The Last Mandarin

by Stephen Becker

  In November of 1942 Kanamori inspected his retail outlets in the city of Yang-chou, a city heavily garrisoned because it was the confluence of a railroad line, a great canal, and Kao-yu Lake. As usual he wore the Chinese gown; as equally usual, his guard platoon, in field uniform and heavily armed, accompanied him on the truck. For Kanamori an opium den was now no more evil or notable than a wineshop. One entered, one greeted the pallid, unsmiling proprietor, one noted a few, or many, customers on pallets or wooden bunks. The sweetish, sickish odor was no more than an industrial effluvium. He scarcely ever saw faces, only the supine smokers or drowsers, so many rag dolls. In one den—a clean place, an air about it of reliability and domesticity—he had discussed price and volume with the proprietor and was warmed by the satisfaction of the honest businessman who feels that he has supplied a superior product at a reasonable price, thus buttressing the pillars of earth and the arches of heaven. Now he strolled the aisles, as if to ask, “Is all well? The service leaves nothing to be desired?” He stooped to retrieve a dead pipe lying at his feet, and pushed it toward the pallet, looking into the smoker’s face with the instinct of the gentleman about to say, “Your pardon, sir; you dropped this.”

  The face was familiar. Before he recognized it he felt shock, shame, a wrench and a stab; he set his teeth together in a hissing grimace, and then his mind relayed the message: this is Kurusu.

  When he could stir, he turned and left, with only an abrupt nod to the proprietor.

  Once each year Kanamori traveled home, by train to Shanghai and by ship to Nagasaki and then by train again, an interminable journey with stopovers and switchings, and if it was summer he baked in the metal cars, the humming of paper fans like a chorus of winged insects, to Akita finally, and then by wheezing bus to the village of Saito on the River Omono near Akita.

  In the village of Saito his father, white-haired but strong as an oak and stem, was the police force. When Kanamori entered the house, exhausted and dripping sweat, after his boots had been snatched almost from his feet by the servant girl, his father rose and stood like an emperor reviewing troops, eyes aglitter and the flare of his deep nostrils betraying grand emotion. Kanamori saluted; his father did the same. Kanamori then knelt at his father’s feet, and received his blessing. The old man spoke gruffly; it was the voice of affection, but even more the voice of instruction, of command, of manliness, the voice of the samurai. The father praised the son. From the family altar the household gods approved. This old man who had risen to major over thirty years recited the son’s successive promotions, and then spoke with rising satisfaction of their country’s triumphs, first in China and then, after the glorious winter of 1942, in Hawaii, Indonesia, Hong Kong and the Philippines. The old man’s voice was enriched by these victories; he spoke like a herald, or a narrator in an opera. He ordered the servant girl to bring wine, and to prepare a bath. Then he called to Kanamori’s mother, who was at last permitted to behold her son.

  Kanamori’s mother did not age, except for the graying of the hair. Each year she showed him the same face, unwrinkled, placid, impassive, only an occasional flash of joy or submission. The father would ask for details of Kanamori’s work in “military government,” and Kanamori would invent whole administrations, elaborating on “the transport problem” or “flood control” or “public health,” to his father’s obvious pride and satisfaction. Then his mother would ask if he caught many colds, or if he was planning to marry. At this his father would laugh and scoff. The two men would stroll, and in the street the father would say gravely, “Military government,” to Sugita the tinker, or “Political education,” to Kotani the restaurateur, and once, when a subprefect traveling through stopped to say hello, “A captain now, you see, and on the General Staff in Nanking!”

  All was serene in the village of Saito on the River Omono near Akita, but Kanamori’s dreams were more frequent and intense there, as if in contrast to the cool dawn and the eternal peace, and after ten days he was restless, and yearned within for Nanking, as if he were firmly bound to the scene of his conquests and his sins. The village of Saito was a painting from an old scroll; Nanking was the world. He studied his mother. Perhaps he was in essence Chinese. Always in these years this notion teased him: he was at heart Chinese.

