Geling Yan - The Flowers of War

Li found out that the little group all dressed in black waistcoats had been commandeered by the Japanese as labourers. Their task was to dispose of the Chinese prisoners who had been secretly executed.

When, three hours after Fabio had sent Ah Gu to look for the pond, he still wasn’t back, Fabio could stand it no more. He went down to the cellar and asked Yumo whether she had given Ah Gu clear directions to the pond. Yes she had, she said, and in fact Ah Gu said he knew it: it was in the grounds of a clan memorial hall, and the family used it in summer to grow lotuses.

‘He’s been gone more than three hours!’ exclaimed Fabio.

He changed into the newer of his two cassocks and gave his face a wipe with a towel. If he was to rescue Ah Gu from the Japanese, he needed to have an air of authority about him. He had to find Ah Gu. Without him, there was no one to carry water. George Chen could not go—the Japanese would definitely round up a young man like him.

Fabio headed north along the narrow street which passed their entrance, according to Yumo’s instructions. When he reached the second alleyway, he turned into it and walked right down to the end. It all looked different from the last time he had come this way: the walls were blackened and some buildings had disappeared. Half a dozen dogs scrabbled out of his way as he passed. The dogs had grown fat in the last few days and their coats gleamed. Fabio averted his gaze whenever he saw a pack of curs gathered around something.

He was carrying a tin bucket in his right hand and was prepared to hurl it at the dogs to fend them off if necessary. Once they had gorged on human flesh, they might switch to eating the living too. As he emerged from the alley, he saw an old wall of hard-fired, grey bricks in front of him. Through a gap where it had collapsed, he could see a pond glittering in the morning light. There was no sign of Ah Gu. Fabio realised he would have to give up his search.

The surface of the pond was covered in lotus leaves. It was the most peaceful scene Fabio had seen in a long time. He drew a bucketful of water from the pond and took the same way back to the church. It was a piffling amount now that they had so many people to look after. Father Engelmann’s beloved old Ford would have to be pressed into use to fetch more.

Back at the church, Fabio pulled out the Ford’s back seats and loaded it up with every bucket, bowl and pot the church possessed. Then he and George drove off to the pond. When they arrived back after the first trip, George used the water to make a pot of rice porridge. Everyone got a bowlful, and a little dish of pickled vegetables which smelled like old rags and tasted foul, although they all said they were delicious.

Fabio looked on as the women and girls washed themselves. None of them had washed in days. Today they each got a cup of water and, clustered around the gutter under the eaves, they dipped their handkerchiefs into it and wiped their faces. Then they used what remained to rinse their mouths and clean their teeth.

Yumo wet her hair ribbon and carefully rubbed behind her ears and around the back of her neck. Her handkerchief would use up too much of the precious water. Then she undid her top buttons, wrung out the green ribbon and reached in to wipe the upper part of her chest. She looked up, to see Fabio standing staring at her. He looked away in shame but he couldn’t deny that he had feelings growing for her which seemed to reach blindly towards the light like a vine twisting out from under a stone.

It was even colder that night. As the gunshots outside the compound went on incessantly, powdery snow fell in the windless dark. It was as if the snow were shaken out of the atmosphere by the gunshots. The air was damp. It was the kind of snow that would make everything dirty the next day.

As the schoolgirls were filing back to the attic after evening prayers, they heard the faint sound of singing coming from the cellar. Up in the attic Shujuan longed to ask Xiaoyu to sneak down with her to see what was going on, but they were no longer speaking to each other. Since Xiaoyu had betrayed her, Shujuan had not tried to make it up with her, and made a point of turning her back to her in bed. Xiaoyu was never short of close friends, however, and Anna had immediately taken Shujuan’s place.

Shujuan waited until the girls were snoring and then crept downstairs. Outside, the cold air was biting. She huddled in the snow and peered down into the cellar. At first all she could see was the back of a broad-shouldered, slender-waisted man. In spite of the long, baggy woollen garment he wore, he looked every inch the soldier, the sort who would turn any garment into a military uniform. Shujuan knew that this was the officer who had almost succeeded in pushing the Japanese Army right into the Huangpu River. He had told Father Engelmann all about it. Major Dai was livid about the retreat from Shanghai and the abandonment of Nanking. He could not understand it. If the great retreat ordered by the Nationalist military command had been intended to save lives and to conserve military strength, then why had Chiang Kai-shek turned down a three-day truce between the Japanese and the Chinese which had been negotiated by the International Safety Committee, and would have permitted an orderly retreat from Nanking and a peaceful handover of the city to the Japanese?

The prostitutes had dressed the young soldier Wang Pusheng in Hongling’s mink coat. They did not have enough bandages and were using patterned silk scarves instead. Wang was a delicate boy to start with; now he almost looked like a girl. He sat up in a makeshift bed, with Cardamom next to him. They had playing cards in their hands and a sheet of newspaper between them served as a card table.

Shujuan had a restricted view down through the ventilation grille, and could only see whoever happened to come into the frame. Now it was Zhao Yumo; Shujuan could see her talking to the major in low tones, too low for Shujuan to catch what they were saying, no matter how hard she strained to hear. The major appeared to be getting amorous with this Yumo.

Shujuan felt a surge of hatred for these prostitutes. If they had not forced their way in, the water in the cistern would have been enough for the sixteen girls. The women had used up all the water washing their clothes, their faces and their bums, and made the schoolgirls drink from a filthy pond. In fact, if they had not run out of water, Ah Gu would not have needed to leave the compound, and would not now be missing. Even the heroic Major Dai was letting them have their way with him, right now, before her very eyes. He had let down his defences. He had become dissolute.

Driven by her fury, Shujuan went to the ash pit behind the kitchen and collected a shovelful of coal dust in which a few embers still glowed. She went back to the ventilation shaft and weighed the shovel speculatively in her hand: if she could get half of it down the shaft and a couple of sparks fell on the faces of those sluts who fed off men’s weaknesses, how happy she would be! How good it would make her and her classmates feel!

Down in the cellar, Zhao Yumo sat to one side on an overturned wine barrel and smoked a cigarette while the other women played poker and mah-jong. Major Dai sat beside her.

‘The first time I set eyes on you here, you looked familiar,’ he said.

Yumo smiled. ‘Surely not! I mean, you’re not from Nanking.’

‘Nor are you! Have you lived in Shanghai?’

‘Yes. I was born in Suzhou and I spent seven or eight years in Shanghai.’