I remember thinking on two levels. One was the world and the centuries of history, and I felt nothing but sympathy for the Chinese who knew only the evil of the white man and none of the good. Were I a young Chinese, had I been taught only what the white man had done to my country, I too would have wanted to be rid of him forever. I could not blame them. But on the other level I was thinking of this very moment, and of the children. My father would meet his fate with calm and with peace. I had no fear for him. He had lived his life. The two young men must handle themselves as best they could when the last minutes came. My sister and I were strong enough, too, to bear ourselves proudly and without showing fear. But what of the little children? My helpless child was only seven, my little adopted daughter only three, my sister’s little boy also three. These could not be left. Somehow we two mothers must contrive to see them dead before we ourselves must die.
For by now the mobs had risen and outside the little hut we heard the firing of guns and the howls of the crowd. There is always a crowd in any city, in any country, when order breaks down. There are the thieves and the looters and the fire lovers and the men who are afraid to kill in times of peace but who let their lust for blood blaze out when there is no peace. We began to hear screams and loud laughter, yells and sounds of blows. We heard the heavy front door of our house beaten in and then the shout of greedy joy when the crowd burst into the hall.
I could see it as clearly as though I stood there watching. I saw the rooms as we had left them, the rooms I had made and loved, my home, as warm and pretty a place as I could contrive, the yellow curtains at the windows, the dull blue Chinese rugs on the floors, the Chinese furniture and the few comfortable chairs, the flowers on the tables. I had nursed for weeks the bulbs of the white sacred lilies and they were in full bloom, scenting the house. A coal fire burned in the grate under the mantelpiece in the living room. And upstairs were the bedrooms and the children’s nursery, and in the attic was my own special place, where I did my work. And I remembered that on my desk in that attic room was the finished manuscript of my first novel.
It was all gone. The crowd was surging through the rooms, snatching everything they could take, quarreling over garments and bedding and rugs and all else that had been mine. And I, by some irony which almost made me smile, was sitting here on a board bed in a hut wearing my oldest clothes and not even my good American coat. I had planned, this day, to clean the attic thoroughly now that my novel was done.
Hour after hour went by. No one came near us for a long time and we made no sound. Even the children were silent, not crying, not whispering, simply clinging to us as we held them. It was strange to be left thus alone, for we had not been alone at all for days. As the revolutionary armies drew near to the city and battle became inevitable, our war lord had declared that he would fight, and he had locked the city gates and prepared his soldiers. I had foreseen a siege and so as in other such times I had laid in canned foods and dried Chinese foods and fruits and grains. We had a little chicken yard and the children would have eggs, and I had bought some cases of American canned milk, some Australian tinned butter.
The battle had begun three days ago and only the children had slept since the first guns were fired, for all of us knew that this battle was not like any other. The Communists had organized the forces and they were the leaders. Even Chiang Kai-shek was with the Communists, we were told. These were not only Chinese, therefore. Something new and dangerous had been added. The Communists were building upon hate, the hate for the foreigner, the injustice of the past. Never before had the old hatreds been organized.
As usual in times of war, the city Chinese had flocked to our house. I do not know whether other houses like mine were full of them, but every room in our house was overflowing with Chinese. With us were our Chinese friends, their families, and their friends. Everyone was welcome at such a time. They brought what food they had and we had all shared our resources during the three days. But downstairs the big cellars, inevitable in the semitropical houses, were filled with unknown people from the streets. We did not keep them out. If there was any safety to be found with us, we were only glad, and until now there had always been safety with the foreigners, for the Unequal Treaties protected the Chinese friends of the white man, too. I had always hated those treaties, and never for myself would I ever willingly accept their protection, yet actually I was helpless against them. Wrong as they were and now bearing the bitter fruit of a hatred accumulated through generations of Chinese, I had been protected by them in spite of myself, but at least I had shared my safety. I remember the night before, I had laughed and told my sister that the cellars were so full of people I felt as though the floors were heaving. The people tried to be quiet but the subdued noise gathered and mounted to the very roof in a stilled roar. I had sent tea and bread loaves downstairs lest they were hungry.
We had gone upstairs to bed at last longing for the morning as we went, for the rumor was that the battle would end before dawn. In the morning, we had told ourselves, we would be at peace again. There would be new rulers, for by now it was obvious that our old war lord must be defeated. All the youth and the idealism and the patriotism were on the other side. I knew, for that matter, that my own students and most of my friends, certainly the young ones, were on the side of the revolutionists. Our war lord’s soldiers were only mercenaries, and they would desert as soon as defeat was plain. But we were used to battles and changing rulers, and we were only hoping that the new ones would be better than the old. Almost anything would be better than the war lords, each greedy for himself and a sore burden for the patient people.
That night I slept from exhaustion and was wakened early, not by noise, but by a silence so deep that at first I was bewildered. It was barely dawn, I could see only the outlines of familiar furniture and the grey rectangle of the window. The guns were stopped, the booming of the old-fashioned cannon was ended. A solid silence filled the room. But what silence? There was not even the sound of a human being. No child cried, and the rumble of voices from the cellar was dead.
I got up and dressed myself and went downstairs. The rooms which I had left full of our friends and friends of friends were empty. There was no sign of a bedding roll or a garment. I opened the cellar door and went downstairs. No one was there, not a soul. The place was clean, nothing left behind. Only in the kitchen the cook was stirring about dubiously, red-eyed and pale-cheeked.
“What has happened?” I asked.
“They have all gone,” he said. “Everyone went away in the night.”
“Why?” I asked.
“They are afraid,” he said.
But it did not occur to me even then that they were afraid to be found with us. I did not dream that the white people could shelter no one again, not even ourselves.
In the crowded hut we sat the hours through while the noises mounted outside. One foreign house after another went up in flames and we said nothing. The door opened at last and Mrs. Lu crept in with a teapot and some bowls.