Chinese Cinderella (17 page)

‘Will you always be my aunt?’

‘Of course!’ She hugged me.

‘Will you write to me every week?’

‘Yes! And twice a week if you write to me too!’

‘For always?’

‘For as long as you’re in Tianjin.’ She hugged me again. ‘And even after that, for as long as you’ll remember me.’

‘And then?’

‘After that it’s entirely up to you. I’ll be here for you as long as I’m alive. Surely you know that? But you must never forget the dream. Try to do your best at all times. You have something precious and unique deep inside you which must not be wasted. I’ve always known that. You must prove them wrong! Promise?’

‘Yes, I promise.’

Chapter Fifteen

Boarding‐school in Tianjin

A
t Hong‐Qiao Airport there were huge crowds milling around, pushing and shoving like a human tidal wave, fighting for tickets. To my amazement, fewer than ten passengers boarded our plane from Shanghai to Tianjin. I sat immediately behind Father and Niang next to an empty seat.

I didn’t know it then, but the China I had always known was changing before my very eyes. My grand‐parents Ye Ye and Nai Nai were both born during the Qing Dynasty which ruled China for 267 years until Sun Yat‐sen toppled it in 1911. Following Sun’s revolution, local war‐lords divided the country into fiefdoms and waged war with one another until the emergence of the Nationalist Party under Chiang Kai‐shek. When Japan invaded in 1937, most of China was controlled by Chiang. However, the Communists under Mao Ze‐dong were gaining momentum. Between 1937 and 1945, the Nationalists and Communists formed a united front to fight the Japanese. After Japan’s surrender in 1945, the civil war resumed between Mao Ze‐dong and Chiang Kai‐shek for the control of China.

By September 1948, when Father and Niang took me north to Tianjin from Shanghai to separate me from my aunt, the Communists were already in control of Manchuria and were advancing rapidly southwards towards Beijing and Tianjin. Province after province was being lost to the victorious People’s Liberation Army. Most people were fleeing in the opposite direction. Railroad stations, airports and dockyards were jammed with passengers wishing to escape to Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Being completely ignorant of the political situation, I merely thought it rather strange that the plane was so empty when the airport was so full. As soon as we took off, the airline hostess came around to hand out landing cards. ‘Are you travelling alone?’ she asked.

‘No, I’m with my parents.’

‘Good.’ She smiled. ‘Then they’ll have to fill this out for you.’

Our aeroplane began to toss and roll. I felt sick to my stomach, closed my eyes and must have fallen asleep. When I awoke, Father was sitting by my side, gently shaking my shoulder. I sat bolt upright.

‘Sorry, Father,’ I began. ‘Have we arrived?’

‘Not yet.’ He had three landing cards in his hand and a sheepish expression on his face. ‘The stewardess asked me to fill out these cards. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your Chinese name. Is it Jun‐qing?’

A pang went through me. I meant so little to him, I was such a nobody that he didn’t even remember my name! ‘No, Father. That’s Little Sister’s name. Mine is Jun‐ling.’

‘Of course! Jun‐ling!’ He gave an embarrassed chuckle and quickly scribbled Jun‐ling on the card. ‘Now, give me your date of birth.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know, Father.’ It was true. In our family, the step‐children’s birthdays were unknown. We counted for so little that our birthdays were never remembered, let alone celebrated.

He scratched his head. ‘Hmm . . . let’s see now. How old are you?’

‘I’m ten, Father.’

‘Ten years old! How time flies!’ He looked into space and was lost in reverie. After a while he continued, ‘But we have to complete these landing cards! Tell you what. Why don’t I give you my birthday? Would you like that?’

‘Yes, please, Father!’ How wonderful! To share the same birthday as my father! I was thrilled!

‘Now you know what to say next time when someone asks you for your birthday.’

That’s how November 30 became my birthday. The same day as my father’s.

Niang’s brother, Pierre Prosperi, met us at the airport. I had met him once before when he came to our home for dinner in Shanghai. I didn’t know where I was or what time it was but dared not ask. The day seemed to be drawing to a close.