  He said nothing ever of opium, of Olga’s, of murder and corpse-lined streets, of rape, or of the man-child leaping from the womb in his nightmares: feint left, feint right, Ima!

  12

  Burnham sauntered into the Willow Wine Shop late at night with a hundred pellets of Grade A Laotian opium in his right hand and a severe infatuation on his left arm. Sea Hammer scurried and hissed, but too late. Burnham walked in on a Chinese cop in a gray sharkskin double-breasted and an obvious gangster in purple rayon.

  He reacted like a trouper. He slew Sea Hammer with a dirty look: some protection! He shoved his door shut with the small package, bowed and smiled at the two men, warned Hao-lan of incipient snakes and scorpions by tightening the ring of his fingers on her wrist, and said, “Do not be a guest.”

  Yen saw the joke. “The landlord objected, but in the end admitted us. Official business. I hope I may be forgiven.”

  “There is nothing to forgive. The police are always welcome here.”

  “Hsü, now you are fooling.” Amused, he was inspecting this woman. Burnham took a moment to catalogue the gangster. Perhaps twenty-five; the suit tailored; sunglasses; a gold ring, intertwined snakes; a white shirt and a pale gold necktie with a pattern of small red crowns. A ready smile, a hairline mustache, flat eyes. “May I introduce Ming Chang-wei,” Yen said. “He is the trusted friend and confidant of Sung Yun.”

  “How do you do,” Burnham said.

  “Hello, Joe, whaddya know?” Ming said. “Sung Yun sent me because I speak English.”

  “An exquisite courtesy on his part,” Burnham said. “This is Anna May Wong. She has manifold talents but speaks no English, aside from a few coarse expressions. I suggest we confine ourselves to that language.” To her he said in Chinese, “Take off your coat and have a chair. Ashtray and cups on the chest. Whiskey in a drawer. A few moments only.” He asked the others, “You have news? It’s an odd hour for a social call.”

  “We came earlier, of course,” Yen said, “and so waited. We had wonder if your news. Also, Sung Yun would urge you to call by.”

  “I’ve been working,” Burnham said. “Renewing old ties.”

  “Ah, contacts!” Yen approved.

  “At least one old tie,” Ming said, “is worth renewing. A slick chick. Built for speed and not for comfort.”

  Burnham blinked, recovered, forced a smile.

  “You heard guns?” Yen asked.

  “Several times.”

  “Your safety. I am responsible.”

  “You must not think so. I must go here and there alone. There is no help for it.”

  “Still,” Yen said, “one feels such bad host.”

  God damn these fools anyway. “Nobody wants me to find Kanamori,” Burnham said. “Everybody tells me to go home.”

  “Sung Yun wants you to find him,” Ming said, “and that’s the straight goods.”

  “And I too.” Yen paused, groping for words. “He is remind them of war, you see. Most people rather forget. Also, your danger embarrass others, who lose face and feel guilt.”

  “Watch your step,” Ming said. “Kanamori is one tough baby. If he ain’t croaked by now.”

  A stylist. Burnham grunted. “I think I’m being used to draw fire. Or at least to stir up the snakes.”

  “Not by me,” Yen said. “I want only the man Kanamori.”

  Hao-lan complained in Chinese: “Is this to last all night? Time is money.”

  “My sweet singer.” Burnham’s voice oozed. “A moment more only.”

  She mouthed a noisy kiss.

  “Oh you kid,” Ming said, and to Burnham: “If we don’t pull him in now, he’s gone for good. You’re the last hope. A fresh bloodhound.”

  Yen sli
pped into Chinese: “There is so little time, and you work alone. Suppose you disappeared? What then?”

  “It must be done my way,” Burnham insisted. “I seek a paw print here, a bent blade of grass there; I sniff the wind, and listen to birdsong.”

  “You will hear more than birdsong,” Yen said gloomily. “You have already heard gunfire. The city is aboil. The students march. Your grass will be trampled, your paw prints obliterated. By tomorrow, perhaps.”

  “Then I must fail,” Burnham said.

