The Garden of Evening Mists

by Tan Twan Eng

  My room was the last one in the passageway. The walls – and even the Bakelite switches – were painted white, and for a few seconds I thought I was back in the Ipoh General Hospital again. On a table stood a vase of flowers I had never seen in the tropics before, creamy white and trumpet-shaped. I rubbed my wrist against one of the flowers; it had the texture of velvet. ‘What are these?’

  ‘Arum lilies. I had bulbs sent over from the Cape,’ Magnus said. ‘They grow well here.’

  He set my bag down by a teak cupboard and said, ‘How’s your mother? Any improvements?’

  ‘She’s lost in her own world. Completely. She doesn’t even ask me about Yun Hong anymore.’ I was glad in a way, but I did not tell him that.

  ‘You should have come here to recuperate, after the war.’

  ‘I was waiting for a reply from the university.’

  ‘But to work for the War Crimes Tribunal – after what had happened to you?’ He shook his head. ‘I’m surprised your father allowed it.’

  ‘It was only for three months.’ I stopped, then said, ‘He had heard no news of me or Yun Hong all through the war. He didn’t know what to make of me when he saw me. I was a ghost to him.’

  It was the only time in my life that I had seen my father cry. He had aged so much. But then, I suppose, so had I. My parents had left Penang and moved to Kuala Lumpur. In the new house he took me upstairs to my mother’s room, walking with a limp that he had never had before the war. My mother had not recognised me, and she had turned her back to me. After a few days she remembered I was her daughter, but each time she saw me she began asking about Yun Hong – where she was, when she was coming home, why she had not returned yet. After a while I began to dread visiting her.

  ‘It was better for me to be out of the house, to keep myself occupied,’ I said. ‘He didn’t say it, but my father felt the same way.’

  It had not been difficult to be hired as an assistant researcher – a position that was nothing more than a clerk, really – at the War Crimes Tribunal in Kuala Lumpur. So many people had been killed or wounded in the war that the British Military Administration had faced a shortage of staff when the Japanese surrendered. Recording the testimonies of the victims of the Imperial Japanese Army affected me more badly than I had anticipated, however. Watching the victims break down as they related the brutalities they had endured, I was made aware that I had yet to recover from my own experience. I was glad when I received my letter of admission from Girton.

  ‘How many war criminals did they actually get in the end?’ asked Magnus.

  ‘In Singapore and Malaya together, a hundred and ninety-nine were sentenced to death – but only a hundred were eventually hanged.’ I said, looking into the bathroom. It was bright and airy, the floor a cold chessboard of black and white tiles. A claw-footed bathtub stood by the wall. ‘I attended only nine of the hangings before I left for Girton.’

  ‘ My magtig.’ Magnus looked appalled.

  For a while we were silent. Then he opened a door next to the cupboard and asked me to follow him outside the room. A gravel path ran behind the house, taking us past the kitchen until we came to a broad terrace with a well-tended lawn. A pair of marble statues stood on their own plinths in the centre of the lawn, facing one another. On my first glance they appeared to be identical, down to the folds of their robes spilling over the plinths.

  ‘Bought them ridiculously cheap from an old planter’s wife after the planter ran off with his fifteen-year-old lover,’ said Magnus. ‘The one on the right is Mnemosyne. You’ve heard of her?’

  ‘The goddess of Memory,’ I said. ‘Who’s the other woman?’

  ‘Her twin sister, of course. The goddess of Forgetting.’

  I looked at him, wondering if he was pulling my leg. ‘I don’t recall there’s a goddess for that.’

  ‘Ah, doesn’t the fact of your not recalling prove her existence?’ He grinned. ‘Maybe she exists, but it’s just that we have forgotten.’

  ‘So, what’s her name?’

  He shrugged, showing me his empty palms. ‘You see, we don’t even remember her name anymore.’

