Last Boat Out of Shanghai

by Helen Zia

  But then, everyone was hugging and cheering. A joyous celebration erupted all around them. People streamed out to the road and alleys all at once, shouting, jumping, laughing, crying. Temple gongs rang out as firecrackers and gunshots exploded. The terrible eight-year war was over! War had darkened ten-year-old Annuo’s young life for as long as she could remember. Even her mother and father could barely remember a time of peace without the fear of imminent war.

  Overnight, experienced Nationalist administrators were urgently needed to rebuild the government and country. Annuo’s father was dispatched to Shanghai by airplane. With millions of relocated people living in the interior, Annuo and the rest of her family would have to wait to return by boat. They joined others on crowded barges pulled along the Yangtze. Annuo passed the weeks-long return sharing war stories with other children, like Nellie Sung Tao, who had witnessed many bombings in Chongqing and told how she’d watched scavengers sift through body parts for rings and other valuables in the aftermath. The river voyage was a less arduous and more direct route than the family’s long trek.

  Before Annuo’s father left with the other Nationalist officials, he had informed his wife that she would be moving with the children to Hangzhou, not Shanghai. He believed that there would be chaos in postwar Shanghai: Soldiers of many armies were converging there, and arrests and executions of collaborators were likely, as was the possibility of street violence. His pronouncements had stunned Annuo’s mother—all the money she had saved as “Mrs. Chang” was still in Shanghai. It didn’t matter, he had declared. “There’s a simple solution—we’ll give it all away.”

  There was no further discussion. He had already arranged everything with General Han Deqin, who was in the process of sending his own family to Hangzhou. Thanks to her father’s high rank, Annuo’s family would be moving into one of the mansions that the Nationalists were taking back from Japanese officials and their Chinese puppets. Annuo’s mother would have to follow his wishes without question, and Annuo would start a new life in Hangzhou.

  SHANGHAI, 1944

  Boxing lessons had turned Benny—now in his third and last year at St. John’s Middle School—into a strapping young man. His tailored suits accentuated his athletic physique, and Major General C. C. Pan beamed with pride when he introduced his son to the rich and influential of Shanghai at his extravagant Sunday dinner parties.

  Except for those special moments with his father, Benny rarely saw him on his weekends home from school. In recent years, Pan Da had made it a habit to depart soon after the Sunday dinners. Benny assumed that the demands of his father’s position called him away—and in fact, he was glad for the reprieve from his father’s critical eye.

  Benny’s mother also seemed busy and content, visiting her wide network of society matrons, making obligatory social appearances with the major general, or playing mah-jongg late into the night.

  Debonair and charming men were always showering his elegant mother with attention and lavish gifts. She was courteous and gracious to all her guests, whether high-ranking Japanese officers in their flawless dress uniforms, rich playboys from Shanghai’s social set, or artists from nearby Suzhou and Hangzhou. A Japanese businessman presented Benny’s mother with the gift of a dog—a prized Japanese Spitz, highly valued for intelligence and loyalty. The friendly white dog was always by his mother’s side, bringing a cheerful domesticity to the cavernous mansion.

  His parents’ divergent lives weren’t unusual in Shanghai’s sophisticated society. Married men of even modest means spent their time with concubines, mistresses, dancers, singsong girls, and prostitutes. Their wives found distractions as well. Modern Shanghai women who could not accept their husbands’ dalliances increasingly turned to divorce. But not Benny’s mother. Though she was a modern woman of her time, traditions and appearances had to be observed. If she was unhappy, she never let on.

  As far as Benny and his siblings knew, all was well at 40 Jessfield Road—and in Shanghai, for that matter. Because of martial law and stringent Japanese censorship, few people in occupied China had heard of Japan’s string of military defeats that had begun with the Battle of Midway in 1942 and continued across the Pacific, at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, the Marshall Islands, and by 1944, the Marianas and on to the Philippines. Radios were forbidden contraband, but even in Shanghai there were signs of Japan’s weakening. The Imperial Army had lost so many soldiers that boys much younger than Benny were being conscripted from the city’s Japanese civilian population.

