Mei-ling was standing very still beside the charcoal brazier, watching him, and he saw a light in her eyes which sent his memory racing back to that moment at the height of the storm on board the Tomeko Maru. Then she had worn an embroidered silk dress which emphasized the delicacy of her high cheekbones and the soft tint of her skin; now, in the coarse, faded cotton uniform of the Red Army, burning revolutionary conviction gave her beauty a more elemental, passionate quality. But as before, the elusive shadow of a smile seemed to shimmer in her dark eyes and he was seized by the same instinctive feeling that something profound had been communicated between them.
On an impulse, Jakob shuffled forward suddenly toward the fire. Mei-ling, surprised, drew back a pace from him, but he stretched his hand past her to pluck a single live coal from the glowing brazier. He held it tight between his fingertips for two or three seconds, sucking in his breath fiercely between his teeth. Then he dropped the coal and held up his singed, blackened fingers for them both to see.
“This time, at least, Mei-ling,” he said gently, “I know I’m not dreaming!”
3
Mei-ling stared at his burned fingers in consternation. She seemed puzzled by his action but some indefinable quality in her expression suggested to Jakob that she had an intuitive understanding of what had made him do it.
“I felt the same way when I saw you riding with the Red Army leaders above the Hsiang River,” explained Jakob. “I didn’t know then whether I could believe my eyes or not. Often my dreams of you have been just as vivid.”
“I realized I knew you only when I heard my name called,” said Mei-ling.
“Of course — you had no cause to remember me.”
Mei-ling looked away into the fire, as if regretting immediately an indiscretion. During the silence that followed, the burning charcoal in the brazier shifted, releasing a little shower of sparks. In the sudden dance of firelight, Jakob could easily have imagined that the gaudily painted faces of the mud gods were stiffening and growing more intent in an effort to overhear what was being said by the flesh-and- blood occupants of their hail of worship.
“My wrists were freed the next day for the first time since I was taken captive. Were you responsible?”
“I told my brother I’d seen you. He’s an officer in the Red Cadres Regiment — perhaps he gave the order.”
“Please thank him for me.”
“I can’t — he was wounded at the Hsiang. He was swept downstream but luckily the current washed him ashore and a patrol found him.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s traveling in one of the hospital carts in the transport column.”
Mei-ling removed a pan of boiling water from the brazier to prepare a pot of fragrant yellow tea. After filling two small bowls, she handed one to Jakob and he sipped the liquid reflectively.
“A Frenchman was watching you talk to a deck coolie when we first met on board the Tomeko Maru,” said Jakob. “He suspected you were Communists. Were you and your brother already revolutionaries then?”
Mei-ling gazed into the glowing brazier, holding her tea bowl in both hands. “I’ve been a revolutionary, I think, since I was nine years old.”
“But I thought you said you came from a rich family.”
“Yes, I do — that’s why I became a revolutionary. Our family’s wealth was first built up by my grandfather. He was a comprador for the British trading houses when they were building the foreign concession. British businessmen paid him large sums to hire wharf coolies but he imitated the capitalists and rewarded his laborers with a pittance. He recruited coolies for the Dutch colonists and shipped off thousands to die in the East Indies: He even joined the British in trafficking opium. He exploited the Chinese working people in every way he could to turn their sweat into wealth for his own family. But worst of all he dealt in mu tsai — that’s what made me a revolutionary!”
“But surely mu tsai are family servants, aren’t they?” asked Jakob with a frown.
“No, in truth they’re slave girls — daughters of southern peasants too poor to bring them up. First they’re sold to landlords to help pay extortionate land taxes and the landlords resell them as servants and concubines for the degenerate rich in Shanghai and Canton. In reality, their owners hold the power of life and death over them. All our household servants when I was young were mu tsai slaves — although my grandmother preferred to call them ‘adopted daughters.’ “
Mei-ling paused and sipped her tea, her beautiful face clouding with distaste at the memory.
“One of our servants had a daughter, Little Kwei, who without anyone’s knowing became my playmate. Every afternoon we met secretly and played around the lotus pools in the southern courtyard, daydreaming of what we would do when we grew up. Then one day, to my horror, Little Kwei’s face was powdered and painted and she was put up for sale by my grandmother along with ten other very young mu tsai. I hid in the room to watch and saw fat Chinese millionaires in flowing silk gowns drinking tea as they inspected their purchases. They made Little Kwei take down her trousers to show them her legs and her body. They prodded and touched her everywhere. They even scraped the powder from her face to inspect her skin. When an old man with a leering face asked her if she wanted to be his concubine, she nodded as she had been commanded, without looking at him, and burst into tears. She was still sobbing as he led her away. . .
A sad expression stole across Mei-ling’s face and she sat quite still, immersed in her thoughts, until the faint sound of her baby crying in another part of the temple brought her back to the present.
