The Darkest Hour

by Roberta Kagan

  Following him, Wen-Ying gazed up. Her eyes involuntarily drawn to the shape of his back. The back which showed the physique of someone in his prime. He had the force of a man who would take charge. Like someone who would blaze the trail and lead the women and the children to safety if caught in a storm.

  What woman would not be drawn to such force?

  “Which unit?” Takeda asked and turned around when he reached the top of the stairs.

  Her heart jumped. Reflexively, she shifted her eyes away. “The one on the left,” she answered and came up beside him. She didn’t mean to stare. She hoped he didn’t notice.

  Keeping her eyes low, she fumbled with her keys, then opened the door. The simply furnished room was a far cry from the luxury villa where she had lived before the war. All this unit had was a single-sized bed, a wooden table that seated two people at most, and a chest of drawers no bigger than two nightstands lined up together. The cold, bare concrete walls reminded her how lonely she felt at times, but at least there was a little balcony. She could stand out there and watch the children from the neighborhood play with crickets in the back alley.

  She pulled the little string of the switch to turn on the one light bulb dangling from a cord in the ceiling. The light hardly illuminated the room. Not that it mattered. Curfew would begin in an hour, and lights out would follow soon after.

  “Would you like some tea?” Wen-Ying took the canvas bag off her shoulder and dropped it on the bed.

  “Yes.” Takeda set the bike against the wall and looked around the room. He creased his brows slightly but again didn’t say anything.

  Wen-Ying unscrewed the top of her thermos and poured hot tea into two cups, then handed one to him. “This low-grade puer is all I have.”

  “Thank you.” He accepted the teacup and took a sip, then gazed up and smiled at her. A bright spark lit up his eyes. She dared not look at it directly for fear it might ignite something she could not steer or understand.

  “What did you want to tell me about my old home?” She walked away from him to the table.

  “I thought you might like to know who they turned your house over to.”

  “Who?”

  “Liu Kun and his wife Shen Yi.”

  Wen-Ying jerked up her head. Once, Shen Yi was her older brother Yuan Guo-Hui’s fiancée. Their parents had arranged for them to marry since before their births when their mothers became pregnant at the same time. That was before Guo-Hui decided he wanted free love and broke off the engagement. Shortly after, Shen Yi married the widower Liu Kun, who was twenty years her senior but whose wealth did not pale comparing to the Yuan family. Other than the fact that Liu Kun took Shen Yi as a tian fang, a younger wife to replace one who was deceased, their marriage was a good match. What Wen-Ying couldn’t have foreseen was Shen Yi and her husband turning and joining the collaborators.

  Such unspeakable betrayal. A treason.

  Liu Kun gained favor with the Japanese by becoming their point man in destroying those who fought their enemy occupiers. In the New Asia Hotel, he had a permanently reserved room where he tortured and decapitated Chinese resistance fighters, journalists and reporters, and bankers and businessmen who supported the resistance movement.

  And Shen Yi. How could she? Did she know what her husband was doing? Wen-Ying’s family had watched Shen Yi grow up. Wen-Ying herself and her parents favored Shen-Yi highly. When Guo-Hui ended the engagement, they had done everything they could to try to change his mind.

  Guo-Hui knew better after all.

  Takeda dipped his head, then warily glanced up. “I heard, Shen Yi specifically requested your house.”

  Wen-Ying’s jaws clenched. Such a spiteful woman Shen Yi turned out to be. Even now, she could not forgive Guo-Hui. She meant to show the world that one way or another, she would take and possess everything that would have belonged to her had she become Guo-Hui’s wife.

  Liu Kun had his own reasons for wanting to take over the old Yuan mansion. He’d always blamed her brother for usurping his seat on the Shanghai Municipal Council, the local governing body of what was once the International Settlement of Shanghai, when the sector was still under British and American control.

  And now, he would usurp what should belong to Guo-Hui.

  “They’re moving in tomorrow,” Takeda said. “I wanted to let you know so you wouldn’t find out about it by surprise.”

