China to Me (56 page)

I want to tell the truth, in so far as I know. I have heard since this all happened that the Japanese stretcher-bearers were brutal in their work that day, slamming sick men around regardless and “pulling splints off of broken limbs, et cetera, et cetera. ” I saw nothing like that. The stretcher-bearers I watched were gentle and considerate. I don't suppose you like to read that. I admit I don't much like writing it. It isn't artistic; it doesn't fit in with the rest of the picture, and it isn't fashionable. It would be easier just to report atrocities. Please bear with me, though: I do want to tell the truth. It seems to me that the truth doesn't hurt anyone in the end.

We should be able to take the smooth with the rough, even in wartime.

We, the hospitalized enemy mothers, were not to be sent to other hospitals unless our own doctors thought us sick enough to go into the old Tweed Bay Hospital that was now open in Stanley. All the enemy patients, except for very special cases, were being sent to Stanley. Almost everyone I knew at Pokfulam was going, except for the Weill family. They had already been to the Japanese Foreign Affairs office in town and got new “passes,” pieces of stamped paper that stated they were French neutrals. Veronica was French by virtue of her husband's nationality, but Sophie, whose husband was Russian, managed to retain her French pass anyway. The Japanese were easygoing in such matters. Lena, for example, was given her choice between her own Russian nationality, which she had held until she married, and her husband's British citizenship. Since she would have been popped into Stanley immediately if she had claimed to be British, she called herself Russian. But there was one peculiarity in the Jap reasoning which it took months of experience to figure out. According to them, you were a citizen of that country where you had been born, regardless of any other consideration. Thus my friend the Frenchwoman, Michelle Marty, who happened to have been born in Hong Kong, had a tremendous row with the man who filled out her pass. He said that if she had been born in Hong Kong she must be Chinese. In the end he settled it by writing down, “Place of birth: Paris,” and he wouldn't argue with her any more. Lots of people had trouble over that quirk in Japanese law, especially the White Russians who were born on the China Coast.

Anybody with oriental blood was called “Asiatic” and not liable to be interned.

It was Sophie who made me try to stay out of Stanley. It might not have occurred to me, in my then gentle, yielding frame of mind. I thought I simply had to go to Stanley, and on the day everyone was moving I stood out on the veranda and cried. I cried softly because it wouldn't do me any good to yell. I cried because Hilda had rushed in and taken the key of my flat, saying happily that she and Selwyn had to find a place to live immediately, and would I mind? I cried because I thought Charles would be taken away from me for good, this time. I cried because I was afraid Carola would die of starvation. I cried because I was tired; Carola had given me a bad night.

Susie was packing all her things to go home. She came out on the veranda and put her arm around me and said, “Mother says, try to stay out. She's fond of you. She says she'll look after you and Carola. Can't you work it? Can't Charles say something to the Japanese? I'm sure they would do it for him.”

I said, “I don't think he would, but I'll ask.” I wiped my eyes, powdered my nose, and went up to Charles. I was afraid to ask him. I knew he would be angry. He was.

“Once and for all, Mickey,” he said coldly, “I will not try to use my influence, if I have any, to get special treatment for my family. Don't be ridiculous.”

“I know. Listen, suppose I myself managed to stay out; that wouldn't step on your toes, would it? I mean, if I did it on my own?”

Ah King chimed in: “Don't go Stanley, missy. We can do. Fish is cheap.”

Charles studied me warily. “I don't know what you mean. I can't make up your mind for you. … Why don't you want to go to Stanley, anyway? Everybody else is going. How can you manage if you don't?”

“I won't be able to see you any more if I'm interned.”

“You probably won't anyway. I'll be put into clink myself.”

“Not yet. You're too weak. If I take Carola out there she'll die, Charles.”

He didn't answer.

“There's no bedding, no food, nothing.”

“They're bound to make special arrangements,” he said, “for women with children.”

“They're bound to nothing of the sort. I don't want to bother you, but gosh … Can't you see, I'll die myself in prison? I can't bear it, I can't bear it.” I realized with some surprise that I meant it, too.

