http://www.weihsien-paintings.org/books/MushroomYears/p_FrontCover.htm



[excerpts]

No one talked on the train to Tientsin, we were all too deeply engrossed in our own thoughts.

I found myself wondering what life would be like in the city now that it was run by the Japs. Would we be allowed to go to school? I really missed not being able to finish high school. I won’t be getting any bonuses for completing my senior year on time, I thought ruefully. I decided to give up thinking of the future, as each thought had to be left in limbo; only time would elicit an answer.

Getting nowhere in a hurry, I got out my pirated edition of Eric Knight’s, This Above all, and got lost in his great character studies.

There was no getting off the train to stretch our legs this time. Although the guards weren’t sitting in our compartment, they were very evident whenever I looked around. It made the trip seem twice as long, and we were all ready to get off as soon as the train pulled into the station.

This time the old city definitely wasn’t the same, and the weird feeling I’d had in Peking the previous spring took hold. I felt numb as we went through the British Concession. It wasn’t ours anymore. Even the historic old street names were gone, replaced by numbers.

The “Poached Egg” now flew from every flagpole that had once been graced by the Union Jack, and slowly I found anger taking the place of anguish.

“We’re going to take it all back you little buggers,” I swore under my breath.

The feeling of bravado stayed with me all the way to our new home on Edinburgh Road—now Number 37 Road—where the rickshaw coolies dropped their shafts in front of a pair of massive red wooden gates.

The house turned out to be quietly elegant. Not the rambling, homey, bungalow-type we were used to, but a huge, three-storied affair, with a wisteria-draped entry yard, and a pretty, high-walled rose garden with a pocket-sized lawn.

The downstairs had a compact, oak-paneled den, a spacious living room that looked out onto the rose garden, and a dining room that could easily seat twenty. But the room I really loved was the library that led off from the dining room through a moongate; it had two walls lined with fascinating books and two walls covered in a rich, reddish-brown leather. To add to the feeling of opulence, there was mood-lighting throughout the downstairs rooms.

There were three large bedrooms on the second floor, and two bathrooms. The master bath was big enough for serious calisthenics, but turned out to be too cold to use in the winter, as we had no fuel to fire the central heating system. There were two more bed-rooms on the third floor, and although they were icy in their remoteness, I turned one into my studio hideaway.

Up there, I would find myself thinking of the family that had built the house, the Winchells, wondering if they had gone on leave only to find they could not return, or if they’d just panicked and abandoned it with all its lovely furnishings, to become another luckless statistic of a foreigner’s lot in the Orient.

And from my chilly perch high above the city, I could look down on the street and watch the beggars plead for alms. I knew that begging was a profession in China, but it still didn’t help me to understand the cruelty of parents who could willingly deform their babies by tying string around some member of their bodies till it atrophied and dropped off. Sometimes they only tied members back, like shins to thighs, so that they would grow stunted and malformed, and the poor soul would have to kneel for the rest of his life, scooting around on a little wheeled tray like some performing circus animal.

I recalled Amah insisting that the worse they looked the richer they were, some even coming to their begging posts in their own rickshaws, and going home at night to a hot meal and a warm bed. I had never believed her.

Mother’s first complaint, when the cook asked her for more hsiao-mi for Brewster, was reminiscent of those earlier days. “There’s no way you went through fifty pounds of millet in just over a month. Brewster couldn’t eat that much in three months!” she exploded.

The cook, looking bewildered, started to wring his hands and say, “But Missy ... please Missy...”.

Then Mother, realizing what was going on, said, “Okay, it’s been a long time since I lived in this city. The beggars.. .I forgot the beggars. It’s all right Cook, you may feed them—but only the ones at our back door, not everyone on the street!”

The beggars at our back door materialized every evening at “dog chow” time; it was their assigned turf, and the servants would fill their grimy, old, wire-handled tin cans with millet and whatever food scraps we had. Often, I’d see them scoot down the street swinging their stunted bodies on scrawny arms, or wheeling along on trays, to some less fortunate soul at another station who had not been fed, and they would share their steaming scraps. The scene always touched me.

