Dragonfly Dreams Read online

  “Let me go!” I squirmed and pushed away.

  “Nini, don’t be rude. Say hello to Tooner,” my mother said, sitting at the piano on the other side of the living room.

  “Hello, Tooner. Excuse me,” I said, straightening my braids. Then I turned quickly to Ma. “But, Ma, the Japanese—”

  Tooner interrupted. “Ah, my little Baboon, don’t worry ‘bout them Japs.”

  Calling me Baboon was Tooner’s way of teasing me about being part Chinese, as if I were part monkey or wild animal.

  “The Japs are like mosquitoes—irritating for the moment, but just keep swatting at ‘em and they’ll soon go away,” Tooner said, picking up his tuning fork and putting it in his big leather bag.

  “The Brits’ve been here a hundred years and they’ll jolly well be here another hundred.” He closed his tool bag. “Why, I was born here. It’s my home as much as the Chinese. It’s the Japs that don’t belong.”

  “But Tooner, this was different today. They hit a rickshaw man. I think they killed him!”

  Tooner picked up his bag as if it had feathers in it, not tools. “The coolie was probably in the way.”

  “But he was pulling the French ambassador’s wife!”

  “But were they inside the French district?”

  “No, just outside. On the Avenue of Many Nations.”

  The Avenue of Many Nations was the main road from the train station to the foreign districts.

  “The black car was no doubt headed to the Japanese district, and the soldiers were making sure it got there safely. Well, don’t fret your little head over it,” Tooner said moving toward the door. “They won’t bother us here. These districts are foreign countries to them. It’d be like declaring war on Europe. And believe me, the Japs don’t want the French or the Brits on their backs right now.”

  Tooner reached for my head and gave me a “buzz.” He laughed at me squirming to get out from under his grip as he rubbed the top of my head with his knuckles. When he let go, he turned back toward the room, as if he had forgotten something. He put his bag down on the table, reached into the side pocket and pulled out a card.

  “Here,” Tooner said, handing me a picture of an old man. “This is St. Patrick. He’ll protect ya . . . see here.”

  The old man in the picture was wearing a long white robe and standing next to a rock. One hand held a long cane that curved at the top, and his other hand pointed to snakes that seemed to be racing as fast as they could to the sea.

  “Ya see, there, if St. Patrick can chase the snakes from Ireland, he can chase the Japs from China, too, quick as a wink.”

  With that, he winked at me. His blue eyes twinkled, and it seemed to me that the freckles on his face winked too.

  “Remember what I taught you,” Tooner said, as he slung the tool bag over his shoulder. “The best way to get their goat is to whistle. Just keep whistling, my little Baboon.”

  Tooner headed out the door and down the stairs, whistling a tune that made me want to follow. Resisting the urge, I turned back into the apartment.

  Despite Ma correcting my manners earlier, she didn’t get up or even say goodbye to Tooner. She was playing a Chopin piece she often played when she wanted to be left alone. I could tell she hadn’t been out that day because she was wearing a casual dress and slippers. Her soft brown hair was loosely tucked behind her ears rather than pulled into a bun like she did when she went out. She seldom needed to go out anyway. Sun went to the market, and Amah did the other chores when she took Mei-mei or Weilin out. Ma probably knew nothing about the soldiers.

  I dropped my knapsack on the sofa and slipped St. Patrick’s picture in the side pocket. I started to reach for Chiyoko’s gift, but before I could I heard loud footsteps coming up the stairs.

  It was too early for Da to come home, but there he stood at the door, out of breath and red in the face. Da could run up those stairs on a normal day without skipping a beat. Something must have caused him to be winded and red in the face.

  Ma stopped playing the piano and immediately went over to greet him. She smiled as she took his coat and looked happy to see him. Da was tall for a Chinese man and had a good build. He had a round face, thick black hair, and clear dark eyes.

  “Da!” I blurted out.

