“A distinguished gentleman. Why should he not detest the Japanese?”
“As you say. He is also a director of the Sino-American Amity Association. Beyond that one does not ask. He grew overnight like a mushroom. He is not a Pekinger. In 1944 the Japanese put a price on his head. A thousand pieces of gold. That is a memorable sum and commands attention; overnight the man was famous. But no one knew him. He surfaced just after the war and was a tycoon in no time.”
“The underground hero and the tycoon were one and the same man?”
“Your mind works like mine. Somewhere in you lives a cop. Yes, it was Sung Yun. From down around the Yangtze somewhere. Plenty of friends in the government, and they all vouched for him. He basked in the praise of his fellow patriots. He is a great contributor of reward money, and is still basking. He, ah—”
“He would like to welcome me to Peking.”
“Precisely.” Yen was relieved. “He is—I have your confidence?”
“To the death.”
“You exaggerate,” Yen reproached him. “At any rate, Sung Yun is a bit of a busybody. He is a city father and a connoisseur of this and that, and surrounds himself with the beautiful things of life, including women, and now he must flee. He would obviously be out of place in whatever collective purgatory awaits China. He has asked to meet you.”
“I am no more than a humble laborer in the vineyards of justice,” Burnham intoned. “To be bathed in the light of the sun and the moon may blind me.”
“Do not make fun of me. All cities suffer these benefactors.” Yen’s tone altered: “And he is not to be mocked. He is a rather powerful man.”
And I can just see him, Burnham thought. He is short and round as a grape and not a wrinkle on him, and he wears a little red hat and a smile, but his eyes are bullets. His wife, if any, eats in the kitchen. “Whither does he flee?”
“Shanghai, one assumes.”
“That will not be far enough, you know.”
“It is but a way stop.” Yen braked. “Defile it!”
“Exquisite courtesy,” Burnham said. “I was not sure that you owned brakes.”
“That is a honey cart,” Yen said. “I am here to welcome you, not to bury you in night soil.”
“My heartfelt thanks.”
Carefully Yen accelerated. “So then you will soon have an invitation. I hope you will accept it, if only because of my own association with the eminent gentleman. He has a male secretary who speaks perfect colloquial English. Of course,” he added hastily, “in your case that is a superfluity.”
“But it came in handy with the American military, in buy-sell, and the relief organizations, and maybe for a little social life with the diplomats.”
“One sees that you have traveled a thousand li,” Yen said smoothly, “and spoken with princes.”
“Like all of us,” Burnham said, “I have smiled at fools for a bowl of rice. One more will do no harm.”
Yen growled assent, and they sat companionably silent as they passed through the gate with two names. They were leaving the Imperial City—most of Peking, with the colleges and institutes, the offices and yamens, the lakes, parks, churches, temples, hotels, foreigners—and entering the Chinese City, where stood the fleabags but also the Temple of Heaven; many whorehouses but also the Temple of Agriculture; the Model Prison but also the Temple with the Tablet to the Foreign Dead of World War I. Much of the Chinese City was specialty streets; Bead Street, Embroidery Street, Gold Street, the whole street given over to one commerce, fifty yards of competitors eyeing one another shrewdly and fixing prices when possible. In the Chinese City were many beggars, thieves and opportunists, also deserters, exiles and lepers.
To Burnham it was home. The Imperial City was modern and mannered, with much running water and electricity. The Chinese City was timeless and real and raunchy.
“It is not the neighborhood foreigners choose,” Yen ventured.
“Probably the neighborhood chose me,” Burnham said. They proceeded down Red Head Street, named not for a trade but for a notorious swindler of the Ming Dynasty, and entered Stone Buddha Alley by the east mouth. It was barely wide enough for the car. “There,” Burnham said. “With the small balcony.” In the old days there had been a small balcony opposite also, an easy jump for a fleeing thief or a tracked husband, and many decades ago on those balconies painted women had sat in summer, cooing and coy, chirping at passers-by, and Burnham’s destination was still called the Willow Wine Shop. Why the willow stood for venery was an ancient Chinese mystery. Venery! The hunt! A tickle of lust regaled him in this city of sweet foxes. Tally-ho!
