What could I do? I had to argue: "I could never leave my father-in-law or you."
One cold morning, Japanese soldiers finally flocked onto the grounds. We were in the main hall for Sunday worship, although it was not Sunday. We heard gun sounds, pau-pau. We ran to the door and saw Cook and his wife lying facedown in the dirt, and the chickens squabbling nearby, pecking at a bucket of grain that had tipped over. The big American flag that used to hang over the gateway was now lying on the ground. The girls began to cry, thinking that Cook and his wife were dead. But then we saw Cook move a little, turn his head to the side, carefully looking to see who was around them. Miss Grutoff pushed past us to the front. I think we all wondered if she would order the Japanese soldiers to leave us alone, since she was an American. Instead, she asked us to be quiet. No one moved or talked after that. And then we watched, hands covering our mouths to keep from screaming, as the Japanese soldiers shot down the rest of those hundreds of flags, pau-pau, pau-pau, taking turns, criticizing if anyone missed. When all the flags were in pieces, they began to shoot at the chickens, which flapped and squawked and fell to earth. Finally, they took the dead chickens and left. Cook and his wife stood up, the remaining chickens clucked quietly, and the girls let out the wails they had kept locked inside.
GaoLing said the Japanese would soon come for all of us, so I should not bother to kill myself right away. Why not wait and die together? Less lonely that way.
"We can all go!" GaoLing answered at once.
"No, no, you dont have to keep this old man company," I heard my father-in-law say. "Ive been meaning to tell you that I may marry again. Yes, me. I know what youre thinking. The gods are laughing, and so am I."
Teacher Pan said that he and his new wife would enjoy that very much, a chance to visit another country before their life was over. Sister Yu said she had heard much about dancing in America. She confessed that she had always wanted to learn how to dance. And for the rest of the evening, which was the last time we ever saw them, we took turns guessing and joking. Miss Grutoff would be healed, then come back to China, where she would make more orphan girls act in more bad plays. GaoLing would be rich, having finally found the right fortune-teller, one who could write with four brushes at once. And I would be a famous painter.
"Experienced at what?" he said. "I cant be of much help, Im afraid. Im an old man who cant even read and write unless the words are as large and close as my shaky hands. And it would not be proper for a man to accompany a lady. What if she needs help during the night?"
I tried to argue and Teacher Pan patted my arm. "Give her time. She 11 come to her senses."
When the war ended in 1945, we no longer had to think about secret meanings that could get us in trouble with the Japanese. Firecrackers burst in the streets all day long and this made everyone nervously happy. Overnight the lanes grew crowded with vendors of every delicious kind of thing and fortune-tellers with only the best news. GaoLing thought this was a good day to ask her fortune. So Sister Yu and I went wandering with her.
"Hes dead," GaoLing announced.
Teacher Pan sighed. "At least the war is over and we can see if our friends at the medical school might know of rooms where we can squeeze in."
"You must hurry and get well," I said. "Then we can reopen the school."
Just then Mrs. Riley came back to the room. "Weve agreed," Sister Yu announced. "GaoLing will accompany Miss Grutoff to San Francisco."
"Where are you going?" he asked. We five looked up and I could see an expression of disgust pass over his face. The girls started to scratch their heads. Before I answered, I coughed into a handkerchief, then folded it so he could see the blood-streaked mucus. "We are going to market to sell our eggs," I said. We lifted our sacks. "Would you like some as a gift?" He waved us on.
"What does that mean?" Sister Yu said.
Mrs. Riley then said: "We re going to open a school in Peking once we find a building. But now we need to help Miss Grutoff get well, dont we, Ruth?" And she patted Miss Grutoffs hand.
"But who?" I asked. I could not imagine he had any time to court a woman. He was always at the shop, except when he went on brief errands.
"Wah! The man who sued my family?" GaoLing said.
"It clearly said all hope is lost about his returning home."
And though I had no idea how long it took, I said, "Maybe its even quicker than that." I still thought she was going to agree to wait.
Teacher Pan said I should not leave him for the other world. Otherwise, who would he have left as family to give him comfort in his last days?
