The Dragon's Village: An Autobiographical Novel of Revolutionary China Read online

  Ma Li nodded her thanks.

  When I told my aunt that a girlfriend was staying overnight with me because of the curfew, she asked no questions. It was a natural thing.

  Next morning when Ma Li was preparing to leave and picked up her large, bulging handbag from a chair, I teased her and inquired, “Forbidden books?”

  “Not exactly that.” She shook her head after a pause. “It’s instructions that we want to print and distribute to factory and office workers calling on them to prevent the Guomindang from destroying anything before they flee.”

  “Ma Li, you were carrying these with you last night—the secret police could have stopped you! They might be searching for you now. If … they …” I stammered nervously. “For God’s sake don’t go out. Stay here.”

  “No. I have to go. We’re holding an important meeting today. But there are some papers I certainly wouldn’t want them to find on me. Oh … no, I can’t impose this on you.” She fidgeted with the straps of her handbag.

  My heart sank, but weighing things up I thought that it would be better to keep such papers here in my room than have them found on Ma Li when she went out of our gate. I said, “Better leave them here than take them with you.”

  “If you could keep them for me today, I’ll send someone to pick them up this evening before the curfew.” She sounded relieved. “Will you really do this for us?”

  “Do you think I’m a coward?” I asked, half joking, half defiant.

  “All right, then. Be sure to be home about seven this evening. I don’t know who will be able to come, but we’ll use a code. He will say, ‘Ma Li wants her book back.’ Now let me see, what book? Maybe a book only you know that I love or hate.”

  “How about The Bible of Filial Piety for Daughters.”

  “Good! There’s no book I hate more than that one.” Laughing, she handed me a popular movie magazine. Scattered among its smirking starlets were thin slivers of paper covered with tiny script. Quickly I thrust the whole thing under my mattress and made up my bed.

  “There are names there,” Ma Li warned.

  “It will be all right.”

  “Ling-ling, why don’t you try to talk some sense into your uncle? Ask him not to take everything out of his mill. It’s the workers’ livelihood, you know, not just his.” Her face was grave.

  “He’s leaving some things here,” I began to defend him.

  She could see that I was beginning to panic. Concerned that she was asking too much of me all at once, she added, “Do what you can.”

  Around six that evening, Ma Li telephoned again. She spoke hurriedly, without introduction. “I’m speaking from a phone booth. This place is surrounded by insects and I think quite a few of us will be bitten. They may come to you next. Do whatever you think necessary. That medicine I gave you is no good at all. Perhaps it’s best to pour it down the drain and get rid of it. Unless, of course, the doctor comes soon. Well, take care.” She hung up.

  I felt as if all the blood were draining out of my body. Someone in Ma Li’s group might know of her friendship with me and betray it. I had heard about the police agents and their methods of breaking a victim. I sat on the chair by the telephone until one of the maids helped me to my bed, where I fell into an uneasy doze.

  I woke in a panic and looked at my watch: seven o’clock. Quickly I grabbed the magazine from under the mattress, hid it under my sweater, and opened the door; its creaking sounded like a screech in the quiet house. I moved swiftly but as silently as I could down the stairs. From outside in the roadway came the sound of a truck with a loudspeaker warning that the curfew would soon go into force. The small front garden with its many trees was empty and silent. I hid between the wall and a lilac bush so I couldn’t be seen from the house, and watched the wrought-iron gateway leading to the street. Before I had time to catch my breath I heard someone rattling the gate.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “I want to see Guan Ling-ling,” said a voice. I approached the gate and saw a young man on the other side. He seemed rather well dressed. I began to realize that it was safer to be out dressed that way than like a student.

  The young man looked me squarely in the eye and continued, “Ma Li wants her book back, The Bible of Filial Piety for Daughters.”

  I took the magazine out from under my sweater and pushed it through the grill of the gate. He gave a quick glance through it and was gone.

