A Girl Divided Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Ellen S. Lindseth

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503903876

  ISBN-10: 1503903877

  Cover design by PEPE nymi

  Dedicated to Heather—

  Your fearlessness and thirst for adventure inspire me to this day

  Contents

  Start Reading

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Let all hesitation and discouragement

  burn away.

  Let the mild breeze

  turn into a roaring wind.

  Awaken in me

  impossible, improbable dreams.

  —Rabindranath Tagore (from Gitanjali, translated by Brother James Talarovic)

  Chapter 1

  The damp, cedar-tinged air of the Chinese mountains lingered on Genie’s tongue, spicy and familiar, as she turned her face to catch the mist falling from the gray January sky. She closed her eyes in pleasure, the tiny droplets cooling her flushed skin as she waited on the steep footpath. A deep magical hush blanketed the valley this morning, one interrupted only by the faint shushing of the river far below and the occasional bird twitter. Except for the crunch of footsteps behind her, she might be all alone, an adventurer exploring an unknown mystical world, far, far from the modern twentieth century, with all its revolutions and wars.

  Her father would be horrified if he knew Genie secretly hoped that the enchanted creatures from Zhenzhu’s stories were real, that if she ventured far enough she would find them—talking monkeys and tigers, virtuous princesses and evil demons—between the jagged limestone peaks, still waging their elemental battles of good versus evil.

  The footsteps stopped beside her. “It’s not fair,” a musical feminine voice said in Chinese between gasps. “You spend as much time inside as I do, and yet you aren’t even breathing hard.”

  Genie laughed as she opened her eyes. Li Ming was glaring at her, her delicate heart-shaped face flushed from exertion. If her best friend weren’t so averse to hugs, Genie would have given her one.

  “It’s because I’m so much taller than you,” Genie answered in the same language. “But don’t despair. Which trait makes for a more valuable wife: Long legs, or the ability to weave the most beautiful patterns in China?”

  Her friend flushed more deeply, this time with pleasure. “Perhaps not all of China.”

  “That’s not what my father says. Wherever he goes, he says your fabric is the first to sell, for which he is most thankful, since it helps pay his expenses.”

  “As it should, since he’s a man of the cloth,” her friend said drily, but her dark eyes twinkled.

  Genie joined in her friend’s amusement, then looked out over the valley and sighed in deep appreciation. “Sometimes I wonder that he ever leaves here at all. It’s so beautiful.”

  “It looks rather ordinary to me,” Li Ming said doubtfully, her breathing almost back to normal.

  “Oh, not at all.” Genie ran her gaze down the steep terraced hillsides as they cascaded like irregular stair steps to the valley floor. They were gold and brown now, fallow with the season like the narrow patchwork of fields flanking the river that divided the valley. But come summer, the landscape would become a deep verdant green, like the most precious of gems.

  With practiced ease, she found her tiny house on the edge of the village and smiled. Home. Smoke from Zhenzhu’s cooking fire lazily wended its way from the small hut behind the dark-timbered house. Reinforced with river stone, the construction was the same as every other building, the methods unchanged from the century before.

  She hadn’t been sure, when her father had decided to move to this valley ten years ago, whether she would ever adjust to this raw, primitive land. Having been raised in cities like Peking and Hankow, she had found the silence that came with the endless open air, and the utter lack of commotion, with no carts or cars or ceaseless crowds, terrifying and strange. Now this forgotten corner of Kweichow Province in southwestern China was as close to heaven as she could imagine.

  Li Ming touched Genie’s sleeve. “We should keep going.”

  Steeling herself for another steep climb, Genie tightened her grip on the soup pot she was carrying and started up the narrow path once more. Soon her own gasps for breath filled her ears, so loud she almost didn’t hear the faint rumble of far-off thunder. Except it wasn’t the season for storms, and the sound didn’t fade. Instead it grew louder and more distinct. Genie’s heart stuttered as she froze, her gaze flying to the sky, the covered dish in her hands forgotten. Li Ming likewise stiffened.

  “What is it?” her friend whispered, her dark eyes darting around the clearing. The otherworldly growl seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

  “An airplane, I think.” Frantically Genie searched the low clouds for movement. There was no mistaking the sound now, though she had heard it only once before, back in Hankow, before her father had moved them here.

  “You mean the flying machine your father was telling the village about? The ones we should be on the lookout for?”

  “Yes. But I can’t tell if it’s one of ours or not.” Her father had taught her the symbols to look for, to tell whether a pilot was friend or foe, in case of such an emergency. But that would only work if she could actually see the plane.

  In theory it shouldn’t matter, since she and Li Ming were unarmed civilians. Yet there wasn’t a soul in China who didn’t know about the massacre four years before, after the Japanese had overrun Nanking.