‘Say good evening to your Uncle Pierre,’ Niang instructed me. When I did, she exclaimed, ‘Not in the Shanghai dialect! No one speaks that here.’

It was true. Everyone at the crowded airport was shouting to each other in Mandarin, the local dialect of Tianjin. Outside, it was already dark. I knew I was far from home, where Aunt Baba was probably having dinner with Ye Ye and my three brothers. Was she thinking of me too?

Father and Niang hurried me into a big, black motor car. Father sat in front talking business with Uncle Pierre and the chauffeur. Niang and I were alone in the back seat. I smelled her perfume and was dizzy with worry and nausea. I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep because I was afraid. We drove for a long time. When we arrived, it was pitch black. The chauffeur got my suitcase out of the boot while Niang told me to stand with her in front of the massive gates of a large building. It looked vaguely familiar. Where had I seen it before?

The gates swung open as soon as Niang pressed the bell. Two tall foreign nuns in starched white habits were standing at the door. They shook Niang’s hand and patted me on the head.

‘We have been waiting for you,’ they said.

‘Bow to Mother Marie and Mother Natalie!’ Niang instructed and I bowed obediently.

‘Sorry we are so late!’ Niang exclaimed as the chauffeur took my suitcase inside. ‘Behave yourself and listen to the sisters!’ Suddenly I realised she was speaking to me. More than that, I was being dismissed. ‘Mother Marie used to be my English teacher and Mother Natalie my French teacher when I studied here.’ She turned to the sisters with a charming smile. ‘I won’t trouble you now but will telephone you at a more civilised hour tomorrow. Sleep well!’

She strode back towards the car, with the chauffeur trailing behind. He respectfully opened the car door for her, started the engine and pulled away. All this time, Father and Uncle Pierre had remained in the car, talking to each other in hushed, earnest voices. Neither of them bothered to look up or wave goodbye.

I watched the tail‐lights of Father’s car disappear and an awful loneliness sank in. They had tossed me aside like a piece of garbage.

The sisters spoke in English, which I barely understood. When I answered in Mandarin, they shook their heads. ‘No! No! No Chinese! You must speak only English or French here! This is how you learn!’

They took me into a big room with rows and rows of beds, each with a curtain at its side. Only the three beds nearest to the door had their curtains drawn. Mother Natalie placed a finger against her lips for silence. She pointed to the bed next to the three occupied ones and closed the curtain softly. ‘This is where you’ll sleep, with the other three boarders here. We used to have so many and now there are only four, counting you. Tomorrow you’ll meet them all. Come with me now and I’ll show you the bathroom. It’s late and you must be tired.’

‘Where am I, Mother Natalie?’ I asked. ‘Am I in Tianjin?’

She stared at me in astonishment. ‘Didn’t your mother tell you? Yes! You’re in Tianjin and she has enrolled you as a boarder at St Joseph’s where she herself went to school. She telephoned us two days ago and told us you attended kindergarten here as a day girl when you were five years old. Don’t you remember?’

I lay awake for a long time snuggled under the blankets, thinking. No wonder those iron gates looked familiar! So I’m back at St Joseph’s. Well, at least I’m not in an orphanage. Things could be worse. Through a slit in my curtain I could see the shapes of the rows of empty beds in the semi‐darkness. Bed after bed with no child sleeping. Each with its curtain primly pulled back, waiting and waiting. Every one bare and sorrowful. Just like me.

I must have dozed off because I woke to the murmur of voices. Sunlight poured through my curtain and I recalled with a start that I was in a strange place far from home. I crawled out of bed and nervously peered through my curtain.

A little girl my age was sitting on the bed next to mine talking to a grown‐up woman. They smiled at me.

‘Hello,’ the girl said in English. ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Yes!’ I answered, adding hastily in Mandarin, ‘My English is bad. In fact, I hardly speak any!’

She switched at once to Chinese and said, ‘I am Nancy Chen. This is my mother. Mother Natalie says you flew in from Shanghai yesterday. Is that true?’