  I spent the night sleepless and troubled. I was appalled at what I might have done to my aunt and uncle. The next morning I came down late to breakfast to find them already at the table.

  “You look nervous.” My uncle peered around the side of his newspaper. “What are you thinking about?”

  The question found me in a daze, and I mumbled, “Nothing, Uncle.”

  Uncle and Aunt exchanged glances.

  “Why did you ask me that?” I asked him, collecting my thoughts.

  “You held up your spoon but you paused and never put your rice gruel in your mouth,” said my uncle’s voice from behind the newspaper.

  I breathed hard. Perhaps I had already gotten them into trouble. It was impossible not to tell them about it. I couldn’t leave them unprepared for whatever might happen.

  “Last night …” I began my confession. Uncle slowly lowered his newspaper, glowering. My aunt could not have looked more astounded if she had seen the legendary bird with nine heads flying by.

  I left my bowl of rice unfinished and rushed to my room, where I hid myself for the whole day. Even by the evening I couldn’t muster enough courage to face the family. Soon after suppertime they sent the maid to ask me to join them with some friends in the drawing room.

  A burst of light and animated chatter flooded out into the hallway as I opened the door of the room. Several of our intimate friends had gathered at the urgent call of my uncle and aunt, and I found them sitting in a semicircle around the fireplace. From the way they turned to smile at me as I entered, the kind of smile that was meant to reassure a wayward child of its parents’ love, I knew this was a tribunal organized for my benefit. I groaned inwardly. My uncle looked solemn although he tried to appear as if nothing unusual was happening. It was my aunt who formally opened the proceedings.

  “Ling-ling, tonight I invited our very dear, old friends in to give us some helpful advice. They knew your parents before you were born. And they know your uncle and I brought you up as one of our own.” My aunt’s nose became red. “I took on a terrible responsibility when I promised your mother I would always treat you and love you as if you were my own child. I am thankful that our friends have kindly agreed to share my responsibility.”

  Looking around at the gathering, I remembered once when my aunt had taken me along to help the black sheep of a friend’s family to “see the light.” I had sat on her lap happily munching sweets, wondering what that black sheep had done to make his family so bitter. Afterwards I asked my aunt, but she replied, “You are too young to understand. You see, it’s not only his fault, but his parents’ as well. Family upbringing is very important. They spoiled him and now it’s difficult to change him.” Kissing my forehead, my aunt’s face had lit up with affection as if to say, “But you are a good child; you will always be my joy and comfort.” Poor Auntie.

  Mr. Li, because of his age and position, spoke next. “Ling-ling, I know you won’t like what I’m going to tell you. You may think we are interfering in your private affairs. But has it occurred to you that you’ve done something which could very well bring disaster to your family? The secret police are on the lookout for subversives and Communists and it’s clear that the papers your friend gave you were of a most compromising nature. It’s possible nothing may come of this; on the other hand, the danger of your being implicated is great, and that would bring in the whole family.”

  “But Ling-ling didn’t know what those papers were.” Madame Lu was already devising my defense. “If she knew they were bad business, I’m sure she would not have been a wil
ling accomplice. She’s a good girl.” Madame Lu seemed to wear fewer jewels nowadays, with the fighting so close, and she was dressed for this solemn occasion with elegant simplicity. Only three rings encircled her fingers; each was a treasure: a tiny museum there on her hands. “I don’t think we should worry. If the secret police come to bother you, we’ll all write letters attesting to your good character.”

  My aunt looked at me anxiously: “Ling-ling, have you done anything else, you know, anything else illegal apart from what you told us this morning?”

  “No.” I squeezed the word out.

  “I’m sure you are telling the truth.”

  “It’s the truth.” I tried to conceal my rising agitation beneath a toneless voice, but I couldn’t fool my aunt.

  “Don’t be impatient,” she admonished. “You are young and impractical. I know you believe all this nonsense about fighting for a better future, lifting up the people and so on and so forth. But you must forget about all that. Believe me when I tell you that just now the most important thing for you is to survive.”

