The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel

by Maureen Lindley

  Some months after I returned to Shanghai, Tanaka was called to a meeting with Colonel Doihara in Tientsin. He was apprehensive, thinking that he was being called to task for overspending, but he returned two days later in good spirits with news of our next assignment. Tanaka had been charged with the planning of a secret task which would, if successful, have enormous benefits for Japan. Colonel Doihara gave explicit instructions that I was to assist Tanaka and playa key part.

  Between us, Tanaka and I spent huge sums of money to finance our extravagant lifestyle and he was sure that sooner or later he would be called to account for it. We often joked about expense sheets that might include singsong girls, opium and an endless string of whores. So it was good to have a big job which would allow us generous expenses.

  Japan, fed up with the Chinese and wanting to warn the world not to challenge us, had ordered that we set in motion an attack on Shanghai's Zhabei district and claim the territory for our own. We were granted unlimited funds from the Kwangtung Army coffers. We were also informed that waiting offshore was a Japanese invasion force ready to send in its troops. Under the pretext of protecting the Japanese community, supposedly under attack from the decadent Chinese, we would swat the world's criticism like a fly from our food.

  The attack would have the added advantage of distracting attention from Japan's efforts to claim Manchuria, under the so-called independent leadership of the Emperor Pu Yi. I don't think that my task of encouraging Pu Yi to go to the north-east would have been so successful if he had known how fragile Japan's hold in that area was. Although Manchuria lay under the protection of the samurai sword, its supremacy was challenged by the Chinese, who hated their Japanese conquerors and fought back at them in a thousand little insurrections. Japan wanted to show the Chinese, once and for all, that they were the masters.

  I felt sorry for Wan Jung, who I knew would be terrified every time the Japanese were challenged. Manchu have always felt superior to ordinary Chinese, but they are aware that they are hated and might become the victims of their more numerous countrymen's revenge.

  My part in the plan was to employ the thugs Tanaka had introduced me to through Mother to disrupt the Japanese community in Shanghai. Mother's boys were to burgle their homes and businesses in order to give credence to the Japanese invasion force, and I was to make sure they did it. I was thorough with my briefing and Mother and her boys did their job enthusiastically, brutally beating our Japanese brothers, destroying their homes and terrifying their families. I would not have wished such misery on them, but as Harry used to say, 'you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs'. Sometimes citizenship comes with a high price.

  I revelled in being part of Japan's ambitions for the future and how, within a few days, Shanghai became full of danger and excitement. My blood sang when the Japanese marines gathered in Zhabei, the rail station district, to set about the Chinese. I loved the feeling of knowing what was about to happen and the anticipation of success that went along with it. I was so besotted with the samurai nation that it never occurred to me that Japan would not achieve its aims, or that I would ever live to regret my part in its triumphs. I watched the little war progress and felt excited and alive. As our tanks advanced along Sichuan Road, the air filled with yellow fog from their exhausts and I felt the thunder of their rolling vibrate through my body. With our blood up, Tanaka and I made love everywhere, in his office, in the back of his car, in the toilets of restaurants and once actually up against one of our tanks.

  Our troops were resisted briefly by what Tanaka said was a more disciplined style of Chinese soldier than had been seen before, but only briefly. We were invincible and had the factor of surprise on our side. Tanaka was in his element and loved being at the centre of events. We would sit in his office drinking little shots of sake, receiving news of how things were going in progress reports from our headquarters. We often took western and Japanese guests to the top-floor restaurant of the Park Hotel on Bubbling Well Road, from where you could view the war safely. There was a long waiting list for tables, but Tanaka was treated like royalty and had a table held permanently for him and his guests. We ate the Park's indifferent food, accompanied by the noise of our planes and the shelling from our warships.

  It took a few brief weeks for Japan to devastate the Chinese city over the bridge, and to remind the world that we were a nation of warriors who would let nothing stand in our way.

