Woman Who Could Not Forget (29 page)

I visualized what Iris told me on the phone: Under the intense summer sunshine of Nanjing, with her guides she was walking through the weeds in the suburbs of Nanjing to look for the marked and unmarked graves and massacre sites of 1937-1938. The sweat wet her hair and her T-shirt. It was an incredibly hot afternoon. Enormous sorrow engulfed her while she read the numbers and the dates engraved on the headstones, where innocent Chinese people were massacred and then forgotten in the field. After she and the guides visited many such sites scattered around the outskirts of Nanjing, it was approaching evening. Standing near a stone marked for anonymous victims, she looked at the beautiful sunset in the west. She fell silent. The evening wind blew through her hair, and sadness swallowed her heart. . . .

Another problem Iris encountered, as she told us over the phone, was finding a machine with which she could duplicate the videotapes of her interviews. She was worried that the videotapes of survivors she interviewed, the most precious from the trip, could be confiscated at the airport checkpoint. We were very glad when we heard later that she’d been able to find a machine to duplicate her tapes in Nanjing. She asked to store the copies of the duplicated tapes in the house of the translator (who we later learned was Professor Yang Xiaming) and told him that if her copies were lost, at least he had copies as backups. Happily, her copies of the tapes passed through the checkpoint of the airport without any problem.

There were a couple of things that made us nervous while Iris was in Nanjing. One was that HarperCollins sent the galley proof of the Tsien book to her in Nanjing. Because the book had criticized Communist China’s Cultural Revolution and various policies at that period, the Chinese government was bound not to be happy with it. We were very worried that the Chinese government would find out about the book while Iris was still in Nanjing. Fortunately, the proofs of the book arrived in Nanjing without incident and Iris was able to hide them in her suitcase and bring them out of China.

Another troubling event was the arrest of Harry Wu. Harry Wu was a Chinese human-rights activist who severely criticized Chinese Communist’s labor camps. While he was sneaking back to China from the U.S., he was arrested at the Chinese border. We were afraid that the Chinese government would tighten up all regulations concerning American journalists in China after Wu’s arrest. Over the phone, we told Iris the news and asked her to keep her profile low.

We left for Copenhagen on August 21, two days after Michael had arrived in Nanjing on August 19, which was the same day that Iris left Nanjing for Taipei, Taiwan.

After we had lived in Copenhagen for a week, we received an e-mail from Iris in Taiwan on August 29:

Dear Dad and Mom:

I’m sorry I was not able to email you earlier. . . . Today I visited the National History archives near Xingdian; tomorrow I will interview a couple of Taiwanese helpers in the Japanese army at Nanking, if all goes well. . . . I hear there is a typhoon headed this way.

I’m so relieved to hear that Harry Wu has been released from China. Everyone in Taiwan seems to be talking about Wu and the upcoming women’s conference in Beijing—I’m sorry I’m going to miss it. In female infanticide, the woman shortage, the comfort-woman issues should be the hot topics of debate, but I don’t know how the PRC will handle such topics . . . according to an email Associated Press report, PRC officials confiscated videotapes and film and notes from reporters after a seminar given by a Korean comfort woman—they even turned off the lights to interrupt her speech.

Otherwise, I’m still a little weak though I seem to be suffering from allergies rather than a cold . . . every foreigner I meet and virtually every Chinese I talk to has the same problem—we suspect it’s the air pollution and pollen and dust and bad air conditioning. Will be in touch soon . . . all is going well.

Love, Iris

Then on September 2, four days before she returned home, she wrote us again:

Dear Dad and Mom:

I have some good news and bad news—the good being that there was no major typhoon after all, only a slight drizzle, the bad being that all the former Taiwanese soldiers in the Japanese army at Nanking in 1937-1938 are dead. My contacts at the local military association here made a series of frantic phone calls trying to find one surviving soldier; no luck. Turns out the two Taiwanese soldiers I planned to interview weren’t at Nanking at all but in nearby Shanghai or were at Nanking years after the Massacre.

