Across the street from the villa that once belonged to her family, Wen-Ying stood beside a lamp post and watched another truck pull into the driveway behind the one already parked in front of the main entrance. Movers circulated about, unloading trunks and furniture to carry inside. A middle-aged man, whom she gathered must be the head houseboy from the look of his tangzhuan uniform, came out of the mansion. Waving his arm wildly, he shouted orders to the group of shirtless laborers tying ropes to a huge, custom-made bed to pull it up to the large porch on the second floor.
Seeing all these strangers roaming about the property, her heart ached. None of them belonged here. And what happened to all her family’s furniture? Did any of it still remain inside? No doubt, looters had taken all the most valuable pieces, including her father’s antique collection and paintings. If the looters hadn’t taken them, surely the Japanese who came afterward had.
What did looters do with antiques and art in times of war? Sell them to the occupiers and collaborators? Probably. She winced at the thought of these vermin’s hands touching the things her family owned. Was it not enough that they raped, maimed, and killed their people, took their land, and destroyed their lives? Did they have to contaminate and violate their memories too?
How she missed this place. Growing up, she and her brother and sister had run around this garden playing tag. In the summertime, peonies, camellia, and azaleas would blossom everywhere. She could still see herself and her sister trying to outdo each other jumping ropes, and her brother teasing her for losing to him again in a game of badminton.
“Wah!” A chorus of men cried out from above and below the second-floor porch. The movers lifting the large bed had lost their grip of the ropes and the bed fell several feet before they quickly halted its drop. Wen-Ying wished it had in fact dropped all the way to the ground and smashed to pieces.
“Higher, higher on the left,” shouted the mover who appeared to be in charge. His voice carried all the way to where she stood.
She turned her eyes to the other end of the house at the balcony of the room that once belonged to Mei Mei. The flower pots that lined the balustrade were all gone, but the cypress tree beside the balcony still stood, like the last lone guardian of the shadow of the Yuan family’s glory days.
The shout of a boy, perhaps thirteen, brought her attention to the side of the street. “Hey! You haven’t paid!” The boy ran after two Japanese soldiers. He and his father were selling ceramic bowls and plates out of a cart. The two Japanese shorties, low-level privates with one yellow star on their uniforms, were checking out the goods. While the father wasn’t looking, the shorties had taken some of the bowls.
“You haven’t paid,” shouted the boy as he chased the thieves.
No!
Wen-Ying slapped her hand over her mouth. The boy’s father ran after him, but it was too late. Whack! One of the shorties smacked the boy across the face. The other gave him a good slap across the other side, then pushed him down hard. The boy bit back tears and tried to get up. His father rushed to hold him down while he kneeled and shook his hands up and down in prayer to the thieves. One of the Japanese dogs kicked him until he fell, while the other returned to the cart. With one lift, he turned it over. All the bowls and plates fell shattering to the ground.
A hard, sour lump swelled in Wen-Ying’s throat. Amidst the thieves’ laughter, a shiny black limousine drove by. Without slowing down for the passengers inside to even take note of the scene, it pulled up to the driveway of the mansion. The driver parked, opened the door to the back passengers’ seat, and bowed. Shen Yi, bedecked in jewelry in her red embroidered white silk cheongsam, exited the vehicle. Against her better judgment, Wen-Ying stepped closer to try to catch a glimpse of this woman who had come this close to being her sister-in-law.
Was Shen Yi happy now? Did she go to sleep at night relishing the thought that the Yuan family she knew since birth was broken, and all the vestiges that remained of it belonged only to her?
The head houseboy came running to greet her, bowing several times as she ignored him and strutted to the center of the garden to take a sweeping view of her new home. A proud, victorious smile spread across her face.
Standing behind an abandoned cart, Wen-Ying squeezed her fists.
I’m sorry, she said silently to her parents and her grandparents who had built this villa in the hope that it would be passed on for generations. I failed you. I can’t protect what you’ve left behind. I’m sorry. She said in her heart over and over again, hoping they could hear her in the next realm.
The wail of the warning siren swelled around her.
Boom!
A loud explosion shook the street. Immediately, another one followed. And another one. American planes had flown into Shanghai airspace again. Those B-29s, so swift and formidable, had come undetected through the sky to deliver their deadly bombs. With each blast, buildings trembled. Windows cracked and shards of glass flew.
At the villa, men raced to save Shen Yi, surrounding her and scurrying her inside. Workers and movers darted away. Quickly, Wen-Ying dashed back across the street. The sirens split her ears and the ground beneath her quaked. People on the street, already nervous and tense, screamed and ran in chaos, seeking shelters.
Covering her ears with her hands, Wen-Ying huddled in the doorway of a locked, unoccupied shop. Up in the sky, white trails left by the plane lingered. As the sirens continued to shriek and the booms of explosions raged, she wondered if one of the American planes couldn’t drop a bomb onto the villa with Shen Yi inside. Memories, treasures, traitors, and pain. Let them all go up in flames. Let everything turn to rubble and nothing of the Yuans could be taken away by anyone again.