Last Princess of Manchuria

by Lilian Lee

  "Then die!" he spat.

  She took the gun from him without hesitating. Like a sleepwalker, she pointed it at her left breast and pulled the trigger. All the while, her eyes never strayed from his face.

  He watched in horror as blood welled up from her wound, and a bright red stain crept across her kimono. It fanned out bit by bit like some sort of conjurer's flower.

  He seized her by the wrists and pulled her to him, holding her tightly.

  "I owe you nothing more!" she said emphatically.

  She was animated by a weird energy. Her blood flowed rapidly from her agitated body onto his hands, and she struggled to endure the pain. It seemed to be tearing her apart, piercing right through to her very heart. She bit her lip so hard that she drew more blood. Trembling like a leaf, she tried to keep the searing pain at bay, tried to hide it away deep within her being. All of her energy was focused on one thing: She must stay conscious! She must!

  At the time, she could not fully realize the significance of that gunshot. Perhaps, someday in the distant future, it might come to her in a flash of recognition. She owed him nothing! There would always be a red scar, like a tiny mole, on her left breast. Even Naniwa Kawashima, who had raped her, who had thought himself in possession of her, even he would never discover this secret.

  Thirst.

  She was so thirsty! It was as if she had gone a lifetime without water. Every drop of fluid in her body had been drained away, and her parched body was on fire. But it was a dim and vague kind of burning.

  Yoshiko was exhausted. She dreamed she was walking down a strange road. Suddenly, it became very, very long; then, in the next instant, it started to twist and wind. On and on it stretched, without end. She tried in vain to find someone who could tell her the way; but for all eternity there was only she. And she would keep walking, and walking, forever.

  She floated between consciousness and unconsciousness, caught in a struggle for her life. She fought hard, and in the end she pulled through.

  Yoshiko lay on her sickbed, her face ashen. She was very weak, but she had survived.

  She had no sense of how much time had passed. Was it still autumn?

  Daylight would have shown a riot of fall color. The maple leaves, on the verge of turning red, shone orange and light green, like tangerines and pomelos. But inside the hospital everything was a blank and lonely white—bloodless, loveless.

  Gradually, the day grew colder. The doctor came by on his rounds.

  "Mr. Yamaga has come to see you many times," the doctor told Yoshiko, "but you weren't awake."

  "Starting tomorrow," she said weakly, but with inner determination, "I will be receiving no visitors."

  Before he could respond, she continued:

  "I will be undergoing further surgery."

  The doctor expressed some surprise.

  "Pardon me? Miss, your operation was a success. You don't need any more surgery."

  "The operation to which I am referring," she said flatly, "is a tubal ligation. I wish to be sterilized."

  "What? You can't be serious!" The doctor looked at her in shock.

  "Yes, I am," she said firmly. "And I shall sign for the bill myself."

  "It can't be done. You won't come of age until you are twenty years old. And besides, I simply cannot—"

  "If you refuse," she said, cutting him off, "then I shall kill myself. Tomorrow."

  Having delivered this ultimatum to the doctor, Yoshiko turned her face away and shut her eyes. She was chasing the shadows from her spirit. She would be free.

  Although she was not tall and did not appear to be physically strong, every fiber of her body was steeled with inner strength; and every ounce of that strength was directed toward one goal: making a clean break.

  She could not remember when she had begun doing it, but she had long liked to chant a little poem to herself:

  I have a home I can't return to, I'm full of tears I cannot cry. The only law here is injustice, Who will listen to my story?

  She would not die. She had to keep on living. When she reflected back over her life and thought about squaring old accounts, she realized that she did not hold anyone else accountable for her fate. Oddly, this thought terrified her. But she had paid off her debts. She was free to begin again.

  7

  Yoshiko Kawashima and Ganjurjab were wed in Port Arthur, Manchuria, in November of 1927. The ceremony was held at the opulent Daiwa Hotel, in the Japanese concession. The union was a great accomplishment for the staff officers of Japan's Kwantung Army, which was now poised to invade Manchuria.

  Naniwa Kawashima did not attend the ceremony. He had served his purpose, and there was no longer any place for him in the enterprise. Army Headquarters was now in charge of the entire operation. It was more efficient that way. Kawashima had unwittingly given the operation a strong push at a very critical moment, but he was no longer deemed useful. The higher-ups agreed that it was best that he retire from public life. It wasn't what he had hoped for, but he had expected it for some time.

  The Kwantung Army's invasion strategy had two prongs: military and civil. On the military front, Colonel Daisaku Komoto masterminded a plot to assassinate Marshal Chang Tso-lin, the powerful warlord who not only controlled Manchuria but also two other adjacent northeastern provinces. Komoto's men blew up Chang's private train car as he traveled from Peking to Mukden, killing him and thus eliminating one more obstacle in the way of Japanese domination of Manchuria.

