by Amy Tan
“The Japanese now occupy the hills,” he told us. “They drove off our troops.” That was how Sister Yu learned that the other half of her miracle prayer had not come true. “They’ll come looking for us.”
I heated water, made a bath, and washed his body with a cloth as he sat in the narrow wooden tub. And then we went to our bedchamber and I pinned a cloth over the lattice window so it would be dark. We lay down, and as he rocked me, he talked to me in soft murmurs, and it took all of my senses to realize that I was in his arms, that his eyes were looking at mine. “There is no curse,” he said. I was listening hard, trying to believe that I would always hear him speak. “And you are brave, you are strong,” he went on. I wanted to protest that I didn’t want to be strong, but I was crying too much to speak. “You cannot change this,” he said. “This is your character.”
He kissed my eyes, one at a time. “This is beauty, and this is beauty, and you are beauty, and love is beauty and we are beauty. We are divine, unchanged by time.” He said this until I promised I believed him, until I agreed it was enough.
The Japanese came for Kai Jing, Dong, and Chao that evening. Miss Grutoff was brave and declared that she was an American and they had no right to enter the orphanage. They paid no attention to her, and when they started to walk toward the rooms where the girls were hiding under their beds, Kai Jing and the other men came forward and said they did not need to look any further. I tried to follow.
A few days later, I heard wailing in the main hall. When GaoLing came to me with red eyes, I stopped her from saying what I already knew. For a month more, I tried to keep Kai Jing alive in my heart and mind. For a while longer, I tried so much to believe what he had said: “There is no curse.” And then finally I let GaoLing say the words.
Two Japanese officers questioned the men day and night, tried to force them to say where the Communist troops had gone. On the third day, they lined them up, Kai Jing, Dong, and Chao, as well as thirty other villagers. A soldier stood nearby with a bayonet. The Japanese officer said he would ask them once again, one at a time. And one by one, they shook their heads, one by one they fell. In my mind, sometimes Kai Jing was first, sometimes he was last, sometimes he was in between.
I was not there when this happened, yet I saw it. The only way I could push it out of my mind was to go into my memory. And there in that safe place, I was with him, and he was kissing me when he told me, “We are divine, unchanged by time.”
CHARACTER
GaoLing said the Japanese would soon come for all of us, so I should not bother to kill myself right away. Why not wait and die together? Less lonely that way.
Teacher Pan said I should not leave him for the other world. Otherwise, who would he have left as family to give him comfort in his last days?
Miss Grutoff said the children needed me to be an inspiration of what an orphan girl could become. If they knew I had given up hope, then what hope could they have?
But it was Sister Yu who gave me the reason to stay alive and suffer on earth. Kai Jing, she said, had gone to the Christian heaven, and if I did suicide, I would be forbidden by God to go see him. To me, the Christian heaven was like America, a land that was far away, filled with foreigners, and ruled by their laws. Suicide was not allowed.
So I stayed and waited for the Japanese to come back and get me. I visited Teacher Pan and brought him good things to eat. And every afternoon, I walked outside the school to the part of the hillside with many little piles of rocks. That was where the missionaries buried the babies and girls who had died over the years. That was where Kai Jing lay as well. In our room, I found a few dragon bones he had dug up in the last few months. They were nothing too valuable, just those of old animals. I picked up one and with a thick needle carved words into it to make an oracle bone like the one Precious Auntie had given me. I wrote: “You are beauty, we are beauty, we are divine, unchanged by time.” When I finished one, I began another, unable to stop. Those were the words I wanted to remember. Those were the morsels of grief I ate.
I put those oracle bones at Kai Jing’s grave. “Kai Jing,” I said each time I placed them there. “Do you miss me?” And after a long silence, I told him what had happened that day: who was sick, who was smart, how we had no more medicine, how it was too bad he wasn’t there to teach the girls more about geology. One day I had to tell him that Miss Towler had not awakened in the morning and soon she would be lying next to him. “She went gently to God,” Miss Grutoff had said at breakfast, and she acted glad that it was this way. But then she clamped her mouth shut and two deep lines grew down the sides, so I knew she was pitifully sad. To Miss Grutoff, Miss Towler had been mother, sister, and oldest friend.
