Ma Bo'le's Second Life by Hong Xiao

Author:Hong Xiao
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Letter
Published: 2018-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The train pulled into the Nanjing station, much to everyone’s surprise.

“Well, we made it, for better or for worse,” Ma Bo’le thought.

As they walked out of the train station, he said:

“Let’s get some roast duck. Nanjing ducks are supposed to be the fattest anywhere.”

His wife could scarcely believe her ears, and insisted that they find a hotel room first.

It was drizzling when they left the station, so the first order of business was to get settled—children, baggage, the lot—no matter how hungry they were. She won the argument. They went to a hotel.

From the moment they settled in, Ma Bo’le was in an exuberant mood. Even when MPs came by to check on the guests and questioned him, he saw nothing inauspicious in that.

“Where are you from?” the MP asked him.

“I’m from Shandong,” he replied.

“There have been more traitors from Shandong than anywhere else.”

Ordinarily, if he’d heard a comment like this, even though he’d be afraid to say anything to the MP’s face, he would curse silently:

“Bloody Chinese!”

But not this time. He was so euphoric now that the thought never entered his mind. Where had this euphoria come from? He had a broken nose, he had nearly fallen to his death, and he had been unconscious for the longest time—oblivious to all human affairs. His nose was still swollen, as a matter of fact, but all he could think of was that he had not died. If he had … but he’d made it to Nanjing, hadn’t he? If he hadn’t …

He experienced an unusual sense of gratitude—he was immensely grateful to the Song River Bridge for not claiming his life.

It was actually a good thing that the bridge had dumped him into the marshland, for it was only through such suffering that he had come to know true joy. Had it not been for the bridge, how could he have known such happiness as he now felt? Ma Bo’le was a contented man; all he needed now was some roast duck.

From his reaction, one might think that he had reached his destination. The air raids over Nanjing were terrifying, day and night, and when Ma Bo’le was in Shanghai, thoughts of what awaited him here had constantly been on his mind, just as the Song River Bridge had obsessed him earlier. But the difficulties of the Song River Bridge were behind him—he had overcome this rite of passage.

Now he was in Nanjing, about to go out and enjoy some roast duck.

Before leaving, he overheard the MPs interrogate the guest in the next room: “Where’s your home?”

“Liaoning.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty.”

“Where are you coming from?”

“Shanghai.”

“Where are you headed?”

“Hankou.”

“Occupation?”

“Editor in a publishing house.”

“Which one? Got any identification?”

After hearing the man’s affirmative response, Ma Bo’le heard sounds of someone rummaging through a trunk.

Following this, the MP asked:

“What did you do before that?”

The man replied that he had been a student at a military academy in Liaoning. He had moved to Shanghai after the September 18th Incident in Manchuria.

“Since you’ve had military training,” the MP responded, “why aren’t you at the front? We need men to aid the cause of resistance.

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