The Yellow Papers (20 page)

‘No! Xueliang is a good provider. A generous provider. Do you think he can't look after us?'

‘I'm not saying that, LiLi. But you don't know what's going
to happen, and I don't know if, or when, I'll be able to come back. What if he gets conscripted? What if you're separated for some time? Then what will you do?'

‘
I'll look after my daughter myself. Are you saying I'm not capable?'

But Edward hadn't argued. He'd simply slipped the bankbook into her bag and advised her that the bank was expecting her signature
.

After he'd left she'd rethought his gesture. He'd been right of course – war had been declared, making it impossible for him to return, and his thoughtfulness touched her then. And though she knew she would never leave Xueliang for Edward, her affection for him grew that day. So, shortly before the fall of Shanghai, before everything turned to hell, she'd gone to the bank as he'd advised and provided her signature – just in case – even though she'd sworn to herself that she'd never touch this money. Then she'd hidden the bankbook in the lining of her coat. But now none of it mattered; she couldn't withdraw from that account even if she'd wanted to.

Ming Li crossed the street to avoid a
Kempeitai
patrolling the street. They were everywhere, the
Kempeitai
, especially on the bridges. Chinese and European alike, wanting to cross, had to first bow deeply to the Japanese Emperor, personified by the guard before them. And if the guard thought they had not shown enough respect, they would be slapped, punched, and even bayoneted. It was best to avoid the
Kempeitai
if at all possible. She stepped over a beggar lying across her path, turned into an alleyway and knocked on a door. It opened a crack, then wider to let her in.

Outside the door, P'i Gao squatted to the ground and waited.

The old woman examined the silver box. She scratched at the gilding, then examined her nail. Ming Li waited – she knew the routine.

‘Why do you bring me such rubbish? What do you expect me to do with this?'

‘It's all I have. A Japanese will buy it; a gift for his mistress.'

‘
Aiyah!
“All I have”! You lie. Every time you come you say it's all you have, then you come again. Where do you find these things, then, if it's all you have, hey?'

Ming Li kept quiet, her gaze lowered.

The woman turned the box over. Examined the bottom, the inside. Scratched at the gilding once more.

‘All right, because you're a good customer I'll make you a deal.' She rose and shuffled to another room, came back with a small packet of flour and sat down again.

‘Is it pure?'

‘Pure? You question the quality of my goods now? But perhaps you don't need my flour. Perhaps that husband of yours can find you some soft white flour to fill your belly, your daughter's belly …'

‘I'm sorry. Of course I don't question the quality of your goods. I come back, don't I? Would I come back if I thought your goods not of value? But the box – it's worth more than that. A lot more.'

‘It's worth what I say it's worth. And I say this is what it's worth.' And she pushed the packet toward Ming Li.

Ming Li looked at the packet but didn't pick it up. She sat quietly, her hands resting on her lap.

‘Well? Do you want it or not? I don't have all day. I'm giving you a bargain, you know. This miserable little box you've bought me isn't worth half this.'

Still Ming Li did not move.

‘All right – if you don't want it, so be it.' But the woman stayed seated.

Ming Li rose and took back the silver box. She was half out the door when the woman called her back.

‘Sit down, sit down! You're so impatient! Maybe I have something you'll like better. Wait. Don't be so impatient. Sit down. Sit.'

She shuffled out of the room again. When she came back she pushed the flour aside and put a tin on the table.

‘Bully beef!' she said with pride. ‘The foreigners feed it to their troops. How long since your husband's tasted beef?'

‘Two tins.'

‘Two? Do I look as if I'm running a charity?'

‘Two tins.'

‘Two tins? Two tins of first class beef for one miserable little box? Oh, all right. But only because I like you.'

She returned with a second tin and placed it in front of Ming Li but didn't let it go.

‘For two tins, perhaps you could ask your husband to enquire after my son. He was arrested yesterday.'

Ming Li's gaze met hers. Slowly her hand moved to the packet of flour.

‘For two tins and the flour I will ask my husband.'

‘Mistress, stop! Look.'

At the end of her street, outside the gate of the tall granite wall that surrounded their house, stood two Japanese guards, bayonets fixed. The gate was open, more guards could be seen in the outer courtyard, but all was quiet.

