A Choice of Evils

by Meira Chand

  ‘No,’ Flora screamed. ‘I want her.’ She built up a great hysteria.

  The thought of adoption came suddenly into Martha’s mind. Dr Keswick was amazed. ‘It is easy to misread our feelings, to think we hear His wishes when in fact we hear our own desires. Foster the child if you will, there is no need for adoption. You are now without a husband and must bring up your own child alone. Martha, this is madness.’

  For once her father could not dissuade her. She called the child Lily, like the flowers that bloomed in the moat, rising above the fetid water. After the year of grief, a healing was begun.

  ‘Lily.’ She whispered the child’s name again now, and knew she could send her nowhere. Safety was only by Martha’s side. In this country Lily was a Chinese, whatever her passport might say. In these violent times she could be prey once more to scavenger dogs of an entirely different kind.

  The war came at an opportune moment for Donald Addison. His depression due to Edgar Snow had left him deeply lethargic. Now the war, bowling in upon Shanghai, filled him with new purpose. He would go up to the Red areas after the war, when new angles on Communism might be needed. His adrenaline flowed again. He was impatient for events to warm up, to sink his teeth into real action.

  The clouds of war brought also for Donald the long-awaited interview with Chiang Kai-shek. Suddenly, Chiang was not averse to publicity before the new menace of the Japanese. But the interview had been a bare five minutes. He had sent a copy to The Times, and also a local foreign-run paper, that had risked printing excerpts. It had enraged W.H.D., who summoned Donald immediately.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ yelled W.H.D., throwing the newspaper down before Donald. He sat behind a desk in his makeshift war headquarters beyond Chungshan Men Gate. Both he and the Chiangs had moved hurriedly out of the centre of Nanking to relative safety beyond the city walls. ‘You were not allowed an interview with the Generalissimo to put about rubbish like this. He hardly ever gives interviews to foreign journalists.’

  ‘We live in a democracy,’ Donald shrugged.

  ‘Madame is hopping mad. She and the Generalissimo are to publish a book in the West of their account of the Generalissimo’s kidnapping last year in Sian. Publicity like this doesn’t help them. I see no sense in such aggressive reporting. In my day the ethics of journalism were different.’ W.H.D. gestured angrily.

  ‘It’s not unfair. Chiang Kai-shek has great presence. I have quoted nothing that was not said to me,’ Donald protested, controlling his impatience.

  ‘What do you mean by calling it, “The Man Who May Lose China”? Or by saying that even now the Generalissimo is not wholehearted in his fight with the Japanese? Or by saying that in fulfilling his own ambitions of power he believes he is serving China? He serves only China. Don’t you know that but for the Generalissimo, there are many who would have sold out to the Japanese long ago? The Generalissimo is above the corrupt shenanigans that I admit do at times permeate other factions of his party. You are not fair to a very great man.’ W.H.D. glowered behind his spectacles.

  ‘Chiang has said that for China the Japanese are a disease of the skin, the Communists a disease of the heart. I asked him about his comment, nothing more. My time with him was too short to determine very much that is not already known.’ Donald remained cool.

  ‘Well, let me tell you, young man, a secret directive to the Eighth Route Army from Mao Tse-tung has recently come into Nationalist hands. It states the Sino-Japanese War will afford an excellent opportunity for Communist expansion. First, there will be a show of compromise with the Nationalists behind which the Communist Party will quietly develop. Next, laying the foundation for power, they will break with the Nationalists. Thirdly, there is their offensive, when leadership of China would be wrested from the hands of the Kuomintang.’

  ‘May the best man win. And may I quote what you’ve just told me?’ Donald was pleasantly aware of how much his manner annoyed the sycophantic W.H.D.

  ‘If it brings your brain into line with reality,’ W.H.D. stormed. ‘Madame is particularly upset that you have mentioned the Generalissimo’s early days with such emphasis, saying he struck a bargain with rich gangster protectors to finance his revolution, if he kept leftists out of his government. This kind of embroidery helps no one. Why do you write in this way?’ W.H.D. sounded like an angry schoolmaster.

