‘A woman like you should remarry. Such a cook you are! What man would not be content with such a cook?’
The men around the table nodded and continued eating. Ming Li smiled. Of all the boarders she’d had, old Abel Goldman was her favourite. He’d lost all of his family in the camps, and was obviously not in good health, but he still managed to see the bright side of every situation. She took some empty plates back to the kitchen and started washing them. Wished she could have more boarders like Able Goldman. With MeiMei now married, and many Westerners leaving Shanghai because of the Communists spreading across China, she had so few boarders she was barely making ends meet. But still, she’d endured much worse …
Ming Li thoughts returned to Abel Goldman. She knew he meant well, so she didn’t try to make him understand that as far as she was concerned, Xueliang was still alive. She refused to believe otherwise until given proof. Only last week the woman next door had thought she was seeing a ghost when her son, also arrested by the Japanese some years before, walked into her house and collapsed in her arms. He’d become nothing more than papery skin stretched over bones, and she’d wanted to put him to bed but he’d pushed her away and begged for a bath. So she’d dragged the wooden tub near the fire and he had sat in it until the water turned cold, scrubbing himself with a brush until his skin bled and she’d begged him to stop. Only then had he allowed her to put him to bed, and she’d fed him rice gruel then watched as he slept. It had been a sleep punctuated by screams and terror, and he’d raved about rats and brushed imaginary fleas from his body so that she’d sung to him as if he were still a very small boy and the panic eased, but only for a while. Later he told her he’d been taken to a prison in Manchukuo, and had been released by a local man who’d come to scavenge after the Japanese had fled, but he would not talk of what had happened there.
The woman’s story had given Ming Li hope. Xueliang may also be making his way back, and when he returned he’d find her waiting. He had to come back – she was so tired of coping on her own, and there were days when she wished she could simply go to sleep and never wake up.
She poured more hot water into the basin. The kitchen door opened but she took no notice; one or another of her boarders often cleared the last of the dishes and brought them in to her.
‘LiLi?’
Ming Li froze. Edward? But Edward wasn’t in China. The room swam before her and she grasped the table to stop herself falling. In two strides he was holding her close.
‘Oh God, LiLi, you’ve gone as white as a sheet! I’m sorry. I should have sent word. I should have let you know I was trying to get back. But I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to. It took months – you wouldn’t believe the red tape I had to go through … But you’re shaking! Here, sit down. It’s okay. It’s okay …’
Ming Li stared at Edward, unable to speak.
‘I’m such a fool. I should have realised it would be a shock. But all I wanted to do was get here. I didn’t know if you were dead or alive. I didn’t think …’ He stroked her cheek, her hair. ‘I half expected Xueliang to open the door, but I didn’t care. Then when this old man opened it instead, I thought you didn’t live here anymore. I thought … But never mind that. Look at you – you’re so thin! Are you well? I was so worried about you. I tried to get back to Shanghai. Even during the war I tried. You were the only thing that kept me sane—’
‘You shouldn’t have come here.’
‘I know, but LiLi, I had to see you. You’ve no idea how much I looked …’
‘Your house. Your amah—’
‘I know. I saw it today on the way to the hotel from the airport. Nothing but rubble. But that’s not important. It’s you I want to know about. You didn’t write. I thought … Oh LiLi, look at you, shaking like a leaf! Stay here, don’t move – I’ll make you a cup of tea. Hot and sweet. It’ll make you feel better.’
They lay curled together, limbs entwined, their skin slick with perspiration. From across the courtyard came the gentle snore of one of the boarders.
‘You mustn’t come here anymore. If anyone should see you …’
‘I’ll rent one of your rooms. We’ll be together all the time.’
‘No! People would realise. And when Xueliang comes back …’
Edward sighed.
‘LiLi, the Japanese … their prisoners … it’s been years now … I don’t think Xueliang’s coming back …’
‘Shhh …’ she quietened him with a finger on his lips. ‘He will. Others are coming back, even now. Xueliang has always been strong. He knows what—’
‘LiLi, listen to me. When the UN went to those jails … those camps … what they found … you’ve got to accept that he’s not coming back.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. But when he does, he’ll find me here. Waiting. Like a good wife should.’
