Last Princess of Manchuria

by Lilian Lee

  She could have killed him if she'd wanted to, but she let him go.

  Yun Kai spoke without turning around, politely but coldly:

  "Thank you, Commander Chin!"

  He strode out. He was really leaving—this time it was forever.

  Yoshiko couldn't understand her sudden weakness. Was she shaken by his calmness in the face of death? He acted as though he didn't care whether he lived or died—so maybe it was respect that stayed her hand. It occurred to her that she'd never met anyone as pure and uncomplicated as he was. Then again, perhaps there was more to him than met the eye. After all, when she compared herself to him, he was the one who accomplished what he intended to, while she was left empty-handed.

  She felt ashamed. Where was her life headed? The house of cards she spent years trying to prop up had come tumbling down. All at once she felt very old. The eyes that once sparkled with vitality were dim, for the hardships of her life had taken their toll, and she was worn out. After toiling away the best years of her life, she, Hsien-tzu Aisin-Gioro, was just another wounded soldier, her body too crippled even for one last mission.

  She had lost him! He was gone from her life forever.

  She crumpled to the floor, but then, like a woman possessed, she began firing wildly at the walls around her. Glass shattered, crystal lamps jingled, and then everything went dark as one of the bullets knocked out the last light bulb. The floor was strewn with wreckage, the bits and pieces of a life that could never be made whole again. A chilling vision of the future rose up before her eyes: The strongmen of Japanese militarism were taking up their brooms and sweeping it all away, tossing these fragments of her soul onto the dust heap of history.

  Japan's invasion of China was official now, and the Kwan-tung Army no longer needed to mask its intentions—Yoshiko was no longer an asset. They didn't need her anymore.

  Manchukuo was just a stepping-stone.

  At 11:00 p.m. on the evening of July 7, 1937, the Japanese Army unit garrisoned at Fengtai, a suburb of Peking, went on night exercises near the Marco Polo Bridge. Claiming that an infantryman had been lost during maneuvers, the commanding officers demanded entry to the nearby walled town of Wanping in order to search for him and, on this pretext, bombarded the town. Reinforcements arrived, and soon Peking was surrounded on three sides; the city's Nationalist government, unable to get aid from General Chiang Kai-shek, was forced to retreat in the face of this massive offensive. Peking fell, and Tientsin fell with it.

  Japanese planes started bombing Shanghai, indiscriminately and around the clock. Bombs fell on the Bund and on Shanghai's thriving downtown commercial district until an area of several square miles was reduced to rubble. Not one roof tile lay unbroken, and the ground was littered with corpses.

  After the fall of Shanghai, the Japanese Army marched on to Nanking, where it began a bloody six-week massacre. No one was spared in that orgy of murder, rape, looting, and destruction. In Nanking alone, the dead and wounded numbered more than three hundred thousand. The Nationalist government abandoned the city, and the Japanese boldly announced that China would be laid waste within three months.

  From there, the Japanese turned south, implementing a policy called the "Three Everythings": burn everything, kill everything, steal everything. All of China was plunged into terror and despair. Chinese were no better than dogs, and if a Chinese citizen did not bow down low enough for Japan's imperial soldiers, he could easily lose his life.

  Yoshiko was no longer at the center of the action, but she struggled to keep up the appearance of power and influence, bringing in a little cash by extorting money from defenseless shopkeepers or selling occasional bits of information to the Japanese military, and trying hard to curry favor with Madam Hideki Tojo, the wife of Japan's prime minister. But she was living on borrowed time.

  Meanwhile, a Nationalist official named Wang Ching-wei fled the Nationalist stronghold of Chungking for British-controlled Hong Kong, where he issued a cease-fire declaration. Wang then set up a new "Nationalist government" in Nanking, in 1940, and the rival Chungking and Nanking governments were plunged in bitter strife. Soon the Communists joined in the fray.

  With China's rulers embroiled in internal conflict, conditions for her 400 million people, most of whom wanted nothing more from life than a full belly and a roof over their heads, went from bad to worse. Many people became professional refugees. Some managed to escape; most did not.

  One day Kwantung Army Headquarters received the following message:

  Your subordinate Shunkichi Uno reports on the status of Yoshiko Kawashima as follows. The Pacification Army under her has been disbanded, and, while Yoshiko was extremely effective at one time and helped our noble emperor's forces to achieve many victories, she is no longer useful. Moreover, she has become a liability, having acted on her own to free an anti-Japanese guerrilla for purely personal reasons. She is no longer reliable, and we request permission to issue a top-secret order for her termination.

  The higher-ups granted Uno's request, and the orders were conveyed to a skilled and experienced operative. Up to now, this man had been involved in propaganda work, directing much of the cultural life of the new state of Manchukuo and establishing a national film studio there. As studio chief, he found an obscure youngjapanese girl named Yoshiko Yamaguchi, and, with a little bit of tinkering, made her over into a Chinese actress named Li Hsiang-lan—Fragrant Orchid. He promoted her aggressively, and she starred in quite a few movies, to the great benefit of Japanese-Manchurian friendship and interracial harmony. But if he was famous for his movies, his real work was in military intelligence. His name was Yamaga.