The next day, the Japanese returned to take Miss Grutoff to a prisoner-of-war camp. She had known this would happen, and yet she had not tried to escape. "I would never willingly leave my girls," she told us. Her suitcases were already packed, and she was wearing her travel hat with a scarf that wrapped around her neck. Fifty-six weeping girls stood at the gate to say good-bye. "Teacher Pan, dont forget the lessons of the apostles," she called out, just before she boarded the back of the truck. "And please be sure to tell the others so they can pass on the good word." I thought it was a strange farewell. So did the others, until Teacher Pan showed us what she meant.
When we were about a hundred paces down the road, we saw the first soldier. I slowed my pace and took a sip from the thermos. The soldier remained where he was, and stopped us when we reached him.
"The trees, the building, everything has been burned to the ground and scattered." The other foreigner, Mrs. Riley, nodded.
We argued, taking turns at being brave. And to do that, we had to be a little unkind and criticize each other. Teacher Pans eyes were too poor for him to be left alone. Sister Yu was too deaf. GaoLing had bad feet and a fear of ghosts that made her run the wrong way. Plenty was wrong with me, as well, but in the end, I was allowed to go last so I could visit Kai Jings grave as long as possible.
I wanted to ask what had happened to the graves, but I could not speak. I felt as I had that day when I knew Kai Jing had been killed. Thinking about him caused me to try to remember his face. But I saw more clearly the stones under which he lay. How long had I loved him when he was alive? How long had I grieved for him since he had died?
Teacher Pan also turned out to be a very good salesman. He had the manners and writing style of an old scholar, which helped convince customers that the quality of our quick-use ink was excellent, though it was not. To demonstrate it, however, he had to be careful not to write anything that could be interpreted as anti-Japanese or pro-feudal, Christian or Communist. This was not easy to do. Once he decided he should simply write about food. There was no danger in that. So he wrote, "Turnips taste best when pickled," but GaoLing worried that this would be taken either as a slur against the Japanese or as siding with the Japanese, since turnips were like radishes and radishes were what the Japanese liked to eat. So then he wrote, "Father, Mother, Brother, Sister." Sister Yu said that this looked like a listing of those who had died, that this was his way of protesting the occupation. "It could also be a throwback to Confucian principles of family," GaoLing added, "a wish to return to the time of emperors." Everything had dangers, the sun, the stars, the directions of the wind, depending on how many worries we each had. Every number, color, and animal had a bad meaning. Every word sounded like another. Eventually I came up with the best idea for what to write, and it was settled: "Please try our Quick Ink. It is cheap and easy to use."
"No one knows. Theyve disappeared. All the pieces of forty-one ancient people. They were supposed to be taken by train to be loaded on an American boat sailing from Tientsin to Manilla, but the ship was sunk. Some say the boxes were never loaded onto the boat. They say the Japanese stopped the trains. They thought the boxes contained only the possessions of American soldiers, so they threw them on the tracks to let them get smashed by other trains. Now no one knows what to think. Its not good, either way." As I listened, I felt my own bones grow hollow. All of Kai Jings work, his sacrifice, his last trip to the quarry—all was for nothing? I imagined those little pieces of skulls floating among the fish in the harbor, sinking slowly to the bottom, sea eels swimming over them, covering them with sand. I saw other fragments of bones thrown off the train like garbage, the tires of army trucks crushing them until the pieces were no bigger than grains of Gobi sand. I felt as if those bones were Kai Jings.
"Anything," we took turns saying. "Of course well help. We love Miss Grutoff. She is mother and sister to us all. What can we do?" Mrs. Riley then said Miss Grutoff had to return to the United States to see the doctors in San Francisco. But she would need a helper to accompany her to Hong Kong and then across the ocean.
"Ah, see! That means you want to go!" I could not help rubbing it in. But now that everything had been decided, I felt I could safely do this.
"Sister Yu," GaoLing said. "You go, then. Youre smart enough to overcome any obstacle." Another suggestion! GaoLing was desperate to go, to have someone argue that it should be she who went.
"Im not even your real sister," GaoLing said. "You go first. Later, you can sponsor me."
