THOMAS L. CHIU
HE CALLED HER
ANA AND VICTORIA
1920-1939
The village of Chungting was days from the nearest town, almost a hundred
miles inland from Formosa Strait. It had a winding dirt road, the main one,
about three or four miles long. The semi detached houses, all one story
high, looked like old shoe boxes from afar. The soft mountains and misty
forest nearby seemed to offer some kind of protection for the tiny village.
There was an inordinate calm with little activity. A slumbering quality
hovered over the community, making it akin to an epoch frozen in time. The
village was also distanced immeasurably from its neighbors in spirit.
The people of Chungting kept to themselves. They worked in the rice fields.
A few served in the local government offices.
Ana and her mother lived together in one of these houses. Her father had
gone away long before Ana started school. She had overheard one day that
the bandits were responsible for his disappearance. He was a civil servant.
Oil lamps were used extensively in the village. It was the only source
of lighting for Ana. The lamps were her comfort and gentle spirits guiding
her to challenge the school work. She excelled in school. A very good student,
indeed, grandma used to say.
Articles and books on Marx and Engels, though forbidden, were reading materials
for Ana, in addition to the required provincial school curriculum. These
stark contrasts in Ana's readings were soon to provide a powerful force
as well as putting a dent in her subsequent thinking and direction.
Her remarkable scholarship two years later, at age eighteen, landed Ana
in a college in Shanghai. She wanted to be a teacher, a special teacher
for the very young. Soon she found herself enmeshed with the brewing idealism,
rife among some of her colleagues, fixed on the search for the perfect motherland.
Shanghai was ripe for many inspired students to look for an alternative
state, because of increasing disenchantment with all the governmental affairs
and policies. Like a giant mirror reflecting their every thought and wish,
Shanghai opened the eyes of many intellectuals, who began to see through
the myriad and multi-layered face of the state.
Soon after Ana arrived in Shanghai, she met Victoria. Together they forged
on, mixing the theology of children's education and Lenin's teachings. While
an element of recklessness existed in their endeavor to seek changes, they
were also aware of the movement's countless difficulties and its possible
demise.
In the midst of their struggles, Ana found another emotional outlet-a romantic
liaison with her husband-to-be. Victoria, too, sought out her hoped for
husband-whom she wanted to meet soon.
Realizing that their early momentous dream had become derailed, the two
young women now took different paths. Both were unaware that another, similar,
movement existed elsewhere-more intense and organized. This revolutionary
group was to thrust its goals into triumph: the birth of Communism!
1939-1967
My Dear Ana:
The war has finally decided our fates, has it not? You in the Philippines.
I here in Formosa. Both islands of some strange destiny. We are both in
exile. The future looks bleak to me.
How are you?
Over here it is spring. How many springs did we have? Did you count them?
Of course, you know as well as I do that our spring has vanished a long
time ago.
The two swallows that momentarily perched on the edge of the gable flirted
and flew off. How brief! And how wonderful to see them free.
Time-ever unmerciful-moves on. Why do I feel as if it were unkind to us?
Part of myself floating away from me. The two boys seldom write. Jon is
still plying his ship in the Atlantic. He, too, rarely comes home. I feel
that they have found their own homes, elsewhere. I do not blame them. I
am their dark shadow.
How are your ten precious ones? Will I ever get to see them? When will
I be able to see you again? I am afraid to ask!
Forever,
Victoria
I am one of Ana's son. I had read a few of Victoria's letters to Ana but
had never seen the writings of Ana to Victoria. I have a sense that she
wrote about us, our progress in school. Mostly in general fashion. Once
in a while, I would read something sounding oblique or nebulous, e.g., why
was Victoria afraid to ask Ana whether they would be able to see each other
again? A little foreboding and ominous, given their participation in student
demonstrations in the late twenties through the early thirties.
I did not, of course, know much about their relationship, except that it
was one of mutual affection and concerns. Were they keeping something from
the rest of us?
Ana seemed contented with us, with her life. The letters between them flowed
ever so merrily. Or so they seemed. It was years later that I found out
that the letters were not as rosy as they were meant to be. All the letters
Victoria received and sent were cautiously censored by the Formosan Government.
That this was a cruel punishment for Victoria all the more hardened the
determination of both she and Ana not to give in to the indictment.
Indeed, I now read the letters as voices of despair and hopelessness. Words
like "shadow," "winter," "trees without fruits"
were coming to light with her new meanings. Both Ana and Victoria were trapped
in their own way. Ana would never visit Formosa and Victoria would never
attempt to leave. Both had their parallel visions. Their ultimate fates
were now fiercely and intimately connected.
1969
It had been three years since Ana died. Her dreams were finally stilled.
Her fires extinguished. The poetry of her dedication came to a stop. Was
she wronged? Who would know? Who would care to know?
I made an auspicious visit to see Victoria. There was no particular reason
to see her. I hardly knew her. She was a far away character that wandered
in and out of my mother's memories.
But here I was, drawn inextricably to her doorstep at last. Victoria had
a resolute, albeit gentle, face. Her warmth was intoxicating. Indeed she
still carried that relentless drive I had pieced together from her letters.
She knew, before I met her, the details of Ana's death. Perhaps she knew
already, long before, that they would never see each other again.
"I am so glad time has given me this opportunity to see you face to
face. Oh, you look so much like your mother," commented Victoria.
"I suppose we both were stubborn, your mother and I. We have known
that by keeping this silence. This quiet acceptance of our sad circumstances.
All of you would have the chance to move on, unmarred from the clutches
of the law. Can you see this, Thong? If your mother came to Formosa, she
would be quarantined, like me. If I try to escape, which I could have, I
may lose that cause we both struggled so hard for, for so long. Our
dream would have melted faster than the snows of early spring. I have for
the past thirty years been in a kind of solitary confinement. At this moment,
I do not wish for any complications.
"Your mother was a brave woman. She was a symbol of righteousness.
Remember this for me, will you? This is my only request. It will make my
remaining days fulfilled."
That was my last contact with Victoria. She, too, was a brave woman, like
Ana. Together they spoke eloquently and stood erect in their silence against
the inhumanity of man.
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