The wall was a jumble of splintered wood and coffins that seemed to have been scraped across the field by a monstrous tide. Unflinching as the glass eye of a camera, he distinguished naked bodies embedded in this wall, frozen arms and legs bent at sharp angles like branches. Rags of clothing and shrouds fluttered in the wind. His teacher’s body was lost.
At the far edge of the field, a line of black shapes swiftly approached, as if driven by a pulse. A procession of huge sleighs drew closer, their blades easily knifing through the snow, the horses’ harnesses slapping. A shout from the corpse carriers, interrupted at their work, as the sleighs circled and surrounded them.
Soldiers helped Wu Lien-Teh, his translator Zhu Youjing, and the doctors Zabolotny, Iasienski, and Broquet from the first sleigh. They were joined by General Khorvat, the dao tai, the viceroy, and a few other Chinese officials and dignitaries. The Baron recognized Mr. Greene, the American consul, in a wolf-skin coat. The men gathered in the area where the snow had been leveled, their eyes locked, fearful of breaking the link that held them together, protection from the terrible wall of bodies. No one noticed the Baron, and when he walked toward them, they recoiled, as startled as if a corpse had been resurrected. A ghost in daylight. He stood silently outside the group. They could hardly ask him to leave, as there was no place to go.
Wu was the first to speak, addressing his translator Zhu Youjing. “Is it possible to dig a hole here?”
The translator repeated his question in Chinese to the corpse carriers.
The corpse carriers gaped at him, slow to answer. “The ground is frozen. Like stone.”
“How deep?”
“Very deep.”
“Deep as a man is high?”
The corpse carriers looked at one another, anxiously made confused gestures. Was this a trick question? “Deeper.” They motioned depth, stretching their arms overhead.
Wu turned to the group. “There’s your answer. The ground is frozen seven feet deep. The corpses cannot be buried. They must be burned.” Wu’s words were repeated in Chinese for the Manchurian officials.
The Chinese shouted that it was sacrilege to burn a body.
Zabolotny’s arm jabbed at the Chinese. “Who will bury the bodies? You? The Russians? Japanese soldiers? There are no workers.” His angry response didn’t need translation.
“It would take months to bury thousands of bodies in these conditions.”
“There are thousands and thousands of frozen bodies here. They’re eaten by rats and wolves. The animals become infected and bring plague back to Kharbin. When the weather becomes warmer, the situation will be worse.”
No one responded. The silent Chinese officials moved closer together. The wind flattened their thick fur coats in one direction as if smoothed by a giant hand.
“A petition for permission to cremate the bodies will be sent to the Imperial Throne and the governor of Kirin. Everyone here will sign it.” Wu had forced their participation by bringing them to this grotesque stage. A brilliant strategy. But for the Chinese, the dead had been deprived of burial rites. Their spirits would never rest.
The Baron remained after the men departed in the sleighs. He lit incense and burned paper offerings. He was reciting the Russian and Buddhist prayers for the dead for his teacher when a pounding noise and the sharp crack of wood interrupted him. He turned to see the corpse bearers hammering a frozen body, breaking its arms to fit it into a coffin.
The snow broke crisply as lacquer when hundreds of men crossed the open field to the miles-long wall of the plague dead. During the few hours of available daylight, the laborers would dismantle the wall to prepare it for the mass burning. Under the pressure of its own weight, the terrible wall had compacted into a frozen mass, the bones of the dead hard and resisting, cemented in place by the filler of flesh and snow.
The wall was clawed and chopped apart with saws and hatchets. Huge sections were looped and bound with chains and ropes, then pulled by horses until they separated. When the temperature plunged well below zero, the wood and ice were wrenched apart with a shattering high-pitched noise.
Load after load of massive trees, timber, and logs were hauled in, bringing the raw scent of the forests in northern Manchuria to this bleak landscape. This new timber and the corpses were piled into twenty-two enormous pyramids, temporary tombs of gray and black, threaded with dirty tangled shrouds, white in places where fresh snow had settled. There was enough space for teams of horses to pass between them. From a distance, the jagged structures appeared to have been created from the ruins of many other buildings by a mad giant.
On a morning of unusual brightness, doctors from the hospitals, Russian and Chinese officials, and the curious arrived at the pyramids in the field. They waited in their sleighs, black droshkies, and carriages, warm under fur blankets, the white evidence of their breath hanging over them like a canopy. Icy snow struck their vehicles in scratchy bursts.
The Baron stepped down from the droshky, an anonymous interloper in the crowd, unrecognizable in his furs, only a small circle of face exposed through the porthole of his hood. He scanned the crowd, although he didn’t believe any families of the dead were here to pay their respects. He overheard strangers joking about the weather.
“Thank merciful God, no snowfall blocks visibility.”
“The light is perfect today. We’ll have a good clear view.”
There was General Khorvat in his distinctive white fur coat, his wispy beard unruly in the wind.
“Good morning, General.”
Khorvat didn’t recognize the Baron until he heard his voice. “You’re here?”
“A witness, like you.”
“A cold morning for a display. But the city will be rid of this pestilence.”
“You mean the evidence of pestilence. Nothing’s been cured.” The Baron regretted his words. “Where’s the priest from St. Nikolas?”
Khorvat was puzzled, but then his expression smoothed as he understood. “No priests were notified.”
“No?”
“This isn’t the place for a religious ceremony. We aren’t holding a funeral.”
“A strange claim, General Khorvat, since thousands of bodies are stacked right before our eyes. There are Russian dead among the timber. Our countrymen.”
Khorvat’s face, surrounded by feathery fur, appeared almost regretful. He understood the mechanics of an official operation. “Baron, in the midst of war—and we are at war—some details are overlooked. Survivors will mourn in their own way.” It was as close to an apology as the general would deliver.
The Baron released the burden of argument. He was aware of someone next to him demanding attention. A slight man in a fox coat addressed Khorvat, his eyes darting back and forth to the pyres.
“General Khorvat, we’re ready to set up the cameras. We need direction.”
Khorvat indicated the nearest pyramid. “Stay back at least two hundred yards.”
“We need more distance. The light will overexpose our photographs. It’ll be brilliant as a desert here soon.”
Khorvat addressed another aide and the Baron turned away to search for Messonier. The crowd slowly began to leave their vehicles and gather around Khorvat, sharing a tense excitement, the anticipation of a performance that held the risk of injury or disaster. They loudly greeted one another.
“We couldn’t have a better day for the spectacle.”
“This isn’t the launching of a ship. Show some respect, gentlemen.” Messonier quietly reprimanded the group of men. He touched the Baron’s shoulder, and they clasped each other with surprising emotion. Only the pantomime of large gestures worked in bulky winter clothing.
“You’re here, Baron. Still the outlaw at an official occasion.”