“It wasn’t until much later that I realized that even for women like me, life was little better than slavery. All the future held was an arranged marriage to the idle son of some Chinese millionaire of our class. There would be no right to work or inherit property. But most of all, it was the sight of Little Kwei sobbing that first sowed the seeds of revolution in me. I began to write childish stories of imaginary warriors who fought their way across the land to free all the unhappy little mu tsai. At the age of nine I began to want to change China. Now, because of the Red Army, those childhood fantasies are beginning to come true.”
Deeply moved, Jakob drew a long breath and for a minute or more neither of them spoke. “Perhaps we have something in common after all.” he said at last. “I began to dream about ‘saving’ China when I was ten. I’d heard that Chinese people believed blue-eyed Englishmen could see three feet into the ground — and this helped them to discover gold. in my imagination I saw myself riding through China, discovering gold everywhere and fighting off great hordes of bandits so that I could give the gold to the poor people.”
“And now the ‘gold’ you’ve come to give us is Christianity?”
“Perhaps that’s one way of putting it.”
“Christianity and all religions are fool’s gold. The Red Army is the only real gold that can help the poor of China.” Mei-ling glanced slowly around at the lurid mud idols placed in their niches in the hope they would promote fertility and good harvests in the region. “None of these gods has ever rescued the poor in the past.”
“But killing people you hate won’t change everything either,” said Jakob softly. “Nothing will really change until the hearts of men are changed.”
Mei-ling poured more tea into their bowls and seated herself with a quiet dignity beside the brazier once more. “Your Christian way would take too long — and it might never succeed. China needs to take its courage in its own hands now.”
“You’ve shown great courage yourself in making this march with a sick child,” said Jakob.
“I’m marching because I want to serve the revolution,” said Mei-ling simply. “I work as an administrative cadre on the staff of Military Commissioner Chou En-Iai. But there are other women who are much braver. Chu Teh’s wife fights with her husband’s units and the wife of Mao Tse-tung has just given birth to a baby on the march — although her body is full of shrapnel from a bomb blast.”
“Is the foreign adviser your husband?”
Mei-ling looked up sharply. “No, he’s not.”
“Will you marry him later?”
Mei-ling held Jakob’s gaze steadily. “No.”
“What will you do if the baby survives?”
“There’s almost no chance of that.” In the firelight Mei-ling’s face became regretful and sad. “Perhaps sometimes I’ve let my ideals blind me. The idea of other countries helping China to throw off its chains seemed more realistic in Paris and London than it does now.”
“Why?”
“Here we’re cut off from the outside world. No foreign help can reach us in this wilderness. We’re fighting alone now for China’s future her voice sank to a whisper and her expression indicated clearly that she was equating her own personal experience with the wider plight of the marchers, “Perhaps it’s only right that this child shouldn’t survive.”
The hint of a tear glistened in the firelight and Jakob could see in the set of Mei-ling’s slender shoulders her female vulnerability as well as her determined strength, and he felt himself moved to compassion.
“There’s another experience we perhaps share, Mei-ling,” he said in a gentle voice. “I’ve already lost an infant daughter. On the morning my ‘wife was killed we left our baby hidden in a stable in an effort to save her life. I was never able to return to fetch her
Mei-ling absorbed the information without replying. She sat staring into the fire and a silence lengthened between them. When finally she spoke, her voice was pensive and she did not turn to face him. “How did I appear in your dreams? As a traditional daughter of feudal China? Dressed in a high-collared gown, embroidering silk tapestries, and writing exquisite characters on a scroll?”
“The dreams were always confused . . . and strange ...“ Jakob stumbled over his words, fearing she might somehow read in his manner something of the true nature of his dreams. “They were vivid — but bore very little relation to everyday reality.”
“Why do you think I appeared in your dreams?”
“I don’t know ...“ Jakob hesitated, groping for words to explain something he had neither understood himself nor allowed himself to think of too deeply. “When we met on the ship I could hardly take my eyes off you’d never seen anybody as beautiful as you before. And you played the piano in the storm with such composure. For a time I think I hoped there might be things in life we could share
“Perhaps now that you’ve seen the reality in a dirty uniform of the Red Army, your dreams will cease.”
Framed by her smooth black hair, her face remained as beguiling as ever in the flickering firelight. “You’re even more beautiful now,” said Jakob involuntarily. “I’ll never forget you . .
The wailing of the baby became faintly audible again and Mei-ling stood up. At the same moment the unfamiliar sound of booted feet on the flag stoned floors of the temple reached their ears and Jakob turned to see a fair haired European entering the inner room. He wore a faded, ill-fitting Red Army uniform of gray-blue cotton and a soft cap with a red star above its peak. The cheap uniform gave the man a coarse, clumsy look, and his pale Caucasian face seemed incongruous beneath a long peak that until then in Jakob’s experience had always shaded yellow-brown Asiatic features. When he removed the cap, Jakob saw that the European’s face was damp with malarial perspiration and he was shivering.
“This is the European prisoner you sent for,” said Mei-ling in a formal voice. “I’ve freed his hands in order to give him some food.”
Without waiting for a reply, she hurried from the inner room in the direction of the baby’s wailing, leaving Jakob looking into the sickly white face of Otto Braun, the undercover Comintern revolutionist whom his Chinese comrades had named Hua Fu.