I found out about completing my senior year in a hurry: the Japs wouldn’t allow us to congregate in groups of any size, so school was out of the question. To kill the monotony of the days, Mother arranged for private tuition. I never did learn where the money came from for the classes, or for putting food on our table, as Dad didn’t go to work. Typical of our life, I couldn’t ever remember worrying about anything as mundane as money. If we needed it, we had it.

Although we appeared to be living as we always had, the days were shrouded in apprehension—mostly due to the ugly red-and-black arm-bands we had been issued. I loathed seeing mine attached to my warm fur coat; I felt it branded me as some sub-hu-man species. I knew Ursula felt as I did, but as Mother never stepped outside the house, it was of little consequence to her. As for Dad, if it bothered him, he didn’t show it.

He would get up in the morning as the spirit moved him, and Jung-ya would lay out his clothes and draw him a bath, as he’d done as far back as I could remember. Then we’d all sit down to break-fast. Ours was usually hot cereal, and once in a while eggs, but Dad had to have an English breakfast of croquettes, or kedjeffee, or bubble-and-squeak—sometimes sauteed brains—with lots of strong tea and piping hot toast and marmalade.

Afterwards, we’d go our different ways. Mother to her house-hold duties, Ursula and I to our classes, and Dad to some favorite haunt. And while Ursula and I would wrap ourselves up warmly and leave for class, we’d hear Dad hail a rickshaw and say, “Eu-ropa” or “Club Metropole” to the nimble coolie. To his chagrin the Tientsin Mens’ Club and the Country Club were out-of-bounds now, so he and a few cronies would sip coffee in some sleazy little restaurant on Cousins Road or Dickinson Road, where once they would not have allowed themselves to be caught dead, and try to reel in some illusive rumor, or just talk about the “good old days”.

The proprietor of the Europa, Isaac Zeligmann, was a Jew who had escaped from Germany late in the thirties, and he and his wife ran the little dump of a restaurant with hearts overflowing for the plight of the Allies. It was obvious that the arm-bands we wore really got to them, reminding them of the horror they had escaped from in Europe. In their broken English they tried to make everyone welcome, and Dad insisted, if Isaac’s wife hadn’t had her hand on the till, he would have given away everything in the place. He was just that way. Time and again, Dad would come home in the evening saying that some tragic musician, who had miraculously escaped from the paws of Hitler, had poured his heart out in music fit for the Met; for that, Isaac would feed him, or her, and help them find a place to live.

And, while Dad thus whiled away the days, we would be studying French with a Mrs. Warwick, or painting with Pierre Travers-Smith, a famous English water-colorist. Or, on a more practical note, taking Gregg’s shorthand and typing from a very talkative Mrs. Norman, as Ursula and I had always wanted to be secretaries like Margo in the worst way, especially now that she had such a good-looking boss.

Of course, we didn’t know how much Margo and Faulkner loathed being collaborators or the toll it was taking on them. It didn’t help matters much that they did nothing but sit at their desks like so much window-dressing, and by the time December rolled around, they were both ready to climb the walls.

Then one day, just before Christmas, when Margo was about as low as she could get, the Japanese, who never lost an opportunity to make themselves look benevolent, asked her if she would like to go to Tientsin and spend Christmas with her family.

She looked at Mr. Araki, who was doing the interpreting, and asked, “Is this on the up-and-up?”

He looked confused, so she smiled and asked,
“Do they really mean it?”
“Oh, yes, they do,” he said with a smile.
“You bet! When do I leave?”
“You will travel up on the twenty-second and return on the twenty-sixth.”
“Please thank them for me,” she said, turning away so they wouldn’t see her tears.