  I was eager to tell him what I had seen—how Japanese soldiers had blocked the road, how they stopped the French ambassador’s wife, and maybe even killed the rickshaw driver.

  But all I could say was, “I’m so glad you’re home.”

  Da didn’t seem to hear me. “Sit down, both of you. I have something to tell you.”

  Ma called to Sun to make some tea. Then she motioned me to sit on the sofa with her.

  Our apartment was Western style with just a few Chinese things. In front of the sofa was a blue and white Mongolian rug and a low round table. The table was made of rosewood with carvings of fruits and flowers and birds. Mei-mei and I often played at the rosewood table with the brass monkey. Da told us the monkey had magic powers and his staff could be a sword or a needle, so one time Mei-mei poured ink on it to see if it would become a pen. The ink left a dark stain on the table. I sat on the sofa near the dark stain.

  Da paced on the Mongolian rug while we got settled. “I’m being forced to take sides,” he said. “Either I cooperate with the Japanese or . . .”

  “Cooperate how?” Ma asked.

  “I have to do what they say, or I’m fired.”

  “But you’re the chief engineer. They can’t fire you!” Ma exclaimed.

  “Don’t let them, Da,” I blurted out, as determined as Ma.

  “Unfortunately, they have the upper hand now.”

  “I never thought it would come to this,” Ma said. “You are the first Chinese to run the water company. There is no one with your education to take your place. How did they get the upper hand?”

  “I should have seen it coming when Mr. Yasemoto started working at the company,” he said.

  “Didn’t Mr. Yasemoto come to help you?” Ma asked.

  “Ah! Mr. Yasemoto was only pretending to help. The Japanese placed him at the water company to learn from me. Today he came with soldiers and told me they were taking over. I was given a choice. Either I cooperate or—”

  He walked over to the desk where he kept his cigarettes.

  “They can’t take over if you don’t let them!” I wanted my father to say no! I wanted all the Chinese to say no!

  “Why would anyone cooperate with them?” Ma pounded her fist against the arm of the sofa.

  “Some people want to keep their jobs and salaries, so they do what the Japanese tell them and hope it will be over soon. And besides—” He paused and lit a cigarette. “The ones who stay take the jobs of those who refuse.” His face got redder.

  Sun brought in a small tray with three cups of tea. He set them on the rosewood table and left. No one picked up the teacups.

  When Ma spoke, her voice was softer. “When we first met in New York, you told me you wanted to help China build a modern water system, to be a modern nation. Is that dream lost now?”

  “I’ve done all I can. I don’t know what will happen if the company falls into Japanese hands,” my father said in despair.

  “When the American Embassy warned me last year to leave, I didn’t think the Japanese could take over . . . how could a small island take over a huge country like China?” Ma said.

  “Do you wish you had left when the others did?” Da asked her. Many of Ma’s friends had left last year.

  “Not at all!” Ma insisted. “As long as you stay, I will stay. I still don’t believe they will harm us, not as long as you’re head of the water company.”

  “But that’s just it,” he said, then smashed out his cigarette in the ashtray on his desk.

  “What do you mean?” Ma asked.

  “Mr. Yasem
oto told me today—” He turned and faced Ma. “He told me it doesn’t look good for the chief engineer to have an American wife. He’s forcing me to choose between my family and the company.”

  “But . . . you can’t quit!”

  “You know I would never leave you!” Da walked across the room and stood by the piano. He was shaking.

  I got up and walked over to comfort him. “But, Da, Tooner says we’re safe here. The French district is like a foreign country.”

  “Well, Tooner has his head in the clouds. He can’t see what’s coming. He’s like all the other foreigners. He can’t see what’s right in front of him.”

  Da turned and looked out the window as he spoke. “Today, more Japanese troops were pouring into the train station, and I heard an important general arrived to take command.”

  The black car! Suddenly, I realized why the Japanese soldiers blocked the road, why they were marching behind the black car. The man in the car was the general who had come to take command!

