Upsetting the Balance

This man knew the little scaly devils could see heat! That information had come from her, and people outside the prison camp were using it. In a life without much room for pride, Liu Han cherished the moments when she knew it.

“Come on,” the man hissed to her. “We have to get farther away from the camp. You’re not safe yet.”

Safe! She’d wanted to laugh. She hadn’t known a minute’s safety since the little scaly devils had attacked her village-not even before that, for the town had been full of Japanese when the little devils came in their dragonfly planes and turned her whole life-to say nothing of the world-upside down.

But as the days went by, as she tramped through the Chinese countryside, one of uncounted thousands of people going along the dirt tracks, she did begin to feel safe, or at least safe from the little scaly devils. She still saw them now and again: soldiers in their vehicles, or sometimes marching on foot and looking no more happy about it than human troops. Every so often, one would turn an eye turret her way, but only idly, or perhaps warily, to make sure she was not a danger to him. But to them, she was just another Big Ugly, not a subject for study. What a relief that was!

And now Peking. Peiping-Northern Peace-it had been renamed, but no one paid much attention to that. Peking it had been, Peking it was, and Peking it would remain.

Liu Han had never seen a walled city before; the closest to such a thing she’d known was the razor wire around the camp in which the little devils had confined her while waiting for her to give birth. But Peking’s walls, in the shape of a square perched atop a broader rectangle, ran for almost forty-fiveli around the perimeter of the city; further internal walls separated the square-the Tartar City-from the rectangle-the Chinese City.

Broad streets ran north and south, east and west, paralleling the walls. The little scaly devils controlled those streets, at least to the point of being able to travel on them by day or night. Between the avenues, there twisted innumerablehutungs — lanes-where the bulk of the city lived its life. The little scaly devils took their lives in their little clawed hands when they went along thehutungs. They knew it, too, so they seldom went there.

Ironically, prison camp had been Liu Han’s best preparation for life in bustling, crowded Peking. Had she come straight from her village, she would have been altogether at sea. But the camp had been a fair-sized city in its own right, and readied her to deal with a great one.

She quickly had to learn how to get around in the Chinese City, for the Communists kept shifting her from one dingy lodging house to another, to throw off any possible pursuit from the little devils. One day they took her to a place not far from the Ch’ien Men, the Western Gate. As she came in, one of the men sitting around and talking over rice spoke a few syllables that were not Chinese. Liu Han recognized them anyway.

She broke away from her escort and walked up to the man. He was a few years older than she, compact, clever-looking. “Excuse me,” she said, politely lowering her eyes, “but did I hear you speak the name of a foreign devil called Bobby Fiore?”

“What if you did, woman?” the man answered. “How do you know this foreign devil’s name?”

“I-knew him in the scaly devils’ prison camp west of Shanghai,” Liu Han said hesitantly. She did not go on to explain that she had borne Bobby Fiore’s child; now that she was fully among her own people once more, having lain with a foreign devil seemed shameful to her.

“You know him?” The man’s eyes raked her. “Are you then the woman he had at that camp? Your name would be-” He looked up to the ceiling for a moment, riffling through papers in his mind. “Liu Han, that was it.”

“Yes, I am Liu Han,” she said. “You must have known him well, if he spoke to you of me.” That Bobby Fiore had spoken of her left her touched. He’d treated her well, but she’d always wondered if she was anything more than an enjoyable convenience to him. With a foreign devil, who could say?

“I was there when he died-you know he is dead?” the man said. When Liu Han nodded, the man went on, “I am Nieh Ho-T’ing. I tell you this, and tell you truly: he died well, fighting against the little scaly devils. He was brave; by doing what he did, he helped me and several others escape them.”

Tears came into Liu Han’s eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered. “They brought his picture-his picture dead-to me in the camp. I knew he died in Shanghai, but not how. He hated the little devils. I am glad he had revenge.” Her hands curled into fists. “I wish I could.”

Nieh Ho-T’ing studied her. He was an alert, thoughtful-looking man, with the controlled movements and watchful eyes that said he was probably a soldier. He said, “Do I remember right? You were going to have a child.”