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hung from his lip like a winter fur.
    Although it was summer, darkness fell quickly that evening. I remember the sensation of my mother’s firm grip on my hand, the fading afternoon light retreating across the floor, and then the whistling sound of a storm beating against the unshuttered windows. Tang interviewed us first, his tight-lipped smile appearing whenever my mother answered his questions. He told us that the General had not been a general at all, but a spy who also masqueraded as a barber. He was fluent in Chineseand Russian, a master of disguise who used his skills to gather information on the Resistance. Because the Russians thought he was Chinese, they felt quite comfortable gathering at his shop and discussing their plans, and revealing those of their Chinese counterparts. I was glad then that I had not told my mother that I had understood who the General was as soon as I saw the costume in the trunk. Tang’s face was fixed on my mother’s and she looked so shocked that I felt sure he would believe she had no part in the General’s work.
    But even though it was obvious that my mother had not known who the General was, that we had not received any visitors while he lived with us, and that we were unaware that he could speak any language other than Japanese, it could not erase the hate Tang felt towards us. His whole person seemed to be inflamed with it. Such malice burned to only one goal: revenge.
    ‘Madame Kozlova, have you heard of Unit 731?’ he asked, restrained anger contorting his face. He seemed to be satisfied when my mother didn’t answer. ‘No, of course not. Nor would have your General Mizutani. Your cultured, well-spoken General Mizutani who bathed once a day and has never in his life killed a man with his own hands. But he seemed quite content to condemn people there, as you were to house a man whose countrymen have been slaughtering us. You and the General have as much blood on your hands as any army.’
    Tang lifted his hand and waved the infected mess in front of my mother’s face. ‘You Russians, protected by your white skin and Western ways, don’t know about the live experiments that took place in the district next to this one. I am the only survivor. One of the manythey tied to stakes in the snow, so that their nice clean educated doctors could observe the effects of frostbite and gangrene in order to prevent it happening to their own soldiers. But perhaps we were the lucky ones. They always intended to shoot us in the end. Not like the others, whom they infected with plague then cut open without anaesthetic to observe the effects. I wonder if you could imagine the feeling of having your head sawn open while still alive? Or being raped by a doctor so that he could impregnate you then cut you open and look at the foetus.’
    Horror pinched my mother’s face but she never took her eyes off Tang. Seeing that he hadn’t broken her, he flashed his cruel smile again, and using his clubbed hand and elbow removed a photograph from a folder on the table. It appeared to be of someone tied down on a table surrounded by doctors, but the overhead light was reflecting in the middle of it and I couldn’t make it out clearly. He told my mother to pick it up; she looked at it and turned away.
    ‘Perhaps I should show it to your daughter?’ he said. ‘They are about the same age.’
    My mother’s eyes flamed and she met his hate with her anger. ‘My daughter is only a child. Hate me if you want, but what say has she had in anything?’ She glanced at the photograph again and tears came to her eyes, but she blinked them away. Tang smiled, triumphant. He was about to say something when the other man coughed. I had almost forgotten the Russian, he had sat so quietly, gazing out the window, perhaps not listening at all.
    When the Soviet officer questioned my mother, it was if we had changed the script and were suddenly in a different play. He was unconcerned with Tang’s thirst for revenge or