Chapter 3: Fulvio
And a new revolution triumphed among so many in this faraway land.
Days later, the main door of the convent was blown to pieces by a cannon shot. In the midst of the smoke, the old general entered the convent on horseback with a mob of soldiers. These made a fusillade inside the convent making the terrified nuns scream.
--I don't know what my wife thinks! .I have 18 children, each one of them has his mother and they count on me as their father. Let's see, where is my offspring-- said the voice of the drunken man out of his mind, getting off his horse with difficulty.
A minute later ,he received his daughter from the hands of the frightened nuns. Immediately he announced the child's name to all present: Del Valle Cristina Trompiz Guedez.
At gunpoint a priest was forced to baptize the girl, being the daughter and goddaughter of the general; being raised in the house under the furious gaze of the general's wife, who remembered the Indian Guajira Maracucha features of the dead girl, at least that's what everyone believed.
Del Valle Cristina Trompiz Guedez lived a quiet, serene life. In 1877 she married a young, extremely handsome Canadian mining engineer and lived with him in the Aroa camp.
In 1882 her third and last daughter was born, after the death of her two brothers in the plague of 1880.
His last daughter Dulce Maria Wilson Trompiz made a pleasure trip to the Mediterranean in 1902. She met a very good looking and ruined Italian Count, who came to chase her to Barquisimeto, marrying the fragile and beautiful young woman. Thanks to the young wife's money, they traveled and lived between the two countries in spite of the exhausting and dangerous voyages, because the Count decided that he was not going to die of boredom, nor bitten by snakes in such a tiresome, ugly and monotonous land.
On March 15, 1910, Count Fulvio Gallipoli Wilson was born in Milan, in the Gallipoli's country house, where nobody would have thought that this offspring came from a silent and poor Chinese maid who died at the age of 16 in a country she never knew where it was.
That 24-year-old Lieutenant Fulvio Gallipoli, of the Barsaglieri military corps, was the one who caused the fainting with strange delusions, making Marina Leung Ba menstruate for the first time in her life and her mother, behind her father's back, hired a Chinese sorceress to remove the strong enchantment of which the young girl was victim, failing miserably in the attempt, the witch, who emphatically announced that the young girl was a prey of lovesickness. Only the cause had the cure. She would experience many difficulties because in her is the hexagram 39, however by mutation she would be transformed into the Hexagram 11. She had to fight to be the woman of the same in this incarnation; because this delirium was a thing of the world of permanent changes.
III
Growing up Fulvio was a man endowed with a wicked beauty; Italian in his passionate way of living, in his love of good wine, pizza, aged cheeses, profiteroles, horseback riding, adventurous and swashbuckling, in love with every broom with skirts that came his way, a singer, a lover, intelligent, cheerful, happy, immature, irresponsible, a liar.
With much more money than he could wish for; the product of his mother's inheritance, he could spend without fear on games, of which he was very fond.
He was the senior ensign at the military academy, he had to obey the Duce, but he didn't buy it. He went full of delirious enthusiasm to the war in Ethiopia at the age of 18. He returned to Rome to jump from all the balconies of ladies, ladies, widows and spinsters he could get, breaking their hearts, forgetting absolutely each and every one after he obtained his bedding goals.
In the cold January of 1934 he went to Japan to learn Marine tactics of the Japanese army, which was at the zenith of its violent glory; he learned the lustful sexual secrets of the Geishas, which had him even further from madness.
Then he was in China, watching with horror their actions against the civilian population and everything that crossed him.
He lived in a new anguished emotion that hit him with intensity when he arrived in the mysterious and hermetic China. He loved those flooded plains sown with rice fields, its ruined temples, its incredible sunsets and against his Japanese instructors who taught him the code of the samurai, Karate; he eagerly sought to learn to use the I Ching, which was also used secretly by the Japanese. He secretly tasted Peking and Cantonese food with pleasure, ate snake and shark's fin soup. He learned the rudiments of Kung-fu, which he understood was far superior to Karate. He also enjoyed the soft pleasure of hot and sensual young Chinese girls, who despite their diminutive size were passionate and also extremely lustful in their lovemaking.... As a womanizer summa cum laude he understood why Marina Leung Ba fainted.
