The Flowers of War by Geling Yan Read Free Book Online Page A

another.
    Cardamom wasn’t deterred. With her lips pursed and her eyes unblinking, she concentrated on learning how to get the soup from the pot into her bowl. ‘Big deal,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll learn the trick without your help.’
    She was too short for the tall pot set on the tabletop, so she stood on her toes and drew the ladle up shakily. Even if she lifted the handle above her head, she still couldn’t get the ladle out of the pot.
    ‘The table’s too tall,’ she said.
    ‘The dwarf complains about the table,’ a schoolgirl quipped.
    ‘I’ve seen taller winter melons,’ said another.
    ‘
You
are a winter melon!’ Cardamom snapped back. She’d had enough. She dropped the ladle back into the pot with a hollow clatter.
    ‘A rotten winter melon,’ a third schoolgirl said.
    ‘Step up and have a cursing match with me!’ said Cardamom. ‘
If
you have the guts!’
    No one wanted to pick a fight. That would be giving the slut more of their attention than she deserved. They carried on silently and soberly with their dinner. But when Cardamom turned to leave, someone piped up, ‘More rotten than a winter melon in July. No one but the flies would want it!’
    It was Xiaoyu.
    ‘Stinks, doesn’t she?’ added Sophie.
    Cardamom turned round. She walked over to where Sophie was sitting, picked up Sophie’s bowl and flung the dregs of her soup in her face.
    Sophie leapt out of her chair, dripping with cabbage leaves and bits of noodle. She hurled herself at Cardamom while Xiaoyu pulled Cardamom’s foot. It took several of them to pin the young prostitute down. Shujuan went over to shut the door and wedged her back against it so that neither Fabio nor George could come in. Then all the girls crowded round the thrashing forms on the floor, aiding their friends by landing a kick or a pinch where they could. The Japanese were still abstract enemies, but this teenage prostitute was an enemy they could see.
    *     *     *
    Cardamom’s shrill swearing percolated through the closed door and reached as far as Fabio’s ears. He made his way to the refectory, too slowly for George’s liking.
    ‘They’ve been beating her up, Father. Something terrible’s going to happen!’ George exclaimed.
    When they finally got the door open, they found Cardamom with her face covered in blood and a hank of her hair pulled out. She was rubbing a bald spot the size of a large coin on her head; it gleamed in the candlelight. George ran over to help her up, but she pushed him away and got to her feet unaided.
    ‘I’ve had beatings since I was a kid,’ she said to the girls through gritted teeth. ‘I’ve had sticks broken over my backside. Your weak little fists are neither here nor there. What kind of people do you think you are anyway, all picking on me at once?’
    The girls were paper-pale and tearful, as if they were the ones who had been injured. They all piped up at once: ‘She started it! It was her fault!’
    ‘Are any of you hurt?’ Fabio asked, his eyes checking their faces.
    They looked at him. Of course they were hurt. They were deeply wounded. All those filthy words the young whore had uttered had sullied innocent ears more used to Father Engelmann’s resounding homilies, to music played on the church organ, to the classical poetry recited in their classes. The words forced an answer to their vague wonder about what happened between a man and a woman.
    Fabio asked George to escort Cardamom back to the cellar. In a few minutes he was back, to say that Zhao Yumo was asking to speak to Deacon Adornato.
    ‘No!’ shouted Fabio, startling himself with the brusqueness of his response. As he saw George’s surprised expression he realised how abrupt he must have sounded. He turned and headed in haste towards the rectory.
You think you can seduce me with a pair of pretty eyes, do you, Yumo?
he thought to himself.
You think I’ll come running when you call? We’ve got to get rid of those women. I’ll