Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls 1)

“You have to be quiet,” I whisper.

We hear grunting and laughing, but nothing from our mother. Is she already dead? If she is, then they’ll come in here. Don’t I have to do something to give my sister a chance? I drop the things Mama gave me, and then I slide to my left.

“No!”

“Quiet!”

In our flattened space, May holds on to my arm with one hand.

“Don’t go out there, Pearl,” she pleads. “Don’t leave me.”

I jerk my arm, and May’s hand falls away. As quietly as possible, I edge out from behind the planks. Without hesitation I walk to the door, open it, step into the main room, and close the door behind me.

Mama’s on the floor with a man inside her. I’m struck by how thin her calves are, the result of nearly a lifetime of walking—rather, not walking—on her bound feet. Another dozen or so soldiers in yellow uniforms, leather shoes, and carrying rifles slung over their shoulders stand around, watching, waiting their turns.

Mama groans when she sees me.

“You promised you would stay where you were.” Her words are weak with pain and sorrow. “It was my honor to save you.”

The dwarf bandit atop my mother slaps her. Strong hands grab me and pull me this way and that. Who will get me first? The strongest? The man in my mother suddenly stops what he’s doing, pulls up his trousers, and bullies his way through the others to try to seize me for his prize.

“I told them I was alone,” Mama mutters in despair. She tries to stand but gets only as far as her knees.

In the insanity of the moment, somehow I remain calm.

“They can’t understand you,” I say, coolly, unfazed, not thinking for fear.

“I wanted you and May to be safe,” Mama says as she weeps.

Someone pushes me. A couple of the soldiers go back to Mama and hit her on the head and shoulders. They shout at us. Maybe they don’t want us talking, but I’m not sure. I don’t know their language. Finally one of the soldiers tries English.

“What is the old woman saying? Who else are you hiding?”

I see greed

in his eyes. There are so many soldiers and only two women, one of whom is a mother.

“My mother is upset because I didn’t stay hidden,” I answer in English. “I am her only child.” I don’t have to pretend to weep. I begin to sob, terrified of what’s going to happen next.

There are certain moments when I fly away, when I leave my body, the room, the earth, and just soar through the night sky searching for people and places I love. I think of Z.G. Would he see what I’ve done as a supreme act of filial piety? I think of Betsy. I even think of my Japanese student. Is Captain Yamasaki nearby, aware that it’s me, hoping that May will be discovered? Is he thinking about how he wanted her as a wife but now he could have her as a war trophy?

My mother’s beaten, but even her blood and her screams don’t stop the soldiers. They unwrap her feet, the bindings swirling through the air like acrobats’ ribbons. Her feet look the color of a corpse gone cold—bluish white with shades of green and purple beneath the crushed flesh.

The soldiers pull and prod them. Then they stomp on her feet to try to bring them back into “normal” shape. Her cries are not those of footbinding or childbirth. They’re the deep, anguished screams of an animal experiencing agony beyond comprehension.

I close my eyes and try to ignore everything they’re doing, but my teeth itch to bite the man on top of me. In my mind I keep seeing the bodies of the women we passed on the road earlier today, not wanting to see my own legs in those unnatural, inhuman angles. I feel tearing—not like on my wedding night—but something much worse, something searing, as though my insides are being torn apart. The air is thick and gummy with the suffocating smells of blood, mosquito incense, and Mama’s exposed feet.

A few times—when Mama’s cries are the worst—I open my eyes and see what they’re doing to her. Mama, Mama, Mama, I want to cry out, but I don’t. I won’t give these monkey people the pleasure of hearing my terror. I reach out and grab her hand. How can I describe the look that passes between us? We’re a mother and daughter being raped repeatedly, for all we know until we both die. I see in her eyes my birth, the endless tragedies of mother love, a total absence of hope, and then somewhere deep, deep in those liquid pools a fierceness I’ve never seen before.

The whole time I silently pray that May will stay hidden, that she won’t make a sound, that she won’t be tempted to peek out the door, that she won’t do anything stupid, because the one thing I won’t be able to bear is for her to be in this room with these … men. Pretty soon I don’t hear Mama anymore. I lose all awareness of where I am and even what’s happening to me. All I feel is pain.

The front door scrapes open, and I hear the sound of more boots tramping on the hard-packed earth. The whole thing is horrible, but this is my worst moment, knowing that there’s more to come. But I’m wrong. A voice—angry, authoritative, and as rough as grating gears—bellows at the men. They scramble to their feet. They adjust their trousers. They smooth their hair and wipe their mouths with the backs of their hands. Then they stand at attention and salute. I lie as still as possible, hoping they’ll think I’m dead. The new voice yelps out orders—or is it a reprimand? The other soldiers bluster.

The cold edge of a bayonet or a saber presses against my cheek. I don’t react. A boot kicks me. Again, I don’t want to react—be dead, be dead, be dead, and maybe it won’t begin again—but my body curls in on itself like a wounded caterpillar. No laughing this time, only terrible silence. I wait for the stab of the bayonet.

I feel a wave of cool air and then the soft settling of cloth over my naked body. The gruff soldier—directly above me, I realize, as he shouts his orders and I hear the shuffling of boots when the others file out—reaches down, adjusts the cloth over my hip, and then leaves.

For a long while, black silence fills the room. Then I hear Mama shift her weight and moan. I’m still afraid, but I whisper, “Be still. They may come back.”