by Meira Chand
The unsuccessful policy of terror had at last been abandoned in Nanking. Embassies showed some activity again, although most Ambassadors refused to return, as did those townspeople who had fled. But settled in Hankow, Chiang Kai-shek had never been more popular. The unification he sought, the Japanese had now secured for him. A hate, bigger than any hate throughout their history, now galvanised the country.
Patrols of soldiers were less vigilant on the walls now. It was possible to climb up once more to the view. The Yangtze River still flowed, mercurial in the distance beneath the setting sun. Thin clouds were pulled by the breeze across the sky like drifts of chiffon. Nature was impervious. Only the balances between men seemed irrevocably disturbed. Now, when she looked at the view, Nadya thought only of the vast, racked body of China, spreading away from beneath these walls.
She saw them coming from a distance, climbing the cobbled stone ramp, the breath thick in their chests. Flora walked a distance behind Lily. Each day Nadya coaxed them out, until they no longer cringed before the distant trudge of army boots. She tried not to think of the months behind, taking each day as it came. They could breathe without fear once again, but the residue of nightmare left strange markings upon the personality. Each must find their own road through memory. All the old structures were smashed.
‘It’s turning green,’ she said, nodding at the landscape.
Lily smiled. Suddenly she smiled too much. After weeks of trying to ease her from the results of trauma, Nadya wondered why Lily’s brightness should fill her with such apprehension?
‘Soon there will be flowers again,’ Lily answered.
‘Dandelions and weeds. Nobody will ever have a garden again. Even the river looks dirty.’ Flora stared at the distant river.
Her silence was as heavy as Lily’s brightness. These were the first whole sentences Nadya had heard her speak that day. But she noticed how, animal-like, Flora sniffed the breeze and held her face to the sun. Things as small as this counted as regrowth. Sometimes, she became impatient with Flora. Little had happened to her in comparison to Lily. And yet she sank further into depression as Lily’s brightness bloomed. They needed to get away from the hospital, away from China. Even the thought of returning to the hospital appeared up here, before the glittering sun, like return to an underground burrow. At its door memory locked onto them, pulling them back into its black mass.
‘We should get back,’ said Flora after a short while.
Lily nodded agreement, but tilted her face, meeting the line of the river with her eyes, as if to hold it in her mind. They were like moles who had stumbled mistakenly from the security of darkness. They clung to the terrible boundary of memory. Only the dead, thought Nadya, seemed free to forget.
‘I’ll stay up here a while,’ she said, hoping they would wait. Instead. they turned, and she watched them walk down the stone ramp, one behind the other, like strangers in separate worlds. Somnambulists.
Nadya stared at the river, bronzed now by the setting sun. Donald had gone. There was no longer any anger in her. She wished for release from all feeling for him. Instead, there seemed no erasing whatever it was that bound them together. She too should have gone like Donald, when the gates opened, but something inexplicable held her back. In this aftermath of terror, nothing cohered. There were the large incomprehensibilities, like brick walls she suddenly found herself before. How did men do the things that were done in Nanking? But there were also smaller things she could not explain. Especially Kenjiro Nozaki.
The shame of it filled her once more. She knew so little about him. And yet all she could think of was the need for him still, heightening every sensation. It was as if their bodies had rocked upon the edge of a cliff, courting death, devouring each other, cell by cell, breath by breath. And in the midst of it all there had been that cry, far away from the world they constructed upon the temple floor. Lily’s scream. She had heard it clearly. But the cry of her own delirium, torn from the centre of her body, had blotted out all else. At that moment of ecstasy, Lily had been destroyed. Perhaps she could have saved her. Instead, she had spread herself wider beneath the man, rapacious for escape. And, afterwards, they had left the pavilion to discover only yards away that scene she would never now forget. Lily. It was her fault. Nadya hid her face in her hands.
Already the sun had set and the town was melting into dusk, the river pulled towards the night. Nadya unclasped her knees and stretched her stiff legs. It was time to return to the hospital.