After Miss Towler’s death, Miss Grutoff began to make American flags. I think she made those flags for the same reason I made oracle bones for Kai Jing’s grave. She was saving some memory, afraid of forgetting. Every day she would sew a star or a stripe. She would dye scraps of cloth red or blue. She had the girls in the school make flags, as well. Soon there were fifty flags waving along the outside wall of the old monastery building, then a hundred, two hundred. If a person did not know this was an orphanage for Chinese girls, he would think many, many Americans were inside having a patriotic party.
One cold morning, Japanese soldiers finally flocked onto the grounds. We were in the main hall for Sunday worship, although it was not Sunday. We heard gun sounds, pau-pau. We ran to the door and saw Cook and his wife lying facedown in the dirt, and the chickens squabbling nearby, pecking at a bucket of grain that had tipped over. The big American flag that used to hang over the gateway was now lying on the ground. The girls began to cry, thinking that Cook and his wife were dead. But then we saw Cook move a little, turn his head to the side, carefully looking to see who was around them. Miss Grutoff pushed past us to the front. I think we all wondered if she would order the Japanese soldiers to leave us alone, since she was an American. Instead, she asked us to be quiet. No one moved or talked after that. And then we watched, hands covering our mouths to keep from screaming, as the Japanese soldiers shot down the rest of those hundreds of flags, pau-pau, pau-pau, taking turns, criticizing if anyone missed. When all the flags were in pieces, they began to shoot at the chickens, which flapped and squawked and fell to earth. Finally, they took the dead chickens and left. Cook and his wife stood up, the remaining chickens clucked quietly, and the girls let out the wails they had kept locked inside.
Miss Grutoff asked everyone to return to the main hall. There she informed us in a shaky voice what she had learned on the ham and shortwave radios several days before: Japan had attacked the United States, and the Americans had declared war on Japan. “With America on our side, now China will be able to win the war more quickly,” she said, and she led us to join her in clapping. To please her, we smiled to pretend we believed this good news. Later that night, when the girls had gone to their rooms, Miss Grutoff told the teachers and the cook and his wife what else she had heard from her friends at Peking Union Medical College.
“The bones of Peking Man are lost.”
“Destroyed?” Teacher Pan asked.
“No one knows. They’ve disappeared. All the pieces of forty-one ancient people. They were supposed to be taken by train to be loaded on an American boat sailing from Tientsin to Manilla, but the ship was sunk. Some say the boxes were never loaded onto the boat. They say the Japanese stopped the trains. They thought the boxes contained only the possessions of American soldiers, so they threw them on the tracks to let them get smashed by other trains. Now no one knows what to think. It’s not good, either way.” As I listened, I felt my own bones grow hollow. All of Kai Jing’s work, his sacrifice, his last trip to the quarry—all was for nothing? I imagined those little pieces of skulls floating among the fish in the harbor, sinking slowly to the bottom, sea eels swimming over them, covering them with sand. I saw other fragments of bones thrown off the train like garbage, the tires of army trucks crushing them until the pieces were no bigger
than grains of Gobi sand. I felt as if those bones were Kai Jing’s.
The next day, the Japanese returned to take Miss Grutoff to a prisoner-of-war camp. She had known this would happen, and yet she had not tried to escape. “I would never willingly leave my girls,” she told us. Her suitcases were already packed, and she was wearing her travel hat with a scarf that wrapped around her neck. Fifty-six weeping girls stood at the gate to say good-bye. “Teacher Pan, don’t forget the lessons of the apostles,” she called out, just before she boarded the back of the truck. “And please be sure to tell the others so they can pass on the good word.” I thought it was a strange farewell. So did the others, until Teacher Pan showed us what she meant.
He took us to the main hall, to the statue of an apostle. He twisted off its hand. Inside was a hole that he and Miss Grutoff had carved out, where they had hidden silver, gold, and a list of names of former students in Peking. For the past month he and Miss Grutoff had been doing this, late at night. Each apostle had only part of her personal savings, so if the Japanese found money in one, as heathens they might not know which of hundreds of statues to search to find the rest.
