The Darkest Hour
Page 37
“Do you have any updates?” Fan asked.
“Yes.” Wen-Ying took from her bag the latest BBC news reports she had translated and handed it to him. His sure eyes and confident air always made her feel safe and grounded.
Fan flipped through the pages. “Good job,” he commended her. “Eh! The Allies liberated Brussels!”
“Yes.” Wen-Ying was thrilled too when she first heard the news. The Allies’ successful landing at Normandy had given them their first shot of hope. They all wanted to believe that soon the forces on their side would crush their own enemy too.
This was not a hollow hope. The United States was finally on Japan’s tail. “I decoded the message from my American contact.” She gave Fan a second set of papers. They were messages from Greg Dawson, the American pilot she had met before the war who became one of the Flying Tigers and was now serving with the U.S. Army Air Forces’ Twenty-Third Fighter Group. He regularly sent her updates on their progress against the Japanese out in Xinjiang.
Good old Greg Dawson. That simple fella from Kansas couldn’t understand that a proper Chinese woman would never consider courtship by a man who was not Chinese. He never took it to heart though when she rejected his advances. As the war intensified, he became one of her most trusted sources for outside information and one of Tian Di Hui’s most reliable carriers of ammunition and supplies for their covert operations.
“We’ll get the news onto the streets tomorrow,” Fan said. The Shanghai locals had no access to outside news. Even if they could access foreign media, the Chinese wouldn’t understand news reported in English. If left to the Japanese propaganda machine, they would believe Japan was winning, and they would lose the will to fight back. To counter Japanese lies, Wen-Ying diligently listened to BBC wireless broadcasts every day, not only to keep the members of the resistance informed, but also to enable them to create their own propaganda leaflets for mass dissemination to the public underground.
“Come,” Lian jie gave Wen-Ying a bowl of congee. “Eat some. A patient of Old Wu’s brought him a chicken today. We don’t know when we’ll have another meal with meat again.”
Wen-Ying took the bowl. Such generosity. Dr. Wu and Lian jie could’ve kept the chicken to themselves. The older couple weren’t sworn members of Tian Di Hui, and they were taking on huge risks to themselves by providing a cover for the group to meet and plan their next actions.
The other members gathering for the meeting today, Yao Kang, Zhang Yu-Lan, and Huang Jia-Ming, moved to make room for Wen-Ying at the round table. Yao Kang and Huang Jia-Ming were Fan’s right and left hands. Yao being their “White Paper Fan,” their branch’s second in command. Huang ranked third, their “Third Home Guard.” Wen-Ying herself was their “Fourth Home Guard,” alternately called their “Golden Phoenix.”
Wen-Ying took a seat between Yao Kang and Yu-Lan. The hunger pangs were now boring holes in her stomach. Disregarding all care for good manners, Wen-Ying sat down and devoured the soup. It really was a soup more than a congee. The amount of rice used wasn’t nearly enough to make a pot of thick porridge to feed more than four people. To compensate, Lian jie boiled the rice to the point where it had turned into a thin paste. As for the chicken, no wonder Lian jie chose to make a congee. The sad foul had hardly any meat. Making it into a dish couldn’t have satisfied anyone. Boiling its bones in the congee, on the other hand, gave the meal a mouth-watering flavor and provided them all a rare treat.
Halfway through, Wen-Ying made an effort to slow down. She wanted to make the bowl of congee last. She never thought she would know hunger. Growing up, she had eaten the best cuisines in the world. Shark fins, abalone, prawns and crabs, thousand-years old ginseng. Her mother used to take a cup of sweet swallow’s nest soup every night before going to bed.
Savoring every drop, Wen-Ying closed her eyes, remembering a time before the Japanese invaded. Before her life shattered to pieces.
“Delicious?” Zhang Yu-Lan, who was sitting next to her, nudged her by the shoulder.