  “Thank you.” Wen-Ying put down her cup. This stab in the back struck her to the core. Even if Shen Yi still held a grudge against her brother, did she have no regards for the years of relationship she had with the rest of the Yuan family?

  In deep thoughts, Wen-Ying clutched the back of the chair.

  “It’s almost a full moon tonight.” Takeda walked out to the balcony. Wen-Ying blew a deep breath and joined him. “In another three weeks, it’ll be the Mid-Autumn Festival.” He turned and flashed her a smile.

  She looked up at the moon slowly rising above the darkening sky. The Mid-Autumn Festival was a time when farmers celebrated their harvests. It was also a night for mortal folks to revel and catch a glimpse of the Moon Goddess, Chang ‘e.

  According to legend, Chang ‘e lived in an ancient time when the world used to have ten suns. Normally, the ten suns rose in succession. One day, an anomaly happened and all ten suns rose together. Under the sweltering heat, all the plants and trees began to shrivel and all the rivers and lakes began to dry. Soon, the heat would scorch all the farms, and no water would be left to irrigate the crops. The entire population on earth would die.

  To save the world, Hou Yi, the husband of Chang ‘e famous for his phenomenal archery skills, shot down nine suns so that only one would remain. When the climate of the world was restored, the Queen Mother of Heaven rewarded him by giving him an elixir. If a person drinks half the bottle, he would become immortal. If a person drinks the entire bottle, he would become a god and ascend to Heaven.

  Hou Yi hid the elixir at home and planned to share it with his wife so they could live together forever. But one day, while he was out hunting, his apprentice Feng Meng came to his home and demanded Chang ‘e turn over the elixir. In fear, Chang ‘e took the elixir and fled. While Feng Meng chased after her, she drank the entire bottle to keep it from him. Immediately after she finished, she flew up to the moon and became a goddess. When Hou Yi returned home and discovered what had happened, he tried to chase after her. But because he was mortal, he could never reach her. Whenever he came close, he would only step into his own shadow under the moon.

  In the years since, on the night of August the fifteenth of the lunar calendar when the moon becomes its roundest and brightest, people would gather at night to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival and search for Chang ‘e in the moon. They say that if you look carefully, you can see her shape in the gray clouds weaving over the moon. If you look even closer, you can see the white jade rabbit that has become her pet too.

  Gazing up at the sky, Takeda spread his elbows on the rim of the concrete enclosure. “When I was little, I always had the best lantern for the Mid-Autumn Festival.”

  Wen-Ying smiled. Children carrying toy-sized paper lanterns to stroll the streets was a Mid-Autumn tradition, along with snacking on mooncakes while drinking tea and admiring the moon.

  “My lanterns were always one of a kind,” Takeda said. The look of happy memories glowed on his face. “My father would make one for me himself every year. Each year, he would paint a different Japanese animal spirit on it.”

  “What made him decide to come to China?” Wen-Ying asked.

  “He was an orphan. When he was fifteen, he started working at a ramen noodle house. The chef took a liking to him and took him as an apprentice. A wealthy Chinese man came to eat one day while he was visiting Tokyo. He loved the noodles so much, he wanted to partner with the ramen chef to open a new shop in China. The chef ran a successful business already. He had no desire to uproot his family to go to another country, so he suggested the man take my father instead. My fat
her had no money or family. He couldn’t have opened a ramen house on his own, so he said yes. One night, the chef let my father prepare the noodles, all the ingredients, and the broth so the Chinese man could taste the ramen my father made and decide if my father’s skills met his standard. He liked what my father made. From there on, my father embarked on a new life.”

  Wen-Ying leaned forward against the wall of the enclosure as she listened. A ramen house. If it weren’t for the war, she and Takeda would never have crossed paths. They came from such entirely different social strata. “Did your father find it difficult to live in China?”

  “Maybe. He had to learn to speak a new language and new ways of doing things. I don’t think he thought of his experience that way though. He was very happy here. His ramen house in China was a huge success. And then, he met my mother.”