  We were flown over burning Shanghai in Japanese aircraft. We could see by the destruction of the city what a great success the attack had been. I am sorry now to say that I applauded it. Many of Shanghai's residents had died in the battle, but it seemed pointless to be sentimental about their loss. Shanghai was overpopulated and most of the inhabitants of the Chinese quarter were starving anyway. If it hadn't been by Japan's ambitions, they would have been seen off anyway by famine and disease. Zhabei was razed to the ground and its inhabitants made homeless. Like water from a tap, they poured into the International Settlement and the French concession.

  It was weeks before Shanghai returned to something like normal. It taught the Chinese their place, showed Pu Yi the determination of his Japanese allies and unsettled the world for a bit. But Shanghai, like the good whore she was, adapted herself to her new masters and once again prospered. We eventually withdrew our troops when the world complained, but not before our allies had used our attack as an excuse to enlarge their own settlements in Shanghai. If I didn't already know it, their opportunism taught me how to manoeuvre according to circumstance.

  When the shelling had stopped and we had secured the area, I walked through what was left of the Chinese quarter in the company of some senior Japanese officers. I should not have done that, for the pity of it comes to me to this day in flashes of self­disgust. From the sky the destruction had looked like a successful clearing of the slums, but from the ground I was aware of the price humanity had paid for my country's ambitions. We had to step over the bodies of the dead and cover our mouths against the black smoke from the fires that smouldered on for months. The smell of burning flesh was disgusting and I had to avert my eyes from the human limbs that littered the streets. The little city within a city was eerily quiet, the dogs had disappeared from the streets and I missed the sound of mah-jong.

  The few Chinese remaining in the district bowed low to us as we passed, but could not look us in the face. I saw an old woman raking pathetically through a pile of debris. She reminded me of Sorry and that was when the first shock of what had taken place hit me. Circumstances such as those in the devastated Chinese quarter made it hard for me to forget that my blood was Chinese. Even though my heart was so much for Japan then, I could not deny my Chinese inheritance on that day and was overcome by the misery I had helped to inflict on my countrymen. I wanted to hold on to someone, to feel the forgiving touch of a human hand, but the exultant Japanese officers would have thought me mad and the Chinese would have cringed at my touch.

  After that victory there were more beggars on the streets and the price of opium rose, but the city itself seemed to retain its essence. In Mother's life, though, much had changed, for she had lost some of her boys, who had unwittingly got caught up in the battle, and was reduced to living in her one remaining half-destroyed house. To stop her whining, Tanaka arranged for her to be given enough money to help her rebuild her business, but life was never the same for her again. There were younger and stronger gangsters, who, taking advantage of the damage she had sustained, stepped in. She continued to make a living, but she had lost her prime position. There were bigger fish in her pond, it's true, but at least she still swam in the same water.

  After our success in claiming the Chapei district for Japan my blood hummed expectantly for days, as though I could not believe that it was all over. I discovered what it felt like to shake the world a little, which is a disturbing combination of elation and fear. Yet despite my misgivings I believed then that the whole of my life had been a preparation for that time and that I had fo
und my true place in the world in service to Japan. Conversely, just as I finally felt accepted by Japan, I began to experience nightmares so bad that I started to fear sleep.

  In the months following what became known as the 'fake war', I lost Valerie's friendship. She said that my indifference to the suffering of my own people, by which she meant the Chinese, was so cold-hearted that it was as though she had never truly known me. I suppose I could have told her that she was wrong in that, but I think that Valerie had come to her own crossroads, and I would have lost touch with her eventually anyway. She had more of the martyr in her make-up than me and our friendship was not destined to last. It seemed that was the case with most of the women in my life, but I could not mourn too deeply for Valerie; she was no Natsuko, no Mai or Tamura to me. After our sharp parting, I would sometimes see her at the Sanjiaodi fruit market looking for bargains. She had given up the idea of catching a rich husband and had joined a French Catholic mission dedicated to feeding and educating the orphaned children of Shanghai's streets. Her pearls had gone and she no longer dressed in white, but there was a purpose in her manner that I had never noticed before. Perhaps she too had found her true reason for being in Shanghai. It didn't occur to me then, but now I see that Valerie reacted to the world she found herself in out of the goodness in her nature, while I avoided what was left of it in mine. Given the choice, I am not sure that I would choose a good heart over a selfish one: there would be too many things in life to trouble it.

