Attempting to Live Normally Among Chaos - The Surrendered - Sarah Britsch

The night following the intrusion of Sylvia’s home by enemy soldiers, Sylvia and her family and their fellow missionaries attempt to go about life as though there aren’t soldiers inhabiting their next room:

Tom Harris restarted the coal stove and set a kettle of water on top.  Next door they could hear the yawns of soldiers and the tinkle of their mess kits and soon the smells of boiling rice and cigarettes came to them.  Sylvie and her mother served tea and some leftover moon cakes for breakfast but no one was much hungry and they were all getting back under their blankets, to wait for the room to warm up, when a large, stoop-shouldered soldier came into the room.  (196)

Taken out of context, this passage would almost seem normal and routine, and that is exactly the point.  Their home has just been invaded by soldiers and are forced to share the space with them.  They do everything they can to carry on, and the soldiers do as well.  However, there are little details that exemplify that this is not a normal situation.  There is an underlying discomfort.  No one was hungry even though it was time for breakfast, and, in fact, they were all getting back into bed.  This emphasizes two things: the room is cold (which is a physical manifestation of the emotional discomfort of a relatively quiet invasion), and there is nothing to do today.  The latter is key to the desperation of the situation.  They are being held prisoner in their own home, and they are beginning to feel the effect.  There is nowhere to go and no chore to do that doesn’t immediately contribute to their momentary comfort, such as keeping a fire going and serving food.  Even the soldiers are settling in, making food and getting comfortable to go to sleep.  The only significant sign that something is wrong is the intrusion of the soldier, interrupting their façade of normalcy.  This is the only thing that gets them through the horror of the situation of invasion, to stay calm and wait it out.  Just as they are “wait[ing] for the room to warm up,” they are trying to go about normal life until it returns for real, just waiting out the cold.  However, even the façade of normalcy is interrupted by the arrival of the soldier in the room, indicating that this is not a situation that can be waited out.  It won’t be long before they have to drop the façade and face the invasion, before they have to get out from under the blankets and face the cold.