‘I'll go see what's happening. You wait here.'

‘No. It's my husband, my daughter in there. I'm coming with you.'

At the mention of MeiMei, P'i Gao frowned – he knew what the Japanese did to pretty young women.

‘Please, Mistress Ming, it's better you wait here.'

‘I'm coming with you.'

‘No! Your husband knows how to handle this; you'll just jeopardise his situation. You'll get him killed. Get back out of this street and wait. I'll find you as soon as it's safe.'

Ming Li stared at her major-domo. If ever she'd doubted his involvement in her husband's underground activities, his behaviour now removed any suspicion. She nodded.

She sat on the lower steps of a shop now boarded shut. On the top step a toddler smacked a snow-dusted bundle of rags lying across the doorway again and again, frustrated at not getting any response. Beside her sat an old blind woman holding a minuscule cage on her lap, inside which lay a dead cricket. She had her face turned up to the sky, and she smiled as she rocked back and forth, back and forth, oblivious to the crowd around her.

‘Why are you smiling, Grandmother?' Ming Li asked, wanting to stop thinking. But the old woman just rocked and smiled at the sky, and Ming Li wished she too could go to a place where crickets chirped and the sun warmed her face. She stared into the crowd moving past, wanting to follow P'i Gao. Wanting to scream at the Japanese to leave her house. Trying not to imagine what may have happened to Xueliang and MeiMei. Wanting – praying – to stop thinking.

16

It had taken Edward and his men three weeks to travel the two thousand miles from Burma, across China into the Yunnan Province. First by truck into the mountains of Yunnan, where the bitumen soon ended and the road became so narrow that vehicles passing scraped each other. Upward to the very roof of China where the rarefied atmosphere made breathing difficult. The road snaked from mountain to mountain, and halfway down the steep slopes they constantly saw the shattered remains of vehicles that had come too close to the edge.

Onwards skirting the Mekong Gorge, through hills where wild geese flew over stunted pines, then into the Guizhou Province where the scenery eventually changed to undulating hills, then back again to ridges climbing thousands of feet.

The temperature dropped a little more each day and in the mornings they would find thick layers of ice on the windscreens, and cracked radiators were a common occurrence.

When they reached Guiyang they were welcomed by the Chinese Red Cross who put them up in their headquarters. There Edward met Dr Chen, once Consul-General to Australia, who told him Singapore also had surrendered to the Japanese. But more importantly for the men, the first mail they'd received in months awaited them.

As soon as possible without appearing rude, Edward retired to read his mail. A number of letters from his mother and from Charlotte, bringing news of Walpinya Station. Just two from Julia, so superficial in tone Edward wondered why she had bothered to write. And from Chen Mu, the largest pile – calm, thoughtful letters that not only brought news of Macoomba, but were also full of recollections of Edward's childhood escapades. But what surprised Edward most was that Chen Mu also wrote about his own childhood – something he'd never shared with Edward before.

The next day they left the Burma Road and headed south towards the Kwangsi Province, where they transferred to a train which crawled north again into the Hunan Province, until at last they reached Kiyang where trucks took them past rice fields to a large building that was the guerrilla school. They were read a letter by Lieutenant-General Li Mo An who addressed them as ‘brothers in arms', but by now all Edward and his men were interested in was sleep in a proper bed.

‘Bloody useless, the lot of them!' a drill-sergeant complained to Edward one evening. ‘Raw recruits, each and every one!'

Edward knew the man to be exaggerating. While many were indeed recruits – some as young as fourteen – there were also those who were veterans of numerous campaigns. But several of his team found the Chinese difficult to teach. This was not so much a problem of language – as Canton was to be their operational area, they'd all had to learn basic Cantonese, and they also had interpreters – but because they'd been warned that telling a Chinese soldier he'd done something incorrectly risked making him lose face. Diplomacy was essential, but diplomacy was a slow and frustrating process for Australian drill-sergeants used to soldiers obeying their commands without question. How could these men be taught blind obedience, be taught to kill and be killed with calm acceptance, when their egos had to be considered?