  In Shanghai there was a new mood amongst the Chinese of the city that made the Japanese uneasy. Secretive as ever, the Chinese were divided amongst themselves politically, but they were as one in their hatred of the Japanese. You could sense it in their silent insolence and in the way they addressed you in emotionless voices and took your money without thanks. Even Mother, whom I paid to keep me up to date with what was going on in her decimated quarter, had cooled towards me and advised me against visiting her without a bodyguard. The Chinese knew my face, apparently, because a poster had circulated after the fake war with my likeness on it. It named me as a murderer of my own kind and called for the blood of Chinese babies to be revenged with the shedding of mine. After she told me that I always made her come to me. I never visited her again in the little house by the Gate of Longevity. I couldn't trust her not to betray me and take a price for my head. She was a woman without principles and would have done anything for money.

  I began to feel uneasy and isolated whenever I found myself in my villa alone. I got rid of my Chinese servant woman and replaced her with a Russian girl, who was a poor laundress, but less of a worry to me.

  My dreams were haunted with the images of dead babies and I would often wake in the night thinking that I heard their mewling. In daylight, sense reasserted itself and I knew the cries to have come from the legions of Shanghai's cats whose complaints were made bolder in the dark.

  As the months after the fake war passed, my dark days became more frequent and I found myself dwelling on the past. The death of Natsuko had made me uncomfortably aware of time and drawn my attention to how many of my relationships with those I had loved had gone wrong. It was no longer fine to be good enough for myself; I had not been enough for Yamaga and was perhaps too much for Tanaka, I had betrayed Mai's friendship, lost Tamura to another country and cruelly deceived the touchingly frail Wan Jung.

  It is only when you look back and discover that you have the sort of history that you may not have chosen for yourself that age begins to trouble you. I was in my late twenties, mirrors still reflected my beauty, but even though time had been kind to me there were tiny lines appearing around my eyes and I seemed to have lost my love of self. Some mornings I felt newborn, as though I could start my life from scratch and become something more than I was, but as the day progressed the burden of my nature overtook me and often made the need for opium urgent.

  Tanaka had been disappointed not to be promoted after the taking of Shanghai's Chapei district and returned to being moody and argumentative. We saw less of each other than ever before, but I still thought of him as my true partner in life, until one day I walked into the Park Hotel and was introduced to Jack Stone, an American journalist working for the New York Herald Tribune.

  He was standing at the Park's bar with his arm around Lauren Brodie, a red-haired Irish reporter, one of the few female journalists in Shanghai. Jack had only been in Shanghai two days, but was already surrounded by a group of what seemed to me to be admirers.

  My first sight of Jack Stone made me feel as though I were standing on the edge of a precipice and the centre of me had been thrown off balance. From the moment I first heard his name, the sound of which reminded me of the clatter of mah-jong pieces, something in me softened. He was five years older than me and an inch shorter, but I always felt that I was looking up at him. He had a delicately repaired harelip that gave his mouth a fragile, sensuous appeal, brown hair and grey eyes the colour of the sky just before it snows. Jack wasn't really good-looking, but he had a magnetic appeal and women loved him. Perhaps it was his quiet wit that drew them to him, or maybe it was the way he listened, his body still, his head slightly to one side as though he wanted to hear every word. Whatever it was, I was immediately seduced, and although he was not instantly mine, I desired him as much as I had Yamaga.

  A couple of days after our introduction, Lauren Brodie came to see me and asked if I would be prepared to be interviewed by Jack. He was doing a piece on Shanghai personalities and wanted to include me in the group. I agreed to the interview and arranged to meet him in the rooftop restaurant of the Park Hotel. It was part of my job to know the foreign correspondents and to try and influence their reporting. But I dressed to meet Jack more as though I was going to a lover's bed than to a work meeting.

