Shanghai (94 page)

The date was July 31, 1937.

Six days later, Corporal Minoto had still not died, although he had undergone the most rigorous torture that the two generals could devise. The sound of the man's pain filled the room for hour after hour, and with every sibilant scream the man's shattered mouth emitted, the two generals were sent into further paroxysms of fury that moved them to increasingly cruel acts upon the man's body—which seemed to accept pain as a beach palm does the ocean wind. It both thrilled and infuriated the two generals. In the dark of that small room beneath the third arch of the Marco Polo Bridge they had crossed a very serious moral line, and both of them knew it. The soldier's disappearance had given them everything they needed to force concessions from the Chinese, and no doubt to invade the ancient capital shortly after. And yet the two generals were not satisfied. They found themselves coming back to their tortured captive's room over and over again. Something bestial was happening there. Something that stank but sang to them of ancient glory and power. Something that said they were beyond man and man's laws. Something beyond the gods was happening in the room beneath the third arch of the Marco Polo Bridge.

General Yukiko and General Akira were not country bumpkins or uneducated labourers. They had both been schooled in the West. They both had experience in the world. They both could quote from Milton as well as from the great poet Basho—but nothing in their lives would ever match their time in that dark room, where a fellow human being begged them to end his life as they inflicted more and more pain upon his person. And each time a session finished and they returned to the bridge, they were amazed that the sun still shone and that the night would come at its appointed hour and food would arrive and taste good—that they had “crossed over,” but only they knew.

By the end of the week General Zhang had accepted the first two demands but said that he could not speak on behalf of Supreme General Song so he could not offer up either an apology or a statement to that effect.

The Japanese generals assembled their troops, and on August 10 they crossed the Marco Polo Bridge and took the town of Wanping. Just over a week later the Japanese Imperial Army, with Generals Akira and Yukiko in the lead, marched unopposed into Beijing. On the twenty-first of August Tianjin fell, leaving the entire northern plain of China open to the mechanized divisions of the Japanese Imperial Army—and nothing stood between the Japanese and total control of China except the possible defences they would meet in the large cities, such as Shanghai and Nanking.

On the morning of August 22, General Akira and General Yukiko returned to the small room beneath the third arch of the Marco Polo Bridge. The ferocity of their attack upon the young corporal was an almost
sexual experience. In fact, just before Corporal Minoto finally drew his last breath through his split tongue, he saw a red rage, molten as liquid iron, flowing from the blast furnaces of their eyes … as their tails slapped against the walls of the small room and their talons clacked against the stone floor.

Chesu Hoi stepped back into the massive crowd that was standing with uncharacteristic stillness along either side of the wide avenue as the Japanese tanks passed by in slow formation. The great city—the ancient city—had fallen in less than a week, and now, for the first time since the Manchu invasion, a foreign power had control of both the city and the city within the city—the Forbidden City.

Years ago the Japanese had put the final Manchu ruler, Puyi, on the throne in Manchukuo. That was one thing. But marching into Beijing unopposed, a foreign power in full regalia, was something completely different—and every silent Chinese citizen standing on either side of the wide avenue knew it.

Chesu Hoi pushed his way through and away from the crowd. He'd seen something that really frightened him. More than the invading army. More than the death that was now so close. Two Japanese generals sitting atop one of the advancing tanks, as if they were gods. Something about these two young generals struck deep at Chesu Hoi's consciousness. Like a large icicle dropped from the eaves of a house as the spring finally pushes the cold from Beijing, the coldness plunged deep into his heart—and froze him to the bone. He turned back quickly to get a second look at the two Japanese generals. Could his eyes have been mistaken? No. He'd seen it. They were not human, somehow. He knew what he had to do. The Chosen Three and the Carver must be warned.

But warned of what? The Middle Kingdom had seen invaders before and all eventually had been salted by the great sea of China. But this was different, and Chesu Hoi knew it was different. He stared at the proud young officers as they climbed down from the tank and strutted in front of their troops. No, this was not a simple invasion. There was something evil here—something evil loosed upon the land.

