A Choice of Evils Read online

  Nadya shifted in discomfort at these descriptions. She saw Siberia again in her mind, a line of figures with bowed heads, bent backs and dragging feet, straggling across the limitless space. Women and children had trailed behind their men against the cold wasteland.

  The exile ranks of Siberia were swollen by intellectuals, with whom her father spoke late into the night. He always boasted he had met the banished Lenin. And Stalin, on one of his many penal adventures, had escaped from servitude in a neighbouring mine. When the Revolution came in 1917, her father had embraced it. And some years later he had disappeared from Nadya’s life, not only pulled forward upon a wave of political idealism and fuelled by love for a new woman. Nadya was left with her stepmother Anna. They had lived then with the chaos of an unknown Russia, tossed brutally between anarchy and famine. She remembered only fear through those bleak years, her wretchedness compounded by the coldness of Anna, and the absence of her father. The line of figures still moved across the frozen, limitless land, sent now not by the Tsars but the Central Government.

  Nadya turned to Agnes Smedley with new energy. ‘I’m sure Bradley Reed will also donate anything you may need.’ She took a risk on Bradley’s generosity and Agnes looked at her with new interest.

  ‘We need everything,’ she replied. Her commitment was infectious. It was impossible for Nadya to sustain her own memories of Russian Reds before the energy of this woman. It all seemed something apart.

  ‘China is different,’ Agnes insisted when Nadya voiced this thought. ‘The Russian Reds don’t even recognise the Chinese Communists. Their backing is with Chiang Kai-shek, if he wants it. Here in China only the Communist guerrillas can fight the Japanese and give this country back to its people. Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang are corrupt capitalists. All they think of is power for themselves. Especially that feudal bastard, Chiang,’ Agnes growled after Martha left the room to see about the splints, her eyes settling again upon Nadya.

  ‘You should go to Yenan. You might make a good activist, fighting for China.’ Agnes appraised Nadya anew after hearing of life in Siberia. There were things she had not noticed before, deterred by the swing of scarves and earrings. She saw metal now beneath the fine bones with their slightly Slavish tilt. Nadya Komosky’s face pandered to no one. It was self-sufficient and self-contained.

  ‘Activist.’ Nadya tried out the word. ‘I do not object to that term. It has not the same connotation as Communist, and it is better than being a White Russian. We are seen as dressmakers or prostitutes, objects of charity queuing at soup kitchens, or eccentric nobility in fraying clothes. Foreign firms sack men who marry White Russian women.’ Nadya’s voice was bitter. Experiences in Harbin and Shanghai flooded her mind.

  ‘You should not put up with it. I’ve made it a principle to refuse compromise,’ Agnes responded. ‘I was always in trouble in Yenan for arguing with the women. In spite of equality, those women up there are all incredibly prim.’ Agnes had not been popular with the women of Yenan.

  Nadya laughed. Through Agnes Smedley she glimpsed another China that had nothing to do with the decadent world of Shanghai that had briefly trapped her. The world of Agnes Smedley was not for her, but she saw now, as if through a break in the clouds, the living flesh of a different China.

  ‘Now tell me, when my hair grows, should I really use beer or champagne?’ Agnes asked.

  The next day Agnes was gone, to stay with the Bishop who had returned from Hankow. Within a few days Martha’s verandah filled up with splints. Agnes Smedley returned from the Bishop’s to examine each one before packing them off to the partisans. Soon she left, but already Nanking impressed Nadya with its commitment to a new China. She saw too that Martha Clayton, although of missionary stock, was no proselytising Christian, in spite of the distance in her eyes. She had Nadya’s begrudging respect.

  At the university Nadya’s room was little more than a large alcove off the huge vaulted hall where the compilers worked on the Encyclopaedia. She was at her desk the morning after Agnes Smedley’s departure when the man was shown in. At first she thought him Chinese, until he introduced himself.

  ‘I am Kenjiro Nozaki. I have come to complain,’ he announced with a bow. ‘I am from the Japanese Embassy,’ he added, seeing her incomprehension.

  ‘I had wished to see Professor Bradley Reed, but I am told he is not at present in Nanking. Instead, I was sent to you.’ He spoke fluent English.

