Wuhan

by John Fletcher

  ‘No payment, comrade. No true proletarian accepts money in exchange for labour. It is demeaning.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It has been an honour providing transport for a writer of such socialist truths as Rickshaw Boy. Long live the revolution.’

  With that he picks up his rickshaw and lopes off.

  I think about this for a moment, then turn up the small pathway.

  The garden is hung with peach and cherry trees in full bloom. Tulips, roses and peonies proliferate beneath them. Obviously the owner is a man of taste. And here is the owner himself, coming down the steps to greet me, a slight man in simple but tasteful trousers and shirt. I know him. I definitely know him. But I can’t place him. Who is he?

  ‘It is so kind of you to come, Mr Lao,’ he says in an immaculate Han accent. ‘I am so honoured that you have agreed to meet me.’

  ‘This is a beautiful garden that you have.’

  ‘Thank you, I am quite proud of my peach blossom.’

  Both of us are of course far too astute to make any historical allusions.

  Who is he, I think, who? Those eyebrows!

  The stranger invites me into his modest living room. On the walls are a couple of contemporary German woodcut prints – very powerful – and three Li Hua woodcut prints of Chinese peasants and refugees. We sit down in two Western easy chairs. On the low wooden table between is a small vase holding a few delicately arranged orchids. This man is obviously Westernized, but still retains a real respect for China.

  ‘Mr Lao,’ says the man, ‘let me first say what a great admirer I am of your work. I think your Rickshaw Boy speaks more immediately to the profound problems we Chinese face than any other novel I know.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘A poor Manchu hero, struggling in the world, making mistakes, being beaten down and destroyed. And I understand how difficult this must be for you, Mr Lao, a Manchu, to have to sit and listen to me, a Han, pontificating and patronizing you in my immaculate East Coast accent – after all the brutality and violence we Han have visited on your people.’

  I look mildly embarrassed. The man hurries on.

  ‘But I want to say especially that the works of yours that I admire most are not Rickshaw Boy or your other novels but your short stories on women – ‘The Crescent Moon’ especially. It moves myself and my wife to tears. No one for me expresses the systematic repression and cruelty towards women of our present society more powerfully than you.’

  This man is certainly a person of genuine feeling, I decide. And also a consummate actor. I look at him sharply. Who is he?!? The man takes my look to mean I am offended.

  ‘Please, Mr Lao,’ he says, leaning forwards and offering me some cigarettes, ‘would you like Senior Service or Craven A?’

  When I lived in London I always craved Senior Service, to savour their smooth cultivated taste, but could never afford them. Instead I smoked Player’s Weights. Since my return to China I’ve always smoked Chinese cigarettes – fragrant as pig’s droppings, but cheap. Trying not to be too eager, I take a Senior Service. The man leans forwards to light it. Suddenly I realize who he is. I can’t believe it! The man lighting my cigarette is Chou En-lai. Chou En-lai! Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China and number two to Mao Tse Tung himself. I drop my Senior Service.

  ‘I’m so sorry for my clumsiness,’ he apologizes. ‘Please, have another one.’

  This time I manage to light it. Chou En-lai! With the Japanese invasion, after years of war, the Nationalists and Communists have finally managed to form a unity government against them. Mao has sent Chou to Wuhan to sit as his representative in Chiang Kai-shek’s War Cabinet. Chou is in control of the country’s civilian war effort. Why has Feng sent me to meet him?

  He looks at me. Beneath his languid, aristocratic appearance I see he has a lean, hard body. That’s what marching 6,000 miles on the Long March gets you. I study his face to gain some clue as to what he wants from me, but all I see on it is confusion and embarrassment. What is going on?

  He fiddles with his cigarette, then plunges in.

  ‘I can’t tell you how embarrassed I am about this whole affair. The thought that I should have to call upon a great writer such as yourself to intervene, waste your time, on a matter so trivial…’

  Before I can intervene he ploughs on.

  ‘Look, I understand that writers – and you yourself, a naturally modest and generous individual, are a shining exception to this rule…’

  Not as modest or generous as you might think, I reflect.

  ‘…but most writers tend to be badly behaved, egotistical, and often plain nasty.’

  I stir uneasily.