“Just how do you intend to go about this, Mickey?” he asked, suddenly mild.

“I don't know yet, but never mind. I'll leave you out of it, you and your military honor.” I went downstairs again and reported to the Weills. Sophie, the stubbornest one of all, bit her lip and thought hard.

“Can you claim to be something else than American? I mean, German or something? They're accepting that sort of thing. I know several Americans who — ”

“Not German, Sophie. What do you think I am?”

“No, I can see that. … Isn't there something?”

All of a sudden it broke with a blinding flash of light. “I did have a Chinese husband once. …”

Sophie took no time to be surprised. She grabbed my hand and led me at a run down the steps, out into the green courtyard of the front garden, and over to a small medical officer, a Japanese, who stood there talking to some non-commissioned men.

Sophie made a little speech to this man, who had helped her with her passport the day before. Her friend, she said, was married to a Chinese and hadn't realized until this minute that such a fact could keep her free from internment. Her friend was a patient in hospital and had not been able to get to town during the period when people were taking out their passes. If the officer would give her friend permission to go into town, a written pass so that no soldier would arrest her friend, she could adjust this matter with the Foreign Affairs Department.

The little officer looked at me with interest. “Chinese husband, eh?”

I lowered my eyes and said, “Yes.”

He studied me. His eyes warmed. He was pleased that an American girl should have married an Oriental. It made him more friendly to both of us. “Sit down,” he said, and sat down himself, plop, right on the grass.

“How many children?” asked the officer.

I smirked demurely. It really would have been impossible to explain, so I just said, “One.”

“So des.” He smiled at me. He took out a card. He wrote something on it, and stamped it with his seal, and gave it to me. I was a free woman for two days more, anyway, until I had consulted the Foreign Affairs office. Sophie and I ran back into the hospital and I staggered as I ran. My head was spinning. I still felt guilty and breathless. I ran slam-bang into Matron.

“I've got a chance to stay out of internment; should I take it?” I demanded. I would have asked anybody and taken the advice of anybody, just then.

“Certainly,” she said promptly. “Why be locked up if you can help it? Good luck. Wish I could do that.”

I went back to Charles and handed him the card; he could read it, even if I couldn't.

Charles lay on his pillow and looked at me, and looked at me. “God,” he said at last. “Do you think you'll get away with that?” “If I do,” I said, “it'll be the best thing Sinmay ever did for me.” There was a long silence. He had a strange expression on his face. I would almost have said he was afraid of me. Or maybe he was beginning to be afraid of all women.

“You ought to stay with your own people, you know,” he said at last. “The British are not my own people. I feel more at home,” I said, “with the Chinese. I'll be all right. But of course it's for you to decide.”

With his good hand Charles rubbed his brow. There was a suspicious quirk at the corners of his mouth. “Oh yes,” he said. “Well, Mickey, it's up to you.” Then he said again, thoughtfully, “God.”

Chapter 45

Everybody had been shipped out of the place now but a skeleton staff, my ward of assorted maternity — or anyway, gynecological — cases, Charles, and the Selwyn-Clarke household. Hilda had found that my flat was full of refugees, a fact I had already reminded her of, but until she saw them in the flesh she had been under the impression that she could easily kick them out. Close up, Irene Fincher and Co. were evidently uncompromising. Irene was still seething with rage later, when I got back to the house; some idiot Chinese doctor had said, appalled by her refusal to step out promptly into the street with her aged parents when she was asked: “But it's Dr. Selwyn-Clarke and family!” However, Hilda had found a better flat next door, after all, one which belonged to a man in the American consulate. She managed to get a letter from him, for what it was worth, saying that they could live there. The Jap health officer, Colonel Nguchi, was rapidly becoming their guardian angel, and he said that the Selwyn-Clarkes could live in Tregunter Mansions if they liked, and they trustingly planned to move in. We had yet to learn how easily Japanese officers give permission, and how easily other officers take it away again.

