The Flowers of War Page 5

  When Fabio graduated from the Nanking Seminary, Father Engelmann, who did some teaching there, applied for a scholarship for his protégé so that he could continue his studies in America for a further three years. In America Fabio managed to trace his entire American family, young and old. But being with them made him so anxious, he began to itch and scratch his head frantically. He realised that he could not be an American either. The friendly chit-chat with his American relatives was just a front. The real Fabio retreated into the recesses of his heart and counted the seconds until this momentous reunion with his blood relatives could come to an end.

  Fabio walked across the lawn to the rectory. When he reached Father Engelmann’s door, he knocked lightly.

  ‘Come in.’

  Father Engelmann and Fabio were on good terms, the same good terms that they had been on since they first met, neither more intimate nor more distant. That was the kind of person Father Engelmann was. If he was your neighbour, he would greet you genially the first time with a ‘How good to meet you!’ And when you had been neighbours for decades, he would still greet you with the same ‘How good to meet you!’ He was able to freeze-frame familiarity so that it neither matured nor died.

  ‘Is something the matter, Fabio?’ he said now. He did not ask Fabio to sit down with his usual civility.

  The priest was hunched over his short-wave radio listening to overseas broadcasts on the situation in Nanking. He glanced round at Fabio, then turned back to his radio. Fabio was silent and listened with him to the crackly broadcast. He realised it was not the moment to talk to the priest about something as trivial as women fighting over food.

  He glanced at the pale rectangular and oval marks of varying sizes on the faded walls where framed pictures had once hung. When the air raids first started, Father Engelmann had made Ah Gu take the pictures down and store them in the cellar, in case the glass shattered during a raid. Fabio remembered each of the pictures even in their absence, because Father Engelmann had not changed or moved them around in decades. The vertical oval outline, the largest, was a portrait photo of his mother, taken from a tiny photo on the back of a pocket watch his father had left him, and enlarged and touched up to such an extent that it was as much a product of science as of art. Below it on the left, the rectangular shape marked where a full-length graduation photo had hung, the only evidence of Father Engelmann ever having been young. On the bottom right, the horizontal oval was where the picture of Father Engelmann with His Holiness Pope Pius XI used to hang.

  ‘It seems it’s true,’ Father Engelmann muttered. ‘They’ve secretly executed Chinese soldiers. The shots I heard came from the execution ground by the river. Even the Japanese reporters and the Germans were shocked.’

  The gunfire had made Father Engelmann wonder whether Chinese troops were still resisting. He had been told by officials in the Safety Zone that any troops who had not had time to retreat had been taken prisoner. But the gunfire he had heard and the news from the wireless seemed to contradict this.

  ‘Are the Japanese really flouting international rules on the treatment of prisoners of war?’ he said to Fabio. ‘That’s an affront to all civilised, humane values. Can you believe it? Are these really the same Japanese people I know?’

  ‘We need to find a way to get food and water. Otherwise, by tomorrow there won’t be any drinking water,’ said Fabio.

  Father Engelmann understood what Fabio was getting at: there was absolutely no sign that, within the hoped-for few days, the invading forces would stop the butchery, take control of the vanquished city and impose law and order. Moreover, the killing had become a habit, and the prospect of it stopping seemed remote. There was something else Fabio was getting at: very soon, they would all suffer the consequences of Father Engelmann’s generosity in taking in the prostitutes and allowing them to deprive the schoolgirls of their food.

  ‘I’ll go to the Safety Zone tomorrow and get hold of some food—potatoes, yams or whatever. If that can keep us going for another two days, at least the children won’t starve,’ Engelmann said.

  ‘And what about after that?’ asked Fabio. ‘And what about water?’

  ‘We have to take it hour by hour now! Getting through another hour is another hour of life!’

  Fabio felt furious. Father Engelmann repeatedly criticised him for passive aggression, telling him that disagreements should be thrashed out openly and confrontation should be direct. That was the way almost all Americans behaved. Fabio’s passive aggression was a Chinese trait, one which he, Father Engelmann, deplored.

