Chapter 1
September 20, 1937–Nanking, China
The approaching aircraft were too far away for Lian to tell whether they were Chinese or Japanese. A moment later, she didn’t need to guess. The spiraling wail of sirens churned the air. Then the bombs began falling, like beads slipping off a necklace.
She had been on her way to the train station. She’d gotten off the rickshaw to buy a steamed bun for breakfast. Now she stood outside the bakery as though rooted to the pavement, uncertain what to do. The nearest air-raid shelter was two blocks away, across from the railway station, its entrance already besieged. Even if she were willing to abandon her wicker suitcase, she would never reach the shelter in time.
A strong hand gripped her arm and yanked her through the bakery door.
“Get to the back room,” the baker growled. But she shook her head and dashed out, struggling back with the heavy suitcase. She had to save her books.
Inside, the baker and his wife were throwing damp cloths over trays of buns. He pointed to a storage room built against the back of the kitchen, sacks of flour stacked against one wall. The couple joined four small children squeezed together against the sacks. Lian hesitated, then slid her wicker suitcase under a worktable. But before she could run to the storage room, a shrill whistling pierced her eardrums, followed by the sound of explosions. The floor shuddered. Next she heard the sharp, rhythmic report of antiaircraft guns.
There was a roar of sound and then the world went silent.
LIAN HAD LEFT Minghua University early that morning, spending precious coins from her small cache to ride on a rickshaw that jounced its way through congested streets. Rickshaws and handcarts, handbarrows, wagons, and the occasional automobile. Nanking was evacuating. Every vehicle was piled high with trunks, sacks of food, furniture, and people. Invalids and the elderly, mothers holding children. Their expressions ranged from anxious to stoic.
Her own appearance, Lian hoped, signaled maturity and reserve, enough to dissuade the attentions of hawkers, pickpockets, and talkative fellow travelers. She’d pulled her hair into a tight knot, the severe style offsetting her least-favorite feature, a small chin that made her seem years younger than nineteen. At least her navy-blue Minghua blazer proclaimed her of university age.
The Japanese had yet to bomb the city’s outlying districts. Minghua University’s campus lay southwest of Nanking and was a haven compared to the frenzied scene around the railway station. The university had begun emptying bit by bit as nervous parents instructed their children to come home.
Lian’s home was Peking, where her mother lived. But Peking had been taken by the enemy earlier that month. She’d been frantic for her mother’s safety until a much-delayed letter arrived. Inside, her mother had tucked in money for Lian’s train fare. Peking was already lost when her mother wrote that letter. The Chinese army was in retreat and the Japanese were marching in.
Daughter, everyone expects the Japanese to reach Peking within days. I’m leaving tomorrow. I will meet you in Shanghai. When you get there, find the Unity Mission School and stay there. Tell them your mother is a former student. Tell them I’m on my way. They won’t refuse you.
But when her mother mailed the letter, the Japanese had not yet attacked Shanghai. Every day, newspapers printed photographs of Shanghai’s streets, now cordoned off with barbed-wire barricades that separated Shanghai’s International Settlement from the rest of the city. The Settlement was not Chinese territory. It had been ceded to foreign powers decades ago and the Japanese military couldn’t enter. Now refugees streamed into the sanctuary of the Settlement, past gates guarded by Japanese sentries.
Lian was taking the Nanking-to-Shanghai train, which terminated at Shanghai’s North Railway Station, safely located inside the Settlement. But how would her mother get to Shanghai? What if she couldn’t get past the barricades? It was too late now for second-guessing or a change of plans. Her mother was on the road and Lian had no way of contacting her, let alone in a timely fashion.
These thoughts and a multitude of other worries spun hazily in Lian’s head and slowly, slowly, she opened her eyes. Sunlight from a back window illuminated motes of white dust hanging in the air. No, not dust. Flour. The baker’s family was sweeping the floor, coaxing snowy piles onto a large cloth, which they tilted carefully into a bin. Lian sat up and leaned her back against the wall.
One of the baker’s children knelt down and spoke to her. Lian saw the girl’s lips move, forming words. Words Lian couldn’t hear. She shook her head in bemusement. The girl shrugged and went back to sweeping. Lian stood up slowly, still leaning against the wall. She noticed with detached wonder that she was covered in a fine film of white. She took her blazer off and shook it a few times until the fabric shed its dusting of flour.
Then she knelt beside the kitchen table and pulled her suitcase out. She staggered to the front of the shop, wondering why the suitcase felt twice as heavy as before. Outside, she put it down and peered at Shing An Road, toward the railway station. Murky smoke stung her eyes. All she could make out were large, inert shapes but her hearing was coming back and there was a muted sound of shouting voices.
Wreckage covered the road. Rickshaws in splinters, carts missing wheels, a wooden store sign lying broken on the sidewalk. A pile of fallen bricks where a wall used to be. Fragments of yellow-glazed roof tile littered the road like autumn leaves. A middle-aged woman sat up, then steadied herself against what remained of a lamppost. Her plump face streaked with grime, stout figure swaying, the woman stared up at the sky. She burst into tears and limped away, vanishing into the smoke.
Beside the lamppost, a toppled handbarrow blocked the sidewalk. It was surrounded by bundles, goods that had fallen off. Then one of the bundles twitched and slowly crawled across the cobblestones toward a smaller bundle. And lay still again.
Lian pushed her knuckles into her mouth to block the scream rising from her throat, backing up until she bumped against the bakery wall. She had to get hold of herself. There were people in need of help. She had to do something. She picked up her suitcase and began walking uncertainly toward the station, into the smoke.
A mound of rubble heaved up and she jumped back in alarm, dropping her suitcase. Bits of brick and wood dropped away to reveal the undercarriage of an upside-down rickshaw. The two people who had been sheltering beneath it stood up. The young man who had pushed up the rickshaw carriage turned and surveyed the street. He was tall, with the lean frame of an athlete. Streaks of dirt obscured his features but his jacket was a familiar shade of blue.
The petite young woman beside him wore the tunic and baggy trousers of a servant. She gave the young man a handkerchief and he wiped his face. Then he dusted off his jacket with a jaunty air, not at all as though he’d just lived through an air raid. He smiled when he saw Lian, a grave and courteous smile that made her feel as though he was giving her his complete and undivided attention. In a far corner of her mind, she acknowledged that his smile would’ve been captivating if she weren’t so numb, so overwhelmed by all the destruction.
He walked toward her, his first few steps a bit unsteady. He pointed at the enameled badge pinned to his jacket, then to the embroidered crest on her blazer with a grin of recognition, as if they were at a school social. The servant girl simply stood on the street, appraising the ruins around them.