by Meira Chand
‘Will General Tojo stand trial?’ Nadya asked. Tojo had recovered from a suicide attempt soon after the surrender.
‘Certainly he will,’ Bradley replied. ‘Many Japanese have lost even the last grain of respect for him because he couldn’t do away with himself efficiently, as did so many others. I’ve forgotten how many have been arrested as war criminals to date, but hundreds, maybe thousands.’ Bradley puffed again on his pipe.
‘And the Emperor? Is he to be treated as a war criminal?’ Nadya asked. There was much debate upon the Emperor’s guilt. He still appeared to Nadya as a shadowy figure, whose true role she could not determine. ‘Now, that is a much harder question,’ Bradley replied. ‘It is very difficult to know what to say. There is a consolidated conspiracy by all about him to protect him, not only out of reverence, but to safeguard the Emperor system. It is understandable, if you know Japan.’
‘Don’t they say the Emperor was a prisoner in his own palace, ineffectual against the military, without a voice of his own? It’s impossible to deny he was locked up in his ivory tower, relying upon the ears and eyes of courtiers to scan the common world beyond his palace,’ Nadya argued.
Bradley frowned, unwilling to agree to simplistic explanations. ‘I suppose the answer to the Hirohito question must inevitably lie somewhere between innocence and guilt. We should not forget he was brought up by military men, his mind filled with the glories of past battles and talk of a united Asia under Japan. He was an expert upon military strategy, and had a rare passion for the subject. He built a War Headquarters in the grounds of his palace, where each move of the war was reported and planned. Nothing could be put into action without his knowledge and his seal upon it. I believe he is a clever man, adept at playing the role of the moment, to get his way and protect himself. I do not think of him as a warmonger, but as a man with a dream for his nation and his reign. This dream coincided with the ambition of unscrupulous men in a wilful era. He always acted constitutionally. He may have used this as a shield, but more probably, it would have been out of character and contrary to his convictions about the rule of law to do otherwise. The will of the state must always be the will of the Emperor. Sadly, he was what we see so often in history, a mediocre man caught up in the tide of great history.’
‘Then why does General MacArthur not do away with the Emperor system?’ Nadya asked. ‘Surely, that alone would change the mentality of the whole country.’
‘The goodwill of the Japanese people is needed to turn this country around. There would be also complete disorientation without the Emperor. And of course, MacArthur’s main concern now is to use this country to arrest any possible spread of Communism in the future. If we leave Japan broken and weak, we leave it open to that threat. We need a stable ally now in the Far East.’ Bradley emptied his pipe into an ashtray and began to fill it with fresh tobacco.
‘But the Emperor met MacArthur and told him that he bore the sole responsibility for the war,’ Nadya interjected.
‘I think MacArthur was taken aback, thinking the Emperor was going to beg him not to indict him. I believe Marquis Kido, the Lord Privy Seal, had insisted the Emperor to take no responsibility. Anyway, MacArthur was very impressed by the Emperor. I think he has developed a great respect for him. But of course, in Japanese custom the head of any concern must take responsibility and resign for the deeds of his underlings, even if he is not guilty. Responsibility rests at the head. This is a hierarchical society.’ Bradley relit his pipe and began to puff upon it again.
‘Marquis Kido has been arrested, which I really don’t think he deserves,’ Bradley continued. ‘He was more of a pacifist than many about the Emperor. He kept a diary that he has given over to the prosecution. Upon its contents rests much of our case. Although I do not think of him personally as guilty, he was spokesman in everything for the Emperor. I suppose in a way he will be tried in lieu of the Emperor. Prince Konoye took poison and died a few weeks after I arrived, rather than face this trial, as indeed did several others. I do not know sometimes how right any of this is. We hold some political civilian leaders as criminally responsible for this war, but thousands whose savagery was beyond belief will never even be tried. Sometimes here I feel like Alice down the rabbit hole,’ Bradley sighed.
‘And where do I fit in Wonderland?’ Nadya asked, petulant again.