  None of that interfered with Benny’s contented life. Instead, in 1944 the Pan family was focused on preparations for his elder sister Annie’s wedding. His mother was intent on making her firstborn’s wedding one of the city’s most glorious social events. She had arranged the ceremony and reception at the Paramount—the grandest of Shanghai’s grand ballrooms. His sister was stunning in her French silk wedding gown. His father was at his finest, elegant in his British morning coat and tails, puffing away on his diamond-studded cigarette holder. But to Benny, his mother was the star, more beautiful than ever, outshining even the bride.

  Benny felt very grown up in his first tuxedo, complete with a cummerbund and Windsor-knotted tie. He blushed when Doreen said that he looked like Errol Flynn. Swaying to the strains of the Paramount’s famed Filipino orchestra, Benny imagined that he was floating on the glass dance floor, its lights glowing from below. On that magical day, Benny’s family was together and joyful, resplendent in their finery.

  His sister Annie’s wedding, in late 1944, at the Paramount Ballroom, with one of its dance floors lit in colored lights from below, was the pinnacle of good times for Benny and his family.

  The excitement of his sister’s wedding was soon followed by Benny’s middle school graduation. He was filled with anticipation that he would finally be entering St. John’s University, just as his father and uncle had. Benny still dreamed of becoming a physician, a healer of people. He looked up to the medical students who walked about the campus in their white lab coats, commanding the respect of all. The six-year medical program at St. John’s ran from college through medical school, with a joint medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Benny was determined to get into the program in the fall, certain that his parents would approve. He had much to look forward to.

  * * *

  —

  IN EARLY SUMMER 1945, Shanghai’s civilians were still unaware that U.S. troops had taken over the Japanese islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The latter had been turned into an American base capable of sending B-29s with greater frequency to bomb Japan—and its strongholds in Shanghai. Sometimes the bombs missed their targets—one American bomb accidentally struck the Jewish ghetto in Hongkou, killing and wounding hundreds of civilians.

  With their schools located in the Western District, students at St. John’s and St. Mary’s began to worry about errant bombs, especially when more than two hundred American planes bombarded the city on one afternoon. To protect themselves from a likely bombing raid on the nearby train station, St. Mary’s students painted a huge Stars and Stripes on the tennis courts. This, they hoped, would alert the Yanks to their Allied sympathies. By then, it was clear to everyone that the Empire of Japan was in trouble.

  Finally the long-awaited news came: On August 15, 1945, Japanese military officers assembled at the British racetrack grounds to listen to Emperor Hirohito’s metallic voice over the loudspeakers. He announced that “a new and most cruel bomb” had destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan was surrendering. Two weeks later on September 2, the formal surrender took place aboard the USS Missouri. In Shanghai, people spilled out of their homes, filling the streets in joyous celebration. The eight-year Japanese war and occupation had ended—China’s five hundred million people could rejoice at last!

  But not everyone was cheering. Officials like Benny’s father were caught by surprise. They’d hitched a ride to power on Japan, and it
would now be their turn to pay. Chen Gongbo, the Shanghai puppet mayor who had appointed Pan Da police commissioner, had become president of the collaborationist government in late 1944, after Wang Jingwei died unexpectedly in surgery. Following Japan’s defeat, Chen fled to Tokyo, but the American occupation forces there extradited him back to China. He was arrested and imprisoned in Suzhou to await trial for treason. Chen claimed that he had been a voice for peace, a buffer to reduce the harm done by the Japanese invaders to the Chinese people. His remonstrations were to no avail, and he was executed. His wife and a mistress were also tried as traitors.