If things became dangerous around the orphanage, we were supposed to use the money to take the girls to Peking, four or five at a time. There they could stay with former students and friends of the school. Miss Grutoff had already contacted these people, and they agreed that if the time came, they would willingly help us. We needed only to tell them by the ham radio when we were coming.
Teacher Pan assigned each of us—teachers, helpers, and four older students—to an apostle for our share of the refugee money. And from the day that Miss Grutoff left, Teacher Pan had us practice and memorize which apostle was which and where the wood had been dug out of its body. I thought it was enough that we recognized which was our own statue, but Sister Yu said, “We should say all the names out loud. Then the apostles will protect our savings better.” I had to say those names so many times they are still in my head: Pida, Pa, Matu, Yuhan, Jiama yi, Jiama er, Andaru, Filipa, Tomasa, Shaimin, Tadayisu, and Budalomu. The traitor, Judasa, did not have a statue.
About three months after Miss Grutoff left us, Teacher Pan decided it was time for us to go. The Japanese had become angry that the Communists were hiding in the hills. They wanted to draw them out by slaughtering people in the nearby villages. Sister Yu also told GaoLing and me that the Japanese were doing unspeakable acts with innocent girls, some as young as eleven or twelve. That was what had happened in Tientsin, Tungchow, and Nanking. “Those girls they didn’t kill afterward tried to kill themselves,” she added. So we knew what she was saying just by using the frightened parts of our imaginations.
Counting four older students who had stayed on through the war, we had twelve chaperones. We radioed Miss Grutoff’s friends in Peking, who said the city was occupied, and although the situation was calm, we should wait to hear from them. The trains did not always run, and it would not be good for us to be stuck for days waiting at different cities along the way. Teacher Pan determined the order in which the groups would leave: first that led by Mother Wang, who could tell us how the journey went, then those of the four older girls, then those of Cook’s wife, Teacher Wang, Cook, GaoLing, me, Sister Yu, and last, Teacher Pan.
“Why should you be last?” I asked him.
“I know how to use the radio.”
“You can teach me just as easily.”
“And me,” said Sister Yu and GaoLing.
We argued, taking turns at being brave. And to do that, we had to be a little unkind and criticize each other. Teacher Pan’s eyes were too poor for him to be left alone. Sister Yu was too deaf. GaoLing had bad feet and a fear of ghosts that made her run the wrong way. Plenty was wrong with me, as well, but in the end, I was allowed to go last so I could visit Kai Jing’s grave as long as possible.
And now I can confess how scared I was those last few days. I was responsible for four girls: six years, eight, nine, and twelve. And while it was still comforting to think about killing myself, it made me nervous to wait to be killed. As each group of girls left, the orphanage seemed to grow larger and the remaining footsteps louder. I was afraid the Japanese soldiers would come and find the ham radio, then accuse me of being a spy and torture me. I rubbed dirt on the girls’ faces and told them that if the Japanese came, they should scratch their heads and skin, pretending to have lice. Almost every hour, I prayed to Jesus and Buddha, whoever was listening. I lighted incense in front of Precious Auntie’s photo, I went to Kai Jing’s grave and was honest with him about my fears. “Where is my character?” I asked him. “You said I was strong. Where is that strength now?”
On the fourth day of our being alone, we heard the message on the radio: “Come quickly. The trains are running.” I went to tell the girls, and then I saw that a miracle had happened, but whether this came from the Western God or the Chinese ones, I don’t know. I was simply thankful that all four girls had swollen eyes, green pus coming out of the corners. They had an eye infection, nothing serious, but it was awful to see. No one would want to touch them. As for myself, I thought quickly and had an idea. I took some of the leftovers of the rice porridge we had eaten that morning, and drained off the watery portion and smeared this liquid onto my skin, my cheeks, forehead, neck, and hands, so that when it dried I had the leathery, cracked appearance of an old country woman. I put some more of the sticky rice water into a thermos and to that I added chicken blood. I told the girls to gather all the chicken eggs left in the pens, even the rotten ones, and put them in sacks. Now we were ready to walk down the hill to the railway station.