‘When they told me I had to advise the prosecution on the China years, I told them I needed my own assistant, one who knew things from the inside out. And of course, you would have had to come anyway. You have been summoned as a witness by the prosecution.’ Bradley looked at her cannily.
‘I wanted to forget it all.’ Nadya raised her voice angrily.
‘My dear girl, that is impossible. Would you let such evil pass?’ Bradley’s clear eyes rested upon her with an expression of sorrow.
‘Nothing can be undone,’ she whispered, looking down at the typewriter. You were not there in Nanking. She wanted to say these words to him but instead remained silent.
‘What happened to W.H.D.? I have heard nothing of him. Is he to come here?’ she asked instead, trying to control her confusion.
‘Nobody knows what happened to W.H.D. He was in Manila, returning from his first holiday in forty years when the Japanese struck. I heard Chinese friends took him into hiding in the mountains. And later I heard from an impeccable source that he had been captured by the Japanese. Perhaps he is dead. Or perhaps he will turn up and surprise us. He was always a mystery man. You could never tell what he would do or where you would find him next.’ Bradley shook his head in reluctant admiration.
‘Mr Keenan will see you now.’ A young man put his head around the door. Bradley nodded and stood up, gesturing to Nadya to accompany him.
Joseph Keenan, Chief Counsel for the Prosecution, was a corpulent, florid man of Irish descent with a voice that carried down corridors. He pumped Nadya’s hand in greeting. The redness of his nose made her wonder if he had some kind of skin disease. He called for mugs of coffee, and leaned forward over his desk to speak directly to Nadya.
‘Bradley has told me about your courage in Nanking. This trial will be watched by the world. American legal standards will be on show. And not only that, by it we stand or fall in the eyes of Japan. I want this trial carried out under the highest standards of professionalism and justice. We will prove to Japan what American democratic justice is. This trial must outlaw war itself. It must sentence not only military leaders but those civilians also who helped the military instigate it.’ Joseph Keenan had a way with speech, discharging words in a stream of energy and spittle. Nadya drew back in her chair to avoid the shower. Keenan had warmed to his theme, and his voice rose upon his words.
‘The charge is crimes against humanity. Those crimes we are investigating started in Manchuria. You cannot begin any investigation halfway through a crime. You must go back to the beginning and trace events from there. That is why I am so glad you are here. Manchuria, then China, is the fuse that led to Pearl Harbor and the world war. This we will prove beyond all doubt. The finding of witnesses for those years is in Bradley’s hands.’
It was impossible to do more than sit quietly and listen as Keenan expanded on his plans. Eventually a secretary appeared to remind him of an appointment with General MacArthur. He walked with them as far as the lift, and then hurried away down the corridor. Nadya stared after him in bewilderment, unsure of her feelings about the man.
‘He is a powerful personality,’ she admitted to Bradley, for want of a better description.
‘Let us only hope he is the right man to handle a trial such as this. I have my doubts, I’m afraid. I also have my doubts as to whether American-style justice will shine here in quite the way Keenan wishes.’ Bradley relit his pipe as they waited for the lift. Nadya looked at him questioningly.
‘MacArthur won’t hear a word against Keenan, but there are rumours of a drinking problem. And he has been more used until now to defending Chicago gangsters. And, like the majority of m
y countrymen here to put this nation in order, he knows nothing of the history or psychology of the people we are dealing with. It worries me.’ Bradley stepped to one side for Nadya to enter the lift. It was crowded and they were crushed close to each other.
‘I want you to go back to Nanking to find Martha,’ Bradley said suddenly, taking the pipe from his mouth.
‘I have lost all contact, I know nothing. My letters were always unanswered. Before I left Nanking she was being cared for in a convent,’ Nadya replied and her body stiffened. She did not want to go back to Nanking.
But Bradley was adamant. ‘She is still in that convent, looked after by the nuns. This much I know. But I do not know what her condition is. If she is in any way lucid, I want her brought here to testify.’
