Last Boat Out of Shanghai

by Helen Zia

  The towering man in the uniform finally spotted her as she tried to hide behind her mother’s skirt. He bellowed to her, “Come here!” Annuo jumped and shrank back even farther. She peeked out and saw him studying her, his face registering disapproval. Then he turned to her mother and asked, “Is there something wrong with her? She looks like my worthless ninth sister.” Young Annuo sensed that she should stay out of her father’s way.

  To Annuo’s relief, her father was too busy to pay attention to her. He was the chief magistrate for the region surrounding the town of Pingba in Guizhou, in charge of consolidating the control of the young Nationalist government and enforcing its laws. Annuo learned from the servants that people respected her father for his fairness. He hadn’t forced the local people to burn their opium fields, their only source of income, as his superiors had commanded. Instead, he found more gradual ways to bring people to his administration’s side of the law.

  When Annuo was almost four, her brother, Charley, learned that an execution was to take place the next morning—their father had ordered the beheading of some criminals. Charley persuaded Annuo to go watch with him. The two got up early but arrived too late. By the time they reached the square, the severed heads of the condemned men were already stuck atop poles, on display. Annuo closed her eyes, but Charley described the scene to her in graphic detail anyway. When her father found out they had gone to the execution grounds, he shouted at them in fury. Annuo ran to hide, afraid of how he might punish her.

  Growing numbers of Chinese were fleeing the Japanese occupation in coastal cities like Shanghai and migrating to the inland zones of Free China, to the wartime capital, Chongqing, and such areas as Guizhou. Important-looking people in uniforms often visited to pay their respects to the magistrate.

  Annuo’s mother was busy being hostess to all the visitors. Even though there was a great need for doctors, her husband insisted that she no longer practice medicine. The man she had wed in a Western-style love marriage had changed, despite his assurances to her father that she could put her education to use. His reputation now meant more than his promise or her wishes—he could not tolerate losing face by having a working wife. Even with her modern education, Annuo’s mother couldn’t buck the weight of tradition that dictated she acquiesce to her husband.

  Two years in Guizhou passed quickly through the scorching hot summers of the region known as “the furnace of China.” Annuo was soon speaking the local country dialect like a native. She played games in the courtyard of their government housing compound, running around with big brother Charley and other officials’ children. But in Free China, she also learned to run for cover when the air-raid siren sounded. The children played “war,” fighting against a pretend enemy, while on alert for real Japanese planes that flew bombing raids over the region every day. Charley wore a pint-sized Nationalist uniform, and for a long time, he refused to wear anything else. He’d stand tall in the khaki jacket and pants, his hair slicked back and chest puffed out, trying to mimic their powerful father. Toward the end of those two years, Annuo’s sister, Li-Ning, was born—a happy event in their rural outpost.

  * * *

  —

  BY LATE 1939, JAPAN’S modern air armada had stepped up attacks on the interior. The Nationalists had no antiaircraft weapons to defend against the onslaught. More than thirty million Chinese had migrated inland with Chiang’s Nationalist government, bringing with them the machines of a thousand factories in order to maintain the war effort. These newcomers carried libraries, schools, laboratories, hospitals for more than a thousand miles—often on foot—carving out caves in mountainsides to protect their new locations. The Nationalist capital of Chongqing was subjected to daily saturation bombings as part of Japan’s scorched-earth approach of “Kill all, loot all, burn all.” The invader’s planes flew close to the ground with so little opposition that survivors reported seeing the faces of the pilots and gunners as they mowed down civilians. Thousands of men, women, and children were killed, many while seeking safety in air-raid shelters that were specifically targeted by Japanese bombers.

  Because Guizhou was two hundred miles away from Chongqing, it didn’t suffer the same intensity of air attacks as the capital. But a nearby southern supply route to the Nationalists through Burma had been carved out of rugged mountain terrain by two hundred thousand laborers, with the help of U.S. General Joseph Stilwell’s troops. To disrupt the Burma Road, a furious Japan increased its bombing attacks. Annuo’s father decided it was time to move his family again. This time he concluded that Shanghai’s foreign settlements would be safer for his family, even if the Japanese occupiers surrounded the solitary island of the concessions.