  Now he looked at Fabio and asked, ‘With regard to water, have you any constructive suggestions to make?’

  ‘Zhao Yumo said that when they came here, they passed a pond on the way. I know Nanking pretty well, and I don’t remember one nearby, but she said she saw it. I thought I’d ask Ah Gu to go and look for it before it gets light.’

  ‘That’s a very good idea of yours. You see, we’ve already found a way around the problem.’ And Father Engelmann rewarded Fabio with a warm smile, very different from his usual polite, cold smiles.

  Fabio felt a rush of emotion. After all these years with Father Engelmann, he had now, in the space of ten minutes, been on the receiving end of real anger and a genuine smile from him. Perhaps it signalled that the distance Father Engelmann had been so careful to maintain over all this time just might be breaking down.

  ‘Tell the children to go to the church,’ said Father Engelmann.

  ‘But they’ll surely be asleep,’ said Fabio.

  ‘Go and tell them, please.’

  Seven

  The girls had gone to bed but fumbled for their clothes when they heard Fabio’s shout and came down from the attic. They entered the church to see Fabio seated at the organ and Father Engelmann standing dressed in his funeral cassock. They felt something must be badly amiss and clutched each other’s ice-cold hands for comfort. In an instant all the petty animosities and daily rivalries between them dissolved and they became a collective, a family.

  The organist had gone, having left Nanking along with the other teachers, which was why Fabio was now playing. He had studied music for a year in the seminary and so knew the rudiments. It was an upright organ, normally used for teaching the girls to sing, and was now muffled in an old carpet which made the music sound nasal as if it had caught cold.

  Someone must have died, thought Shujuan, and the organ had been wrapped up to keep the funeral hymns as quiet as possible. Or perhaps Father Engelmann knew what they had done to Cardamon and was about to make them repent. But Cardamom had deserved it. Surely he would understand that, and take their side.

  The entire nave was lit with only three candles and all the windows were covered in blackout curtains, of the kind which covered all the windows of every building in Nanking now that there were air raids.

  The organ growled and the girls sang the requiem in whispers. They did not know who the requiem was for, or who they had lost, but perhaps for that very reason they had the confused feeling that they were facing a vast infinity of loss: Nanking and south China; the right to be a free people; and something else besides.

  Father Engelmann led them in prayer.

  Shujuan looked at Father Engelmann standing in front of the figure of Christ. His shadow fell on the painted statue hanging from its cross, and his living face took on some of its ecstasy.

  ‘Children, I did not want to alarm you but now I must prepare you for a greatly worsened situation,’ the priest began. Then he quietly outlined for them in simple terms what the wireless broadcasts had said. ‘If these reports, that hundreds and thousands of prisoners of war have been executed, are true then I believe that we must have returned to the Middle Ages. As Chinese, you will know that the Qin dynasty buried four hundred thousand Zhao kingdom prisoners of war alive. We do not seem to have advanced much since then.’ Father Engelmann stopped speaking. His Chinese had become increasingly awkward and his words harder to understand.

  *
* *

  That night, Shujuan and Xiaoyu lay side by side. Xiaoyu sobbed and sobbed and, when Shujuan asked her what the matter was, said that her father was a powerful man who could fix anything, yet he had left her to starve in this freezing hellhole.

  ‘Well, my parents are in America, tucking into bacon and eggs and coffee,’ said Shujuan.

  Suddenly Xiaoyu shook her friend’s arm hard and said, ‘When my father comes to get me, I’ll take you with me.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll come and get you?’

  ‘Of course he will!’ Xiaoyu seemed offended that Shujuan should be doubting her wealthy, all-powerful father.

  ‘I hope he comes tomorrow,’ said Shujuan, her eager anticipation of Xiaoyu’s father as great as her friend’s. What a wonderful thing to be Xiaoyu’s best friend now, to bathe in the light which shone from her, to flee blockaded Nanking.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ asked Xiaoyu.

