Chinese Cinderella and the Secret Dragon Society (28 page)

Their words were music to my ears! Now I knew that I had well and truly earned my place in the Dragon Society of the Wandering Knights. We were about to face our biggest challenge together.

23

The Future Belongs to Us

The day of the Dragon Boat Festival began with a heavy downpour at dawn. At first we thought the acrobatic show scheduled for that afternoon at Du Mei Park would be cancelled. Thunder roared, lightning flashed and rain came down in sheets.

After lunch, the weather gradually cleared. The boys dressed in their colourful satin costumes. Grandma Wu and I stayed behind to prepare for the Grand Escape. We burnt all incriminating documents and buried our radio equipment in a lead-lined compartment, hollowed out beneath a wall.

As I ironed the jackets and trousers Grandma Wu had sewn, I noticed that she had stitched stripes to the sleeves and added piping around the collars.

‘You’ve made these jackets look like officers’ uniforms!’

‘That’s right,’ Grandma Wu answered proudly. ‘When the Americans put on these clothes, everyone will think they’re officers from the German Army. I’ve noticed that Japanese soldiers are particularly respectful of foreigners dressed in uniforms. Any uniform will do. Even a Boy Scout’s! Just to be safe, however, I had German identity papers prepared for the airmen as well.’

Master Wu and the boys came in to say they were leaving for the park. We wished each other good luck and arranged to meet outside Bridge House at 10.10 p.m. that evening. As they opened the door to leave, a beam of sunlight shafted in. ‘Look at that cloud formation in the sky!’ said Sam. ‘Doesn’t it look just like a dragon?’

I peeked between the slats of the rattan shutters and saw a dragon-shaped, black-and-white cloud outlined clearly against a bright blue sky. A brilliant rainbow in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet arched out of the dragon’s mouth.

‘The dragon!’ Master Wu exclaimed. ‘Symbol of the Society of the Wandering Knights! It can soar up and fly into the sun or dive down and touch the bottom of the ocean. It can wander at will to visit every corner of the universe or remain
hidden among the waves. What a good omen that a dragon should appear in the sky at this moment. On the very day of the Dragon Boat Festival, no less!’

After the boys left, Grandma Wu and I made 100 steamed
baos
((
) buns filled with cabbage and minced pork), for our forthcoming journey. We dressed in our peasant clothes and packed the buns and our belongings in backpacks. By 10 p.m. we were ensconced in a large removal van on the street outside Bridge House, with Grandma Wu at the wheel and me hidden inside.

My heart raced as the hands of my watch approached 10.15 p.m I pressed my body flat against the back panel of the van and felt my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth. I could see through a small rear window. The surrounding streets were still packed with revellers enjoying the remaining hours of the Dragon Boat Festival. At 10.10 p.m., Master Wu and the boys positioned themselves at street corners, mingling with the crowd.

At precisely 10.15 p.m., four emaciated men dressed in prison clothing clambered awkwardly over the rear wall of Bridge House and slid down a rope, one after another. A murmur went through the throng, followed by a hush. Everyone stared. It gradually dawned on people that these were
inmates breaking out of jail. I wanted to scream out words of encouragement to the airmen, but knew I mustn’t!

To my surprise, nobody tried to halt their flight. Instead, everyone seemed to be on the side of the escapees. Some onlookers even stretched out their arms to offer a helping hand. Master Wu suddenly stepped forwards, and I heard him say, ‘Ivanov!’ A fifth man poked his head above the wall and scrambled down. He led the prisoners quickly to our van. Grandma Wu had the engine running. Exhaust fumes billowed out from the exhaust pipes. The crowd dispersed as if on cue, leaving the road clear for us to make a quick getaway.

At that moment, I heard the sound of boots pounding the pavement behind us. Someone called out, ‘Japanese patrolman!’ All at once, David took a sling out of his pocket and catapulted a pebble into the air. It shattered the solitary street lamp and plunged the street into darkness. As our van pulled away, our headlights caught Marat and Sam raising a length of wire they had tied to two trees. The lone Japanese pursuer tripped and sprawled on to the ground. No one moved to help him back on his feet.

David sprinted forwards and hurled himself at the patrolman, who launched a flying kick at David’s head. Quick as a dragon striking, David
caught the soldier’s ankle and twisted it. Propelled by his own momentum, the man lost his balance and fell heavily a second time. As he lay there stunned, the boys scattered in different directions and vanished into the crowd. They would take different short cuts and make their own way to the ‘safe house’.

Inside the van, Ivanov introduced us to Chase Nielsen, Jake DeShazer, George Barr and Bobbie Hite. Robert Meder, the co-pilot of
The Green Hornet,
was so sick that he’d been unable to escape with the others.

Ivanov and the airmen struggled into the uniforms we’d brought for them as we sped through the empty late-night streets to North Szechuan Road. Everything went according to plan. Master Wu unlocked the back gate and Grandma Wu parked inside the garage. The men had a quick wash and a rough shave in the bathroom of the empty house. The three boys soon joined us. It was touching to see Marat and Ivanov together. They embraced and helped us burn the prisoners’ uniforms in the living-room fireplace.

Although pitifully thin, Ivanov and the four airmen looked impressive in their new German officers’ uniforms. We got into taxis, driven by our agents, for the short ride to the Bund. No
one challenged us or gave us a second glance as we boarded two sampans. We were ferried directly on to a large junk anchored in the middle of the Huang Pu River, weaving between the many colourful boats that had taken part in the Dragon Boat Race earlier. Their bows were painted in brilliant colours and flags flew from the top of their masts.

