Yale realized that she had never seen a rupee before. She was asking him if the rupee were really money.
Whether she understood clearly or not, she was eager to get started. Yale was too tired to walk further, or mingle with the crowds in the streets which at this time of night would be equally jammed with Chinese and American soldiers.
"Sleep now," he said. He lay on the bed and closed his eyes. She looked at him, smiling happily, and curled up on the floor beside the bed. Getting up, he lifted her on the bed. She was lighter than he thought. About ninety skinny pounds, he guessed. She looked at him questioningly. He pushed her against the wall and turned down the wick on the kerosene lamp. He lay on the bare mattress beside her. It probably wasn't much better than the floor, he thought, but it assuaged his protective feeling toward her. "Sleep," he said again, as she wiggled inquisitively.
He awoke first. Tay Yang was curled against him, breathing in his face. Her breath was sweet, and warm with sleep. Yale wondered when she had last bathed. He guessed it might be months. Yet she had no odor.
By noontime, while Tay Yang had made no contact, Yale knew that she understood her mission. They conferred with one shop owner after another. The direction she led him gradually became more purposive. Yale noted in the last shop a glimmer of interest on the face of the owner. He had spoken rapidly to Tay Yang, and she had answered, obviously repeating directions.
"Find." She grinned. She led him rapidly through street after street until they were near the gates of the city. In an open market, she spoke at length with a Chinese soldier. She pointed at Yale. The soldier, carrying an ancient Springfield rifle, half lowered at Yale, walked over.
"You have dollars. Come."
Yale wondered if he were walking into a trap. He remembered Anne's sarcastic remarks about his need to make money, and her fear of the needless chances he took. Following the soldier, he reminded himself that he was simply playing a long gamble. If his bluff was called he would lose forty thousand dollars. Since he had no interest in what money would buy, only the vague power it could give him, he would lose a very intangible thing.
The soldier led them into a compound. They crossed the courtyard and were stopped by another soldier who stood in front of a sandstone doorway. Finally, Yale was led inside. Tay Yang, who pleaded in Chinese her right to do so, followed Yale.
A young Chinese lieutenant stood up behind his desk. After listening to both Yale and Tay Yang he surprised Yale by responding with a British accent. "I was educated at the University of Calcutta. You are desirous of exchanging money?"
"Perhaps," Yale said, meeting his uncomfortable stare without flinching. "I never transact business unless I know with whom I'm dealing."
"A rather unusual request. Don't you agree?" the lieutenant asked coldly. "Since you, an American officer, are planning an infraction of regulations concerning the black market, I fail to see you have any rights in the matter."
"The right not to do business," Yale said. He smiled at the lieutenant. "I would prefer not to engage in a chess match with you. Either you have rupees to sell or you haven't. I can see that your uniform is not that of a Chinese National. To whose army do you belong? The Communists?"
"Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Tse-tung, are nothing! Some day they will disappear from the earth. I am adjutant to General Sheng-Li. The forces of Sheng-Li will one day take over the whole of China."
The lieutenant looked at Yale insolently, as if he were waiting to be contradicted. Yale had heard the name. General Sheng-Li was a local warlord who refused to cooperate with Chiang Kai-shek or the Americans. He had been in business for himself ever since the Japanese had arrived in China. Neither the Japanese nor the Americans had sufficient troops in the backwoods of China to divert them for bandit warfare; so General Sheng-Li, who, it had been estimated, had his own private army of approximately thirty thousand men, flourished in the midst of war that was not his own, planning for the day when the victorious and defeated would withdraw and leave the battlefield to the scavengers who would inevitably appear. General Sheng-Li planned that there would be no contestants after him.
The Chinese lieutenant told Yale to sit down, and wait. He would confer with the general to ascertain his interest. In a few minutes, he returned. The general himself, he told them, would see the American finance officer. Yale insisted that Tay Yang come with him. They followed the lieutenant into the next room which was empty except for a battered desk, several chairs, and a stained map of China on the damp wall.
A stern grey-haired man, with a full moustache, got up from behind the desk and greeted Yale coldly.