She disentangled herself and turned away from him, curled into a foetal ball. He stroked her shoulder but she shrugged his hand off. He sat up and reached for his cigarettes.
‘Okay, LiLi, we’ll do it your way. I won’t come here anymore. But I’m back working at the Museum; they’re expanding their collection, so I’ll be in China as often as I can. They’ll only cover so many trips each year, but doesn’t matter – I’ll sell Walpinya if I have to. It can be like before – we can go to my hotel. We’ll be careful.’
Ming Li didn’t respond.
‘LiLi, there’s something else you should know – I’ve divorced Julia.’
Still Ming Li didn’t respond. Edward butted out his cigarette and stroked her shoulder.
‘So, tell me about MeiMei,’ he said, wanting to break this mood. ‘Is she happy? This husband of hers, this Huang Feng, he treats her well?’
For a moment Ming Li didn’t answer, but then she too sat up. He put his arm around her and pulled her close.
‘I don’t know. She says everything’s all right, but I don’t trust him.’
‘Why is that?’
‘I think he’s two-faced. He’s too smooth, too charming. During the war, he would come pick up MeiMei and always bought her gifts. Expensive gifts. Food. Delicacies. Where did he get the money? For me too, though I always refused them and MeiMei called me a fool. She used to tell me I should grab what I could while I could. He should have been offended, but he’d just laugh. ‘
‘Does MeiMei know how you feel?’
‘She knows. But she was set on marrying him anyway. With her father away … Personally I think she just married him because he’s got money. MeiMei doesn’t handle poverty very well.’
‘But he treats her right?’
‘Who knows? I don’t think she’d tell me if he didn’t, she’s much too proud. I think he gets rough with her, though she’d never admit it. It’s just a feeling I’ve got. I can’t trust him. Politically too – always called himself Socialist. Now he’s claiming he’s always been Communist.’
‘A lot of people are doing that nowadays; survival, I imagine. Not much you can do, really, except be there for her when she needs you, give her support.’
‘I know.’
‘Talking of which, you can’t keep on like this. You’re too thin, too pale. I’m going to help. No, don’t look at me like that, I mean it. You have to let me, LiLi.’
‘No. I’m not your whore.’
‘I never said you were!’ He turned towards her, angry. ‘Where did that idea come from? It’s never been like that between us. Never. That you could think —’
‘Others would think it.’
‘Then come back to Australia with me.’ But even as he said it Edward knew it was impossible. If the young Australian serviceman stationed in Japan couldn’t succeed in having their Japanese wives allowed into the country, what chance did he have? There were rumours that Harold Holt was trying to change things, but to date, as far as ‘Asiatics’ went, the White Australia policy was still in full force.
‘You know that’s impossible.’
‘We could try. I could get recommendations to back up my�
�’
‘Stop it! Stop dreaming, Edward. You know it wouldn’t work. It would be worse there. I’m not blind. I’ve seen how Western men look at us. I’ve heard the comments. They may have let us into their clubs, but it’s only because they wanted to do business with our husbands. They think Chinese women exotic. A prize to be won. Something a little wild, a little dangerous beneath the gentility. Part of the Oriental experience, to be enjoyed whilst abroad, then bragged about at the clubs back home. In the same category as opium …’
‘I never looked at you like that.’
Ming Li smiled. He had, of course, that first time he’d seen her in Cercle Sportif Français, though she believed he hadn’t been aware of it. But in spite of this, and unlike many other men in Shanghai at the time, he’d also shown a genuine interest in the country and its people – a need to understand – and that was what she’d initially found attractive.
She stroked his face. ‘No, not you, Edward. But others do. What makes you think it would be any different in Australia? But I can manage. I have my boarders.’
‘Yes, and they’re all Westerners. From what you’ve told me, half of them are gone already. How long do you think the rest will hang around when the Communists take over?’
‘I’ll be fine. I have to do this on my own. It’s important to me. For MeiMei. For Xueliang.’
