coming, sweeping through the porous walls of the house, rattling the window frames. I was cold all the way through.
My father talked in the next room with the magistrate and the former railroad commissioner.
A burst of wind shook the house so hard that a bottle fell off the windowsill and spilled gentian violet on the floor. It pooled, iridescent, on the blackened pine.
I heard the magistrate’s refined voice: “At least the Japanese were not corrupt. If you broke a rule, they tortured you—”
“Killed you, you mean—”
“If you didn’t, they left you alone.”
“They knew how to govern,” the railroad commissioner said. “How to grow industry, how to run the railroad. They wanted a good economy. They weren’t just out to strip the land and sell everything to the motherland for profit.”
“Yes, while these gua shing-a ship all our rice to their troops in China.”
“They’re saying we hoard it.”
“Of course they deny it! But we can tell. The people at the docks can all see the rice being loaded onto ships.”
“At least the Japanese knew how to distribute the rice. No one liked the rationing, but—”
“But at least they cared whether we ate.”
“Don’t forget how many people they killed during the resistance!” my father said suddenly.
“Well, but it was straightforward. It was an armed resistance, like a war. What I’m talking about is—”
“Fool!” my father exclaimed. “Remember that ‘amnesty celebration’ where they slaughtered their guests of honor? How many were there? Three hundred?”
“We don’t need the Japanese or the Mainlanders!”
“The dogs go and the pigs come!”
I pulled my blanket around me and listened to the wind that swept south from Siberia and whistled through the cracks in our walls. I closed my eyes, seeing the burning truck, the legs of the person we had left injured in the street. I saw Teacher Lee’s shaking finger, the Nationalist officer waving The Earth, Yoshiko holding hands with her father and her brother. She touched her palm to my head. The snake bit me. Keiko Sato pointed to the sky.
7
T HE OUTDOORS BECKONED, THE long grass bending in the cool wind with innocent grace, but we were not to leave the house. The streets remained anarchic and my parents could take no risks that we might either get into trouble ourselves or incriminate the family with careless remarks. Lying on my futon, trapped and despairing as I was, I developed stomach pains. Yet I was ravenously hungry. At each meal, Kazuo taunted me, calling me a dropout. My mother, as she always had, apportioned the meat to him first, my youngest sister next, then the other siblings. Since my expulsion, her rations were even harsher, and by the time she got to me, there was no meat left.
“What will you be now? A janitor?”
I was silent, chewing my rice, flavored with soy sauce and invective.
As I lay back onto my futon, I heard snippets of news from the radio. The Settlement Committee, of which the Taoyuan magistrate was a member, had presented the Thirty-Two Demands to Governor Chen Yi and his government, calling for steps toward greater Taiwanese representation—the enactment of a provincial autonomy law, new elections of the People’s Political Councils, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Governor Chen Yi announced that he would meet with the Settlement Committee to negotiate.
My father snorted. “They hope the Americans will hear,” he said. “They could just have knocked off all the Mainlanders, but they think this way they’ll be let into the United Nations.” He spoke derisively, but as he brought a teacup to his lips he had a wistful expression on his face.
But then, on March 8, my father’s cynicism was once again proved correct. Chiang Kai-shek’s Twenty-First Division arrived at Keelung and Kaohsiung. These were not like the bedraggled troops we had initially welcomed with a parade; they were the Nationalists’ most notorious soldiers. They
My father talked in the next room with the magistrate and the former railroad commissioner.
A burst of wind shook the house so hard that a bottle fell off the windowsill and spilled gentian violet on the floor. It pooled, iridescent, on the blackened pine.
I heard the magistrate’s refined voice: “At least the Japanese were not corrupt. If you broke a rule, they tortured you—”
“Killed you, you mean—”
“If you didn’t, they left you alone.”
“They knew how to govern,” the railroad commissioner said. “How to grow industry, how to run the railroad. They wanted a good economy. They weren’t just out to strip the land and sell everything to the motherland for profit.”
“Yes, while these gua shing-a ship all our rice to their troops in China.”
“They’re saying we hoard it.”
“Of course they deny it! But we can tell. The people at the docks can all see the rice being loaded onto ships.”
“At least the Japanese knew how to distribute the rice. No one liked the rationing, but—”
“But at least they cared whether we ate.”
“Don’t forget how many people they killed during the resistance!” my father said suddenly.
“Well, but it was straightforward. It was an armed resistance, like a war. What I’m talking about is—”
“Fool!” my father exclaimed. “Remember that ‘amnesty celebration’ where they slaughtered their guests of honor? How many were there? Three hundred?”
“We don’t need the Japanese or the Mainlanders!”
“The dogs go and the pigs come!”
I pulled my blanket around me and listened to the wind that swept south from Siberia and whistled through the cracks in our walls. I closed my eyes, seeing the burning truck, the legs of the person we had left injured in the street. I saw Teacher Lee’s shaking finger, the Nationalist officer waving The Earth, Yoshiko holding hands with her father and her brother. She touched her palm to my head. The snake bit me. Keiko Sato pointed to the sky.
7
T HE OUTDOORS BECKONED, THE long grass bending in the cool wind with innocent grace, but we were not to leave the house. The streets remained anarchic and my parents could take no risks that we might either get into trouble ourselves or incriminate the family with careless remarks. Lying on my futon, trapped and despairing as I was, I developed stomach pains. Yet I was ravenously hungry. At each meal, Kazuo taunted me, calling me a dropout. My mother, as she always had, apportioned the meat to him first, my youngest sister next, then the other siblings. Since my expulsion, her rations were even harsher, and by the time she got to me, there was no meat left.
“What will you be now? A janitor?”
I was silent, chewing my rice, flavored with soy sauce and invective.
As I lay back onto my futon, I heard snippets of news from the radio. The Settlement Committee, of which the Taoyuan magistrate was a member, had presented the Thirty-Two Demands to Governor Chen Yi and his government, calling for steps toward greater Taiwanese representation—the enactment of a provincial autonomy law, new elections of the People’s Political Councils, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Governor Chen Yi announced that he would meet with the Settlement Committee to negotiate.
My father snorted. “They hope the Americans will hear,” he said. “They could just have knocked off all the Mainlanders, but they think this way they’ll be let into the United Nations.” He spoke derisively, but as he brought a teacup to his lips he had a wistful expression on his face.
But then, on March 8, my father’s cynicism was once again proved correct. Chiang Kai-shek’s Twenty-First Division arrived at Keelung and Kaohsiung. These were not like the bedraggled troops we had initially welcomed with a parade; they were the Nationalists’ most notorious soldiers. They
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