  Yen drew smoke and calmed himself. “Forgive me. Perhpas it is as well. You have done this before, and with success. I hope I have not been unpleasant.”

  “You have been indispensable. Without your report I would wander in darkness.”

  “You have my number. You will call me each day?”

  “At least once.”

  “My prices are going up by the minute,” Hao-lan said. “Russian princes do not keep me waiting. Or American bristle merchants.”

  “My wild pigeon,” Burnham said.

  “I will stay for breakfast,” she said decisively. “For breakfast I like cold salt fish and hot rice.”

  Ming cleared his throat. “Sung Yun says to drop in tomorrow. Okay?”

  “You said it. What time, kiddo?”

  Ming beamed. “Around eleven in the morning? Can you dump hot stuff here?”

  “Where’d you learn English?” Burnham asked reverently.

  “In college.”

  “In the States?”

  Ming melted, suffused with joy. “No, no, right here. That is, in Chengtu, during the war. I majored in the American vernacular or mei kuo pai hua, and I hung around with GI’s. Have I the gift of gab?”

  “A richer gift than mine, old buddy. You’re hip.”

  Ming frowned. “I am not hep?”

  “No, no, my dear Ming.” Burnham was firm. “It is very unhip to be hep.”

  Ming sparkled. “Oh, that is swell. ‘It is very unhip to be hep.’ I am hip, pops, I am hip.”

  Hao-lan stood up, threw her fanny out of joint, slapped it and said, “Doss ah hip.”

  “Not now,” Burnham said. “Please remain seated.”

  “Not now, now now!” she cried. “Then when! Am I not lovely as the night sky? Am I not fragrant as the jasmine? Must I suffer rejection and indignity at the hands of tourists?”

  “Tourists!” Burnham was outraged.

  “Well, we go now,” Yen said. “Not much to report, you or we. Good luck.”

  “Bring him back alive.” Ming jiggled his brows. “Sleep tight, and—”

  “Don’t say it,” Burnham cut in. “Just this once, don’t say it.”

  He bolted the door and stepped to Hao-lan. On her face he saw a confused agony of need, love and gentle mirth, mirroring his own; he kissed her lightly on the mouth and said, “‘My heart is a silver bell, and my blood peals your name.’” She sighed happily and tugged him closer, and he wrapped her in a huge hug, and they kissed again, lips alive and flesh singing. Burnham went out of himself, and wandered remote, dark regions; it was an aching, obliterating kiss, a fusion of two ghosts, annihilating time and place, a chaos of thunder, sea foam, stars, tropical winds. He drew her head to his shoulder, and stroked her hair; he was overcome by a rude desire to cry out, to spill his love in speeches, but he kept silence and listened to the tremor of their blood. They clung as if drowning.

  In time they surfaced. Neither spoke. Her mouth quirked; she had perhaps thought of a small joke, not worth the telling, as he had thought of a waggish rebuke for her shameless and stylish performance, and found it not worth the saying. They did what lovers do. He kissed her eyes, her nose, her lips again; she ruffled his hair and stroked his face. He sat on the bed and pulled her to him, laid his head between her breasts, stroked her back and her buttocks. She pressed his head to her, tilted it back and bent to kiss his face.

  They paused, and smiled foolishly.

  With fingers like melons he fumbled at her cloth buttons, and they laughed aloud, because all buttons everywhere resisted lovers’ untimely ineptitudes. In time the buttons, indulgent after all, relented, and he drew the brocade from her and kissed her soft and silky breasts; one, and then the other, and then the one again, and the other, until she pushed him away and put him to shame by springing his own buttons in a jiffy. When his shirt was off she spoke: “You are a hairy bear.”

  His throat was thick, so he only nodded. She untied his blue sash. He flipped his shoes off and stood upright; his padded trousers fell about his knees, and he laughed clownishly, stepping out of everything and standing naked before her. He went to his knees, stripped her quickly, and planted a lingering kiss on the warmth of her mound. “Why, you are indeed a redhead,” he murmured. Already he was huge and tremulous. Her touch instructed him to stand. She stared frankly, made a little girl’s wide eyes and grinned in greed, mischief and open delight.