Coincidentally, the Center of Academic Activities is hosting a conference on the history of World War II (Sept. 1-3) and I’ve met some very interesting people so far . . . two are Chinese experts on the Rape of Nanking (one is Wu Tienwei, the SIU professor who gave me a good letter of recommendation for the Pacific Cultural Foundation grant). My health seems to have recovered and I look forward to going home . . . will put details of my trip in a long letter to you later.

The former soldiers are still looking for people who might have served in the Japanese army in Nanjing in 1937 but I’m not holding my breath . . . if they locate one person, I will try to correspond with him. So far, I’ve interviewed more than 10 survivors of the massacre.

Love, Iris

After returning home on September 15, Iris was apparently fully recovered and wrote us a long letter to update us about her Tsien book and her concerns over her safety in writing her next book on the Nanking Massacre:

Dear Mom,

. . . Susan Rabiner and I talked yesterday and she told me that Walter McDougall, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of the book
The Heavens and The Earth
wrote me a blurb for the book jacket in time for publication—I now have three great blurbs (the other two are from Arnold Kramish, the author of World War II books and books on espionage and a former physicist for the Manhattan Project, and John Bluth, the official historian for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.) Also, she alerted me to the fact that
Publishers Weekly
ran a picture of the cover of the book with my name on it (p. 40, September 4th issue)—it’s a beautiful cover, with a silhouette of a rocket over a dragon embroidered piece of red silk.

. . .

Now for the bad news. I’m somewhat concerned about the future of Basic Books/HarperCollins as a scholarly book publishing firm. When I was in China, there was a major shakeup at Basic and a lot of editors got fired. Susan, fortunately, was not only kept on but promoted, so she’s busier than ever. The new Basic Books is a much more commercial imprint, although it still claims to put out serious books. Apparently, any editor or author at Basic who isn’t bringing money into the company will be on his or her way out. Susan said that I should survive because I tend to pick subjects that are not only literary but commercial—and it is hard to find an author who is both literary and commercial, she said. . . .

I think Dad and Robert Reid were right when they urged me to write as many books as possible before going to grad school (if I ever go), because the printing presses might not be open to me forever. More so than ever before, publishing is turning into a “winner takes all” market. The September 18th
Newsweek
declares that the “$1 million-advance syndrome is the latest example of an industry gone slightly bananas trying to satisfy the chain super-stores that want blockbusters and the entertainment conglomerates that dream of synergy between books, movies and television. There’s no longer time to groom an author through three or four novels, hoping that eventually he’ll find an audience. Today’s publishers are scrambling to strike it rich by signing up the next
Bridges of Madison County
. The article describes how Nicholas Evans, a 45-year-old unknown British screenwriter, sold his first novel,
The Horse Whisperer
for $6.15 million ($3.15 million for the book, $3 million for the film rights)—before his novel was even finished!

The only thing preventing me from completely self-destructing when I hear such news is a flicker of hope that the Nicholas Evans of the next millennium will be ME!

Love, Iris

The second e-mail came right after the one above:

Dear Mom,

I forgot to mention that Brett and I will be moving to a two-bedroom apartment when we find the time. We’re moving because we need the space and also because I want our new home to be untraceable by some Japanese fanatic. Several people in the US expressed concern for my physical safety. (Most of my friends feel that I will be in far less danger when the book is published, because then the “secret” of the Nanking Massacre will be out.) I don’t know if they are paranoid, but I do know that the PRC government will not permit their scholars to write on the Nanjing massacre, for fear of jeopardizing their lives should some right-wing extremists find them.

Today I talked with some private detectives on the phone to find out how one might hide from the public eye. These detectives have helped local celebrities and battered girl friends “disappear.” It’s amazing what people can find out about you if they have only your name and phone number. . . . One detective used my name and phone number to find out my social security number and all my addresses for the past five years. . . . They gave me a lot of advice over the phone. . . .

