China to Me (76 page)

“No,” he admitted, “I don't. I wish this would all clear itself up.”

The general asked me to a farewell dinner with Yvonne. “Tell America,” he said, “that there's no reason we should fight. No reason at all.”

“Two years more, did you say, General?”

“Perhaps not quite two years,” he said.

There were so many things to do that we were glad when the inevitable postponement came along. For one thing, I had not yet persuaded the Japanese to let me say good-by to Charles. It was strictly forbidden, as Hattori explained, and all other women had been turned down when-they made similar requests.

“Not always,” I insisted. “There were some Russians, going to Shanghai, and they cried on the colonel, and he let them.”

“Well,” said Hattori, “you can try that. Cry on the colonel and see.”

“Thanks, I will.”

“Do you know,” said Hattori, “that I just turned down a job for you?”

“No, really?”

“Really,” he said. “You have been sent for, from Tokyo. It was thought that you could help us a lot in our propaganda work.”

“Your propaganda is lousy.”

“I know it. That's why somebody thought you could help.”

“But I couldn't go to Tokyo! You mean, with Carola and all?”

“Certainly; we wouldn't separate you from your baby. You would have been very happy in Tokyo. But I thought you had better go back to the States.”

“Why, Mr. Hattori, I couldn't go to Tokyo. They must have overlooked something. You know perfectly well — I mean, it isn't a thing we could talk about politely very well, but of course I want us to win the war. America.”

“Oh yes,” he said, “I know.”

“And there's something else. I don't want to be indelicate, but Tokyo's going to be bombed to hell pretty soon.”

“Oh yes. I know. But you can tell Roosevelt,” he said, getting rather excited, “that he will have to kill at least half of all the Japanese in the world before we will be beaten. I think he would like that. I think Roosevelt wants to kill every Japanese in the world. Well, anyway, you will be better off with your mother.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hattori.”

As it turned out, I didn't cry on the colonel. The colonel cried on me. I took counsel with the officer who had caused my trouble with Hattori, the man who lived at Argyle, and he said the thing to do was to write a letter to Tokunaga, stating my case. I did this. I wish I had a copy of it now. It was dignified but flowery, and very unmilitary. It was also sincere. I said that the circumstances were rather special, that Charles and I might very easily be separated forever, and that he might never see his only child again. I presented the letter in person, and the officer interpreted.

The colonel cried, and then he told me to go and wait in his anteroom while he thought it over. For twenty minutes he wrestled with his conscience, and then he called me back and said that he would break the law (if I was quite sure the chief of staff wouldn't make trouble) a day or two before the boat sailed. I was to tell nobody, nobody, except the chief of staff. I didn't. I didn't even tell the chief of staff, but he knew. The only person concerned in the matter who didn't know was Charles.

That morning I dressed Carola in a blue organdy dress and hat that Paul had paid too much for, and with the amah. Boxer's Family turned up at the prison gates at ten o'clock. Charles was having his arm massaged, and they didn't tell him I was waiting, so we bit our fingernails for an hour and a half, and Carola's dress was all crumpled and I was very much upset.

For a year and eight months we hadn't talked to each other nor seen each other up close. I knew he would be changed. I supposed I was changed too. I was prepared for anything but the truth, which was that he hadn't changed at all. He came in at last, standing at attention behind the officer, and when he saw me he grinned and made a face, and everything was all right.

I don't remember what we talked about. It didn't matter, because we couldn't really talk. The officer sat there listening, and though it went on for half an hour we didn't say anything I remember. It wasn't what I had expected; I had thought I would feel frantic, and that I would be sorry afterward for all the things I hadn't said, but it wasn't like that. It was all right. What can you say, anyway, under those circumstances? For half an hour I wasn't boss, but I liked it.

The officer turned his back a minute and we kissed each other briefly, and then it was time for Charles to go. As they walked away I heard the officer say:

“You're allowed to kiss her good-by.”

“But I did already,” said Charles.

“Did you? I didn't see you.”

“Well, I did, I tell you.”

They went out through the door arguing about it. Carola, who had been shy of Charles, now looked disconcerted. “Uncle's gone,” she said.

“Uncle? That wasn't Uncle, you silly baby,” said Ah Yuk. “That was your daddy.”

“Oh?” She accepted the correction without argument. “Daddy's gone,” she said. She began to whimper.

“Daddy's gone,” I said. “So now, Carola, we go to America.”

About the Author

Emily Hahn (1905–1997) was the author of fifty two books, as well as 181 articles and short stories for the
New Yorker
from 1929 to 1996. She was a staff writer for the magazine for forty seven years. She wrote novels, short stories, personal essays, reportage, poetry, history and biography, natural history and zoology, cookbooks, humor, travel, children's books, and four autobiographical narratives:
China to Me
(1944), a literary exploration of her trip to China;
Hong Kong Holiday
(1946);
England to Me
(1949); and
Kissing Cousins
(1958).

The fifth of six children, Hahn was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and later became the first woman to earn a degree in mining engineering at the University of Wisconsin. She did graduate work at both Columbia and Oxford before leaving for Shanghai. She lived in China for eight years. Her wartime affair with Charles Boxer, Britain's chief spy in pre–World War II Hong Kong, evolved into a loving and unconventional marriage that lasted fifty two years and produced two daughters. Hahn's final piece in the
New Yorker
appeared in 1996, shortly before her death.

A revolutionary for her time, Hahn broke many of the rules of the 1920s, traveling the country dressed as a boy, working for the Red Cross in Belgium, becoming the concubine to a Shanghai poet, using opium, and having a child out of wedlock. She fought against the stereotype of female docility that characterized the Victorian era and was an advocate for the environment until her death.

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