  He felt more than a bit rattled when he received his orders at headquarters. They were putting him in a very awkward position. Why had they chosen him?

  19

  It was midafternoon—the clock read 3:20—and Yoshiko was still asleep. Her face still bore traces of last night's makeup, a smudge of powder and faded eyeshadow, a half-painted mouth. She had gone straight to bed without bothering to wash any of it off, like a tired clown.

  Tossing and turning, she dreamed strange dreams, her face alternately twitching and relaxing into a calm expression. Then, as if touched by a ghost, she awoke with a start.

  A man's shadow fell across the foot of the bed. He had his back to the light, and she couldn't make out his face. Suddenly, she recognized him and all but jumped out of her skin—it was Yamaga, her first love. Wasn't it long over between them? She wondered. What was he doing in her bedroom?

  He couldn't bring himself to do what he had been sent to do. She lay silently on the bed, worn and haggard. The passing illusions of beauty and youth were gone, leaving nothing behind but this pitiful heap of flesh and bones. Her vitality and her looks were irretrievably gone—her eyes had lost their luster, her hair its body. Coughing twice in rapid succession, she tried to sit up.

  "You!" she hissed, collapsing back onto the bed. "What are you doing here?"

  Yamaga didn't respond. His gaze fell upon the morphine needle on the nightstand.

  "It's been a long time," Yoshiko pressed. "Don't tell me you just happened to be in the neighborhood and felt like dropping in! Who sent you?"

  Her nerves were on edge, but she tried to compose herself.

  He went to the window and opened the curtains. A shaft of sunlight, filled with dancing motes of dust, reached out toward her. She squinted into the strong light.

  "I merely came to see how you were doing. You needn't be suspicious."

  She laughed harshly.

  "When you're in my line of work, you learn to be careful. I wouldn't be alive if I weren't suspicious. Why should you be any exception?"

  She knew what kind of man he was; he had no illusions about her, either. Only fate could decide the outcome of this game. Years ago, in the beginning, when they were young and deeply in love, they would never have deceived one another. Now, they were like a pair of scorpions facing off.

  "Pull yourself together, Yoshiko!
Isn't that the advice you once gave me?"

  She had all but forgotten that letter, those words, the thousand yen. Her life had become an endless journey. Only fate can decide, she told him then. Pull yourself together!

  "Get up," he said curtly, "and put on some nice clothes. Let's get some fresh air."

  She stared at him fixedly for some time before she got out of her high, cushioned bed and went to the bathroom to wash up. She purposefully left the bathroom door ajar as a way of showing her trust. As she washed her face, she speculated as to why he was there. The water coming out the tap was muddy— she wasn't sure if it was rust or a broken pipe, but the water was full of tiny particles. The water in China was never clear.

  Yamaga hesitated outside the door. He knew why she left the door open, and it made his task all the harder.

  Yoshiko spoke to him from inside the bathroom.

  "If you came here on some particular business," she hinted, "then don't let me stand in your way! Still, I want you to know that it is a privilege to be with my first love—"

  She emerged from the bathroom, drying her hair with a large towel. She glanced at him in the mirror and smiled.

  "Yoshiko," he said. "Would you dress yourself up the way you used to and just let me look at you for a while?"

  She turned to face him.

  "Those whose lives are mostly behind them are the ones who like to reminisce," she said pleasantly. "I have quite a few years ahead of me yet, and many things left to do."

  "For instance?"

  "Off hand, I can't really say. Success? Love? A family? Friends? Power? Money? Justice? They're all illusions. None of them really matter."

  "How about peace?" Yamaga asked softly.

  "If you ask me, that's the biggest sham of all! Come on, let's go out for a bit."

  Yamaga was having second thoughts.

  Nervously, Yoshiko opened her closet and started going through her clothes, at last deciding on one of her cheongsams. It was one big gamble, she thought to herself. She was trying everything, but she couldn't figure him out.

  "Did you know," she said softly, "that when a woman succeeds, it's because a man has been propping her up? Women are only bad because men worship them blindly. Sometimes I think we women can only be at peace in a world without men." It was like a cri de coeur—she was talking more to herself than to him.

  At last she slipped her arm through his and announced that she was ready.

  "Let's go," she said.

  She took a great deal of care with her appearance, hiding her worn and tired features underneath a blanket of paints and powders; but it was all an illusion. Beneath that lovely surface, she was just as haggard as ever. Still, her beauty now dazzled him.

  A rickshaw brought the pair up to the entrance to a Taoist temple. They got out and ascended the temple steps one at a time. Yoshiko was still holding him companionably, seemingly free of all fear and suspicion.

  Looking up, Yamaga read the plaque over the lintel: six harmonies. He noticed the scent of incense and reflected that, even in these most troubled of times, the temple was an oasis of calm where nothing changed. A couplet hung beside the door to the shrine:

  Spread the word—benighted souls will follow the path to enlightenment.

