ST. FREDA
A story...
"Feng-shih looked at her and grunted. He'd made up his mind and crawled back out of the tent, squirming back out the same way he squirmed in. As he crawled his way past me, he looked me in the eye—measuring me I think—because he told me to follow him. He told his son in a loud voice to break out the guns. He said he'd heard a voice. He knew how to use the people around him as easily as he did his surroundings--because he said it in such a way that he made it look as if he was trying to hide what he'd heard. He wanted them to believe they'd overheard him, that he'd spoken too loudly because of his excitement, because he said Freda told him her god would watch over everyone. There was nothing he'd have to fear with her god beside him. Hadn't she healed the child? He said, with a god like that at his side, he'd be able to lead the people to victory over the Japanese.
"It was madness, of course; sheer lunacy. The people believed him though; Lin believed him. This was Feng-shih after all, and his name was legendary in these parts as far as his craftiness went. Before the Japanese, when he was the Warlord they all feared, before everything, there was his father and the legacy he followed. Freda and Su-mei tried to talk Lin out of it, but he wanted his vengeance. Wei wanted to go with him, and Su-mei would have forbade it, but Lin gave him a rifle and asked him if he could carry it. That was all it took. A strange boy that Wei. After he buried his brother, he never spoke again, and withdrew farther into himself, wanting to remain anonymous. When he found a way to avenge the murder of his brothers, he took it. There was hardness in his eyes, but he was focused.
"Su-mei said Freda never even spoke to the Warlord—that it was a lie he made to use Freda's strangeness. It was no use though. No one wanted to believe her. The order went out and every able bodied man in the camp, from fourteen to sixty, was issued a rifle and limited munitions. It was a rag-tag army at best, and if numbers can inspire an army, this one was a revelation. They believed in the Warlord as he sat on his white charger, his sword in his hand and his hand at his hip. He was a picture, and a posture, a promised return to the glory of the past, to an age where he ruled himself. No matter what Freda said, or Su-mei, even Alex, there was nothing they could do to prevent it. They left the next morning.
"Alex refused to go. He stood in front of the Warlord's horse, looking up at him in defiance, and when Feng-shih pulled his pistol out and placed it against Alex's forehead, Freda reached up and put her hand on the gun. The old man raised the gun and pointed it at Freda, and for a moment it seemed that time hung there too, waiting to see what would happen. I wished I could've been as brave as that, but that only lasted a moment--a heartbeat or maybe even less--because Fortune favors the brave, not the foolish. But he pulled on the reins angrily, and spurred his horse forward, screaming for someone to open the gates."
Rudi looked at me for a long moment, like he was considering me, and I thought maybe he was going to stop talking. He sat there with his eyelids fluttering quickly—like a dying butterfly trapped in the morning dew I told myself, wet, slick, troubled—and he seemed to move his head slowly from side to side, scratching at his cheek lazily and rubbing a hand across the grey stubble of his beard. I could hear the broken fan blade tick-tick-ticking in the distance, and the back door slammed suddenly. I looked up and noticed the waiter was talking to someone in the kitchen. Rudi opened an eye slowly, almost cocking a brow as he tried to focus on the man in the back. He caught a brief glimpse of him and then looked back at me, sitting up straighter as he reached for his forgotten beer glass again.
*
"I don't have to tell you what happened, do I? Old Feng-shih always claimed to have two thousand soldiers on hand—old, brave, battle-hardened veterans—but the number was closer to four hundred when they finally lined up in the compound that morning. I guess the deserters thought it was more prudent to live rather than throw away their lives with us. And with three hundred farmers armed with outdated rifles, (those same ones you Yanks brought to France during the Great War)—and whatever else they could find in the way of weapons—all of us walked out foolishly to face three hundred Japanese soldiers with machine guns and cannons. It was a slaughter. Feng-shih was killed outright with the first volley; his horse was blown up from underneath him—and I could hear the Japanese screaming and laughing when they saw it happen—because they knew we'd be lost and confused without the Warlord to tell us what to do. That was when they opened fire.
"Wei rushed for the guns in a frenzied attack that looked more like suicide than anything else. He stood up and rushed the line like he was on the Eastern front in Poland—and he was shot down before he even made three steps. Lin would've gone after him, but I grabbed him by the foot and pulled him back. I asked him if he thought it was a game he was playing at? I looked at young Feng and recognized the look of fright and defeat in his eyes even from where I was standing—it was a look I'd seen too often when I was driving the ambulances on the Italian Front. He saw the futility of the attack and called out a hasty retreat. At that moment I felt Lin go limp in my hands, sinking back down, stunned, dazed, confused, the blood trickling out of his mouth like drool.
"Of the seven hundred so-called soldiers, four hundred were killed outright. We carried Lin back—a three day march through some of the worst terrain I'd been through in a long time—fighting exhaustion, bugs, heat, and starvation; with equal parts cynicism and fear of the Japanese soldiers sent to harry our every step. There were at least eighty-five wounded, from superficial to the stretcher-born like Lin, and rather than leave them behind—that was what Feng wanted to do—I made certain we brought everyone back. I couldn't leave them behind; these men were farmers, and deserved to die with their families—not left alone, forgotten. I know it sounds cliché, but on the front lines during the Great War, I saw what it meant for a man to die alone.