  ‘This unfortunate matter in which I wish you to be involved concerns an extremely famous writer of ours who, not for the first time, considers himself to be madly, insanely in love with yet another woman. Narcissism bordering on the psychotic! He, unsurprisingly, considers himself to be the greatest Chinese writer alive. Amazingly, many Chinese agree with him.’

  We both understand we are talking about Guo Morou. I groan inside.

  ‘I personally,’ Chou continues, ‘would take every fucking European romantic poet – Shelley, Goethe, Byron – out behind a pigsty and happily shoot the lot of them for the calamitous effect they’ve had on our young revolutionary intellectuals. They read their Marx. They are convinced. They become sober and dedicated revolutionaries. Then suddenly they’re reading fucking Goethe’s fucking The Sorrows of Young Werther or some sob piece by Shelley and suddenly they’re jumping off fucking cliffs or slashing their wrists or drowning themselves in a midnight pool with the moon reflected in it. They become insane. All for love! Half our female intellectuals have succumbed to “free love” pregnancies!’

  There is a moment’s silence in his tirade.

  ‘I suppose you know who I am talking about?’

  I smile vaguely. Chou sees I understand who he means, drags on his Craven A and plunges onward.

  ‘Guo Morou was born into wealth, had a top-class education in China and Japan, became a rock-hard revolutionary, fell madly in love with a Japanese girl, stayed in Japan, married the poor girl and had four children by her while tirelessly sleeping with every other woman in Japan. All in the name of love. In 1927, with revolution breaking out here in China, Guo decided to help us out with it and came home, abandoning his wife, children, and various mistresses. Here, with his bad verse and histrionic speech making, he became an inspirational leader for many young Chinese intellectuals. Marx meets Goethe! The revolution was squashed by our present allies, many of us were executed, and Guo became part of a forced march south to escape the butchery. I will say, he did know how to march and carry a rifle and on occasion fire it. We escaped, he returned to Japan, where he decided to become not only our most famous poet but also our greatest intellectual and polymath, branching off into many areas of sociology, psychology, and even archaeology – Han archaeology, of course. He started an affair with Yu Lichun, Dagong Bao’s Japan correspondent. Then Japan invaded us. He obviously couldn’t stay there, but instead of joining us here in our fight to the death he decided to flee to Hong Kong because he’d some particularly important Han archaeology to undertake. He again abandoned his wife and four children and Yu Lichun. Yu Lichun committed suicide. Another Goethean! While in Hong Kong Guo happened to be at an art show opening when he fell in love with an exquisitely beautiful young dancer, Yu Liqun. Yu Liqun just happens to be the sister of the late Yu Lichun. This family connection didn’t appear to bother Mr Guo in the least, nor Miss Liqun, who never got on with her sister. But what did bother Miss Liqun was that she believes all true Chinese revolutionaries should be here in China fighting the Japanese. She had no time for the advances of an ageing semi-Japanese lothario lurking in Hong Kong rather than serving his country here in Wuhan. She told him this in no uncertain terms and got on the next flight to Wuhan, where she is a member of a modernist dance troupe performing in front of audiences of baffled peasan
ts. I am sure you’re well aware of this whole farrago from the literary grapevine.’

  I try to look as though I never listened to literary gossip.

  ‘This is our problem. In a nutshell. For reasons of national prestige and morale, we desperately want our “most famous writer” – apologies, Lao She – to become cabinet Minister for Cultural Affairs in our unity government, to give inspiring speeches in public all over the country and all over the world.’

  ‘I’m still not certain why you want me involved in all this? Why not just offer him the post?’

  ‘We did. Practically on our knees. But, he says, he is so much in love with young Miss Yu, he is so distraught at her callous rebuttal of his heartfelt offers of amour, that he cannot even think of getting involved in anything as mundane as politics. She is equally adamant. She will not marry him. When we suggest that as an idealistic young communist revolutionary she should be prepared to sacrifice herself for the revolutionary struggle, she looks at us coldly and asks us whether women’s emancipation is not at the very top of our agenda.’

  A long silence ensues. I say nothing, because I do not understand the situation. And because, instinctively, I understand that the less I understand about the complexity of this situation the less complicated my life is likely to become.