  “Oh?” Wen-Ying glanced sideways at him. Now she was curious. It would be shocking today for a Chinese woman to marry a foreign man, let alone a Chinese woman from a generation before her. How did his mother end up marrying someone from the Eastern Ocean?

  “My mother’s family sold her when she was three. The family that bought her ran a small shop selling baozi. When she grew old enough, she worked at the shop to help out. My father used to go there to get his breakfast. He loved the way they made those steamed pork buns.” Takeda chuckled. “Now that I think about it, I’m not sure if the pork buns were really that delicious, or if he just thought they were because my mother was there.”

  Wen-Ying laughed. His parents were so lucky to have lived at a time when life was more innocent. “What happened then?”

  “My mother was getting to be of marriageable age. Since she was bought mainly to be an extra help for her adoptive family, she didn’t have any dowry and her prospects weren’t very good. My father made his proposal to her family. He saved money for a whole year so he could give the family a monetary gift big enough to marry her.”

  “And your mother was happy with the arrangement?”

  “I think so. I think she knew no man would love and care for her as much as my father.”

  Wen-Ying relaxed her shoulders. “He sounds like a very unusual man.” Nothing like the chauvinists Japanese men were reputed to be.

  Takeda smiled. “He told me when he and my mother got married, they still couldn’t hold a full conversation. He worked very hard to learn Chinese. She never learned any Japanese except a few words from him here and there. She couldn’t even read Chinese. She never went to school. So it was all on him to learn to talk to her.”

  “They could get along like that?” Wen-Ying asked. Such an extraordinary story. Hard to believe this happened to an illiterate girl who had been sold by her family and an orphan boy.

  “Somehow, they managed. They had fifteen happy years together until he died,” Takeda said. A trace of sadness tinted his voice.

  She knew how he felt. The pain of losing one’s parent. “My family used to always watch the moon together in our garden on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival. In the days leading up to the holiday, our house would be so busy. The houseboys would be preparing boxes of mooncakes to send to all our family friends and my father’s clients and business associates. The maidservants would be busy buying food and preparing a big meal. My little sister, Mei Mei, and I would beg our mother to let us help the cook. Of course, we were useless as helpers. We just wanted to play with the dough he used to make fried sesame balls and pastries. Mei Mei liked to use it to make white jade rabbits. Sometimes they actually resembled rabbits. But then the cook would fry them in the pot of oil along with his pastries. When he was done, the rabbits would look like blobs.” She stopped. Talking about Mei Mei, she felt a sharp streak of pain, like a sword driving through her heart.

  Takeda turned toward her. His tender warmth gave her comfort she hadn’t felt since her whole family fell apart.

  “Mei Mei had a balcony in her room too.” Wen-Ying swallowed back the lump in her throat. “Bigger than this one, of course. A large cypress tree grew beside the wall of our house. It was taller than our roof and some of the branches reached all the way into her balcony. When we were children, we used to ask my father if that tree was the tallest tree in the world. He told us yes and we believed him. On the nights of the Mid-Autumn Festival, when Mei Mei and I grew tired of the talks of the adults in the garden, we would go up to her balcony to try to get closer to the moon. We imagined that if we climbed to the top of that tree, we would reach the moon to find Chang ‘e.”

  “You must really miss her.”

  “Yes.” The image of Mei Mei returned to her mind and prompted her to smile despite her pain. “She was beautiful. It’s not my biased opinion either. Everybody praised her and said she was the most beautiful girl in Shanghai.”

  “You’re beautiful,” he said. His low voice stirred her, like a hidden fire not yet visible to the eye but whose heat was slowly rising and seeping into their sphere.

  “No,” she said, avoiding his gaze and keeping her eyes straight at the view ahead. “I can pass for ordinary beautiful if I put on makeup and a pretty dress.” These things she didn’t do anymore. The part of her life when she used to visit beauty parlors, tailors, and jewelry stores felt like a lifetime ago. She could barely recognize it. “Mei Mei’s beauty was ethereal.”

