“Your house is not burned,” she whispered to me while she poured the tea. “The wild people are looting, but they have not burned your house.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered back.
She whispered again. “The cook and the amah and the gardener — they are pretending to loot but they are taking the things for you. I and the neighbors here — we have taken too, but it is for you. You understand that it is not for ourselves?”
She patted my cheek. “You helped me when I had no home. Twice you saved my son’s life.”
It may sound strange but at this moment I felt such a peace come over me that I remember it still. Here was a human being who was only good. At the risk of her life she was saving ours. What comfort to know that there was this human being!
Yet did she realize her own danger? “You know that if we are found they will kill you, too?” I asked whispering.
“Let them try,” she said robustly under her breath. “Just let them touch me, the wild beasts! Not knowing the difference between good people and bad!”
She hugged my child. “Little precious,” she whispered tenderly, and went away again.
The day dragged on, and the madness continued unabated. Once again the door opened. This time it was my friend’s husband, the one who had lost her baby by the hypodermic. He came in to whisper that many Chinese were working for the white people. They had gone to the Communist Commander-in-Chief, they were waiting upon him, they would beseech him to spare us.
“Take courage,” he told us. “We are trying to save you.” He hesitated, I remember, and then he said. “I have been a long time finding you because Mrs. Lu trusts nobody. She would not tell even me where you were until a few minutes ago. One does not know now who is friend and who is enemy — these Communists!”
He went away and the hours passed. Again the door opened and a kind Chinese face peered in, an old woman who lived in the cluster of huts, a stranger to me then. She came in with bowls of hot soup and noodles and set them on the table.
“Eat,” she said in a loud whisper. “Eat, good foreign devils, and let down your hearts. They will not find you. Nobody here will tell where you are. We are all true. Even our children will not tell. And if your children cry let them. If I hear your child cry I will smack my grandchild and make him cry outside the door so that no one knows who cries. All children cry the same noise—”
She went away, nodding and smiling to reassure us, and we fed the children and again the day dragged on.
Alas, the madness grew. We could not hide from ourselves that the uproar and the frenzy were worsening, and with the night ahead and the darkness our chances were small. What, I wondered, was happening to the other white people in the city? Many would have friends as we had, but many perhaps were already dead for lack of such a hiding place as ours. For the first time in my life I realized fully what I was, a white woman, and no matter how wide my sympathies with my adopted people, nothing could change the fact of my birth and my ancestry. In a way, I suppose, I changed my world then and there, in that tiny dark hut. I could not escape what I was.
No one opened the door now, not even Mrs. Lu. I knew that this was not disloyalty but protection of us. The soldiers must be very near, so that she dared not make the slightest move to betray our presence. We could hear the rude voices, the hoarse chanting of the Communist songs and the endless crackling of the burning houses, the rumbling of falling walls.
Sometime in the afternoon, before twilight fell, the door did open once more. It was the young Chinese again, the husband of my friend, he who had come in the morning. He entered now and fell at once on his knees and before us he made the ancient kotow.
“We can do nothing,” he told us, the tears wet upon his cheeks. “We are helpless. We have been told that all will be killed before nightfall. Forgive us, forgive us, we have greatly harmed you, we sin against you.”
He kotowed again and again and we begged him to get up, saying that we understood that he had done all he could for us and indeed had risked his own life. He was not alone in trying to help us. University professors and students and neighbors and friends, all were trying to save our lives.
“Thank you,” we said, bowing to him as he bowed to us. He went away and now indeed we were alone. Each of us in his own way tried to face what lay ahead. It was impossible to speak. My sister and I sat clasping each other’s hands, and then realizing that she had her husband, I turned to my father. He sat on a bench, his face calm, his spirit unmoved. I had never loved him as much or admired him more. As for the children, they were small and they would never know. As for me, I would see that they went ahead of me.
In this strange speechless waiting the afternoon wore on, the dreadful wild noise unabated. It grew dark in the hut. It was five o’clock when we were last able to see our watches. Then I took off the little gold watch I wore and slipped it under the pillow on Mrs. Lu’s bed. At least she would have that. Loud feet passed and repassed the door and at every instant we expected to hear it burst open and it would be the end of this day. In the midst of this desperate waiting suddenly we heard a frightful noise, a thunder, rumbling over the roof. What was it? It came again and again. It could only be cannon. But what cannon? The Chinese had no such cannon as this, deafening us, roaring above the human shouts and cries. Again and again it came and again and again.
Foreign cannon — the warships in the river! Suddenly everyone thought of the same thing. Of course, what else? We had not imagined such a possibility. The river was seven miles away, but the powerful weapons were dropping their loads not far from where we were hidden.
The booming lasted for what seemed a long time but was only a few minutes. When it was over we heard no sound whatever. The shouting had ceased, the footsteps were gone. Only the falling of a burning beam from some house, or the crumbling of a wall, broke the sudden silence.
What now, we asked ourselves? How I wished Mrs. Lu would come in! But no one came. We remained alone in the silence for two hours or more, so we guessed, but it was hard to know in the darkness how slowly the time went. And what did the silence mean?
The door opened at last and by the light of the flame of a torch flying in the night wind, we saw again our Chinese friend. He was surrounded by soldiers, Communist soldiers we could see by their uniforms. He stepped across the threshold and stood in the doorway. He did not bow or show any formal politeness.
“You are all to go to the university buildings,” he commanded harshly. “All white people are to gather there by command of the new General.”
In the light of the torch I saw his lips move and his eyebrows lift. His harshness meant nothing except protection. “Forgive me,” his lips were silently saying.
I rose at once, understanding, and taking a child by each hand I led the way out of the hut. In the shadows outside I saw Mrs. Lu among the watching people. She was crying and the torchlight shone on her wet cheeks. But all the others made no sign, and we spoke to no one, lest by recognition we mark them as our friends and bring suffering on them later when we were gone. Out of the little cluster of houses we went, and along the narrow paths between the vegetable fields, all their cabbages and onions ruined by the feet of the mob, and then over the grassy gravelands to the road which led to the university. In the darkness my helpless child grew impatient and pushed against the young soldier who was ahead. He turned on her with a frightful snarl, his bayonet pointed.
“Please,” I cried, as once my mother had cried for me. “She is only a child. I ask pardon for her.”
We went sullenly on then, and thus led we entered the campus and marched between enemy guards to enter the big university building where other white people were already waiting. But as we passed, the light of the flaming torches fell on the faces and I looked to see what sort of men the revolutionists were. They were all young, every face was young, and I saw among them not one face I knew. They were ignorant faces, drunken faces, red and wild-eyed, and perhaps they were drunk with wine, but perhaps only with triumph and with hate. They glared back at us, and they grinned with a dreadful laughter, for what they saw was the downfall and the humiliation of the white people who had for so long been their oppressors. I knew, I knew what they felt, and I could not hate them and so I returned to my old thoughts. The winds had been sown and these were the whirlwinds, so long foreseen, inevitable, inescapable, and it was only accident of time that here was I.