A Choice of Evils

by Meira Chand

  He remembered again his village in summer. The haze of heat. A kestrel wheeling. Above all, he must remember these things. It was useless to ask himself why. Remember. The sun on the ripening trellis of cucumbers. The cocoons of the silkworms. The ink blue liquid of aubergines pickled in a deep brown pot. The gnarled fingers of his mother on winter evenings darning frayed kimono. Remember. The stillness across the valley in summer. A butterfly. A bird. A cuckoo.

  He squinted anxiously at the sky, fearing daybreak. A seam of light already split the night. The dark shape of a hamlet appeared ahead. When at last he stumbled into it, he found it deserted, and sank down against a wall.

  ‘Now what?’ he yelled aloud, frustration bursting from him.

  His head was jerked suddenly back, and he felt the cold blade of a knife against his throat. Three men surrounded him.

  ‘Don’t kill me.’ He cried out in Japanese before he could stop himself. The men started back in shock. Why had he not pretended to be mute? Now they would know who he was. Now he would soon be dead.

  The men argued incomprehensibly about him. The boy with the knife began tying his wrists. They pulled him to his feet, dragging him with them into a bare, ruined hut. One of the men bent down and appeared to rip up a portion of floor. Akira saw it was a trap-door below which there were some steps. He was pushed forward into the hole. A room was dug out beneath the house. At the bottom of the ladder a grey-haired man slept on a blanket. A kerosene lamp burned low beside him. At first Akira thought he must be another prisoner, but the man sat up at the disturbance and the boys crouched about him, conversing in an agitated way. The elderly man stared at Akira.

  ‘You are from the Imperial Army?’ he asked in Japanese. Akira nodded, gazing at the man in amazement. He was dishevelled, but he wore the long gown of an educated Chinese.

  ‘What are you doing here in these clothes?’ The man’s Japanese was not fluent. He spoke slowly, searching for words, but Akira understood him.

  ‘I have run away. What we are ordered to do no human being should consider. I am a farmer. You understand? I am a farmer, like you. Like you.’ He turned to each of the men. The elderly man translated his words into Chinese.

  ‘Why should we believe you?’ the man asked, turning to Akira again.

  ‘If you do not, I am ready to die. Do as you wish with me,’ Akira shrugged. Sleep of any kind was all he wished for now. Death might be best, for he need then never wake again.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ the man asked.

  Akira shook his head. The man gave an order and from a bag one of the young men extracted a small bun. Akira took it gratefully. The older man bent down and poured some water into a tin mug from a pan beside his blanket.

  ‘Drink this. We are waiting for a boat. If it does not arrive soon we must wait until tonight to move. You will come with us.’ The man put the mug into his hand.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Akira asked. Panic spread through him. What would they do with him?

  ‘We are going inland. Some distance up river is a town. From there provisions and some transport have been arranged.’

  ‘Why are you taking me?’ Akira demanded. The elderly man looked at him mildly.

  ‘Because otherwise it is likely you will die. If not my people then your own will find and kill you. You will be safe with us. Inland there are people who will take care of you.’

  ‘But I am Japanese,’ Akira replied. It did not seem prudent to believe this man.

  ‘Because of that no doubt some people will see a use for you. But otherwise, as far as I am concerned, you have taken a stand. You have seen the diabolical madness of all this. For me that is enough. I have friends who are Japanese. There is one who recently risked his life to save me. But for him I would not be here, alive today. For him now, in return, I take care of you.’ The man spoke without emotion.

  There came a hiss from above the ladder. Looking up they saw a boy signalling urgently. The boat had come.

  Akira followed the men up the ladder, running after them to the river where a sampan waited. They clambered in and lay flat in the bows. The boat poled away from the bank.

  ‘What is your name?’ Akira asked.

  ‘I am called Teng Li-sheng,’ the man replied.

  20

  Christmas Eve

  It was Christmas Eve. Frost powdered the town in a delicate veil. The roads appeared suddenly tidier. Bodies no longer littered streets, like flotsam washed up by a tide. Because of the fear of epidemics, the Red Swastika Society were allowed again to clear them away. An epidemic, the army realised, would hit their own men as hard as Chinese civilians. Now, any open swathe of land became a mass grave.