“My number,” said Yen, passing him a scrap of paper.
“There will be few telephones in this quarter.”
“Nevertheless. Now, as to Kanamori’s appearance—”
“I know what he looks like.”
“You have seen photographs?”
“I have seen Kanamori,” Burnham said.
5
Sunday, 12 December 1937. At dawn Kanamori stood on the slopes of the Purple Mountain and pissed down at Nanking. At the tomb of Sun Yat-sen. A correspondent from Nichi-Nichi came to interview him. Kanamori told of the nicked blade, of the enemy cropped like wheat, of rising emotion among the men, a quickening of the breath and blood as when the leopard nears the hart. Smoke drifted to them, and the reporter was alarmed. Kanamori calmed him: a unit below was burning brush to smoke out the Chinese rats. Bullets hummed and buzzed; the two men withdrew, Kanamori reassuring the reporter: Kanamori was invulnerable.
By now Kurusu claimed a score of one hundred and six. Kanamori claimed but one hundred and five. How to say who passed one hundred first? Impossible. “You will put this down,” Kanamori said. “Kanamori demands that the goal be extended by fifty. Ha!” The pencil flew.
Kanamori could see museums, universities, tile roofs everywhere, railroad stations, factories, canals, hotels, an airport. And the great highway, the Yangtze. All this falling to the Imperial Armies. The 9th Mountain Artillery Regiment. The 36th. T’ai-p’ing Gate below. Chung-shan Gate. Two blimps riding the sky. City walls. His men trembling. “Temples,” Tateno said. “There will be temples. Objects of gold.”
“There will be women,” Kyose said. They were on the march now, and had stopped to rest at a bus station. Posters: Resist the Invader! Water the land of your ancestors with the blood of the monkeys! “There will be rows and rows of women,” Kyose said, “all on their backs with the legs apart, and on the great hairy bush a little sign that says ‘Japanese spoken here.’”
The joke and the laughter spread like a fever. Men rolled and slapped and shouted “Japanese spoken here.” A car rattled up to them and halted, and they saw their captain and major, and the major asked why the laughter. Kanamori stepped forward, saluted and stood like a stake. He told the truth; the captain and the major clucked. How many heads, Kanamori? One hundred and five. And Kurusu? One hundred and six. Then who—? We cannot know. The new goal is one hundred and fifty. The captain and the major approved, and even smiled. The car raised dust. “Oh laughers,” Kanamori said to his men, “now be killers.”
They entered the T’ai-p’ing Gate, Ito sprinting beside Kanamori. Ito potted an old man fleeing down an alley. The old man fell on his face, possibly in a patch of oil or excrement, and slid forward. The Japanese fired at all interesting targets: anyone who ran, any distant figure on a rooftop. The city resounded, like a city in festival, with the stuttering, racy rhythms of the twentieth century: boom-crack-boom-crackcrackcrack. Kyose took the first woman. This and not the city was their triumph. The woman was of no description, forty or fifty. They broke into a bead-and-bauble shop and the men held her for Kyose, who rammed her, “Aha! Aha!” It was turn and turn about then, and the woman barely conscious; but not for long. There was work to do. A piece of bridgework and two wooden teeth fell from the woman’s mouth. Someone shot her and they went on. They skirmished to the rendezvous, to the open place where the Chu-chiang-lu met the Tung
-ha-lu, and there the captain and major were waiting. Light casualties. The men drawn up, at ease, and the announcement then, the major breathing victory like a dragon breathing fire, and his voice like a temple bell: anchored in the Yangtze, an American gunboat called the Panay had been sunk by Japanese aircraft.
The silence was overwhelming; the men were stunned. Even the firing seemed to cease. Then arose a great shout, a roll of Japanese thunder, and thrice they roared “Banzai!” and thrice more, and thrice more, and men were weeping, Kanamori among them.
