by Emma Fraser
‘You must look at me,’ he demanded. ‘Not behave like a peasant woman. You must behave like an English lady.’
She raised her head and lifted her chin. She still didn’t know for certain that even if she did as he asked whether he would give her what she needed.
When she’d scrubbed every inch of herself and washed her hair, and could no longer put off the inevitable, she stepped out of the bath. He tossed her a piece of fabric to dry herself. The heat was so intense that a film of sweat began to form on her skin almost as soon as she was out of the water. She wrapped herself in the cloth, tying it just above her breasts as the native women did.
He shouted for the guards and they came to remove the tub, keeping their eyes averted. He barked a few more commands at them and then gestured to a chair in front of the table. ‘Sit. They will bring food. While we wait, I wish you to talk to me – as if I were one of the men you dined with. Japanese women know how to please a man. You must too.’
She scrambled around for something to say, but her mind was a blank. If she were at Raffles having dinner with Lawrence what would they have talked about? Tennis, people they knew, coming dances and outings, the war back home. But if she said the wrong thing, whatever fantasy the commandant was trying to create would be blown. He wanted her to behave as he imagined white women did, so that’s what he’d get.
‘Isn’t this heat quite wretched?’ she said.
Swish, swish went his sword in her head.
‘Quite so.’
‘Perhaps it will rain soon?’
He inclined his head. It was only when his jaw relaxed slightly that she saw that he was almost as ill at ease with proceedings as she was.
‘Tell me about your family.’ If she knew anything about men it was that the more arrogant they were and the more important they considered themselves, the more they liked to talk about themselves.
‘Are you married?’ she continued.
‘You will not talk about my wife!’ His expression had darkened and she knew she mustn’t slip up again.
‘Do you care for classical music?’
He nodded.
‘Which composer do you like best?’
‘Schumann and Bach. Bach is more serious. More like the Japanese way.’
Without meaning to she smiled. ‘I’m not entirely sure that Schumann would agree.’
‘You are an ignorant woman. You know nothing about music. Japanese women never disagree with man. Japanese man always knows best.’
For Heaven’s sake was there anything she was allowed to say?
Happily, at that moment, the same two guards came back in carrying trays of food. The smell made her stomach contract sharply.
They set the bowls of steaming rice, roasted chicken and vegetables down on the table. He indicated to her that she should eat.
She shook her head. How could she swallow a mouthful, when her fellow prisoners, her sister, were dying of starvation? ‘May I take it with me to have later?’ she asked.
‘No. You must eat now. You are too thin. I do not like women to be so thin.’
In which case, you bloody idiot, she thought, lowering her eyes, you should have given us more food.
‘Eat and your sister eats. I will give you food to take with you. After.’
They ate in silence but she could only make the meal last for so long. Fear and nausea clawing at her throat, she pushed her bowl away.
Chapter Forty-Three
Charlotte
1984
‘I don’t imagine I need to go into the details as to what happened next,’ Georgina said, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘Suffice to say I did what the commandant wanted.’
She was pale and only the way in which she clasped her hands together gave away her distress. ‘Let’s just say it was rather unpleasant.’
‘What he did was rape!’ I said viciously.
She shook her head. ‘Not by the way we measured such things back then.’
‘When a man forces a woman to have sex with him, it is rape.’
She shook her head again. ‘He didn’t force me.’
‘He had a hold over you. You did it to save your sister’s life. If you hadn’t done what you did he might have killed you.’
‘He wouldn’t have harmed me if I hadn’t gone to him – we must be perfectly clear on that. He did many terrible things but he did not rape me.’
Although I ached for my aunt, and was sickened by everything I’d learned about the commandant, now was not the time to argue with her.
She took another shuddering breath.
‘I had to keep going back,’ she continued. ‘He only gave me just enough quinine and food each time and it was many days before Edith recovered. I tried to keep what I’d done from her, but of course it came out. There was no chance of keeping secrets in the camp. Everyone witnessed you using the lavatory, for Heaven’s sake! There was nowhere to go where one wasn’t under somebody’s eyes.
‘I kept more and more to myself. I didn’t want their pity or their approbation, or even their understanding. I didn’t want to lean on them – I had to rely on myself; it was the only way I knew how to be. The only person I could afford to care about – the only person other than myself I had the energy to care about – was Edith. No one who hasn’t been in those circumstances can understand.’
‘You loved Edith very much. It was the only way to save her.’
She gave a small, despairing shake of her head. ‘What happened with the commandant ate away at my soul. Not just because of the sex – I coped with that by detaching my mind from my body. But in time it wasn’t just sex he wanted from me. He still expected sex every time I went to his hut – it’s important you understand that – but we spent longer and longer talking beforehand and often I would have one conversation in my head at the same time I was having one out loud.