  ‘I am his chief assistant,’ Nadya confirmed. The man was exceptionally tall for a Japanese, with a smooth, fine-featured, intelligent face. She remembered Harbin again.

  She had arrived in Harbin with Sergei to find the town awash with Japanese soldiers. In the hurry to escape Communist Russia, she had minimised the knowledge that Manchuria was now under Japanese control. It did not take long to realise, one tyranny was much like another. She stared at the man before her now and remembered those Japanese soldiers in Harbin, standing guard on every corner. She remembered ill-coloured skin and lips blue with cold. It had been difficult to read expressions, their features were so alien; they had instilled only fear. This man was nothing like them. He took a seat as she indicated, and placed his hat upon the desk before he began to speak.

  ‘In this week’s China Weekly Review, Professor Reed has advocated an even stronger drive by the various parties of the United Front against the Japanese. He has also written that should our nation advance further into China, we will destroy all the universities. This is not true and his blatant anti-Japanese stance does nothing to make the task of our Embassy here in Nanking easier, nor the lives of our many peaceful Japanese citizens in China. Professor Reed should refrain from writing such ill-advised comments. Please be kind enough to convey this message to the Professor on behalf of the Japanese Embassy.’ From a skylight above sun streamed down upon the woman’s red hair. He stared at the fiery blaze. It was said only devils had hair that colour.

  ‘I have not read the article yet,’ Nadya replied, taken by surprise. An obvious distress punctured the man’s suave demeanor. She offered a cup of coffee.

  ‘It has been a hard year for us here, since the United Front was formed. We wish only for peaceful co-existence in China,’ Kenjiro Nozaki informed her.

  He appeared in no way aggressive and she wondered whether he voiced his own opinions above those of his government in Tokyo. She had never spoken to a Japanese before. The man did not fit the pastiche she had put together from Bradley Reed’s talk of ambition and war, or her own memory of the soldiers in Harbin.

  ‘Is Professor Teng Li-sheng in this department?’ he asked. His eyes remained unrelentingly upon her, although there was nothing licentious in his appraisal.

  ‘Professor Teng is head of the Department of Eastern Religions, but is involved with us of course. A good part of TECSAT concerns his subject. We all work together,’ Nadya replied. The man’s concentration upon her was now discomforting.

  Kenjiro Nozaki nodded and at last looked away. ‘Professor Teng and I were students together in Paris. Professor Reed may talk as he wishes but I can tell you from my own viewpoint, I feel the deepest friendship for China. It has been a difficult year,’ he repeated, lifting the coffee cup to his lips.

  Kenjiro Nozaki had arrived in Nanking in December of the previous year, two days before General Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped in Sian by his protégé, Chang Hsueh-liang, son of the murdered Manchurian warlord, Chang Tso-lin. The country had been in an uproar. For three days nobody knew where Chiang Kai-shek was, if he was dead or alive. He had been forcibly detained in Sian to persuade him to drop his war with the Communists and instead form a coalition with them against the real enemy, Japan. Eventually agreement was reached. Madame Chiang Kai-shek and W. H. Donald, the Chiangs’ Australian advisor, flew into Sian. Chiang Kai-shek bowed to the demand for a United Front, and the need to stop civil war. Negotiations were opened with the Communists. Overnight it appeared to the world that Japan, not the Communists, had become Chiang Kai-shek’s chief enemy.
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  It had been a difficult time at the Japanese Embassy, with the country solidifying around them, leaving them like an island in the middle of Nanking. They had kept a low profile and listened to the news, while preparing for an emergency. Little had happened beyond an expression of hostility on the faces of shopkeepers. Life, even after Chiang Kai-shek’s return to Nanking, went on as usual. To most people the Japanese were in the north, and unlikely to desire control of the rest of China. It had been a tense start to Kenjiro Nozaki’s posting.

  He stood up, retrieved his hat and placed the official letter of complaint from the Embassy before Nadya. He glanced again in consternation at her flaming hair. He wished there was reason to sit longer, but could find no further excuse.