  On the civil front, the Kwantung Army helped to engineer the marriage of Yoshiko and Ganjurjab, which created a powerful alliance between the Manchurian and Mongolian peoples. Without their combined support, Japan could not hope to occupy the Northeast.

  The wedding was a lavish affair, attended by an impressive list of VIPs. The chief of staff of the Kwantung Army was there, along with an assortment of officers and members of the Black Dragon Society. There were foreign ambassadors, the new head of Prince Su's household, Chinese adventurers, and even old Ching loyalists. This last group still refused to wear Western clothing, and, for this special occasion, they had rummaged through their dusty trunks and pulled out the antiquated long gowns and ceremonial robes that they now wore. Although it had been over a decade since the fall of the dynasty and the founding of the Republic, some of these old royalists had somehow managed to save their braids from the shears of zealous progressives. For the wedding today, they defiantly drew these symbols of Ching loyalty out from underneath their hats for all the world to see.

  There were other holdovers from the ancien regime there as well. Highborn ladies came teetering in on tiny bound feet, each lady supported by several attendants. With their smooth, porcelain-white skin and their finely arched brows and almond eyes, they were the epitome of nobility and cultivation. But elegance and hauteur were all that these aristocratic ladies had—in every other respect, they were quite useless. They were helpless and crippled, for a cruel and barbaric custom had deformed their feet, which had been rolled up into little balls of flesh and broken bone. This made them completely dependent, not even able to cross their own thresholds without help, and swaying unsteadily as they hobbled down the street.

  Yoshiko smiled at them coldly. She pitied them. She was not one of them. She was nothing like them. She was capable, driven, and independent. And although she was a woman, she saw herself as both masculine and feminine, possessing the best qualities of both. She would be a man among women.

  Yoshiko's wedding dress was a Mandarin-collared cheong-sam of multicolored satin with borders of embroidered flowers around the hem and cuffs. A long, flowing veil of diaphanous silk trailed the floor behind her, rippling as she walked.

  Her face was rigid beneath drifts of heavy makeup. The stiff white powder permitted her no expression—she was like a doll made of snow. Against the dead white of her face, her crimson-painted lips looked all the more ripe and brilliant. Elaborate earrings of pearls and carved jade hung ponderously from her ears, clumsily dragging across her sh
oulders. In short, Yoshiko looked just like any other bride sitting primly for wedding photos with her bridegroom. Ganjurjab stood stiffly beside her, decked out in a long mandarin-collared gown, brocade jacket, and little round ceremonial cap of satin.

  During a break in the festivities, Ganjurjab leaned over to Yoshiko and whispered into her ear.

  "I was really surprised when you agreed to my proposal," he said, brimming with happiness.

  "I was surprised myself," she answered dryly.

  "I'll give you anything you ask for. Just say the word." He seemed oblivious to her icy tone.

  "There's really nothing I want—except my freedom."

  "Your freedom?"

  She felt a trace of contempt for her new husband.

  "Your noble father pledged his loyalty to mine," she explained. "For my part, I have pledged my loyalty to the Ching emperor, and to him only. If I am to keep my faith, I must have the freedom to act on my own, as I see fit. Otherwise, we will never be able to achieve the sacred task we have set out to achieve."

  "But—you're my wife now!" he said indignantly. Still, Ganjurjab loved her, loved her far more than she loved him, and he could not deny her anything. "Whatever your heart desires," he said.

  Just then a handful of decrepit old royalists came up to congratulate the newlyweds. These men had managed to live to a ripe old age—for nothing. The worthless servants of a vanished nation, they were filled with bitter regrets, and they faced death with the knowledge that they would go to their graves without seeing their hopes realized. Yoshiko was like a ray of hope to them: Just when they had all but given up, Manchuria was blessed by this fine flower of womanhood. Her family background was impeccable, and she was beautiful, too. They saw in her the future of Manchuria, and all of their hopes were riding on her.

  "Congratulations!"

  "Best wishes!"

  "What a perfect couple you make!"

  "The spirit of the great Ching dynasty lives on in you, Princess!"

  Yoshiko inclined her head proudly, acknowledging their tribute.

  "Now, just as it has been throughout history, the people are looking to young heroes like you to save them!"

  "We all hope that you will succeed and that the day is not far off!"

  On and on they went, heaping praise and flattery on the young couple, but at last the little delegation thinned out until they had all withdrawn. Their empty words vanished with them, as though swept away by a sandstorm on the Mongolian steppes.

  Yoshiko was twenty years old when she married Ganjurjab. He was twenty-four, and, as suited a Mongolian prince, he took her home to his family after the wedding. They moved to the windswept grasslands of Mongolia, leaving the bustle and sophistication of the big city far behind.

  At first Yoshiko was awed by the grandeur of the vast landscape, and she delighted in galloping on horseback over the seemingly endless plains. But there was no escaping the backwardness of life in this remote region. Yoshiko was accustomed to the constant activity and variety of city life, and she soon tired of having to face the same broad expanse of yellow dust day after day. She was high-spirited and liked excitement, and this place made her unutterably miserable.