  ‘Perhaps contact with the great brings out the worst in me,’ Donald grimaced. ‘A man’s vulnerability increases in direct proportion to his eminence. I call it Addison’s Law. The higher a man’s temporal place, the greater the incongruity between the real and the ideal. I make it my business to approach all eminence with this scepticism.’

  ‘Indeed!’ W.H.D. glowered. ‘Madame and the Generalissimo rise above rubbish like this. But I can have you put out of Nanking, or even out of China if I wish. This interview was given because of your friendship with Nadya. I doubt Madame will wish to make so much use of her now,’ W.H.D. threatened. ‘Get out of my sight. You are just a troublemaker.’

  As he left W.H.D.’s makeshift headquarters in a black-camouflaged house, Donald looked across the road to the bungalow where the Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek now lived. The small house was so packed with items from the Chiangs’ official residence that it resembled a furniture store.

  Ten days before in that house, Chiang Kai-shek had stood before Donald Addison in a dark blue gown. Taller than average, his cheekbones were high above forceful lips. He was a handsome man, bald, imperious, straight backed with dark, aggressive eyes. He had all the eminence Donald required. His thin frame emanated power, his silences were disconcerting. In spite of himself, Donald was impressed. He was willing now to believe the Generalissimo’s battles with his own split Kuomintang Party might, in some part, be responsible for the more questionable aspects of Chiang’s power. As the interview began there was an air raid. The Generalissimo led the way to the courtyard to observe the bombs dropping about them. He seemed to have no physical fear. The interview was too short for proper discussion. Within five minutes an aide appeared to shepherd the Generalissimo to an unscheduled meeting. In spite of Chiang Kai-shek’s apologies, Donald was left with a list of unanswered questions, forced to provide a portrait rather than an interview. Donald would have liked more time with Chiang Kai-shek. The man’s powerful charisma remained with him.

  Donald had rented a battered car from a local garage and as he drove out of the gates he turned in the direction of Purple Mountain where he and Nadya had arranged to meet. He parked the car and climbed to a clearing amongst the trees that they had recently discovered.

  ‘I may have lost you your job, or at the least your popularity.’ He sat down on the ground beside Nadya and explained his meeting with W.H.D.

  ‘I do not understand why you have to make everything you write so like needles,’ Nadya replied, searching for the right word. When angry her English sometimes deserted her. She could not hide her annoyance at the damage Donald might have done her. So much of their relationship was fraught with her exasperation. She continually wondered what drew her to Donald. Yet, when he was absent the need for him became intense. She remembered the evening on the lake, and the man he had revealed to her.

  ‘Barbed, you mean,’ Donald corrected her English. ‘There are some who appreciate my style, although of course not W.H.D.’

  ‘I told you before the interview, if you said the right things, many doors would open for you here. Now they are slammed in your face. Pow! Pow!’ Nadya slammed doors in the air. Her tone was still angry. Thank God TECSAT was finished, and she had no further need to face Madame Chiang Kai-shek.

  ‘I say what I think is the truth, not what people want to hear. The only doors that have been shut to me are ones I don’t care to have opened,’ Donald retorted.

  ‘All you want opened are Communist doors. Never did I think I should be so foolish as to get involved with a man who was a Communist admirer,’ Nadya answered. The energy the relationship demanded exhausted
her.

  ‘I’m only interested in the unfolding of Communism in this country. This is an historic era.’ He tried to explain.

  ‘All you want is to write your great book, which has already been written by this Snowman.’ She knew the cruelty of the remark.

  ‘I’ll hit you one day,’ he yelled. Nothing touched him deeper than the reference to Edgar Snow.

  ‘Every time I try to help you, this is what you do: get me a bad name.’ Nadya turned away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Donald put an arm about her.

  ‘This is not the way out, just kiss-kiss and make love.’ She shook him off.

  ‘What have we come here for then?’ he growled.

  ‘To watch the bombs,’ said Nadya.

