The Distant Land of My Father (13 page)

The translator nodded and spoke to his superior, who stared hard at my father. Then he nodded, and my father opened his grip and took out a huge black book that he always carried with him on business, the
Directory of Businessmen in the Orient.
He held the directory out to the translator, who handed it to his superior. My father’s hand tightened around mine.

Finally the superior said something that caused the soldiers to laugh. My father’s hand relaxed slightly, and for a moment, I thought I must have misunderstood, because everything suddenly seemed all right. The gendarme reached down and picked up my father’s grip and held it out to him as though returning it, and my father moved to take it. But before he could, the gendarme turned it upside down, emptying it and letting my father’s possessions clatter to the concrete floor. The camera hit with a sharp crack, and the Japanese laughed harder and stared at us as though we were in on the joke.

My father stood rigidly next to me and held my hand so tightly that it hurt, but I was too afraid to tell him. The Japanese laughed for another moment, and the superior said something to the translator, who laughed, then looked at my father and said,
“Shihku,”
accident, and shrugged in mock apology. They turned as though ready to leave, but then the superior turned back and said something and pointed to the camera. The translator picked it up and handed it to him, and he laughed again.

And then they were gone.

My father remained silent, not moving for perhaps a minute. I was freezing. My teeth chattered and I could feel the flat coldness of the concrete floor through my shoes. My thick tights seemed no better than thin cotton socks, and my nose was starting to run. Finally my father knelt on the floor and began picking up his things and putting them back into his grip—papers, folders, a monogrammed linen handkerchief, his black leather gloves. And the boar-bristle brush that my mother had given him years ago, which he always kept with him.

When he had finished, he stood and took my hand. I could feel myself shaking, partly from the cold, but more from fear, and though I tried to stop, I couldn’t.

He looked down at me, then knelt and smoothed my hair from my forehead. “What’s this?” he asked, his voice worried. “Are you cold?”

I nodded and felt my eyes fill with tears.

“And you’re afraid?”

I nodded again.

“Now look,” he said, and the sudden sternness in his voice frightened me more, but when he continued, his voice was gentle. “You don’t have anything to be afraid of,” he said. “Don’t you know that, Anna? Don’t you know you’re safe with me? I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

I took a breath and looked at him and was startled at the fierceness in his blue eyes. I nodded and whispered, “I know.”

He pulled me to him and carried me toward the door, holding me tightly. Mei Wah was waiting for us outside. My father put me down and said nothing as we walked to the car, but when we were perhaps twenty feet away, he squeezed my hand and glanced at me. Then he stopped. He knelt next to me and said, “Can you keep a secret?”

I nodded.

“Do you know what they were looking for, those gendarmes?”

I shook my head.

“They were looking for yen,” he whispered, “but they didn’t find it, did they, Anna?”

“No,” I whispered, as though I were in on it.

“They thought they had us, but it’s right here, you see?” He tapped his chest over his heart, then he took my hand and held it to his chest. “You see?”

I felt the smooth coolness of his pressed shirt. And something sturdier and harder than flesh underneath. I looked at him and he smiled. When he unbuttoned his shirt and held it open, I saw the dark black canvas of the money belt from his office.

“We tricked them, all right. They don’t own me. Nobody owns Joseph Schoene.” He stood and flung open the car door, whistling again, as though we had reason to be jubilant.

My father told Mei Wah to let us out on the Bund side of the Garden Bridge and to pick us up in an hour. The walk would do us good, he said, and he added that we could buy something sweet. I was still cold, but I didn’t argue. My father stopped at the first street vendor we reached and bought a sack of twenty
li sing dong,
lotus seeds, that were as fat and round as grapes, fried and coated in sugar. They didn’t make me warmer, but they made me happy as we walked.

Liu & Company—a stationers that I just called “the paper store”—was near my father’s office on Szechuan Road, and it fascinated me. I’d never tried explaining that fascination to my mother; it was far too practical for her. I had told only my father and Chu Shih about it, and from time to time, my father indulged me and let me wander in its small, crowded aisles. As my father and I neared it that day, a new worry presented itself: what if the store wasn’t there anymore? Storefront after storefront had simply been boarded up with plywood, and we hadn’t been there since before the battle. What if it was gone?

We turned onto Peking Road, and when we turned onto Museum Road a block later, I spotted Liu’s crimson banner, the wind making it dance as if in greeting. The door opened as someone entered, reassuring me. I looked up at my father and whispered, “Look. It’s still here.”

“Of course it is,” he said. He looked at me as though I’d been worried for nothing. He held the door for me, and I entered slowly, trying to savor the treat.

The smell was the first thing you noticed, the clean smell of paper and the promising scent of new pencils. Shelves lined every wall, from the counters, which were just about eye-level for me, to the ceiling, and every one was crammed with supplies. Stacks and stacks of exercise books, their pages filled with double lines or single lines, or with small neat squares for arithmetic. Pads in all sizes, with sheets of pale yellow, light blue, soft white. The counter along the back wall was filled with pencils, more pencils and more kinds of pencils than I had ever imagined. Pencils of all colors, in boxes, sharpened if you wanted. Pencils with lead so fine you could barely see the mark they made, and fat pencils with thick lead, the kind I used at school to practice the alphabet. Next to the pencils were pens, some with slots for metal nibs, pointed ones for fine, scratchy writing like my teacher’s, stubby ones for thick and bold printing like my father’s. The shelf above the pens held bottles of ink, blue and red and green, and thick black India ink for drawing.