GaoLing hesitated a moment too long before saying, "Yes, thats the best. Its settled, then."
"I know how to use the radio."
Then we knew it was Fu Nan. It was the first time I saw the man who might have been my husband. He was large like his father, with a long, wide nose. GaoLing rose and took his bundle and offered him her seat. She treated him extra politely, like an unwanted guest. "What happened to your fingers?" she asked. Both of his little fingers were missing.
"But I cant leave my sister, any more than she can leave me," GaoLing said.
Sister Yu suggested: "Maybe it means hell return home, then well lose hope."
GaoLing complained: "The whole time Ive been worried sick, and you just play jokes."
If things became dangerous around the orphanage, we were supposed to use the money to take the girls to Peking, four or five at a time. There they could stay with former students and friends of the school. Miss Grutoff had already contacted these people, and they agreed that if the time came, they would willingly help us. We needed only to tell them by the ham radio when we were coming.
Of course, it made me angry beyond belief that the Chang family now owned the ink shop. For all those years since Precious Auntie died, I had not had to think about the coffinmaker too much. Now he was ordering us to sell more ink, sell it faster. This was the man who killed my grandfather and father, who caused Precious Auntie so much pain she ruined her life. But then I reasoned that if a person wants to strike back, she must be close to the person who must be struck down. I decided to live in the ink shop because it was practical. In the meantime, I thought of ways to get revenge.
Counting four older students who had stayed on through the war, we had twelve chaperones. We radioed Miss Grutoffs friends in Peking, who said the city was occupied, and although the situation was calm, we should wait to hear from them. The trains did not always run, and it would not be good for us to be stuck for days waiting at different cities along the way. Teacher Pan determined the order in which the groups would leave: first that led by Mother Wang, who could tell us how the journey went, then those of the four older girls, then those of Cooks wife, Teacher Wang, Cook, GaoLing, me, Sister Yu, and last, Teacher Pan.
Three days later, just before we left for Hong Kong, we had a little party. "Theres no need for tears and good-byes," I said. "Once were settled in the new country, well invite you all to come visit."
"Im going to sleep now," he said, "and when I wake up, I dont want to see that woman with the hunchback. The way she looks makes me nervous." He waved one hand to dismiss any further protests. He left, and soon we smelled the smoke of his opium clouds. GaoLing began to curse.
But it was Sister Yu who gave me the reason to stay alive and suffer on earth. Kai Jing, she said, had gone to the Christian heaven, and if I did suicide, I would be forbidden by God to go see him. To me, the Christian heaven was like America, a land that was far away, filled with foreigners, and ruled by their laws. Suicide was not allowed.
"Cant be," GaoLing said, but I could see a crack of doubt running down her forehead.
"And me," said Sister Yu and GaoLing.
After Miss Towlers death, Miss Grutoff began to make American flags. I think she made those flags for the same reason I made oracle bones for Kai Jings grave. She was saving some memory, afraid of forgetting. Every day she would sew a star or a stripe. She would dye scraps of cloth red or blue. She had the girls in the school make flags, as well. Soon there were fifty flags waving along the outside wall of the old monastery building, then a hundred, two hundred. If a person did not know this was an orphanage for Chinese girls, he would think many, many Americans were inside having a patriotic party.
"Then LuLing should go," GaoLing said.
When we arrived in Peking, I saw from the train window that Gao-Ling was there to meet us. She squinted to make sure it was I getting off the train. Slowly she approached, her lips spread in horror. "What happened to you?" she asked. I coughed blood one last time into my handkerchief. "Ai-ya!" she cried, and jumped back. I showed her my thermos of "Japanese chase-away juice." And then I began to laugh and couldnt stop. I was crazy-happy, delirious with relief.
"Why do you say that?" I asked. "The message could also mean hes not dead."
The next afternoon, we were sitting in the courtyard of the shop, enjoying a new sense of ease, when we heard a voice call out, "Hey, I thought you were dead." A man was looking at GaoLing. He wore a soldiers uniform.
"What do you mean?" I said, trying to be bighearted. "I cant leave my own sister."