  ‘What we want you to do,’ says Chou, ‘is this. And I am fully aware what an unpleasant task this is likely to be for you. As you probably know Guo Morou has agreed to come to Wuhan. He is due on the train tomorrow. But he is still adamant on his demands. No Yu Liqun, no revolutionary work. He would be rendered incapable.’ Chou En-lai pauses. ‘I’ve done a lot of soundings on this. Everyone, including Feng Yuxiang, has said that you, a natural conciliator, a natural bringer-together – you’ve succeeded so well already with persuading and cajoling so many of your fellow writers into working successfully for the war effort – a man who naturally empathizes and understands his fellow human beings, who implicitly sees the funny side of things, can smooth the way…’

  Holy Moses! He wants me to be a matchmaker. A fucking matchmaker!

  ‘Excuse me,’ I interject, ‘you are asking me to betray a young and decent and idealistic girl into what is essentially a forced marriage to an unscrupulous and uncaring old lecher? And you are the one who just now said how much you admire my “Crescent Moon” story about a young girl forced into prostitution. How it reduces you and your wife to tears!’

  ‘This is a war. I do not wish to be melodramatic…’

  I rise up, walk out of the front door, Chou follows, the two of us end up standing under the peach blossoms.

  ‘Would you like another Senior Service?’

  ‘No thank you. I’d prefer the rubbish brand of Chinese ones I normally smoke,’ I say, taking out and lighting one and blowing the smoke in his face. Chou En-lai winces, then takes out another Craven A. By now he’s consuming cigarettes like an express train on fire. A moment. Beneath the peach blossoms he speaks with emotion.

  ‘I am aware of your terrible situation with your wife and family. There can be nothing worse than not being able to communicate with your most dear ones. Not even knowing whether they live or die. I understand from your writings how deep your feelings for your wife must be.’

  I do not respond.

  ‘Have you heard from them?’

  I glare at him.

  ‘It might be possible for us, through our networks, to discover what is happening with them. I give you this offer whether you accept my proposal or not.’

  What a consummate politician this fellow is.

  ‘Let me tell you a story,’ says Chou, ‘about myself, my wife, on the Long March. The 6,000-mile Long March. She is not the prettiest of women. I did not marry her for her looks, I married her because I loved her. During the march she became pregnant. She realized that bearing a child would slow down the march. Without even telling me she was pregnant she had an abortion. Partly as a result of her resultant weakness she developed tuberculosis, she started spitting blood. But she would not leave the march. She marched on and on and on. She would not quit. She survived. People say to me she is ugly, she cannot bear you children, why not divorce her like other successful men do. I would never, ever leave my wife. I respect women. But we are at war. Young men die for our country. So do young women. Is it that wrong to ask Yu Liqun to lose her virtue? During the Rape of Nanking family women who were facing rape and assault asked prostitutes, who were more used to such things, to take their places to save them from violation. The prostitutes agreed to that. Is it wrong to ask you, a good and a humble man, a Christian and a socialist, to abase yourself before Guo Morou, to bow your head to his insecurities and empty boasts about his literary eminence, so that in the future we can build a world where such abominations and immoralities can never reoccur?’

  There is silence beneath the peach blossoms. Finally I bow to him. He bows to me. My life has suddenly got a whole lot more difficult.

  15

  Wei cleaned his Lee Enfield with intense care. He oiled the bolt and firing mechanism, tried them again and again to check they were working smoothly, polished the wood casing and cleaned out and oiled the barrel with a rag. This ritual, which he performed many times a day, soothed him. Wei liked his machinery to work.

  Grand Arse crawled up to him. A day later they were still holding the same ridge of demolished houses against repeated Japanese attacks. Grand Arse liked to soothe himself by talking. He told Wei a story from his childhood. One day in his village he’d come across a drunken farmer, slumped unconscious against a wall. He looked around to check no one was watching, then picked his pockets. In his bag he found a large bag of flour. He took it home to his mum. His mum beat him black and blue for stealing it. She then used it to make the most heavenly, scrumptious dumplings he had ever tasted. After they were all finished his mother gave them all a lecture on how stealing was wrong. This story really tickled Grand Arse. Huang, who was waking up, asked what the joke was. Before Grand Arse could tell him the whole story all over again whistles sounded. The Japanese were attacking again.

