Eric van Lustbader - China Maroc 01, page 19
Of all of Zhongshan’s major supporters, it could be said of Hu that he was most like the Doctor. He was, like Zhongshan, essentially a humanist. He felt for the people of China even as he believed in them. His failing, if it could be said to be one, was that he failed to perceive the campaign for victory in military terms. He was often derided for this by Chiang Kai-shek, who, perhaps quite accurately, perceived in him his most serious rival in the natural succession of the Nationalist government.
What Zilin liked best about Hu was his quick mind. He was most often the one at the protracted political meetings who was able to wade through all the tangled webs of various arguments to get right to the heart of the matter. But in fact what he responded to most in Hu, on the subliminal emotional level, was the man’s openness of spirit.
Zilin’s father had had little time for his family as the rapidly Westernizing city of Shanghai put more and more pressure on his time. For many years he was the only Chinese with enough training or the expertise to get many major projects done. In fact, for the first three years after he and his family had moved to Shanghai, he was in constant demand by the Japanese and the Europeans as well.
Consequently he left the house early and returned late, almost always when the rest of the family had long since finished dinner. It was quite an untraditional family in that regard, and he had had to prevail upon his wife to obey his wishes in this and not wait for his return to get the children fed. Still, she herself would not eat until he had come home. She felt scandalized enough that the children did not wait. The elder Shi did not see it as a sign of disrespect, but merely as a signature of the changing times.
In any case, Hu had time for the young Zilin, seeing in him, no doubt, the spark of genius that was already beginning to surface. Thus it was that many evenings the two would stroll the twisting back streets and long, curving dockside known as the Bund, discussing every subject under the sun.
Late one afternoon near the end of 1924, Hu broke off their conversation. He had turned uncharacteristically melancholy, staring out at the harbor forested with black masts, spars, and rigging. It was cool and relatively dry, though far warmer than the twenty-three-degree weather under which Beijing was suffering. To the north there was snow, coming out of the Siberian steppes, but here the swollen red sun, sinking like a thrown stone, turned the ships to spiky silhouettes. Zilin could see the mighty dredgers still at work at the mouth of the harbor, where they had been all day long. Out of necessity, trade had been halted for them. But none of the tai pan raised a word of protest. Vast sums of money were spent each year to keep the constantly building silt from making the harbor floor impassable for the oceangoing steamers so vital to the China trade.
Zilin returned his attention to the older man. His affection for Hu had grown steadily since they had first met, and he did not like to see him so low.
“Elder Uncle,” he said after a time, “Zhongshan tells me that it is a Western custom to share a burden among friends.”
Hu turned, refocusing his eyes on Zilin. He smiled, but there was a grimness to his gesture that chilled the younger man. “It may be the custom, Younger Brother, in other, more barbarous cultures to be so disrespectful of a friend’s feelings as to share pain.” He shrugged. “The ways of the world are odd indeed.”
“Yet there is, perhaps, some good I may perform,” Zilin said gently. “In matters of internal Guomindang policy, it might prove useful to turn to someone on the outside, someone who is able to render a fair and impartial opinion.”
Now Hu was forced to laugh. “By all the gods, Zilin, you are quite a remarkable young man. Are you certain you never studied before the bar? You would make a superb lawyer, with your powers of persuasion.”
“I would like to help, Elder Uncle, ” he said seriously.
The dredgers were packing up now. Dusk had fallen across the city. Within its murky mauve light, the muddy water seemed pristine and full of promise. An opalescent glow had risen along the sweep of the Bund as the night lamps were lit and the cooking fires from the houseboats flared up. It was overhung by a smudge of smoke that painted a newly risen crescent moon bluish-purple.
They began again to walk. “There is truth to your words,” Hu said at last. “Yet I do not wish to involve you—”
“Have no fear on that score,” Zilin prompted. “Mai has already seen to that.”
“All right,” Hu relented. “How well do you know Ling Xichu?”
