The wake of the gertrud.., p.24
The Wake of the Gertrud Luth, page 24
“There is nothing here but small shops,” Major Pao told him. “We should go on.”
Somewhere ahead Schepke could hear the sounds of music. The building was on the other side of the street.
“What did I tell you,” he said. “There’s a place you didn’t know about.”
“It is a private, club, Captain. No one is allowed inside who is not a member.”
“Not even allies, Major?”
Major Pao seemed genuinely embarrassed. “Very well,” he said, finally.
They went in through the hallway to one of the downstairs rooms. A number of army officers and girls were sitting at the tables, and the talking faltered as they entered and crossed to the small bar in the corner. Over head of the bar was a loudspeaker connected to an unseen gramophone, and now the Major stood uncomfortably at the bar while Karl Schepke could feel the eyes of the people at the tables on his back.
“What will it be, Major?”
The Major spoke quietly to the barman and he brought out and poured another of the pale beers.
“I’ll have a gin,” Schepke told the barman.
The barman poured the gin and set the glass on the counter. It was English gin.
“Your health, Major.”
Major Pao did not say anything but merely sipped the beer and looked extremely ill at ease.
Karl Schepke glanced around the room, the officers turning their attention to their drinks. Altogether there were about ten officers and six girls in the room. Two of the girls were White Russian, and all of them wore low cut cheongsams so the cleavage of their breasts showed.
The two White Russian girls were extremely pretty, with long eyelashes, smooth tawny skin and long honey-coloured hair falling to their shoulders.
Then as he turned back to his drink he saw one of the officers get up and leave, his cap still on the table.
”This is a fine place, Major.”
Major Pao seemed not to have heard him. Then an elderly thick-set man wearing a civilian suit came into the doorway behind the officer who had just returned, and nodded almost imperceptibly across the room. “Excuse me,” Major Pao said.
“Of course.” Karl Schepke watched him follow the other man into a separate room across the hallway. As soon as the door was closed he finished his drink and walked unconcernedly out of the bar and out onto the street.
He walked swiftly along the street and turned into the first alleyway he came to. After about a quarter of an hour’s walking he came out suddenly by what he remembered to be the old English racecourse, the grandstand enclosed now and made into some sort of reading room or library and a number of Chinese sitting behind the glass. He went into the public garden and found a seat under the acacia trees. Then sitting there, he lit a cigarette, and lighting it, was suddenly aware of someone watching him from under the shadow of trees further along the path. He was an old man with a goatee beard, wearing a small black-tasselled cap and a long black Chinese coat buttoned to the shoulder. Karl Schepke glanced casually both ways along the path, seeing no one else about. Looking back to the old man again, their eyes met. The old man smiled nervously then came out from under the trees. Karl Schepke watched him all the way.
Halting by the seat, the old man looked back along the path.
“Is there something I can do?” Schepke asked him carefully in English. The old man moistened his lips. His beard was grey and wispy and he had black unblinking eyes. Then he looked at Schepke’s uniform again. “You are American?” he asked, speaking quietly in English then peering furtively back at the trees.
“No. German,” Schepke told him.
“I thought perhaps you were American,” the old man said. “It is now many years since I have seen an American. It was the uniform,” he explained.
“I know.” Schepke said smiling. “Is there something i can do for you?”
“It was only to talk,” the old man said.
“You can sit a while?”
The old man sat nervously down on the edge of the seat, after first looking again to the trees. There were many trees and birds singing amongst the foliage. It was quiet in the park and there was no one about.
“You are from a ship?” the old man asked after a few moments.
“Yes. From across the river.”
“You have been to China before?”
“Some years ago,” Schepke said. “Before what it is today.”
“Ah,” the old man said, “today it is the New China.”
“So I have been told,” Schepke said, careful now about this old man.
Then the old man looked at him closely, there on the seat under the acacia trees. “I am afraid this is no longer our China. The days of happiness have gone forever. No longer does one belong to himself. Man should always have the right to live as he chooses. Now, today, man’s rights have gone with his happiness. It is a sad New China.”
“You must have seen it all,” Schepke said quietly, still not sure of himself with this old man in the long black coat.
And the old man moved his head gently. “In seventy years one sees many things,” he said, his wispy beard moving with his words. “A remembrance of things past is not always happy. There is much sadness in life. There are many things, that if a man could, he would not wish to remember.”
“What is it that you do?” Schepke asked him, puzzled.
“Now, nothing,” the old man said. “In Free China I was a painter. But in these times it is easily forgotten that a man can fulfil only that which is intended in him. Man cannot do with justice that which is ordered when there is no feeling in him to inspire such a doing. I can only paint that which I truly feel. Now there is nothing.”
“You have always lived here in Shanghai?”
