The Chancellor Manuscript (46 page)

Alison fell forward on her side, her whole body convulsed, her face ashen. Peter reached for her and held her, rocking her back and forth.

He could not let her stop now. “Please, try to remember. When you came in the house, when you saw her, what was she screaming? What was she saying?”

Alison pushed herself away from him and leaned back
on the headrest, her eyes shut tight, her face wet with tears. But the crying had stopped. “I don’t know.”

“Remember!”

“I
can’t!
I didn’t
understand
her!” Her eyes opened; she stared at him. They both understood.

“Because she was speaking a foreign language.” He said the words firmly, not asking a question. “She was screaming in Chinese. Your mother, who spent four years in the Po Hai provinces, who was fluent in Mandarin, was screaming at you in Chinese.”

Alison nodded. “Yes.”

The real question was not answered; Chancellor understood that. Why would mother attack daughter? For a few seconds Peter let his mind wander, recalling vaguely the hundreds of pages he had written in which irrational conflicts led to terrible acts of violence. He was no psychologist; he had to think in simpler terms. Schizophrenic infanticide, Medea complex—these were not the areas to probe even if he were capable. The answer lay elsewhere. In more obvious descriptions.… Descriptions? A madwoman in a rage, unbalanced, unfocused.
Unfocused
. Late afternoon. Bright sunshine. Most houses in Japan were light and airy. Sun streaming through the windows. A child walks through the door. Peter reached for the child’s hand.

“Try very hard to remember what you were wearing.”

“It’s not hard. We wore the same thing every day. Dresses were considered immodest. We wore light, loose-fitting little slacks and jackets. It was the school uniform.”

Peter looked away. A
uniform
. He turned back.

“Was your hair long or short?”

“During those days?”

“During that day. When your mother saw you coming through the door that afternoon.”

“I was wearing a cap. We all wore caps, and we usually kept our hair short.”

That was it! thought Peter. An unbalanced woman in a rage, sun streaming through the windows, perhaps through the door; a figure comes in wearing a
uniform
.

He reached for Alison’s other hand. “She never saw you.”

“What?”

“Your mother never saw you. That’s what Chasǒng’s all about. It explains the broken glass, the old nightgown underneath the words on the wall in your father’s study,
the look in Ramirez’s eyes when your mother was mentioned.”

“What do you mean, she never saw me? I was there!”

“But she didn’t see
you
. She saw a uniform. That’s
all
she saw.”

Alison brought her hand to her mouth, curiosity and fear intermingled. “A uniform? Ramirez? You went to see Ramirez?”

“There’s a lot I can’t tell you because I dont know myself, but we’re getting nearer. Officers were rotated back and forth from the Korean combat zones to the command centers in Tokyo. That’s common knowledge. You say your mother went out frequently at night. There’s a pattern, Alison.”

“You’re saying she was a whore. That she whored to get information!”

“I’m saying it’s possible she was forced into acts that tore her apart. Husband and father. On the one hand, her husband, a brilliant commander at the front; on the other, an adored father held captive in China. What could she do?”

Alison raised her eyes to the ceiling. Again she understood; it was a conflict with which she could identify. “I don’t want to go on. I don’t want to know any more.”

“We have to. What happened after the attack?”

“I ran outside. One of the servants was there; he had called the police from the house nearest ours. He took me there, and I waited … waited while the Japanese family stared at me as if I were diseased. Then an MP came and took me to the base. I stayed with a colonel’s wife for several days until my father came back.”

“Then what? Did you see your mother?”

“About a week or so later, I think. It’s hard to remember precisely. When she came home, a nurse was with her. She was never without a nurse or a companion ever again.”

“How was she?”

“Withdrawn.”

“Permanently damaged?”

“That’s difficult to say. It was more than a breakdown; that’s obvious to me now. But she might have recovered sufficiently to function then.”

“Then?”

“When she came home from the hospital the first time. With the nurse. Not after the second time.”

“Tell me about it. The second time.”