“Yes,” Wen-Ying said. Since she went underground, Yu-Lan had become her best friend. Like herself, Yu-Lan came from a very wealthy and highly respected family. The difference was, Yu-Lan’s parents and brothers were still around. They remained well and alive in Shanghai, and retained their status in society, having become collaborators of the Japanese. Her oldest brother held a high-ranking position as Secretary of Transportation with the city’s Reorganized National Government. This puppet regime, nominally headed by Wang Jing-Wei, the traitor who defected from the Kuomintang, now governed Shanghai at the whims of the occupying enemy.
Some in Tian Di Hui had doubted her at first, but Yu-Lan had proven herself invaluable. As the daughter of the Zhang family, she could navigate Wang Jing-Wei’s circle and eavesdrop on their high officials, even as they overlooked her as nothing more than a young woman of leisure.
“Fan Da Ge, I’ve got news,” Yu-Lan said. She poured Wen-Ying a cup of tea from the pot on the table. “My parents and I had dinner with Zhou Fo-Hai last night.” Zhou was the puppet regime’s Finance Minister. “He said the IJN Rear-admiral Yamauchi will be attending a private viewing of Renowned for Centuries to Come next Thursday night. Seven o’clock at the Guanglu Grand Theater.”
“Really?” Fan turned the teacup in his hand. Renowned was an anti-Western movie released last year by Zhonghua Production in collaboration with the Manchukuo Film Association. Shanghainese film makers had made the movie, but both film studios were under Japanese control.
Yu-Lan looked intently at him. “It’s a good chance if you want to take him out. A drive-by assassin can catch them off guard.”
Fan’s lips curled up into a half-smile. They all knew that half-smile meant he intended to do exactly that.
Quietly, Wen-Ying finished the last bit of her congee and licked her lip. Yu-Lan watched her, then glanced at the empty bowl. “Next time, I’ll try to bring a box of mooncakes.”
Mooncakes. Wen-Ying’s mouth watered. The Mid-Autumn Festival was coming up. Traditionally, every family would spend the night eating mooncakes and sipping tea while admiring the full moon. This year, few people would have the luxury of eating mooncakes. People were starving and most would not be in any mood to celebrate.
“Only say that if you can deliver on your promise,” Huang teased her. “Or else I can’t bear the disappointment.”
“Don’t pressure her.” Yao Kang gave him a disapproving look. “You’re always thinking about food. Would you die if you eat a little less?”
Huang twitched his mouth and didn’t reply. When Yao Kang looked away, Huang flicked his eyes. Wen-Ying didn’t blame him. Yao Kang always picked on him. He told everyone that he was criticizing Huang for his own good, that he was teaching Huang how to properly command those in the lower ranks. Wen-Ying didn’t believe him though. Huang was smarter, but he ranked lower because he was five years younger and he joined Tian Di Hui later. Wen-Ying thought Yao Kang felt threatened.
Yu-Lan changed the subject. “I have another useful piece of gossip.”
“What’s that?” Wen-Ying asked.
“I went with Madam Mei Si-Ping to see a palm reader.”
“Mei Si-Ping?” Fan leaned forward. “Wang Jing-Wei’s Interior Minister?”
“That’s him,” Yi-Lan said. “I’ve been making an effort to get close to his wife. The palm reader told her she needs to watch out for poisonous women out to sabotage her. She was very shaken. After we left, she privately confessed to me. Mei Si-Ping has a mistress. A young sing-song girl. Mei put her up in a luxury flat near the Bund. I know the address. Madam Mei wanted me to advise her whether she should go and confront the girl.”
“Huh.” Fan crossed his arms.
“She said he had mistresses before, but this one’s different. This one’s got him spellbound. He’s smitten with her.”
Huang Jia-Ming snickered, then turned serious. “We can threaten to harm her. We can use her to force him to divulge information to us.”
“Do we need to go that far?” Huang frowned. “Why frighten the poor girl if we don’t need to?”
“So what if she’s frightened? She’s just a whore.”
“Enough,” Fan told both of them. “I don’t want to rush into anything. We should look into the girl’s background first. If she’s clever, we might be able to buy her off and make better use of her. If she’s dumb, then we’ll see.”
