Ha Jin - War Trash

On the last Wednesday in March, when the singing session was over, Father Woodworth called to me. Agitated, I walked up to him. He said in a sonorous voice, "I also want to ask you a favor, Mr. Feng."

A few inmates turned around to look at me while trooping out of the classroom, because usually a prisoner wasn't addressed as "Mister" by our captors. "Sure, what is it you want me to do?" I asked.

Fingering the lanyard of his pince-nez, Father Woodworth said, "Do you think you can put some of the hymns into Chinese?"

"I don't feel I can translate them well because I really don't know much about music. Even though I put the words into Chinese, they may be hard to sing."

"I don't mean to ask you to translate them into verse like the original. Just do a rough translation so that we can read it to the others before they learn how to sing them. I reckon that if they know the general meaning of a hymn, they can sing it better, don't you think?"

"That's true."

He unzipped his scuffed leather briefcase and took out a new notebook, a pencil, and some loose pages from a hymnal. "You can use these," he said.

I was moved and promised, "I'll do my best."

For a whole week I worked on the hymns, which were not difficult to translate – I was supposed to provide merely the gist of each song. From the next Wednesday on, I would sit in the front row when Father Woodworth taught us the hymns. Before we started singing he'd call to me, saying, "Number seven, There's a Wideness in God's Mercy,'" or "Number nine, 'Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me.'" I would stand up, turn to the audience, and read out my Chinese translation. My assistance to the chaplain drew people's attention in the compound. In the prison camp every company had at least one interpreter, who in most cases just knew a few words of English. So it was said that I spoke English better than any of those interpreters, perhaps because I had talked with Father Woodworth in front of hundreds of men without being outwardly nervous.

I broke the pencil in half and gave the part without the eraser to Ming when we met the next Tuesday. He was excited to have it and said, "I'll pass this on to Commissar Pei. We do need stationery badly. He'll be delighted to see this."

"How's he doing?"

"So far he's okay."

"Give him my greetings."

"I will. By the way, I've heard you're busy helping Woodworth, right?"

"Yes, it was he who gave me the pencil. He wanted me to translate some hymns for him."

Ming knitted his thick eyebrows. "You did that, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"You're too naive, Yuan. According to our information, Woodworth is also involved in persecuting our comrades, just like Priest Hu. You must be careful."

"Really? He seems kindhearted."

"Only in appearance. He's behind many things. In fact, Commissar Pei wasn't very happy when he heard you were helping Woodworth."

"I don't see why he should be unhappy." I was surprised that Pei knew so much about my activities.

"Religion is just spiritual opium. Woodworth means to weaken our men's resolve to fight."

"Perhaps he can help us."

"No. Never reveal anything to him. Be careful. He's not our friend."

"Okay."

"I want you to promise me not to tell him anything. This is a matter of principle."

"All right, I promise."

Some inmates were strolling nearby and we dared not remain together too long, so we parted company.

Ming's words made me think a good deal, though I wasn't convinced that Father Woodworth had been involved in persecuting the prisoners who wanted to repatriate. On Wednesday afternoon, after the singing session, while the audience was filing out of the hall, I went up to Woodworth and asked him about the meaning of "communion" in the line "the new community of love in Christ's communion." He explained to me the sacrament at which people drink wine and eat bread. He said he would have included that part in the service on Sundays, but most of us were not Christians, so it was unnecessary. I couldn't understand the Eucharist fully, never having attended one. Seeing that I was still bemused, he added, "Communion also means fraternity. Put it like that."

As we walked toward the door, I said again, "Father Woodworth, I have had a question on my mind for a long time."

"You can let me know it if you wish."

"You see, according to the teaching of the Bible, all the prisoners here are sinners, so we should be equal. Why are some inmates more privileged than others?"

We were now in the open air, which was warm with the feel of spring. He stopped short and said, "What do you mean exactly? Be more specific. There's something behind your question."

I pointed at the large tents and then at the small ones. "People are not treated equally here. The men living at the back are not even given their share of food."

"And you're one of them?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry, but this is the way things should be done."

"Why?"

"Because most of you are Communists. To me and to my God, Communism is evil."

"But most of us are not Communists at all. We stay with them mainly because we want to go home. As sons, we have our duty to our parents. Some men are husbands and fathers and ought to return to their families."

"I can understand it's a tough choice, but life is full of choices."

"For most of us there's no choice."

"Mr. Feng, you should know there are different kinds of duties. The highest kind is your duty to God and to your own soul."

"But we haven't been converted yet. Do you think those who are going to Taiwan are Christians?" There was an angry edge in my voice now.

"Listen, I'm not just a clergyman but also a soldier. I came with both the book and the sword."

Realizing the argument was getting nowhere, I muttered, "I thought you might help us because we're all fellow sufferers."

"Every man here can choose his own way of suffering."

He straightened his back and walked away. I had thought of asking him, "Then why do you teach us the hymns that praise the wideness of God's mercy?" But I didn't bring that out. Probably he taught us just to earn his salary and to convert a few pagans. My conversation with him upset me profoundly and shattered my illusion that there might be shelter in God's bosom for every person. Now I was inclined to believe what Ming had told me.

I mentioned to Bai Dajian my exchange of words with Father Woodworth. He and I were very close now, friends. I treated him like a younger brother, because he respected me and was two years my junior. "Woodworth isn't a kind man," he assured me, and his large eyes flashed.

"How do you know?" I was surprised by the certainty in his voice.

"The other day when they flogged a man with water-whips in the front yard, Woodworth happened to be passing by. The man cried, 'Father, Father, help me! Save me!' But Woodworth gave him a look, then walked away without a word. One of the hooligans told the man, 'Call him God, then he'll sure come back and save your hide.' They all cracked up."

The water-whip was a punishment invented by the pro-Nationalists here. They would tie a man to a stake and flog him with bands of canvas soaked in a bucket of water. The flogging would continue until the whole bucketful was used up.

Although Woodworth had never punished any inmate publicly, Dajian's account of his indifference disappointed me. It was rumored that he had even presented a dagger to Liu Tai-an, the chief of our battalion. I had seen the knife with a white jade handle, which Liu often put against an inmate's throat.

Soon Dajian and I both stopped attending the sermons and the singing sessions, though I still read the Bible every day as a way to improve my English.

At our next meeting Ming told me that someone had betrayed Commissar Pei. Surprised, I refrained from asking him to inform Pei that I had quit Woodworth's sermons and singing sessions. "There must be a traitor," Ming said. "Have you heard of Ding Wanlin, who was the bugler in our division's Guards Company?"