Yale had a feeling he had seen the man before. It dawned on him that the general was wearing the same high collared uniform, and the same style moustache that Yale had noticed on the pictures of Sun Yat-sen, whose profile and bust appeared on Chinese National currency. He remarked on the resemblance. General Sheng-Li was flattered. "He was a very great man. China needs his kind today. I understand you wish to buy rupees. I have several million. At the moment, with all the American equipment available, your dollars have a better purchasing power than rupees. How many dollars do you have?"
Yale was astonished at the general's precise and blunt approach. "I have about forty-one thousand dollars," Yale said slowly. "But I could have more later."
"Get the Lieutenant a hundred and sixty-four thousand rupees," General Sheng-Li said to his adjutant, who started to leave the room.
"Wait a minute," Yale said. "I want six rupees for a dollar. To round out the transaction for you, let's say two hundred and forty thousand rupees."
General Sheng-Li looked at Yale with an inscrutable smile. "You are a very daring young man. You realize that I simply have to say the word. My soldiers would be pleased to relieve you of your forty-one thousand dollars, and send you and your little whore on your way."
Yale smiled at Tay Yang who seemed frightened, though she obviously didn't understand the conversation. "General Sheng-Li, you dishonor yourself to speak in such a way," Yale said. He hoped that he had gauged the man's ego. "Some day you yourself will be fighting for China. You will follow in the footsteps of the honorable Sun Yat-sen. Besides, if you take my forty-one thousand dollars without recompense, you will lose the opportunity to purchase additional dollars."
The general beamed. He stroked his moustache. "Your flattery has no interest for me, Lieutenant. But your second reason is highly practical. Shall we agree on two hundred thousand rupees? Or shall I simply have you robbed?"
Yale took Tay Yang back to the center of Kunming in a rickshaw. He tried to say good-bye to her in front of the Red Cross Building but she followed him to where the jeep was parked.
"Me come," she said, holding his arm. "Me big help." Yale smiled at her. "You sure were a big help, Tay Yang. The general and I will probably get well acquainted in the next few weeks, thanks to you. But no girls where I go, now. Only soldiers. Good-bye, Tay Yang." He unlocked the jeep. Tay Yang looked at him pathetically. The engine caught and purred into life.
Before he could reason out his motive Yale said, "Oh, hell, get in, Tay Yang."
She sat, silently happy, beside him as he drove the jeep over the bumpy dirt road to Chengkung. He was so preoccupied with the problem of what to do about Tay Yang, that the transaction with General Sheng-Li faded in his mind. As he approached the base, he wondered why in hell he hadn't given her a few dollars, and sent her on her way. But he couldn't do that. Somewhere he had heard an adage that the giver was obligated to the receiver. It was obtuse enough to be Chinese in origin.
It occurred to him that since Tay Yang had deceived him, she could easily pass for a boy. He decided to tell his roommate, Captain Stower, the truth. Although Yale had roomed with Stower for six weeks, they had kept pretty much to themselves. Stower was a gentle appearing, grey-haired man. Yale guessed that he was in his late forties. He was regular Army. Most nights he spent in the officers' club playing cards or in some other officer's room. If he were agreeable, Tay Yang
could sleep in the empty bunk over Yale. Stower would have to know that she was a girl. If he agreed, the only danger was that another officer might get billeted with them. Since it appeared that Chengkung might soon be de-activated, Yale doubted that they would have any additional roommates.
"It's not for sex," Yale told Stower. "Hell, you can scarcely tell she's a girl. I just thought I'd like to give the kid a break. If you're against it, say so. I'll dump her back in Kunming tomorrow."
Surprisingly Stower was charmed with the idea. He stopped playing poker, and spent every evening with Yale and Tay Yang. He tried to teach her English. He blushed when Yale told him that he acted like a mother hen with her brood. "You see, Yale, I got a youngster in the States. Just about Tay Yang's age. It's funny about teenagers, Chinese or American, they have an infectious quality about them. Makes me feel a little Stateside to have a woman around."
Yale was thankful for Stower's interest, especially when a few days after she arrived they guessed that Tay Yang was menstruating. "She asked me for an old undershirt," Stower said, and delightedly produced his surprise, a box of sanitary napkins.
Yale was amazed. "Where in hell did you get those?" he demanded.
"I told the PX officer it was a joke. They carry them for the nurses." Stower laughed. "He thinks I'm going to hand them out on a quartermaster requisition."