The basic principle of maintaining a low profile is this: fill in a PO Box address on all forms and correspondence; avoid giving out my actual address whenever possible. HarperCollins and my new literary agent should have only my PO Box and phone number unless they decide to come and visit me. . . .

Brett is annoyed by all this because he doesn’t think anyone is going to come after me. . . . Brett’s mom, who had earlier urged me to cancel my trip to China, now wonders whether I should write the Nanjing book at all.

Meanwhile, I remain intrigued by what the detectives and FBI told me over the phone: did you know that individual sheets of paper can sometimes be traced back to the state or company from which they came, and that the saliva on a postage stamp can be traced with DNA analysis?

Love, Iris

In respond to Iris’s long e-mails, I reminded her in my reply that she, as a responsible writer, should represent truth, beauty, and humanity. As for potential dangers posted by Japanese fanatics, I said that she should follow detectives’ suggestions and to protect herself properly. However, I did not feel that there was any need for her to panic or be paranoid.

While we were in Copenhagen we could get American news by watching the CNN English-language news channel. Around the end of September, the hottest news was the trial of O. J. Simpson. On October 2, the day before the verdict, I received an e-mail from Iris, who wrote that she was sure that the jury would find him guilty. Then, on October 3, the court announced that O. J. was not guilty. Iris wrote us immediately:

Dear Dad,

I’m devastated . . . the jury found OJ not guilty. How could they?

Mom probably told you about my euphoric email yesterday when I was absolutely convinced that the jury [had] found Simpson guilty. . . .

News reports say that Simpson made more money in prison this year than he did as a free man the year before . . . defense analysts were stunned: one said people had been convicted and executed on far less evidence than in this case. . . .

How could they? How could they?

Iris

And another e-mail, written right after the one above:

Dear Dad,

. . . Perhaps I was naive when I assumed that OJ would be convicted. Apparently the politics of race have become so polarized in this country that the central issue of murder can be ignored.

I felt physically ill when the verdict was announced. How much more evidence did the jury need? . . .

One can always say that evidence has been fabricated but after a point it becomes ridiculous. The defense team’s tactics remind me of those of the hard-core Japanese who still deny that the Rape of Nanking ever happened. Even after being presented with a mountain of photographs and documents and witness testimony some Japanese still believe the massacre is a pack of lies made up by the Chinese. Photos can be altered, they say, documents forged. Witnesses can be bribed. What about Western newsreel footage and their newspaper articles? Nothing but propaganda and sensationalism. Even primary source material like burial records in the Chinese archives and US intercepts of the Japanese Foreign Office communication can be dismissed if one believes there is some grand conspiracy between the US and China to frame Japan. Some Japanese historians then try to confuse everyone with semantics and metaphysical arguments: what IS truth, anyway? Isn’t it all relative, depending on your viewpoint? Maybe there is no such thing as truth anyway. And how can you really trust what you see as reality, etc, etc, ad nauseam. Some even hint that one can never write about the Rape of Nanjing because it was such a brutal large-scale event and no one can ascertain the exact number of casualties. Does it mean that no historian can ever write about the US civil war or World War II or any war, because of the impossibility of an exact body count? What nonsense!!

Love, Iris

We returned home from Copenhagen in time for Thanksgiving. Both Iris and Michael came home for Thanksgiving too. Iris and Brett came home also to attend Brett’s brother’s wedding in Indiana. For Iris, there was another important event to attend, her book signing for her newly published book
Thread of the Silkworm
at the Champaign Pages for All Ages bookstore. The morning of November 22, 1995, Iris was interviewed by Jack Brighton of WILL-AM Radio. At 7
P.M.
, when Shau-Jin and I went with Iris to the bookstore to attend the signing, we met many of our old friends, Iris’s high-school classmates, college friends, her teachers, professors, and so forth. Indeed, it was a big homecoming party!