  ‘My wife was French.’ He gave a slight smile before turning away. ‘Her eyes were the same colour as yours. Forgive me for pointing this out.’

  She watched him walk towards the door at the far end of the room. For a moment she felt perplexed. She would have liked him to stay. Then she shrugged and returned to her work.

  1

  Sword of Power

  1901 – 1937

  The Crown Princess of Japan, Sadako, was sixteen years old when the child, Hirohito, was born on 29th April 1901. At seventy days Prince Hirohito was taken from his mother to be reared away from her. Later the Princess bore three more sons, and these too were taken from her.

  Once Sadako had produced an adequate number of sons her husband, Crown Prince Yoshihito, lost interest in her, returning to debauchery. Unlike his father, the Emperor, Yoshihito was sickly. The residual effects of childhood meningitis left him mentally and physically unfit for most of his life. In winter he left the capital for the balmy climate of Kyushu and, even when he returned, seldom emerged from the veil of wine and women.

  Hirohito saw little of his father and throughout his childhood met his mother only once a week. The ritual separation of royal heirs from their parents was thought to build character, eradicating any softness in a future monarch. The custom sprang also from earlier intrigues, when unscrupulous uncles and concubines sought to establish their own offspring with the demise of the Emperor’s son.

  Almost from birth Hirohito was surrounded by military men. The first three and a half years of his life were spent in the home of a vice-admiral of the Imperial Navy. He was charged to instil into the heir a spirit able to withstand all hardship. Hirohito was a child apart, withdrawn and painfully aware of the attention surrounding him. He understood that he was different. Already in his tiny life there was deference but no love.

  Before Hirohito was four years old the vice-admiral died and the child returned to his father’s palace. He saw no more of his parents than before. He was established with his brothers, Chichibu, Takamatsu, and Mikasa, in the grounds of the Akasaka Palace in a separate establishment from his parents, with maids and retainers to care for the children. The court official in charge of Hirohito’s new home, Takamasa Kido, was a favourite of Emperor Meiji and had been partly educated in America. His son, Koichi, was fifteen and became a big brother for small Hirohito.

  Marquis Koichi Kido, who would later become one of Emperor Hirohito’s closest civilian advisors and his Lord Privy Seal, introduced the child to his teenage friends, the sons of other court aristocrats. Prince Asaka and his half-brother Prince Higashikuni. Prince Kitashirakawa and his half-brother Marquis Komatsu, and the young Prince Konoye, later to be twice Prime Minister. They had all attended the Peers School, founded for the children of the nobility. Hirohito would also later go to this special school. They made a fuss of their young royal friend, enjoying his awe of them, telling him stories of war, playing the soldier to him. They spoke with teenage idealism of Japan’s mission to lead Asia from Western bondage. Talk of war, intrigue, conquest and a new Asia surrounded Hirohito in the company of these older boys. Bonds were formed with these young men that would last Hirohito all his life.

  Soon Hirohito’s real education was begun. A kindergarten was arranged, with Chichibu, the eldest of Hirohito’s younger brothers, and five small boys of court officials. Chichibu was free of the restraints imposed upon his older brother. He was an extrovert, leading the way in any games. When the kindergarten children climbed a wall, Hirohito was lectured by courtiers on the unseemliness of such antics in a future monarch. He was forced to stand alone, watching the others scramble up and down, listening to their enjoyment. By nature obedient and sensitive, physically smaller and less aggressive than average, Hirohito did not chaff at the restraints imposed upon him. Led by Chichibu, the children grew scornful of Hirohito’s timidity.

  ‘The trouble with Hiro is that when he falls down he doesn’t know how to get up,’ Chichibu jeered and the others screamed approval.

  There was a monthly outing from the Palace for the royal kindergarten. Invariably Hirohito chose to visit the zoo and in this wish he was indulged. The children ran from cage to cage, giggling at monkeys, awed by tigers, pulling faces at the bears. Only Hirohito, in his usual role, was forced to follow some distance behind, lectured on animal life by the superintendent of the zoo. On one visit they reached a small cage containing a newly captured badger. The creature trembled with fear, pressing itself against the far bars, its moist bright eyes upon Hirohito. The child stood in silence, biting back tears, identifying as the other children could not with the animal’s terror and isolation.

