The Last Mandarin (5 page)

“So,” Yen asked, “what do you propose?”

“First that we work separately,” Burnham said. “Among my friends the presence of a policeman might require delicate and time-consuming explanations.”

“That was to be expected, and is acceptable,” Yen said. “Nor will I interest myself in their goings, comings or practices.”

“What is this Rat's Alley Children's Clinic?”

“An improvised hospital. Its personnel seem less than respectable, though they do good work. Radicals, perhaps. The belief is that somehow the beggars' union supports it, or at any rate contributes.”

“Have you investigated?”

Yen hissed uneasily, and pressed the horn; a cart full of pottery swerved away. “The fact is,” Yen said angrily, “that my superiors, including the division of war crimes, show little interest in war criminals. This time I went directly to the Americans with my information.”

“And they came directly to me.” Burnham sighed, briefly recalling abandoned frolics. “And what causes this lack of interest?”

“I should think,” Yen said judiciously, “a certain blurring of the lines.”

“Ah.” Burnham spoke bluntly: “A certain Chinese presence among the Japanese occupiers.”

“Yes. In the sad book of war, some chapters are better left closed.”

“Then we are opening the book at a bad page.”

“Yüü,” Yen said, and glancing at him Burnham saw the classic face of the disillusioned cop: weary, bitter, half regretting the honorable and narrow path trod, the bribes not taken, the low pay, the sandy rice and weak tea.

“There are sons of turtles everywhere,” Burnham said gloomily. “We have them too. Our own little fascists in high places, cheap and greedy bastards well below the salt, who think themselves above the law.”

“Ours are doomed,” Yen said, “at least in Peking. A matter of weeks, months at most. But so am I.”

“Will you stay in Peking?”

“Where could I go? I am a man of Peking. I am also a poor but honest policeman, and not an important official.”

“Well, it may not be so bad.”

“It will be barbarous,” Yen said. “But as to the matter at hand.”

“As to the matter at hand,” Burnham said, “I propose to go to the beggars, and to the hospital. It is all we have to work with.”

“Good. I will come to you tomorrow. At what time?”

“Six in the evening. In a crisis, anytime.”

“One thing more. Not a thing: a person. We have a famous hater of Japanese in Peking. His name is Sung Yun and he is a merchant, councillor and member of the chamber of commerce.”

“A distinguished gentleman. Why should he not detest the Japanese?”

“As you say. He is also a director of the Sino-American Amity Association. Beyond that one does not ask. He grew overnight like a mushroom. He is not a Pekinger. In 1944 the Japanese put a price on his head. A thousand pieces of gold. That is a memorable sum and commands attention; overnight the man was famous. But no one knew him. He surfaced just after the war and was a tycoon in no time.”

“The underground hero and the tycoon were one and the same man?”

“Your mind works like mine. Somewhere in you lives a cop. Yes, it was Sung Yun. From down around the Yangtze somewhere. Plenty of friends in the government, and they all vouched for him. He basked in the praise of his fellow patriots. He is a great contributor of reward money, and is still basking. He, ah—”

“He would like to welcome me to Peking.”

“Precisely.” Yen was relieved. “He is—I have your confidence?”

“To the death.”

“You exaggerate,” Yen reproached him. “At any rate, Sung Yun is a bit of a busybody. He is a city father and a connoisseur of this and that, and surrounds himself with the beautiful things of life, including women, and now he must flee. He would obviously be out of place in whatever collective purgatory awaits China. He has asked to meet you.”

“I am no more than a humble laborer in the vineyards of justice,” Burnham intoned. “To be bathed in the light of the sun and the moon may blind me.”

“Do not make fun of me. All cities suffer these benefactors.” Yen's tone altered: “And he is not to be mocked. He is a rather powerful man.”

And I can just see him, Burnham thought. He is short and round as a grape and not a wrinkle on him, and he wears a little red hat and a smile, but his eyes are bullets. His wife, if any, eats in the kitchen. “Whither does he flee?”

“Shanghai, one assumes.”

“That will not be far enough, you know.”

“It is but a way stop.” Yen braked. “Defile it!”

“Exquisite courtesy,” Burnham said. “I was not sure that you owned brakes.”

“That is a honey cart,” Yen said. “I am here to welcome you, not to bury you in night soil.”