--Oh God! Not even the girls,-- he said self-sufficiently, with a huge smile, and after tapping himself on the chin, he drained a hot sake; for in spite of the mishap, Mr. Leung Ba did not suspend the reception even for a moment.
Forgetting absolutely the incident, Fulvio returned to Italy a few months later. He went to the Spanish Civil War with the Italian legionaries. He vacationed several times in Venezuela and even had some time to meet his Canadian relatives in the Great Lakes region.
In 1937 he stayed permanently in Italy, only to discover that his homeland was no longer his homeland. The barbarism, ignorance and brutality of fascism made the country unbreathable. The worst. The military were the most responsible, as they supported that fanatical and corrupt regime to the fullest extent. He was tempted to ask to be discharged and leave his country. But he stayed in the army. Someone sensible had to be among them and prevent as far as possible the barbarities committed by the Fascist military. For he understood that those brutes could not be Italians.
Fulvio felt that something inside him had changed. That distant land engulfed in war was calling him day by day, indeed, hour by hour. Something told him he had to go back. In turn, he became a war veteran and a very disciplined officer. He constantly consulted the I Ching, modified his apartment according to the rules of a technique called feng shui. He never stopped meditating on the features of his illustrious ancestor who seriously looked at the whole world from the immense painting in the living room of his house back in Venezuela, which from here in Rome, seemed to appear to him in the memories of every corner of Shanghai.
Marina had a hard time getting over her illness and was seen differently by the services and by her own mother.
She suddenly wanted to accompany her father to all the Japanese ceremonies. She seemed to be looking for something or someone. And she did not hide her disappointment when she did not find what she was looking for.
Years passed. The spring of 1938 came. The sixteen year old girl was transformed into a serious and spectacular teenager. To keep her away from the terrible situation in Shanghai, between the Japanese troops and the rebels, she was sent to Hong Kong to study accounting, to which she dedicated herself with exemplary discipline. She could not deny that she liked many boys, but something prevented her from falling in love. She would not give her heart under any circumstances. Although many lovers went out left and right trying to conquer her unattainable heart.
SHe saw, knew and understood the speeches of the immense Chang Kai Seng and the big and great commander leader Mao Tse Tung. Against all odds, he joined a secret brotherhood. The Kuomintang Tigers and the comunist party of the peoples. With discipline she fulfilled secret missions in Hong Kong and his close knowledge of the Japanese was of great help. Everyone knew about the Japanese advance in China and the year 1941 arrived.
The unthinkable happened. The Japanese attacked Hong Kong.
She avidly read the newspapers announcing the catastrophic results of the war in Europe, to get a glimpse of possible help. Russia was hardly defending itself against the Germans and the Japanese were an unstoppable blot on Asia. Singapore, Indochina, the Philippines, Burma. The Americans remained neutral, waiting for the best moment to act, according to their particular interests. When the battle for Hong Kong began, the young woman had no illusions.... From the balcony of her luxurious apartment, she watched the unequal struggle for the city on December 8, 1941. She witnessed the unthinkable.
The British surrendered on Christmas Day. He saw General Rensuke Isogai parading down Nelson Street at the head of his troops, and from his balcony they did not seem so evil. They paraded slowly. With exemplary discipline. Total. Since she was a child she had always known them and knew how to avoid standing in front of their terrible wickedness.
These Japanese, Isogai troops, were nothing like the strong, martial, disciplined Japanese who ruled in the north. They were an insult to dogs and to any devil. In short, they behaved very differently from the known ones. They were drunk as hell. They massacred the population. They raped women regardless of their condition and age. They eliminated banks. They looted the stores, they destroyed for the sake of destroying and she was forced to flee from her luxurious apartment.