Edward nodded – it was no use arguing. With Mao’s People’s Liberation Army already well established in the north and northwest and flooding southward, many Nationalist officials were quietly planning their escape, and increasing their cash reserve by illegally selling ancient Chinese art and antiquities. The Museum had agreed they might not have many more opportunities to add to their Chinese collection; they wouldn’t question the number of times he travelled to Shanghai, or the length of time he spent here. And there was little to keep him in Australia. He had a new overseer at Walpinya Station that he trusted completely, and Charlotte had asked to stay there instead of joining him in Sydney; he suspected a romantic interest from someone on a neighbouring property. For the moment at least, he’d come as often as he could. To be with Ming Li. To make sure she was all right.
20
Edward felt this current trip to Shanghai would be his last. For months now the civil war had continued as the Communists gained ascendency over the Nationalist movement, and it was more and more difficult for him to get into China. But when he’d said so to Ming Li she’d refused to listen. She’d thrown her arms around his neck and tried to quieten him with kisses, and when he forced her to listen anyway she’d pulled away and covered her ears with her hands, and cried and shaken her head so that he’d given up, at least temporarily, and they’d fallen into the routine they’d established on previous trips, pretending he would always be here.
When his divorce had become absolute he’d briefly considered buying another apartment in Shanghai, but the political situation combined with the unstable currency and out-of-control inflation dissuaded him – the thought was only a wish to go back to more pleasant times. So he’d booked a hotel suite instead, and asked Ming Li to move in with him. She’d refused, not wanting to give up control of her boarding house, but she did agree to join him each day while her boarders were at work.
When she arrived he always ordered breakfast for both of them, suspecting she hadn’t eaten. Then they forayed for artefacts, and the fact that she seemed less worried about being seen with him in public made him wonder if it was a sign she was accepting Xueliang would not return, but he never asked her outright, afraid of her answer.
After lunch they napped and made love, and spent the rest of the afternoon talking, or reading to each other, and there were times he would glimpse the girl he had known before the war. Sometimes they listened to music and told each other stories about their childhoods, and Edward often thought he was more married to Ming Li than he’d ever been to Julia. Late in the afternoon he’d walk her home, and they always stopped at the markets where he’d buy enough food for her boarders’ meal that night – the only help she allowed him to give her.
But as the time for his departure grew closer, Edward pressured Ming Li to plan for their future. He wanted her to leave China. Go somewhere safe, somewhere where he could go to more easily. He still hoped that one day she would be able to join him in Australia – he had even spoken to Chen Mu about the possibility of him sponsoring Ming Li, should such a thing become possible.
‘Don’t,’ she always said as they lay entwined on sheets damp with passion, ‘don’t spoil what time we have left together.’
He’d pull her closer then, and watch the coming of dusk outside his hotel window as he struggled to think of ways to help her, when the time came that they could no longer be together.
‘Take them,’ Edward said. ‘Just in case.’
Ming Li looked at the three small unset diamonds in the palm of her hand. He was going back to Sydney in the morning and she knew it was important to him that she accept his help, that her constant refusal made him feel frustrated and impotent.
‘Consider it a loan, if you must.’ He closed her fingers around the stones. ‘An emergency fund. When all this is over, you can give them back to me, if it’ll make you feel better. But if you need to, sell them. Promise me that you will, LiLi, please! If I could stay longer, I would; it’s killing me having to leave you. But at least if I know you have some backup … Please LiLi, just in case I can’t get back next time.’
She nodded. For some weeks now the Nationalist armies had either been in retreat or were deserting en masse. Xueliang still hadn’t returned, and of her boarders only Abel Goldman remained. She knew that soon the Communists would be in Shanghai. Then what? But she didn’t want to think of a ‘then what’.
‘All right, I’ll take them, for now. But only because I’ll be giving them back to you next time you’re here.’
‘Stop it, LiLi!’ He grabbed her roughly, exasperated. He wanted to shake her, force her to admit there probably wouldn’t be a next time. ‘Listen to me! If I can’t get back. If I can’t—’ but her tears stopped his words. ‘Oh LiLi I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!’ He pulled her close then, holding her tight, never wanting to let go. Never had he felt so powerless.
