People are glancing at us and turning to listen, but Moon Pearl is too convulsed by her tears to realize how ridiculous she looks. Luckily a rickshaw comes past; I stop it, put my sister on the seat and ask the man to take her home. She is so intoxicated by her pain that she doesn’t even try to resist.
I carry on buying the things Mother has asked me to find. The local farmers and hunters come here every Sunday, traveling overnight to stand shivering outside the city gates, waiting for them to be opened. I finish my shopping as the sun reaches its zenith; the snow has melted this morning and there is an icy slush underfoot as I head for a tearoom. They have set up a stove by the door, so I sit down beside the stall and order an almond and hazelnut tea. The boy serves me quickly: a thin stream of scorching water flows from the spout of a giant kettle decorated with dragons, and lands in a bowl a good meter away. Behind me someone starts to sing:
My village lies in the arms of the River Love,
On the edge of an ocean of pine trees
How can I forget its loveliness,
My mother, my sisters,
How can I abandon them to the mercy
Of the invaders?
A shiver runs through the crowd: the song has been banned. Anyone who dares sing it risks being sent to prison. I see people looking round in astonishment with pale, anxious faces. Just ten paces from me the brave individual starts again, and he is soon joined by other voices. More and more people join in the chorus and the song spreads through the whole market.
Policemen blow whistles to sound the alarm. Shots are fired. Rallied by the gunfire, a peasant who had been crouching beside his basket of eggs gets to his feet, clutching a gun in his hand. Some distance away another takes rifles from on top of some straw bales and hands them out. These armed men head towards the town hall, jostling passersby as they go. The tea stall collapses, making a terrible noise, and I am carried away by the crowd.
People are crying, shouting and wailing in terror. It is no longer clear who is advancing towards the government guards and who is dropping back to try and escape. A human tide carries me towards the gates of the town hall where the gunfire is intensifying. I struggle, but the men’s blood is up and they hardly notice me. I trip on a body and fall. My fumbling hands come across a cold, wet jacket: a policeman lies there stabbed, staring at me with his blank, upturned eyes. I get back to my feet, but one of the peasants brandishing his rifle jabs me with his elbow and I fall back onto the body. I scream in horror.
A young man leans over and offers me his hand. He heaves me up. He is a student with a swarthy complexion. He smiles at me.
“Come on,” he says. He gives a quick nod and another student appears, casts a contemptuous eye over me and takes hold of my other arm. They raise me up between the two of them as they forge a path through the crowd.
There are fierce, noisy battles in the streets, and the two students flee, dragging me with them. As if they already know which police positions have been attacked by the rebels, they avoid these sites of bloodshed and eventually come to a stop by the gates to an impressive property. One of them opens the door to reveal an abandoned garden where crocuses peep up through the snow. The house is European in style with half-moon archways and diamond-shaped window panes.
“This is Jing’s house,” says the swarthy-faced student, indicating his friend. “My name is Min.”
Min explains that the owner of this property, an aunt of Jing’s, has moved to Nanking, and that Jing has willingly taken on the post of overseer. His deep, youthful voice sounds not unlike the man who was singing earlier.
“And you?”
I introduce myself and ask if I can use the telephone.
“The rebels have almost certainly cut the telephone lines,”
Jing tells me rather impatiently, but when Min sees the look of despair on my face he offers to try for me.
The bare walls in the sitting room still bear marks where pictures must have hung, and the red lacquered floorboards are scratched and scored where furniture has been moved. In the library hundreds of books still stand in neat lines on the shelves, while others have been thrown haphazardly on the floor. The low tables are cluttered with full ashtrays, dirty cups and plates and crumpled newspapers. It looks as if a meeting was held here last night.
Min opens a door to reveal the bedroom and a bed draped in crimson silk dotted with chrysanthemums. He picks up the telephone on a side table, but can’t get a line.
“I’ll take you home when everything’s calmed down,” he says in his warm, friendly voice. “You’re safe here. Are you hungry? Come and help me make something to eat.”
While Min prepares the noodles, peels the vegetables and cuts up the meat, Jing sits on a stool by the window listening to the commotion outside. There are occasional gunshots, and with every shot a mocking smile appears on the corners of his lips. I don’t know what will happen to my town, I think that these pseudo-peasants are members of the Resistance Movement against the Japanese army. The newspapers say they are bandits who pillage, burn, take citizens hostage and then use the ransom money to buy arms from the Russians. Anxious about my parents and about Moon Pearl lost in the streets in her rickshaw, I sit down, get back up again, pace up and down the room, leaf through books and then slump down onto a stool next to Jing.
Like him, I listen to every sound. Only Min seems to be calm, whistling an opera tune as he works. A delicious smell wafts over from the cooking pot and it isn’t long before Min proudly presents me with a bowl of noodles with beef and sweet-and-sour cabbage. He hands me a pair of chopsticks.
That is when I remember that they are waiting for me at home to celebrate my sixteenth birthday.
22
At Ha Rebin the sunlight pierces the eyes.