"We made it to the compound three days later. Feng seemed to think taking the long way around would deter the Japanese behind us—that maybe we'd lose them. I told him it didn't matter—it was a futile gesture—I knew they'd find us soon enough, and then we'd be forced to either fight, or run. I think Feng was thinking of the latter," he said with a grin. "He wasn't his father's best choice for an heir, and he knew it as much as I did. He didn't have the same capacity for ruthlessness his father did, or the cunning: that would all come later.
"Our arrival brought panic; I don't think anyone expected the losses to be as one-sided as they were. I doubt if we inflicted any casualties on them at all. The battle was what I'd call a debacle, a bitter defeat—'resounding' would be a better word," he said, "and our return was nothing more than a harbinger of the doom that followed. No one knew it at the time, but the Japanese were only hours behind. They'd bring their full force against us, and there was little we'd be able to do. They had cannons, mortars, flame throwers, automatic rifles, and machine guns—we were lucky to escape when we did.
"At least, that's what I told myself, and still tell myself," he said slowly, shaking his head slowly, melancholy, as he fumbled for a cigarette.
I could see tears in his eyes, and wondered if he'd go on with the story. I thought the memory of it might be too much for him and that I'd be forced to pick it out of him one piece at a time. But he went on in spite of the tears.
"I told them to bring Lin into the throne room, along with the other wounded. Freda and Su-mei were following me—both of them were too hysterical to be any use—while Alex was calling for God's vengeance on both Feng and me for having led Lin, Wei and the others into battle. When he found out the Warlord was dead, he used that as one more rallying point in his sermonizing. I told Alex to shut up, and the girls too, then told Su-mei to spread cushions on the floor and told the stretcher bearers to put Lin down gently. The wounded came in slowly after that—warily—afraid they wouldn't be permitted to enter the throne room. I didn't care anymore.
"I had to look at Lin for my own sake. I didn't want him to suffer any more than he already had, and told Feng to bring morphine if he could. Lin was a mess. The bullet that hit him tore up his insides and shattered his hip; I could see bone fragments poking through his bruised flesh. He was drifting in and out of consciousness, delirious with fever, and I knew the most I could hope to do was to make him comfortable. The room quickly filled up with wounded men, their anxious children dumb struck by what they saw, the women wailing and imploring their strange gods; I found myself moving from one man to the next, determining who would survive and be lucky enough to make it through the night. There was no medication to speak of, and I began to rip silk sheets for bandaging, doing what I could for everyone. I had the hopeless feeling of being overwhelmed; a feeling of helplessness, incompetence, and powerless; it was as if the floodgates—once they were open—simply crushed me in a sea of suffering humanity, and I was drowning beneath the endless cries of pain. Everyone was reaching out for me—the women and children I mean—begging me to help them; to do something.
"Su-mei was sitting on the floor, holding Lin's hand. She was kissing it tenderly, holding it against her cheek, begging him not to die; telling him there was so much to live for. I didn't know what to do, and sat back on the cushions to wipe a weary arm across my face. I was exhausted, and wanted to sleep, but Feng showed up with the morphine and an old syringe, and I was back on my feet again. Alex said something about it being the Devil's poison, and I asked him if he'd rather I let Lin suffer for the little bit of time he had left? And what about the others? I asked. Should I leave them as well, because he didn't want them to have the Devil's poison running through their veins either? I tore myself free of his grip, and looked at Lin. I asked Alex if he thought his prayers would take away everyone's pain, or just Lin's.
"Lin seemed to have improved. The bleeding stopped and a peaceful look came over his face. Su-mei stopped crying; she realized something was happening. I noticed there were others who were beginning to sit up, and their wives and children—one moment distraught and grieving—were just as confused as I was. Men with broken bones, moved them; men with open bullet wounds, touched them. Fevers abated. The room began to fill with a murmur of voices, with laughter—the same nervous laughter people have when they can't explain something and simply accept it as is—and I could hear Feng muttering under his breath that he didn't like what was happening.
"And then I heard Alex proclaiming in a thunderous voice—a voice that was full of confidence; with that certainty of faith and conviction men like him always hold on to, like a sickness—that it was the work of God; that rather than have me infect everyone with the Devil's poison, God had given them back their life through his handmaiden, Freda. And there she stood in front of us—on the raised podium where Feng-shih used to sit and dispense his so-called justice—her hands slowly lifting up from her sides, and her head falling back as she looked heavenward and exulted the Lord. People fell to their knees in front of her, weeping. She was covered with the Stigmata. Her face bloodied where the thorns would've been, and her side was red where the Spear would've punctured; the blood dripped out of her hands and fell to the floor in thick, dark clumps. Even her feet were covered with it. She looked down at Lin and knelt by his side, placing her bloodied hands on his hip and the gaping wound in his side. I saw it close—as if it'd never been there—and I felt myself weaken at the knees. Feng reached out a hand to support me. I could hear him telling me it was more of her wizardry, but I knew he knew better.
"I knew it was the handiwork of God. There's nothing anyone can say that'll convince me to look at it any other way, either. I saw the faces of all those men in that room--I saw how they sat up and looked around with the same look of confusion that must've been on my face—because there was no explaining it. I don't think they cared if it came from God or Freda; they were alive and that was explanation enough for them—and me too I suppose.