4
You and I are the only two Europeans among fifty or sixty thousand Chinese, Herr Kellner,” said Braun, speaking English in the hard, guttural accents of his native country. “That is why I’ve had you brought here.”
The German was sitting hunched on one end of the plank bed nearest the brazier with a blanket pulled around his shoulders. Beads of sweat were visible on his cheeks and forehead but he was still shivering as he gulped down a bowl of the ginseng stew. Square- jawed, with small, watchful blue eyes, a ragged moustache, and big ears that lay flat against his cropped blond head, he was a physically self-confident man in his mid-thirties, but the malaria had given his skin a sallow, waxen appearance and his face was drawn inward in concentric lines that knitted his brows and bunched his lips in an ill-tempered expression.
“I also heard you speak and read Chinese, is that correct?”
Jakob, who still stood beside the brazier, nodded in confirmation. “To work as a missionary in China without practical knowledge of the language would be impossible.”
“I’ve found the language difficult to master,” said the German stiffly. “Therefore I work through interpreters.”
“I’d agree that Chinese is very difficult to learn.’
Jakob watched the man before him carefully as he spoke. He was still puzzled about why he should have been summoned to the General Headquarters in the middle of the night. In contrast to that of the guards and the assistant magistrate, the German’s manner was not hostile, merely neutral, and speaking English for the first time in months suddenly seemed to Jakob to mark a turning point in the mental and physical siege he had endured since his capture. lie began to hope that he might hear something about his likely release, and the German clearly detected signs of this in his expression.
“I haven’t called you here to discuss your own case, Herr Kellner,” Braun said flatly. “How the Communists of China administer justice in their country is no concern of mine. You are a prisoner of the Red Army but I would like to ask you as one European to another for some assistance.” The German drew an already damp handkerchief from a pocket of his uniform and mopped his sweating face. Around his eyes Jakob could see lines of fatigue and strain, which gave him a gaunt look; despite his confident manner, he was not entirely able to conceal an air of embarrassment.
“I take it you are from Germany,” said Jakob respectfully. “May I ask your name?”
“I am German, yes,” snapped the Comintern agent. “In China, I’m known as Hua Fu — that is all you need to know. Are you prepared to help?”
“I try to bear witness to God’s love for all men in my daily life whatever the circumstances,” said Jakob quietly. “I’ll help you if I can.”
“Gut, danke!”
Braun lapsed into his own language in his pleasure at Jakob’s acquiescence and smiled fixedly, obviously caring nothing for Jakob’s reasons. Reaching inside his uniform tunic, lie pulled out a sheaf of papers on which Jakob could see vertical lines of handwritten Chinese characters. Before scrutinizing them, the German rose from the plank bed and crossed to the narrow archway that led into the inner room. Peering into the darkness beyond, he looked this way and that until he was certain they were not being overheard, then he returned and lowered himself wearily onto the bed once more.
“You are to say nothing to your guards or anybody else about why I summoned you here, is that clear?” he said in an undertone. “This is something that will remain confidential between us. You must give me a solemn undertaking.”
“I have no reason to defy your wishes.”
Braun frowned at Jakob, as though mystified in some way by the simplicity of his answers. Then he dabbed distractedly at his perspiring face again. “How are your guards treating you now, Herr Kellner? Have things improved since we crossed the Hsiang River?”
“My hands were untied at the Hsiang. In Tsunyi I was given some of the provisions looted from the mission — fruit, eggs, milk, tinned tomatoes. The rest and better food helped me recover my strength.” The German was leafing abstractedly through the papers on his knee, scarcely listening to his reply, and a sudden suspicion arose in Jakob’s mind. “Why do you ask?”
“I overheard Comrade Lu Mei-li
ng tell her brother she had seen guards ill-treating an English missionary. I gave my opinion to the guard commanders that it might be wise to improve your conditions for the simple reason that a dead hostage has no value.” Braun stopped shuffling the papers and lit a candle with a taper. Spreading some of the pages on the other plank bed, he placed the candle beside them and gestured for Jakob to seat himself. “And now one good turn deserves another, Herr Kellner, yes? You would like to translate some Chinese for me, perhaps?”
Comprehension dawned as Jakob took in the German’s calculating smile, and he nodded and sat down on the second bed, Leaning close to the papers spread before him, he saw by the light of the candle that the two characters for the name “Hua Fu” had been ringed several times in red wherever they occurred.
“I will be straightforward to help you understand, Herr Kellner,” said Braun in a confidential tone. “There were quarrels among the leadership at the meetings in Tsunyi. Very often I could not follow the proceedings because my Chinese interpreter refused to translate for me during heated debates. I was attacked and condemned for things I couldn’t understand. Now I’ve obtained a draft of the minutes of the meetings. I’d like you to translate those passages in which nay name is mentioned. Do you understand?”
Jakob nodded again. “I understand.”
“First, please, this passage here which refers to the reasons for the Red Army’s abandoning its base in the Central Soviet Area.”
Anthony Grey Page 27