Zilin shrugged. “Enough to talk to him now and then. In my opinion, he’s something of a bully boy. He employs force without being fair. But he has taken to the Bolshevik methodology quite well, it seems. He’s a quick study, at least.”
“He also perceives himself as my chief rival. You and I, I think, understand that to be Chiang, but Ling does not believe Chiang can muster the support to become head of the Guomindang.”
“And you do’
“Well,” Hu said, “what is your opinion?”
“I think Chiang’s dangerous. But I must admit that my opinion may be a bit weighted on this matter. Mai hates and distrusts Chiang. She fears that he is capable of betraying the revolution.”
“Chiang,” Hu said, echoing Mai, “thinks only of Chiang.” He shrugged. “But I think that is a function of a military officer. A commander in warfare cannot think too much about his men, or else he would never send them out into battle to die.
“On the other hand, Ling has no cause to feel that way. Yet he does, all the same. He opposes me now in the Guomindang’s central committee. He has sided with Chiang in pushing for an all-out military campaign northward through the provinces to take Beijing.
“Though the army has made great strides since Chiang returned from Russia, I feel we are still unprepared to take on the government. And if we fail now, after so many past defeats, I fear it will be the end for us. Zhongshan has just so much stamina left in him. He puts in twenty-hour days; he pushes himself beyond the tolerance limits for even a much younger man than he. Leading a major military campaign now must surely kill him.”
Young boys passed them, running, calling to one another. Great sacks of rice were being laded, to be ferried off to one of the tai pan’s great, swift steamships. Tea, as well, was piled high upon the docks, awaiting its turn to leave Shanghai. And somewhere inside those cases was, no doubt, a fortune in opium.
Zilin watched this activity while his mind whirred through all that his friend had told him. “You must continue to oppose them in the committee,” he said. “Do not use rhetoric that might inflame them to retaliate in kind, but rather use cool words that prove your levelheaded response.” He looked at Hu. “Then, privately, you must meet with Zhongshan. Tell him just what you have told me. If he takes on this campaign before the army is ready, before all the support is coalesced, and if he perishes on the long northward march, his dream of revolution will die with him. For if he begins the march at the head of the army and cannot finish, all the spirit will fall from his soldiers and the power of the Guomindang will ebb away. Zhongshan knows well the wisdom of patience.”
Hu stared at the crates of tea as if he had never seen such cargo before. “You know,” he said with great deliberation, “I was supposed to chair a committee meeting tonight. But at the last moment it was canceled. All gods bear witness, it was a good omen. Otherwise I would not have been able to meet you.”
There was no need to say more. Zilin smiled and they strolled on around a turning, out of sight of the myriad ships that lay at anchor, resting for the night.
A week before the Chinese new year—in the beginning of 1925—Mai woke him out of sleep. It was deep within the night. A full moon bathed the street outside in blue light. A drunkard was singing a garbled chanty, and farther away, voices were raised in argument.
“Zilin!”
“Yes? What is it?” He fought to clear his mind of sleep.
“I am worried about Zhongshan.”
“Hu’s cleverness has saved him from attempting the long march. What has happened now?”
“He’s ill.” There were tears in her eyes. “Seriously ill.”
Now Zilin was concerned. “But I’ve heard nothing of this. Even from Hu.”
She shook her head. “You wouldn’t. He’s kept it from everyone except me. Now I’ve told you. I don’t know what to do.”
“Mai,” he said, holding her, “you’re not a doctor. There’s nothing you can do except bring him to one.”
“It’s all been done.” She turned to him, and in the cool half-light he saw how pale she was. “There’s nothing any of them can do.”
“He’s dying?”
She nodded. “Zilin, I am so afraid. If Hu Hanmin does not take over, I fear for the revolution. Chiang is an animal who will do everything in his power to destroy the Communist Party as soon as Zhongshan can no longer hold him in check. I don’t even want to say it.” She broke down then, sobbing against him, her body shaking like a leaf in a storm. “He’ll be gone soon,” she whispered. “I cannot believe it. It’s too soon. Too soon.”