“No,” the old man said, and for the first time, smiling faintly. “An honest painter could not tolerate to live in such a place. It is only lately that I came here. Most of my life I lived in a village far up the Great. It was a place called Witches’ Mountain Gorge. The village was five hundred feet up a sheer limestone cliff. It was a very beautiful village with wonderful memories.” The old man’s eyes had gone back now to the past. “I lived there with my two sons and daughter. Then one day the first of the soldiers came. They called themselves the People’s Liberation Army. First they took the headman’s house and imprisoned the people indiscriminately. My sons attempted to flee the river one night but were caught and held as political prisoners. How the matter became political I have never yet found a suitable explanation, except perhaps that one of different ideals and opinions from those in power at once become enemies of the State. However, soon the rearguard of soldiers arrived and set up a People’s Court in the square and the first batch of prisoners were brought out and crowded together until they filled the square and the soldier judge stood up on a table and proclaimed the death sentence. Then the soldiers shot them and left the bodies where they fell. When there were too many dead in the square the soldiers roped the other prisoners together and beat them with their rifle butts to the edge of the cliff then clubbed them over the side into the river. Many were old men who did not know what they had done. Some were Nationalist soldiers who had been brought to the village when they had been caught or surrendered, many of them wounded, and they sang as they died. Many of the others were only boys and they wept. All night it went on and in the morning it was said by others lower on the river that the water ran red with blood, and months afterward there were corpses rotting all along the banks in the hot summer sun. Even the birds would not come afterward.
”There is a flower here in China called the Buddha’s Hand. It grows out of the water on long stalks bearing great pink flowers, shaped like a man’s hand raised in supplication. From the centre of the flower comes a soft, pervasive incense. Now, ever since there has been a great abundance of these flowers along that part of the river where they had not been known to grow before.” When he had finished it was as if a great weight had loosed itself from him.
Then he turned and saw Schepke still looking at him, and he smiled. It was a fragile smile that passed across his lips as a light wind might.
“You must forgive an old man and his past,” he said softly.
“Your daughter,” Schepke said. “You never mentioned your daughter.”
The old man’s face saddened again. “I still have her.
But she is no longer happy. I am afraid the disillusionment set in the night her brothers died.”
“I can imagine,” Schepke said.
“It was two years before she went on with her work. She was studying to be an actress. She had come home from Peking when the troubles began, and after having achieved some degree of success. Then when things had regained some form of order my daughter and I were commanded to appear before the Arts Union in Peking. My daughter went back to the theatre and I was sent to Yunnan Province to assist in compiling a Cultural Legacy of the Nahsi People. Mostly it was the copying of Nahsi murals. Interesting work for students or young artists but not for an old man who all his life had painted crickets and grasshoppers. But I am afraid the State was not interested in a Cultural Survey of Insects. It is a pity that they are ignorant of the fact that before one begins painting one must have heart, hand and mind in the tip of the brush. For an old man it was not a difficult decision to make when declining the task. However, at that time I was unaware that my daughter was arriving at the same decision. I was imprisoned for two years at Kaifeng for subversive action against the State. It was only lately that I was sent here to Shanghai. My daughter arrived about a year ago and was directed to work as a clerk at the Union of Engineers.”
“Then they no longer allow her to be an actress?”
The old man moved his head sadly, averting his eyes.
“She cannot allow herself to do as the State orders. To her all is contrived, false, and without true expression.”
“Is there nothing you can do?” Schepke asked.
“How does one escape from the State?” the old man said, allowing himself to smile. “Freedom has gone from China for good.”
“Would it not be easier to comply?” Schepke said.
“With such odds there seems little an old man and his daughter can do.”
The old man smiled again, sadly. “In this life one must do what he believes true and right. He must stand or fall by himself. I am sure that talking with you, seeing you, you have found this yourself.”
He was a strange-looking man, this man on the seat under the acacia trees, with the wispy beard, the tight fitting cap, and the long black coat.
Then Karl Schepke noticed two students come along the path, both of them carrying books, and when he turned back the old man left abruptly, hurrying along the path that led towards the street. Karl Schepke went after him, but when he came out through the gateway the old man was crossing the roadway, hurrying. He started to call after him, then stopped himself as a car drove swiftly into the curb alongside of him.
“A friend of yours, Captain?”
He was looking at Major Pao. “I went for a walk in the park and got lost. I was going to ask the way to the Bund.” He did not look toward the old man as he spoke. He hoped now that he was away and that the Major would not know him.
“Perhaps I can help,” Major Pao said, and spoke to the driver who promptly got out and opened the rear door.
They made a tight turn and drove back the way of the Bund, Karl Schepke sitting alongside Major Pao in the back.
“I wish to offer my apologies for that incident earlier on, Major,” Schepke said as they left the park behind.
“It was of no consequence, Captain,” Major Pao said, smiling, obviously wishing everything forgotten.
The driver turned the car onto the Bund and they drove south along the front. The blue was beginning to fade in the sky now and the Whangpoo looked cold and brittle as the sun began to go down beyond the city. Across the river the Gertrud Lüth was back at Chang Ka Pang Wharf.
“What was it the old man said, Captain?” Major Pao asked suddenly.
“Old man?” Schepke said.
“It does not matter,” Major Pao said, smiling his dismissal of the subject.
“There was no old man talked to me.”
“Yes,” Major Pao said, smiling. “You have told me.”
The car had stopped by the landing stage. Karl Schepke climbed out onto the front. There was a cool breeze coming in from the river.