6
At the Willow Wine Shop Burnham refreshed body and soul. He sat opposite a scroll of ancient warriors on the march, or was it a funeral procession? Noon was well past, and he empty as a wine barrel after the wedding. Other diners stared once and then ignored the foreigner. He ordered Huang Hsiao-chieh ts’ai, or Miss Huang mixed vegetables; also Tientsin water buffalo, which was fresh fish; and beef with lotus root. With these he ate pickled turnips and drank hot yellow wine. In time his balances were restored, and his tides and breezes swirled harmoniously. Still thirsty, he called the waiter: “Huo-chi!”
The slim, attentive waiter hurried to him.
“Such food is for beggars,” Burnham said. “I demand to see the proprietor.”
“It is fresh,” the young man protested. “For the gods! Prepared by the master himself! This is unjust!”
“Your greasy rat is an amateur,” Burnham said firmly. It was an old phrase for the cook, and not much of an insult.
The waiter flung up his hands in outrage. “Then I will fetch him. But this is crazy. Perhaps one is a perfectionist,” he muttered, padding away. “Perhaps one seeks horns on a newborn ram.”
Burnham composed himself.
The waiter returned, still muttering. Behind him waddled a medium-sized middle-aged man of imposing girth, his face frozen in anger. “Now, where is this barbarian?”
The fat man stopped dead, then shouted what Burnham had known he would shout: “Defile you! Burnham! Bugger you twice over, you great foreign whore!”
Burnham was up and striding forward; before the dazed waiter and a few interested, villainous patrons, the two men embraced.
The landlord of the Willow Wine Shop was called Hai Lang-t’ou. Strictly speaking, that was not a name. It meant “Sea Hammer” and designated harsh, tough-talking men of the fishing villages outside Tientsin. But this one had chosen to discard his earlier name or names, surely for reasons of prudence and jurisprudence. He seemed an average, amiable fat man; Burnham had watched him dispatch Japanese prisoners, and knew he was not average. Nor was the Willow Wine Shop an average restaurant, but a house of major advantages: discretion, a loyal landlord and half a dozen exits.
“Still hammering,” Burnham said.
“And you still poking the big nose into Chinese matters.”
“What a welcome! You have a room?”
“The best. Ground floor back. Out the window and you have four alleys in seconds. If you are killed on the premises I cannot promise elaborate rites. Or perhaps,” Hai asked wistfully, “you are merely a tourist this time?”
“Not a tourist,” Burnham said. “But with luck there will be no violence.”
“You said that outside Tsitsihaerh, and we lost a good handful.”
“And the Japanese lost a power station.”
“True.” The word was spoken grudgingly but was close to praise. “Such an explosion that was! A glorious day. Nevertheless, seeing you here I wish I belonged to a burial society.”
Burnham scoffed and complimented: “You have never thought twice about death.”
“Or once,” said Sea Hammer, “except at Tsitsihaerh. So.” Hai looked him over. “You are three years older, and much sadder.”
“And you are three years older and much fatter. You have put on twenty kilos, you old murderer. You rifleman. No more acrobatics on a stolen horse.”
“Never again,” Hai said sadly. “It comes of peace, and owning a restaurant. You will recall, however, that only the virtuous fatten.”
“True. You are a good man, and deserve fat.”
“Who knows? But in the old days we were all good men.”
“They were good days. Fighting purifies.”
“It does,” said Sea Hammer. “These days it is all politics. A man feels useless and therefore lazy.”
Burnham smiled; his heart was big with memories. “Come and sit. A cruet of yellow wine.”
“Yellow wine! No, no. The white. And hot.” Hai sent the waiter scurrying.
“Good,” Burnham said, “but no competitions. A cup or two only.”
“Oho. You have work to do. What can it be, with no more Japanese to slaughter?”
“Well, there is one more,” Burnham said, “named Kanamori.”
For some seconds Hai did not speak. Then he repeated the name. “Kanamori.”
“Yes. But first we speak of you. Have you married? Are you surrounded by little Hais?”
“It would require more to surround me than could be got in three years,” Hai said ruefully. “No, no wife. But”—he waved carelessly—“a woman or two. And you? You went home a hero, and married and begot?”
“Ha!” Burnham snorted fiercely and made dragon’s eyes. “I was sent home with one medal and one rebuke. The medal for doing my job with you and those other cutthroats. The rebuke for maintaining that the wily Chinese should be left to find their own destiny. I told this to a general.”