  ‘Wherever you’re going.’

  ‘Let’s go to Shanghai. They won’t attack the British, French and American concessions. Shanghai would be good, better than Hankou. Hankou would be death. It’s all Chinese there.’

  ‘Good. Shanghai it is then.’ Shujuan did not dare contradict Xiaoyu. It was slightly degrading to have to depend on Xiaoyu in this way; still, it was only for now. She had all her life ahead of her in which to rebuild her self-esteem.

  There was a faint ring of the doorbell. In seconds, all the girls were sitting upright and then clustered around the windows. They saw Ah Gu and Fabio race out of the door beneath their windows. Ah Gu, a lantern in his hand, was there first. Fabio caught up and gestured fiercely at Ah Gu that he should extinguish the light. But it was too late. The light had already filtered through the crack in the door to the outside.

  ‘Please, sirs, open the door, I’m a gravedigger … This soldier is still alive…’

  ‘Please go away,’ Fabio said laboriously in awkward Chinese. ‘This is an American church. We don’t get involved in fighting between Chinese and Japanese soldiers.’

  ‘Please, sir, save me!’ came another voice. It sounded very weak, as if the man was seriously wounded.

  ‘Please go away. I’m very sorry.’

  The gravedigger raised his voice. ‘The Japanese will be back any moment now! Then he’ll be dead and so will I! Please show mercy to us. I’m a Christian too!’

  ‘Please take him to the Safety Zone,’ said Fabio.

  ‘The Japs go to the Safety Zone dozens of times every day to pick up Chinese soldiers and the wounded! Please, I beg you!’

  ‘I’m very sorry. It’s quite impossible. Please don’t force me to compromise the neutrality of this church.’

  Gunshots were heard from somewhere nearby.

  The gravedigger refused to give up. ‘Merciful priests, I beg you!’ Then his footsteps were heard receding into the distance. He had clearly left the wounded soldier behind.

  Fabio did not know what to do. He could not let the Chinese soldier outside bleed to death, but neither could he put the nearly forty souls inside at risk.

  At that moment, Father Engelmann suddenly emerged out of the darkness, still wearing his funeral cassock.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he asked Fabio and Ah Gu.

  ‘There’s a seriously wounded soldier outside,’ said Fabio. ‘Should we bring him in?’

  For the first time since he had met Father Engelmann, Fabio sensed that the priest had no idea what to do.

  ‘Please, I beg you!’ The wounded man outside spoke through clenched teeth.

  ‘We have to open up,’ said Fabio in English. ‘If he dies outside our door, we’ll be compromised.’

  Engelmann looked at his junior. He knew Fabio was right, but he dared not contemplate the prospect of losing the church’s neutrality, and thus losing their ability to protect the schoolgirls. ‘We can’t,’ he said. ‘But we could get Ah Gu to take him away and leave him in some other place.’

  ‘That would be sending him to his death!’ exclaimed Ah Gu.

  Outside the door, the wounded man gave a groan which sounded scarcely human.

  From where Shujuan stood at the window the two clergymen in their black robes and Ah Gu looked like three figures on a chessboard. She watched Father Engelmann take the key from Ah Gu and undo the sturdy German-made lock. He pushed the bolts to one side and pulled the chain free. The door opened heavily and the girls gave a sigh of relief.

  But then, even faster and more firmly than he had opened it, Father Engelmann shut the door again before anyone outside could get in. He attempted to lock up again, but his movements were clumsy. Fabio asked him what was going on. Engelmann said nothing and concentrated instead on locking and bolting the door.

  ‘There’s not one but two outside. Two wounded Chinese soldiers!’ he said in aggrieved tones.

  There was another shout from the gravedigger. ‘The Japs are coming! On horses!’

  It was clear that he had only pretended to go away. He had correctly gambled on the assumption that the foreign monks would not leave a lone wounded man to bleed to death. Father Engelmann had fallen into the trap, and opened the door. The gravedigger had said there was only one casualty because he feared that the church would not take in more than one.

