I had tried to buy coal from some mines but without success, because the Japanese, besides controlling the supply, shipped a good amount of the product directly to Japan. The coal dealers I had spoken with all told me they would only retail it, selling two or three hundred pounds at a time. I guessed that must be more profitable for them.
Finally, about a month later, I managed to get twelve tons of anthracite. This meant that at least the offices would be heated in the winter.
DR. CHU WROTE to Minnie that the Japanese germ warfare program, codenamed Unit 731, was headed by General Shiro Ishii, known as “the Doctor General.” It was located in the Pingfang area south of Harbin City. Some foreigners — Russians and Koreans — were also confined there, being used as test subjects. Since the research project was top secret, Dr. Chu had the note carried by Ban directly to Jinling and instructed that the messenger boy must destroy it, either by swallowing it or tearing it to bits, if he was detained by the Japanese on the way. He also urged Minnie to burn the note after reading it and not to divulge its contents to anyone. She read it twice, then shared it with me because she wanted to hear my opinion. After I read it, she struck a match and set it afire.
For days she’d been thinking about going to the northeast, fantasizing that her visit might help get Yulan out of that place. Minnie revealed her thoughts to nobody but me.
I vehemently objected to her plan. “Look, this is insane,” I told her. “Why run such a risk? Your very presence there will endanger yourself and others.”
“How so?”
“The Japanese will jail you too and won’t let you go until you tell them how you came to know about their secret program. In fact, they might even kill you to eliminate an eyewitness.”
“I don’t care what happens to me. It’s in God’s hands — if I’m supposed to die, I’ll die. But do you think my being there might help Yulan get out?”
I shook my head and sighed. “To be quite honest, you’re too obsessed. We don’t even know if Yulan is still alive. The truth is that once they put her in there, she’ll never be able to come out.”
“So I should just give up?”
“What else can you do? Also, you must consider the repercussions of such a trip. Your absence from campus will cause a sensation, and all sorts of rumors will fly. What’s worse, Mrs. Dennison will take you to task if you’re lucky enough to come back. Your trip will just give rise to a scandal.”
Finally Minnie saw the logic of my argument, so she agreed to drop the plan. Yet thoughts about Yulan kept eating away at her. She couldn’t help but imagine other possibilities of rescuing her and often discussed them with me. “Don’t be so obsessed,” I reminded her. “Sometimes we must learn to forget so that we can keep on going.”
All the same, she remained tormented and couldn’t stop talking about Yulan when we were alone.
45
AIFENG YANG had not returned from her summer vacation yet, though the fall semester was already in its third month. Nobody had heard from her since July. According to the information provided by the U.S. embassy, she’d gotten involved in some resistance activities and was apprehended by the Japanese. In early November Mrs. Dennison finally received a letter from Aifeng, which said she was well but her fiancé, a journalist based in Beijing, was imprisoned in Tianjin, accused of espionage by the Japanese police. She said he wasn’t a spy at all and that there must have been a miscommunication, or misunderstanding, or backstabbing by some Chinese. For the time being she had to stay there trying to rescue him, but she promised to come back to Nanjing as soon as he was released. Mrs. Dennison shook her head of flaxen hair and said to us, “Aifeng is smart and resourceful and she’ll be all right.” Because of our reduced enrollment, she wasn’t needed for teaching.
A week later we heard from Dr. Wu, who was pleased by the smaller size of the Homecraft School now — she must have assumed that this was a step closer to restoring the college.
Ever since she returned from her summer vacation, Minnie got frazzled easily. Sometimes she nodded off at her desk, and once she missed an appointment with a reporter from the Chicago Tribune. Every Monday morning she would give Big Liu her weekly schedule so he could remind her of the important matters and arrangements every day.
More Japanese came to visit our campus. Most of them were civilians, some were Christians, and one even brought his children with him. Among the visitors was a fortyish man named Yoguchi, slightly hunched and beaky-faced, whose eyes would disappear when he smiled, as if afraid of light. He came often and would converse with us whenever he could. He spoke Mandarin with a sharp accent, having lived in Manchuria for more than a decade. In the beginning Yoguchi would not believe what we told him about the atrocities the soldiers had committed, but Minnie took him to some women in the Homecraft School and let him interview them. They told him their stories, which gradually convinced him. He even bowed to some of them apologetically when they collapsed, sobbing, unable to speak anymore.
One afternoon Yoguchi said to us, “The army has taken measures to control its men and make sure they’re better supplied. I’m quite certain that no orgy of burning, rape, and bloodshed will happen again.”
“What do you mean?” Minnie asked.
“An officer told me that since last winter, the army has been sending the military police ahead of the troops whenever they are about to take a city. And also, officers have been ordered to treat their men like brothers so they won’t vent their spleen on civilians like they did here two years ago. You see, the army has been trying to prevent brutalities.”
That sounded stupid; Yoguchi was a civilian but still attempted to defend the Imperial Army.
Minnie said, “Do you think they can simply slam the brakes on violence?” Seeing him flummoxed and with two vertical lines furrowing his forehead, she added, “The atrocities will continue to take place in the victims’ minds for many years. They’re not something that can be put behind easily. Hatred begets hatred as love begets love.”
Silence ensued while Yoguchi’s face reddened. Then he said, “I’m sorry. I never thought of it that way.”
He didn’t raise the topic again. He ordered three cotton-padded robes from the tailoring class at the Homecraft School as Christmas presents for his children. I arranged the order for him but didn’t tell the seamstresses anything about the customer, afraid that they might refuse to work on the garments if they knew they were making them for a Japanese family.
Minnie and I were glad to see the change in Yoguchi, which further convinced her that only through the fully informed Christians in Japan could the people of that country be persuaded to see that the war was wrong and make peace. Yoguchi brought other Japanese Christians to Jinling, and some of them were impressed by the classroom buildings, the library, and the gardens. Minnie would tell them, “Come again in the spring — our campus will be like a beautiful park. In fact, that was what I wanted it to become when I joined the faculty here.”
Yoguchi suggested that Jinling send some people to Japan to speak to the Christians there about what had happened in Nanjing. This could be a good step toward mutual understanding between the Chinese and the Japanese. The suggestion amazed us, but Minnie didn’t respond right away. After Yoguchi left, we talked about it. I admitted, “If my grandson and daughter-in-law were not there, you’d have to cut off my legs before you could make me step foot in that country.”