Nanking, 20 December 1937
First we delivered the dumplings to Shujin, then the three of us left the alley. We went through the early-morning streets, keeping a vigilant eye on all the barricaded doors. Nanking, I thought, you are a ghost town. Where are your citizens? Cowering in silence, tucked away inside the shuttered houses? Hiding in animal pens and under floors? The snow fell silently on us, settling on our caps and jackets, floating softly down to flake and lie yellow over the old goat dung in the gutters. We didn’t see another soul.
‘Look at this.’ Within ten minutes we had reached a side road that led to Zhongyang Road. The boy held out his hand and indicated a row of blackened houses. They must have been burned recently because smoke still rose from them. ‘This is him. The yanwangye. This is what he does when he’s searching.’
Liu and I exchanged a look. ‘Searching?’
‘For women. That’s his habit.’
We opened our mouths to speak, but he silenced us with a finger to his lips. ‘Not now.’
He crept off then, leading us further down the street, eventually stopping outside a factory’s industrial double doors, its galvanized tin roof higher than two houses. I’ve walked past that building a hundred times and never troubled before to wonder what it was. We gathered around, stamping our feet and slapping our hands together to bring the blood back, casting wary glances up the street.
The boy held his finger to his lips again. ‘This is where he lives,’ he whispered. ‘This is his home.’ He pushed the door open a crack. In the cold building beyond I could make out a few shadowy things, the edge of a piece of machinery, damp concrete walls, a conveyor-belt. A pile of old-fashioned reed baskets was stacked against the facing wall.
‘What is this?’ Liu whispered, and I could tell from his voice that, like me, he did not want to step through the door. The texture of the air coming from the factory reminded me of one of the slaughterhouses on the outskirts of the city. ‘What have you brought us here for?’
‘You wanted to know why the woman was screaming.’
We hesitated, looking at the door.
‘Don’t worry.’ The boy saw our expressions and bent his head towards ours. ‘It’s safe. He’s not here now.’
He pushed the door open a little further. A frightful screeching noise echoed through the cavernous building, then the boy slipped through the crack and was gone. Liu and I looked at each other. My eyes were watering with fear: irrational, I told myself, because there is no such thing as the devil. Nevertheless it took me a long time to work up the courage to push open the door and step inside. Liu followed and we stood for a moment, our eyes getting used to the light.
The building must have been a silk factory: I could see a vat for boiling cocoons, four or five industrial-sized looms and dozens of hexagonal silk bobbins. The boy was standing in the corner, next to a small door, beckoning us. We went to him, our footsteps hollow and lonely-sounding in this high-ceilinged industrial cathedral. He pushed open the door and stood, fingers resting on the doorhandle, showing us into what must have been the manager’s office. We came to stand behind him. When I saw what was in there I put my hand over my mouth and groped for the wall, trying to stop my knees buckling.
‘Old Father Heaven,’ Liu whispered, ‘what happens in here? What happens in here?’