‘At first our conversations were as awkward as they had been that first time and the longer he took before the actual act the more excruciating it was for me. The anticipation of what was about to happen was almost worse than the act itself.
‘Over time he began to talk of his family. He was married with two children – boys – and clearly very proud of them all. He even showed me photographs. I often wondered how he could reconcile what he was doing with me with loving his wife but I learned that sex for the Japanese was a much more practical affair than for us in the west. Prostitution wasn’t looked down upon – no one thought it irregular in the slightest that men used prostitutes – not even the wives.
‘He was, despite his brutality, an educated man and while overtly dismissive of the western way of life, deeply curious about it too. At times, for short periods, I was able to forget who and what he was. And to my shame I enjoyed the baths and being able to wear something clean even for a short time. I also lost my guilty conscience about the food and ate as much as I could. For years I felt more guilty about that than almost everything else. I think I still do.’
I gave her hand another squeeze. I could only guess how much recalling all this was costing her but the flat look she gave me warned me that she neither wanted nor needed my pity.
‘Even after Edith was well again, he continued to give me small amounts of quinine – often left on the table for me to take as if he couldn’t bring himself to actually give it to me. And as for the food – I realised early on that he knew I was taking more than I was supposed to, but he pretended not to notice.’
‘Why didn’t he just give it to you?’
‘I suspect it was something to do with loss of face which was very important to the Japanese soldier. If he gave me what I needed overtly, it was an admission – even if only to himself – that he could and should have been giving us more food and medicine all along.’ She pinned me with her deep blue eyes. ‘I never stopped hating him – never.
‘I put on weight with the food. My hair regained some of the sheen. I looked different to the other women and I knew they despised me for it. I think they wo
uld have forgiven me – not that I sought or wanted their forgiveness – if I had stopped going to the commandant but I was determined to ensure Edith had enough to eat and that she wouldn’t get sick again. She begged me over and over to stop going to him, told me she’d rather starve to death, but I wouldn’t listen to her. I couldn’t take the chance she wouldn’t get sick again.
‘Then there was a change in the atmosphere of the camp and in his demeanour. I could tell something was happening that worried him – this was late in 1945 and although we didn’t know it then the war in Europe was over and the Japs were on the run.
‘The rations increased slightly although it seemed to everyone that the soldiers were looking thinner and more bedraggled with every passing day. There was always a great deal of speculation in the camps,’ she gave me a wry smile, ‘not that I was included in that speculation – not since my continuing “relationship” with the camp commandant had become general knowledge, but Edith kept me informed. She made no secret she abhorred what I was doing but she still talked to me. She was the only one in the camp who still did.
‘We didn’t really understand what was happening at first. You have to remember we had no newspapers, no radios, no way at all of finding out what was going on. All we were ever told was what the commandant chose to tell us at morning tenko and judging by what he said the Japs were in control of most of the Far East as well as Europe. Not once, in all the time I spent with him, did he ever let on to the true state of affairs – that the war in Europe was over and the Japanese all but beaten. By that time only around half of us who had started off in the camp were still alive and many of us who remained had given up hope of ever seeing home or our loved ones again.
‘The first inkling we had that things might not be going the Japs’ way was when we received our first Red Cross parcels. You can imagine how we fell upon them. There was chocolate – stale but completely delicious – and even lipstick.
‘It was then that we realised that the camp commandant had the food and medicines that have could saved many lives all along and if possible, the women hated him even more – and by association me. But I was in a dilemma. I didn’t know whether these would be the last parcels we would ever get so I couldn’t risk telling the commandant our arrangement was over. Apart from the risk to our supplies, I had no idea what he would do to me. I wouldn’t have put it past him to have me publicly flogged or even killed on some made-up pretext. So although my skin crawled at the thought of his touch, I continued to go to him.
‘Then one night the Japs simply disappeared. We woke up to find them gone. We didn’t know what else to do so we carried on as normal. There was no extra food, no sudden change in our living conditions, except there was no call to tenko; no standing in the sun for hours and no fear of being hit in the face with a rifle butt if one didn’t bow low enough.’
‘With our guards gone, the women were free to vent their disapproval of me and the other women who’d sold themselves to the Japs and who could blame them? There was talk, always when I was in earshot, of reporting me as a collaborator.’
‘They must have known why you did what you did.’ I raged inside at the way the other women had treated my aunt. ‘You could have made them understand.’
‘My dear, I couldn’t. My pride wouldn’t let me. It was all I had left and I had to hold on to that.’
For a moment I was tempted to confide in her about Lucy and the difficulty I found myself in. But I quickly decided against it. How would a woman who’d been raped feel about another woman who’d defended a rapist? Her good opinion had come to matter to me.