She found Lily sitting in a rattan chair before a glass-topped table, playing Patience. She slapped the cards down one by one. The faces of Jack and Queen and King stared up at her, wooden and garish. Lily sat at a small, round table all day, flicking over the cards, again and again. When asked, she moved to meals, to a bath, to bed, pliant, responsive yet absent, and returned to the table. It seemed she remembered nothing.
‘I will come in a moment,’ she replied to Nadya, without lifting her eyes from the table, holding on to the order before her.
‘King. Jack. Ace. Queen of Spades.’ Lily was safe in a one-dimensional world.
‘She has blocked it all out,’ Martha stated. ‘She is lucky.’
Her voice was crisp with diagnosis. To label and dismiss was a relief. Martha stared at Flora to whom no such process could be applied. Why had she not sent the girls away? She had put her own need of them before their safety. It was her fault that this had happened. Her fault. She did not know which was worse, Lily’s amnesia or Flora’s distress. She could not bear to look at the girls.
Nadya pulled her chair up to the dinner table. More than anywhere Nanking’s silence seemed deepest here, in Martha’s house. They ate with their heads down, hurriedly. A weight stifled everything. Nadya listened to the knock of china, and the voice of the cook in the kitchen. She traced with a finger the petals of an embroidered flower on the tablecloth.
Flora’s blonde hair fell forward from beneath a band, her face was pinched. There was the machinery of desperation in her bones. She said nothing, chewing resolutely. Since that night, now almost two months ago, Flora had hardly spoken. And yet, physically, she had been unhurt. How quickly each one of them had passed into the solitariness of experience, thought Nadya. In that place no words were heard. Healing was by grace.
Even as she ate, Nadya noticed, Martha’s eyes flashed over Flora. To her it was Flora, invisible victim, violated by guilt and atrocious knowledge, who suffered the greater sickness. Lily’s blocked memory relieved Martha of any immediate action. It worried Nadya that Martha had taken this option. It seemed out of character with the woman she knew. There was a new tone to Martha’s voice, a new firmness about her mouth. In her eyes Nadya discerned a shadow, gone almost before it was caught. It filled her with unease. Martha’s usual, invincible neatness was also disturbed. Some days her hair appeared dragged into its bun with hardly a preliminary brushing. Her expression and movements lacked alertness, as if she was absent from herself.
In one or another way, thought Nadya, they were all absent from themselves. Through the weeks of terror they had hung grimly on, as if to a roller coaster. But now, it was as if she looked down a kaleidoscope where the broken shapes of once familiar patterns settled anew each day. She could never predict what she might find. All the old allegiances had disappeared, blasted apart by stress.
‘I think you should go away.’ Nadya looked directly at Martha.
‘The Japanese are pushing everywhere, there is nowhere left to go,’ Martha replied.
‘To America,’ Nadya announced.
‘I have thought of it,’ Martha said. Her voice was flat, as if she dismissed the proposal outright.
‘What about the girls? What about Flora? I have heard shipping has started again. There will be a boat to America now,’ Nadya argued. Martha looked at her blankly.
‘Do you mean I should send them away?’ Martha shook her head and returned to her soup. Flora started, eyes wide, watching them.
‘I will stay here
,’ she said.
‘But there is nothing here,’ Nadya replied.
‘They can both do correspondence courses until things are better.’ The vague look grew in Martha’s eyes.
‘But things may not get better. And they are worse still in Europe. America has a future for the girls. Go there. Please.’ She leaned over the table to Martha.
‘I never go from where I am needed,’ Martha replied.
‘And the girls?’ Nadya asked again.
‘They will be fine here,’ Martha answered. There was a stubborn look now in her face.
After the soup there was a stew. Flora wished she could enjoy it as before. Before was like another life. She wished she had a disease of the memory. There were people who, for no reason other than a bump on the head, could lose their past life for ever. She had knocked her head badly the other day on a low door frame, but nothing happened. Her memory remained intact.
