Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 08 - In Dangers Path

Finally, she told Mae Su, very much afraid that Mae Su would decide the only way to keep herself and her own children alive would be to abandon the Nansen stateless person and her unborn child.

«It will make things more difficult,» Mae Su responded. «There is a midwife in my village, but she will expect to be paid not to report another birth to the authorities. We are going to have to be very careful with our money.»

Mae Su then matter-of-factly laid out what they could expect once they reached Paotow-Zi, a small farming village of less than a thousand people. She had relatives there, but her parents were both dead. The head of her family, who was also the presiding elder of the village, was her uncle, her father's brother.

«He is of the old school,» Mae Su said. «He has difficulty understanding the justice of a woman—particularly a woman who has borne a foreigner's children—having a larger house, and more land, and of course more money, than he does, the head of the family and the village. Ernie, my man, told him he would kill him if he tried to take our property. But now he will naturally start to wonder whether or not Ernie will ever come back.

«That means practically that he can only be trusted not to report your presence in Paotow-Zi—or, for that matter, my presence, and my half barbarian children— only as long as that poses little risk to him… and only as long as we make regular gifts to him.

«If the authorities discover that we are in the village, he will do nothing to protect me, my children, or you. He will tell the truth, that Ernie threatened him. Other people besides my family heard what Ernie said to him about stealing from me.»

From what Mae Su had told her, Milla expected the uncle to be a village elder, old, dignified, with maybe even a wispy beard. But when they finally reached Paotow-Zi, Gang-Cho turned out to be clean-shaven, muscular, and tall, certainly not yet forty, who was the head of the family simply because he was of the generation of Mae Su's parents. One of Mae Su's brothers actually turned out to be older than he was.

When they met, Gang-Cho was courteous to them. But he looked at Milla the way a man looks at a woman he wants.

Almost immediately Mae Su began to make regular trips with one or more of her brothers to Baotou, a city of half a million people thirty miles away. They traveled in Mae Su's cart, but now it was drawn by a small horse rather than the tractor. The tractor was placed on blocks and hidden behind a wall in Mae Su's house. The horse really only had to work going in one direction, for the entire party was able to float back from Baotou to Paotow-Zi aboard a raft powered by the current of the Huang-He (Yellow) River.

The purpose of Mae Su's trips was twofold. First—publicly—to sell sausage and chickens, and once in a while ducks and pigs, in the Baotou marketplace. Secondly—very privately—to sell a few of Milla's precious stones to make a present of gold to Gang-Cho, in exchange for his silence. Mae Su hoped he believed the gold came out of the profits from her businesses; she didn't want him aware that she and Milla both had gold and gemstones.

On 9 August 1942, six months after her arrival in Paotow-Zi, Milla was delivered of a healthy boy by the village midwife. She decided to name the baby Edward Edwardovich, in the Russian custom. Though she worried she would not have enough milk to nurse the infant, she had more than enough. And Edward Edwardovich quickly proved to be a healthy child, and a happy one.

Obviously

, Milla thought,

because he does not yet understand the terrible situation, in a terrible world, that his mother has brought him into

.

Before long, Mae Su turned over half the work of the sausage making business to Milla. Mae Su handled the pig farm part of it, including the slaughter of the animals, then delivered the meat and the spices to Milla so she could prepare the mixture.

The large sausage grinder and stuffer had the legend «Thos. Graves Co. Boston Mass. USA» cast into the side of its mouth. The meat had to be run through the machine twice, first to grind it, and then to stuff it into the intestines after it had been seasoned and blended.

Since there was no refrigeration in Paotow-Zi, most of the sausage was smoked to preserve it. The fire beneath the clay smokehouse had to be fed with wood gathered in the countryside and tended every four hours, around the clock, seven days a week. The smokehouse, including the wood gathering and tending the fire, also became Milla's responsibility.

Milla also cared for the chicken hutch. She gathered eggs and slaughtered the chickens, and sometimes ducks. Some went to their table; most were smoked for sale in Baotou.

The business grew, largely because Milla's work making and smoking the sausage left Mae Su more time for the Baotou market or else buying and selling livestock. One by one, Mae Su's sister, her two sisters-in-law, and a niece were also put to work in the sausage factory. They were well paid.

Gang-Cho, meanwhile, said nothing, although Milla sensed that Mae Su's success made him uncomfortable. To make his discomfort more bearable, the size of their gifts to him increased; and he expected—and received—gifts from the women Mae Su and Milla had put to work.

With Mae Su making regular and frequent trips to market, their product line expanded. It soon included fresh sausage, which commanded a higher price than the smoked, as well as smoked pork loins and hams and smoked duck. Milla prepared the fresh sausage, in a frenzy of activity, the day and night before Mae Su left on a trip.

In December 1942, Mae Su returned from Baotou with news for Milla. «One of your people is in Baotou,» she said, «recently arrived from Shanghai.»

«An American?»

«A Russian. A Nansen person.»

«What is he doing there?»

«He gambles and he makes business,» Mae Su said, «from what I hear.»

The next time Mae Su went to Baotou, she—very reluctantly—carried a message from Milla for the Russian Nansen person gambling businessman.

The message was simple. Just «Ludmilla Zhivkov. St. Petersburg,» written in the Cyrillic alphabet on a small piece of paper. Nothing that would really identify her, nothing that the gambling businessman could turn over to the authorities to curry favor. Even if there was a reply, she told Mae Su—meaning it—she would think long and hard before actually meeting this person. If he in fact existed.

When Mae Su and the cart and the pony came again floating on a tiny raft down the Yellow River three days later, she brought a reply.

Praise God for His mercy in Preserving you.

If you tell this woman to tell me where you are, I will come pray with you.

God bless you, my child.

Father Boris

Three weeks later, in the first week of January 1943, when Edward Edwardovich was now five months old, Father Boris walked up the steep path from the Yellow River. He did not look much like a Russian Orthodox priest. Most of his face was hidden by a conical straw hat; and he now had a full, yellow-white beard, which hung below the top buttons of his ankle-length black cotton garment, the dress of the successful elderly. He wore sandals and carried a heavy staff. And he was accompanied by four Chinese, each almost as large as he was, each carrying a similar staff.

When he saw her with Edward Edwardovich in her arms, his face reflected both pleasure and great sadness.

The first thing Milla said to him, defiantly, was, «I am married. In the eyes of God, I am married. This is my son.»

«He is a beautiful baby. God loves him.»

«He is not christened.»

«I will take him into the arms of Holy Mother Church.»

«And will you now grant me absolution?»