When we were about a hundred paces down the road, we saw the first soldier. I slowed my pace and took a sip from the thermos. The soldier remained where he was, and stopped us when we reached him.
“Where are you going?” he asked. We five looked up and I could see an expression of disgust pass over his face. The girls started to scratch their heads. Before I answered, I coughed into a handkerchief, then folded it so he could see the blood-streaked mucus. “We are going to market to sell our eggs,” I said. We lifted our sacks. “Would you like some as a gift?” He waved us on.
When we were a short distance away, I took another sip of the rice water and chicken blood to hold in my mouth. Twice more we were stopped, twice more I coughed up what looked like the bloody sputum of a woman with tuberculosis. The girls stared with their green oozing eyes.
When we arrived in Peking, I saw from the train window that Gao-Ling was there to meet us. She squinted to make sure it was I getting off the train. Slowly she approached, her lips spread in horror. “What happened to you?” she asked. I coughed blood one last time into my handkerchief. “Ai-ya!” she cried, and jumped back. I showed her my thermos of “Japanese chase-away juice.” And then I began to laugh and couldn’t stop. I was crazy-happy, delirious with relief.
GaoLing complained: “The whole time I’ve been worried sick, and you just play jokes.”
We settled the girls in homes with former students. And over the next few years, some married, some died, some came to visit us as their honorary parents. GaoLing and I lived in the back rooms of the old ink shop in the Pottery-Glazing District. We had Teacher Pan and Sister Yu join us. As for GaoLing’s husband, we all hoped he was dead.
Of course, it made me angry beyond belief that the Chang family now owned the ink shop. For all those years since Precious Auntie died, I had not had to think about the coffinmaker too much. Now he was ordering us to sell more ink, sell it faster. This was the man who killed my grandfather and father, who caused Precious Auntie so much pain she ruined her life. But then I reasoned that if a person wants to strike back, she must be close to the person who must be struck down. I decided to live in the ink shop because it was practical. In the meantime, I thought of ways to get revenge.
Luckily, the Chang father did not bother us too much about the business. The ink was selling much, much better than before we came. That was because we u
sed our heads. We saw that not too many people had a use for inksticks and ink cakes anymore. It was wartime. Who had the leisure and calm to sit around and grind ink on an inkstone, meditating over what to write? We also noted that the Chang family had lowered the quality of the ingredients, so the sticks and cakes crumbled more easily. Teacher Pan was the one who suggested we make quick-use ink. We ground up the cheap ink, mixed it with water, and put it in small jars that we bought for almost nothing at a medicine shop that was going out of business.
Teacher Pan also turned out to be a very good salesman. He had the manners and writing style of an old scholar, which helped convince customers that the quality of our quick-use ink was excellent, though it was not. To demonstrate it, however, he had to be careful not to write anything that could be interpreted as anti-Japanese or pro-feudal, Christian or Communist. This was not easy to do. Once he decided he should simply write about food. There was no danger in that. So he wrote, “Turnips taste best when pickled,” but GaoLing worried that this would be taken either as a slur against the Japanese or as siding with the Japanese, since turnips were like radishes and radishes were what the Japanese liked to eat. So then he wrote, “Father, Mother, Brother, Sister.” Sister Yu said that this looked like a listing of those who had died, that this was his way of protesting the occupation. “It could also be a throwback to Confucian principles of family,” GaoLing added, “a wish to return to the time of emperors.” Everything had dangers, the sun, the stars, the directions of the wind, depending on how many worries we each had. Every number, color, and animal had a bad meaning. Every word sounded like another. Eventually I came up with the best idea for what to write, and it was settled: “Please try our Quick Ink. It is cheap and easy to use.”
We suspected that many of the university students who bought our ink were Communist revolutionaries making propaganda posters that would appear on walls in the middle of the night. “Resist Together,” the posters said. Sister Yu managed the accounts, and she was not too strict when some of the poorer students did not have enough money to pay for the ink. “Pay what you can,” she told them. “A student should always have enough ink for his studies.” Sister Yu also made sure we kept some money for ourselves without the Chang father’s noticing that anything was missing.