Part of her father's fortune in U.S. dollars and Hong Kong dollars was deposited in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and evaporated when the bank was confiscated. Her beautiful school where she studied in such comfort, St. Paul's Girl's College of the Anglican Church was taken over and turned into a Military Hospital.
Marina Leung Ba understood that she had to leave the city, while she could. Thanks to her special passport, which she used profusely for the benefit of the Kuomintang Tigers, she was able to escape from Hong Kong, when the Japanese reached the height of barbarism. He went on a refugee train to Canton and from there followed the most dangerous 1200 kilometers of his life to Shanghai, He could not continue. She learned of the Japanese payment for her father's loyalty to them; they murdered him and his mother and seized all his property.
The beautiful girl knew the horror of helplessness, hunger, loneliness and misery in the middle of a city she did not know, because the once international oriental pearl was now a jumble of ruins; in the middle of a bloody winter, in the middle of a war. Her only chance to save herself was to urgently contact the Kuomintang Tigers. They sheltered her in the only possible place. Where many British and American officers were also hiding. In the "Restricted Sector for Stateless Refugees", in the Hongkou District, the poorest district of Shanghai. The city's Jewish ghetto, no less. Marina spent the whole of 1942 in hiding there. Until she received her assignment from the Kuomintang Tigers.
She would sing at the Moonlight. The favorite place of the Japanese officialdom. She had to be there to find out as much as possible about their plans. She was the one. She sang. She spoke Japanese and she was beautiful.
Marina understood. If the fact that she had remained staunchly Catholic in spite of the repeated and tiresome attempts of the English Anglicans in her school, of being anti-Japanese before her father, practically an accomplice of theirs; if it was of any use before Jesus Christ all that . Well, now was the time to find out.
Marina had no illusions. Singing at the Moonlight meant that on that very first night she would be outraged by as many Japanese as they wanted, on the following nights she would be part of the troops' orgies until they got bored of her. The Kuomintang Tigers knew this too. But an agent was needed in there.
On the night of her debut, the young woman came out before a simple stage. She tried to sing a Japanese song. But amidst the shouting of the soldiers no one could hear her. Suddenly a fat, coarse Colonel came on stage; with one swipe he tore off her blouse, exposing her beautiful, virginal breasts.
The terrified young woman covered them as best she could. The man grabbed her and tried to kiss her brutally, amidst the laughter of the soldiers who cheered the bastard.
A gigantic slap with a closed fist prevented him from doing so. The Colonel reacted immediately by bringing his hand to his saber, only to be stopped by each and every one of the three stars of the Uniform he wore. Rikugun-Taishō General in Chief Army Corps Takeo Namura. The Colonel received from the latter another phenomenal slap with a closed fist and collapsed to his knees. Namura. General Commander. Lord and master of all Shanghai, favorite of Prince Ahito; the man took the Colonel's saber and with the edge of it, struck the man until his silent fury was satiated. Likewise, silence immediately spread throughout the room.
The Lieutenant General made a gesture towards a Lieutenant Corone who moments before had come on stage to participate in the outrage and now like a statue was watching the scene; he immediately took off his jacket, covering the young woman at full speed.
Namura walked calmly to a table right in front of the stage, with a wave of his hand he threw the countless bottles and glasses everywhere.
He sat down and looked at the young woman. "Sing" he said to her in a low, strong voice.
Absolutely all the soldiers, very slowly sat down at the tables in strict silence, forgetting ipso facto the Colonel lying, exanimated, bathed in blood; at the edge of the stage.
From that moment on Marina Lueng Ba understood that she had an owner. The first on the list of all future assassination attempts by the communists and Kuomintang guerrillas. Therefore the most cruel and ruthless of all the Japanese who were in Shanghai, none other than General in chief Takeo Namura.
V
In 1943, the war was a seesawing maelstrom. Life in Shanghai was very hard and revolved around the Japanese. The city had been the object of many battles, presented a semi-ruined aspect, making daily life there very difficult, due to the absolute scarcity of the minimum living conditions and absolute lack of basic services.