  “If you say so.” He shrugged. “I’ve never met her, so I wouldn’t know.” He moved a step closer. “To me, you’re beautiful. I remember the first time I saw you. I’d already heard about you. The people in Tian Di Hui, they said there was a young woman, Yuan Wen-Ying. We couldn’t have infiltrated the British consulate without her. Back then, everyone still hoped the British would intervene to fend off Japan, given the high financial stake the Britons had in this city.”

  The British. Wen-Ying sneered as she thought of the Union Jack they used to show off outside the buildings on the Bund. She could never forgive them for bringing that poison, opium, into China and using their military prowess to force China to give up their land. Nor would she ever forget how they stepped all over the Chinese while parading their power as colonial lords. And then, when the threat of war was at the door, they abandoned the Chinese to suffer and fled.

  The Japanese who replaced them were even worse. Under Japanese occupation, thousands upon thousands had been raped, tortured, or murdered.

  She detested foreigners. She would never trust them. Never.

  “Anyhow,” Takeda’s voice broke her thoughts, “what I understood was, Yuan Wen-Ying was a key member. Someone indispensable who Tian Di Hui held in high regard.”

  Her heartbeats quickening, she turned her head away from him.

  “That day at the Dragon Boat race, everyone went to cheer for Tian Di Hui’s team. They said you would be there too, and I kept looking out to see who was this girl everyone kept talking about. Then I saw you. Standing by the wharf, cheering for our team along with the others. The moment I laid my eyes on you, I knew there was only one thing that would complete my life. I saw you joking and laughing with your girlfriends, and all I wanted was to catch the sound of your laughter. I didn’t know until then this kind of feeling was possible. All I’ve ever wanted since then was you.”

  Squeezing her arms against her side, she raised her hands to her heart. “You…You can’t say these kinds of things to me.”

  “Why not?” He moved closer beside her. “After everything we’ve been through, after all the things we’ve lost, why can’t I say what I really feel?”

  She dropped her arms and grasped the edge of the enclosure. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe a word you said.” She pushed her hands against the concrete. “I still don’t even know if we should totally trust you. You could be enjoying riches and rewards working for Japan. It makes no sense for you to take the hard road with us.” She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Maybe you’re playing us all along.”

  “You don’t trust me? After everything I’ve done?”

  “You’re Japanese.” Sh
e glared at him, finally daring to look him in the eye.

  “I’m Chinese too.” He grabbed her hand and held it up. “You’re lying. Of course you trust me, or else you wouldn’t be alone with me here now. You’re just telling yourself you don’t trust me as an excuse to push me away. The one you really don’t trust is yourself. You’re afraid you’ll find out you feel the same way about me if you let me come closer to you.”

  Silently, she shook her head. Confusion clouded her mind. A Japanese man? The enemy’s blood ran inside him through his veins. No. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

  “What would you have me do? I can’t split myself in half.” He clenched his fist around her hand. For a moment, they stared at each other. Her breaths shortened. The darkened sky hid them from the neighbors’ view, but the moonlight shone on his face and she could see the raw emotions agonizing his soul.

  “It’s late,” she said. “You should go.”

  He frowned in frustration, then loosened his grip. She jerked her hand back and walked to the door. “Be careful walking home.” She opened the lock and turned the knob. As he walked out, he looked longingly at her once more. “I’ll always be waiting for you.”

  She watched him turn away and go down the stairs, then closed and locked the door. Alone in her room, she could finally breathe easy again. She leaned back against the door and slumped. Her heart still recovering from the edge of a cliff she had never wanted to climb.

  What would she have him do?

  What would he have her do? Marry him? Adopt his Japanese last name and identify herself as Madam Takeda? Have children whose paternal allegiance would always be with the land of the rising sun? Her parents’ eyes wouldn’t close even in their deaths.

  She stared across the room at the cup Takeda had left on the small table. It sat there, like a part of him that refused to leave. She walked over to the table and stroked her finger around the side of the cup. She couldn’t tell him that the first time she saw him, she felt something stirring within her. An instinctive urge that she could neither control nor explain. She didn’t know who he was back then. She only knew she wanted him to come to her, and all the space and distance between them to disappear.