Miss Grutoff asked everyone to return to the main hall. There she informed us in a shaky voice what she had learned on the ham and shortwave radios several days before: Japan had attacked the United States, and the Americans had declared war on Japan. "With America on our side, now China will be able to win the war more quickly," she said, and she led us to join her in clapping. To please her, we smiled to pretend we believed this good news. Later that night, when the girls had gone to their rooms, Miss Grutoff told the teachers and the cook and his wife what else she had heard from her friends at Peking Union Medical College.
He took us to the main hall, to the statue of an apostle. He twisted off its hand. Inside was a hole that he and Miss Grutoff had carved out, where they had hidden silver, gold, and a list of names of former students in Peking. For the past month he and Miss Grutoff had been doing this, late at night. Each apostle had only part of her personal savings, so if the Japanese found money in one, as heathens they might not know which of hundreds of statues to search to find the rest.
We gasped.
"You sold the shop? You had no right! You cant make my family work for someone else. And the debt—why is it now even bigger? What did you do, gamble the money away, eat it, smoke it, which one?"
I was too stunned to say anything. That night, I went over in my head how I had lost my chance. I was angry that GaoLing had tricked me. Then I had sisterly feelings and was glad she was going so she could get away from Fu Nan. Back and forth I went, between these two feelings. Before I fell asleep, I decided this was fate. Now whatever happened, that was my New Destiny.
About three months after Miss Grutoff left us, Teacher Pan decided it was time for us to go. The Japanese had become angry that the Communists were hiding in the hills. They wanted to draw them out by slaughtering people in the nearby villages. Sister Yu also told GaoLing and me that the Japanese were doing unspeakable acts with innocent girls, some as young as eleven or twelve. That was what had happened in Tientsin, Tungchow, and Nanking. "Those girls they didnt kill afterward tried to kill themselves," she added. So we knew what she was saying just by using the frightened parts of our imaginations.
Miss Grutoff shook her head. "The old monastery is gone. Destroyed. One of the other missionaries told me."
How could she say this after all she had told me about her husband? "Youd stay with that demon?" I exclaimed.
"The books were fake," I reminded her. "The man lost the lawsuit, remember?" And then we remembered our manners and congratulated Teacher Pan by asking if she was a good cook, if she had a pleasant face, a kind voice, a family that was not too much trouble. I was happy for him but also glad that I no longer had to argue that I could not go to America.
"Well, its clear to me LuLing should be the one to go to America with Miss Grutoff," Sister Yu said. "Teacher Pan will soon be bossed around by a new wife, so LuLing has less need to stay."
"Dont argue," I told her, "Im older than you. You go first, then Ill go to Hong Kong in a month or so and wait for the sponsorship papers to come through."
Teacher Pan assigned each of us—teachers, helpers, and four older students—to an apostle for our share of the refugee money. And from the day that Miss Grutoff left, Teacher Pan had us practice and memorize which apostle was which and where the wood had been dug out of its body. I thought it was enough that we recognized which was our own statue, but Sister Yu said, "We should say all the names out loud. Then the apostles will protect our savings better." I had to say those names so many times they are still in my head: Pida, Pa, Matu, Yuhan, Jiama yi, Jiama er, Andaru, Filipa, Tomasa, Shaimin, Tadayisu, and Budalomu. The traitor, Judasa, did not have a statue.
Two of the little girls at the school had had malaria and died. But I did not tell Miss Grutoff. There would be plenty of time for bad news later.
Miss Grutoff said the children needed me to be an inspiration of what an orphan girl could become. If they knew I had given up hope, then what hope could they have?
He sneered. "I live here. This is my house."
We toasted one another. Soon, maybe in a year or less, Sister Yu and Teacher Pan with his new wife would sail to America for a holiday. Gao-Ling and I would come to the harbor in San Francisco and wait for them in our new automobile, a shiny black one with many comfortable seats and an American driver. Before we drove them to our mansion on top of a hill, we would stop at a ballroom. And to celebrate our reunion, we all agreed, we would dance and dance and dance.
"Shes my good friend."