  Jack was the sort of man whom Tanaka would be jealous of, and one that might give more trouble than pleasure. In any case, I was coming to the conclusion that giving in to my desires, as I had always done in the past, was perhaps the very thing responsible for my depressions and disquieting dreams. Yet I tried on three outfits for that meeting before settling on a shapely skirt and high-heeled sandals. I added a soft satin blouse, leaving the top buttons unfastened and powdering the valley where my breasts met. As my only jewellery, I wore a pair of tiny seed pearl earrings so that he would notice my small ears. Instead of my usual chrysanthemum oil, I chose musk for desire and touched it lightly at my throat and wrists.

  I saw him in the restaurant before he noticed me and felt the same twist in my stomach as on the day I had first seen him. He was talking to the hotel manager and when he saw me he smiled and instantly came to join me. He was very business-like and probing in his interview. He pushed me on what he called my pro-Japanese stance, questioning my allegiance to a country that wanted to 'crush' my homeland.

  'China was where I was born,' I said. 'But I was sent from it as a child and I don't consider it my homeland. Japan gave me a home and an identity; we belong to each other. Whatever happens, Japan will always have my loyalty.'

  'America is my country,' he said. 'But we can be critical of country, surely? It's people that come first, don't you think?'

  I didn't answer him. My loyalty to Japan was something that I had never questioned before and I found the subject quite disturb­mg.

  We talked for a couple of hours, mostly about my rank in the Japanese Army and how I viewed the so-called 'fake war'. He asked me about my relationship with Tanaka, but he didn't write anything in his notebook on that subject. It felt more informal, less like an interview that way and I learnt as much about him as he did about me. I discovered that he chain-smoked Camel cigarettes, that he drank whisky, bourbon when he could get it, that he believed that wearing silk pyjamas under his normal ones would protect him from malaria, and that he was estranged from his wife, who hated him for leaving her alone so much. I asked him if he loved her and he said that, obviously, the very fact that he was in Shanghai showed that he loved his freedom more.

&n
bsp; 'And Lauren Brodie?' I asked.

  'Just a friend,' he said and smiled.

  I left the restaurant annoyed with him. He hadn't flirted with me or paid me a single compliment. Months later, Jack confessed that our meeting at the Park had affected him deeply and that he could hardly think straight when he came to write about me for his paper. He said that, although he was good at disguising his feelings, he had been overpowered by the look and the scent of me. He had tried, without success, to dampen the feelings of what he described as an unsuitable attraction, unsuitable not because we came from different continents, but because I loved Japan and Jack despised it.

  When I told Tanaka about the meeting, he said that most of the foreign journalists in Shanghai were pro-Chinese and that westerners had a sickly sort of admiration for the underdog. He said that Jack Stone was highly thought of amongst his fellow Americans, but that I should be wary of him.

  'Let him seek you out,' he said. 'And then only feed him what we want him to know.'

  Six weeks passed before I saw Jack again. During that time Tanaka had received orders to report to Doihara in Inner Mongolia to assist him in setting up an independent government under the Mongolian Prince Teh. I had never met Teh, although he was a kinsman of mine through my marriage to Kanjurjab. I had heard stories that he was a fearless warrior and much loved by his tribe. I advised Tanaka not to mention his connection with me, as I was sure it would work against him in Mongolian circles.

  I felt sorry for him, as I knew that he would hate working in close contact with the Colonel. He told me that he could not take me with him because my orders were to stay in Shanghai and ease the path for his successor, but I think it was more that he couldn't bear to see me in the company of Doihara. Nothing would have taken me to Mongolia anyway. I joked with him about the climate, warned him not to eat the butter and told him that he would like the Mongolian girls, who were plump and warm-hearted. They would, I said, be impressed by his size and his inventiveness in lovemaking.