Yao Kang held his tongue, but huffed out a big breath of air and rolled his eyes at Huang. Actually, Wen-Ying agreed with Huang. Hanging a threat over Mei Si-Ping’s head could compel him to answer to them for the long haul. Kidnapping the girl now, when they didn’t know what they wanted from Mei, would be shortsighted.
But that was Yao Kang’s problem. He had courage in spades, but he lacked wit. Sometimes, Wen-Ying wondered if Huang might be more qualified for the role of the White Paper Fan.
Yao probably wondered about that himself. That might be why he constantly found fault with Huang.
The door to their room opened. “Sorry I’m late,” said the young man who walked in. Wen-Ying looked up. Involuntarily, her heart flipped.
“Takeda!” Fan broke into a smile.
“Fan Da Ge,” Masao Takeda returned his greeting. His eyes landed next on Wen-Ying. Quickly, Wen-Ying lowered her head and looked away.
“As long as you can come, that’s good.” Fan invited him to take a seat. “What news do you have?”
Takeda took out a map of the port of the Whangpoo River and laid it on the table. “It’s been confirmed. The Kiyohashi will arrive at Shanghai tomorrow afternoon at 1500 hours.”
Fan crossed his arms and held his fist to his chin. Kiyohashi was a freight carrier for the Kwantung, the most formidable military force of the Imperial Japanese Army. In April, the Japanese launched Operation Ichigo, a new offensive to push the lines of their occupied territories in China to seize control of the entire length of the railway from Peking to Hong Kong. A successful expansion deeper into the South would enable them to take over the airfields in the Canton region and link up their forces with those in Saigon and French Indochina. Their effort relied heavily on supplies coming in from the North.
For the last month, Fan had been hatching a plot to blow up the Kiyohashi to derail one of the Kwantung’s major supply vessels. “The Kiyohashi will be docked for three days for the army to unload,” said Takeda. “It’s scheduled to sail back to Japan on September 5th.”
Fan exchanged a glance with Yao Kang and Huang Jia-Ming. Their plan was simple, but dangerous as always. As usual, they would work with Juntong, the Chinese secret police, who would supply the bombs. The day when the Kiyohashi was scheduled to arrive, operatives of Juntong would store backpacks of explosives in a sampan at a nearby dock. At night, Fan would lead Yao Kang and Huang Jia-Ming to blow up the ship. They would carry the backpacks on their bodies, row the sampan out toward the Kiyohashi, while a Juntong operative served as the lookout. When the sampan came near enough, they would swim out, attach their backpacks to the bottom of the Kiyohashi for a time-delayed explosion, and escape back to the sampan before the bombs went off.
“Your plans always terrify me,” Yu-Lan said to Fan. “The Kiyohashi is bigger than the vessels you’ve blown up before. Are you sure it’s going to work?” She cowered and flashed him a doubtful stare.
Fan didn’t even blink. “We’ll be fine. My SACO training prepared me for this.” SACO was the top-secret operation set up by the U.S. Navy and Dai Li, the head of Juntong. Through that arrangement, American naval intelligence units were deployed in rural China to set up weather observation depots and to train Chinese resistance fighters. "The guerrilla tactics the Americans taught me haven't failed me yet."
Listening to the group discuss the details of their plan, Wen-Ying stole a glance at their informant. Masao Takeda joined Tian Di Hui just before Japan invaded the Chinese-controlled parts of Shanghai in 1937. His mother was Chinese. He himself was born in Shanghai and grew up in this city. When he was fourteen, his father passed away from cholera.
Why did he choose to ally with his mother’s native land instead of his father’s? Wen-Ying had always been curious, but never dared to ask. Every time she saw him, she felt self-conscious. Whenever he came near her, she became clumsy and awkward. She could never speak to him without feeling jittery and ill at ease. All she could do was to keep away from him and try to act normal.
But she had no way of avoiding him totally even if she wanted. Takeda was a key part of their operation. Because his father was Japanese and he spoke their language, he easily convinced the occupying forces his allegiance lay with his paternal roots. The Imperial Japanese Army hired him as a civilian representative to aid and advise Wang Jing-Wei in governing and rebuilding of Shanghai. They wanted him to keep watch over Wang and his people and to make sure they submit to Japanese rule to support a total victory of Japan in the East. What they didn’t know, of course, was that Takeda had joined the Japanese occupational forces to serve as the Tian Di Hui’s undercover agent and informant.