  “Your idealistic notions may cost us a lot of money. If the secret police got hold of you, we would have to buy them off,” my uncle grumbled. “And just at this moment I am hard up for ready cash.”

  “We will pool together what we have. No problem,” the banker Mr. Chang reassured him.

  To everybody’s surprise, I stood up, turned to my uncle, and said in a cold voice, “Uncle, you can use the money that my mother left me to bribe the police.” I had never spoken to my uncle and aunt like that before. I spoke with a brutality I hadn’t seen in myself before, and it hurt them deeply.

  “You are overreacting,” interposed Lily, that gracious little beauty. She gently pressed my forearm in a sisterly way, and looked questioningly at my aunt.

  My aunt motioned us away. She thought that she could not have found a more suitable person than Lily to put me in the right frame of mind, and in a way she was right. It was hard for me to be angry with Lily with her face like a Chinese Botticelli beauty come to life. I also just liked her. Two years older than I but a poor student, she was in my class and we had struck up a friendship. At times she seemed to be my affectionate, frivolous twin, but another side of me was often critical of her.

  Like many of my schoolmates at St. Ursula’s she was a quintessential product of cosmopolitan Shanghai—even to preferring an English name. She was a dull student but a bright young lady with great expectations. Our parents hired tutors to give us all the social graces considered necessary at that time for a well-brought-up young lady. We learned to tinkle tunes on the piano, to dance and paint. We could read the classics and write neat characters on rice-paper greeting cards from the famous Yung Bao Tsai Studio. We learned to serve tea, dress well, and chatter politely; to smile, walk, and act in a pleasant and graceful way. We were trained to be manhunters, and were being groomed for success in this avocation. Our ordained role was to flirt subtly and tastefully and then move in for the kill. We were successful if we “made a good marriage” and consolidated our positions by bearing heirs and bringing up our daughters the way we had been brought up. We failed if we “got into trouble” or otherwise made fools of ourselves, frittering away our chances by marrying some struggling writer or impecunious student. Lily, perhaps in her own way the smartest of us all, was sure to be a success. It was natural that my aunt should look to her to help me see the light.

  Lily took me to the other side of the room. We sat side by side on the long piano bench.

  “Ling-ling, how on earth did you come to get mixed up with the Communists? They are horrible people. Did you see the latest pictures in the Morning Post? The terrible things they are doing! Everybody is organized—men, women, and children. Endless meetings and demonstrations. My father says that when the Communists come in, that will be the end of polite society. I don’t want to see that day. I can’t wait to leave.”

  I suddenly hated to see her diamond earrings glittering and splintering iridescent light into my eyes. I wanted to do something she would never dare, to really outdo her. The words came tumbling out, as they too often did with me, before I had really thought out what I wanted to say.

  “Suppose I wanted to find out if they are really as awful as you think?”

  “How?” she asked, intrigued, but still with a dazzling smile, hardly understanding what I meant.

  “I may stay on for a while—how about that? You know, to see what happens.”

  “You must be out of your mind,” she exclaimed in genuine astonishment. I got some satisfaction from shocking her out of her complacency. I had found a game in which she couldn’t compete with me. She and the other girls would run away like rabbits from the revolution, but not me.

  Lily pouted silently for a while. When she had drunk up her wine, she rose and said to me, “It’s time to go. I hope that whatever you do, you’ll take your aunt and uncle into consideration. They love you. And who knows, you may change your mind.” We crossed the room to join the others.

  “Ah, yes, it’s time to go home. My son Bob will be getting worried,” said Madame Lu, getting up from her seat. “Tonight it’s a little too quiet here. Is something going to happen?”

  “Don’t worry. They won’t fight here,” said Mr. Li. “It’s just a show. Our handsome general is already shipping his soldiers off to Taiwan. They’re throwing in the sponge.”

  “What are your plans now?” Madame Lu asked him.

