Free The Last Mandarin by Stephen Becker Page A

the father to rape his daughter. The family jumped as one and was drowned.
    One girl’s parents were killed as she was raped, all three in full view of one another. Small groups of men were surrounded and ordered to wrestle. The losers were bayoneted; the winners were to wrestle Japanese. The first to wrestle a Japanese lost and was freed. Thus encouraged, the next contestant scarcely fought; they shot-him. Thus encouraged, the next fought like a tiger and won; they shot him.
    The Chinese were to uncover at the sight of a Japanese. The Chinese were to yield sidewalks to the Japanese. The Chinese were to call the Japanese “sir.” Those who did not were shot or bayoneted, some few stabbed with a knife or their throats cut. By the third day the streets were lined with corpses.
    The Bible schools were favored settings for rape. Altogether twenty thousand women were raped. One woman was raped thirty-seven times.

8
    Near the north mouth of Rat’s Alley the hospital gate stood open; on the stone wall beside it a small plaque proclaimed CHILDREN’S CLINIC. Burnham entered. The building was without character, and might have been a warehouse or the home of some municipal department. It stood two stories high, a large square paved courtyard at its center, and in the courtyard were only a bench, a distressed and naked tree, the glow of smooth stone, and a cumbersome two-wheeled wagon, as would be drawn by a donkey or pushed or pulled by a man.
    Burnham hesitated. At the sound of a car he turned; in the alley a jeep passed—soldiers or police, he could not tell. To either side of the entryway a door: to the right EMERGENCY, to the left ADMISSIONS. Burnham faced left and knocked. After a moment he turned the knob. Modern and foreign: a knob, not a latch. He entered an office. One feeble bulb, tables, filing cabinets, a desk, an empty room. Within, above, he heard faint stirrings. He waited.
    He waited ten minutes, went outside, and crossed to the emergency entrance. He did not knock, but let himself in. It was a room much like the other, but with two rude treatment tables and many cabinets. At one of the cabinets stood a woman, dumpy, wearing a gown and a surgical mask and cap; she turned, and her glasses glittered at him. “What is it?” she asked sharply.
    â€œI am looking for Dr. Nien Hao-lan,” he said.
    â€œDr. Nien is very busy,” the woman said.
    â€œThis is important,” Burnham said.
    â€œImportant! Are you sick? Bleeding? Wounded?”
    Burnham was shocked at the harsh, direct address; it was un-Chinese. “No,” he said.
    â€œThen come back in the evening,” the woman said. “Dr. Nien has wounded students to treat.”
    â€œEvil times,” Burnham said.
    â€œEvil times! Rotten police! Corrupt soldiers! There is no time now. Come back later.”
    Burnham was oddly appalled; this woman was not even intrigued by the presence of a foreigner. “I can wait,” he said.
    â€œNo, you may not wait!” she cried. “Dr. Nien has no time now for conversation. Dr. Nien needs plasma! Dr. Nien needs antibiotics!”
    Burnham saw with dismay that she was weeping; behind her glasses tears flowed.
    â€œDr. Nien needs gut and anesthetics!” the woman went on, shouting and sobbing at once. “Dr. Nien is treating a twelve-year-old girl for veneral disease, with the primary lesion in the armpit! The armpit , do you understand? We have rickets and kala-azar and dead children in every ward! We have frostbite and malnutrition and we are all worked to death and have no time for foreign tourists! Now go away! Go away! Will you please go away!”
    â€œForgive me,” Burnham said, feeling for a moment that it was truly all his fault; and he went away.
    He stepped out into Rat’s Alley, grieving for a whole nation, and saw a pedicab and knew that it was Feng’s. Feng sprawled at ease in the passenger’s seat, but hopped down