  There was the flap of wings. Donald looked up but saw only some crows settling on the roof of a building. Scavengers. He had been unable to sleep and had risen early to begin work, documenting for the Safety Committee. Work. There was no journalist here but himself. Nanking was his egg and he was determined to hatch it, however it repulsed him. Fortune had smiled once more, if somewhat crookedly, upon him.

  At last the International Committee had realised their impotence in the face of the diabolical. There was an agreement to accept a situation in which they could do nothing, and concentrate upon documentation. Evidence must be collected and safely stored for future evaluation by the world.

  Donald’s reaction to this call had been immediate. Every day he was out with his notebook. His interviews with Nanking’s bereaved and terrorised citizens were exhaustive. He probed always for more details. Each morning he scoured the town like a beachcomber, to gather up the remnants of the night’s tide. He appeared for meals at Martha’s, dishevelled and exhausted. His eyes were glazed, and his manner excitable.

  He walked on up the road. Much depended upon his reportage. Yesterday he had acquired a movie camera and some films. It had been found by one of the International Committee in a cupboard at Headquarters. He had commandeered it at once and immediately began to film discreetly. Once, from the safety of a schoolroom, he had filmed the shooting of a hundred men and their burial in a mass grave. Some had still been alive. He had seen movement as the soil was piled upon them.

  Christmas Eve. The date would not leave him. He kept forgetting its significance and then, remembering, the agitation began in him anew. He would have preferred to bypass the wretched event, but the International Committee were doing what they always did. Roast goose or duck or whatever could be scrounged was about to be cooked; it was difficult to believe. He was determined to be no part of any Christmas celebration. He walked on, the camera hidden in a bag. If detected it would be taken from him, and smashed.

  As always, when he was out on these streets he must breathe the town’s despair. Yet he feared that already he had become like Mariani, for all he could see was the same one death, over and over again. He felt nothing now when he looked at Nanking. He walked on and came to a pond. Once, at this spot, buffalo had drunk in the shade of willows, and white egrets had stood in the water. Smaller birds had picked ticks from the buffalo’s ears, riding upon the animal’s back. Now the willows had been hacked down, their stumps raw against the old black bark. In the distance an arched stone bridge still stood, a reminder of another world. A group of small houses was beyond it. Donald made his way towards them, his mind full of that other Christmas Eve.

  They were to spend Christmas with his father, in Sussex. Cordelia had loaded the boot of the car with food and presents. John Addison’s old housekeeper, Mrs Weatherington, was to cook the turkey. Cordelia looked festive. She wore, he remembered, a cherry red dress and a dark green silk padded jacket and matching green suede boots. Something glowed beneath her skin. Donald had thought it only the excitement of the moment. He had returned from India days before, after an absence of several months, and was happy to be back with her. John Addison had seemed in a jovial mood when Donald had spoken to him over the phone. He was working on a political biography that was going well, and had started no argument about India or Donald�
��s pro-Indian views. The unusual lack of combativeness made Donald wonder if his father was well.

  That Christmas Eve had been a Sunday. On their arrival at the house in Sussex there had been talk about Donald’s months away in India and the political situation there. Cordelia’s new job on a women’s magazine had also been discussed. There was the tree to be decorated. Cordelia had been like an excited child, and John seemed newly paternal. After lunch Donald went for a walk, John said he had work to do. Cordelia announced she was tired.

  He had set out alone. It was a cold and blustery day. In the persistent sun of India, he had not realised how much he missed a variety of climate. Strolling along the river, he was happy to be back, kicking at damp grass. He thought of his father’s new pliancy and for once did not dislike him. Perhaps age was mellowing him and soon, at last, they might view each other as people. The wind blew up, and even when the rain began he walked on. For a time he had sheltered beneath an oak but at last turned back towards the house.