  I wasn’t concerned at that moment about the Japanese soldiers, or the general for that matter. I was thinking about Chiyoko. She seemed to know something, something her father had told her.

  “I have to go,” I said and turned for the door. My father grabbed my arm and pulled me back. I squirmed in his grasp.

  “I want to see Chiyoko!”

  I had barely gotten her name out when my father looked hard at me and said, “I don’t think you’ll be seeing Chiyoko anymore, Nini.”

  “What do you mean?” I cried.

  “I heard today the Japanese are sending wives and children back to Japan.”

  What? Is Chiyoko leaving? I couldn’t believe what Da was saying. I didn’t blame him for not cooperating, but surely he was wrong about Chiyoko.

  “But her mother is Chinese!” I thought that gave her permission to stay.

  “Yes, I know. But they’re in a difficult situation now. Because her father is Japanese, they may send his family to Japan. Chiyoko and her mother will have to stay low for a while.”

  Then I remembered the warning Chiyoko’s father had sent Ma.

  CHAPTER 3

  Sunday night I had a terrible dream. Bees were swarming into my room, buzzing around my head. The bees kept coming in long straight lines, the buzzing getting louder. In my dream, I went to shut the window, but it was already shut. The bees were flying through the glass! I couldn’t stop them from coming in, and I couldn’t stop the noise.

  It took me a while to realize I was actually hearing something—a sound I didn’t recognize at first. It grew louder and closer. It was a grating sound, a low groaning noise. As I opened my eyes, I heard another sound—thump, thump, thump in a steady deafening rhythm. I recognized that sound!

  I threw back my blankets and ran to the window. Pressing my face against the cold glass, nothing looked familiar. It was early morning, and no one was going about their daily business. Only a line of slowly moving trucks, dark and heavy, groaning in low gear. Behind the trucks marched Japanese soldiers, row after row, in olive drab uniforms with heavy boots flapping against the pavement in a throbbing rhythm—thump, thump, thump.

  A knot gripped my stomach as I gasped to catch my breath. I knew I would not see Chiyoko that day.

  With the rhythm of the soldiers’ boots throbbing in my ears, I hurried to wake my parents, but they were already up and still dressed in their night clothes. Da was hunched over the big wooden radio in the living room. Ma was leaning over Da’s shoulder.

  “Wait! I heard something,” Ma said anxiously.

  Da was changing the channels with his ear close to the speaker.

  “It’s only static,” Da said, continuing to turn the dial.

  “I thought I heard English.” Ma reached for the dial. She depended on the radio for news in English, but that day, only buzzing came from the wooden box.

  “I can’t get anything,” Da said. “Even the Chinese station is static.”

  My mind felt static too, all fuzzy and confused like the radio sounds. Everyone had said we were safe here, that Japan would never enter the foreign districts. So what had changed? Why had the Japanese soldiers crossed that invisible barrier, like bees going through glass?

  Just then we heard a knock on the door.

  “Go to the back room,” Da commanded. Ma and I stepped toward the hall, but when I heard the voice at the door, I turned quickly back into the living room.

  Da opened the door, and Paul Thompson stood there. He was a friend to our family, the American director of the YMCA and married to a Chinese woman. I knew their son Tommy Thompson, a half-and-half like me, but he thought he was better because he had an American last name. Although we weren’t close friends, I was hoping Tommy had come with his father.

  “Paul, come in!” Da was smiling, obviously relieved, as he held the door open.

  Mr. Thompson was the tallest man I’d ever known. When he ducked his head to enter and removed his hat, it looked like he was bowing to Da. I was sorry Tommy wasn’t with him.

  “It’s so good to see you, Paul.” Ma came back into the living room. “What a welcome sight you are. Won’t you sit down?”

  “I can’t stay,” he said.

  I had to crane my neck to look up at Mr. Thompson.

  “Hello, Nini,” he said.