We sat in the main cabin of the junk and Grandma Wu served the
baos
we had brought, while Master Wu brewed tea. There was a breeze, and the junk travelled steadily westwards towards Chungking. By the light of a small oil lamp I took my first proper look at the prisoners. I was horrified to see how ill they really were. They seemed over-whelmed by everything that had happened to them.

One of them asked me, ‘What’s your name, little girl?’

‘My Chinese name is Ye Xian but my English name is CC,’ I answered shyly.

‘I’m Jacob DeShazer, but my friends call me Jake,’ he said. I saw that his arms and hands were covered with angry boils. ‘On behalf of the five of us, I want to thank all of you from the bottom of our hearts for risking your lives to rescue us.’

‘It’s nothing,’ I said. ‘I hate the Japanese. They killed my aunt.’

He looked at me for a long time before he spoke again. ‘I did plenty of thinking in that prison. The Japanese, they sure haven’t treated us decently. They tortured and starved us, and even executed three of us on trumped-up charges.’

He shut his eyes for a moment. ‘My body’s wrecked, and I could spend the rest of my life hating the Japanese. But hate is not erased by hate. There’s no doubt in my mind that Japan will lose this war. Should I spend the rest of my life pursuing revenge? Or should I try to do something bigger, something that will live on even after I’m gone? The only way of turning the tables on those who did us wrong is to do them good.

‘Your life is just beginning. Take my advice, don’t live out of hatred. It won’t make your life meaningful.’

‘What are you going to do now that you’re free?’ I asked. ‘Will you go back to America and start a business?’

‘No way,’ Jake said. ‘These last few months, I’ve been wondering what will happen to the Japanese after they lose the war. They’re so convinced that they’ll win; it’s going to be a big blow to them when they lose. But what if they should discover Jesus and the power of forgiveness through losing
the war? In that case, their military defeat would turn out to be their greatest victory.

‘When the war is over, I’m going to train as a missionary. I’ll go to Japan, if I can, and teach the Gospel among the Japanese people. I hope to bring them peace.’

Everyone was silent for a long time as we mulled over his words. Then Marat said, ‘My brother, Ivanov, and I are Muslims. Sam is Jewish. David is a Christian like you. Grandma Wu is a Buddhist and CC doesn’t know what she wants to be yet. Your intentions may be good, but what if the Japanese people are happy with their own beliefs?’

‘That’s a good question,’ Jake replied.

‘Isn’t religion an accident of fate?’ Marat persisted. ‘Ivanov and I are Muslims because our mother was a Muslim. Sam’s father was Jewish and David’s parents were Christians. Grandma Wu’s parents were probably Buddhist…’

‘Religion is, indeed, an accident of fate,’ interrupted Master Wu. ‘It’s my opinion that when we adopt the belief that our lives are ruled by a higher authority, we shouldn’t limit that authority or give it a name. The ancient philosopher Lao Zi wrote a book about this 2500 years ago.
The Book of Tao
(the Way).

‘I believe it’s wiser not to ask what this religion or that religion might be, or the name of this
god or that god; but simply to think of Heaven, to cultivate a right attitude towards Heaven, without focusing on specific names. The essential beliefs of the major religions don’t differ very much. The variations we notice are often the result of our own narrowness of vision.

‘If you look at a bouquet of flowers and focus your gaze on a single red bloom, you won’t see all the other blossoms. When your eye is not fixed on any one flower, and you face the bouquet with an open mind, then all the flowers become visible to you. But if a single flower alone holds your eye, it will be as if the remaining flowers are not there.’

‘Marat, Sam and I have had many arguments in the past because of our religious beliefs,’ said David. ‘Each of us thinks his religion is the best and only true religion.’

‘You three aren’t alone!’ Grandma Wu said. ‘Throughout history, there have been religious wars. Although I am a Buddhist, I agree with my son’s concept of the Tao of Heaven. Unless all of us can accept that fundamentally there’s no difference between the various major religions, our world will never be at peace.’

‘One can get to the same destination via many different paths,’ Master Wu said. ‘The Tao of Heaven is the source of our conscience. It manifests itself through kindness, morality and clarity
of judgement. When people acquire the Tao of Heaven, it becomes part of their nature. They become virtuous and happy.’

The boys looked at the airmen and then at one another. ‘Allah is great!’ Marat finally conceded. ‘I never thought of it your way before, but I agree that we can reach Allah by taking different paths.’

‘Right!’ agreed Sam. ‘The goal of all religions is the same. It is the realization that God is in our mind.’

As our junk sailed briskly westwards along the Yangtze River, I couldn’t help but think of Big Aunt and my father. So much had happened since that first afternoon, when I watched the boys’ acrobatic show and David had pulled his card out of my ear.

I left the cabin and stood at the bow of the junk, feeling sad and alone. I knew that Grandma Wu hadn’t yet shown Ah Yee the photos of the massacre at Nan Tian. Now that I was on my way to Chungking, there was no need to tell Ah Yee or my father that I’d been murdered by the Japanese.

I ached for my family. Big Aunt was gone forever, but what should I do about my father? Would I ever see him again? Would he remember he once had a daughter who adored him? What should I do?

Our junk was pulling away further and further from die lights of Shanghai towards Chungking and freedom. Freedom! The word rang sweetly in my head over and over. I thought of my last evening at home: how Father had allowed Niang to open my letter from Big Aunt without my permission; how he had remained silent through-out my inquisition; how he had not intervened, even when she slapped and berated me. It was as if he no longer had any will to voice his own opinion. Did it really matter to him whether I lived or died?