The Kuomintang tigers were famous and feared. They assassinated Japanese officers, sabotaged power lines, blew up military trucks, stalked informers and traitors, collaborated closely with the communist guerrillas of the liberation army.
However, the entertainment activity was very strong and important. Brothels, casinos, dancing were made for the enjoyment of the invaders and Chinese collaborators. Shanghai and Hong Kong were a resting place for the fatigued troops and battered Japanese sailors who were being relentlessly attacked by the Americans in the Pacific Ocean.
Amid the neon lights. The white smoke of smuggled American cigarettes was highlighted by a romantic, mezzo-soprano voice, singing, clean, sweet and even more beautiful. She belonged to the most beautiful 21 year olds in all the Orient. An unholy Madame Moonlight, heartbreaker, dancer, biting and implacable. She was the favorite of the Japanese officials who went out of their way to hear her sing and dance; she managed to capture the absolute hatred of all the Japanese singers and dancers who could not understand this fanatical love for an inferior. On that late summer night, but no less hot, she sang a Japanese peasant song, which cried for the lost love; the one that does not leave the heart and that hurts at all times because of the distance. At the end she drew applause and uncontainable tears from the Japanese. But I was not in the mood to share. Madame retired to her simple dressing room.
Almost immediately the door opened violently causing the young woman to give a high-pitched scream of pure fright.
In walked the owner of the leg that delivered the fierce kick. None other than the commander of the 3rd Japanese occupation army, Takeo Namura, who, pistol in hand and with a gift in the other, stormed in.
--You are coming with me immediately. We will get married this very night or else ............ What?" said the Madame, calmer, lighting a long and fine cigarette, showing him those maddening legs, enjoying the devastating effect that vision had on the Lieutenant General.
--If not, kill me immediately, so that my spirit may terrorize you eternally," threatened the man, placing the cocked pistol to his temple.
---But that, my good, you do permanently," said the young woman with a smile, throwing the smoke in the face of the man who had fallen to his knees before her, "You don't need to kill yourself to terrify me every time.
The man began to whimper like a child at the woman's contempt. This implacable woman looked directly at him and told him.
--Shoot yourself. I've always wanted to see what a direct shot to the head looks like," she said, looking him straight in the eye.
The man at the news let out a river of tears, only to receive a hard slap from the girl. She saw him and with a wide smile continued slapping him mercilessly, to which the man, without respecting his uniform, made no attempt to defend himself from the mocking slaps of the young woman, lowering the pistol from his temple.
--You don't love me," said the man in a voice trembling with pain, "I'm not going to live another second. I will kill myself. Then he cocked the pistol at his temple again, ready to shoot.
--You cannot die,--said the young woman emphatically; rising from the swivel chair. Then she lifted up her dress and stripping off her blumer, threw it straight into the face of the Lieutenant General, who quickly caught it, passionately began to rub it on his face, wiping away her abundant tears and kissing him with irrepressible passion.
--It is very important to me that you suffer for my love,--said the young woman, taking the pistol from him and putting on the safety catch, placing it in the cartridge case of the kneeling general, --Your suicide is an insult to the beauty of my body. The whole city must know of your passion and suffering.
--I will not tolerate that you belong to anyone,-- said the general, inhaling the perfume of the blumer.
Two hermetic frigate captains appeared, without showing at all the disgust it produced to see the biggest military chief of the area, sobbing and without dignity, defeated by a simple young Chinese girl. It was a cruel insult to the beauty and fineness of the Japanese woman.
Madame made an imperceptible gesture to take away the man who remained on the floor. He was removed. The girl sighed with annoyance and weariness. The repetitive scene of every day. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to sleep a lot. Tomorrow she would have a meeting with the Kuomintang tigers. It was always a risk to go, stay and leave the meetings. SHe saw a case on the floor. SHe picked it up and opened it. It was a diamond, quite large by the way, not a cheap Japanese copy. The young woman smiled, analyzing it conscientiously. It would be of great help to the. Comunist party and Kuomintang tigers......
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone