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strange quiet,” said Grandma Mei. “After weeks of shooting and bombing, our nerves had been shattered by the daily sound of explosions. My parents even made an air raid shelter by digging a trench and covering it with wooden planks. Of course we know now how useless it was, but it gave us a false sense of security. We were lucky that none of the bombs fell near our house. Then one morning, the shooting stopped. It was eerie. We all came out of our houses and looked at one another. At first we thought the Japanese enemy had given up and left, and some of the children started to run around and cheer. Then one of our neighbors told us the truth, that it was the Chinese Nationalist army who had gone. We were left totally defenseless.”
    Sue and Rochelle sat back down, and Sue’s mother set out a platter of cut oranges and cups of tea. Grandma Mei stopped talking to take a sip of tea. When she started again, her voice was less steady. “At first we thought we were safe, and that the Japanese were only interested in going after the army. Then the next day, we heard screaming in the street. We hurried home and bolted the door. It didn’t do any good. The Japanese soldiers broke it down and came storming into the house.”
    “Did they say anything?” asked Sue before she could stop herself. Her grandmother had never mentioned whether the soldiers had tried to communicate. It would have made them seem more human.
    Grandma Mei’s lips curled. “They had a Chinese interpreter with them, a traitor! They demanded to know whether we had concealed weapons. Then they started searching. Of course we knew they weren’t really looking for weapons! They were just looting! My brother and I hid behind the stove in the kitchen, but we could still hear the soldiers throwing things around. When they emptied all our chests and drawers, they made my parents tell them where they had hidden all the money and jewels. My parents told them they had no more valuables, but the soldiers didn’t believe them and started to beat them.”
    Grandma Mei stopped to take another sip of tea. She swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and continued. “The soldiers finally found nothing valuable left to seize, so they decided to go and loot another house. As they started to leave, I raised my head from my hiding place and peeked out. I saw that one of the soldiers had found my favorite doll. It was only a clay doll, but I loved it because it had such a sweet smile.” Her hands began to shake, and some of the tea spilled. “He swung the doll and smashed it against the wall! It shattered into little pieces, and he was laughing like a fiend the whole time!” There were tears running down Grandma Mei’s face, and she stopped talking. This was the place where she always stopped.
    Sue had often wondered why her grandmother was more upset by the soldier’s smashing her doll than by the looting of their valuables and the beating of her parents. Maybe it was because the beating and looting were caused by greed, which was human and which you could at least understand. But smashing the doll was pure cruelty. Truly, a soldier who did that was a beast. And that was what her grandmother thought all Japanese were: beasts.
    The family was silent as Grandma Mei wept. Sue squirmed in her seat, wishing there were some way she could help her grandmother. Sue’s mother went over to put her arms around Grandma Mei and murmured soothing words. They didn’t do any good. They never did.
    Suddenly the telephone rang. Rochelle jumped up eagerly. “I’ll get it.”
    Nine times out of ten, the call was for Rochelle, so nobody else even tried to pick up the phone. Sue could hear her saying, “Yes, this is the Hua residence. . . . You want to speak to
who
?”
    Rochelle came back to the dining room looking bemused. “It’s for
you,
Sue. Some boy wants to talk to you.”
    Sue’s heart thumped in her chest.
It could only be Andy
. Sue didn’t know any other boys well enough for