Flora hated the stew. Its thick, rich gravy and its soft fibrous meat made her think of flesh as never before. Made her remember the bodies beside the road. Every mouthful was an effort. It was the same with ripe fruit, split open to its soft inside. Even the water, piped in from the Yangtze, purified and crystal clear, had lapped about the unspeakable. Everything must still be there, at the bottom of the river. Nothing, Flora had discovered, was without connections. One thing in life adhered to another as if in conspiracy. Nothing was like it had been Before. The stars no longer seemed eternal but flickered like bits of cheap rhinestone. And the sun shone down apathetically, upon disintegration.
Tiredness wrapped itself about her. And yet she was afraid to close her eyes for the same scene was always before her. Memory had solidified in her like a layer of bone. Flora knew now there were things that could never be forgotten. They sank into your blood and cells to grow like mould, destroying you from the inside out. These memories were worse than illness. Illness was treatable; pills, hot water bottles and poultices eased the pain. There was no treatment for her, Flora knew. She was alone with the disease of memory.
She had not noticed that Lily and her mother had left the room. For some reason now she was alone at the table with Nadya, whose eyes were upon her. Flora hated the woman’s sympathy, a spongy thing that had only to be touched to spew out its unwanted warmth. She did not need it. Why did Nadya not go back to Shanghai? Soon, Flora feared, Nadya would start up again, about the need to put terrible things behind you. Or the necessity to go out for a walk on the wall, or a voyage to America. Or to go to Lily. She knew she should go to Lily. Instead, she let the distance grow.
It was as if another identity now propelled her. Each day she became more and more aware of this other person within her, pushing her away from everyone. Sometimes, it was as if she heard a voice, calling to her faintly. She had read a Greek myth about the Sirens, who called sailors irresistibly to their island. The voice she heard was of this quality, pulling her towards it.
‘You know, Lily is sick. She needs your support,’ Nadya said. Perhaps it was not right to confront Flora, but depression of the type that had seized the girl seemed to her self-generating. She could not understand the distance Flora placed between herself and Lily. It was impossible to talk to Martha about it; Martha did not want to talk about anything.
‘Lily has always depended upon you. She needs even more of you now.’ For a moment she saw life flicker in the girl’s face.
‘We’ve all been driven to the edge of madness by the sight of others’ terror, by the knowledge of darkness. I know what you went through. But think of Lily . . .’ Nadya broke off at the emotion twisting now in Flora’s face. The girl clenched her fists until the knuckles showed white, and words spewed from her suddenly.
‘She has escaped. Don’t you see? She remembers nothing. She’s the lucky one, free of it all. It’s I who must remember, every moment, every day.’ Even as Flora shouted the words the pictures returned to her, unstoppable.
Lily had put up a wall in her mind, like a dam, so that memory should not flood down and destroy her. Martha had told Flora this. By not remembering Lily had deflected her pain, projecting it all upon Flora, forcing her to carry it. Anger at Lily spilt up anew. How dare she not remember. And yet Flora could not refuse to carry this new burden. It was her fault. Her fault.
She remembered her mother the night the soldiers entered the hospital, wild-eyed, dishevelled, hysterical. The image had stayed with her. And now some further layer was displaced in Martha by what had happened to Lily. And that incident was wholly Flora’s fault. Her fault. She had not done as her mother ordered. She had left Lily alone. It seemed suddenly unbearable. She had not the capacity to absorb yet more of Martha or Lily’s pain.
‘She must be made to remember, made to,’ Flora sobbed. If Lily could remember, she would have to reclaim her pain. Then the burden upon Flora would at once be lightened.
Nadya shook her head in bewilderment. ‘Be glad she does not remember. Too soon, I’m sure, she will. Until then you must help her.’ Nadya looked at Flora in consternation.
‘I cannot,’ said Flora, pursing her lips. It was a question of her life or Lily’s.