I nodded my head.

Nancy turned triumphantly to her mother. ‘See, didn’t I tell you?’

‘I can hardly believe this,’ Mrs Chen exclaimed. ‘Aren’t you afraid?’

‘No,’ I replied with a laugh. ‘Afraid of what?’

‘Didn’t your parents tell you the Communists don’t believe in God and hate foreigners? A Chinese student in a foreign convent school is seen by them as a member of the same religious order and will be persecuted along with the nuns if they win the war.’

I could only stare at her dumbly as she continued. ‘What are your parents thinking of? Everyone is fleeing Tianjin for Shanghai or Hong Kong. And here you are coming from the opposite direction! Do your parents plan to move to Tianjin and live here from now on?’

‘I don’t think so. I heard Father say to my uncle in the car yesterday that they’re flying back to Shanghai in four days.’

She looked at me, horror‐stricken. ‘And they are leaving you here by yourself? All alone in a foreign convent school? Don’t they read the newspapers in Shanghai? Haven’t they heard the Communists are winning the war? Soon PLA soldiers will be marching in from Manchuria. When they arrive they’ll probably arrest us capitalists along with the foreign sisters and put everybody in prison. Thousands of refugees from up north are pouring into Tianjin every day to get away from them! It’s almost impossible to get a plane or train ticket out of here! We’ve been waiting for two months!’

Suddenly I remembered the chaos at the airport yesterday and could only suck in my breath, sick with dismay.

Then she said, ‘What have you done that your parents should wish to punish you like this!’

My new school seemed so different from my old school in Shanghai. To begin with, there were fewer than one hundred pupils in this enormous place meant for a thousand. We were divided into six classes, depending not on age but on our ability to speak English.

To my embarrassment, they placed me in the beginners’ group. My classmates ranged from five to eight years old even though I was almost eleven. It was as if I’d never left kindergarten. Instead of algebra, I was doing additions and subtractions.

We were not supposed to converse in Chinese with each other at any time. So I said nothing at all unless the sisters addressed me by name. My classmates probably thought I was dumb because I was so much bigger but never raised my hand or volunteered to answer any questions.

In English conversation class one day, Mother Marie pointed to me to stand up and read aloud from
Grimm’s Fairy‐tales
. My mouth was dry and I knew my accent was terrible. Mother Marie mimicked my pronunciation and everyone snickered.

Finally she asked, ‘How old are you?’

‘Ten.’

‘How do you feel about coming to school here?’

I looked around at my classmates, all of them smaller, younger, smarter and fluent in English.

‘I feel old,’ I told her.

‘You mean like having one foot in the grave?’

All the girls chuckled. I looked up the word ‘grave’ with a fury of concentration in the English–Chinese half of my dictionary. Then I made a quick search for two other words in the Chinese–English section.

‘Well, as I was saying, do you feel as if you have one foot in the grave?’

‘Yes! And my other foot is on a piece of watermelon rind!’

There was loud laughter and a twinkle came into Mother Marie’s eyes. ‘So we have a comedian here! Tell me, what is your favourite book?’

I held up my dictionary. ‘This book here! I can’t live without it.’

Everyone laughed, including Mother Marie. ‘And if you can have one wish granted, what would that be?’

‘To receive a letter addressed to me. Just one letter. From anyone.’

Nancy Chen left Tianjin with her mother in the middle of November 1948. By then, the number of students had dwindled and we were all gathered into one single classroom, ranging in age from seven to eighteen. Every morning, fewer girls would show up than the day before. One by one they vanished, many without saying goodbye. By the middle of December, I was the only student left.

Three days before Christmas, Mother Marie gave me an assignment. I was to learn by heart a poem called ‘A visit from St Nicholas’.

I didn’t like the poem. It was too hard. I looked up all the long, complicated English words and translated them into Chinese, but the poem still didn’t thrill me.

When I recited it, Mother Marie asked, ‘Who wrote it?’