‘A short while after that our soldiers arrived,’ Georgina continued. ‘We were given food and treated, flown to Singapore and told we were free to make our way home. There was only one place Edith and I wanted to be. Here at Greyfriars.’
Georgina sighed and gently released my hand. ‘I need to go and see if Edith’s all right…’
I took Tiger outside. Low cloud hung over the island, obscuring the sky, and night would fall soon. But feeling the need to get rid of some of the restless energy inside me, I headed up the hill at the back of the house. I’d walked here before and although the path was overgrown it was distinct enough for me to follow. The path was steep but I walked quickly, only stopping to draw breath when I reached the top. From here I could see Balcreen and even closer, Jamie’s cottage. I stood for a while thinking about what Georgina had told me. I was about to turn and retrace my steps, when out of nowhere a mist came down, blanketing me and making it impossible to see. I’d been too absorbed in my thoughts to notice.
I turned back in the direction I’d thought I’d come but I’d only taken a few steps when I realised I couldn’t even see the path. Even Tiger seemed unsure of where to go. She sat at my feet and looked at me as if she trusted me to find the way back down. But I’d lost all sense of direction. I stood stock-still. What I did remember was up here, the hill fell away sharply and if I carried on without being able to see, there was every chance I’d go over the cliff – a fall that might well kill me. I took a breath to still my rising panic. All I had to do was remain where I was – hopefully the cloud would lift and I could make my way back then. But it would be dark soon and I was cold.
I heard a crack and snap from somewhere to my right and I squinted in an attempt to see what had made the noise. Tiger growled low in her throat and sprang to her feet, staring in the direction from where the sound had come.
Something moved in the mist and I held my breath, straining to see.
As it moved closer I could see it was a figure wearing a cloak that covered her head, obscuring her face as well as her body.
I was rooted to the spot. Although I couldn’t see her face, I was certain it wasn’t Georgina or Edith.
The figure beckoned, clearly wanting me to come closer. I could feel Tiger shivering through the thin material of my trousers as she pressed against me. Once again I flashed back to the dream Mum had told me about – the one where Lady Elizabeth had come for her.
I shook my head at my foolishness. Apart from the cloak, what reason did I have to think the figure I was seeing wasn’t real? People wore cloaks, albeit I hadn’t seen many do so, apart from in a play. Nurses did – although weren’t theirs shorter? I was allowing, like my mother before me, the primeval atmosphere of the house and the island to get to me. God knew there were enough strangely dressed people in London – goths and punks amongst them – there could have been a hundred people wearing cloaks and I wouldn’t have noticed. And there was nothing to prevent a sightseer from coming over to the island if they had their own boat.
Yet the hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention.
Hello!’ I called. ‘Are you lost too?’ There was no reply – not even a raised hand. My voice was muffled by the thick mist, which to my dismay, had become thicker instead of lighter, so perhaps they hadn’t heard.
The figure beckoned again, more urgently.
I had a choice. I could stay here and probably freeze, or I could follow the woman as she clearly wanted me to. Whoever it was turned away and I picked up Tiger and followed. She kept in front of me, turning occasionally to ensure I was still following. As we descended the mist began to clear and looking down I could see the path again. When I glanced up, the figure was gone.
Chapter Forty-Four
The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over and Edith had retreated to her room, Georgina asked if I would spend time with her in the library so she could continue with her story. I had said nothing of my experience on the hill, unsure now, in the cold light of day if I’d imagined it all. When we were settled, she plunged straight in as if her need to tell me what she needed to was growing stronger with every passing hour.
‘I’m coming to the crux of my story,’ she began. ‘As I told you yesterday, being back at Greyfriars was both wonderful and painful for Edith and me. There were so many memories of happier times but it was also a reminder that those times were gone
and could never be brought back. We had no plan, no thought of the future, all we wanted to do was recover in private, away from prying eyes. There were no servants any longer. Donald and his wife had vacated the farm cottage in 1939 and gone to live in Balcreen. Mrs MacKay did come to ask if we would like help but we refused her offer. All we wanted was to be left alone.’
She dipped her head, for once refusing to meet my eyes. ‘You see, shortly after we returned, I discovered I was pregnant.’
As the silence stretched between us, I dreaded what she was about to tell me next. Had they killed the child was the thought that ran through my mind – ridiculous though it was. Or had it conveniently died, either during childbirth or after? If that were the case, I didn’t want to know. As a member of the law I would be obliged to inform the police if I suspected a crime had been committed. I gave myself a mental shake. I was getting way ahead of myself. There were other, more logical and therefore more likely things that could have happened to the child. Adoption, to begin with. Was that why I had been asked to come? To help them search for the child who would be… what, by now? Ten years older than me. My – what would it be? – cousin.