While Wen-Ying’s thoughts wandered, Yao Kang held up the map and squinted. “Which port will the Kiyohashi be docking at again?”
Takeda rose from his seat and came around the table. “Here.” He pointed at a spot on the map and began explaining the ship’s route. His side only inches away from her, Wen-Ying stared away. The warmth of his presence quickened her pulse. Why did he have this effect on her? He’d helped Tian Di Hui a lot, she’d admit that. But so did all the others. Why should his participation move her more than anyone else’s?
Besides, however much he was contributing to her cause, it didn’t change the fact that he was half Japanese. It was ridiculous how often the thought of him would, from out of nowhere, break into her mind.
She shifted in her seat so she would face away from him. It was all too overwhelming. Takeda distracted her and confused her when she needed to keep a straight head. Best to keep a distance between them. She had too many important tasks at hand.
Chapter 3
“Let me walk you home,” Takeda offered as Wen-Ying picked up her hat to leave the clinic.
“There’s no need. Besides, I came on my bike.”
Undeterred, Takeda came closer to her. “I have news for you about your old family home,” he whispered under his breath.
Wen-Ying paused. The mention of her old home tore her heart. She hadn’t set foot in there since she went underground three years ago. Soon after that, the beautiful villa where she had grown up was taken over by the Japanese and Wang Jing-Wei’s new collaborationist regime.
“I’ll tell you about it when we’re somewhere more private,” Takeda said.
Wen-Ying gripped her hat. “All right.” She relented. Takeda’s eyes lit up but she pretended she didn’t notice.
On the street, they walked silently to the small flat where Tian Di Hui had arranged for her to stay this month. These days, she moved around a lot. She never stayed at any one place for long for fear of being tracked. While she wasn’t the most wanted person on the occupying forces’ list, her name had come up as a radical. The Japanese had people out looking for her. With enemy eyes and ears all around, she had to take extra care to evade their attention.
She pushed her bicycle, fiddling with the handlebars now and then to lighten the awkwardness she felt. Next to her, Takeda strolled along. “How about I walk your bike for you?”
“Not necessary,” she said. She needed the bike between them. To keep a distance. “You’re wearing a suit. It wouldn’t look right for you to be pushing a bike.” Without thinking, she turned the handlebars lightly away from him.
If the world was not at war and they had met under different circumstances, would they be walking with each
other like this?
Of course not. If she had no official business with him, she wouldn’t have become acquainted with him. She was a respectable young woman. Not someone who would casually let a half-Japanese man walk her home.
The whole way, they never said a word. Somehow, while weaving through a group of pedestrians crossing the street, he had walked around the bike to be on her other side. He was walking closer and closer to her. She should move further away. And yet, she couldn’t. It was hard enough stopping herself from moving closer to his warmth.
Thankfully, they had arrived. She stopped in front of the wooden door of an old lane house where she was staying.
“We’re here.” She turned slightly toward him while she took out her keys, feeling too nervous to look him in the eye. He gazed at the front of the building and frowned, but didn’t say anything.
Wen-Ying opened the door and pulled the bike inside. The building housed three separate units. A family of six lived in the larger unit on the first floor. She lived in one of the smaller units on the second floor. The third unit, as far as she knew, was empty. She suspected it belonged to Tian Di Hui as well, but didn’t see any reason to ask and find out if that was the case. She’d be moving elsewhere in another month’s time anyway.
She swung the strap of her canvas bag over her shoulder and lifted the bike to take it upstairs.
“Let me help you.” Takeda rushed up to her. “It’s heavy.”
“I’m fine. I do this every day,” she said, keeping her head down as she dragged the bike.
“Let me do it.” He scowled and grabbed the bike from her. Easily, he carried it up the steps, a chore for which she usually had to expend the strength of nine oxen and two tigers.