Free Shanghai Girls by Lisa See Page B

mothers with bound feet are supported by sons and husbands. Brothers lug poles across their shoulders coolie-style. In the baskets at the ends are their little brothers and sisters. Wheelbarrows transport the aged, sick, and deformed. Those who can afford it have paid coolies to bear their suitcases, trunks, and boxes, but most of the people are poor and from the country. May and I are happy to get in a rickshaw and separate ourselves from them.
    “Who are they?” May asks.
    I have to think about it. That’s how disconnected I am from what’s happening around me. I mull over a word I’ve never before spoken aloud.
    “They’re refugees.”
    May frowns as she takes that in.
    If I make this sound like this sudden turbulence has come out of nowhere, that’s because it has for us. May doesn’t pay much attention to the world, but I know a few things. Back in 1931, when I was fifteen, the dwarf bandits invaded Manchuria in the far north and installed a puppet government. Four months later, at the beginning of the new year, they crossed into the Chapei district across Soochow Creek right next to Hongkew, where we live. At first we thought it was fireworks. Baba took me to the end of North Szechuan Road, and we saw the truth. It was horrible to see the bombs exploding and worse still to see Shanghailanders in their evening clothes, drinking liquor from flasks, nibbling on sandwiches, smoking cigarettes, and laughing at the spectacle. With no help from the foreigners, who got rich off our city, the Chinese Nineteenth Route Army fought back. Japan didn’t agree to a cease-fire for another eleven weeks. Chapei was rebuilt, and we let the incident go out of our minds.
    Then last month shots were fired on the Marco Polo Bridge in the capital. The official war began, but no one thought the dwarf bandits would come this far south so fast. Let them take Hopei, Shantung, Shansi, and a bit of Honan, the thinking went. The monkey people would need time to digest all that territory. Only after establishing control and snuffing out uprisings would they consider marching southward into the Yangtze delta. The sorry people who would live under foreign rule would be wang k’uo nu— lost-country slaves. We don’t grasp that the trail of refugees crossing the Garden Bridge with us extends for ten miles into the countryside. There is so much we don’t know.
    We view the world very much as peasants in the countryside have for millennia. They’ve always said the mountains are high and the emperor is far away, meaning palace intrigues and imperial threats have no impact on their lives. They’ve acted as though they could do whatever they wanted without fear of retribution or consequence. In Shanghai, we also assume that what happens elsewhere in China will never touch us. After all, the rest of the country is big and backward, and we live in a treaty port governed by foreigners, so technically we aren’t even part of China. Besides, we believe, truly believe, that even if the Japanese reach Shanghai, our army will beat them back as they did five years ago. But Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek has a different idea. He wants the fight with the Japanese to come to the delta, where he can arouse national pride and resistance, and at the same time consolidate feelings against the Communists, who have been talking about civil war.
    Of course, we have no inkling of that as we cross the Garden Bridge and enter the International Settlement. The refugees drop their loads, lie on sidewalks, sit on the steps of the big banks, and crowd onto the wharves. Sightseers gather in clusters to watch our planes try to drop bombs on the Japanese flagship, the Idzumo , and the destroyers, mine sweepers, and cruisers that surround it. Foreign businessmen and shoppers determinedly step around what’s at their feet and ignore what’s happening in the air, as though things like this go on every day. The mood is at once desperate, festive, and indifferent. If anything,