The twenty-second was cold and clear, and Margo rather enjoyed the trip until she arrived at the Tientsin station late in the afternoon. It never occurred to her that the Japs would use this occasion for propaganda, and when she stepped off the train and was met with news cameras rolling, she felt trapped. She stood in embarrassed silence while military brass gathered around her, chattering uncomprehendingly into the cameras, obviously making points for home consumption regarding their humane treatment of the enemy.

Although we weren’t allowed to meet her at the station, we had been told when to expect her, and sure enough, as the time arrived, we heard a taxi come to a jarring stop.

Mother, Ursula, and I rushed out to greet her, while Jung-ya took her bags from the taxi driver. His face was beaming when he said, “Missy, Missy.. .so good see you!”
“So good to be here, Jung-ya,” she said, her voice almost breaking as we all went into the house.
“My God, what a place!” was all she could say, as we led her into the huge living room.
There was a fire going in the hearth, and tea and cake waiting on the low table in front of it. We couldn’t get a Christmas tree, so had decorated a pretty cedar in the rose garden, just outside the picture window, and the late afternoon sun caught the tinsel and made it sparkle through the dripping, steamy window.

Brewster rushed up to her and sniffed her happily.

“I’ll bet he smells Vicki,” Margo said, as she sat by the fire and he put his head on her lap, eyeing her lovingly. “I left Vicki with the Joneses—their place has been our home away from home. When l left, she was happily exploring the house.”

“How’s she doing?” Mother asked.
“Fine. She’s no longer a puppy really, although she still has a puppy’s appetite.”
“How’s everyone at the port?” Mother asked.
“Okay.. .I guess.” She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Actually, time waffles between excruciating monotony and downright panic.”
“Panic? What do you mean?” I asked.
“The Japs have installed air-raid sirens, and when they start to howl in the middle of the night, we feel like a bunch of sitting ducks. After the first warning, we made plans to slip out of the port under cover of dark and to meet down at the golf club on the mainland—at least then, if the harbor were bombed, we’d have a fighting chance.
“Usually Vicki and I meet up with the Joneses near the Marshes’ old house, and we hike on down together. So far, the sirens have always stopped before we got out to the golf course.”
“Have you ever heard any planes?” Mother asked anxiously. “No. And the damn Japs at the Rest House always laugh like idiots when they see me coming back in the wee hours with Vicki.” “Could be it was just a drill,” Ursula said musingly.

“Well, as long as the little bastards think it’s clever not to tell us so, we don’t dare take a chance.”

There was a momentary lull in the conversation, then Mother asked wistfully, “Has the Corona been back to port?”
“Not unless they’ve changed her name,” Margo said, adding, “Actually Klette is taking it very well, though I bet he’d love to run their bloody ships up on the rocks!”

Olaf Klette, a very close family friend, was an independent Norwegian skipper who’d lost his ship, the SS Corona, to the Japs. On the Fatal Eighth, the Corona was being loaded with coal in Chinwangtao harbor—she never got away. The Japs not only commandeered her, they commandeered Klette as well, making him assistant port pilot, with an eye to him being senior port pilot when the Kailan’s Captain Arnold was interned.

“What do you do at work?” I asked.
“Nothing!” She replied disgustedly.
“I’m a pawn in their little game of keeping people in line. It’s horrible. And the Rest House has to be the worst place I’ve ever been. Remember how we enjoyed staying there the summer we lived in Tientsin? Well, now it’s a prison, and I’m the only prisoner. The Japs have taken over all the other rooms, and they are noisy and drunk most of the time. At first, I couldn’t sleep for Vicki’s growling. She’d hear them shouting and staggering up the halls, and she’d lie at my door snarling. I always lock myself in, and pull a heavy chair in front of the door. It’s scary.” Then she noticed Mother looking worried again, and added quickly,
“Don’t worry, Mumsy, I’ve got an overactive imagination. They won’t do anything to me; it would spoil their image as humanitarians.”

