“Yes, I was looking for her, my daughter . . . I have done the most unforgivable thing, I gave her away . . .”
She leans over. “Now, Ms. Shao, I can’t help asking, is the girl in the photo the daughter you were looking for?”
86
JULY 1945
AIYI
Over the past few months, I went to the rattling Garden Bridge a few times by myself. Standing by a building with a collapsed wooden door, I watched the sentry tower on the other side of the bridge; inside it a Japanese soldier was drinking from a canteen and another, carrying a rifle with a bayonet, was checking people entering the area. Behind them were low wooden houses and narrow lanes, where several foreign women with blond hair wearing black skirts were picking at cabbages.
The ferries had stopped running.
One afternoon, Ying came out from under the bed, cradling the transmitter. After clicking the switch off, which had been lowered to a whisper, he jumped, his arms sweeping wildly in the air. His victory flea dance again. For months, he had been secretive, listening intently to the radio and then hurrying to leave the house.
“Are you going to tell me?” I asked, sitting on the stool beside the charcoal stove. I should wash Little Star’s hair with the kerosene again, but I was feeling sick. It was probably because of water or the sour noodles I’d eaten. All morning, I’d had a racking pain in my stomach that made me unable to stand straight.
Ying whispered in my ear. “I just received a message, an important message.”
The Americans had shifted their strategy in the Pacific theater. Their B-29 bombers would soon mount a massive attack on the Japanese in Shanghai while the Imperial Japanese Army poured their forces into central China to protect those thirty-plus cities they had won. The Japanese had even pulled the majority of their forces from the east coast, including Shanghai. Only a few Japanese soldiers, led by Yamazaki, stayed in Shanghai.
“He’s alone. Alone in Shanghai. His days are numbered. I’m going to kill him.” Ying put a pistol in his belt and covered it with the coat. “You must leave Shanghai.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? The Americans will bomb Shanghai! They are helping us drive the Japanese out. While they attempt to take over the sky, my people will attack the Japanese on the ground. So together with the Americans, we’ll rid Shanghai of the Japanese.”
“Why would the Americans help us? Besides, the Japanese are powerful. They have the military base in Hongkou and their warship . . . Don’t forget the warship.”
When the Japanese attacked the Settlement almost four years ago, the Izumo had bombed the British HMS Peterel and captured the American USS Wake. Equipped with many machine guns, the warship was heavily guarded; any crew and ships, even sampans loaded with animals for sale, that approached within a radius of half a kilometer would be shot. And destroy the base? That was as unlikely as destroying Tokyo.
“That’s why we’d help the Americans. My men have a plan. We will destroy the warship and the Japanese military base and distract the Zero fighters. Everything is in place.”
“I thought your men died during the truck attack.”
“Many patriotic people are willing to fight, little sister. Not perfectly trained, but they’ll do. I can’t tell you anything more. I’m going to a meeting. Will you listen? Leave Shanghai. Take Little Star with you.”
“Where should I go? There’s nowhere to go.” All the cities around Shanghai were occupied. “Where’s Little Star? She was right here. Have you seen her?”
“She’ll come back soon enough. Out stealing, likely. You trained her well.” She was five, already deft at making fire and stealing bits of coal. “Go south. To the Zhejiang province. You have to leave Shanghai, Aiyi.”
“I don’t know . . .” If I left Shanghai, my last connection to Ernest, my hope of finding my daughter, would be lost.
That evening, I lay in bed, feverish, shivering, coughing.
“Are you going to die?” Little Star asked me.
“Not yet.”
Not before I found Ernest and my daughter.
The next day, Ying returned home a different person, deflated, depressed. All his energy that had spurred the flea dance was gone, and he covered his face with his hat, puffing in anger. The meeting had been ambushed. Some of his men were shot; the others were caught and sent to jail. It was his luck that he was pissing outside and missed the shooting.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck! There must be a mole.”
A pain was crushing my chest; it hurt to cough. “What are you going to do? You’re only one man. You can’t attack the base and sink the warship alone.”