For the moment there was nothing Zilin could do but hold her and give her what comfort he could.
In a while she had calmed enough for him to say, “Then you must use all your expertise to ensure that Hu gets the support he needs to take power. There’s not only Chiang to be wary of, but Ling Xichu as well.”
Mai was weeping again, shaking her head back and forth. “I don’t know, Zilin. I don’t think I have the strength left. Without Zhongshan …”
“Now think, Mai,” he whispered harshly. “What would he say if he heard such antirevolutionary words? He’d most surely reprimand you. His strength flows through you. I know. I feel it. So do the others. That is why they are jealous of you. Well, the time has come for you to wield that power to its fullest.” He stared into her pale, tear-streaked face, thinking that he loved her more now than he ever had, and finding that a most wondrous feeling. “Your enemies are just waiting for you to falter. They will say of you that you are of no use, after all. Like all women, you fall apart at the first crisis. You break into tears as no man would, and kneel, sobbing, broken, before Zhongshan’s memory.
“This is not the course he planned for you, Mai. It is not why he has brought you close to him, why he has shared all his innermost thoughts with you, why he has trusted you above all others, even his beloved Chiang. Do you not see that Zhongshan leans on you fully as much as you depend on him? And perhaps now it is your strength that helps sustain him. Perhaps without that his disease would already have finished him.”
“Yes.” Mai’s voice was but a sigh. Her head bent until her damp forehead pressed against his collarbone. She was like a long-distance runner who, at the edge of exhaustion, was beginning to find inside herself the courage to go on, to draw on her conviction so that she could finish what she had had the audacity to begin.
“Thank you, my husband,” she whispered. “Yes.”
In April of that year, Zilin received a promotion to chief clerk at the harbormaster’s office. At the end of the workday he hastened home to share his good fortune with Mai. He had been diligently setting aside a portion of his pay, and instead of donating it to the Party as Mai had often suggested, he had begun to invest it. He and his two brothers had pooled their money, purchasing land in areas of the city not yet fully developed, but that they felt would soon become valuable. In this manner they had already sold off two lots within six months, tripling their seed money. With the profits of a third chunk of real estate, combined with Zilin’s increased salary, he had an idea to buy a quarter-share in a steamship. His brothers did not think that such a thing was feasible, but Zilin was already formulating a plan.
Mai was not yet home when he arrived at dusk. He went immediately to his desk and, taking up pen and ink, began again his calculations, estimating the potential profits from part ownership in one of the great oceangoing ships.
Thus absorbed, he did not immediately hear Mai when she came in. But the absolute silence at length caused him to raise his head from the orderly rows of figures he had written in his neat hand across the page.
“Mai?”
Her face was white, her body rigid. Zilin came around from behind the desk and gripped her hands in his. They were as cold as ice. “By all the gods, what has happened?”
Mutely her eyes sought his, and there was within them such a depth of sadness and despair that he knew without her telling him that Zhongshan was dead.
“He went to Beijing alone,” she said tightly, after a long time. “I wanted to go with him. I pleaded with him, but he was unshakable in his conviction.” Zilin saw then the immense courage inside her, the determination not to weep. “It was as if he went there to die, as if he felt death coming and did not wish to die here among his family.”
Zilin felt a loss in the center of his being. It was as if some comforting hand to which he had grown accustomed over the years had abruptly disappeared. “Perhaps, as always, he was thinking of the revolution,” he said thoughtfully. Mai looked at him. “Our memories of him are all the more powerful, I think, since we were not exposed to his last frailties, his inevitable last weakness. Rather, we remember him strong and whole and eager to continue the battle.”
“Still,” Mai whispered, “I fear for us all.”