  For the rest of this second day these attacks continued. The hand-to-hand fighting was scrappy, the tanks ineffective due to both suicide bombers and the unevenness of the ground. Casualties were heavy. Replacements arrived almost continuously.

  After one attack Wei saw Grand Arse sitting in a doubled-up position and rocking backwards and forwards as though he desperately needed to shit but couldn’t. He was crying in pain. Wei hurried to him, put his arms around him.

  ‘Wei, I shall die. I shall die. I can’t stick it. Its ripping me apart.’

  It was terrible to watch him. Froth came from his mouth, sweat poured off his face. Thank the gods he’d soon be out of his pain. He had been shot from the side – the bullet going through both hip bones and his lower gut. With a groan and an agonized twist he died. Wei rifled his pockets and found six silver coins. They had reached an agreement early on in the fighting that if either died the other could have his money. His few other belongings – a billy can, a small knife, a lucky charm and some tobacco – Wei laid out on the ground for the rest of the company to take what they wanted.

  Wei knew he’d never forget Grand Arse because of his mouthwatering description of eating those dumplings.

  *

  That night a strong wind sprang up from the east and the Japanese devised a new plan to destroy the stubborn defenders of Taierzhuang.

  In their hurry to prepare the city as a battlefield the Chinese had forgotten to remove the wooden roofs from the central parts of Taierzhuang. Noting the strong wind from the east the Japanese decided to use incendiary shells and bombs to set alight the roofs and burn the defenders out of central Taierzhuang. The shells and incendiary bombs rained down and almost immediately flames started seizing hold and, in the wind, leaping from roof to roof, wooden buildings and temples exploding into flame, shops and warehouses containing oil or diesel detonating fireballs into the sky like red and yellow flowers.
A firestorm raged throughout central Taierzhuang.

  With the Chinese soldiers and civilians in the streets and houses, the flames streamed above their heads, roofs crackling, tiles exploding in the heat and raining down on their heads. Flames roared from the windows of houses, sweeping their flowerpots from their window ledges, their herbs and dahlias and orchids flaming like pennants as they hurtled into the streets below. Great multi-coloured flames leapt into the dark skies – yellow, orange, pale white and crimson, red, green and blue, twisting, blossoming above the city like giant tulips and peonies.

  Trapped in the upper storeys of the houses and temples humans roasted as if they had been spitted before a good kitchen-fire. They were burnt quite brown, every stitch of clothing singed off, and as their bodies dried and crackled in the heat their tendons and muscles pulled their limbs tight and twisted like dried frogs.

  Wakened by the sudden light and thinking it day and therefore time for more carrion, crows and kites left their roosts and started flying into central Taierzhuang. A whole raucous flock of rooks from a nearby park joined them. But soon the fire was so fierce that its huge thermals swept the bewildered birds tumbling upwards into the skies above, screeching and cawing in terror. In the intense heat of the air currents they started igniting spontaneously in clouds of burning feathers. Smoke was everywhere, billowing and swirling and revealing and concealing the flames like vast velvet curtains. Dragons lived above Taierzhuang.

  And the inhabitants below? There were civilians down there, refusing to leave their homes – because they feared the loss of all their property and livelihoods, because they were too old or because they were too young, because they knew of nowhere else to go and couldn’t conceive of living anywhere other than the place they’d always lived. And there were soldiers. A fire like this did not consume all oxygen. If the fire was to live it must suck in oxygen from below to feed it above. The streets and alleys beneath the fire became like tornadoes, hurricanes, with air being sucked in from all the surrounding countryside. Most people found shelter in cellars or in the tunnels. But there were still people in the streets. Doctors, nurses, firemen, fighting the almighty winds, dodging falling tiles and dead birds. And all the coolies shielded from the heat above by their great conical straw hats – bringing in ammunition, food, medicines, and above all water – cheerfully on their return journey taking out children and the elderly and the dead and wounded. Their hats smouldered, their clothing smouldered, but they mainly thought excitedly about all the money they were making on quadruple time. This war couldn’t go on too long!