Alison blinked. The memory was obviously as painful to her as the violent image of her mother’s attack. “Arrangements had been made for me to go back to the States, to Dad’s parents. As I said, Mother was quiet, withdrawn. Three nurses were on eight-hour shifts; she was never alone. My father was needed back in Korea. He left, believing everything was under control Other officers’ wives would come to the house to see Mother, take us both out for picnics, take her shopping for an afternoon—that sort of thing. Everyone was very kind. Too kind, really. You see, mentally ill people are like alcoholics. If they’re gripped by an obsession, if they want to break away, they’ll suddenly pretend normality; they’ll smile and laugh and lie convincingly. Then when you least expect it, they’re gone. That’s what I think happened.”

“You think? You don’t know?”

“No. They told me that she’d been pulled out of the surf. That she’d been underwater so long, they thought she was dead. I was a child, and it was an explanation I could accept. It made sense; Mother was taken out for the day to Funabashi Beach. It was a Sunday, but I had a cold, so I stayed home. Then sometime in the afternoon the phone started ringing. Was my mother there? Had she come back? The first few calls were from the women who had taken her to Funabashi, but they didn’t want me to know that. They pretended to be other people, so as not to alarm me, I guess. Two Army officers drove out to the house. They were nervous and agitated, but they didn’t want me to know it, either. I went to my room; I knew something was wrong, and all I could think of was that I wanted my father.”

The tears came again. Peter held both her hands; he spoke gently. “GO on.”

“It was awful. At night, quite late, I heard screams. Then shouts and people running outside. Then there were the sounds of automobiles and sirens and tires screeching in the streets. I got out of bed and went to the door and opened it. My room was on the landing above the hall. Downstairs the house seemed to be filling up with Americans—Army mostly, but civilians, too. There probably weren’t more than ten men, but everyone was walking around rapidly, talking into the telephone, using hand radios. Then the front door opened, and she was brought
inside. On a stretcher. She was under a sheet, but there were bloodstains on the cloth. And her face—it was white. Her eyes were wide, staring blankly as if she were dead. At the corners of her mouth were trickles of blood that rolled down over her chin onto her neck. As the stretcher passed beneath a light, she suddenly lurched up screaming, her head wrenching back and forth, her body writhing but held in place by the straps. I cried out and ran down the stairs, but a major—a handsome black major, I’ll never forget—stopped me and picked me up and held me, telling me that everything was going to be all right. He didn’t want me to go to her, not then. And he was right—she was in hysterics; she wouldn’t have known me. They lowered the stretcher to the floor, unstrapped her, and held her down. A doctor tore some cloth. He had a hypodermic needle in his hand; he administered it, and within seconds she was quiet. I was crying. I tried to ask questions, but nobody would listen to me. The major carried me back to my room and put me to bed. He stayed with me for a long time, trying to reassure me, telling me there’d been an accident and my mother would be all right. But I knew she wouldn’t be, not ever again. I was taken to the base and stayed there until Dad came back for the next to last time before we were flown home to America. His tour of duty had only a few months left.”

Chancellor pulled her to him. “The only thing that’s clear is that the accident didn’t have anything to do with being caught in an undertow and pulled out to sea. For one thing, she was brought to the house, not to a hospital. It was an elaborate hoax that you pretended to believe but never did. You don’t believe it now. Why did you pretend all these years?”

Alison whispered. “It was easier, I think.”

“Because you thought she tried to kill you? Because she screamed at you in Chinese, and you didn’t want to think about that? You didn’t want to consider the alternatives.”

Alison’s lips trembled. “Yes.”

“But now you’ve got to face
it
—you understand that, don’t you? You can’t run away from it anymore. It’s what’s in Hoover’s files. Your mother worked for the Chinese. She was responsible for the slaughter at Chasǒng.”

“Oh,
God.…
”

“She didn’t do anything
willingly
. Maybe not even
knowingly. Months ago, when I was with your father, and your mother came downstairs, she saw me and began screaming. I started to back away into the study, but your father yelled at me and told me to get by a lamp. He wanted her to see my face, my features. She stared at me, then calmed down and just sobbed. I think your father wanted her to realize I wasn’t an Oriental. I think the accident that Sunday afternoon was no accident at all. I believe she was caught and tortured by the people who had been using her, forcing her to work for them. It’s possible your mother was a much braver woman than anyone’s given her credit for. She may have finally stood up to them and taken the consequences. That’s not congenital madness, Alison. That’s a person who’s been
driven
out of her mind.”