  The journey back to Shanghai would be far more dangerous than their difficult trip two years earlier at the start of the war. It would take four months of circuitous travel through the even more remote provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi, then to Hong Kong via Indochina to avoid the Japanese. Along any part of the route, they could encounter the enemy—certain death for a Nationalist family. By then, Annuo was a veteran at running for cover as soon as she heard the sound of airplanes, knowing her small legs would have to outrun the bombs and machine guns.

  But the girl’s strongest impression during the long trip came when she saw her mother take a bad fall as they tried to skirt the war zone. When the bus that was to take them across Southeast Asia finally arrived and was ready for boarding, Annuo and Charley scrambled aboard to grab seats on the crowded vehicle. Their mother followed slowly, cradling their infant sister. But this time, their mother’s feet, forever crippled from the binding initiated in her childhood, gave way as she climbed into the bus.

  Annuo watched in horror as her mother went crashing down to the pavement, headfirst. “Muma!” Annuo screamed as she saw her mother twist her body and bend forward to protect baby Li-Ning. Muma landed on her head. Li-Ning was unhurt, but her mother lay on the ground, her head cut and bleeding. Afraid that her mother was dead, Annuo couldn’t stop crying—first out of fear, then in relief when she saw her mother try to sit up.

  After her head was bandaged, Shangying wobbled up the steep steps again. Annuo’s father commented: “Good job, you saved the baby.”

  Two years earlier, Annuo had been the belle of the journey. On this trip, however, she was fearful and jittery. Somehow her mother managed to persevere through the long bus ride, her head swathed in a bloody bandage. Annuo clung to Muma, needing to feel her mother’s warmth, to know that she was there. Her mother had always been the strong and stoic one, the lioness guarding her cubs. Under her mother’s watchful eye, Annuo had always felt safe. Now she was less sure.

  * * *

  —

  WHEN THE FAMILY FINALLY reached Shanghai in the late fall of 1939, they returned to their familiar neighborhood in the French Concession. They rented the same small apartment at 474 Rue Lafayette where Annuo’s father had lived as a law student. It was nothing like the fine residences her parents had had when they were living the high life, before Annuo was born. But the enemy-occupied Shanghai of 1939 was very different from the city in its gilded age of the late twenties and early thirties. With the foreign concessions surrounded by the Japanese occupation force, Nationalist loyalists and sympathizers were targets for assassination. The foreign concessions were the epicenter of intrigue and violence in the city. Annuo’s father, the Nationalist and former magistrate, would be a prime target.

  One afternoon that autumn, not long after they had moved into the apartment on Rue Lafayette, Annuo was playing in the main room when her father entered with his coat on, a small travel bag in hand. Her mother sat nearby, holding Annuo’s baby sister.

  “My commanding officer, General Han Deqin, has been appointed governor of the Nationalist resistance forces in Jiangsu Province,” he said to Muma. “He has asked me to be his aide.”

  Annuo saw her mother’s eyebrows arch in surprise over the top of her r
ound wire-rimmed eyeglasses.

  “I’m going to join him, to fight behind enemy lines.” It was the same firm tone he had used when issuing commands in Guizhou.

  For a few moments, her mother was silent.

  “What about your family, your children, the baby?” she finally asked.

  “China must come first. If we lose to Japan, my children won’t have a future worth living,” he replied.

  The worried look on her mother’s face alarmed Annuo.

  Then her father asked, “How much money do we have?” Without waiting for her mother’s response, he added, “Give it all to me.”

  In silence, Annuo’s mother rose with Li-Ning in her arms. She reached into a drawer and pulled out a small purse. As she emptied it, handing him every yuan inside, she asked, bewildered, “How will I feed our children?”

  He shrugged. “Ask Shu-shu for money.” Uncle Shu-shu, Annuo’s father’s best friend from law school, had married Muma’s younger sister.