  He found now he was down by the arched stone bridge, as if by thinking of that far-away river in Sussex, the Nanking water had pulled him to itself. The narrow canal was green and sluggish, lichen clung to the stone walls. The lumpen debris of bodies filled the path of water. The flat plates of lotus leaves pushed up between the corpses. A rat swam along the bank. Donald looked into the camera. The stench about him was overpowering, and he remembered again the diabolical mess at the River Gate. Why was he doing this, why was he here? I must. He repeated the words like a mantra. I must. The reason had slipped through the holes in his mind.

  There was the sudden sound of soldiers. Donald crouched down beneath the arch of the bridge. It was icy and his foot slipped. He caught the undergrowth for support, and saw with a shudder how easily he might roll down the bank into the water, amongst the rotting corpses. Before him the muscular stalks of lotus pushed their leathery leaves between the sodden detriment, spreading in a canopy over the putrid mess. Eastern religions might revere the flower for creating its beauty while rooted to filth but, looking at the scene before him, he felt nothing but repulsion. His thoughts were disturbed by the sound of shouting. Pulling himself up level with the lane, he took cover behind a bush.

  Men were being tossed from a house by a group of soldiers. Those who protested were stuck like pigs upon bayonets and kicked to the side of the road. Donald moved to step forward, but then drew back, setting the movie camera in motion instead. He heard the comfort of the machine begin its rhythmic purr and pressed his eye to the lens. A man writhed in agony in the street. Donald’s finger eased on the camera, and the machine ceased to move. He should stop the soldiers. For a moment he hesitated, then pressed the camera into motion again. This was the action he had waited for. He heard a high-pitched scream.

  A woman had been run to ground. The cry filled Donald’s ears, and his hands shook on the camera. As he watched the woman fled from the house. Two soldiers followed and fell upon her. Donald kept his finger on the camera button, his eye against the lens. Far away in time and place, as if through a keyhole, he watched the woman forcibly spread-eagled to receive the pumping body of a man. She did not struggle but pursed her lips to stop her screams. Her eyes were closed in stoic acceptance. His finger pressed harder upon the button, his breath choked in his throat. He could see nothing now but the scene of that other Christmas Eve.

  After the walk he had returned to the house. Mrs Weatherington had gone, and thinking his father at work and Cordelia asleep, he let himself in. The place was empty. He thought perhaps they had driven to the village, and sat down with the newspapers. He read for a while then, looking up, saw through the window beyond the elderberry that the car was still in the garage. Almost at once he heard her laugh.

  He walked up the stairs, disbelieving, and opened the door. At first they did not see him. Cordelia’s body was partly hidden by his father’s fleshy nakedness. From the open doorway he stared at the rocking mound of entwined flesh. Beneath his father’s shoulder, Cordelia’s head arched back. On her face he saw an expression like none he could remember. He stood for some moments before they saw him.

  ‘Why are you back?’ she screamed. John Addison hung as if suspended above her, then turned to one side, saying nothing, pulling the sheet upon himself.

  Donald ran from the house and back along the river, flinging himself onto the sodden grass. The rain pelted down upon him.

  Upon the camera now his hands were shaking. The nightmare welled up towards him. Before him the peasant woman’s face was not stoic with terror, but alight with the ecstasy of Cordelia. Rage swilled through him. Faraway in the camera lens, bare flesh entwined. Moving. Flesh pleasuring flesh. Hate for Cordelia gripped his throat. Why should he stop it? The whirring of the camera filled his ears. Suddenly the woman opened her mouth and began to scream. With one hand the soldier continued to hold her down, with the other he raised his bayonet. Donald moved his eye from the camera. Something snapped into place. The scene sprang forward upon him as colour and emotion diffused the street. The woman was screaming now without end.

  He put down the camera and ran forward then, shouting, waving his arms. The soldiers looked up and swore. One pointed a bayonet at him but Donald stepped aside. The other soldier disentangled himself from the woman, pulling up his breeches. They ran off.

  The woman drew her ripped clothing together, and crawled over to her husband. Donald went into the house, but found no one. He returned to the wounded man, and knelt beside the woman.

