Homesick by Jean Fritz Page B

eyes as if she were saying, “What’s the difference?”
    But although I looked all over the house, I couldn’t find Kurry. I was always afraid that she’d streak out the front door sometime when it was open, and even though this was Hankow, not Wuchang, I didn’t want her outside. (In Wuchang there were no dogs or cats left, my father said; they’d all been eaten.) She was allowed, however, in the enclosed courtyard between the house and the servants’ quarters, and when I looked out the glass window in the back door, I saw her in the courtyard, crouching between Yang Sze-Fu and the serving boy, eating from a blue rice bowl. I was the one who fed Kurry. Why was she eating with the servants? More important, what was she eating?
    I stood still and watched. The two men were squatting on their heels, eating their evening meal, shoveling rice into their mouths with chopsticks, dipping into the large bowl of vegetables and meat that sat between them. Every once in a while Yang Sze-Fu would pick up a bite and drop it into Kurry’s bowl. Once he laid down his chopsticks and stroked Kurry on the head and talked to her.
    Before the summer I had often squatted in the courtyard with the servants while they ate, so I went out now and joined them.
    Yang Sze-Fu seemed embarrassed. “The cat likes Chinese food,” he explained.
    â€œYou like my cat?” I asked.
    He shrugged. “A cat is a cat. There are no foreign cats, no Chinese cats, no capitalist cats, no Communist cats. Just cats.”
    He picked up a cup of tea and took a loud sip from it. I noticed how, as he held the cup, he tried to hide his pinkie, and I remembered how he used to flourish it as if he felt especially superior when he was drinking tea. Suddenly I saw that no matter how strong a Communist Yang Sze-Fu was, he missed his nails and I felt sorry for him. I decided not to worry about potassium anymore.
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    When my father came home in the evenings now, the first thing he did was to announce how long the siege had been going on. The twenty-third day, the twenty-fourth day. It was as if this was the only way he could keep track of time. Then he would tell us the news. Sometimes the Communists had allowed a few boat-loads of sick and wounded to cross the river to hospitals that the Y.M.C.A. had helped to set up. These refugees had terrible stories to tell: houses destroyed, people sleeping in the streets, children dying, water running low, disease spreading. I’ listened now because this was Lin Nai-Nai’s war and I wanted it to be over. Already I was helping Lin Nai-Nai fill baskets with food to take to Wuchang as soon as the city gates opened. She knew her family might refuse to see her, but she had to try, she said. I bought a big bar of milk chocolate for her little brother, but I didn’t always tell her the news that my father brought home.

    Sometimes the news was so bad that my father wouldn’t even tell us. Instead, he’d go to the piano and pound out the one piece he knew by heart, “Napoleon’s Last Charge.” I loved the piece, but even more, I liked to watch what it did to my father. He could sit down at the piano, looking as if he had given up on China, but pretty soon his left hand would get the cannon booming and the drums beating. His right hand would say Giddyap to the horses and off they’d go, galloping off to battle. Then both hands would charge faster and faster up and down the keyboard, armor clashing, bugles blowing, and by the end, I knew it didn’t matter whether Napoleon ever fought again or not. My father had won.
    Still the siege went on. One night at supper I tried to imagine what people in Washington, P.A., talked about at the end of the day.
    â€œWhat do you suppose they think is news?” I asked.
    â€œWell, they’re probably worrying about the first frost now and wondering if they should cover up their tomatoes,” my father said.
    We all