"I need to go back and find her bones. I want to bury them in a proper place."
"You'll never find them," GaoLing said. "The cliff broke off again last year during the rainstorms, a ledge the length of five men. Collapsed all at once and buried everything along that side of the ravine with rocks and dirt three stories deep. Our house will be the next to go."
And I mourned uselessly: "If only you had come and told me sooner."
"What a pity, I know. I didn't think you'd still be here. If it weren't for Mr. Wei's gossipy wife, I wouldn't have known you were a teacher here. She told me when I came home for a visit during Spring Festival."
"Why didn't you come see me then?"
"You think my husband gives me permission to take a holiday when I want? I had to wait for the way of heaven to throw me a chance. And then it came at the worst time. Yesterday Fu Nan told me to go to Immortal Heart village to beg more money from his father. I said to him, 'Didn't you hear? The Japanese are parading their army along the railway.' Fff. He didn't care. His greed for opium is greater than any fear that his wife could be run through with a bayonet."
"Still eating the opium?"
"That's his life. Without it, he's a rabid dog. So I went to Wanping, and sure enough, the trains stopped and went no further. All the passengers got off and milled around like sheep and ducks. We had soldiers poking us to keep moving. They herded us into a field, and I was certain we were going to be executed. But then we heard pau-pau-pau, more shooting, and the soldiers ran off and left us there. For a minute, we were too afraid to move. The next I thought, Why should I wait for them to come back and kill me? They can chase me. So I ran away. And soon everyone did, scattering every which way. I must have walked for twelve hours."
GaoLing took off her shoes. The heels were broken, the sides were split, and her soles had bleeding blisters. "My feet hurt so much I thought they would kill me with the pain." She snorted. "Maybe I should let Fu Nan think I was killed. Yes, make him feel he is to blame. Though probably he'd feel nothing. He'd just go back to his cloudy dreams. Every day is the same to him, war or no war, wife or no wife." She laughed, ready to cry. "So Big Sister, what do you say? Should I go back to him?"
What could I do except insist four times that she stay with me? And what could she do except insist three times that she did not want to be a burden? Finally, I took her to my room. She wiped her face and neck with a wet cloth, then lay on my cot with a sigh, and fell asleep.
Sister Yu was the only one who objected to GaoLing's living with me at the school. "We're not a refugee camp," she argued. "As it is, we have no cots to take any more children."
"She can live in my room, stay in my bed."
"She is still a mouth to feed. And if we allow one exception, then others will want an exception, too. In Teacher Wang's family alone, there are ten people. And what about the former students and their families? Should we let them in as well?"
"But they're not asking to come here."
"What? Is moss growing on your brain? If we are at war, everyone will soon ask. Think about this: Our school is run by the Americans. The Americans are neutral on the Japanese. They are neutral on the Nationalists and the Communists. Here you don't have to worry which side wins or loses from day to day. You can just watch. That's what it means to be neutral."
For all these years, I had bitten back my tongue when Sister Yu was bossy. I had shown her respect when I felt none. And even though I was now a teacher, I still did not know how to argue with her. "You talk about kindness, you say we should have pity"-and before I could tell her what I really thought of her, I said, "and now you want to send my sister back to an opium addict?"
"My eldest sister also had to live with one," she replied. "When her lungs were bleeding, her husband refused to buy any medicine. He bought opium for himself instead. That's why she's dead-gone forever, the only person with deep feeling for me." It was no use. Sister Yu had found yet another misery to compare as greater than anyone else's. I watched her hobble out of the room.
When I found Kai Jing, we walked out the gate and around the back wall of the orphanage to snuggle. And then I told him my complaints about Sister Yu.
"You may not think so, but she really does have a good heart," he said. "I've known her since we were children together."
"Maybe you should marry her, then."
"I prefer a woman with ticks on her pretty bottom."
I slapped his hands away. "You mean to be loyal," he went on. "She means to be practical. Don't fight differences of meaning. Find where you mean the same. Or simply do nothing for now. Wait and see." I can honestly say I admired Kai Jing as much as I loved him. He was kind and sensible. If he had a fault, it was his foolishness in loving me. And as my head floated in the pleasure of this mystery and his caresses, I forgot about big wars and small battles.
When I returned to my room, I was startled to see Sister Yu there, shouting at GaoLing: "As hollow as a worm-eaten tree trunk!"
GaoLing shook her fist and said: "The morals of a maggot."
Then Sister Yu laughed. "I hate that man to the very marrow of my bones!"
GaoLing nodded. "Exactly my feeling, too."
After a while, I understood that they were not fighting with each other but in a contest to name the worst insult for the devils who had wronged them. For the next two hours, they tallied their grievances. "The desk that was in my father's family for nine generations," GaoLing said, "gone in exchange for a few hours of pleasure."
"No food, no coal, no clothes in winter. We had to huddle so tightly together we looked like one long caterpillar."
Later that night, GaoLing said to me, "That Sister Yu is very wise, also a lot of fun." I said nothing. She would soon learn this woman could also be like a stinging wasp.
The next day, I found them seated together in the teacher's dining room. Sister Yu was talking in a quiet voice, and I heard GaoLing answer her, "This is unbearable to even hear. Was your sister pretty as well as kind?"
"Not a great beauty, but fair," Sister Yu answered. "Actually, you remind me of her-the same broad face and large lips."
And GaoLing acted honored, not insulted at all. "If only I could be as brave and uncomplaining."
"She should have complained," Sister Yu said. "You, too. Why must those who suffer also be quiet? Why accept fate? That's why I agree with the Communists! We have to struggle to claim our worth. We can't stay mired in the past, worshipping the dead."
GaoLing covered her mouth and laughed. "Careful what you say, or the Japanese and Nationalists will take turns whacking off your head."
"Whack away," Sister Yu said. "What I say, I mean. The Communists are closer to God, even though they don't believe in Him. Share the fish and loaves, that's what they believe. It's true, Communists are like Christians. Maybe they should form a united front with Jesus worshippers rather than with the Nationalists."
And GaoLing put her hand over Sister Yu's mouth. "Are all Christians as stupid as you are?" They were freely insulting each other, as only good friends can.
A few days after this, I found the two of them sitting in the courtyard before dinner, reminiscing like comrades stuck together through the ages like glue and lacquer. GaoLing waved me over to show me a letter with a red seal mark and the emblem of the rising sun. It was from the "Japanese Provisional Military Police."
"Read it," Sister Yu said.
The letter was to Chang Fu Nan, announcing that his wife, Liu GaoLing, had been arrested at Wanping as an anti-Japanese spy. "You were arrested?" I cried.
GaoLing slapped my arm. "You melonhead, read more."
"Before she escaped from the detention center, where she was awaiting execution," the letter said, "Liu GaoLing confessed that it was her husband, Chang Fu Nan, who sent her to the railway station to conduct her illegal mission. For this reason, the Japanese agents in Peking wish to speak to Chang Fu Nan of his involvement in her spying activities. We will be coming soon to Chang Fu Nan's residence to discuss the matter."