neighborhood, was present at the meeting. The previous day Minnie had allowed this middle-aged woman with intense eyes and a slightly sunken mouth to move into the Practice Hall and take charge of the refugees to be housed there. Miss Lou had no official affiliation with our college, but she was one of the few locals we could depend on. This little woman knew which people in the neighborhood were really destitute, so whenever we wanted to distribute charity, we’d go to her for assistance.
“Principal Vautrin, can I bring my dad with me when I come?” a slope-shouldered woman asked. “He’s bedridden and I can’t leave him behind.”
“Well, we will open our camp only to women and children,” Minnie answered.
A few men booed. One of them complained, “You can’t reject us like this, Principal Vautrin! This is unfair.”
I turned around to scowl at those men, some of whom were ne’er-do-wells, playing chess, cards, and mah-jongg day and night. Some had even snuck onto our campus to pilfer things.
Minnie waved for them to stop. As the hall quieted down, she resumed: “Ours is a women’s college, so it would be inappropriate for us to accommodate men.” She turned to a group of women. “Your menfolk can go to the other camps that take in families.”
“Why separate us?” a female voice asked.
“You won’t be separated for long,” Minnie said. “We’re talking about a matter of life or death while you’re still thinking about how to stay comfortably with your man.”
That cracked up the audience. We all knew that this woman had no children; she had been nicknamed the Barren One. She dropped her eyes, her cheeks crimson.
“Where are those camps that also accept men?” another female voice asked.
Minnie replied, “Wutaishan Primary School, the old Communications Ministry, Nanjing University’s Library, the military chemical shops—practically all the other camps admit families except for the one at the university’s dorms.”
“They’re too far away,” an old woman cried.
My temper was simmering. As I was wondering whether to say something to those selfish people, Miss Lou stood up and turned around to face them, her deep-set eyes steady behind her thick glasses. “Let’s remember who we are,” she said. “Jinling College is under no obligation whatsoever to accommodate any of us, but it offers to shelter us from the Eastern devils. We ought to appreciate what Principal Vautrin and her colleagues have been doing for us.”
“Shut up, little toady!” a male voice shouted from the back.
I stood and began to speak. “This is a chapel, not a cheap tavern where you can swear at will. So stop name-calling or make an exit. As for the men here, don’t you feel ashamed to compete with women and kids for safety? If you cannot fight the enemy and protect your families with arms, at least you should have the decency to leave them in more capable hands, while you look for refuge for yourselves elsewhere.”
That silenced the crowd, and for a moment the hall was so quiet that the distant artillery fire suddenly seemed to rumble louder and closer. After Miss Lou and I had sat down, Minnie continued, “We welcome all women and children, but we will do our best to shelter young women and girls first. That’s to say we encourage older women to stay home if they already live within the Safety Zone.”
“How about boys?” a woman asked from the back.
“Good question,” Minnie said. “Boys under thirteen will be admitted.”
“My fourteen-year-old is still a little kid,” a mother cried.
“But there’re fourteen-year-olds who are almost grown. We have to save room for girls and young women. In your son’s case, you should say he’s thirteen.”
That brought out peals of laughter.
“When can we come?” the same woman asked.
“When it’s no longer safe to stay home. Bring only your bedding, a change of clothes, and some money. No chests or boxes, please.”
At the meeting’s