* * *

THE NEWS OF THE FALL OF BEIJING and the movement of Japanese armoured divisions southward set off the predictable panic in Shanghai—but there was nowhere to run. The countryside was no safer than the city.

In the Foreign Settlement the great families met and decided to watch developments carefully but continue to trade. The American embassy had been in constant
contact with the Japanese and had been given an assurance that “should Shanghai become a target, all care will be taken to leave the Foreign Settlement alone—after all, the Settlement is foreign sovereign territory, and neutral.” This last the Japanese envoy had said with a smirk that the American ambassador decided he would not communicate to his superiors.

So Shanghai continued its dance, and the traders traded and the vendors vended and the street sweepers swept, but everyone was waiting. The air reeked of imminent change, and this time even the
Fan Kuei
smelled it.

* * *

THE SMELL WAS THE FIRST THING that struck the young missionary watching the bustle in the harbour as his ship, after almost three months at sea, finally made its way toward the access of the Huangpo River. A breeze blew the young man's brilliant red hair back from his astonishingly pale skin, and he clutched his Bible close to his heart. Ever since his ship had approached the mouth of the Yangtze, something ancient had been singing in his ears—a song of return.
I am coming home,
he thought, as he tied a thick rope into a complicated knot with one hand, without looking at the rope or thinking about what he was doing. Then Maximilian, for no reason he could accurately articulate, smiled, showing his large, white teeth.

* * *

THE KUOMINTANG BEGAN TO ORGANIZE defences around the city, and the Chosen Three met in the now
empty secret chamber in the Warrens. The Confucian was almost forty but still hardy. The young Carver, new to the Ivory Compact, had met the Chosen Three only once before. The Assassin was in his early twenties and a man of many secrets. But Jiang—Mai Bao—was now a very old lady, and she needed help from all three of the men to climb the final steps into the chamber.

The men waited while Jiang caught her breath. Then she said, “This is the last time you will see me in the Compact. I will name my successor tonight.”

The silence in the room expanded and seemed to push the walls back against the surge of the river.

Jiang coughed gently, but when the men moved to help her she held up a hand for them to keep their distance. She nodded and said, “So, how are we going to deal with the Japanese?”

“They haven't taken Shanghai yet,” the Carver said.

“A detail,” she responded.

The Assassin quickly agreed.

Jiang raised her head and inhaled deeply. The others watched her. She let out a long line of breath, then said, “The smell is denser now than this morning.” They all smelled the intense reek of ozone in the air and knew it presaged significant change. Exactly what change was the issue before them.

The Carver told them of Chesu Hoi's strange message of “evil loosed upon the land.”

Everyone in the room weighed Chesu Hoi's warning against the possibility that the Japanese presented some sort of new opportunity. The two did not sit together well in the same thought.

“There's change everywhere,” Jiang said. “Last week I was brought to the theatre. I haven't been in a very long time.”

The others allowed that to hang in the air. Everyone knew that Jiang, while she was still called Mai Bao, had been one of the most famous arhu players ever to grace a Shanghai stage.

“A very long time,” Jiang repeated. “But what I saw shocked me.”

“Was it a Long Nose play?”

“No. Who would wish to punish themselves with such trivialities as the British parade on the stage? No, it was a new opera. A new Peking Opera devised and directed by a man they are now calling a History Teller.”

The intensity of the silence in the chamber deepened. The last History Teller had been the eldest daughter of Jiang's grandmother—and that had certainly been a time of significant change at the Bend in the River.

“Just idle talk?” the young Carver ventured.

Jiang thought about that, then slowly shook her head. “No. This man's work touched me deeply. In a way that I have never been touched by such things before.”

The Assassin said, “His presence is a sign. A marker. Change is upon us.”