  Ganjurjab's clan was very large. Aside from her mother-in-law, Yoshiko had to contend with aunts, sisters-in-law, uncles, brothers-in-law, nephews, and other assorted relatives. To make matters worse, she and Ganjurjab were not getting along very well. They argued continually, but he always backed down and let her have her way.

  What a weakling! He was a man. He was supposed to be strong and firm, but instead he always swallowed his anger and made all kinds of concessions, just to keep the peace. He loved her deeply; but the more he loved her, the more he invited her contempt.

  But why did she always pick fights with him in the first place? It was all because she wasn't cut out to be an ordinary married woman. With no one to confide in, she bottled up her frustrations and became increasingly alienated from the rest of the family, who came to see her as a kind of freak.

  What about her dreams of an independent Manchuria and Mongolia? What about bringing back the Ching dynasty, in all its power and glory? What did this marriage have to do with any of that?

  Suddenly, she saw her mistake. She had married the wrong man. What was more, she wasn't meant for this kind of life. Why, the very idea of marriage was ridiculous to her. There were plenty of men in the world who could give her what she needed.

  Ganjurjab tried to please her by moving back to Dairen, a large city on the coast of Manchuria. But Yoshiko still wasn't happy—life with Ganjurjab had become unbearable. She went on numerous car trips with an endless string of Japanese boyfriends. She danced the nights away with lounge lizards in Western suits and came traipsing home in the early hours, under the watchful eyes of neighborhood gossips. One day she came across a tabloid at the newsstand. It had a flowery masthead, and the headline read the romantic career of miss yoshiko. She had to laugh—it was all so amusing!

  Yoshiko and Ganjurjab were husband and wife in name only. They appeared together in public, attending banquets and other social functions, but their hearts were separated by a bottomless chasm.

  One night, Ganjurjab came home to an empty house. He had grown used to it, but that night was different, for Yoshiko was no longer in China. She was on her way to Japan.

  There, on the floor of their apartment on Sheng-te Road, he found it: her discarded wedding ring, right where she had thrown it.

  After three years of married life and a lot of extramarital experience, Yoshiko had matured into a very attractive young woman. For the second time in her life, she made the solitary journey east across the Sea of Japan. But this time it was different. This time it was her idea.

  She wanted to see Naniwa Kawashima.

  8

  When Yoshiko appeared at his door, Kawashima was more than a little surprised; but he quickly hid his astonishment and behaved as though her presence were nothing unusual.

  He had sold off his house in Akabane, where ambitious men had met and plotted, and he was now living in seclusion in a quiet, out-of-the-way town. Perhaps he had been born at the wrong time, for his grand schemes had all run into dead ends. Now, for all intents and purposes, he was retired.

  "It's been three years since I last heard from you. I thought you were still out on the Mongolian steppes," he said, toying with her and absently stroking the kitten on his lap.

  "I won't be going back to Mongolia ever again," she said.

  "Are the two of you . . . divorced?"

  This was a troubling prospect, indeed. Although Kawa-shima had withdrawn from politics, he still had a personal interest in the situation. This new development threatened to blight the project they had labored over for years, before it could even bear fruit.

  "No, no. I didn't get a divorce. I just walked out!"

  Kawashima seemed utterly spent and dispirited at first; but then, out of nowhere, he felt a powerful surge of anger.

  "You are too impulsive! Too undisciplined! How can you possibly expect to accomplish anything meaningful for the Black Dragon Society when you can't even control yourself! Ever since the Kwantung Army assassinated Chang Tso-lin the year before last, we have been just a step away from creating an independent nation in Manchuria—a nation for you. But now, with our goal in sight, you come running back here on your own, throwing all of our efforts away!"

  Yoshiko laughed coldly. She wasn't anybody's puppet! He still thought he could control her, and it made her angry—angry at him for trying to order her around now, and angry for all of the times he'd pushed her around in the past.

  "I never do anything halfway," she retorted firmly. "Nor am I one to give up in the face of a little bit of difficulty. I have come back to settle accounts with you. Ganjurjab has no talent, no potential. Thanks to you, I wasted three years of my life on him—three of the best years of my life. But I don't wish to discuss that humiliating business any further. What's done is done. I've realized that if I
want to accomplish anything in this life, there is only one person I can depend on: myself!"

  "So you think you can be independent, do you? What sorts of resources do you have to draw on? What will you live on?"

  "My money!"

  "Your money?"

  Yoshiko appraised him coldly, this man who had profited so handsomely from his long association with her father. He was a greedy parasite, and had been all his life. Why had she been so unfortunate—why had she fallen into the hands of this man? If only there had been someone else to take care of her, right from the start. It all might have been different.

  "As I recall," she said, "one of the properties in my father's bequest was the Lu Tien Market in Dairen. You were to collect the rents, as well as a commission. I'm aware that these make up a considerable sum."