In Danger's Path (10 page)

When he saw her with Edward Edwardovich in her arms, his face reflected both pleasure and great sadness.

The first thing Milla said to him, defiantly, was, “I am married. In the eyes of God, I am married. This is my son.”

“He is a beautiful baby. God loves him.”

“He is not christened.”

“I will take him into the arms of Holy Mother Church.”

“And will you now grant me absolution?”

“Are you sorry for your carnal life? Will you abstain in the future?”

“I am married,” she said.

“How can that be?”

“I tell you, I am married.”

“By whom, my child, were you married?”

“By an Englishman, an English priest. In the Anglican cathedral in Shanghai.”

His face beamed.

“The Anglican apostolic succession is valid,” Father Boris said. “I am happy for you, my child.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Their priests, Anglican priests, like those of Holy Mother Church and the Roman Church, can trace their ordination in an unbroken line back to the Holy Apostles. If an Anglican priest gave you the sacrament of marriage, it is as valid as if I did.”

Milla began to weep.

Father Boris raised his hand and made the sign of the cross. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I grant you absolution. Go and sin no more, my child.” He held out his hand, and she kissed his ring. “And we will take the child into Holy Mother Church,” he said, adding, “after we have something to eat.”

After Father Boris had time to think it over, while devouring an entire duck, and a huge plate of rice and peppers, the christening of the baby initially had seemed to pose problems he had not originally thought of. “I don't know where we are going to find a second male godparent,” he said. “We are surrounded by heathens, of course, and we need Christians. Two Christian males, because the baby is a boy, and one Christian female. In extraordinary circumstances like these, you may serve as the child's godmother.”

“And you will be his godfather, Father Boris?” Milla asked, pleased by the notion.

“That is impossible,” he said, suggesting disapproval of her lack of canonical knowledge. “Lee Tsing is a Christian,” he went on, indicating the larger of the four men he had with him, “but we need two males.”

“My children are Christian,” Mae Su announced. It was the first word she had spoken.

Mae Su had watched the initial encounter between Father Boris and Milla with mingled suspicion and curiosity.

Father Boris looked at her. “How is that? You were educated by missionaries?”

“My man is a Catholic. He took them to a Catholic priest.”

Later that afternoon, Father Boris invited Gang-Cho, both as Mae Su's uncle, and as the presiding elder of the village, to the christening of Edward Edwardovich Banning. He placed him in a position of honor beside the blue porcelain vessel he had put to God's use as the baptismal font, and then very respectfully explained to Gang-Cho that the baby was now under the protection of God and Holy Mother Church. It was instantly clear to Milla that Mae Su's uncle understood this to mean, in a temporal sense, that the child was now under the protection of the four large Chinese men who accompanied Father Boris, at least two of whom—including Edward Edwardovich's new godfather, Lee Tsing—were carrying Mauser Broomhandle 9 mm machine pistols under their long black robes.

After his first visit, Father Boris visited Milla at Paotow-Zi regularly, at intervals of two or three weeks. On his second, and subsequent visits, he brought Mae Su's uncle a bottle of the very best rice wine, as a gesture of respect between Wise Elders, always thanking him profusely for using his wisdom and influence to protect Milla and Mae Su and their children. Before long, Father Boris became known in the village as the Wise Foreigner.

And he brought news of the war.

Most of that was not good, at least at first. But Father Boris thought Milla especially should have the knowledge.

The Japanese struck the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and sank most of America's battleships; they took the British Colony at Hong Kong on Christmas Eve; Singapore surrendered; they invaded the Philippine Islands; and after a long battle, the Americans there had surrendered. The Japanese were all over the Pacific. They were on New Guinea, off the Australian continent, and for a while it looked as if they would invade Australia itself.

Meanwhile, the Japanese behavior in Shanghai was even worse than anyone expected. They had all been wise to leave Shanghai when they did, Father Boris explained to Milla.

The news was not all bad. The Japanese were a long way from winning the war. There was even a story that American bombing airplanes had struck Tokyo itself, and in August 1942—the month Edward Edwardovich was born—American Marines had invaded an island called Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese had promised to throw them back into the sea within days, but as there had been no announcement, Father Boris assumed that the Americans were still on Guadalcanal.

Milla had never heard of Guadalcanal, had no idea where it was, and it didn't matter anyway. Ed's—and Ernie Zimmerman's—4th Marines had been sent to the Philippines, and the Philippines had surrendered. The best outcome for either of them was maybe they had managed to avoid being killed in the battles and were now prisoners. Which, in itself, was a false hope, considering how much the Japanese hated Americans, and how they treated prisoners.

She had to accept the fact that Ed was probably dead. What she had to do now was survive the war, pray the Americans and the English would somehow win, and then somehow establish contact with Ed's mother and father, in Charlestown, South Carolina, USA, so that Edward Edwardovich could be taken to them and enjoy his heritage.

Once she accepted that hope and that responsibility, things somehow didn't seem so terrible. She and Edward Edwardovich were safe in Paotow-Zi. There were more than enough precious stones still sewn into the seams of her mother's girdle to last four, five years, maybe longer—as long as Mae Su's uncle's demands remained more or less “reasonable.”

Meanwhile, Father Boris was now handling the sale of the stones, and she had also made frequent “investments in business deals” with him. Milla wasn't sure whether there were really business deals, or whether he had run low on the cash he used to gamble. But most of Father Boris's deals had turned a profit. In fact, half a dozen times Mae Su had returned from Baotou with the stones Milla had given her to sell.