On the fourth day of our being alone, we heard the message on the radio: "Come quickly. The trains are running." I went to tell the girls, and then I saw that a miracle had happened, but whether this came from the Western God or the Chinese ones, I dont know. I was simply thankful that all four girls had swollen eyes, green pus coming out of the corners. They had an eye infection, nothing serious, but it was awful to see. No one would want to touch them. As for myself, I thought quickly and had an idea. I took some of the leftovers of the rice porridge we had eaten that morning, and drained off the watery portion and smeared this liquid onto my skin, my cheeks, forehead, neck, and hands, so that when it dried I had the leathery, cracked appearance of an old country woman. I put some more of the sticky rice water into a thermos and to that I added chicken blood. I told the girls to gather all the chicken eggs left in the pens, even the rotten ones, and put them in sacks. Now we were ready to walk down the hill to the railway station.
Then I heard GaoLing say, "Teacher Pan should go. Hes the oldest, the most experienced." She had jumped in with the first suggestion, so I knew she wanted to go, as well.
"I didnt say that," GaoLing said. "I meant only if things change and later I need to come."
When we were a short distance away, I took another sip of the rice water and chicken blood to hold in my mouth. Twice more we were stopped, twice more I coughed up what looked like the bloody sputum of a woman with tuberculosis. The girls stared with their green oozing eyes.
When she left the room, we looked at one another, uncertain how to begin the discussion of who should be the one to help Miss Grutoff. America? Miss Grutoff did not ask this only as a favor. We all knew she was also offering a great opportunity. A visa to America. But only one of us could take it. I thought about this. In my heart, America was the Christian heaven. It was where Kai Jing had gone, where he was waiting for me. I knew this was not actually true, but there was a hope that I could find happiness that had stayed hidden from me. I could leave the old curse, my bad background.
Sister Yu left that afternoon for the medical school, but soon she returned. "Miss Grutoff is back," she told us, "released from the war camp. But she is very, very sick." The four of us immediately left for the house of another foreigner, named Mrs. Riley. When we went in, I saw how thin Miss Grutoff had become. We used to joke that foreign women had big udders because of the cows milk they drank. But now Miss Grutoff looked drained. And her color was poor. She insisted on standing up to greet us, and we insisted she sit and not bother to be polite with old friends. Loose skin hung from her face and arms. Her once red hair was gray and thin. "How are you?" we asked.
I put those oracle bones at Kai Jings grave. "Kai Jing," I said each time I placed them there. "Do you miss me?" And after a long silence, I told him what had happened that day: who was sick, who was smart, how we had no more medicine, how it was too bad he wasnt there to teach the girls more about geology. One day I had to tell him that Miss Towler had not awakened in the morning and soon she would be lying next to him. "She went gently to God," Miss Grutoff had said at breakfast, and she acted glad that it was this way. But then she clamped her mouth shut and two deep lines grew down the sides, so I knew she was pitifully sad. To Miss Grutoff, Miss Towler had been mother, sister, and oldest friend.
"You can teach me just as easily."
He seemed confused at first, then laughed. "Im a damn war hero," he said. He glanced at us. "Who are they?" GaoLing gave our names and said what each of us did to run the business. Fu Nan nodded, then gestured toward Sister Yu and said, "We dont need that one anymore. Ill manage the money from now on."
"Destroyed?" Teacher Pan asked.
"Would one of you be willing to go with me? I think we can arrange for a visa."
The fortune-teller GaoLing chose could write three different words at one time with three different brushes held in one hand. The first brush he put between the tip of his thumb and one finger. The second rested in the web of his thumb. The third was pinched at the bend of his wrist. "Is my husband dead?" GaoLing asked him. We were all surprised by her bluntness. We held our breath as the three characters formed at once: "Return Lose Hope."
So I stayed and waited for the Japanese to come back and get me. I visited Teacher Pan and brought him good things to eat. And every afternoon, I walked outside the school to the part of the hillside with many little piles of rocks. That was where the missionaries buried the babies and girls who had died over the years. That was where Kai Jing lay as well. In our room, I found a few dragon bones he had dug up in the last few months. They were nothing too valuable, just those of old animals. I picked up one and with a thick needle carved words into it to make an oracle bone like the one Precious Auntie had given me. I wrote: "You are beauty, we are beauty, we are divine, unchanged by time." When I finished one, I began another, unable to stop. Those were the words I wanted to remember. Those were the morsels of grief I ate.