  Show the Way—mankind will open the gates of the world to the kingdom of heaven.

  Some people still believed that everything was preordained, and that one simply had to surrender to fate.

  The hall was filled with memorial shrines inscribed with the names of the departed: Madam Wang, Master Li, and all the other esteemed ancestors of the faithful, your voice and visage are with US still, read one plaque, beneath which were offerings of gladioli, roses, yellow chrysanthemums, fruits, cakes, and other sweets.

  The fragrance of sandalwood incense drifted through the air.

  "It's a funny thing." Yoshiko sighed with deep feeling. "As long as we're alive, we're worthless. We only become precious after we die."

  "Go ahead. Light some incense," he urged.

  "What about you?"

  He shook his head.

  "I'm not a believer."

  She lit her incense and turned her back to him, murmuring, ". . . but I believe."

  Yamaga's hand went involuntarily to the revolver at his waist. He had his orders.

  In one corner of the temple, a medium was telling fortunes by writing characters in fine sand spread over a board. When the spirit entered him, he started to write, his brush flying as he traced the characters, one after another in quick succession, in a dazzling display. Each one was a mystical diagram that he alone understood, and he read them aloud for his assistant to write down in pen and ink. A woman was seeking a prescription, and the medium recited a long list of Chinese herbs:

  "We have sought a remedy for cataracts of the left eye. The prescription is five ounces of shu-ti, three ounces of chuan-lien, three ounces of niu-chi, three ounces of huai-shan, a half ounce of ju-hsiang . . ."

  When he finished, the woman knelt down respectfully and kowtowed in deep gratitude. Then she left, prescription in hand.

  "Something bothering you?" Yoshiko prodded Yamaga. "Go ahead. Have him tell your fortune."

  "I don't have any particular question to ask him."

  "Well, just ask him about your future in general," she persisted. She glanced at him, trying to read his heart.

  "All right." He nodded and turned to the medium. "I'd like to know whether or not I can accomplish my task. My surname is Wang."

  The diviner's brush started to move, and as he wrote, he intoned:

  "Mr. Wang would like to know whether or not he can complete his task. He was born in 1894, in the Year of the Horse, and is noble in appearance."

  The answer came right away:

  "In ten years, he will die miserably because of a woman. He will commit suicide, his body left in the wilderness to be eaten by wild dogs. But, if he can avoid this disaster, his luck will change, and he will know untold riches."

  When he heard this, Yamaga broke into a cold sweat. It was as though someone had dumped a bucket of freezing water over his head. He didn't know if he believed what he heard or not. Did these Chinese ghosts really have the power and wisdom to guide him? What did it mean—in ten years he would die because of a woman? They were at an impasse. One of them would have to die, and the choice was his.

  He was over forty years old, a man of the world. Should he believe or not? He didn't notice Yoshiko walking over to stand behind him in silent witness to his inner turmoil. He was conscious of nothing but one question: Should he believe or not?

  Yamaga turned around to face her squarely and unconsciously dropped back a step to see her more clearly. He would accept what fate offered him. Perhaps the spirits read his mind and were merely spelling out the decision he had already made on his own. Deep down, he knew that he could not bring himself to kill her.

  "Yoshiko," he said, but he didn't need to say anything— they both knew. "I'll see to it that you return to Japan!"

  Was he letting her go? A shadow of suspicion flickered across Yoshiko's face. Did he mean it?

  The lonely quay on a harbor outside of Tientsin was deserted except for the two of them. As Yamaga helped Yoshiko with her luggage, she was looking all around, not daring to believe he would really let her go. Past experience taught her not to trust anyone, least of all those closest to her: The gentlest person often turned out to be a cold-blooded killer. And she should know. Was she about to get her comeuppance for all of her betrayals?

  With every move he made, she grew more wary, her eyes bright. Was he trying to lull her into letting her guard down so that he could spring on her later? Was he finally going to make his move here in this desolate, godforsaken place? Or did he really mean what he said? Was that possible in a world like this?

  Yamaga put his hand in his pocket, and Yoshiko's heart pounded with terror. Her life hung by a thread. She knew only too well that in the past she had abused and insulted the one man who could sa
ve her now. She couldn't pretend to be in love with him anymore—still, she once called him her own. But that was a long time ago, when they were in love. Did he remember?

  He pulled a roll of bills from his pocket—Japanese yen— and with great care put the money into her handbag. She looked up at him, ashamed of her own suspicions and suddenly filled with self-loathing. What could she say to him?

  "Sometimes those fortune-tellers are right. Are you sure you won't reconsider?"

  He laughed and shook his head.

  "I don't believe in any of that stuff. Your boat's here. Take care of yourself!"

  She boarded the barge, which took her out to the mail ship that would carry her to Japan. He had arranged her escape in secret. It was no luxury cruise, but he was giving her another chance, a chance to start all over again. She would have to lie low for a while.