As we enjoyed the tea and cake, we caught up on more of the port news. There wasn’t much, but it still made me homesick. Margo jabbed the coals in the fire and held out her hands to its warmth, while Mother rang for more hot water. There was a pleasant lull in the conversation for a few minutes, then as Jung-ya came in with the water, Margo asked,
“Where’s Dad?”
“At the Europa, I guess,” Mother said.
“What’s that?”
“A little greasy spoon on Cousins Road where the Allies meet to talk about the good old days.” I said.
“Dad can’t go to the club?” she asked, surprised.
“Uh-uh. The Japs have taken over both the Mens’ Club and the Country Club.”
“How’s he getting along without wheels?”
“Oh, he takes a rickshaw everywhere, and does a surprising amount of walking,” Mother said. “Actually, I think he’s a lot better off physically than he was. I guess everything’s a mixed blessing.”
“I noticed a red arm-band on the sleeve of your fur coat in the hall,” Margo said, turning to me.
“What’s that for?”
“Didn’t we write you? We all wear arm-bands. It labels us by our nationality, and scares most of the Chinese off. Come to think of it, it scares everyone but another arm-band away.”

“We haven’t been issued them in Chinwangtao yet. Guess there’s really no need; there are so few of us and we’re under continuous surveillance.”

Dad came in the front door just then, stamping his feet and clapping his gloved hands together. While Jung-ya helped him off with his coat I heard him muttering his old favorite saw about it being cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.

Margo looked up as he came into the living room. He gave her a quizzical smile, and said,
“I see you made it okay.”
“Yes, it was an uneventful trip till the little Nips met me at the station with news cameras rolling,” Her voice bristled with disgust.
“Those damn buggers—they never give up!” Dad snorted as Mother handed him a cup of tea.
“I want something stronger than that, Gee,” he said, waving the cup aside.
“You’re going to be out of booze if you keep this up.”

Dad ignored her, and called, “Whiskey-chee!” to Jung-ya, who was still hovering in the background.

“How do you get booze here?” Margo asked.
“Black market,” Dad said. “And it costs an arm and a leg.” Then, changing the subject, he asked how things were at the port and if the Japs were still losing tonnage.
“If they are, we’ll never know, as Araki’s not saying anything that would jeopardize his job.”
“Mrs. Araki pregnant again?” Dad asked with a smile. “No. I believe they’ve finally given up trying for a boy.”
“Just as well. If this war lasts much longer, he’d only end up being a kamikaze pilot!”

Christmas was a time of mixed emotions that year. The joy of having Margo with us was mingled with the torment of not knowing where, or how, Jack was. Time flew, and before we got used to her presence, she was gone again. The whole episode seemed unreal; it was as though she’d never been there, and yet the emptiness we all felt after she left belied the unreality.

Somehow the winter of ‘43 crept inexorably on. Dad would come home evenings from the Metropole or the Europa with stories of our imminent internment, and tales of a civilian committee that was helping organize the round-up of all Allied nationals. Dad said they were awesome in their dedication.

It was imperative that no one was overlooked, as their lives would be hell if they were left behind. We had to stay together, that was our only strength. And the chore of finding all the Allies, some who were addicts and felons who didn’t want to be found, was a challenge that the civilian committee had to overcome without letting our Japanese captors know that the situation was sometimes anything but one of happy cooperation.

Finally, on the twelfth of March, we were told we would be leaving for Weihsien Civilian Assembly Center on the twenty-third. We planned and packed, and unpacked, then packed again, knowing we would not be able to take much and trying to figure what we really needed and what we could do without. We should have known—a week before we were to leave, the ever-efficient committee came up with rosters of names, lists of necessities, and complete instructions for our debarkation.

On the fifteenth, Margo arrived in Tientsin with Vicki and the last of the port regulars: Harry and Eva Faulkner, Sid and Ida Talbot, Percy and Meta Jones, and Preston Lee. The only people left behind were the Bjerrums, who were Swedish and neutral; Captain Arnold, who, as a Manxman from the Isle of Man, insisted he was neutral too; and Captain Klette. Arnold was to learn, along with quite a few Free Irish in Tientsin, that the Japanese despised people who turned their backs on their country. They considered anyone from the United Kingdom as British, and if they denied allegiance to Britain, they were treated as “dishonorable prisoners of war”.