‘You cannot do that to her,’ Nadya breathed quickly. Images that she had locked away filled her mind, churning through her body.
‘Many years have passed. Time does heal as they say, you know. I believe her faith in God will have pulled her through. The question is her state of health.’ Bradley puffed calmly at his pipe. He averted his eyes from Nadya.
‘Time does not always heal,’ she protested. Do not send me back to Nanking, she prayed silently.
‘Your famous husband of convenience is coming here too. I suppose you know that, both to report the trial for his newspaper and to appear as a witness,’ he added.
‘I know. He wrote me a note. Eight whole lines. Quite a tome for him.’ Nadya pursed her lips. ‘I suppose you had him summoned too.’
‘He would have come anyway, to report on the trial,’ Bradley shrugged. Nadya saw a light wash of guilt in his face. ‘I have arranged for you to go to Nanking on a military flight tomorrow.’
‘It seems I have little choice in the matter then.’ Nadya did not hide the bitterness in her voice. Her pulse began to beat erratically.
‘Who else can I send?’ Bradley apologised.
It was a relief to find Nanking itself in conditions of repair. The old walls stood as on that day she left, crumbled, pitted but unbowed. There had been rebuilding in the town, and people filled the streets once more with the sense of a structure regained. Along the main streets saplings had been planted. It had taken two years to persuade anyone to return to the town. Purple Mountain still gathered blue light, untouched by time. She remembered the bombs she had watched from there with Donald. She remembered their love-making upon the grassy slope and the leaves that afterwards stuck in her hair. She passed the temple where she had lain so wantonly with the Japanese man, and outside which Lily had been destroyed. Everywhere she saw landmarks to memory. Bradley had only half understood what he was returning her to, when he sent her here.
She took a room at the Metropolitan Hotel. As soon as she could she went to the hospital. It stood as before, unchanged. Stepping in through the door she felt like a ghost forced to wander forever the echoing corridors of time. A feeling of weight came upon her. Dr Janet Allen, who had run the mission hospital in Soochow for Martha, was now in charge. She was a brisk, large-busted woman with short straight hair. She greeted Nadya with a stream of information.
‘On 3rd May Chiang Kai-shek will return to Nanking to reclaim his capital. Let us hope from now on all will be well. The Japanese administration has addicted the whole population to heroin. It was, I believe, their usual procedure wherever they went here in China, to weaken the populace and make money. Everyone, from children to old people, is now hooked. It is a major problem and we deal with the worst results all the time. No doubt Chiang will put it right once he arrives. There is talk now again of civil war if the Communists and the Nationalists cannot agree upon a coalition government. Without the Japanese there is no reason to keep up a United Front. However, we struggle on.’
Dr Allen now occupied Martha’s house. The same furniture remained, but the curtains were new and the plants that once banked the window in the lounge had disappeared. As Dr Allen prattled on Nadya looked about the room, once so familiar and yet now so displaced. The past was all about her, like a double exposure on a negative. Here, at that terrible Christmas lunch, she had sat across the table from Kenjiro Nozaki and known, sooner or later, they would become lovers. If that had not happened, perhaps the course of many lives might have been changed. She pushed the thought away, and asked the question she dreaded.
‘Dr Clayton?’ For a moment Dr Allen was silent. ‘She is still at the convent.’
‘They want her to testify at the trial. Is she in any condition to do that?’ Nadya enquired. She swallowed a sudden mouthful of hot tea and scalded her throat.
‘Perhaps it is best you judge for yourself. I will phone the convent that you are coming. They say some days she is better than others. I have not seen her for a long time. I cannot really say anything.’ Dr Allen fell silent for a moment before she continued.
‘I remember once, many years ago, when I had just come out to China.’ Dr Allen sipped her tea thoughtfully. ‘I was at the Soochow hospital, and Dr Clayton came over. She was on a tour of the outlying clinics. I had the cook prepare an excellent meal, chicken, and a pie of apple and apricot I think, for she had been on the road several days in all those strange places, eating strange things. She told me quite curtly that she was well used to Chinese food, and had been brought up wearing Chinese clothes. I thought then what a difficult life she must have had, displaced from her identity and her country, living always in alienation, facing terror and death at every turn year after year of her childhood. You know she was caught up in the Boxer Uprising, besides goodness knows how many other things.
