  She gasped. “Shao! That’s too generous! I can’t accept.”

  “Well, if you don’t take them, then I’ll give them to your stepfather,” he said with a grin. “I look forward to many interesting discussions with him—with both of you—about the Legends.”

  She touched the embossed covers, the gilded characters along the spines. Tales of the City Gods. Tales of Dragon Lords. Tales of Fox Spirits Volumes 1–3. Tales of Celestial Deities. A record of all that had been wondrous in China. A record protected by the gods so they would be remembered even after they were no longer worshipped, no longer needed. A record the gods now depended on mortals to preserve. Mortals who had never seen a herd of qilin awaken spring as they dashed into the woods. Or watched a Star live out her lonely, patient quest.

  “I don’t know what to make of a gift like this,” she said, finally. “But thank you.”

  “This,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it. “This is what to make of it.”

  They walked away from the marquee, as far away as possible from its glaring artificial lights. He pulled her under the shadows of a tall maple. When he held her close, his heart was beating as rapidly as hers. This time he kissed her on the lips, and her arms tightened around his shoulders, felt his muscles tense in response.

  Then she pulled away from him. “The front of my pinafore is wet,” she said in dismay. “And now so is your shirt.” Shao laughed and she looked at him, searching his face.

  “There’s something different,” she said. “Have you stopped drinking?”

  “I don’t know what it is,” he said. Even his voice was different. Joyous. “I do feel different. Perhaps I’m doing better at putting away grief over my mother and Sparrow.”

  “You seem happier,” she said. More alive, she wanted to say.

  “It’s as though a veil has been lifted from my mind and my heart,” Shao said. “My feelings aren’t muddled or muted anymore. Lian, I was confused before. But I can’t pretend you’re just a friend anymore.”

  She closed her eyes, allowing her other senses to recognize him. The scent of his skin, its slightly salty taste. The lean strength of his arms. She moved her hand to his chest, felt the quickening beat of his heart, heard the soft impatience of his breath against her neck. And then his lips were against hers again.

  If not for my presence here on Earth, he would’ve recognized his feelings long ago.

  I can wait for him. I have the advantage of eternity. You only have this life. You will know when I am gone.

  Lian rested her head on his shoulder, contented. Comforted.

  “My mother will be wondering where I am,” she murmured, but without any conviction. In reply, Shao lifted her face to his and kissed her again, his lips lingering on hers before kissing her throat.

  They stood quietly under the maple, arms around each other, until the auctioneer’s calls ceased and they could see people in evening dress emerge from the marquee. Taking his hand, Lian led Shao across the lawn toward the orphanage, to her family. Dr. Mao and her mother came out to stand on the veranda, the doctor carrying Duckling in his arms, the little girl now asleep.

  It was a clear night, all threat of rain had passed. Lian’s eyes moved across the sky, searching until she found the Purple Forbidden Enclosure constellation and insi
de it, a cluster of stars, the Four Maids-in-Waiting.

  She lifted her hand in greeting.

  Author’s Notes

  The exodus of Chinese universities and middle schools began in 1937, the official start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which many also regard as the start of China’s World War II. I’ve been fascinated by this migration ever since my father first recounted his experiences as a liuwang (refugee, nomadic) student, not only for the bold spirit of those who embarked on these journeys, but also for the symbolism of such an effort. By 1941, seventy-seven colleges and universities had relocated to China’s interior. In protecting China’s “last drop of blood,” as one of China’s generals called the students, the Chinese government was safeguarding the nation’s intellectual legacy, so necessary for building the future. But I didn’t know how to even begin weaving a story around such an epic.

  Then my friend Ray Wang (who reads Chinese, and alas I do not) told me about a memoir by one of the refugee students. In it was an unforgettable scene: a teacher who walked ahead of his students carrying on his back a chalkboard with the day’s lessons written on it. The image was so powerful and moving. It spoke of reverence for education, a cornerstone of traditional Chinese values, and I knew that if I wrote a story, it would include such a scene.

  Then I read Race the Rising Sun, memoirs of Zhejiang University alumni who trekked a thousand miles from coastal Hangzhou to Zunyi in the interior of China. The university also brought with it a treasure from the Qing Dynasty: a seventy-thousand-volume encyclopedia of Chinese literature known as the Siku Quanshu. Zhejiang University moved the books inland to safety by boat and automobile, by train and truck, and on the backs of students. Stored in caves outside the town of Guiyang in Guizhou Province, the encyclopedia survived the war in good condition under the care of two university servants who stayed behind in the caves. This was the thread I needed to pull the story together.

  In the novel, the Siku Quanshu became the Jingtai Encyclopedia and its only surviving volumes the Library of Legends, which traveled across China awakening the supernatural beings described in their pages. For anyone interested in reading Professor Kang’s (fictional) pamphlet on the Library and how it survived the centuries, please see my website www.janiechang.com. Click on the Books tab, where I stash bonus materials for each novel, and see what’s available for The Library of Legends.

  Minghua University is fictional, but my father did attend university in Nanking and walked all the way to Chongqing when the school had to evacuate. The majority of liuwang students miraculously reached their destinations, although many were malnourished by then and suffered a range of illnesses from eye infections to malaria.

  The legend of the Willow Star is my own invention, a riff on the popular Chinese myth of the Cowherd and the Celestial Weaver Girl. Their love story is celebrated every year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month in a festival that’s been branded as “Chinese Valentine’s Day.”