  ‘I really can hear horses!’ said Ah Gu.

  Even Shujuan knew that if a Japanese soldier on horseback were to turn into the alleyway outside the church, then that would be the end of them all, both inside and outside.

  ‘Why did you lie to me? There’s clearly more than one casualty!’ shouted Father Engelmann. ‘You Chinese do nothing but tell lies, even at a time like this!’

  ‘Father, we’re saving lives. What does it matter if it’s one or one hundred?’ said Fabio. This was the first time he had directly confronted his mentor.

  ‘You shut up,’ said Father Engelmann.

  The men outside did not understand the foreigners’ conversation but they knew it had to do with whether they lived or died. The gravedigger became frantic and shouted, ‘The horses are coming this way!’

  Father Engelmann walked back the way he had come, the key in his hand. He had only gone half a dozen paces when a dark figure swiftly blocked his way. It appeared to be that of a soldier.

  Sophie, who was standing next to Shujuan, gave a yelp like a puppy. The war had arrived here and their compound was going to be a battlefield.

  The intruder closed in on Father Engelmann. ‘Open up!’ he ordered. The conflagration from a distant building seemed to have set the sky on fire, and the light from it flickered across the courtyard. The girls could see that the soldier was holding a pistol to Father Engelmann’s chest, no doubt making the priest’s heart thump under his black cassock. If the soldier were even a little sensitive, Shujuan thought, he must surely be aware of that thudding heart.

  Fabio took the key from Father Engelmann’s hand and opened the door. In came a little group of people, one of whom lay covered in blood in a wheelbarrow. The one who had been talking through the door was using a roughly cut tree branch as a crutch. The wheelbarrow was being pushed by a middle-aged man wearing a black waistcoat.

  Not long after the door was shut again, some Japanese cavalry rode down the street, laughing and singing cheerfully.

  Everyone inside stood motionless as statues until the Japanese had passed. The soldier in uniform still held the pistol in both hands, the bullets ready to fly if the door should be opened again. Not until the echoes of the horses’ hooves had faded into the distance did they relax.

  ‘Let’s go down and have a look,’ Shujuan whispered to Xiaoyu.

  ‘You can’t!’ exclaimed Xiaoyu.

  ‘Come on, it’s easy.’

  Xiaoyu’s face suddenly became hard. ‘You go alone, Shujuan. And don’t count on me to save your skin.’

  Shujuan opened the trapdoor, the ladder extended beneath her and she set off on her own.

  ‘Look at Shujuan!’ she heard Xiaoyu say to the other girls. ‘She’s always l
ooking for trouble!’

  Shujuan was furious with Xiaoyu. She had intended to sneak away with her friend behind the backs of the others, and now Xiaoyu had betrayed her to them.

  She crept down to the entrance to the workshop building and pushed open the door a crack so that she could see what was happening outside. She was not a girl who liked the wool pulled over her eyes. She knew it was just a way of protecting her but she did not appreciate it at all.

  Through the crack in the door, she could see that the struggle in the courtyard was still unresolved. The wheelbarrow had taken on the role of the tank, creaking over the ground as the soldier wielding the pistol led their advance. Shujuan could see that the man wearing the strange black waistcoat had white cloth circles stuck to the front and back; she supposed this was the normal garb for gravediggers.

  ‘Ah Gu, go and get the first-aid box,’ ordered Father Engelmann. ‘Give them a supply of swabs and dressings and get rid of them.’ He was making it very clear he would not receive guests like this at the church.

  The pistol-wielding soldier did not strike an aggressive posture but he still pointed the pistol at the priest as he said: ‘Where do you want them to go to?’

  ‘Please put your weapon down when you talk to me, Major,’ Father Engelmann responded with dignity.

  He had seen the man’s rank. He had also seen that his jacket had a dark patch at the hem on the left-hand side where the blood had soaked through.