‘Don’t go,’ she whispered. ‘Don’tgodon’tgodon’tgo,’ and she reached up and pulled his face down to hers, kissing him on the lips and eyes and face, and when he felt the wetness of tears against his skin he was no longer sure whether they were his or Ming Li’s.
He didn’t walk her back to the boarding house that night, and after they made love she clung to him and cried again, begging him not to leave, and he tried to comfort her as one would a small child, until at last she fell asleep in his arms. He spent the next hours watching her sleep, taking in every detail of her face, of her body. The way the soft glow of the bedside lamp cast shadows on her cheeks. The way her chest rose and fell with each breath. And all the while he silently cursed Australia and China for their laws and their wars, and he cursed himself even more for his helplessness. When the first light of dawn finally showed through the gap in the curtains he quietly dressed and turned off the bedside lamp, and left the room, not daring to look back.
On the last day of January 1949, General Fu Zuoyi surrendered Beiping to the Communists. They renamed it Beijing and declared it China’s new capital. Some weeks later Nanjing and Tientsin fell.
Suddenly tens of thousands of Nationalist troops poured into the city. They commandeered schools, private houses, even temples and hotels, and Ming Li expected her house to be taken any day. She watched all the people aimlessly wandering the streets, clutching their bedding, hoping for a safe place before nightfall, and knew that this could soon be her.
Part of Ming Li wished Edward were here now, another part was glad he was safe in Australia. He hadn’t returned since that day he’d given her the diamonds, though he’d written to her, letters full of anguish at his inability to cut through the red tape and come just one more time. But then, she thought
wryly, maybe it was just as well. Where would he stay if he were here? All of the great hotels had been commandeered, and his luxury suite probably had machine guns set up at the windows by now, aimed at the Bund. She’d written back to him and reassured him she was safe, though as the weeks passed it became obvious less and less mail reached its destination.
Sandbag barriers materialised everywhere overnight, and machine guns now lined the Bund. At wharves, railway stations and airports people fought each other to get on board. Everyone knew the Communists would cross the Yangtze any day now, and everyone wanted to escape Shanghai. Ming Li knew she could no longer pretend. It was time for her to get out.
There had been no phone, gas and electricity since Tuesday, and spasmodic firing could be heard toward Hungjao. Though barely dawn, shopkeepers were frantically scraping off anti-Communist posters from their shop fronts and putting up new ones praising the People’s Liberation Army and Mao Tse-tung. The Red Army had taken City Hall and the police headquarters without a single shot being fired, though along the Bund Communist troops were still fighting the Nationalists embedded in the gardens beneath the Jardine offices. In the Hongkew area Nationalist deserters were reported to be stripping off their uniforms and offering all their money in exchange for any civilian clothes.
‘Many of us hid jewellery in all sorts of places,’ Abel Goldman said as he dipped the narrow, bony end of a ham in melted wax. He checked that the diamonds were no longer visible and waited for the wax to harden. ‘Some sewed them in the lining of their clothes, but it was the first place the Germans looked.’ He checked the wax once more and dipped it again. ‘But I think you’ll be safe with this.’
Some days ago, after Abel Goldman had bribed officials for exit permits, and bought his and Ming Li’s train ticket to Hong Kong on the black market, he’d walked along the Bund. It was then he’d noticed that some travellers in the pushing, shoving crowd carried a ham. He’d realised it was a traditional peasant farewell gift, though nowadays somewhat exorbitant in price, and he thought it would be the perfect place for Ming Li to hide her diamonds. While Westerners fleeing Shanghai were allowed to take their personal belongings with little question, it was a different matter for the Chinese. Many who tried to smuggle out their valuables had their tickets torn up and their passage cancelled. Abel Goldman had offered to carry her diamonds over the border, but Ming Li had refused, worried in case the rules changes and they caused him some trouble. So for the first time in his life Abel Goldman bought a ham – a small one, so as not to arouse envy – then presented it to Ming Li.
The Yellow Papers Page 16