  Annuo’s father turned to leave. As his hand reached for the doorknob, her mother asked in a clear voice, “Don’t you want to say goodbye to the children?” She held out the baby to him.

  For a split second, Annuo thought her father hesitated. Or maybe she imagined it, for he walked out the door and pulled it shut. Not even a goodbye to her and Charley.

  Annuo ran to the window overlooking Rue Lafayette. Pressing her palms and forehead against the glass, she watched as her father stepped out into the cold afternoon, the sky graying as the sun dipped below the trees and nearby buildings. His back was straight and his stride long. In Guizhou, her father had worn a Nationalist uniform, but in Shanghai, it was too dangerous. He dressed in plain Western-style clothes—both he and Charley had been forced to leave their uniforms behind.

  Her breath fogged the glass, and she turned to peek at her mother. The baby was still asleep, and her mother’s expression was blank. She clutched Li-Ning to her bosom. Annuo felt a twinge of envy. At five, she was too big for that kind of attention but she wanted Muma to hold her. Instead, she searched her mother’s face for reassurance. None came. Annuo’s father had been their protector, the imposing man whom everyone in Guizhou admired and obeyed. Who would protect them now?

  * * *

  —

  AFTER HER FATHER LEFT for the Jiangsu front, Muma followed his instructions, including his wish that she not look for work. She went to Uncle Shu-shu and asked him for money. He earned a good salary as a lawyer for an American company. After a few visits, Uncle Shu-shu handed her some bills and looked down at the parquet floor. “This is all we can spare,” he said. “Now we are digging into our children’s hong bao”—their New Year’s savings.

  His message was clear: She was now taking money from his children. She couldn’t go back for any more.

  Annuo’s mother held out for as long as she could, cutting back on every conceivable expense. Though the Japanese military didn’t enter the foreign concessions, it was restricting the flow of food and other essentials into the city. The cost of rice was so high that Muma could afford only plain corn mush for the family. She served it for days on end. It tasted so bad that Annuo could barely swallow it, no matter how hungry she was. Finally, her mother knew she had no choice but to find a job, in spite of her husband’s opposition.

  It wouldn’t be an easy search with her husband a known Nationalist. Applying for work would be tricky and dangerous. The Chinese officials who ran the government under the Japanese occupation were all puppets of the enemy—collaborators, traitors to the Chinese people. Anyone who checked her medical credentials might find her husband’s identity. If they did, she could be hauled off to the puppets’ police headquarters at 76 Jessfield Road, where she’d be questioned, tortured, or killed. Nobody left 76 alive, it was said. Then what would become of the children?

  Through sheer serendipity, Annuo’s mother saw a job posting while looking for a primary school near their apartment for eight-year-old Charley. A sign posted on its bulletin board read: “School Doctor or Nurse Needed—Apply Within.” She got the job by producing her diploma from Dongnan Medical School; no other background check was required. The job was perfect, for she was unlikely to run into former associates who might know her. Because she worked for the school, Charley could enroll for a reduced fee. An added bonus was that Annuo could enter kindergarten, even though she was younger than the other students.

  At first, school was a nightmare for Annuo. She had lived in Guizhou from the ages of two to four and had learned the local dialect. When she opened her mouth, the strong country accent tumbled out, completely unintelligible in Shanghai. Nor could she understand the Shanghai dialect. Other children teased her, calling her “stupid” and “country bumpkin.” That much she understood. She hated the bullies and was afraid to be around them. After a few intolerable months of ridicule, she was speaking Shanghainese as if she had never been gone, her embarrassing Guizhou dialect banished forever. She found other children to befriend—ones who didn’t call her names. School became her stable refuge from all the running, moving, and talk of war.

  As the last day of the school year approached, Muma bought Annuo a beautiful rose-colored organza dress. A celebration was planned for the graduating children, and the dress would be perfect. Annuo waited expectantly as the teachers called each child by name, handing out a certificate to mark his or her successful completion of kindergarten. Each child also received a special gift—a fancy pencil box full of erasers, rulers, and other treasures. Annuo couldn’t wait to get hers. Before long, all the children in the class were standing at the front of the room, holding their trophies—except for Annuo. When she was the only one left seated, a teacher handed her a notice and informed her of its message written in red ink: “Repeat kindergarten.”