  Wild stories of fifty thousand dead had snaked along the trade routes and over the radio waves. A hundred thousand. Even hundreds of thousands. And not just men but women, children, the elderly, infirm . . . all slaughtered for no reason. Genie’s father had privately thought the numbers inflated until he had journeyed north on one of his missionary rounds. He had come home grim and unusually silent about the trip and with a keener interest in the spreading war.

  Overhead, the
growl faded and then intensified in a maddening tease, like a giant deadly wasp lurking out of sight. Genie turned around, careful not to lose her footing on the steep path, trying to catch the direction of the plane’s flight. Was it headed west toward the high mountains? Or east toward the sea and the Japanese?

  Li Ming grabbed her arm. “We should go back. Wu Fang can eat later.”

  “No. We’re so close.” Shaking her friend off, she thought of the elderly man who waited for them higher up the mountain, next to his shortwave radio. He would be just as exposed as they were. “I refuse to behave like a rabbit, afraid of its own shadow. Besides, the pilot could be Chinese. He could be defending us!”

  Li Ming looked at her askance. “Or he could be a Japanese rabbit hunter looking for a few stubborn, foolish does to kill.”

  “He can’t shoot what he can’t see. See all those clouds? He would have to be a fool to try to descend through them. He’d hit a mountain for sure.” Or at least she hoped the overcast sky would serve as a worthy deterrent.

  “What if he were one of your countrymen—the ones Wu Fang was telling us about? Would such a one be foolhardy enough to try?”

  “Just because someone volunteers to defend a country not their own doesn’t mean they want to die,” she said firmly, though she sometimes did wonder why the handful of American pilots had volunteered to come here to defend China in her hour of need. Even more surprising was that they had done so months before Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor.

  Her chest tightened as she thought of that morning, two months before, when her father had rushed into the courtyard. She and Zhenzhu had been dipping candles in preparation for the Christmas service. His face had been ashen as he told them the news, and she remembered feeling curiously light-headed. It wasn’t until the next day—when Wu Fang had told the assembled village that the US had officially declared war on Japan—that she had started to cry. Yes, her beloved Chinese friends would finally have help against the Japanese, but it also meant her relatives in the US would be in danger.

  Peace on earth, indeed.

  She shoved the gloomy thought aside. “In any case, as long as we are back in the village before the mist burns off, we should be safe enough.”

  “Perhaps we will be, but there are so many others,” Li Ming said softly.

  Genie glanced at the slender woman next to her. “You’re thinking of Xiao.”

  Li Ming pulled her fur-lined jacket tighter to her throat, though the movement had little to do with the cold and everything to do with her fiancé, a soldier in the Chinese National Army. “One cannot fight one’s destiny. If he was a good man in his last life, he will be safe in this one.”

  “Actually, destiny is in the Lord’s hands,” Genie corrected gently as she searched the sky again.

  “So your esteemed father is always telling us. Speaking of whom, are you sure he won’t object to you coming to the festival today?”

  “For the hundredth time, I’m sure.” At least she hoped he wouldn’t mind. She couldn’t actually ask him, since he was gone on another of his mission trips into the Chinese countryside. This one had taken him north, deeper into the mountains. A secret part of her wished she could have tagged along, but his “no” had been so adamant the one time she had asked, she knew better than to inquire again.

  The sound of the plane had faded, leaving only the gentle shush of dried grass and the delicate twittering of tiny birds. Relieved, she started up the trail again, the magic of the morning lightening her heart. As they passed through a stand of fir trees, the spicy fragrance of the dried needles being crushed beneath their feet filled the air. The path became more exposed, hugging the base of a limestone cliff, and a cool breeze pulled at her wide-legged trousers and tunic. Suppressing a shiver as the sweat dried on the nape of her neck, she picked her way over the loose rocks, careful not to trip. Keeping Wu Fang fed so he could man his radio was the responsibility of the village women. Genie had begged to be included. If she failed and spilled the soup, it would be blamed on her being guai lo, or non-Chinese, a distinction she fought hard to erase.

  Wu Fang sat on the ground, dozing in the shelter of a small cave. A tattered blanket was draped around his shoulders, and small wood-and-metal headphones covered his ears. Next to him sat a large rectangular box of brown-painted steel, bristling with antennas and dials. It hummed faintly, indicating it was on. Gingerly, she stepped over the cables that connected the radio to the chemical battery, which was placed a safe distance away.

  When Wu Fang had accompanied her father home seven years before, seeking refuge from the civil war raging between the Communists and the Kuomintang Nationalists, he had used the radio as an inducement to let him stay. At first the device had been an amusing curiosity. Now the radio was the village’s one fragile tie to the rest of the world.