  ‘I don’t want to look at it any more. I want to go home,’ he sobbed. Behind him the other children tittered at his distress.

  Hirohito’s guardians accomplished their work as instructed. The training of imperial children bred the habit of docility and a rigid pattern of behaviour. By five, Hirohito was a grave and lonely child. The tipsy, debauched, promiscuous life at court had already been revealed to him in the most frightening manner. On a rare visit to his father Prince Yoshihito, he was plied with large quantities of sake and drank in filial obedience until he keeled over. His father and the courtiers roared with laughter. Hirohito was ill for days, and although only five, never forgot the experience. He became for life a teetotaller. In contrast to his father and grandfather he lived until his death a prim, monogamous, austere life.

  Hirohito quickly learned to mask emotion, giving no sign of mortification, comforting himself like a true prince of the Imperial line. He submitted to grim routines to improve his posture and poor, myopic eyesight. There were attempts to eradicate his extreme clumsiness and the inherited shuffle he walked with, a defect passed on from his grandfather.

  Emperor Meiji received the progress reports Hirohito’s father refused to see. Meiji had already dismissed his son as being without substance, and placed his faith in his eldest grandson. The affection his father denied Hirohito the child tried in vain to find in his grandfather. But Meiji, libertine and architect of modern Japan, preferred Hirohito at a distance. His virility was legend and projected itself in his commanding figure, short beard and piercing eyes. He enjoyed claret, poetry and beautiful women. He was a marathon drinker, his court permanently shrouded in an alcoholic haze, but, unlike his son, he could surface from debauchery to steer his monarchy as needed.

  The years of Hirohito’s boyhood coincided with Japan’s growth in world stature. Fifty years before, Commodore Perry’s black ships had demanded commerce at gunpoint, ending several centuries of isolation. Meiji was the first Emperor in modern times to be more than a puppet living in Kyoto. He was reinstated to power by his supporters, who wrested back the monarchy from the Shogun after centuries of military rule in Japan. In 1868 Emperor Meiji, then a boy of fifteen, was moved by his supporters from Kyoto to Tokyo. It was hoped that under the young Emperor, the land would be rid of foreigners, and modernisation held in check. Then the country would be returned to its heyday when no barbarian could enter and no Japanese leave, without the sentence of death.

  But there were also progressive men about the young Emperor Meiji who knew the barbarians would not leave so easily. The isolation of centuries had left Japan
impoverished in a larger world. Already, with their massive ships and guns, the Westerners had demonstrated superior power. Until Japan had adequate knowledge of all things modern, she must learn to live with the barbarians and more important, learn from them. This modernisation of Japan took up the next three decades.

  An infatuation with all things Western spread like a fever through the land. Young men were sent abroad in droves to seek the desired knowledge. Battalions of Westerners were imported into Japan. Engineers, schoolteachers, lawyers, architects, scientists, military and naval instructers were persuaded to divulge the secrets of modern development ignored by Japan through her centuries of isolation. The Emperor himself, avid and youthful, urged his court to think progressively. He installed electric light in his palace, but rarely used it for fear of fire. Court ladies were encouraged to wear crinolines, and to speak aloud instead of whispering behind their hands. In the street children bounced a ball to the ‘Civilization Ball Song’, listing things coveted by the nation: steam engines, gas lamps, cameras, telegrams, lightning conductors, newspapers, steamships and hansom cabs. The world was surveyed and institutions picked, suitable for use in Japan. From France came a conscript army, from Britain a navy, from Belgium banking and fiscal reform and from Germany a constitution.

  With its isolation lifted at last, Japan now looked for the first time about the modern world and saw that the great land it had regarded through history as the centre of the world, was at the point of disintegration. China, weak and disunited, had become a colony of foreign powers. Japan saw those great powers, Germany, Britain, France, Russia and the United States, grouped before her and feared for herself. Small, vulnerable, newly born into modernisation, Japan was a mouse before an elephant. Only the resource of ingenuity seemed available to Japan. It was decided offence was the only defence.