The evening they spent demonstrating to Tay Yang how to use them was both funny and pathetic. It took some time before she grasped their meaning. Both Yale and Stower went through an elaborate ritual to make their point as delicately as possible. When Tay Yang finally understood she turned slowly away from them, tears in her eyes. For a day her high spirits vanished. She made their beds, swept out the room, and kept to herself. They suddenly realized that she was embarrassed. They had bungled into a subject that no man should know about. She appreciated the gift, however, and a few days later was back to her normal self.
The second week she was with them, she went again with Yale to General Sheng-Li's headquarters. Yale was able to buy three hundred thousand rupees, worth at conversion nearly a hundred thousand dollars. Stower didn't ask where Yale was going or why Tay Yang was going with him. He cautioned Yale that they would both have to be careful. They were both a little too friendly with their "houseboy." If any of the other officers discovered she was a girl, they'd probably be court martialed.
"Well, at least reprimanded by the Colonel," Yale said. He laughed at Stower's concern.
When they returned that evening Stower seemed to have something on his mind. He puffed on his pipe, blowing smoke reflectively in the air. "I've been thinking that it must have been a hot sticky ride back and forth to Kunming, today." Yale agreed that it was. "You took a shower when you got back . . ." Stower continued. The words dangled. He stared at Tay Yang who was turning the pages of a Sears Roebuck catalogue, they had found for her.
Yale looked at Stower in wonder. "You're right, by God!" Yale said. "She hasn't had a bath since I've known her. Brother!" Yale pawed through his Chinese dictionary. "Here it is: 'shi-dzaw' means bathe." He shook Tay Yang's shoulder. "Shi-dzaw! You! When?"
She looked at him puzzled, and then smiled happily. "Shi-dzaw. All time. Tay Yang clean. You want go to bed, now?"
Stower looked at Yale. "Listen, she'll give us bugs. Sleeping right here with us. She probably hasn't washed for months." He dumped the ashes from his pipe. "Tonight while I stand guard you're going to give your orphan a damned good scrubbing."
The officers' shower was a few hundred feet from the barracks. During the day the place was a beehive of activity while Chinese houseboys boiled water for washing and showers, pouring it into huge wooden drums on top of the building. At night the water drums turned cold in the chilly night air and few officers patronized the place, except for a few eager ones who shaved by an unshaded light bulb, with cold water, in order to avoid the morning rush.
At midnight Stower and Yale awoke Tay Yang. She was sleeping in her blue denim coat and pants. Frightened, she stood near her bunk. She listened impassively as they insisted that she needed a bath. "Me clean, Tay Yang clean girl," she protested. They forced her to undress. Yale put his Army jacket around her skinny naked body. He cautioned her not to make any noise. They led her to the officers' showers.
Yale undressed quickly and while Stower watched he grabbed Tay Yang and shoved her under the shower. When the cold water hit them they both gasped. Tay Yang started to yell. Yale clasped his hand over her mouth. He shook his head violently, muttering to her to shut up. Tay Yang's eyes were big and terrified but she made no further noise. Yale thoroughly scrubbed her, raising a lather despite the cold water. As he washed her skinny boyish body, Yale felt a surge of pity go through him. Tay Yang . . . this bright little person; what would become of her? She was dispensable in an economy like China's. She held such a tenuous grasp on life. One tiny life among four hundred million lives was equal to nothing. Almost bitterly, he shoved her toward Stower who rubbed her down with a big towel. Keeping Tay Yang this way was unfair to her, Yale thought. When he and Stower moved on, they would leave her not quite so resilient; weakened by the warmth and care she had never experienced up until now.
When they got her back to the room Tay Yang was quite indignant. "Me clean. No need 'dzaw.' Every day go to lake. Wash. Use soap. Wash clothes. Clean girl."
Stower and Yale looked at each other and exploded with laughter. It had never occurred to them that while they were at work, it would be a simple matter for Tay Yang to walk the half mile to Lake Chengkung, and bathe in its wild privacy. They begged her forgiveness. Yale promised to buy her a new cotton suit. She indicated there was no need. One cotton suit was enough but she did like to be washed by 'Ale. It was the first time she had attempted to pronounce his name. She blushed.