In springtime, there is a constant thundering as the great debris of ice is buffeted, thrown up and submerged in the foaming torrents of the River Love.
A rich salesman has just set up a lottery stand in the town center, and he is announcing the results of the draw from a raised platform. Beggars with hardly a shred of clothing shiver beside men in thick furs. The whole town is here, the thieves and the thankless, the military and the students, the rich housewives and the prostitutes, all waiting impatiently. The long-awaited announcement is greeted with groans of despair and some cries of joy from the crowd. Fights break out, husbands beat their wives because they changed their numbers, and those who have just gambled their last few coins are threatening to commit suicide. There are also creditors claiming their dues, and winners who can no longer find their tickets.
I have never known a place where the wealthy are so conscious of their riches while the poor struggle so desperately. The lack of purpose in this population confirms my opinion: the Chinese Empire has sunk irretrievably into chaos. This ancient civilization has imploded under the reign of the Manchurians, who refused openness, science and modernization. Today, as the chosen prey of the Western powers, it survives by relinquishing land and autonomy. Only the Japanese, who have inherited a pure, unhybridized version of Chinese culture,7 have made it their vocation to liberate the Empire from the European yoke. We will give her people back their peace and dignity.
We are their saviors.
23
Jing has gone to find out what is going on and he tells us that rebels have occupied the town hall and thrown the mayor’s body over the balcony. In the space of a few hours, hatred has spread through the town, and the people, stirred up by the bloodshed, are massacring collaborators and Japanese immigrants. Some Chinese soldiers who were enrolled into the Manchurian army have turned against the Japanese and are now surrounding the enemy division in their barracks.
Min puts a ladder up against the wall and we climb onto the roof. The town spreads out before our eyes, an infinity of serried rooftops, gray fish scales glinting silver. Sinuous roads cut deep, dark furrows. The naked plane trees spell out their arid calligraphy, and columns of black smoke rise from the town center, piercing the violet
and yellow sky where thousands of sparrows circle in panic.
We can hear shots among the shouting, the cheering and the celebratory drumming. Some areas look deserted and mournful, others jubilant and full of life. In the distance the ramparts of the town meander through a thick mist.
Will they be strong enough to withstand the Japanese reinforcements?
24
During our brief exchange of courtesies I discover that Madame Violette, Masayo’s employer, is also originally from Tokyo. Meeting compatriots on foreign soil produces a melancholy happiness and turns complete strangers into close friends. Within moments she is offering me some sake and bombarding me with questions about my life. I then ask her about her family, and she says that her husband and children were killed in the earthquake. From the sleeve of her kimono she produces a tiny child’s sandal, the only reminder she has of her son. Fourteen years have elapsed and I have managed to banish the images of that seismic disaster to the farthest recesses of my memory, but Madame Violette’s tears bring back those scenes of devastation.
Catastrophe struck at noon. The bells ringing for the end of morning lessons had only just begun to sound when chairs suddenly overturned around us and sticks of chalk flew through the air. Thinking this was some prank played by my classmates, I started laughing and clapping, until the blackboard came crashing down with a thud, injuring several children as it shattered. The walls shook and our heavy wooden worktables began gliding from one side of the room to the other. One boy got trapped under the furniture and screamed in terror. We had only just extricated him when a hail of plaster pelted down on us.
Our teacher, also covered in the white powder, ran to the window, opened it, and ordered us to jump. I was the first to throw myself out into the void: our classroom was on the second floor and I landed unharmed on my hands and feet in the grass below. Others followed me. Some of the boys jumping from the floors above injured themselves and we dragged them by the shoulders towards the garden. The whole façade of the building shuddered. The three entrance doors spewed a constant stream of pupils who had fought their way to the doors bareheaded, with torn uniforms and bloodied shirts. Suddenly the central building caved in on itself in one slow, irresistible descent, heaving with it the wings on either side.
The garden was seething with people screaming, groaning, running and crawling as the ground rippled beneath them. The paved paths that I had trodden so many times twisted like lengths of ribbon, and the trees we clung to arched and teetered before hurling us to the ground. We tried with no more success to cling to the grass and shrubs. A strange roaring sound rose from the center of the earth, and a torrent of rock and stone, the harsh, dry sound of torn silk.
When the tremors stopped, the staff and prefects grouped us together and made us sit in a circle on the sports ground. They told us not to move, and started to tend the injured and count the missing. I caught a glimpse of my younger brother in the distance and the joy of seeing him brought tears to my eyes. Somewhere in the crowd a boy was wailing and soon everyone had joined him.
We were forbidden to go anywhere near the rubble to look for survivors: we were ordered to wait for the emergency services, but at five o’clock in the afternoon still no one had come. By then the wind was stronger and, when flames flickered up from a building, suffocating billows of black smoke were buffeted and spread by the typhoon. Making the most of the confusion, I hopped over a collapsed wall and ran away along the street.