My father told me I could choose three things, and I was immediately apprehensive, overwhelmed with the task—there was so much! But soon I saw him standing at the window, gazing out at the street and jingling the change in his pocket. He was growing restless. I took a packet of pale blue letter writing paper with matching envelopes, a dark blue-colored pencil, and an Art Gum eraser, and I felt that the possibilities of what I could do with those things were endless.

Outside the air felt even colder. I told myself that we didn’t have far to walk to meet Mei Wah. I held my hands inside my coat sleeves and crossed my arms in front, holding my bag to my chest. My father glanced at his watch, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and began to walk more quickly. The thought that even he was feeling the cold alarmed me; I wondered if people ever just froze on city streets, ending up the way we looked when we played statues in the school yard.

When we turned the corner and the bridge was in sight, he glanced at his watch again and said, “Right on time, you see? Mei Wah will be waiting for us and we’ll be home in no time.”

As we neared the bridge, there seemed to be some commotion. When we got closer, we found a small crowd had gathered, and we heard sharp Japanese from the sentry. When we reached the edge of the crowd, my father pushed me past English and European men in overcoats and Chinese in long blue gowns lined with red fox. We had no reason to cross the bridge; I guessed he just wanted to see what was going on.

The whole place smelled of Soochow Creek, close and cold and stale, and I started to ask if we couldn’t just please find Mei Wah and go home. But then I heard something familiar, and when I heard it again, I realized it was Chu Shih’s voice, and I thought how good it would be to see him and show him what I’d bought. I heard his voice again—it was low and very guttural and easy to identify—and I started to call out to him. Then the man in front of me moved away slightly, and what I saw took my words away.

Chu Shih was standing on the bridge. He wore his thick black cotton trousers and a padded blue Chinese jacket with his white apron underneath, as though he’d left home in a hurry. Next to him was a Chinese man I’d never seen before, a refugee. His clothes were rags whose original shape and color you couldn’t even guess at, and everything about him seemed lost.

The Japanese sentry faced Chu Shih and the refugee, his legs slightly apart. He was shouting angrily, and gesturing at them to do something. Then he moved toward Chu Shih and slapped him, hard, though he had to reach up to do so. I caught my breath and felt so stunned that it was as though it was my cheek he’d slapped.

The sentry pointed at the refugee and yelled again. His gestures made it clear that he was ordering Chu Shih to slap the refugee. Chu Shih wiped blood from his lip and shook his head firmly. The sentry communicated his order again, but Chu Shih still refused. The sentry began to slap the refugee hard, over and over again, until finally the man cried out in pain, put his hand to his ear, and fell to the ground. The sentry turned back to Chu Shih. He barked something at him and raised his arm as though to strike him. I saw Chu Shih brace himself.

Someone pushed past me, and I saw my father striding toward the sentry. He walked up to Chu Shih and stood next to him. His expression was pained as he looked up at Chu Shih and spoke softly to him. Then he began to speak to the sentry. I heard the word cook,
ch’uishihyüen.
The sentry glared at my father as he spoke, but my father just kept talking, although the sentry didn’t seem to understand. He only sputtered back, furious. My father ignored him and bowed, a movement so slight it would have been easy to miss. From his pocket, he took the pass he’d shown the guards earlier and handed it to the sentry. The sentry looked at it for a long moment before finally nodding to my father.

My father turned and looked for me in the crowd, and when he saw me, he said, “Come on, Anna,” his voice so calm you would have thought he was calling me to lunch. I walked to him and took his hand, and he said only,
“Lai,”
come, and led Chu Shih off the bridge.

The Packard was waiting for us at the street. My father opened the back door and motioned for Chu Shih to get inside. Chu Shih rarely rode in the car, and he hesitated. My father said gently, “Go on, get in, we’re all right now,” and Chu Shih lowered himself into the car’s backseat. My father told me to sit next to Chu Shih, and he got in the front with Mei Wah.

Chu Shih was still breathing hard, the sound like something forced. I did not let myself look at him, not because of the blood and the swelling I knew I would see, but because of his shame, which seemed to emanate from him like heat.

In the car, Mei Wah explained that he had gone home while we were at Liu’s, and my mother had sent Chu Shih along with him to watch for us, a request that didn’t make sense. My father shook his head and rubbed his chin, a nervous gesture of his. He said to me in a low voice, “She didn’t know you were going with me this morning. She must have worried,” and Mei Wah shot him that cross look again.

Chu Shih said that the sentry had thought him insolent, that he was mocking the sentry, and that he needed to learn respect. He said he had done nothing to make the sentry think that. The refugee standing next to him had bowed, but apparently not to the sentry’s satisfaction. So the sentry had called the two of them over and had ordered Chu Shih to beat the refugee. His refusal had sent the sentry into a rage.

When Chu Shih finished speaking, the car was silent, except for the sound of his labored breathing. I stared hard at my hands. His story didn’t make any sense to me, but I said nothing. I wanted only for the ride and the horrible day to be over. I did the only thing that I could think of that would help. I took Chu Shih’s huge hand and held it between my small hands. He closed his fingers around my hand and nodded, and our conversation was over.