Every place they stopped, their little group, which included several servants and an interpreter, was approached for medical help. Bethune was, says Ewen, “like the good Samaritan [binding] the wounds of all who came to him.” Once, with 40 cars on one train, they became a very visible target and were badly bombed. Bethune looked after the wounded as best he could, but Ewen felt she could hardly function, she was so afraid. “Dr. Bethune didn’t get angry,” she said, “but he pontificated: ‘Every man must have two baptisms in his life—once with water and once with fire. You have just had your baptism of fire.’ ‘You are nothing but a bloody missionary,’ I said, without thinking.” Bethune flew into a rage. “He yelled and screamed, talking so quickly that I don’t think he knew exactly what he was saying. ‘Don’t you ever say anything like that again, you dizzy bitch!’ ”
More and more soldiers were coming in, their wounds infected, and they found themselves in a no-man’s land on the Fen River in southwest Shanxi province, still 100 miles from Xian and ahead of the advancing Japanese army by only a few miles. They were at the rear of a retreating Chinese army.
In this region, they witnessed a battle and saw machine gun bullets striking the water 100 yards away from them. They had to make a dash across a piece of open land, where they were fired on again. They’d heard that the Japanese force pursuing them consisted of about 500 cavalry and several batteries of field guns and infantry—altogether 20,000 men. The next day the Japanese artillery arrived on the opposite bank and shelled them all day for three days. It would take them a month to cover the entire 600 miles; and the last 220 miles to Xian was entirely by foot.
At 11 o’clock on the very night they arrived in Yan’an, they were summoned to meet Mao Zedong. Bethune was already in bed, but it took him only two minutes to get dressed. Ewen’s account of this meeting is immediate and fresh:
The messenger who escorted us to Chairman Mao’s quarters explained that the chairman worked during the night hours, from midnight to sometimes eight or nine in the morning when it was quiet, and that he did not usually see people unless they were important . . . The guard outside Mao’s house pushed back the heavy padded drape (there was no door) which covered the entrance . . .
A man stood at the table with one hand resting on a book near its edge, his face turned to the door. He wore a blue cotton uniform like any other soldier in Yan’an, but his cap was a peaked cap with the red, five-pointed star on it. His shadow on the wall seemed to accentuate his height. The flickering shadows on the walls lent a strange quality to the scene, a murkiness broken only by the glow of the candle.
The man came toward us smiling, and in a rather high-pitched voice said, “Welcome, welcome.” He held his hands out to Dr. Bethune, who accepted his greetings in a like manner. The Chinese leader’s hands were long and sensitive, soft as a woman’s. Without speaking, the two men just stared at each other for a moment, then they embraced like brothers. The chairman’s face was crowned with a high forehead and a shock of very thick unruly black hair. His sensual mouth flashed into a beaming smile as he sat down at the table where he had been working with his secretary. The secretary could speak fluent English so I was relieved of my duty. Chairman Mao spoke no language but Chinese . . . After small talk about the weather, Dr. Bethune presented his credentials from the Communist Party of Canada. His card was printed on a square of white silk, signed by Tim Buck, secretary of the party and adorned by the party’s seal. Chairman Mao took the credentials with great ceremony, bordering on reverence, and said, “We shall transfer you to the Communist Party of China so that you will be an inalienable part of this country now.”
Mao told them how much the partisans were in need of good medical care in the Wutai mountains and said that he thought Dr. Bethune would do very well; he was concerned, however, about how the nurse would be able to survive. Then the conversation took a different turn:
After a time Mao asked me, “Don’t you think that Dr. Bethune looks like Lenin?” He stood up where he could look at the doctor’s profile.
“Oh yes, only Dr. Bethune has a better shaped head at the back than Lenin,” I chirped brightly.
The secretary told Bethune the gist of our conversation. To say that the doctor was delighted would be to state his feelings mildly. He was flattered. Eventually the four of us got into a discussion of flat heads, and the subject took up a great deal of time without us reaching any reasonable conclusions. The night flew by on wings, and before we knew it, April 2 had arrived.
That fateful meeting has been recorded in one of the most famous propaganda posters of all time, showing Chairman Mao and Norman Bethune sitting at a table together. They are portrayed as equals, two men deep in earnest conversation, alone, without interpreters, without any distractions. When Bethune met the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, it was as if water had suddenly found its own level. The man who had condemned his father as a hypocrite, who threw surgical instruments with impatience, treated poor people for free, and taught children art was totally fused with the Chinese purpose. He was welcomed and given the keys to the kingdom, a freedom offered only to the top echelon of the party. The Communists, determined to drive out the Japanese, admired Bethune’s pragmatism and concern for the peasants as well as the soldiers. They identified with his desire to innovate and his genius for improvisation. He could do no wrong, and that, for a human being, was a big responsibility.
From Extraordinary Canadians: Norman Bethune by Adrienne Clarkson. Copyright © Adrienne Clarkson, 2009. Reprinted with permission of Penguin Group (Canada).