  On a clear, cool night, the old Communist could snare broadcasts out of the air from as far away as Peking. It was over these airways that the village had learned of the rare Chinese victories against the Japanese at Changsha and Guangxi. It was also how Wu Fang monitored the slow advance of the Japanese across the lowlands.

  “Wu Fang.” Li Ming crouched near the old man and set her covered bowl on the mist-dampened ground. When he didn’t stir, she hesitantly touched his thin hand. A faint flutter pulsed beneath the thin papery skin of his neck, so at least he wasn’t dead. Relief rushed through Genie.

  “Wu Fang,” her friend said again, louder this time, pulling her hand back.

  His eyelids twitched. “Mei?” The name was little more than a dry husk of sound. Genie bit her lip. Mei was the name of his long-dead wife.

  “No, Honorable One. It is only two worthless girls from the village, Li Ming and Yu Jie,” Li Ming said, switching to a more formal address out of respect for his age. She had also used Genie’s Chinese name instead of her English one, Eugenia, which was difficult for the villagers to pronounce. Genie actually rather liked the Chinese version, since it meant “beautiful jade.”

  “We have brought you soup and rice rolls. If it pleases, we will serve you.”

  He struggled to a more upright position and then removed his headset. Without comment, he reached for Genie’s soup bowl with his left hand, his right arm having been amputated years ago. Genie removed the cover for him.

  “Are there any new reports on the war?” Li Ming asked as she unfolded a plain cloth napkin and held it out to him.

  He grunted around a mouthful of soup. The girls waited politely, knowing it would do no good to press. As young unmarried women, they were so far below him in social status, he could answer them or not as he pleased.

  “Where’s Jianyu?” he asked Genie abruptly, using her father’s Chinese name.

  She hesitated, tempted to ignore his question the same way he had ignored Li Ming’s. Then ingrained respect for her elders won out. “My honored father is due back before the new year.” Which was only a month away, by the Chinese calendar.

  Wu Fang finished the soup and then handed the empty bowl back to her. Ignoring the napkin, he wiped his hand on his worn linen trousers and then pulled a battered feather from his pocket. Its ragged surface bore the distinctive cream-and-brown striping of a hawk’s. He handed it to her. “For Jianyu. No one else.”

  She took it from him, puzzled by the gift. “As you wish.”

  He glanced up at her, and the bleakness in his black eyes chilled her to her core. The feather seemed to burn under her fingertips, and she was seized by the sudden desire to fling it back at him. Except to do so would be rude.

  Looking away, he settled the headphones back over his ears.

  Realizing she had been dismissed, she stood, her fingertips still tingling as she tucked the feather into her robe. He had asked that she give it to her father, and so she would, no matter her misgivings.

  Chapter 2

  “Stop fidgeting,” Li Ming whispered later that afternoon as they sat together on a wooden bench with the rest of her friend’s family, watching the annua
l Laba Festival play. Genie stilled, embarrassed to be caught tapping her foot yet again. Onstage, villagers in elaborate costumes and wooden masks were acting out scenes from Buddha’s life. On any other day she would have been fascinated, but she couldn’t shake the sensation that something awful was about to happen. Wu Fang’s feather had unnerved her, to be sure, but worse was the possibility that her father wouldn’t, in fact, approve of her being here. Ever since Li Ming’s comment, Genie had racked her memory and couldn’t recall a single instance of him attending a Buddhist festival.

  Perhaps her father would never find out, since Nathan, her father’s irritating clerical assistant, wasn’t around to tattle on her. She had arrived back at her house to find a note saying he had been called to a neighboring valley to pray over a sick child and wouldn’t be back until late. While she felt sorry for the child, she couldn’t help but be relieved by this stroke of luck. As unpleasant as Nathan could be, he never refused a call for help.

  Stifling an urge to search the clouds for any sign of an airplane, she distracted herself by running her fingertips over the intricate embroidery that decorated the red silk robe loaned to her by Li Ming’s mother. The artistry and the patience it must have taken to create such beauty—

  “You’re doing it again,” her friend hissed.

  Li Ming’s little brother snickered as Genie promptly sat on her hands and redirected her attention to the stage. Perhaps because she was unfamiliar with the story line, having learned very little about Buddha’s life from her father’s schooling, she was soon lost, and her thoughts began to drift again. A hawk was a hunter, so perhaps the feather meant the enemy was getting closer.

  She shivered. It wasn’t out of the question. Her father and Nathan had been discussing such a possibility for months now, whenever they thought she was out of earshot.

  Li Ming stiffened beside her. Puzzled, Genie glanced at her friend and then past her as she divined the problem instantly. A lean man was striding toward the gathered villagers. His Western-style trousers and a collared shirt briefly brought her father to mind, but it wasn’t him. It was his assistant.