And she stayed busy in Paotow-Zi. There was Edward Edwardovich to care for, of course, which took more and more of her time as he got older.

Milla was tired when she went to sleep. She went to bed early and rose early.

It was not really a suitable life for the Countess Maria Catherine Ludmilla Zhivkov, she often told herself, or for Mrs. Edward J. Banning, wife of an officer of the U.S. Corps of Marines, but it was infinitely better than the life she would have had if Ed had not introduced her to Corporal McCoy, and if Corporal McCoy had not told Mae Su's Ernie about her. Without them, she would now be either a Japanese officer's mistress or a whore in a Japanese Army comfort station.

Now she had hope, if not for herself, then for Edward Edwardovich. All she had to do was be patient, and pray for God's protection until the war was over.

Zi-Ko, as the former Countess Maria Catherine Ludmilla Zhivkov was known in Paotow-Zi, was supervising the making of sausage when Song, the elder of Mae Su's boys, came into the kitchen and told her the Wise Foreigner was coming.

Milla was pleased. Paotow-Zi had few visitors. While this was desirable—or rather, the absence of visits by the authorities was desirable—Milla sometimes felt very alone.

The Wise Foreigner was an especially welcome visitor.

Milla picked Edward Edwardovich up from the floor, where he was happily rubbing pork fat on his face, wiped him as clean as she could, sniffed to make sure he didn't need a fresh nappy, and carried him out of the smokehouse to greet Father Boris at the head of the path leading up from the Yellow River. (The Chinese baby-diapering technique was to allow the baby to go around naked, letting things fall where they might. Her refusal to follow it, as far as the other women in Paotow-Zi were concerned, was another proof that foreigners were indeed strange.)

Father Boris was accompanied by only Lee Tsing and one other of his usual Chinese escorts. He had referred to them, jokingly, as his altar boys.

She made a bobbing bow and kissed his ring, then waited until she and Edward Edwardovich had received his blessing before she spoke. “I didn't expect to see you so soon again,” she said. “You'll have to take potluck.”

Usually, she had a good idea when he was coming, and was thus able to prepare something like an elegant meal. He was especially fond of her chicken and chicken liver dumplings.

“We have to talk, my child,” he said.

It must be important
, Milla thought.
Usually there is nothing but Holy Mother Church more important to him than eating
.

And then the truth of that set in. Something was wrong.

Gang-Cho appeared in order to receive his expected gift between wise elders. Lee Tsing opened his sheepskin coat and took a bottle of rice wine from a purse hanging across his chest. Milla saw his Mauser machine pistol under the coat.

Mae Su's uncle repaid the gift with a live chicken. Father Boris took it and handed it to Lee Tsing.

“I must discuss, Wise Brother, some personal matters with my daughter,” Father Boris said.

Gang-Cho didn't seem to mind.

Milla led Father Boris into the kitchen. They could talk in Russian, which the women making sausage did not understand.

Mae Su followed them into the kitchen.

“Is this personal?” she asked in Wu.

Milla looked at Father Boris.

“Of course not,” he said. “And it concerns you, Mae Su, and your children. But…”

Taking his meaning—that her in-laws would hear what he had to say if they spoke Wu—the three of them left the kitchen and stood at the edge of the cliff overlooking the Yellow River.

“The Japanese Kempeitai are rounding up all white people in Baotou,” Father Boris began. “It is no longer safe for me there. Sow Key and Yon Fu have already ‘left my service.'”

Milla recognized the names of the two missing “altar boys.”

“I will very much miss you, Father,” Milla thought out loud.

“It will come to the attention of the Kempeitai that the Nansen person businessman whom they cannot locate employed Sow Key and Yon Fu,” Father Boris said. “And they will look for them. Or they will go to the Kempeitai by themselves. Or the Kempeitai will inevitably learn there is a white woman—”

“And a Chinese woman with half-white children,” Mae Su interrupted, “living in Paotow-Zi.”

“Yes,” Father Boris said.

“But where will we go?” Milla asked, sick to her stomach.

“India,” Father Boris said.

“India?” Milla parroted.

“India will now permit holders of Nansen passports to enter,” Father Boris said.

Milla remembered Mae Su talking about India before they had left Shanghai.

“Through Kazakhstan?” Mae Su asked.

“Yes,” Father Boris replied, obviously surprised that Mae Su even knew the route to India.

“If you know the Kempeitai are in Baotou,” Mae Su said, “it will only be a matter of time before my uncle learns. If he doesn't already know. We will have to leave as soon as possible.”

“Immediately,” Father Boris said. “I have arranged for two horses and a cart. They're twenty kilometers downstream.”

“We will take chickens and sausage and a pig with us,” Mae Su said. “And tell my brother we are going to Baotou.”

“That probably would be best. But what do we do about Milla? How do we get her out of the village?”

“Tonight when it is dark, she will get in the cart. With Edwardovich and my children. We will leave at first light. It will be several hours before he learns we are all gone.”

“I will get him drunk tonight,” Father Boris said, practically.

“Yes,” Mae Su agreed.

Father Boris looked at Milla with sympathy. “We are in the hands of God, my child,” he said. “After we have something to eat, we will pray for His protection.”

Milla nodded.

“There is one other thing,” Father Boris said. “I don't know if it is true or not, but from merchants who have come to Baotou from the Gobi Desert, I have heard that Americans are there….”

“
Americans?
” Milla asked incredulously.

“
If
there are, and I don't really know, perhaps they are trying to reach India, too. In numbers, sometimes, there is strength. And if there are Americans, and if we can cross the desert, it would help to be with Americans when we reach the Kazakhstan border.”