  Benny’s father hunkered down with his Special Police colleagues, calculating how much time they might have to work out a plan before the regime change. The Nationalist government was still far off in the interior hinterlands of China, a journey that could take weeks by land. Many collaborators expected to have several days at least to plan their exits. After all, the Japanese military was still patrolling in Shanghai and elsewhere because Chiang Kai-shek and the American forces preferred to have the defeated Japanese maintain order, rather than give the Communists a possible opening. The generalissimo even ordered the Japanese to keep fighting in the rural northern provinces—against the Chinese Communists. Collaborationist officials were unaware that the Americans, preferring Chiang’s Nationalists to Mao’s Communists, had ordered the U.S. air fleet to fly hundreds of thousands of Nationalist officials and soldiers back to liberated Nanjing, Shanghai, and other coastal areas.

  Benny was at home on the morning of September 27, 1945, when military trucks barged through the gates at 40 Jessfield Road. After running up the terra-cotta steps, armed troops pounded on the ornate carved door to the mansion. His father was in his study.

  When Benny heard the commotion below from his third-floor bedroom, he ran to the hall and leaned over the polished mahogany bannister to look down at the foyer. He was stunned to see uniformed Nationalist soldiers storming their house to arrest C. C. Pan, the major general of the Western Shanghai Area Special Police at 76 Jessfield Road. His father, immaculate in a tailored suit, made no protest and allowed them to bind his hands. Looking straight ahead, he accompanied them as Benny and his siblings stared, aghast. His mother stood near the front door, speechless, as they loaded Pan Da onto the back of a truck with other prisoners. Benny ran down the stairs and out to the driveway just before the tailgate was slammed shut. He thought he recognized some of the other prisoners from their Sunday dinners. Armed guards with tommy guns stood at the ready as the truck drove off.

  A few Nationalist soldiers stayed behind. The commander started barking orders: “All property of puppets and collaborators is stolen property! Everyone is to leave the premises immediately. Do not take anything with you!”

  Benny hadn’t had a moment to recover from the shock of his father’s arrest. Now the soldiers were hustling everyone in the house out the door—eight-year-old Frances and ten-year-old Edward; Benny’s two younger teenaged sisters, Cecilia and Doreen. Annie was married and living with her husband. Benny muttered to himself that she was so lucky to miss this dreadful spectacle. When one of the soldiers grabbed his mother’s arm, she yanked it back and walked out calmly, her head held high. Once they were all outside, the Nationalists slammed the door shut. Someone quickly plastered a sign across the door: “Confiscated from Puppets of the Enemy. Property of the Chinese War Authority.”

  The commander turned to the family again. “Get out now. Onto the street, where you belong.”

  “But where will we go?” asked Benny’s sixteen-year-old sister Cecilia, her voice trembling.

  The officer spat on the ground by their feet. “Did you wonder where the loyal Chinese went when they were taken to your father’s torture chamber? The street is too good for you enemy puppets. Get out!”

  As they stood outside the gate to their former mansion, young Frances began to whimper. Benny’s mother pulled her two youngest close to her and said, “I know where we can go.” Benny was surprised to learn that his father kept another house several blocks away in the former French Concession. It was his private hideaway, in case there was trouble and he needed a safe house. It was also where he spent time with his mistresses. “We’ll have to walk there,” Benny’s mother said.

  From behind, a familiar voice said, “No, Madame. I’ll get some pedicabs. I managed to hide some money.”

  It was his father’s manservant, his number one boy. With him was Benny’s amah—she would stay with them too. “I was your amah when you were a girl and the amah to your firstborn children,” she said to his mother. “I won’t leave you now. But I’m sorry you must go to that place.”

  The house was much smaller than the mansion but large enough for all of them. Everything about the house was a reflection of his father: his medals, sashes, and sword from his years as a commander of “C” Company with the Shanghai Volunteer Corps; his inspector’s hat from the Shanghai Municipal Police; his special gun collection; even his Boy Scout vice-master badges and insignia. While his mother agonized over how she would ever show her face in her city again, Benny felt strange to be in his father’s secret lair. Did Benny know this man, his father? Was he really a terrible man who should be locked up?