  “We have a month or so left to decide. No good leaving a decision till the last minute,” he answered matter-of-factly.

  “It seems that most of us are doing the same thing,” added my aunt. “It’s hard to decide to move away for good. It’s a tragedy.”

  “Yes, a tragedy. But thank God this fighting is coming to an end. This endless fighting and killing! Civil war has been going on for nearly twenty years!” said the banker.

  When we opened the front door to the quiet spring evening outside we could hear muffled thuds that sounded like distant thunder. It was the first time we had heard distinct and systematic gunfire. The chattering of farewells ceased as we strained to listen. For a moment we were all silent. Finally the banker threw up his arms as if to say, “It’s all in the lap of the Gods.” Then he seized Lily by the arm and rushed her off saying, “I’ll drive you home. It’s not safe.”

  Her diamond earrings caught the light of a street lamp and flashed. She giggled at something he said as he bundled her into his big black car.

  3

  I Choose My Future

  Events moved with lightning speed in the next few weeks. The fall of Hangzhou on May 3 cut the railway to the South, leaving only a hazardous roadway link by land. Airplanes and ships leaving the city were packed as the well-to-do rushed to evacuate. The poor and bewildered piled their few belongings onto carts and rickshaws and pedicabs and scattered into the surrounding countryside to await the end of the crisis. The really poor, with nothing to lose, simply closed their doors and sat inside their hovels. The foreigners who had dominated the city for a century sold what they could and left the rest in a mass exit. At one point gunfire drew near enough to rattle the windows in our living room.

  In ones and twos and small groups, Guomindang soldiers straggled into the city where they threw away their guns and uniforms and merged back into the populace. Then, abruptly, the cannon fire ceased.

  Rumor followed rumor in true Shanghai style. My uncle was informed by “reliable sources” that the main Guomindang army had been ordered to retreat due south to avoid being trapped in Shanghai. On May 26, red flags appeared as if by magic over the buildings and factories taken over by the underground revolutionaries. Ma Li’s proclamations had evidently had their effect. When I saw one pasted on the door of the local post office I felt a small thrill of excitement.

  Shanghai that day seemed quieter than I had ever remembered. A few heavy plumes of smoke rose lazily into the air. The only raucous sound was the occasional clang of fire engines racin
g to put out a fire. We heard that there had been a few street skirmishes in the suburbs, but we ourselves never heard a single rifle shot. Still, my aunt would not take a chance. She bolted the front door and gate and stationed one of the huskier male servants there as a guard. None of us were permitted to go out.

  The dining room clock was striking twelve and we were just beginning our lunch when the maid came in. She bent over Auntie and spoke in a low voice. For a moment my aunt looked startled, then knit her brows and considered something carefully. Finally she said, “Ling-ling, your friend Ma Li is here.”

  I stood up. “Auntie, if it’s not convenient to let her in, I will take her somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  “To some friend’s home.” I was not sure how to answer. “I have to find a place for her. We still don’t know who really controls the city.”

  My aunt leaned back in her chair and stared hard into her cup for a long moment.

  “I won’t invite her in, but I won’t throw her out,” she said.

  I went up to her, wanting to kiss her cheek, but she turned her face away with a trace of petulance.

  Ma Li sat subdued like an unwelcome guest on the bench in the hall. I rushed to her, overjoyed to see her. I hugged her, then held her at arm’s length. “You haven’t changed your clothes since I saw you two weeks ago.”

  “No, there were too many prisoners and not enough uniforms for us all.” Her eyes flashed with a smile from under her disheveled hair.

  “So they got you.” I made a bitter grimace. “You must be tired and famished. Let’s go to my room.”

  “It happened right after I sent that young student to you. We had just finished our meeting when we were raided. Several of us got away but quite a number were caught.” Ma Li took off her coat and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “But how did you get out?” I asked. I gently brushed back her hair. Powdery dust fell from it. She breathed with difficulty. The taut muscles of her throat moved spasmodically.