Ha Jin - Nanjing Requiem

“We have no choice now.”

As we began admitting the new arrivals, Minnie and Big Liu started out for the Japanese embassy, a twenty-minute walk. I had gone to that shabby two-story building four years ago, together with my son, Haowen, who had applied for a long-term residency visa for his studies in Japan. He had enrolled in Nippon Medical School two years before and wanted to become a doctor. He was still in Tokyo, though we hadn’t heard from him for more than seven months. Ever since the outbreak of the war, his letters had stopped. Both his father and I were worried about him, but we couldn’t say this to others, especially to our Chinese colleagues. We only hoped he was well and safe. My husband had studied Asian history in Japan and could speak Japanese, but rarely would he use the language. Nobody at Jinling knew about our family’s current connection with Japan except for Dr. Wu, but I was certain that she’d keep this confidential as long as I remained loyal to her.

Around noon, Minnie and Big Liu returned in a car. On their way, they had stopped at the closed U.S. embassy, and a Chinese secretary, who had been paid to stay behind with a couple of local staffers to look after the premises, had assigned a Cadillac to take Minnie and Big Liu to the Japanese embassy so they could arrive in style — the secretary had said that the Japanese were highly sensitive to pomp, so Minnie, as the head of an American college, should impress them with something grand, and therefore a sizable sedan was a necessity for their visit. Seeing the midnight blue car crawling to a halt outside the main entrance, I handed a staffer the half bucket of boiled yams I’d been giving away to starving kids, stepped closer to the gate, and watched Minnie and Big Liu get out of the vehicle.

Minnie gave the Chinese chauffeur a silver yuan, but the man pushed it back and said, “I can’t take money from you, Principal Vautrin.”

“Why not?”

“We’re all beholden to you. If not for you foreigners who stayed behind and set up the refugee zone, all the Chinese here would’ve been wiped out. If not killed by the Japanese, many would’ve starved to death. Miss Hua, please don’t tip me.” He called Minnie by her Chinese name, Hua Chuan, the phonetic translation of Vautrin. He adjusted his duckbill cap to cover his teary eyes and slouched away, still waving his hand as though to shield his contorted face. He climbed into the car, its fender planted with a U.S. flag, and drove away.

When they had come into campus, Minnie said to Big Liu, “I didn’t expect to see a sympathetic Japanese official today.”

“I still hate their guts,” he grunted.

This sounded out of character, because Big Liu was kindhearted and had once even argued with us that Abraham shouldn’t have attempted to sacrifice his son Isaac to God, saying that at least he, Liu, would never harm a child, never mind butchering one. Intuitively I knew something must have happened to his daughter. Maybe the soldiers had molested her. Minnie asked him, “Why do you hate the Japanese so much? Doesn’t God teach us to love our enemies and even do good to them?”

“That I cannot follow.”

“Don’t you Chinese say ‘repay kindness for injury’?”

“Then what can we repay for kindness? Good and evil must be rewarded differently.”

Minnie didn’t respond and seemed amazed by his argument. I mulled over his notion and felt he might have a point.

Later Minnie told me about their visit to the Japanese embassy. She said, “Vice-Consul Tanaka agreed to assign some policemen to guard our campus. He seemed quite sympathetic.”

“What else did he do?” I asked.

“He sighed and shook his head while listening to me describe the rapes and abductions in our camp. Obviously he was upset and said that Tokyo might soon issue orders to stop those violent soldiers. He told us that General Matsui reprimanded some officers for not keeping discipline among their men, but Tanaka wouldn’t say anything in detail about this.”

“That’s classified information, huh?” I snorted.

“Apparently so.”

Minnie seemed perplexed by my sudden temper, and I did not tell her about Liya’s miscarriage, not wanting to give her more bad news.

LEWIS SMYTHE CAME to our camp the next day and told us more about General Matsui’s frustration. Lewis and Tanaka knew each other well by now. In the beginning, the vice-consul could not believe the atrocities that the Safety Zone Committee had reported to the Japanese embassy every day, sometimes twice a day, but then one afternoon he saw with his own eyes a soldier shoot an old fabric seller who refused to surrender a silver cigarette case to him. Tanaka disclosed to Lewis that General Matsui had wept at the small welcome reception attended by some twenty senior officers and three officials from the embassy. The commander in chief reproved some of the generals and colonels for ruining the Imperial Army’s reputation. “There will be retribution, terrible retribution, do you understand?” he cried out, banging the table with his fist. “I issued orders that no rape or arson or murder of civilians would be tolerated in Nanjing, but you didn’t control your men. At one stroke, everything was lost.”

After the meeting, Tanaka overheard some of the officers in the men’s room say about the top commander, “What an old fogy!” and “He’s too senile, too softheaded now. He should never have re-emerged from retirement.” A colonel at a urinal added, “It’s easy for him to play the Buddha. If we forbade our men to have their way with the Chinese, how could we reward them?”

Tanaka had also told Lewis that the military executed Chinese POWs partly because they had no food to feed so many of them, and they were also unwilling to take the trouble to guard them. If that was the reason, why did they round them up in the first place? Why did they shoot so many men who had never joined the army? Why did they kill so many young boys? They meant to destroy China’s potential for resistance and to terrify us into obedience.

On the morning of December 20, the despicable behavior of the Japanese soldiers continued. Luhai found Minnie and me in the president’s office and said two soldiers had just entered the Faculty House. That was north of the Central Building, only steps away. Together Minnie and I ran over. Climbing the stairs, we heard a female voice screaming. Before Room 218 stood a wiry soldier with his arms crossed, the muzzle of his rifle leaning against his flank. The cries came from inside the room, so Minnie pushed the man aside and went in. I followed, as did three older refugee women, all somewhat stout. There on the floor a soldier was wiggling and moaning atop a girl, whose head was rocking from side to side while blood dribbled out of her nose.

“Get off her!” Minnie rushed up and pulled the man by the collar of his jacket. He was stunned and slowly picked himself up, his breath reeking of alcohol and his sallow cheeks puffed. He forgot to pull up his pants; his member was swaying and dripping semen. The girl, eyes shut, began groaning in pain, a blood vessel on her neck pulsating.

I tugged at the end of the man’s belt, which restored some presence of mind to him. He held up his pants and reeled away, but before reaching the door, he whirled back and stretched out his hand to Minnie, grinning while mumbling, “Arigato, arigato.” She looked puzzled while I wondered why he thanked her. She glared at him with flaming eyes, but he showed no remorse, as if raping a girl was just a small faux pas. Then he offered me his hand, which I didn’t touch either. At this point his comrade came in and dragged him and his rifle out of the room, leaving behind on the floor a silver liquor flask.

“The other bastard raped her too,” a woman told us.