The Devil of Nanking (30 page)

The shadows of the white prayer slips tied in the branches over my head moved and shifted. I found a place in the corner of the gardens, a place between two rows of statues where I couldn’t be seen from the road, and sat down on the ground, my coat pulled tightly round me. You were supposed to clap your hands when you prayed. There was a sequence, but I couldn’t remember it, so in the end I did what I was used to seeing people do in my own, Christian country. I put my hands together, dropped my forehead on to the tips of my fingers and closed my eyes.

Maybe the nurse had been right. Maybe ‘God’, or the gods, or something greater than any of us, knew where my baby’s soul was. But I didn’t. I didn’t know where she was buried, so I had nowhere to start. Without a grave to visit I had learned to imagine her as nowhere and everywhere, flying somewhere above me. Sometimes when I squeezed my eyes closed I would picture her in the black, pitted night sky, so high up that her head was brushing the roof of the world. In my dreams she’d be able to fly anywhere she wanted. Maybe even from England to Tokyo. She would have to set her course straight for the east, then off she’d go, fast, looking down from time to time and seeing the travelling lights beneath her: Europe, with all its bridges lit up and decorated like wedding cakes. She’d know when she was over the sea from the dark stretches, or the ridged reflection of the moon, or the little pearl drops of tankers. After Europe she’d fly fast into the rising sun. Over the Russian steppes and bottomless Baikal lake with its strange seals and landlocked fish. And further, past rice fields and industrial chimneys and oleander-fringed roads, over the stretching, hardening crust of the whole of Shi Chongming’s homeland. Then Tokyo, and on and on until she was over Takadanobaba, and she would see the curled eaves of the old house. Then she would be above my window and at last . . .

But, of course, she hadn’t come. Even at O-Bon, when the dead were supposed to visit the living, when I’d sat in my window watching lighted candles floating down the Kanda river as the Japanese guided their dead back, all the time I thought stupidly that maybe she’d find me. But she didn’t. I told myself that I shouldn’t have expected it, that she’d probably tried hard. It was such a long way from England for only a small spirit, maybe she’d got lost, or just very, very tired.

I lifted my head from my pseudo-prayer. Around me the children’s windmills were spinning in the warm wind, the wooden memorial slats clicking and clattering. Every hand-made bonnet, every bib, every toy ornamenting the statues had been placed there by a mother who had prayed, like I had just prayed. It was getting light and the first commuters were walking fast along the street next to the temple.

Jason, I thought, getting to my feet and brushing down my coat, Jason, believe me, you are stranger, stranger and more insane than I have ever been. What I did was ignorant and wrong, but I was never as wrong as you are. I took a few deep breaths of clean air and looked up into the sky. He had brought me back to something. I had almost forgotten, but he’d reminded me. There was only one way I could go. There had only ever been one way.

This is how you learn.

As the sun came up I listened to the radio for a while. Still no official announcement that it was safe to go into the streets. When full daylight was at last with us I drank some tea, dressed quietly, tied my quilted jacket and slipped out into the alley, barricading the door behind me and stopping once to check for any movement. Outside, a light snow was falling: thin white flakes covering the old dirty snow. I slipped silently between the houses, reached the Liu house within minutes, went to the back door and gave a coded series of knocks. After a while the door was opened by Liu’s wife, who stood back wordlessly and allowed me to pass. Her eyes were red, and she was wearing a tattered man’s winter robe over several layers of her own clothes.

It was bitterly cold in the house, and immediately I could feel the strained atmosphere. When Liu came to the hallway to greet me I knew that something had happened.

‘What is it?’

He didn’t answer. He beckoned me out of the hall and into a small cluttered room where his son sat in abject misery, his head hanging low. He wore a Sun Yat-sen military-style jacket, torn and ripped and hanging on his frail shoulders, making him look more dishevelled and pitifully stained than ever. On the table in front of him lay a filthy sack, what appeared to be buckwheat spilling out of it.