  And then there was school. Benny would miss part of his first term of college, his one dream. But how could he worry about that when everything he knew was disintegrating? The big mansion, the fancy parties with high-toned people, the retinue of servants—all were gone, even the little white dog. Gone were the cars, the motorcycle, the fine furnishings and fur coats, the grand piano, and the Victrola. Now they were being reclaimed as stolen property belonging to the Chinese people, not to traitors like his family, not to hanjian, the Nationalists had said.

  Benny, his mother, and his younger siblings had only the clothes on their backs and the shelter of his father’s getaway house. At least they had somewhere to stay. But within a few days, another group of Nationalist soldiers came pounding on the door. Their heavy knocking reverberated through the building.

  “Out, out! Do you hanjian think you can hide yourselves? This house belongs to the loyal Chinese people. Get out, and see what it feels like to be one of the poor people you stole from!”

  Once again, the family was herded outside. Benny was the last to leave. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a longtime servant in the next room, helping himself to Pan Da’s prized handguns, including his father’s favorite German Mauser. Benny was stunned. As he left the house, he saw one of the Nationalist officers thank the thieving servant.

  “He’s the scoundrel who tipped them off!” Benny whispered to his mother.

  Now they were truly homeless, only a rainstorm away from joining the bedraggled refugees who crowded in doorways. When he turned to ask his mother what they should do, he saw the dazed look in her eyes. Her hands were shaking.

  Benny hesitated before speaking. “Mother, we have to find a place to stay. Who can we ask for help?”

  In a small voice, his mother shook her head and whispered, “I can’t.”

  Benny had never seen his smart and capable mother like this. Alarmed, he squared his shoulders. “All right, I’ll go and ask our relatives. You take everyone to the French Park and wait for me.”

  Benny’s panic seemed to electrify his body. He took off in a sprint. When he reached the nearby home of an uncle, no one would open the door. Benny raised his voice to speak loud enough for the relatives inside to hear.

  “Uncle, please let me in. It’s Benny, Pan Da’s son.”

  “Sorry, we can’t help you. Please leave. We don’t want to be labeled hanjian,” his uncle replied from behind the closed door.

  “But my younger sisters and brother need your help. They’re just children and have nowhere to go.”

  “I’m sorry. Don’t come back.”

  One by one, Benny ran to the homes of every relative he could think of. Some
slammed their doors in his face. Others didn’t bother to answer. These were the same family members who had begged to be invited to his parents’ Sunday parties, he remembered. They had enjoyed the fine food, the champagne, the expensive cigars. When Benny was a little boy, these same relatives had smiled at and flattered him. Now they wouldn’t even lend a hand to the children. It was a bitter lesson.

  Still, he couldn’t blame them. He knew they were afraid of being thrown into prison like his father. The Japanese were defeated, the Nationalists were back, and who knew what was in store for the accused hanjian? Rumors were flying that some presumed traitors were being beaten to death in towns outside of the city. Everyone was fearful of what this round of regime change would bring.

  As he ran to the next house and the next, Benny kept wishing for his grandfather, who had died a few years earlier. How Benny missed him. And now he really needed him. Grandfather would have let them in, no question. But then, he was glad that Grandfather had not lived to see this shameful day.

  Finally Benny made his way to the home of his father’s elder brother, across the Suzhou Creek in Hongkou. His uncle lived on a small parcel of Great-Grandfather’s original compound, where Benny used to bow down before Great-Grandmother’s menacing curled nails. In response to Benny’s pleading, Big Uncle agreed to take them into his house.

  Rushing back to French Park with the news, Benny found another surprise waiting. One of his father’s bodyguards was standing close to his mother. His mother stared into the distance as she spoke to Benny.

  “I can’t live like a refugee, the shamed wife of a traitor,” she said, her voice flat.

  Her words poured out in a torrent: She couldn’t stay in Shanghai to face the bragging circle of her mah-jongg friends, the shop clerks who once fawned over her, the women who had fought for invitations to her parties. They would lift their noses and look away when she crossed their paths. That would be unbearable. She was leaving—to stay in Suzhou with the bodyguard. She was relieved, she said, that Benny had found a place for all the children to stay.