Dreams of the Red Phoenix (12 page)

At the entrance to the market, several more Chinese soldiers
lay dead. One boy had been bayoneted through the ribs and left
to die beside another with his head tipped back unnaturally, his
throat slit. Charles stared for too long and had to race to a gully to
vomit. When he opened his eyes again, he saw that the churned-
up soil before him had also run with blood. He knew he should
turn back. He had no business being outside the mission. He had
never seen anything like this, and he knew his mother wouldn't
want him to see it. She had tried to shield him for so long, but
how could she here in China, where, even before this Japanese
attack, illness, starvation, and other deprivations abounded?
Charles thought his father had been right to introduce him to the
legless beggar years before.

Look him in the eye
, he had said,
even if his eyes are crusted over
and he cannot see you. Search, my boy, for the human soul inside the
suffering.

But Charles wondered if even his father would have felt this
was too much evil to witness. He wiped his mouth on his rum
pled sleeve, then tore off his jacket altogether and, with shak
ing hands, placed it over the head and torso of the young soldier
whose throat had been cut. Charles continued deeper into what
remained of the market, searching for at least one open booth or
anyone who looked familiar. He wanted to shout Han's name
but didn't dare expose him. Although Charles still had not seen
any Japanese soldiers, he worried that they could be anywhere,
hidden in doorways or behind toppled carts. Farther down the
destroyed row of stalls, Charles noticed that the Japanese fish
monger's place had been burned to the ground. Sheets of paper
stamped with the Japanese flag hung on what remained.

He finally stumbled on a stall that appeared open, two meager
piles of shriveled turnips and potatoes displayed before the own
er, who sat on a low stool. Charles bowed, but the woman's dull
eyes showed no recognition.

“Madam Chen, I'm Charles Carson. Remember me, from
Sunday school? Your son and I, we played together years ago?”
When he mentioned her son, Charles thought a flash of recogni
tion passed over the woman's face.

“Fifty thousand,” she said.

“Pardon me?”

“No less.”

“For turnips?”

She scoffed and looked away.

“Have you seen Han, by any chance?” Charles tried. “You
know, the cook's boy? He was in Sunday school with your son
and me.”

“Do not mention my noble son,” she said, glaring now. “The
boys are gone. No more boys. You go now, too.” She brushed him
off as if he were an annoying fly.

As Charles thought about it, he realized she was right. On his
walk through town, he had seen only elders and young children.
A few mothers but no fathers, and certainly no young men who
weren't already soldiers in uniform.

“Where is everyone?” he asked. “Where are my friends?”

She spat on the ground. “They are not your friends. They
were never your friends.”

Charles staggered back and took off running, dodging the
craters in the road and the few remaining Chinese who walked
with bundles on their backs or pushing cumbersome wheelbar
rows piled high with junk. He passed more Chinese soldiers fall
en by the roadside and didn't want to look but made himself, to
make sure they were not Han.

At the Buddhist temple, Charles bent double and put his
hands on his knees. As he caught his breath, he noticed that
the grand spreading cedar tree had been struck and had lost a
few limbs. He ran up the low steps and saw light streaming in
through gaping holes in the damaged roof. Normally it was so
dark and smoky from incense inside the temple that you could
hardly see anything, but now the slanting sun revealed that the
idols had been badly chipped and shattered by mortar fire. Only
one of the standing Buddhas remained intact. Around it, some
one had placed fresh flowers, newly lit candles, and incense.

Charles wondered who would even consider coming here on
such a hellish day to light candles. He wanted to shout that peo
ple lay dying in the streets, and any strength should be saved for
them, not for one's ancestors, or the Buddha, or for that matter
Jesus Christ. Back at the mission, additional services had been
scheduled for every afternoon, not just Sundays. Charles couldn't
imagine why people would waste time praying instead of try
ing to stop the nightmare that was taking place around them.
He wondered if he could ever make himself go to church again,
knowing what God had allowed on this day. His father would
tell him otherwise, but his father had not seen what Charles had
seen.

Outside again on the dirt road, he kept his eyes down and
started spotting small treasures—ammunition clips, cartridge
cases, a canteen, and hundreds of pieces of paper with the Japa
nese flag printed on them. He scooped these items up and stuffed
them into his pockets alongside his father's phoenix chop and
his penknife—all for what purpose he didn't know. From the
ground, he lifted a Chinese Army cap with the blue-and-white
Kuomintang insignia and twelve-pointed sun. He slapped it
against his leg, and yellow dust scattered. As he put it on, Charles
wished he could show Han, but he was starting to suspect that his
friend might already have one of his own.

With the mission compound in sight just up the road, two
Japanese soldiers shouted in Chinese for Charles to halt. Before
he knew it, the tip of a bayonet had knocked his new cap off his
head.

“We could have shot you, America,” a young Japanese soldier
shouted. “Foolish boy, do not wear Chinese Army cap.”

Charles realized it was the kid who had swept their back
steps. “Hey, how's it going? How come you're still here?” Charles
asked. “Looks like the rest of your company's moved on.”

“Do not ask questions,” the older soldier said. Then he turned
to the younger soldier and asked, “Who is this kid?”