With Sun Zhongshan’s death came the inevitable quest to succeed him from within the ranks of the Guomindang. As was expected, Hu Hanmin emerged as the strongest candidate. His voice, raised in the forum of the central committee, was one of reason and patient common sense. Of course, Ling Xichu opposed him at every turn, speaking out for immediate military mobilization. But, curiously, Chiang Kai-shek, a most vocal proponent of such a move, was silent. He sat stolid and unmoving in his seat, surrounded by his retinue, in an almost judgmental attitude as he observed the two rivals in constant debate.
Zhongshan’s widow, of course, had no say in anything, but Zilin felt disturbed by this most uncharacteristic stance of Chiang’s. He was, after all, a man of action, and he, Mai, and Hu had all expected the general to make his move immediately.
But other events conspired to take time away from Zilin’s contemplation of the internal struggle within the Guomindang. Negotiations had begun with the American tai pan, Barton Sawyer, with regard to buying into his fleet of steamships.
Thoughts among the Shi brothers had settled around one of the British tai pan, who were generally more powerful by dint of having been in China the longest. But in the course of his work, Zilin had observed that one tai pan had been, over the past six months, consistently late in his harbor duties: Barton Sawyer of Sawyer & Sons. This, he argued with his brothers, was the soft spot they had been seeking. At length, the three of them agreed, delegating Zilin to make the approachment.
Thus, while the debates raged within the Guomindang, Zilin, dressed in his finest clothes, sat in the vestibule of Sawyer & Sons’ offices in the American Concession.
An officious young Westerner sat at a desk, making portentous motions to convey the importance of his position to the barbarian Chinese seated in the waiting area. After a suitable amount of time, the young man, who was unsuitably dressed for the climate, told Zilin that he could go inside.
Barton Sawyer was a large-shouldered, beefy-faced man. His coloring was so red that it momentarily disconcerted Zilin. Zilin bowed, then quickly took the American’s proffered hand as he had seen Westerners do many times, and squeezed it—which, he had found in his careful observance, was the proper response to the pressure he felt. Most of his brethren would merely have winced at having their hand squeezed and pulled it away.
Sawyer smiled. “Well, you sure know how to shake hands.” He had a loud, bellowing voice that privately disturbed Zilin’s sensibilities. But outwardly he showed nothing. “Where I come from, in Virginia, a man’s known by his handshake. My daddy was known not to do business with anyone ‘less he had a good solid handshake.”
It was the Americans’ conceit to believe that everyone they came in contact with knew the location of their birthplace. As if a continent on the other side of the world would be an open book.
“Come on,” Sawyer said jovially, raising a hand, “let’s sit and be comfortable.” He directed Zilin to an overstuffed sofa that had obviously been imported from the West. Zilin found it exceedingly uncomfortable, but he was determined to make the best of it here inside the foreign devil’s world. He must learn to acclimate himself, he told himself.
“Now,” Sawyer said, his voice still booming though the two were close together, “how can I help you?”
No tea, no civilized conversation to stabilize relations, to get a feel of the spirit of the other man. Zilin was momentarily astounded. But then, as he recovered, he vowed that it would be the last time the coarseness of a foreign devil would so nonplus him.
“It has come to my attention that certain, er, monthly tithes required by the city of Shanghai have not yet been paid by your firm. I—”
“Now I recognize you!” Sawyer snapped his fingers. “You work in the harbormaster’s office.” His face darkened. “Since when are the mandarins sending clerks to make their collections?”
“I am not,” Zilin said softly, “here in any official capacity.”
“You’re not?” The American began to eye him more carefully. “You mean you’re not here to demand payment?”
“No, sir.”
Sawyer leaned forward, withdrew a cigar from a perfumed humidor. He bit off the end, spat it sideways onto the carpet, and lit a wooden match. He puffed heartily for a time, savoring the tobacco. “Well, hell, son, it seems to me, then, you’ve got a nerve wanting to see me.” He began to rise. “I haven’t got the time—”
“You’ll have no time at all,” Zilin said, “if you can’t make next month’s harbor tithe.”
“That’s none of your business,” Sawyer said coldly. “I don’t discuss the affairs of Sawyer and Sons with a Chinee.”
