Striking the Balance

Liu Han noticed that only peripherally. She had hoped to see Ttomalss sitting at the table with Ppevel, and had hoped even more to see her daughter. She wondered what the baby would look like, with her for a mother and the foreign devil Bobby Fiore for a father. Then a really horrible thought struck her if the little devils wanted to substitute another baby of the right age and type for the one she had borne, how would she know?

The answer to that was simple and revolting: she wouldn’t, not with any certainty. She muttered an inaudible prayer to the Amida Buddha that such a thought had not occurred to the devils. Nieh Ho-T’ing, she knew, had no more use for the Amida Buddha than for any other god or demon, and did not think anyone else should, either. Liu Han shrugged. That was his ideology. She did not discern certain truth in it.

Ppevel spoke again. The interpreter translated: “We will return this hatchling to the female as a token of our willingness to give in exchange for getting. We expect in return a halt to your guerrilla attacks here in Peking of half a year. Is this the agreement?” He added an interrogative cough.

“No,” Nieh Ho-T’ing answered angrily. “The agreement is for three months only-a quarter year.” Liu Han’s heart sank. Would she lose her daughter again for the sake of a quarter of a year?

Ppevel and the interpreter went back and forth in their own tongue. Then the interpreter said, “You will please pardon me. A quarter of a year for you people is the correct agreement. This is half a year for my people.”

“Very well,” Nieh said. “We are agreed, then. Bring out the girl child you stole as part of your systematic exploitation of this oppressed woman.” He pointed to Liu Han. “And, though we did not agree, I tell you that you should apologize to her for the treatment she suffered at your hands, and also for the propaganda campaign of vilflication you recently conducted against her in an effort to keep from returning the smallest victim of your injustice.”

The interpreter translated that for Ppevel. The little devil with the fancy body paint spoke a single short sentence by way of reply, ending it with an emphatic cough. The interpreter said, “There is no agreement for the apology, so there shall be no apology.”

“It’s all right,” Liu Han said softly to Nieh. “I don’t care about the apology. I just want my baby back.”

He raised an eyebrow and didn’t say anything. She realized he hadn’t made his demand for the apology for her sake, or at least not for her sake alone. He was working for the cause, trying to win a moral advantage over the scaly devils as he would have done over the Japanese or the Kuomintang clique.

Ppevel turned both his eye turrets away from the human beings, back toward an opening that led to the rear part of the large tent. He spoke in his own language. Liu Han’s hands knotted into fists-she caught Ttomalss’ name. Ppevel repeated himself. Ttomalss came out. He was carrying Liu Han’s daughter.

For a moment, she couldn’t see what the baby looked like-her eyes blurred with tears. “Give her to me,” she said softly. The rage she’d expected to feel on confronting the little devil who’d stolen her child simply wasn’t there. Seeing the little girl had dissolved it.

“It shall be done,” Ttomalss answered in his own language, a phrase she understood. Then he switched to Chinese: “My opinion is that returning this hatchling to you is an error, that it would have served a far more useful purpose as a link between your kind and mine.” That said, he angrily thrust the baby out at Liu Han.

“My opinion is that you would serve a more useful purpose as night soil than you do now,” she snarled. The rage wasn’t gone after all, merely suppressed. She snatched her daughter away from the scaly devil.

Now, for the first time, she took a good look at the little girl. Her daughter was not quite the same color as a purely Chinese baby would have been: her skin was a little lighter, a little ruddier. Her face was a little longer, a little more forward-thrusting, too, with a narrow chin that reminded Liu Han of Bobby Fiore’s and laid to rest any fears that the little devils had switched children on her. The baby’s eyes had the proper shape; they weren’t round and staring like those of a foreign devil.

“Welcome back to your home, little one,” Liu Han crooned, hugging her daughter tightly to her. “Welcome back to your mother.”

The baby began to cry. It looked not to her but to Ttomalss, and tried to get away from her to go back to him. That look was like a knife in her heart. The sounds her daughter made were not like those of Chinese, nor even like those of the foreign devil language Bobby Fiore had spoken. They were the hisses and pops of the little scaly devils’ hateful speech. Among them was an unmistakable emphatic cough.