The scenes that greeted me came straight from hell. Tokyo had disappeared. Although some buildings were still standing, scarcely holding each other up, the roads had been submerged under a thick layer of bricks, wood and glass. People looked for their loved ones, helplessly calling their names. A madman wandered through the ruins laughing. Three nuns were crouched over the remains of a church, digging with their bare hands in the hope of finding a living soul.
Houses were burning and, with the aid of the wind, the fires spread. It was six o’clock in the evening and the dark ash whirling through the sky made the night close in. What happened next is confused in my memory. I can see myself feeling my way through this suffocating darkness, my path strewn with broken masonry, with people trying to flee and with dead bodies. I do not remember how I managed to reach our doorstep. I saw my mother sitting on a tree trunk, looking at the few things she had been able to save, with Little Sister at her feet, clinging to her legs. The sound of my footsteps woke her from her dazed silence and she looked up sharply. From the way she threw herself at me I could tell some great sadness was going to carve its way into me like an arrowhead.
“Father has just left us.”
I watched over my father’s battered corpse all night. His face was at peace, as if he were contemplating paradise, and his hands were as icy-cold as the underworld. From time to time I would get up and walk to the end of the garden, from where we could see the whole city at a glance: Tokyo was burning, a vast funeral pyre.
According to legend, Japan is an island floating on the back of a catfish, and the fish’s movements cause the earthquakes. I tried to picture this aquatic monster. The pain I felt was like a fever. I became delirious. Unable to kill the god responsible for this, we had to attack the continent. China, an infinite and stable land, was within our grasp— that was where we would guarantee our children’s safe future.
When Masayo arrives, I am torn away from a conversation that was becoming unbearably painful. She bows to the ground in front of her employer, who is weeping silently, then drags me by the sleeve and leads me up to her room.
25
The Resistance partisans withdrew into the mountains before nightfall, and were followed by those soldiers who had rebelled. In the space of an evening the town’s patriotic fever has abated.
The very next morning Japanese patrols are parading through the streets. A provisional government has been constituted; they are noisily tracking down and dealing with the rioters. If they fail to find any true rebels, they vent their anger on thieves and beggars.
The new mayor decides to rekindle Manchurian– Japanese relations and announces a series of cultural exchanges. The Japanese army, publicly praised and flattered by the Manchurian authorities, consents to forgive and manages to forget. We slip back into normality virtually in the wink of an eye. April brings us its radiant clarity. At school we start Japanese lessons again.
This morning I wake up late. My rickshaw boy runs breathlessly, fast as he can, so that I am not late for school. Sweat runs down his back and great blue veins crawl over his arms, and I am so overcome with guilt that I ask him to slow down.
“Please don’t worry, miss,” he replies haltingly, “a good run in the morning is the secret of eternal life.”
In front of the Temple of the White Horse I catch sight of Min heading in the opposite direction on his bicycle. I am so amazed that I don’t even think to wave a greeting . . . Our paths cross for a moment and then we are carried away from each other.
26
The order to leave is given. I have no time to say good-bye to Madame Violette and Masayo before our unit leaves the barracks and heads for the station. Whistles shriek on the platform and several companies of men push and jostle to get into the trains laden with tanks and munitions. We manage to climb up into a double-decker carriage.
The chill air of a hesitant, stuttering spring makes it impossible for me to sleep. I place my hand over my tunic pocket where I have put the last two letters I have received: they are still there. In Mother’s, her fine, clear writing reassures me that she is well, at least temporarily alleviating my anxiety. Akiko has somehow got hold of my address and has written at length.
Before I left, this young woman came to bid me farewell, and I deliberately went to hide, hoping it would make her hate me. She was my younger sister’s best friend and, having lost her brothers in the earthquake, she had become attached to me. Her family was related to the shogun Tokugawa,8 and her modesty and elegance had appealed to Mother, who secretly
hoped we would be married. Encouraged by her own parents, the young girl already believed she was my intended. Once I had left the military academy and had taken up my post on the outskirts of Tokyo, she started to write to me at the barracks—I replied to one letter in four. When I was away she would come to visit my sister, and her smiling and bowing won over my landlady, who willingly opened my door for her. She would wash and iron my dirty laundry, and darn my socks. Like most well-brought-up women, Akiko never spoke to me of her feelings, and her discretion permitted me to put her squarely in her place: she would be a sister, and nothing more.
A few words from Miss Sunlight would certainly have given more pleasure than Akiko’s endless missive. But I know that the geisha will never write to me. The life she has chosen is a whirlwind of parties, banquets, laughter and music. When will she have a quiet moment to think of me?
I passed through her life, but it was a one-way trip.
27
I have been going past the Temple of the White Horse every morning for years, and Min has been taking the same route but in the other direction, although we have never seen each other. For the last week he has appeared just as the bells in the shrine have started to ring.
Before I leave the house I slip into Mother’s bedroom and look at my reflection in her full-length oval mirror. My bangs look childish now and, with the help of two barrettes set with tiny pearls that by dint of sighing and begging I have managed to borrow from my sister, I hold them back to reveal my forehead.