‘He’s been out all night,’ said Liu. ‘Brought back food.’

I stared hungrily at it. ‘Master Liu, I commend your bravery. This is indeed news. Good, good news.’

Liu’s wife brought buckwheat dumplings – some wrapped in muslin and crammed into a bamboo steaming basket for me to take to Shujin, and another dish for me to eat now. She put them down in front of me without a word or a look, and left the room. I ate as fast as I could, standing up, cramming them into my mouth and looking blankly at the ceiling as I chewed. Liu and his son averted their eyes out of decency. But, in spite of the food, I couldn’t avoid noticing the atmosphere between them.

‘What?’ I said, through a mouthful. ‘What is it?’

Liu touched the boy’s foot with his toes. ‘Tell him what’s happened.’

The boy looked up at me. His face was white and serious. It was as if overnight he had lost his childhood. ‘I’ve been out,’ he whispered.

‘Yes?’

He lifted his chin in the direction of the street. ‘Out there. All night I’ve been walking in the city. I’ve spoken to people.’

I swallowed the last of the dumpling, feeling it stick in my throat. ‘And you’ve come back safely. The streets are safe?’

‘No.’ A sudden tear ran down his face. My heart sank. ‘No. The streets are not safe. The Japanese are devils. The
riben guizi
.’ He gave his father an anguished look. ‘You told me they would only kill soldiers. Why did you say that?’

‘I believed it. I thought they’d leave us be. I thought we’d be considered refugees.’

‘Refugees.’ He batted the tears away with his sleeve. ‘There’s a place for people they call refugees.’

‘At the university,’ I said. ‘Have you been there?’

‘Not only me. I am not the only one who has been there. The Japanese have been too. They took the “refugees” away. I saw it. They were strung together.’ He jabbed a finger into the soft flesh behind his collarbone. ‘They put a wire through here and strung them together, like – like a necklace. A necklace of people.’

‘You actually saw all of this? At the refugee zone?’

He pushed roughly at his eyes, the tears leaving streaks in the dirt. ‘I’ve seen everything. Everything. And I’ve heard everything.’

‘Tell me,’ I said, sitting down on one of the rickety chairs and looking at him seriously, ‘did you hear screaming? An hour ago. A woman screaming. Did you hear that?’

‘I heard.’

‘Do you know what it was?’

‘Yes.’ He looked at his father, then back at me, anxiously biting his lip. He felt in his pocket and pulled out something to show us. Liu and I both leaned forward. On his palm was a Japanese condom. I took it from him and turned it over in my hand. It bore a picture of a soldier racing forward, bayonet at the ready, the word ‘
Totsugeki
’ written underneath.
Charge!
Liu and I exchanged looks. His face had become very grey, tension creeping into the skin round his mouth.

‘Rape,’ the boy said. ‘They are raping women.’

Liu glanced at the doorway. His wife was in the back of the house and she couldn’t have heard; nevertheless he put out his foot and kicked closed the door. My heart was thudding dully. When I was thirteen I had no idea what rape was, but this boy used the word matter-of-factly, as if it was an everyday event.

‘Girl hunts,’ he said. ‘It’s the Japanese’s favourite pastime. They take coal trucks from Xiaguan and trawl the villages for women.’ He raised his dirt-smeared face to me. ‘And do you know what else?’

‘No,’ I said faintly. ‘What else?’

‘I’ve seen where the
yanwangye
lives.’

‘
Yanwangye
?’ A little ghost of fear crossed my heart. I glanced instinctively at Liu, who was contemplating his son with a mixture of fear and confusion.
Yanwangye
. The devil. The greatest of the death lords. The ruler of Buddhist hell. Ordinarily the likes of old Liu and I would roll our eyes at such folk-religion, but something in us has changed over the last few days. Hearing the name whispered in this cold house made us both shiver.

