Old Mrs. Wang knew of course that there was a war. Everybody had known for a long time that there was a war going on and that Japanese were killing Chinese. To Mrs. Wang, however, the war was not real and no more than rumor since none of the Wangs had been killed. Old Mrs. Wang’s clan village, the Village of Three Mile Wangs, on the flat banks of the Yellow River, had never even seen a Japanese person. Only the war caused them to talk about the Japanese.