"Why are you here?" GaoLing said as she rose from the bench.
"The bones of Peking Man are lost."
GaoLing was supposed to argue that she should be the one to wait in Hong Kong. But instead she asked, "Is that how long it takes to sponsor another person? Only one month?"
And now I can confess how scared I was those last few days. I was responsible for four girls: six years, eight, nine, and twelve. And while it was still comforting to think about killing myself, it made me nervous to wait to be killed. As each group of girls left, the orphanage seemed to grow larger and the remaining footsteps louder. I was afraid the Japanese soldiers would come and find the ham radio, then accuse me of being a spy and torture me. I rubbed dirt on the girls faces and told them that if the Japanese came, they should scratch their heads and skin, pretending to have lice. Almost every hour, I prayed to Jesus and Buddha, whoever was listening. I lighted incense in front of Precious Aunties photo, I went to Kai Jings grave and was honest with him about my fears. "Where is my character?" I asked him. "You said I was strong. Where is that strength now?"
"If people dont trample me first," Sister Yu said. "Dont be ridiculous. Besides, I dont want to leave China. To be frank, while I have Christian love for Miss Grutoff and our foreign friends, I dont care to be around other Americans. Civil war or not, Id rather stay in China."
"For another small offering," the fortune-teller answered, "the heavens will allow me to explain." But GaoLing said she was satisfied with this answer, and we went on our way.
Luckily, the Chang father did not bother us too much about the business. The ink was selling much, much better than before we came. That was because we used our heads. We saw that not too many people had a use for inksticks and ink cakes anymore. It was wartime. Who had the leisure and calm to sit around and grind ink on an inkstone, meditating over what to write? We also noted that the Chang family had lowered the quality of the ingredients, so the sticks and cakes crumbled more easily. Teacher Pan was the one who suggested we make quick-use ink. We ground up the cheap ink, mixed it with water, and put it in small jars that we bought for almost nothing at a medicine shop that was going out of business.
"This is our familys ink shop. Im not walking away from it. The war is over, and now Im ready to fight back."
"Im not going," GaoLing said.
"Who says?" He glared at GaoLing, and when she did not look away, he said, "Oh, still the fierce little viper. Well, you can argue with the new owner of this shop from now on. He arrives tomorrow." He threw down a document covered with the red marks of name seals. GaoLing snatched it.
"Why should you be last?" I asked him.
"She lives next door to us, the longtime widow of the man who ran the bookshop."
"Why dont you go first, and later you can sponsor me? If you stay, that husband of yours will put you under his thumb and grind you to pieces." I was really being generous.
We settled the girls in homes with former students. And over the next few years, some married, some died, some came to visit us as their honorary parents. GaoLing and I lived in the back rooms of the old ink shop in the Pottery-Glazing District. We had Teacher Pan and Sister Yu join us. As for GaoLings husband, we all hoped he was dead.
"Not bad," she said, cheerful and smiling. "As you can see, Im alive. The Japanese couldnt starve me to death, but the mosquitoes almost had their way with me. Malaria."
Miss Grutoff became embarrassed. I could see this. "I wouldnt want to trouble more than one of you," she said. "One is enough, I think." And then she sighed and said she was exhausted. She needed to lie down.
We suspected that many of the university students who bought our ink were Communist revolutionaries making propaganda posters that would appear on walls in the middle of the night. "Resist Together," the posters said. Sister Yu managed the accounts, and she was not too strict when some of the poorer students did not have enough money to pay for the ink. "Pay what you can," she told them. "A student should always have enough ink for his studies." Sister Yu also made sure we kept some money for ourselves without the Chang fathers noticing that anything was missing.
"That fast," GaoLing marveled. "Well, if its that quick, I might as well go first, but only so I can leave that demon of a husband right away."