‘I looked into her face, I remember. I thought I could imagine only too easily even then the wild-eyed look of those poor creatures in mental asylums, driven to the last refuge of madness, by a life too painful to bear.’
Janet Allen broke off suddenly, embarrassed. ‘The memory has always stayed with me. See Dr Clayton for yourself. Maybe the sight of an old friend will cheer her. Sometimes these things help. But if you find her changed, my dear, please remember, life itself can sometimes fester to a sickness in us all.’
Nadya rang the bell before the iron gate of the convent. After some moments the grating was pulled aside. She met the eyes of a watchman and gave her name. The gate was opened and she was shown in. The smell of cold stone, carbolic and incense settled about her in the waiting room.
Before leaving China for America, she had come to this same convent to say goodbye to Martha. She remembered the parting. Silence had been then an impenetrable veil about Martha. She seemed not to hear the words of goodbye, lying listless on a bed of starched sheets. The white wimples of the nuns had floated about her like great moths.
‘Her mind has wandered to a far place,’ Nadya recalled the nun saying, ‘but she will return, with God’s grace. It is a question of time and of loving care. Both these things we can give her here.’
Nothing seemed changed. The Mother Superior was still the same Irish woman. Her wimple swayed as she nodded, like the sails of a ship lifting in a breath of wind. She listened to Nadya’s explanations.
‘You may see her if you wish, if you are sure that is what you want,’ she answered. ‘I cannot guarantee how she will react.’
‘Has her speech returned?’ Nadya asked.
‘Her speech has returned,’ the nun replied.
Nadya followed her up flights of stairs and along tall corridors. Two young Chinese novices accompanied them. If Martha could speak again, perhaps it might be possible to coax from her the evidence needed in Tokyo, if she was strong enough to travel. The flights of stairs seemed endless but, at last, near the top of the building, they stopped before a door. Mother Superior motioned to the young novices, one of whom took out a large bunch of keys and selected one after some hesitation. Why must they lock Martha in, Nadya wondered? She drew back then in hesitation.
The room was large. The spring sun streamed in through a tall tree outside a window. Only the grille of bars before the glass gave it a sequestered look.
There was a bed to one side of the room and in the middle, facing the window a woman sat in a chair, her back towards them. Mother Superior went forward.
‘Martha, my dear, a friend has come to see you.’ She put a hand upon her shoulder. The woman turned slowly. On the table beside her stood a huge nautilus shell. Nadya still remembered that shell. Martha had clung to it, her fingers like a vice about it on the day she had entered the convent.
‘She will let no one touch that shell,’ Mother Superior said, seeing Nadya’s eyes upon it. ‘She sits all day with it when she is peaceable, holding it up to the light, looking into its many chambers. It contains some meaning for her.’
Martha’s hair had been shorn close to her head in a halo of long bristles. Her face was sunken in upon itself, the lips fallen back over toothless gums. ‘If we don’t cut it like that she pulls it out, strand by strand,’ Mother Superior said gently, seeing Nadya’s shock. ‘Her teeth she knocked out, one by one. It was impossible to control her. Her mind was set upon it.’
It was the eyes that made Martha unrecognisable. They appeared pulled inwards as if by a great force, knotted deep within her skull. They were no longer the clear, judgemental eyes Nadya remembered, but as black and malicious as two small beans. Nadya wanted to say, this is not her.
Once, as a child, she had seen a monkey tied to a string, forced to perform the same cruel tricks, over and over again. The callousness that was visited upon the creature grew bright within its eyes. She would never forget that animal’s eyes, knowing, cunning, venomous as the man who made it dance without respite. It had gone beyond the far edge of fear into another world. Nadya stepped forward.