‘What are you talking about,’ said Liu, leaning closer to his son. ‘
Yanwangye
? I didn’t teach you such nonsense. Who have you been speaking to?’

‘He’s here,’ whispered the boy, his eyes meeting his father’s. I could see goosebumps on his skin. I glanced up at the windows, locked tight. It was very quiet outside; the falling snow made the light flicker pink and white. ‘The
yanwangye
has come to Nanking.’ Not taking his eyes from his father’s, he got slowly to his feet. ‘If you don’t believe it then come with me out there.’ He gestured to the door and we both turned and looked at it in silence. ‘I’ll show you where he lives.’

Shi Chongming was surprised to see me. He opened his door with chilly civility and let me into his office. He clicked on a three-bar heater, pulling it nearer to the low, battered sofa that sat under the window, and filled a teapot from the Thermos on his desk. I watched distantly, thinking how odd – the last time we spoke he had put the phone down on me.

‘Well, now,’ he said, when I was seated. He was looking at me curiously because I had come straight from the temple and my skirt was still wet from the grass. ‘Does this imply we are on speaking terms again?’

I didn’t answer. I pulled off my coat, my gloves and my hat and bunched them all up on my knees.

‘Have you some news? Are you here to tell me that you’ve seen Fuyuki?’

‘No.’

‘Then you’ve remembered something? Something about the glass box you saw?’

‘No.’

‘Is it possible that Fuyuki is preserving something in the box? Because that’s how it sounded when you described it.’

‘Did it?’

‘Yes. Whatever it is that Mr Fuyuki is drinking, he believes it’s saving him from death.’ Shi Chongming swirled the teapot. ‘He’d have to be careful how much he took. Especially if it was dangerous or difficult to replace his supply. From what I suspect, I am sure the tank is how he preserves it.’ He poured the tea, his eyes not leaving my face, studying me for a reaction. ‘Tell me more about the impression you had.’

I shook my head. I was too numb to pretend. I took the cup he gave me and held it tightly, in both hands, looking down through the steaming water at the greyish streak of sediment in the bottom. A long, awkward silence filled the room, until eventually I put down the cup.

‘In China,’ I said, although I knew it wasn’t what he wanted to hear, ‘what happens if someone isn’t buried properly? What happens to their spirit?’

He had been about to sit down with his own cup, but my words stopped him. He checked himself, bent, half in, half out of the chair, digesting my question. When at last he spoke his voice had changed: ‘What an odd thing to ask. What made you think of that?’

‘What happens to their spirit?’

‘What happens to their spirit?’ He sat, taking some time to settle, straightening his tunic, moving his cup back and forward. At length he rubbed his mouth and looked up at me. There was a blush of red round his nostrils. ‘The unburied? In China? Let me see. The simple answer is that we believe a ghost is produced. A mischievous spirit is released to come back and cause trouble. And so we bury our dead carefully. We give them money to pass into the next world. It was . . .’ He cleared his throat, tapping his fingers distractedly. ‘It was what always worried me about Nanking. I was always afraid of the thousands of mischievous spirits left in Nanking.’

I put down the cup and looked at him, my head on one side. He’d never talked about Nanking like this.

‘Yes,’ he said, running his fingers round the rim of his cup. ‘It used to worry me. There wasn’t enough land in Nanking for marked graves. Most people waited months to be buried. Some had already disappeared into the earth or into . . . into one another, before there was a chance to . . .’ He hesitated, looking into his tea, and suddenly he seemed very old. I could see the blue veins under his loose skin. I could sense his bones, waiting under the surface. ‘I saw a small child once,’ he said, in a quiet voice. ‘She’d had some – some flesh removed by the Japanese, here, under her ribs. Everyone thought she was dead, but no one had buried her. She lay there for days, in full view of the houses, but no one came out to bury her. I still don’t understand why they didn’t. In Nanking it was the lucky ones who were left with a body to bury . . .’ He trailed off into silence, watching his fingers moving round the cup.