Again silence invaded the confines of the chamber deep in the Warrens. The sound of the Huangpo River seemed somehow louder, angrier.

Finally the Confucian spoke. “I've been thinking about the three girls in the second portal. The image was of these three girls
and
the Man with a Book.” All eyes turned to him. He was different from many of the men who had held his position in the past. He was, naturally enough, educated in the Chinese classics, but he was also well read in modern political theory. Like his predecessors he was a deeply private man, but unlike them he didn't necessarily look only to the past
for answers to the day's problems—or so it seemed to the others in the Compact.

“They are Charles Soong's daughters, aren't they?” he said.

My nieces,
Jiang thought.

“She Who Loves Money, She Who Loves Power, and She Who Loves China,” the Assassin said, reciting the oft-repeated maxim about the three Soong sisters.

“Well, She Who Loves China married the fool Sun Yat-sen, and now that he is dead, has no value to us. But She Who Loves Power is with Mao and his Communists in the north, and She Who Loves Money married Chiang Kai Shek and is a real force in the Kuomintang government.”

Jiang nodded slowly; ideas were coming together in her mind as raindrops form patterns on a windowpane. When she finally spoke, her voice was whisper-silent. She chose her words carefully.

“Charles Soong, a Man with a Book, dies and leaves three daughters, the three girls in the second portal of the Narwhal Tusk. Each of the girls has influence over a powerful man. Sun Yat-sen has been dead for a decade, and he was hardly a Man with a Book. Chiang Kai Shek is powerful, but I doubt he can even read. Then there's Mao Tze-tung. Copies of his writings have been available for years in Shanghai—he was a librarian, after all.” She looked slowly at the Chosen Three. “Mao is a powerful man—a Man with a Book—and it is rumoured that he has a Soong daughter, a girl from the second portal, at his side.”

She waited for the others to speak. No one did, so she spoke again. “Perhaps Mao is the Man with a Book, and we must support him.”

“If he will allow it,” the Carver said.

Jiang chortled a quiet laugh and coughed into her palm. “The Ivory Compact uses people, will they or not. The only issue is getting to him.”

“I believe I can look after that,” said the Confucian. That surprised everyone in the room, but before anyone could ask how, he explained, “We Confucians have been around for a very long time. Just because the powers that be say they do not need us, or our philosophy, does not mean that we go away. We simply go underground. We find other work, we marry, have children—and pass on our birthright. We also stay in communication. There are highly placed Confucians in both the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party. I will contact them, and they will contact the Soong sisters.”

Jiang heard something in this, something hidden, but her old mind couldn't figure out exactly what. She looked at the Assassin. “And what will you do?”

“War is approaching. The Guild is ready.”

“To fight?”

“To fulfill the First Emperor's prophecy.”

“Will you help defend Shanghai?”

“Perhaps. Our allegiance is to the Ivory Compact,”

“As is ours,” the Confucian retorted, although with less enthusiasm than the others had expected.

The Carver thought of Chesu Hoi's warning.

“Once the Guild is identified it loses much of its power,” said the Assassin, “so I want to unleash my men at the most crucial time.”

“And how will you know when that is?” the Confucian challenged.

Jiang spoke before the Assassin could answer. “Because he and his kind have always known such things.”

That night, Mai Bao summoned her two daughters to what had been her mother's, her grandmother's, and her great-grandmother's bedchamber.

It had been years since she had slept in the old bed in what she thought of as her mother's private chambers in the brothel. But here she was, propped up on half a dozen pillows, staring at her two handsome daughters. Both tall, both strong, both seemingly ready to bear children. But she had made up her mind a long time back. The younger of the two would succeed her.

She turned first to her elder daughter and took her hand. “Say goodbye to me, but do not mourn me. I have had a very long and happy life—and you are part of my great happiness. So please, no tears.”

Her daughter kissed her sweetly and said, “I honour you and your wishes, Mother,” then she retreated from the room.