  I was about to ask, “Where’s Tommy?” but the words stuck in my throat, and I stared at him. Ma didn’t seem concerned about my manners that morning.

  “I’m making the rounds, telling as many people as I can,” Mr. Thompson said. “The Japanese have jammed all the airwaves.”

  “That must be why I can’t get any news on the radio,” Da said, shutting the door behind Mr. Thompson.

  “Yes, that’s why, but I was able to get through on my short-wave radio.”

  “What have you heard?” Ma asked, pushing past me.

  “Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor this morning. The US has declared war on Japan.”

  “I can’t believe it!” Ma’s hand covered her mouth. She stepped back and her hair fell loose.

  “They attacked early Sunday morning,” Mr. Thompson said. “They caught the US completely by surprise. Destroyed the fleet. I wanted you to know right away.”

  “What’s Pearl Harbor?” I tugged on Ma, but she ignored me, her eyes and ears fixed on Mr. Thompson.

  Mr. Thompson turned to me. “It’s the American naval base in Hawaii, Nini.”

  But that didn’t help me much. Hawaii was far away, and I didn’t see how it explained the Japanese soldiers marching in front of our house.

  “But Sunday was yesterday,” I said, still confused.

  “No, Nini, it wasn’t yesterday. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor this morning. It’s Monday in China when it’s Sunday in Hawaii.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” said Ma, staring straight ahead, as if talking to someone else. “Why would Japan attack Pearl Harbor?” Then she looked back at Mr. Thompson. “Do they want to take over America too?”

  Da had been quiet, but now he spoke forcefully. “They aren’t interested in America! Don’t you see?”

  “I don’t understand,” Ma said. I figured if she had been puzzled over how a small country could take over a big country, she must have been doubly puzzled how it could take over two large ones.

  “They aren’t trying to take over America. Don’t you see! They only want to prevent the American fleet from letting them take over here!” Da’s face was turning red. “Only the US forces in the Pacific could prevent Japan from taking over China.”

  “You’re right. Britain and France are at war in Europe,” Mr. Thompson said. “Only the American Navy could stop them. That’s why the Japanese marched into the foreign districts this morning. They no longer fear being stopped.”

  “Now I know why Mr. Yasemoto said it didn’t look good
for the chief engineer to have an American wife. He knew Japan would be at war with America.” Da turned to Mr. Thompson. “Has there been any resistance here?”

  “No. I think the Japanese took over not only the French district but all the foreign territories this morning, without resistance.”

  “Well, they know China can’t stop them. The Japanese already control the rest of the city. The Chinese army is no better than a fly swatter!” Da always smoked when he was angry, and he started fumbling around on his desk looking for his cigarettes.

  “I’d better be going. I have to tell as many families as I can,” Mr. Thompson said, turning toward the door.

  “Thanks for coming, Paul, and please be careful,” Ma said as she followed him to the door.

  Paul Thompson lowered his head to exit and put his hat back on. Ma watched him go down the stairs. As soon as he was gone, Da charged, “Where are my cigarettes?”

  Just then I caught sight of a pack of cigarettes under the brass monkey’s raised leg. He was dressed like a warrior and had one leg up as if he was going to attack. Mei-mei had been playing at the rosewood table with the brass monkey and must have put Da’s cigarettes there.

  I quickly handed him the pack of cigarettes. Ma kept talking without paying attention to me.

  “I wish I could talk to my mother. I hope everyone at home is all right!”

  “You don’t need to worry about your family. They live thousands of miles from Pearl Harbor. I’m sure they’re all right,” Da said, letting out a long puff of smoke.

  “But the American news must be full of Pearl Harbor right now. No one will be paying attention to what’s happening in China,” Ma said, looking hopelessly at Da.

  “Your family doesn’t have any idea that you are under Japanese occupation now.” Da threw the pack of cigarettes on the desk. “It’s disgusting! Japan has taken over China without even being noticed.”