“My heartfelt thanks.”

Carefully Yen accelerated. “So then you will soon have an invitation. I hope you will accept it, if only because of my own association with the eminent gentleman. He has a male secretary who speaks perfect colloquial English. Of course,” he added hastily, “in your case that is a superfluity.”

“But it came in handy with the American military, in buy-sell, and the relief organizations, and maybe for a little social life with the diplomats.”

“One sees that you have traveled a thousand li,” Yen said smoothly, “and spoken with princes.”

“Like all of us,” Burnham said, “I have smiled at fools for a bowl of rice. One more will do no harm.”

Yen growled assent, and they sat companionably silent as they passed through the gate with two names. They were leaving the Imperial City—most of Peking, with the colleges and institutes, the offices and yamens, the lakes, parks, churches, temples, hotels, foreigners—and entering the Chinese City, where stood the fleabags but also the Temple of Heaven; many whorehouses but also the Temple of Agriculture; the Model Prison but also the Temple with the Tablet to the Foreign Dead of World War I. Much of the Chinese City was specialty streets; Bead Street, Embroidery Street, Gold Street, the whole street given over to one commerce, fifty yards of competitors eyeing one another shrewdly and fixing prices when possible. In the Chinese City were many beggars, thieves and opportunists, also deserters, exiles and lepers.

To Burnham it was home. The Imperial City was modern and mannered, with much running water and electricity. The Chinese City was timeless and real and raunchy.

“It is not the neighborhood foreigners choose,” Yen ventured.

“Probably the neighborhood chose me,” Burnham said. They proceeded down Red Head Street, named not for a trade but for a notorious swindler of the Ming Dynasty, and entered Stone Buddha Alley by the east mouth. It was barely wide enough for the car. “There,” Burnham said. “With the small balcony.” In the old days there had been a small balcony opposite also, an easy jump for a fleeing thief or a tracked husband, and many decades ago on those balconies painted women had sat in summer, cooing and coy, chirping at passers-by, and Burnham's destination was still called the Willow Wine Shop. Why the willow stood for venery was an ancient Chinese mystery. Venery! The hunt! A tickle of lust regaled him in this city of sweet foxes. Tally-ho!

“My number,” said Yen, passing him a scrap of paper.

“There will be few telephones in this quarter.”

“Nevertheless. Now, as to Kanamori's appearance—”

“I know what he looks like.”

“You have seen photographs?”

“I have seen Kanamori,” Burnham said.

5

Sunday, 12 December 1937. At dawn Kanamori stood on the slopes of the Purple Mountain and pissed down at Nanking. At the tomb of Sun Yat-sen. A correspondent from
Nichi-Nichi
came to interview him. Kanamori told of the nicked blade, of the enemy cropped like wheat, of rising emotion among the men, a quickening of the breath and blood as when the leopard nears the hart. Smoke drifted to them, and the reporter was alarmed. Kanamori calmed him: a unit below was burning brush to smoke out the Chinese rats. Bullets hummed and buzzed; the two men withdrew, Kanamori reassuring the reporter: Kanamori was invulnerable.

By now Kurusu claimed a score of one hundred and six. Kanamori claimed but one hundred and five. How to say who passed one hundred first? Impossible. “You will put this down,” Kanamori said. “Kanamori demands that the goal be extended by fifty. Ha!” The pencil flew.

Kanamori could see museums, universities, tile roofs everywhere, railroad stations, factories, canals, hotels, an airport. And the great highway, the Yangtze. All this falling to the Imperial Armies. The 9th Mountain Artillery Regiment. The 36th. T'ai-p'ing Gate below. Chung-shan Gate. Two blimps riding the sky. City walls. His men trembling. “Temples,” Tateno said. “There will be temples. Objects of gold.”

“There will be women,” Kyose said. They were on the march now, and had stopped to rest at a bus station. Posters:
Resist the Invader! Water the land of your ancestors with the blood of the monkeys!
“There will be rows and rows of women,” Kyose said, “all on their backs with the legs apart, and on the great hairy bush a little sign that says ‘Japanese spoken here.'”