25
Journey to Hankow
Mid-March 1938
They came unexpectedly to a gorge, and walked for a while along its crest. Akira looked down at the river far below. Jagged rocks, pines and bamboo of great height packed its steep sides. The sun slipped down the ravine in long runnels. It was crowded by religious pilgrims toiling up to a temple at the top of the gorge. Kestrels wheeled in the placid sky. It was a Buddhist holiday.
Whenever he could Akira kept close to the man they called Teng. It was not just that he could speak in broken Japanese. Akira sought for a way to explain to himself the strange aura of this man. He remembered standing before a gilded statue of Kwannon, Goddess of Mercy, in his village temple. Before the calm face of that icon he knew there was nothing to fear.
They were a group now of twelve. Refugees met along the way had been encouraged to join them by Teng. There were women, and babies who cried at night. He could not bear to hear their cries, and pressed his hands to his ears. Upon their howls came memory, as if to torture him.
‘Do not speak,’ Teng had ordered him, after they boarded the sampan at Nanking. ‘Tie this about your face. I will say you have a disease of the mouth and are mute. When the time is right I will explain who you are.’ Akira knotted the scarf about the lower half of his face.
After three days they left the boat and began to trek inland. They had been weeks on the march now, sometimes stopping a few days in small towns. It was always the same. They walked in silence, concentrating on the miles to be covered. Wherever they were, the Imperial Army had not yet arrived; the countryside was whole. Sometimes, high above, planes flew on their way to raids but took no notice of them.
They did not walk alone. The whole country was on the march. At every village, people joined the moving mass. Trucks and carts towered with belongings. Besides the personal, the machinery of whole factories appeared to ride upon people’s backs. Broken railway lines were patched and wagons, loaded with livestock or further machinery, were dragged forward, roped to thousands of men. Engines, devoid of fuel, were pulled to safety in this way.
‘Everything is going inland,’ Teng told Akira. ‘The infrastructure of the country must be saved. Half the factories in the Shanghai area have already been moved to safety, bit by bit in this manner. Everything is going up to Chungking. Chiang Kai-shek will move there if Hankow falls.’ They had stood on the slope of a hill observing the dark caterpillars of people on the march.
‘This war will be written in the hearts of a whole generation. It has come like a storm, sweeping people up like autumn leaves, scattering them in all directions,’ Teng sighed.
Now the discovery of the ravine took Akira’s breath away. The mass of fleeing people appeared far away. Here it was possible to believe war did not exist. Akira stared at the brightly dressed multitude. The atmosphere was lig
ht-hearted. People laughed, children ran about in play and were pulled back onto the precipitous mountain paths by parents. Beggars lined the roads, the wealthy passed in sedan chairs. Country people, in peasant clothes of primary colours were everywhere. Some even wore clothes they would be dressed in at burial, so that the gods would recognise them. Akira remembered then an autumn festival at the shrine in his village. It had been like this, the holiday atmosphere, the bright clothes and milling people, the stalls of edibles and paper windmills. He remembered the chanting of sutras had mixed there too with the thick smell of incense. In the dim interior of the temple was the same dull glint of gold.
Soon, as they made their way down the ravine to the town below, they heard a distant rumble. Far away a line of black specks appeared beneath the clouds and sped towards them, circling once before releasing bombs upon the town. Those who could made for the shelter of scrub or trees. The planes returned, low now above the gorge. Beneath the roar of the engines the crackle of machine-guns began. Bullets spat out of the sky.
Many times on the march from Shanghai to Nanking, Akira had watched squadrons of planes soar above, like glittering birds, to soften up the place of their next attack. Looking up now he saw the red globes of the rising sun on the underside of wings. His pulse quickened in pride. Teng gestured at him to crouch down amongst the shrubs or rock. He saw then that only he stood erect, staring at the sky, as if fear was unknown.
‘You are not on their side any more,’ Teng hissed.
Akira pulled away from Teng’s grasp, refusing to crouch down. You are not on their side any more. He craned his neck to hold the planes in sight as they swooped up into the sky again. He stared after them until they vanished beyond the clouds. His feelings were confused.