  Chinese constellations do not map to Western star charts. The Purple Forbidden Enclosure where the Willow Star and her sisters live consists of constellations surrounding the North Celestial Pole, or Polaris the Northern Star. The Four Maids-in-Waiting, the stars representing the Willow Star and her sisters, correlate roughly to the constellation Draco.

  Minghua 123’s route through China is an amalgam of several journeys described by various survivors of mobile campuses. Some of them took circuitous routes because the Japanese did not roll across China in a single, unbroken wave. A time-lapse map of the invasion would look more like splotches of amoeba-shaped territories, advancing and retreating. There was no one safe route and it was impossible for refugees to predict from one day to the next whether an area was still part of Free China or occupied by the Japanese.

  The spelling of place names (Nanking, Peking, Chengtu, etc.) is according to Chinese postal romanization, a form of Wade-Giles romanization that persisted in common use even after it was abolished by the Chinese Communists in 1964.

  And finally, readers of Three Souls and Dragon Springs Road may recognize some of the minor characters in this novel.

  Acknowledgments

  It’s pretty clear to me by now that authors only get through the trauma of writing a book because we are blessed with friends and professional colleagues who tolerate us with great indulgence despite our strange hours and even stranger behavior.

  During my initial research on refugee students, The Great Flowing River, a memoir by Bangyuan Qi, was only available in Chinese and German, neither of which I can read. Thank you to Dr. Hui-wen Von Groeling-Che, responsible for the German translation, for answering my questions so generously. Thank you also to my sister-in-law, Alice, whose network of amazing friends put me in touch with Dr. Von Groeling-Che. Big thanks to my friend Dr. Helena Swinkels, who never got annoyed at my questions and even lent me her handbook of infectious tropical diseases.

  I’m immensely grateful to some wonderful people who were willing to read the early and ugly versions of the manuscript. To my secret weapon Jennifer Pooley, who has helped on all three of my novels; the beautiful and talented Claire Mulligan; and the incomparable Kate Quinn. Thank you, thank you for your patience and your astute comments, all of which helped shape the book.

  There are so many authors whose friendship I treasure. You may not realize it but sometimes your words and support have made the difference between giving up and staying with the job of writing. There are too many to list, but thank you: Caroline Adderson, Matthew Boroson, Kate Hilton, June Hutton, Julia Claiborne Johnson, Shaena Lambert, Evelyn Lau, Mary Novik, Roberta Rich, Jennifer Robson, and Sam Wiebe. And of course, each and every one of the Tall Poppy Writers, for providing moral support, professional advice, and plenty of laughs.

  A very big thank-you to the Canada Council for the Arts. I could not have written this novel without your support. It felt very meaningful to receive assistance from an organization dedicated to advancing Canada’s cultural identity while I was writing a novel about a government’s wartime efforts to preserve a country’s culture.

  So many thanks and hugs to “my” team at HarperCollins Canada and William Morrow, especially Iris Tupholme and Jennifer Brehl. Thank you yet again for believing in me and in this story. Janice Zawerbny, bless you and your editorial insights, and thank you for not laughing at my struggles with close third-person POV. Also much gratitude to Cory Beatty, Michael Guy-Haddock, Michael Millar, Lauren Morocco, Amelia Wood, Camille Collins, Shelby Peak, Laurie McGee, Elsie Lyons, and Diahann Sturge. To Jill Marr, my agent, and everyone at the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency: a third book! Sometimes it’s still hard to believe I’m a published author. Thank you for helping me in this adventure.

  Last but never least—thank you, Geoffrey. Your support matters more than any other.

  Resources

  For those interested in learning more about the liuwang students as well as the refugee situation in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the following books are very worthwhile:

  The Great Flowing River: A Memoir of China, from Manchuria to Taiwan, by Bangyuan Qi, John Balcom (translator). Columbia University Press (2018)

  Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze, by Peter Harmsen. Casemate Publishing (2013)

  In a Sea of Bitterness: Refugees During the Sino-Japanese War, by R. Keith Schoppa. Harvard University Press (2011)

  Race the Rising Sun, by Chao-Min Hsieh, Jean Kan Hsieh. Hamilton Books (2009)

  Wuhan, 1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China, by Stephen R. MacKinnon. University of California Press (2008)

  Lianda, A Chinese University in War and Revolution, by John Israel. Stanford University Press (1998)

  Teaching in Wartime China, by Edward Gulick. University of Massachusetts Press (1995)

  In the Shadow of the Rising Sun: Shanghai Under Japanese Occupation, by Christian Henriot. Cambridge University Press (2004)

  Some online information about the real encyclopedias:

  “The
C. V. Starr East Asian Library Receives Monumental Gift”: https://ieas.berkeley.edu/news/c-v-starr-east-asian-library-receives-monumental-gift

  The Yongle Dadian: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Science/yongledadian.html

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the Author

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  Meet Janie Chang

  About the Book

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  Reading Group Guide

  Behind the Book: The Years of War

  Read On

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  An Excerpt from Dragon Springs Road by Janie Chang

  About the Author

  Meet Janie Chang

  JANIE CHANG is a Canadian novelist who draws upon family history for her writing. She grew up listening to stories about ancestors who encountered dragons, ghosts, and immortals and about family life in a small Chinese town in the years before the Second World War. She has a degree in computing science and is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University.

  She is the author of Three Souls and Dragon Springs Road, both of which were longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. Dragon Springs Road has been a Globe and Mail National Bestseller. Born in Taiwan, Janie has lived in the Philippines, Iran, Thailand, and New Zealand. She now lives in beautiful Vancouver, Canada, with her husband and Mischa, a rescue cat who thinks the staff could be doing a better job.

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