The joke and the laughter spread like a fever. Men rolled and slapped and shouted “Japanese spoken here.” A car rattled up to them and halted, and they saw their captain and major, and the major asked why the laughter. Kanamori stepped forward, saluted and stood like a stake. He told the truth; the captain and the major clucked. How many heads, Kanamori? One hundred and five. And Kurusu? One hundred and six. Then who—? We cannot know. The new goal is one hundred and fifty. The captain and the major approved, and even smiled. The car raised dust. “Oh laughers,” Kanamori said to his men, “now be killers.”

They entered the T'ai-p'ing Gate, Ito sprinting beside Kanamori. Ito potted an old man fleeing down an alley. The old man fell on his face, possibly in a patch of oil or excrement, and slid forward. The Japanese fired at all interesting targets: anyone who ran, any distant figure on a rooftop. The city resounded, like a city in festival, with the stuttering, racy rhythms of the twentieth century: boom-crack-boom-crackcrackcrack. Kyose took the first woman. This and not the city was their triumph. The woman was of no description, forty or fifty. They broke into a bead-and-bauble shop and the men held her for Kyose, who rammed her, “Aha! Aha!” It was turn and turn about then, and the woman barely conscious; but not for long. There was work to do. A piece of bridgework and two wooden teeth fell from the woman's mouth. Someone shot her and they went on. They skirmished to the rendezvous, to the open place where the Chu-chiang-lu met the Tung-ha-lu, and there the captain and major were waiting. Light casualties. The men drawn up, at ease, and the announcement then, the major breathing victory like a dragon breathing fire, and his voice like a temple bell: anchored in the Yangtze, an American gunboat called the
Panay
had been sunk by Japanese aircraft.

The silence was overwhelming; the men were stunned. Even the firing seemed to cease. Then arose a great shout, a roll of Japanese thunder, and thrice they roared “Banzai!” and thrice more, and thrice more, and men were weeping, Kanamori among them.

6

At the Willow Wine Shop Burnham refreshed body and soul. He sat opposite a scroll of ancient warriors on the march, or was it a funeral procession? Noon was well past, and he empty as a wine barrel after the wedding. Other diners stared once and then ignored the foreigner. He ordered Huang Hsiao-chieh ts'ai, or Miss Huang mixed vegetables; also Tientsin water buffalo, which was fresh fish; and beef with lotus root. With these he ate pickled turnips and drank hot yellow wine. In time his balances were restored, and his tides and breezes swirled harmoniously. Still thirsty, he called the waiter: “Huo-chi!”

The slim, attentive waiter hurried to him.

“Such food is for beggars,” Burnham said. “I demand to see the proprietor.”

“It is fresh,” the young man protested. “For the gods! Prepared by the master himself! This is unjust!”

“Your greasy rat is an amateur,” Burnham said firmly. It was an old phrase for the cook, and not much of an insult.

The waiter flung up his hands in outrage. “Then I will fetch him. But this is crazy. Perhaps one is a perfectionist,” he muttered, padding away. “Perhaps one seeks horns on a newborn ram.”

Burnham composed himself.

The waiter returned, still muttering. Behind him waddled a medium-sized middle-aged man of imposing girth, his face frozen in anger. “Now, where is this barbarian?”

The fat man stopped dead, then shouted what Burnham had known he would shout: “Defile you! Burnham! Bugger you twice over, you great foreign whore!”

Burnham was up and striding forward; before the dazed waiter and a few interested, villainous patrons, the two men embraced.

The landlord of the Willow Wine Shop was called Hai Lang-t'ou. Strictly speaking, that was not a name. It meant “Sea Hammer” and designated harsh, tough-talking men of the fishing villages outside Tientsin. But this one had chosen to discard his earlier name or names, surely for reasons of prudence and jurisprudence. He seemed an average, amiable fat man; Burnham had watched him dispatch Japanese prisoners, and knew he was not average. Nor was the Willow Wine Shop an average restaurant, but a house of major advantages: discretion, a loyal landlord and half a dozen exits.

“Still hammering,” Burnham said.

“And you still poking the big nose into Chinese matters.”

“What a welcome! You have a room?”

“The best. Ground floor back. Out the window and you have four alleys in seconds. If you are killed on the premises I cannot promise elaborate rites. Or perhaps,” Hai asked wistfully, “you are merely a tourist this time?”

“Not a tourist,” Burnham said. “But with luck there will be no violence.”