Anchee Min - Pearl of China

It was the house rule that no one mentioned Carol’s condition to outsiders, but Pearl realized that people drew closer to her because of Carol. Pearl was better understood. Local children were taught to play with Carol as if she were normal.

I had a feeling that Pearl knew Dick’s true identity, although she never asked. By 1933, Dick was the head of the Shanghai branch of the Communist Party. The party survived the Nationalists’ brutal purge. Mao retreated to Shan-hsi province, a remote area in the northwest mountains. Dick was left alone to be in charge. He barely had time to travel to Nanking.

While the Nationalists fought the Communists, Japan penetrated into China. In early 1934 Japan launched a full-scale invasion and took Manchuria. The nation protested and forced the head of the Nationalists, Chiang Kai-shek, to unite with the Communists instead of hunting them down.

While the Nationalist troops turned around and marched toward Manchuria to fight the Japanese, Mao expanded his forces. Dick received secret orders from Mao to focus on key generals who served Chiang Kai-shek. Dick’s goal was to inspire them to lead an uprising inside the Nationalist military.

“We will take the troops who rebel to Mao,” Dick told me.

Although I was aware of the danger, I supported Dick. It was clear that he simply couldn’t be stopped. What concerned me was his safety.

One day my fear turned into a reality: Dick’s plan ran into trouble when sensitive information was leaked. By the time I heard the news, Dick was on the run. Overnight, he was on the government’s most-wanted list. Dick was followed everywhere. Soon he ran out of places to hide in Shanghai. Whoever received him was followed and arrested.

I went to Pearl and asked if she could help by getting Dick a temporary job at Nanking University. “Dick must have a job in order to register with the city as a legal resident,” I told Pearl. “Dick will take any job, even as a janitor or night guard. There would be no financial burden to the university because we’d give you money to pay his salary.”

Pearl promised to try, but she warned me that the situation in Nanking was becoming uncertain.

“I would hire Dick as my house servant if it wouldn’t be so suspicious,” Pearl added. “I am watched because all foreigners are considered allies of Japan.”

The moment Dick arrived in Nanking, he was arrested. He was thrown into the Nationalist military prison. Although his true identity was still undiscovered, he was tried as a Communist. He was asked to cooperate and produce the names of his comrades. When he refused, he was beaten and his jaw broken.

“Has he been allowed a doctor?” Absalom asked when I told Pearl the news.

“No,” I replied.

“Nonsense!” Absalom said. “I don’t think that we are helpless.” He turned to Pearl. “There must be something we can do to help Dick.”

“Father, we must be cautious. We are not the only ones at risk,” Pearl said, reminding him of the other people in her house. “We are responsible for their lives as well.”

Pearl’s house was crowded. Besides Absalom and Carol, Pearl ’s sister, Grace, had moved in. Her family had also stayed in China, as missionaries. Pearl’s new adopted daughter, Janice, was there too. She was a little older than Carol. The two were already close sisters.

Pearl insisted that I stay with her instead of going back to my own house.

When Nanking University turned down Pearl ’s proposal to hire Dick, the seventy-seven-year-old Absalom went to the Nanking government and claimed that Dick was his assistant working for the church.

“It was the first time in his life that Absalom chose to sin,” Pearl later said, after Dick’s release.

Absalom made it his duty to protect the members of his church. He had difficulty because Dick was not a Christian. It was Papa who convinced Absalom that by helping Dick he was helping our family.

“Dick needs to see God’s work in action,” Papa said to Absalom. “Because of your good deed, you may soon see his conversion.”

Absalom knew that Chiang Kai-shek was a new Christian himself, although he’d converted only to satisfy his wife’s marriage request. When Absalom heard this, he knew that he stood a chance.

“What if Dick refuses to convert afterward?” I asked. “We don’t want to disappoint Absalom.”

Papa replied, “Dick will remember that he was saved by a man of God.”

Even covered with a beard, Dick’s face was horribly misshapen. The right side of his jaw was swollen and much larger than the left. Pearl arranged for a doctor from the American Embassy to come. The doctor reset Dick’s jaw and wired his mouth shut.

For days, Dick couldn’t speak. This was perhaps fortunate, because he couldn’t respond to Absalom’s talk of God. If Dick had been able to speak, the two would have been in combat.

Laughing at the thought, Pearl said, “Dick would try to convert Absalom to Communism.”

Eventually Dick had enough. He left without saying good-bye to Absalom.

Two weeks after Dick’s release, an order arrived from Communist headquarters. He left the next day to join Mao at his base in Yenan. Dick told Pearl he was grateful for Absalom’s rescue, but that he could never believe in God.

“Your father must learn that we Communists are fighting for a real cause,” Dick said to Pearl. “ China will one day be free of politics and religion. People will be their own gods.”

Pearl told Dick that she and her father had disagreements on many things. “He is God’s fighting angel. I don’t understand him, but I love him.”

Dick replied that it didn’t make sense to him. “I could not love my father if he were my political enemy,” he said.

Pearl smiled. “There is no enemy for me.”

In retrospect, Dick’s encounter with Pearl and Absalom helped him become a different kind of Communist. In a way, it was a perfect example of how God worked. Only the future would reveal the changes that had occurred in Dick. Without knowing it, his horizon had been expanded as God’s light shone on him.

Before my husband left we spent the evening together. His jaw was still tender but I cooked him his favorite meal and we stayed up late into the night discussing our plans. Dick was excited by the journey he was about to take, although we both shed tears at the idea of parting. He promised to come back and fetch me as soon as he was settled. I knew that if I insisted, Dick would stay in Nanking. He would do it for me, even though his heart was already with Mao and his comrades. Dick left me with a quote from Madame Curie: The weak one waits for opportunity while the strong one creates. By opportunity, he meant his dream of a people’s China.

When I sent my first letter to Dick two months later I had some news to share with my husband. On our last night together we had shared a bed and I had become pregnant. I was thrilled because years before, a doctor had told me after my miscarriage that I would not be able to bear children. I was forty-three years old and Dick forty-six. It was the happiest letter I’ve ever sent.

Pearl suggested that I start collecting medicine and packing it into bags. She had learned from an American journalist friend who had interviewed Mao that “medicine is the best currency in Yenan.” And besides, I didn’t want to be without medicine for my newborn.

The day Papa abandoned his church in Chin-kiang and came to Nanking was the day Pearl sensed that the safety of foreigners in China was a thing of the past.

Papa told us that the church had been attacked. The Nationalist government was convinced that Communism was a foreign idea, thus the church must be a hiding place for Communists.