So now Hilda was faced with the problem of moving from the Queen Mary with all those stores and things, and with no transportation. I had a similar problem except that I didn't need to move anything but a couple of suitcases and the baby. Old Ah Cheung ran away the day the Japs started moving people out, and I hadn't given any thought to finding another domestic, naturally. I still believed I would be sent to Stanley sooner or later. And I was managing Carola fine by myself, bathing her like a veteran. Oddly enough, in that deserted place there was still one Chinese woman, and she wanted a job — Margaret Watson's amah May, who had been left among the furniture of the Watson flat and who was still hanging on. She came up and begged me to let her come with us, to look after Carola. I didn't know her, but as she had been Margaret's amah I thought she must be all right, and I said, “Sure, only I'll probably go to jail myself pretty soon.”

May was willing to take the chance. Her eyes were bright with hope. She had seen Ah Cheung when the old girl left, and she was impressed by the fact that I gave her in farewell, in lieu of wages, a ring of chip diamonds and bits of jade that Sinmay's wife had once made for me. I suppose May thought I always paid off in jewels, or perhaps, like the other British-trained Chinese, she was simply panicky at the idea of being on her own. As it turned out, it was a bad day's work, taking her on, but at the time it seemed a sensible thing to do.

Hilda, when she found out I might be staying out in the world like herself, grabbed at me feverishly. Gone was all that War Memorial resentment and the somewhat gang-headquarters aspect of the Watson household. “Now we're all alone,” she said, “and I'm going to be so damn lonely. I won't have Margaret any more. I'm going to live next door to you. Couldn't we mess together as we used to? I have rice. You have Ah King. I'll give your household rice if Ah King will cook for all of us. Other expenses, if one can ever buy anything again, we'll have to share.”

“If I ever have any money,” I said gloomily. So we struck the bargain with a good grace, since fate seemed determined to keep us together, and we began to take counsel as to how the devil we were to get over to May Road. In the meantime it seemed more tactful to leave the hospital, because it was filling up more and more with sentries and plain soldiers carrying fixed bayonets, which they pointed at us at intervals. Once more — this time, as I thought, for good — I went up and said good-by to Charles. I had been doing that at intervals for twenty-four hours and we were both getting used to it by this time. At last Charles was helped up and dressed by an orderly and taken downstairs and out of doors, where the last remaining nurses and patients were waiting. Hilda and I, with our children and our luggage, crossed the compound and went straight into Margaret's deserted flat, from where we could watch that forlorn group.

Not so forlorn, at that, as others had been. At least these hospital people were allowed to take as much luggage as they wanted, and mattresses and books and things. Most of the unlucky people who had been grabbed up in that insane business at Murray Parade Ground never did manage to collect their belongings. By this time their houses had been looted. Looting was going on at a tremendous rate, openly and everywhere. The Japs didn't care; some of them encouraged it. At the tramways, Japanese had chopped open the safe and then called the watchman and workers and said, “Take whatever you want,” so full of loot were they already. Money spilled out on the floor and the coolies fell on it hungrily, as you can imagine. At that moment, among the poorer element of the town, the stock of Japan was higher than it ever was again. During those days the foundations were laid for many new fortunes. In after months, when these newly rich coolies brought their families into the unfamiliar splendor of the Hongkong Hotel for lunch, the Japanese were amazed at their appearance. They would come into the hotel wearing cotton pajamas or anything they liked, and the place was so full of bedbugs after a while that the management stopped trying to do anything about it. Fastidious Japanese were annoyed. Me, I was amused. But just at this moment it wasn't funny. It was terrifying. These people had found arms. Sometimes on a quiet night the rifle firing sounded as it the war were still going on, though the noise was probably only due to one or two battles between the military and looters, out in the streets. The military did shoot at thieves on occasion, when they had nothing better to do.

We saw two trucks brought up by Japanese from a big pool of them down in the road below the hospital, and the people for Stanley were loaded on and driven away, waving gallantly. Then a special Japanese Army car came for Charles and he was taken off, presumably, I thought, to Bowen Road Hospital, the British military haven which was still being used for our wounded soldiers. Anyway, all the others had been taken there. The special car must have been a sort of courtesy. I refused to agonize over it. I had said good-by once too often: it seemed silly.