Geling Yan - The Flowers of War

Yumo’s heart was pounding for Major Dai. The night before, she had climbed the church’s ruined bell tower with him. They had scrambled up the bomb-damaged steps with Dai stretching out his hand to steady her in the darkness, saying, ‘Let’s explore as if they were ancient ruins.’

The wind up in the tower was different, colder, but somehow freer. The destruction had created a jagged space into which humans had to mould themselves. Dai brought out a pair of pocket binoculars. He looked around, then passed them to her. In the moonlight, she could see the dark streets; alleyways branched off them, sprouting with dwellings like leaves. All these houses looked as if they were burned out. It was only the intermittent gunfire that told them this was not some desolate, long-abandoned city devoid of human habitation, and that there were armed prowlers on the hunt out there.

‘Your home must be in that direction,’ said Major Dai, thinking she was using the binoculars to find the Qin Huai River and the brothel.

‘I wasn’t looking for that,’ she said with a desolate smile. ‘It’s not my home.’

After a few moments, he asked what she was thinking about. She was actually thinking that she should ask him where his home was, if he had children and how old his wife was. But these were the kind of questions people asked when they planned to spend a lot of time together.

So she said, ‘I was thinking … I’d like a cigarette.’

Dai smiled. ‘Just what I was thinking,’ he said.

They exchanged complicit glances then turned to look out at the streets and alleyways of the ruined city. If they could hear the cries of the cigarette hawkers down there, it would prove that the city was coming back to life and they could leave, Yumo thought. The cigarette hawkers were a prelude, and would soon be followed by the shouts of the noodle sellers. They could find somewhere nice for an evening meal, and then go and dance the night away in a dance hall.

No doubt Dai was thinking along the same lines because he heaved a sigh and said, ‘It must be fate that brought us together. Otherwise, a junior regimental officer like me could never have aspired to a date with you, Miss Yumo.’

‘You haven’t asked me for a date, so how do you know?’

‘Didn’t I invite you to come and enjoy the view from up here?’ He smiled, and nodded to the destruction around them and the dismal scene beyond.

‘Does this count as a date?’

‘Of course it does!’

He stood awkwardly, no doubt because his wound hurt him, and shifted so that he stood in front of her. She looked at him in the pale moonlight. She knew just how fatally attractive she was when she looked like that.

‘Of course it doesn’t,’ she said.

‘All right, it doesn’t count then,’ he said. ‘We’ll wait till the war’s over, then I’ll take you out to dinner and we’ll go dancing.’

‘I’ll remember that,’ she said slowly. ‘If you don’t keep your word and come and make a date with me, then I’ll…’ Her voice trailed away.

‘What’ll you do?’

‘I’ll come and ask you out.’

He laughed. ‘A woman asking a man out?’

‘It would be the first time in my life I’d asked a man on a date, so you’d better watch out.’

She reached over and gently brushed his cheek with her fingers. It was the touch of a whore. She did not want him to marry her. He must be fed up with women like that. What she wanted him to remember was that she owed him a good time, the kind of top-quality good time that only a whore could give him. And, for her to keep her word and for him to enjoy this sensual feast, he would have to go on living and not engage in senseless, bloody fighting.

‘I’ll remember.’

‘What will you remember? Tell me.’

‘I’ll remember that the famous beauty of Nanking, Zhao Yumo, is going to invite me out and for that reason I can’t die.’

‘That’s right,’ said Yumo with a flirtatious smile. ‘But tell me, Major Dai. You were planning to leave us, weren’t you? I saw it in your eyes. You were going to abandon us to our fate.’

‘I was,’ said Dai with a wry smile. ‘But then I realised something was keeping me here.’

Yumo remembered that wry smile now.

‘Stop crying, Hongling,’ she whispered sharply. ‘You might be heard.’

Hongling saw that Yumo was clutching something. It was a small pair of sewing scissors, no bigger than the palm of her hand but very sharp. She had seen Yumo use them to snip the ends of threads or make paper-cut window decorations. When Hongling was younger, Yumo had used them to trim Hongling’s eyelashes. If you did that a few times, it made them grow back thick and up-sweeping, she said. Yumo always kept them with her, together with her few pieces of jewellery.

Yumo had never told any of the other women the story of her scissors. They were her most prized possession. She loved them more now than the diamond ring which her faithless lover had given her. She had had the scissors since she was thirteen years old. The brothel madam had lost her needlework scissors and had beaten her for stealing them. Then when she found them again, she had given them to Yumo by way of an apology. That was the moment when Yumo had made up her mind that she was going to haul herself up to the top of her profession so she could no longer be humiliated over a pair of scissors.

Above them, the soldiers were still turning the kitchen upside down and muttering unintelligibly among themselves. At every noise from above, a sob would be heard from one of the schoolgirls.

‘Give me one half of your scissors, Yumo,’ said Nani in a low voice.

Yumo took no notice. No doubt they could be pulled apart but who had the energy for that now? Besides, it would make a noise, it would be asking for trouble. Everyone envied Yumo her scissors. They might only give a nip like that of a dying rabbit, but they were better than nothing.

‘No need for scissors, just knee them,’ said Jade. ‘With a bit of luck and if you’re fierce enough, you can do a lot of damage to their privates so long as your knees are not tied.’

Yumo shushed them but Jade continued to whisper advice. Her pimp was a hired thug and he had taught her a few kicks and punches. It was best if your hands were free, she said, then you could grab their balls and give a twist, the way you got a kernel out of a walnut. A good sharp twist and they would not be fathering any more little Jap animals. Yumo thumped her hard, because the kitchen above had gone quiet.

They stood, or crouched, or sat, completely motionless, their slender fists filled with a fierce energy. Twist as if you’re getting the kernel out of a walnut, that’s what Jade said, as hard as you can, concentrate all your strength into your palm and fingers, crack, crack …

Yumo found the scissors she was holding were slippery with sweat. There was a sob from one of the schoolgirls and Yumo pulled the dividing curtain back, hissing: ‘What are you crying about? You’ve got us for scapegoats, haven’t you?’ Then she went back to the other side of the curtain and peered up the ventilation shaft. She could see the Japanese soldiers dragging Wang Pusheng’s bandage-swathed body towards the entrance.

The boy moaned in pain. ‘He won’t last more than a couple of days, why are you bothering to –’ shouted Dai.

Dai’s words were cut short by a loud chopping sound. The night before, Yumo had enticed him to live with a promise of sensual pleasure, and he said he would remember that. Now the head which held that memory dropped to the ground.

There was a sudden croak from the dying boy. ‘Fuck you and all your ancestors!’

The interpreter did not translate this country boy’s curse.

Wang Pusheng carried on. ‘Fuck all your Jap sisters too!’