“This is no-good, spoiled American,” the younger soldier ex
plained.

The older Japanese soldier pressed Charles's shoulder with
the sharp tip of his bayonet.

“Hey, now,” Charles said, “I'm not the enemy.”

“America is weak, worthless country.”

Charles tried to think fast, tried to think at all with the bay
onet blade so near his neck. “Say, you fellows ever hear of Jean
Harlow, the movie actress?”

Their eyes remained unflinching.

“You know about Hollywood, right?”

The older soldier may have nodded.

“Then you know that Hollywood's biggest star is Jean Har
low.” Charles was surprised by the jauntiness of his own voice.
“She's my girlfriend. That's the truth of it. She and I been going
steady for a while now.”

The older soldier cocked his head, and the younger one leaned
forward almost imperceptibly.

“I need to get going,” Charles said as he started to back away.
“My girlfriend's waiting for me. Jean Harlow. Remember that
name. You see her on the screen someday, and you'll know, she's
my girl. See you around, fellas.” Charles offered a little wave,
turned, and started to stride off.

“Halt, America!” the older one shouted.

Charles's frantic pulse whooshed in his ears, and he worried
that he might faint, but he swallowed and turned back. “What
now?” he asked. “My girlfriend's going to be mad if I'm late.”

“You no Hollywood,” the younger one said.

“You bet I am!” Charles said. “I'm Hollywood all over!”

The soldiers glanced at one another, and in that instant,
Charles snatched up the Chinese Nationalist cap from the ground
and took off running.

“American devil!” they shouted after him.

Charles pulled the cap onto his head and felt like himself for
the first time that day.

O
ver the following days and weeks, the injured continued
to arrive from the countryside. Shirley's brief nursing ex
perience, which had begun in the emergency room at Cleveland
General, then shifted to daytime hours in the pediatric ward, had
done little to prepare her for this. Chinese came, leaning on one
another and on sticks, some carried in on homemade stretchers.
All of them, Captain Hsu insisted, were civilians, although it
seemed obvious to her that his men had simply disguised them
selves. They exchanged their uniforms for peasant clothing or
turned their shabby jackets inside out and stuffed their red-
starred caps into their pockets. Despite Reverend Wells's warn
ings against getting tangled up in the conflict, Shirley thought
that even if the young men had been wearing proper uniforms,
she wouldn't have turned them away. Many weren't much older
than her son, and all were badly in need of care.

Every day, Hsu stood by the front door and determined who
would be seen and who would be denied care. Shirley's feverish
hope to help them all was impossible. She knew that. Her job was
difficult, but when she glanced over and saw the captain shake
his head at some beleaguered person, she understood that his task
was even worse.

When sporadic fighting erupted in the countryside at river
and railroad crossings, or on roads that led to crucial mountain
passes, more disguised soldiers arrived, along with hapless peas
ants of all ages who had been caught in the crossfire. Some en
gagements involved heavy artillery, though Shirley surmised that
hand-to-hand combat also often occurred. The knife wounds
alarmed her almost more than injuries caused by bullets. The
Japanese seemed expert at slicing the bodies of their enemies,
leaving them without fingers, hands or eyes. Shirley began to
think that those hit by grenades or mortar fire were the luckiest
because they would die the quickest.

And then the Chinese women started to arrive, and Shirley
thought that what they had survived was worse. Although the
bulk of the Japanese Imperial Army had departed for the front to
the north, several units remained in town and went on rampag
es, seeking food and the spoils of war. Chinese women stumbled
into the clinic, barely able to walk. Some could no longer speak,
their minds having left the shells of their flesh behind. The young
girls were the most tragic, but several grandmothers had born the
same treatment.

Shirley couldn't imagine that Doc Sturgis over at the infir
mary was encountering anything worse. Reverend Wells had
promised that she would receive the less challenging cases, but
she soon realized that Captain Hsu, who seemed to have a net
work of Chinese throughout the mission, the town, and the re
gion, either orchestrated, or was at least aware of, everything that
went on. He could answer any question or see to any request, and
Shirley had quickly come to rely on him, as did many others. It
was also becoming clear to her that the Red Army's infiltration
of the province over the previous months had made it a target for
the Japanese in the first place. The Red soldiers bore the brunt of
the ongoing nightly air raids on the plains out beyond the town,
yet Shirley couldn't help but blame them for the trouble and wish
they would move on to another province altogether.

One evening, she sat at the bedside of a young soldier who
appeared to have survived an attempted beheading. She had cho
sen not to wrap this poor boy's head because she couldn't risk
having bandages stick to the horrific wound. The truth was that
she would need them shortly for the next patient. The youth sat
up with a dazed and distant expression, his skull essentially sliced
open. She estimated that he would die within a half hour of ar
riving, and as he did, she held his hand until the end. He never
spoke. And she, with all her expertise in the Chinese dialects of
the region, did not say a word, either. She felt herself soften as she
gently squeezed his hand. As he breathed his last halting breaths,
she said a prayer in his language, not about Jesus but about find
ing rest and peace elsewhere and with his ancestors, his family far
from here. When she finally stepped away from the bed, she did
not cry. She felt more useless than ever but also knew that she had
done her best under the circumstances.