“I am afraid I cannot accompany you to your ship, Captain. There are some matters that require my immediate attention on shore. Until the next time.”
“Goodbye, Major.” Karl Schepke turned and walked down the steps to the launch. The Major’s car had already moved away.
They started back across the river. There was a freshening breeze from the south-east and the waters were choppy. Looking back at the city, the setting sun appeared to be suspended just above the rooftops along the Bund. The Gertrud Lüth lay directly ahead, the red sunlight reflecting brightly on her starboard wing windows and heavy glass scuttles along the cabin deck. Even in the sunlight, and under new coats of black and white paint, the Gertrud Lüth remained her old self, heavy and squat and ugly.
He took one last look back across the river as they neared the wharf, remembering the old man. He had been a tired, sincere old man who had begun to feel the burden of life weigh heavily. He was a troubled old man. But there were other things to think about other than troubled old men. China was probably full of troubled old men who would remain so until they went to wherever it was that troubled old men went.
No, he was thinking, to hell with China. You leave China to take care of herself, old turtle-head. You have enough troubles of your own without thinking about the yellow stuff. Just keep things simple, old turtle-head. Hell, he was thinking, what are you worrying about an old man for?
46
IT was almost midnight when the last of the bales of raw cotton were put below. Then the lights began to go out along the wharf as the ponderous-looking trucks moved out up the wharf with the dock coolies packed in behind the high sides. It was quiet now except for the sound of the river and the shipboard noises. Karl Schepke stood looking down from the bridge, watching Kamei supervise the temporary covering of the forward hatches. Sometime during the afternoon he had found time to fit himself out with a mandarin type jacket and work trousers. He was a massively-built man, exceptionally swift and light in all his movements despite his weight and size. And there was his curiously deformed right hand, his last three fingers permanently clenched, almost as though they grew directly into the palm.
Then as Karl Schepke turned to leave, Cheng came up onto the bridge, his white tunic unbuttoned at the neck and his hair carefully smoothed back over his skull.
“Good evening, Captain,” he said as he crossed the bridge. “Is there any news yet of the cargo from Hankow?”
“There was a signal. It should be here sometime during the early morning.”
“Then with good fortune we should be clear by midday.”
Karl Schepke saw him smiling in the glow of the deck and derrick lights as he leaned on the open window.
“What were you doing before you came on board?”
Cheng turned politely from the open window. “I was on the Saigon run,” he said. “That and Manila. Nothing as exciting as you, Captain.”
“Do you know the Yangtze?” Schepke asked him, watching his face in the gloom.
“Only as far as Nanking,” Cheng said, smiling. “My father was a junkman at Kiang Yin. I was born on the Great. We moved to Hong Kong in nineteen-forty-nine.”
Karl Schepke lit a cigarette, the match flaring in the gloom.
“You enjoyed your visit ashore yesterday?” Cheng asked matter-of-factly.
“I’m afraid Shanghai is not a sailor’s city any longer.” He stopped, then decided to go on. “However, it doesn’t matter very much. My only concern is the money. I can always go ashore in Hong Kong. One thing I’ll say for the English, they haven’t forbidden the making of beer.”
Cheng smiled with him. “I appreciate your point, Captain. Politics are of no interest to me either.”
Karl Schepke looked at his wrist watch. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me,” he said. “I had almost forgotten supper.”
When he left, Cheng glanced back at the foredeck to see the hatches covered by tarpaulins and the deck deserted. Quickly he went out into the port wing. All the windows were down and he peered both ways along the wharf then picked out the darker patch that was the gateway to the godown directly opposite the bridge.
“Müller! Müller!” he said, dropping his voice, calling gently to the boatdeck. Then looking from the after windows he saw Müller toss a heaving-line out across the side onto the wharf, the dark shadowy figures of the two Chinese close with him as they leaned across the rail peering into the gloom beyond the ship’s high wall. Swiftly now, Cheng struck a match, held it for a moment, then arced it out through the wing window. The answering light wavered far below and then Cheng saw Müller signal the three Chinese.
The line came in smoothly with Müller keeping watch on whatever was below. Then the line came up swiftly, Müller grasping something and lifting it inboard across the rail.
“Schepke is in the messroom,” Cheng said below. “Hurry.”
He went quickly to the stairway. There was no one below in the passage. The messroom and galley doors were open but Müller did not have to pass them. Then he saw Müller appear at the after screen doorway, and he nodded, and Müller came in quickly and went into his cabin, carefully carrying the black leather knapsack by the shoulder straps.
47
SHORTLY after midday the Gertrud Lüth dropped quietly down the Whangpoo to the Yangtze.
It came on to rain heavily during the night and when they came in to Taipeh the morning sky was grey and low and the rain falling in the southerly wind. Two American destroyers and a Nationalist gunboat were lying at the midstream harbour buoys as the Gertrud Lüth swung her bows in toward the dock, the city grey and drab-looking in the steadily falling rain. The pilot cutter met her as she cleared the harbour buoys and apart from a small British merchantman the inner harbour was occupied only by a large American transport ship, grey and deserted-looking in the cold wet morning.
