Ha Jin - Nanjing Requiem

Between Silences

Facing Shadows

Ocean of Words

Under the Red Flag

In the Pond

Waiting

The Bridegroom

Wreckage

The Crazed

War Trash

A Free Life

The Writer as Migrant

A Good Fall

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. ALL INCIDENTS AND DIALOGUE, AND ALL CHARACTERS WITH THE EXCEPTION OF SOME WELL-KNOWN HISTORICAL AND PUBLIC FIGURES, ARE PRODUCTS OF THE AUTHORS IMAGINATION AND ARE NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REAL. WHERE REAL-LIFE HISTORICAL OR PUBLIC FIGURES APPEAR, THE SITUATIONS, INCIDENTS, AND DIALOGUES CONCERNING THOSE PERSONS ARE FICTIONAL AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO DEPICT ACTUAL EVENTS OR TO CHANGE THE FICTIONAL NATURE OF THE WORK. IN ALL OTHER RESPECTS, ANY RESEMBLANCE TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL .

COPYRIGHT 2011 BY HA JIN

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES BY PANTHEON BOOKS, A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE, INC., NEW YORK, AND IN CANADA BY RANDOM HOUSE OF CANADA LIMITED, TORONTO .

PANTHEON BOOKS AND COLOPHON ARE REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OF RANDOM HOUSE, INC .

GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT IS MADE TO SUPING LU FOR PERMISSION TO REPRINT HIS MAP OF GINLING COLLEGE, COPYRIGHT 2007 BY SUPING LU, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN TERROR IN MINNIE VAUTRINS NANJING: DIARIES AND CORRESPONDENCE, 193738, BY MINNIE VAUTRIN, EDITED BY SUPING LU (UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS, 2008) .

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
JIN, HA, [DATE]
NANJING REQUIEM / HA JIN.
P. CM.
eISBN: 978-0-307-38101-9
1. WOMEN MISSIONARIES FICTION. 2. AMERICANS CHINA FICTION. 3. SINOJAPANESE WAR, 19371945 CHINA NANJING (JIANGSU SHENG) FICTION. 4. NANJING, BATTLE OF, NANJING, JIANGSU SHENG, CHINA, 1937 FICTION.
5. SELF-ACTUALIZATION (PSYCHOLOGY) IN WOMEN FICTION. I. TITLE.
PS3560.16N36 2011 813 .54 DC22 2010047608

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v3.1

For Lisha, who also gave birth to this book

F INALLY BAN BEGAN TO TALK . For a whole evening we sat in the dining room listening to the boy. He said, That afternoon when Principal Vautrin told me to go tell Mr. Rabe about the random arrests in our camp, I ran to the Safety Zone Committees headquarters. As I was reaching that house, two Japanese soldiers stopped me, one pointing his bayonet at my tummy and the other sticking his gun against my back. They ripped off my Red Cross armband and hit me in the face with their fists. Then they took me away to White Cloud Shrine. Theres a pond inside the temple, and a lot of carp and bass lived in the water. The monks were all gone except for two old ones whod been shot dead and dumped into a latrine. The Japanese wanted to catch the fish but didnt have a net. An officer emptied his pistol into the pond but didnt hit any fish. Then another one began throwing grenades into the water. In a flash big bass and carp surfaced, all knocked out and belly-up. The Japs poked us four Chinese with bayonets, and ordered us to undress and get into the water to bring out the fish. I couldnt swim and was scared, but I had to jump into the pond. The water was freezing cold. Luckily, it was just waist-deep. We brought all the half-dead fish to the bank, and the Japanese smashed their heads with rifle butts, strung them through the gills with hemp ropes, and tied them to shoulder poles. Together we carried the fish to their billets. They were large fish, each weighing at least fifteen pounds.

The soldiers had fried fish for dinner but didnt give us anything to eat. Instead, they made us pick up horse droppings left by their cavalry with our bare hands. At dusk they took us to an ammo dump to load a truck. More Chinese were there working for them, eleven in total. We carried boxes of bullets onto the truck. When the loading was done, three fellows and I were ordered to go with the truck to Hsia Gwan. I was shocked to see so many houses burned down in that area. Lots of buildings were still burning, and the flames snapped and howled like a rushing wind. The electric poles along the way were blazing like huge torches. Only the Yangtze Hotel and a church stood undamaged. We stopped at a little slope and unloaded the truck. Near the riverbank a large crowd had gathered, more than a thousand people. Some of them were Chinese soldiers and some were civilians, including women and kids. A couple of men in the crowd raised white flags, and a white sheet was dangling from a tree. Beyond the people, three tanks with their turrets like large upside-down basins were standing on the embankment, their guns pointing at the crowd. Near us some Japanese soldiers were sitting around a battle flag planted in the ground, drinking rice wine from a large keg wrapped in straw matting. An officer came over and barked out some orders, but the soldiers at the heavy machine guns did nothing and just looked at one another. The officer got furious. He drew his sword and hit a soldier with the back of it. Thwack, thwack, thwack. Then his eyes fell on us Chinese coolies squatting close by. Raising his sword, he gave a loud cry, charged at the tallest one among us, and slashed off his head. Two squirts of blood shot into the air more than three feet high and the man fell over without a whimper. We all dropped to our knees and banged our heads on the ground, begging for mercy. I peed my pants.

The soldiers at the machine guns were flabbergasted. Then one of the guns began firing, and the other two followed. In a flash the machine guns posted at other spots started shooting too. So did the tanks. The crowd was swirling around, crying and falling, but the people were trapped. Every bullet cut down several of them. In less than ten minutes they were all mowed down. Then groups of soldiers carrying fixed bayonets went over to finish off those who were still breathing. I was so horrified that I couldnt stop trembling and crying. One fellow worker grabbed hold of my hair and shook me, saying, Dont make so much noiseit will draw attention. That stopped me.

We returned with the truck to carry loot for the soldiers, mainly furniture. They didnt keep all the stuff and threw lots of things into the big bonfire in front of their regimental headquarters. Over the fire were pigs and sheep and quarters of a buffalo skewed with long steel bars, and a couple of boiling cauldrons. The air was full of the smell of roasted meat. That night they locked us in a room and gave us each a ball of rice and a cup of water. The next two days they took us to the area east of the Central University to carry loot for them again. They stripped every house of its valuables and then torched it. One soldier carried a safe cracker, but most times they didnt use the tool and just blew the safes open with hand grenades fixed to their bottoms, where the iron was thinner. They were very fond of wristwatches and jewelrythose were what they were after. One of them, a young fellow, even took a baby carriage. I couldnt stop wondering what hed do with that. He was too young to have kids.