Ha Jin - Nanjing Requiem

A WEEK LATER I returned to work. Neither Liya nor I wore a black armband lest we draw attention to our situation. I put on the gold bangle Haowen had given me and no longer cared whether it had been ill-gotten. Now it became something my son had left me, something precious, so I’d wear it all the time, though I’d keep it under my sleeve.

One morning toward the end of July Mrs. Dennison summoned me to her office. She had been occupied with the housing renovation, and by now the half-built apartment house was finished but not yet inhabited. The second I sat down by her mahogany desk, she said, “Anling, I want you to help us reduce the enrollment in the Homecraft School.”

“Why?” I asked in surprise.

“The next stage of our development will be reinstating our college.”

“But where will those poor women go?”

“That’s not our problem. We cannot remain a refugee camp forever.”

“Does Minnie know of this?” I said.

“She has no say in this matter. It’s already been decided by our board in New York. They wrote to me and agreed to our school’s proposal.”

“What proposal?” I played the fool and tried to put on a blank face.

Her jaw fell, as if she were holding something hard to swallow. “Stop beating around the bush. Anling, I know you — you’re smart and understand everything. I need your help.”

I was speechless, although my mind raced. The old woman could have me fired if I refused to cooperate. For some reason, Minnie hadn’t sent me a word after she’d left. Now what should I say to Mrs. Dennison?

“Anling,” she continued, “you’ve been with us for more than ten years and I’d hate to see you leave. But this time you must help us put our college back on its feet.” While speaking, she turned teary, her eyes fierce.

“I’ll do my best,” I mumbled.

She went on to explain that we’d have a much smaller budget for the Homecraft School, and therefore we must persuade some of the women to leave. She wanted me to announce that the work-study arrangements would no longer be available for most of them, so they needed to go elsewhere. I had no choice but to agree to participate in this plan.

I talked with Big Liu about Mrs. Dennison’s instructions in hopes that he might have Minnie’s address in Tsingtao, but he hadn’t heard from her either. We didn’t know how to resist the old president’s move.

When I told the students about the enrollment cut in the fall, they were stunned. Some begged me not to drive them away. I told them, “Look, I’m just a forewoman here and have no say in such a matter. I merely passed the decision from above on to you. Sisters, I cannot help you. You should gripe to Mrs. Dennison, who has direct contact with New York.”

While speaking, I tried to remain emotionless, but I felt awful and hated to see them so desperate. I knew that none of them would dare to make a peep in front of the old president, who wouldn’t even bother to listen to them. Within a week some women began leaving Jinling. Gnawed by guilt, I’d give them a towel or a bar of soap as a little keepsake, but some wouldn’t touch the presents or speak to me. They must have viewed me as a bogeywoman.

To make matters worse, Shanna reported that a good number of the middle schoolers had dropped out, because the schools in the city funded by the puppet municipality were free and had lured our students away, especially those who couldn’t afford the forty-yuan annual tuition. I still had no idea how to communicate all the changes to Minnie.

MINNIE DID NOT RETURN until mid-August. I arranged a car to pick her up and went to the train station myself. She looked tanned and thinner — she must have swum quite a bit during her stay in the coastal city. Her suitcase contained two thousand yuan and a hundred tubes of toothpaste. She was fearful that the guards might discover the money and confiscate it, but no one asked her to open the bag when we exited the Hsia Gwan station. Most of the cash had been donated by Jinling’s alumnae in Tsingtao and Shanghai, whereas the toothpaste had been given by the five blind girls, who were all well but said they missed Nanjing. Three hundred yuan of the money was from the sale of Mrs. Dennison’s wedding silver, also donated to our college. At Yijiang Gate, however, an officer pulled Minnie aside, because her typhoid papers had expired. He took her to a nearby cabin, where a nurse was to give her an inoculation. Several Chinese were already in there waiting for injections. The nurse jabbed the same needle into everyone’s arm, and each time wiped it only with a cotton ball soaked with rubbing alcohol. The sight of the same needle being used again and again made Minnie cringe, but she took the injection without a murmur.

Minnie handed the two thousand yuan to Mrs. Dennison, who was delighted and said that Jinling’s strength lay in the fact that we could always find donors for projects, and that with enough funding, the college should regain its eminence in the near future.

Minnie sensed the reduction of the student enrollment at the two schools. She asked me, “Why do we have fewer students now?”

“Mrs. Dennison said we wouldn’t have financial aid for many of the women anymore, so they’d have to leave.”

“How about the girls in the middle school?”

“Some dropped out because the schools in town are free.”

“I’m not worried about the girls who can have an education anyway. But what will happen to those poor women who are gone? Some of them have small children.”

“I feel sorry for them too.”

“How many do we still have in the Homecraft School?”

“Less than half, two hundred seventy-three.”

“What a betrayal. I take this personally, as an insult.” She glared at me, her eyes flashing.

I was embarrassed but countered, “Look, Minnie, you didn’t send me a single word. Big Liu and I were both worried about this but couldn’t find a way to contact you. How could I oppose Mrs. Dennison alone? She could’ve laid me off without a second thought.”

That quieted Minnie. Lowering her eyes, she said, “I’m sorry, Anling. I was sick in bed for weeks and couldn’t write.”

“What was the trouble?” I asked.

“I was depressed, listless, and couldn’t get out of bed, but I’m well now after swimming for two weeks.”

“What should we do?” I went on, hoping we could find some remedies for the reduction of the enrollment in both schools.

“I’ll speak to Mrs. Dennison and demand an answer.”

“No, you’d better not. She said she received permission from the board of founders. Plus there’s no way we can bring those poor women back.”

“What a mess! I hate myself for this,” Minnie said. “I feel so trivial. How could I care so much about my personal feelings and bolt to Tsingtao? Just because I couldn’t use that damned bungalow for the summer, I left the two schools open to dismantling.”

“Don’t reproach yourself,” I said. “You’re not made of iron and needed a vacation. Nobody should blame you. What’s done is done. Let’s keep calm and figure out what to do.”

“We must be more careful from now on.”

I told her about my son’s death. She hugged me and then wiped away her tears. “Anling,” she said, “you’re a tough woman, steady like a statue. If only I could be like you.”

I didn’t know how to respond in words and cried too. From then on I felt we were closer than ever. When she was depressed or frustrated, she often disclosed her feelings to me. I promised her that I’d write to Dr. Wu to apprise her of the developments here. We were both certain that the president would not align herself with Mrs. Dennison, though the old woman had once been her mentor. If we had Dr. Wu’s understanding and support, we should be able to manage Mrs. Dennison.