He stayed with her for nearly an hour, until exhaustion made her finally close her eyes. It was past five; the sky outside the window was growing brighter. It would be morning soon. In a few hours Quinn O’Brien would move them to some other place of safety. Peter knew that he, too, had to sleep.

But before he could allow himself sleep, he had to know if what he believed was true. It had to be confirmed, and one man could do that. Ramirez.

He let himself out the bedroom door and walked to the telephone. He rummaged through his pockets until he found the scrap of paper on which he’d written Ramirez’s number. No doubt O’Brien’s man would be listening at the switchboard, but it did not matter. Nothing mattered anymore but the truth.

He dialed The phone was answered almost immediately.

“Yes, what is it?” The voice was slurred with sleep. Or was it alcohol?

“Ramirez?”

“Who’s this?”

“Chancellor. I’ve got the answer now, and you’re going to confirm it for me. If you hesitate, if you lie, I’m going right to my publisher. He’ll know what to do.”

“I told you to stay out of it!” The words spilled over each other; the soldier was drunk.

“MacAndrew’s wife. There was a Chinese connection, wasn’t there? Twenty-two years ago she was carrying information to the Chinese. She was responsible for Chasǒngl”

“No! Yes. You don’t understand. Let it alone!”

“I want the truth!”

Ramirez was momentarily silent. “They’re both dead.”

“Ramirez!”

“They had her on drugs. She was totally dependent; she couldn’t go two days without a needle. We found out. We helped her. We did our best for her. Things were going badly. It made sense … to do what we did. Everyone agreed!”

Peter’s eyes narrowed. The dissonant chord was there again, louder and more jarring than before. “You
helped
her because it made sense? Things were going badly, so it made some sort of goddamned
sense?”

“Everyone agreed.” The soldier’s voice was nearly inaudible.

“Oh, my God! You didn’t help her, you
maintained
her! You
kept
her on drugs so you could transmit the information you wanted to get through.”

“Things were going badly. The Yalu was—”

“Wait a minute! Are you telling me MacAndrew was a part of this? He let his wife be used this way?”

“MacAndrew never knew.”

Chancellor felt sick. “Yet in spite of everything you did to her, Chasǒng still happened,” he said. “And all these years MacAndrew thought his wife was responsible. Drugged, tortured, nearly beaten to death, made a traitor by an enemy that held her parents captive. You bastards!”

Ramirez screamed into the telephone. “He was a bastard, too! Don’t you ever forget it! He was a
killer!”

He was a bastard, too! Don’t you ever forget it! He was a killer! He was a bastard, too!
 … 
a killer!
The drunken words rang in Chancellor’s ears. He watched the swiftly passing countryside, Alison in the back seat of the government car with him, and tried to understand.

He was a bastard, too!
It did not make sense. MacAndrew
and his wife were victims. They had been manipulated by
both
antagonists—the woman destroyed, the general living out his life with a terrible fear of exposure.

He was a bastard, too!
 … 
a killer!
If Ramirez meant that MacAndrew had become irrational, a commander who did not care about the cost of destroying an enemy that had destroyed his wife,
bastard
was hardly the right term. Mac the Knife had hurled hundreds, perhaps thousands, to their death in a futile attempt at vengeance. Reason had deserted him; vengeance was everything.

If these were the things that caused Ramirez to judge MacAndrew a bastard, so be it. But what bothered Peter, and it bothered him deeply, was the unclear picture of this new MacAndrew, this bastard, this killer. It conflicted with the man Chancellor had met, the soldier who truly hated war because he knew it so well. Or had Alison’s father merely lapsed momentarily—a matter of months in a lifetime—into a madness of his own.

So now the secret of Chasǒng was known. But where did it lead them? How could MacAndrew’s betrayed, manipulated wife lead to one of the four men on Varak’s list? Varak was convinced that whatever was behind Chasǒng would take them directly to the man who had Hoover’s files. But how?