  In the distance a siren wailed over Nanking. She did not really know why she came to observe the war in this careless manner. It was Donald’s idea. Their disassociation with the emotion of the town seemed not to worry him. His inventory was always the same: the number of planes, the number of bombs, the precise location of a disaster. How many were killed or maimed was not part of his game. He cut off abruptly at this juncture, while she was left in acute discomfort.

  Donald picked up his binoculars. Some distance before them was the airfield and to the right the southern wall of the city. Climbing high into the mountainside were the white steps and blue roofs of Sun Yatsen’s Mausoleum. Below the hill was the spirit avenue to the ancient tombs. The white stone animals like the rest of Nanking now wore a coat of green camouflage paint. Autumn already rusted the slopes of Purple Mountain. Donald looked into the binoculars. Within the lens the sky was a blank pale disc. They might wait hours before the second siren warned of approaching planes.

  ‘Come here,’ said Nadya suddenly, pulling him down beside her. ‘The second siren will tell us when they’re coming. Once you get behind a lens you’re lost. I know you can sit like that, looking at nothing for the next two hours. Maybe you find it easier than looking at me.’ She felt desperate to break the confusion of feeling that attacked her on this mountain slope. There was the strange grip of attraction to Donald, and behind her dark memories of Russia and its violence. And now all about them was a growing fear of what they might yet face.

  Donald swung the binoculars upon her, his eyes still pressed to the glass. ‘Is this better, now I can see more of you?’

  Part of her face came before him, her mouth moist and magnified. Suddenly he saw his mother’s face in the lens of that first camera long ago. And then Cordelia, her lips stretched back against her teeth, smiling like Nadya. The image in the lens appeared suddenly like the grimace of an animal. He stared as if transfixed.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Nadya, pushing the binoculars from his face. ‘The reality is here, not there.’ Before he could reply the second siren wailed. They both sat up.

  ‘I can see them, three, four, six . . . nine,’ said Nadya, squinting up at the specks in the sky. ‘They’re so high.’

  ‘They must be flying at fifteen thousand feet. All bombers. They’re releasing bombs now. Watch the airfield,’ Donald commanded, holding the binoculars on the aircraft.

  ‘They’ve hit the airfield, and a building I think. I can’t see much, there’s so much smoke. It’s all white so they couldn’t have got any oil tanks,’ Nadya reported. Up here war became a game. Donald still followed the planes. At this distance there was little sound, death was a silent business. There was only the song of birds and a breeze soughing in the trees.

  ‘More bombs, over the town. Indiscriminate bombing. Bastards,’ Donald swore.

  ‘Two, three, six, eight explosions. I can’t even count them any more. It’s just dust and flames and smoke.’ Nadya shaded her eyes with a hand. There were dull thuds in the distance as the bombs hit the ground.

  Donald lowered the glasses and together they watched the smoke billowing up from different points in Nanking, expanding then thinning, merging with the sky. The silence was thick about them. It was better than lying in an odorous dugout or the cellars under the university and hospital.

  ‘They’ve gone,’ Donald said and turned to Nadya, pushing her down beneath him. He could feel the beating of her heart, still digesting the destruction only moments before in the distant town. He began to loosen her clothing.

  She arranged her body in the ways she knew would please him and extract the greatest pleasure for herself. He had never known anyone with so little reservation. This thought was always with him in the midst of love. In these moments, with the sulphurous smell of the bombing drifting towards them, their lovemaking had an edge not found at mundane times. Each grasped at pleasure as if to reconfirm the life that about them was ending.

  Her nails pressed into his flesh, like the claws of a cat once aroused to gratification. Beneath him she was lost to his presence, although he filled her. He envied her this abandon that, in spite of the urgency of his body, his emotions could not follow. Since Cordelia it was as if something severed him from himself. He heard her cry out and her body slackened. He climaxed immediately, his relief more than the assuaging of physical desire. The act of sex now had an edge of emotional distaste to him and he was glad when it was over. He knew this was nothing to do with Nadya, and everything to do with Cordelia, and what she had done to him.