  ‘He will live, I think,’ he told her, but the woman did not understand. She was middle-aged with an impassive leathery face that he guessed would survive the experience of rape, as it must have survived other trauma. He bent to pick up the man, pointing down the road. The hospital was a short distance away. The woman nodded and trotted beside him. Once she moaned and he looked at her quickly, but her face was expressionless. The man in his arms was of little weight.

  He seemed to walk as if in a dream. Nothing about him appeared real. She will survive. He will survive. These people survive anything, he thought. For thousands of years they have weathered the impossible. They accept whatever they must accept, that is their strength and their wisdom, he argued with himself. And yet, within the circle of these city walls what ghosts must grieve, unending? He pushed the thought from his mind. In the distance he saw the hospital.

  I could have stopped it. The thought came to him again and again. I stopped some of it, he silently argued. The woman might have died. I could have stopped it. The words flitted in and out of his head. No emotion seemed attached to them. He walked on, the camera in its bag upon his back. The woman trailed behind. He remembered again it was Christmas Eve.

  He had returned at last to the house, on that other Christmas Eve. Cold. Dripping. Numb. The car was gone but his father was there, reading calmly in an armchair, as if nothing of moment had occurred.

  ‘Cordelia has returned to London. You had better change or you’ll catch pneumonia.’ John Addison spoke in an even tone, without looking up from the newspaper.

  The audacity of such coolness was shocking. Donald changed and packed. He will handle this situation as he handled all those other situations with Mother, he thought. Once, he knew, his mother had found his father with a woman, a family friend, in her own bed, just as he had found him with Cordelia. Donald made his way downstairs.

  ‘I will never see you again,’ he said, his case on the floor beside him. ‘Once I told Mother I’d kill you. I could not bear to see her pain. If I could I would have done it then, I hated you so much. Now I know you are not worth the effort.’

  Even as he spoke he felt himself a child again, small before the power of his father. He heard his voice turn thin, and his words form ineffectually. Instead of strength he heard petulance. He hated himself for the failure.

  John Addison did not reply. He nodded and returned to the paper. Donald let himself out and walked up the drive, the rain sluicing off his umbrella. It was a short wa
lk to the station. He tried to make plans. He would stay with a friend in Hampstead, he would phone from the station. Turning out of the gate, he walked along the lane. Over the hedge he could see the lighted window of his father’s study. His eyes were upon it when the shot came. No feeling of panic filled him. He did not hurry but turned and walked slowly back to the house. He knew already what he would find.

  His father was slumped over the desk, the gun warm in his hand. Blood covered the wall and the desk. Part of the skull was blown away. He would never forget the mess.

  21

  Christmas Day

  Christmas was planned. There might not be festivity, but ritual would be observed. A goose had been cooked. The smell of the roasting bird perfumed the house. Each time Nadya inhaled its succulence depression congealed within her. Christian conviction might demand prayer, but rejoicing, even on this day, was surely here bizarre.

  But perhaps, thought Nadya, it was not so insane to grasp at this pinprick of normality, like an invisible rope they might hold, if even for a moment. Christmas according to Hieronymus Bosch, was how Donald had titled the event. I want no part of it, he had told her. And shut himself up in his room with a sandwich of tinned cheese. He had brought some woman to the hospital who had been raped, and whose husband was bayoneted. He would not talk about what he had seen. The vacant expression on his face frightened Nadya more than ever. He had sealed himself off in some impenetrable world. He drifted further from her day by day, as if their relationship did not exist. Silence was all he demanded of her. She knew each of them must find their own way to live through these days. For Donald, the motive of documentation kept him functioning in an automatic way.

  As for herself, like Martha, incarceration in the hospital held Nadya partially blinkered. She shut herself up within its busy, disciplined walls. Here, she faced only the end of violence, not its pitiless enactment. Had she been witness to that she could not have performed as she did in the hospital, tying up the ends of terror. She functioned because she stood as if on a shore, collecting the debris of a vicious sea. Beyond her was an ocean from which she wanted distance. Only Donald swam out each day into its bottomless expanse. Within it she feared he might drown.