While we were getting ready for internment, we were told if we packed our valuables into crates, made a manifest of their contents, and took them down to the Swiss compound, they would be locked in the godowns and secure for the duration.

Mother felt it was too good to be true, but after losing two complete homes to warlords before I ever came on the scene, she was willing to believe anything, so we wrapped, packed, and cataloged all our valuables, and on the designated day, Dad accompanied a mule cart loaded with the crates down to the Swiss compound. When he came home, he had a big smile and an itemized receipt.

“Guard this with your life, Gee,” he said, handing the paperwork to her.
“You have to admit these little Nips are civilized. I don’t think it will be long before we’ll be claiming all our things again.”

It didn’t take much to make Dad optimistic, but it was short-lived. Moments later, his happy mood ended abruptly with a pounding commotion out in the entry yard, followed by heavy kicking on our front door. Brewster and Vicki went wild, barking and snarling viciously.

“Chain them up!” Dad shouted to us as he called Jung-ya to open the door.

We didn’t have time to chain them, so we rushed the dogs out through the sliding doors into the rose garden.

Ed Lewin, a civilian interpreter, was with the Japanese brass who came striding into our home. They went through the house from bottom to top, making notes of all the furniture that was left, and obviously checking accommodations for future Japanese occupancy. They finally came stomping back down the stairs into the living room. The dogs by now were in a complete frenzy, snarling and throwing themselves at the plate glass doors trying to get in.

The senior Japanese officer snapped something at Ed, who turning to Mother and Dad said, “The major wants your dogs. You are to leave them here, and they will pick them up after you leave for the internment camp.”

“What’s he want them for?” Mother asked suspiciously. “War dogs!”
“But they won’t attack unless we’re here. They have been trained to protect us!” she exclaimed.
Ed explained that to the Japanese officer, who smiled and said something softly under his breath.

Looking worried, Ed said, “You are to leave the dogs—that’s an order!”
Then, following the major out of the house, he hung back for a moment and said quietly, “I’m so sorry; all I am is an interpreter.”

As they stepped out into the biting cold, Mother looked at Dad and said, “That does it! I knew we were going to have to destroy the dogs, but we’re going to have to do it now! I just know the Japs aren’t going to wait till we’re gone, they’re coming back right away.” “Now, Gee, don’t go jumping off the deep end. Dr. Hoch is coming later this week to do it, gratis. The Japs won’t be back before then.” “You don’t know that!” Mother shouted.

Dr. Hoch was an American veterinarian who had watched over and worked on all our horses, ponies, and pets. He knew the anguish we were all going through, and as he was the only one with the expertise and necessary drugs to put our pets to sleep, we welcomed his generous offer.

“Sorry, Gee, I won’t help you,” Dad said, as he gently mussed Brewster’s ruff and went out to the entry hall and picked up his coat.

“Damn you! Take off then, you son-of-a-bitch, and leave me to do the dirty work!”

Mother turned and looked at Ursula, Margo, and me, as we stood open-mouthed at her foul tirade.
“Get out all of you!” she yelled. “Go! And stay away! I don’t give a damn for how long. If you’re wise, you’ll be gone at least three hours. Get out! Get out! GET OUT!” Her scream turned into a wail.

“I’m going to see Iris,” Margo said quietly. Iris was another war bride, whose marine husband, like Jack, was a POW somewhere in a Japanese military camp.

Ursula and I grabbed our scarves and coats and rushed out of the front door. As we slammed it behind us, we heard Mother call, “Jung-ya, I need you!”

When we got back that evening, it was dark outside. We wiped our feet on the scraper and timidly tried the front door. It was unlocked, so we tiptoed in.