  He turned on his back, lit a cigarette for Nadya and another for himself. He would have been happier now if she were not there. He was always left with the reflection of her desire, unslaked until he himself was exhausted. In the aftermath of lovemaking the very essence that drew him to her, now began to repulse him. Lust in his mind became greed, impetuosity turned to wantonness. He feared the energy she radiated. Love, he had decided, was not as yet part of the pact between them. Confusion flowed through him, twisting his thoughts this way and that. Sometimes Nadya appeared no better than a prostitute, no better than Cordelia. The same lust had driven Cordelia to destroy his life. Sometimes, these disruptive thoughts came to him in the very act of love and immediately his body refused to function. Then Nadya took his failure as a personal affront and demanded to know her affliction. It was impossible to reveal to her the complexity of his emotions. He had not told her about Cordelia, or that China was his escape, nor the reasons why. Cordelia. He had only to silently say her name for bitterness to drown him again. He remembered the morning he met her.

  It was her first day on the paper and the men were already placing their bets. She was the daughter of a well-known Peer, but had a reputation of her own as a journalist. She had come to the paper from a women’s magazine.

  ‘I’ve heard of your father,’ Cordelia said when Donald introduced himself. She stared up at him. ‘I read that book of his on Russia. I’ve read some of your stuff too.’ Her nose ended pertly, her eyes were always surprised.

  ‘I’ll be going down to Sussex at the weekend to see my father. If you come with me, you could meet him too,’ he teased. By the end of the day she had agreed to the trip.

  ‘Never know who I’ll find him with,’ Donald joked as they drove down. ‘He led my poor mother a dance.’

  Since his wife’s death John Addison had abandoned all discretion and no longer hid his love affairs. Donald could never see what it was that drew women to his father. As a child he had observed him only through his mother’s pain. Twice she had left the marriage, taking Donald with her, but each time returned. On those occasions when they lived separately, Donald was happy without his father, alone with his mother. Some nights he slept in her bed, climbing in for comfort in the dark, seeking the warmth of her body. The bed was high and he was small. He remembered her still, lifting him up. When she cried she held him close and the anger within him turned savage.

  ‘I’ll kill him, Mama,’ he vowed. On the pillow her hair was damp. Strands stuck to her cheeks and frightened him, as did her swollen eyes.

  ‘I’ll take your picture,’ he had told her one day, trying to comfort her, sitting up in bed beside her, putting on the light and picking up the toy camera he alw
ays kept beside him. ‘Smile Mama. Please smile.’

  He had pressed the camera close to his body. He still remembered his feelings of desperation at her grief. Yet he also remembered, framed in the distant lens of the camera, her tears had not seemed so apparent. The terror in him lessened and, eventually, she smiled.

  ‘Funny boy,’ she said and put her arms about him, rubbing his head in the way he liked. He tasted the salt of tears on her cheek and licked them off her as always, until she began to laugh. He breathed in the smell of her body, her perfume, and was glad his father was not there. Even now the odour of wet hair or the taste of salt from the sea reminded him of her. She had entered his body with her tears. When she died in his teens he raged at his father.

  ‘You killed her. All my life, every day, I watched her die.’

  ‘Cancer killed her.’

  ‘You killed her.’

  ‘Stop it, I tell you.’ He could not believe his father would cry, and turned away in disgust.

  ‘If she had not been so unhappy, she might not have got cancer,’ Donald replied. He heard his father’s intake of breath and felt some satisfaction.

  It surprised him as an adult to realise his father was at heart an inflexible, reactionary man who, in his famous book on Russia, had refused to come to terms with a new world order. He remembered the day at Oxford when this realisation had tumbled upon him as he sat in a vaulted university library. He had thrown a book in the air and laughed, knowing at last he was his own man. He never considered any profession but journalism.

  ‘So you want to compete?’ John Addison had asked, a certain grimness in his tone, when his son first joined The Times.

  Donald made it a point to defy in print every ideal his father stood for. He began to be read for his radical views, while old men in clubs shook their heads. His father backed Empire and Donald the downfall of colonialism. John Addison deplored Communism and his son sighted a brave new world. The ball was thrown between them. Soon Donald’s reputation was secure, as a reckless but brilliant character; a risk for any editor.