And suddenly it was August. No letters had come from Anne. Yale had been in China for nearly ten weeks. At the longest it would have taken Anne three weeks to get to Paris. If she planned to write, another few weeks would have brought a letter. It was obvious that she had no intention of writing him.
Night after night Yale lay in his bunk and probed for reasons. He was conscious that Tay Yang was puzzling over magazines that Stower or he had brought her from the recreation office. He would listen as Stower patiently repeated words for her until she triumphantly managed to pronounce them correctly. When she did, she would bubble with excitement and run over and repeat the accomplishment for Yale's benefit. Often he only half listened, preoccupied with thoughts about Anne. To the endlessly repeated question, why hadn't she written him, he had slowly added the disillusioning thought that in some way the very need he had for Anne and Cynthia had destroyed their love for him. He wondered if perhaps it was a reckless man indeed who revealed himself completely to a woman. Perhaps the truth was that no woman who knew the fears and hopes and despairs of a man would continue to love him. What was the old saying? In love you had to keep a sense of mystery. Even the casual revelation of your body to another person could destroy something intangible. Familiarity breeds contempt. No, it couldn't be true. Only the ignorant could be contemptuous. For it would take the familiarity of a million lifetimes to understand even so simple a creature as Tay Yang.
One evening after they had returned from Kunming, Tay Yang sat on the step in front of their room with him. Silently she watched him as he stared across the air base to the Himalayas in the distance. Stower had not returned; working late as he reclaimed quartermaster property from soldiers being rotated home.
"'Ale, I sorry you not happy," Tay Yang said.
Yale smiled. He touched her hand. "I'm not unhappy, Tay Yang. Just lonesome . . . Not for home. Not for anything tangible. I might as well be here as anywhere else. I guess the truth is that I'm happy being aware for a moment of all the activity around me; all the not-me in the world, while I survey it like a fat, complacent Buddha."
Tay Yang listened intently as he spoke. He knew she didn't understand. "Americans very silly, huh?" he asked
her.
"Come," she said. Taking his hand, she led him behind the barracks to a tiny footpath worn hard by industrious Chinese feet. He followed as she guided him over neatly tilled terraces. Up and up they walked, past mounded graves of Chinese ancestors. Higher until he felt breathless, and intimately a part of the flickering, sunlit clouds still above them. And then, below . . . like a liquid altar, lying at the foot of the cloud-capped mountains, he saw a lonely lake, and around them, in a sweeping circle, mountains . . . and the lake glowing in the sunset seemed to disappear into remote foothills and deep chasms sprayed with cloud-filtered sunlight. It was this effect man had been striving for when he built a Gothic cathedral, or wrote a Ninth Symphony; striven for but not quite attained.
Yale sat down. He looked at the spectacle, feeling amazed both at the beauty before him and the even stranger fact that Tay Yang had understood his feelings, if not his words. She sat near him, her chin propped on her knees. Together they watched the wildly changing colors as the sun slowly disappeared behind the jagged hills. Above them, breaking through the clouds, they beard the drone of a plane approaching the base from India. Up ten thousand feet, it too had the beauty that comes with things remote.
Yale put his arm around Tay Yang's shoulder. The passive lines of her face softened for a moment in a quick smile. "In morning, lake happy. Lake sad when sun go."
Reluctantly, they walked back to the barracks. Yale wished that somehow he could tell Tay Yang what she meant to him. Deeper than words, deeper than any overt touch such as a kiss, or a hug. More than the fragile, momentary contact of a man and woman; ultimately just a simple "Thank you, Tay Yang. Thank you, for just being. For in your being is the perennial wonder that makes life so exciting."
Stower greeted them when they got back. "It's all over," he said excitedly. "It's all over. The Japs have surrendered! Whatever those atom bombs are, I guess they just about blasted Japan out of the Pacific."
They drank that night. Drank until there was no more liquor left. Some of them shot off rounds of ammunition. Some of them snake danced around the base. The runways were a blaze of light. Signal flares were lighted, impromptu orchestras sprung up. Yale and Stower joined the crowds in the officers' club. And as they drank, they talked about going home. "It's over." They kept repeating the words, almost unable to believe them. "We'll be home by Christmas. Kiss this ass hole of the universe good-bye. No more goddamned slopies."
The Rebellion of Yale Marratt Page 40