  He stumbled backward to the bed, sprawled, plumped back onto the pillow and extended a hand. She took the hand and carried it to her lips. He saw sorrow in her eyes, and remembered that she was vulnerable. He pressed his fingers to her mouth, met her gaze and tried to show her his own defenseless melancholy. Setting a knee on the bed, she leaned to kiss him. His hands cradled her breasts; the kiss endured; her nipples budded, and she slipped down into the crook of his arm, body to body as he turned to meet her. They lay together, and were warm.

  He stroked her sleek flank, and she his. They panted gently in rhythm, kissed, again, and he saw that she was happy and trusting. “In debauchery,” she murmured, “haste is a sin.” She spoke Chinese. Heeding her, and the poets, he lingered. Glaciers formed, covered the earth and melted away. Floods followed, and centuries of sunshine kindled their flesh. His breath deepened, hers quickened. His flesh throbbed, hers rippled. He grazed plains and meadows, and knelt groaning, his nose muffled in russet tufts. She cried out, hummed, chanted. Her body writhed and arched.

  After a lifetime she took him in. At the sudden sleek, silky, wrenching heat he gasped, yearning scalded his loins like hot tears, and they strained together, rocking and pounding. When she purred, sang out and finally sobbed, he grew giddy with joy and relief, and soon his own fervor overwhelmed him; he burst within her like a summer storm, riding her, spending love, desire, ecstasy in throb after throb. He heard his own voice: “Unh! Unh!” and hers: “Nnn.”

  They lay like moist sleeping pups for some time. Speech struggled to his lips and died; sweat mingled and trickled. Burnham shifted; for an instant Hao-lan’s embrace tightened, and she sighed complacently. Burnham growled. They nuzzled. He kissed her lips and breasts, slipping from within her, and rolled onto his back. She scrambled to her knees and bent to kiss his wilting flower. She pouted and bemoaned the loss: “‘When the hare dies, the fox is sad.’” He seized the moment to swing her round rump into range, and kiss each swelling moon with a loud smack.

  “Decadent foreigner,” she said.

  “Like your Russian princes and American bristle merchants.”

  She giggled, and hopped off the bed to stand gazing down at him. She ran a finger along a ridge of scar over a rib. “A bullet?”

  “A knife. A bullet here.”

  She kissed his scars and left him. Weak with love and gratitude, and scared half to death by both, he watched her walk, drank in her small body so beautifully formed, sleek and unwrinkled, golden in the low light. She sat naked in an armchair, and smoked, and they did not speak for a time—only looked and smiled and shook their heads as lovers do who cannot find the words.

  They shared a drink then, and tried feebly to find the words, and slowly the sadness came, drifting into the room with hints of tomorrow. They did not speak of this future; there was no need. Later Burnham’s manhood stirred again and they spoke of the mystery, awkwardness, homeliness and inefficiency of the human body, and yet, and yet. “Four legs would be so much better,” she maintained. “Good for the back and the balance.”

  “But then we could
not make love face to face,” he said.

  “Seen in that light,” she said primly, “the suggestion loses force.”

  “Seen in this light,” he said, “you acquire force. Come and lie beside me. Soon enough it will be time for cold salt fish and hot rice.”

  She did, and he rose on one elbow to gaze upon her body. Bliss surged into him at the sight, the exhilarating geography of sex, the rounded hills of breasts, the cavern of an armpit, the soft slope of the belly, the tangled grove of love-hair and the invitation of thighs. He remembered his father preaching on eternal bliss. To Burnham this was the only bliss. He tried to imagine eternal orgasm. He sensed the noisy simmer of his blood, rushing and clanging, oh breathless love, the prickling and longing, but also—God, will you never learn mercy?—the agonizing foreknowledge, the bone-deep anguish of love’s end, suppressed and denied but always impending: here or at the horizon, now or at the hour of death.