Mother was sitting in front of a small fire, staring at the flickering blue flames. In her hand was an empty highball glass. Ursula came in and put an arm around her shoulders.

Mother looked up, expressionless. She tried to speak. Nothing came out.

I rushed up and tried to give her a hug. She just stared.

Ursula looked at me over Mother’s head and said, “We’d better get ready for dinner,” and we both slipped out of the room. As we passed Margo’s bedroom, we saw her sitting silently on her bed. She didn’t look up.

“The dogs didn’t greet us; they must be gone,” I said. And as realization hit me, I took a deep breathe and held it; when I finally let it out, tears came too, and I sobbed till I choked.

“It really is all over, isn’t it?” Ursula said softly, adding, “We’d better go downstairs and be with Mother. She’s been through hell.”

I splashed my face with icy water, combed my hair, and put on a dab of lipstick, then followed Ursula down to the living room.

Margo was already sitting on the hearth, hugging her knees, and I blessed the darkened room for being kind to our puffy, tear-stained faces. Mother didn’t look as though she had moved, but she must have as the glass in her hand was now half-full.

Dad came home about then, and I heard Jung-ya quietly greeting him.

“Whiskey-chee,” Dad said, as he stepped into the living room. Jung-ya mumbled something, and Dad shouted, “What do you mean—we’re out of whiskey?”

That finally got to Mother. She turned slowly from the fire, tossed back the last of the drink in her glass, and in a slow, slurring voice, said, “I buried the last bottle with the two dogs—want to make something of it?!”

Jung-ya turned and left the room, and as he did, he staggered and fell against the pantry door. Mother smiled for the first time and said, “And Jung-ya helped me!”

The next morning when I came down for breakfast, the day was brilliant. The sky was a glorious, cloudless blue, and there was just a touch of hoarfrost on the shrubs in the rose garden. Then I saw the big patch of newly-turned earth, and the horror of yesterday came flooding back.

I knew Margo and Ursula were still asleep and that Jung-ya was serving Mother and Dad their morning tea in bed, so I quietly stepped outside, unmindful of the cold, and carefully stamped on the mounded earth. I went over it and over it, till it was almost flat, then carefully covered it with fallen leaves, so that it blended with the rest of the rose-bed. Then, passing under the pergola to the front gate-yard, I wiped my feet and slipped back into the house.

It was just after noon when the Japanese came back for the dogs, and my skin crept as I realized Mother’s Scots’ heritage of precognition had not let her down. This time Ed was not with them. In fact, they had no interpreter, and they didn’t need one. They marched in through the house and slid open the plate glass doors to the garden. The Japanese major was the only one from yesterday, and he was accompanied by two soldiers.

He looked out into the empty rose garden, then turned belligerently to Mother. She looked him straight in the eye and slowly shook her head. He exploded! I thought he was going to hit her—but she didn’t flinch. She just turned her back on him and beckoned him to follow her.

He ranted and roared as she kept steadily walking to the front door and out to the red entry gates. She threw them open and flung her arms wide, pointing down the street as she completed the gesture. She didn’t need to speak Japanese; it was obvious she was telling him the dogs had gone.

He shook his fist in her face, and shouting to his two men, jumped into the command car. As the driver pealed out from the curb, we noticed two empty dog pens in the back, their doors banging open and shut with every jolt of the command car.

“Why didn’t he search the house?” I asked, bewildered.

“Japanese never keep animals in their homes,” Mother said. “The fact that ours were in the rose garden when he first came made him believe we didn’t allow them in either. I guess he never thought of searching for them...” she ended lamely.

“He wouldn’t have found them even if he had,” Margo said sadly. “We could have hidden them all along, and then left them with friends while we were away,” I said disgustedly.

“No, Bobby, it wouldn’t have worked—you know that. They would have starved to death, even if we could’ve found someone to take them.” She was right. For a moment, I’d forgotten their fierce loyalty to our family.

[further reading] ...
http://www.weihsien-paintings.org/books/MushroomYears/p_FrontCover.htm
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