  The mean children who had teased her before now snickered and pointed at her. She struggled to keep the tears from flowing. The paper burned in her hand while she counted the minutes until she could leave. Finally the school bell rang. Annuo ran all the way home. By the time she’d reached her building, she was sobbing. Once inside the vestibule, she wrapped her arms around the cool lacquered baluster of the staircase, as though it could comfort her.

  When her mother found Annuo at the bottom of the stairs, Muma gently pried her away. Glancing at the teacher’s note, her mother said, “I asked the school to hold you back a year. You’re so much younger than the other children. With your difficulties learning the Shanghai dialect, this will be best for you.”

  Her own mother held her back? Annuo’s heart couldn’t have sunk any lower. Especially when Muma often told her and Charley the proud stories of her own childhood achievements. Eventually Annuo followed her mother upstairs. She was glad that her father wasn’t there to see her shame. Her rosy dress, limp and wrinkled, had turned ugly.

  * * *

  —

  THERE WAS ONE PERSON in the building at 474 Rue Lafayette whom Annuo looked up to: Zhonghe Yu, the teenaged second daughter of their landlord. Zhonghe lived downstairs and had long, flowing black hair that she clasped in a tortoiseshell barrette. In spite of their age difference, Zhonghe always greeted her little neighbor with a radiant smile, asking her about school or her day. The kindly teenager never failed to lift Annuo’s spirits, assuring her that all would be well. Whenever she could, Annuo lingered by the front of the building, waiting to see her idol.

  One day in the fall of 1940, as the war against Japan entered its fourth year, Zhonghe’s mother ran out of their apartment building in tears, a crumpled note crushed in her hands. Zhonghe had run away with some friends to fight the Japanese enemy. She and her idealistic schoolmates wanted to do their part to liberate China. “Has anyone seen Zhonghe?” her mother cried out. “Does anyone know where she went?”

  Within a few days, she had her answer. Zhonghe and her girlfriends had encountered some Japanese troops at a river crossing. Their bo
dies were found by the river: raped, bayoneted, and discarded.

  A pall fell over 474 Rue Lafayette. Annuo no longer lingered at the front door. Instead, she ran quickly to her apartment, not wanting to face Zhonghe’s family, not knowing what to say. Annuo had never known this word bayonet before, though she was too familiar with the word war. Suddenly its horror was clear and stark. What kind of cruel people could hurt someone as kind and gentle as Zhonghe? she wondered. It was Annuo’s first lesson on the tragedy of war. It would not be her last.

  SHANGHAI, 1939

  Two years after the bombs had fallen near his grandfather’s home, Benny Pan and his schoolmates continued to speak of Bloody Saturday, the terrible juncture of their time. It was the moment when their safe, protected lives in the foreign concessions became vulnerable to the enemy threat that now violated their formerly untouchable sanctum.

  Yet in spite of that shocking event, the daily routines of middle- and upper-class children hadn’t changed significantly. With the passing months, the battlefront had moved farther away. Meanwhile, everyday life in polyglot Shanghai simply carried on. The British asserted, “Keep a stiff upper lip.” C’est la guerre, shrugged the Francophones in their concession.“When the eaves are low, you must bow your head,” the Chinese repeated to one another. Police, bankers, textile workers, business managers, and coolies went to work each day. Journalists filled the multitude of newspapers and magazines under the watchful eyes of pro-Japan censors. Buses, trams, automobiles, and streetcars plied the streets crowded with rickshaws, pedicabs, and hand-pulled carts. Peddlers and hawkers called out in English, French, Shanghainese, Cantonese—every conceivable dialect and language. The sweet seduction of brothels and opium dens still beckoned while the gambling halls throbbed with the whir of roulette wheels and constant click-click of mah-jongg tiles.