“To a general!” Hai was frankly shocked. “Then you deserve the reprimand. Courage is commendable; recklessness endangers all. And a wife?”
Burnham shook his head. “I have thought of it, but—”
“But courage is commendable,” Hai repeated dryly, “and recklessness endangers all.”
“I am not yet fully mature,” Burnham explained. “I have not seen all the green willows, nor heard all the lutes.”
“Green willows indeed,” Hai said. “You were always a notable weasel, hankering for the young ones.”
“Ah well, the young ones,” Burnham said. “No more. In my country the young ones go on and on about their parents. Or their young men. They are winsome and cuddly but mistrust the bed and make excuses.”
“Barbarous. No wonder you are sadder! We never told you this, but we called you Upper Fish, because at critical moments you were always to be found—if you were to be found at all—making the fish with two backs.”
Burnham was vastly pleased. “I think ‘superior fish’ would have been kinder,” he said reproachfully. “How quickly we come to the subject! Is there nothing else to speak of?”
“There is plenty to speak of,” Hai said glumly. The waiter set down a cruet and two small porcelain cups, and poured. “There is bad money and a useless war, and trade has fallen off.” He raised his cup: “Kan i pei!”
“Dry cup!”
They tossed them off. The liquor was a hundred and fifty proof and almost boiling. Burnham had accustomed himself to thinner potations; when this rammed his belly he swelled like a volcano and erupted immediately. “Woff!” he said, and tears sprang to his eyes.
“Good stuff,” Hai said. “How was your meal, in truth?”
“The best. You were always hungry. Skinny as a snake and ravenous. A restaurant seemed the natural thing. But if anything, the food has improved in three years.”
“I am unworthy.” Hai bowed in place. “Hsü! You are back.”
“And glad of it,” Burnham said. “For Peking men there is no other city.”
“True.” Hai hesitated. “And you have work to do.”
Burnham nodded.
“Then I suppose it must be done quickly.”
“Yes,” Burnham said. “Before—”
“Before the posts crack and the lintel falls. Well, let us see now: who owes who?” Hai replenished the cups; they sipped.
“Memory dims,” Burnham said. “You pulled me out of the freezing river.”
“You held the monkeys off at that monastery.”
Hai shrugged. “You took a bullet meant for me. I owe you a life.”
Burnham too shrugged. “We are surely even.”
“Then let us begin again. How can I help?”
“You know that Kanamori has been seen?”
Again Hai was silent for some seconds. “Yes, I heard that.”
“I am to find him.”
“And?”
“And take him back.”
“Do you know why?”
“Why?” Burnham showed surprise. “He is a famous villain.”
“And that is all?”
Now Burnham set down the cup. “Ah. Then there is more. What are you telling me?”
“That you must not hunt a tiger with bird shot.”
“And what more?” Burnham drank. “Listen, old Hai, this is a serious matter. Do not send a blind man to pluck this tiger’s whiskers.”
“I have never seen Kanamori. I have heard that he is here. Also that he has something—or knows something. A villain, yes, but villains are a copper a peck nowadays.”
“And how have you heard this?”
“One hears. A customer here, an old friend there.”
“And what does he know? Or what does he have?”
Hai frowned. “Your own people have not told you?”
“Not a word.”
“Yü! A blind man indeed.”
“Then unseal my eyes.”
“I wish I could,” Hai said. “Listen, there are always rumors, and the years exaggerate them. We had our own Kanamoris, you know; perhaps it is merely that he knows who they were, and has much to tell. I heard also that he had amassed wealth.”
“Wealth? And carries it about in a bag?”
“No. Not money. What, I cannot say. Jewels? A hoard. He is said to have had a Chinese look about him.”
“Yes.”
Hai looked up sharply. “You have seen him.”
“Yes.”
“Ah. And if he passes for Chinese, how will you find him?”
Burnham shrugged. “Do you know a policeman called Yen Chieh-kuo? An inspector.”
Hai made the mouth of a man who would spit. “A turtle egg. An unforgiving man and full of hate. A good policeman nevertheless. How do you know him?”
The Last Mandarin Page 4