  ‘They’re not completely identical,’ I said, going closer to them. Mnemosyne’s features were defined, her nose and cheekbones prominent, her lips full. Her sister’s face looked almost blurred; even the creases of her robe were not as clearly delineated as Mnemosyne’s.

  ‘Which one would you say is the older twin?’ asked Magnus.

  ‘Mnemosyne, of course.’

  ‘Really? She looks younger, don’t you think?’

  ‘Memory must exist before there’s Forgetting.’ I smiled at him. ‘Or have you forgotten that?’

  He laughed. ‘Come on. Let me show you something.’ He stopped at the low wall running along the edge of the terrace. Pinned to the highest plateau in the estate, Majuba House had an unimpeded view of the countryside. He pointed to a row of fir trees about three-quarters of the way down a hill. ‘That’s where Aritomo’s property starts.’

  ‘It doesn’t look far to walk.’ I guessed it would take me about twenty minutes to get there.

  ‘Don’t be fooled. It’s further than it looks. When are you meeting him?’

  ‘Half past nine tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Frederik or one of my clerks will drive you there.’

  ‘I’ll walk.’

  The determination in my face silenced him for a moment. ‘Your letter took Aritomo by surprise... I don’t think he was at all happy to receive it.’

  ‘It was your idea for me to ask him, Magnus. You didn’t tell him that I had been interned in a Japanese camp, I hope?’

  ‘You asked me not to,’ he said. ‘I’m glad he’s agreed to design your garden.’

  ‘He hasn’t. He’ll only decide after he’s spoken to me.’

  Magnus adjusted the strap of his eye-patch. ‘You resigned even before he’s made up his mind? Rather irresponsible isn’t it? Didn’t you like prosecuting?’

  ‘I did, at first. But in the last few months I’ve started to feel hollow... I felt I was wasting my time.’ I paused. ‘And I was furious when the Japan Peace Treaty was signed.’

  Magnus cocked his head at me; his black silk eye-patch had the texture of a cat’s ear.

  ‘What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?’

  ‘One of the articles in the treaty states that the Allied Powers recognise that Japan should pay reparations for the damage and suffering caused during the war. However, because Japan could not afford to pay, the Allied Powers would waive all reparation claims of the Allied Powers and their nationals. And their nationals.’ I realised that I was near to ranting, but I was unable to stop myself. It was a relief to uncork myself and let my frustrations spill out. ‘So you see, Magnus, the British made certain that no one – not a single man or woman or child who had been tortured and imprisoned or massacred by the Japs – none of them or their families can demand any form of financial reparation from the Japanese. Our government betrayed us!’

  ‘You sound surprised.’ He snorted. ‘Well, now you know what the fokken Engelse are capable of. Excuse me,’ he added.

  ‘I lost interest in my work. I insulted my superiors. I quarrelled with my colleagues. I made disparaging remarks about the government to anyone who would listen. One of them who heard me was a reporter for the Straits Times.’ Thinking about it brought back a flood of bitterness. ‘I didn’t resign, Magnus. I was sacked.’

  ‘That must have upset your father,’ he said. Was there a mischievous – even malicious – glint in his eye?

  ‘He called me an ungrateful daughter. He had pulled so many strings to get me that job, and I had made him lose face.’

  Magnus clasped his hands behind his back. ‘Well, whatever Aritomo decides, I hope you’ll stay with us for a while. A week’s too short. And it’s your first time here. There are plenty of nice places to see. Come to the sitting room later, say in an hour’s time. We have drinks before dinner,’ he said, before returning
into the house through the kitchen.

  The air became colder, but I remained out there. The mountains swallowed up the sun, and night seeped into the valleys. Bats squeaked, hunting invisible insects. A group of prisoners in my camp once caught a bat; the ravenous men had stretched its wings over a meagre fire, the glow showing up the thin bones beneath its skin.

  On the edge of Nakamura Aritomo’s property, the failing light transformed the firs into pagodas, sentinels protecting the garden behind them.

  Chapter Four

  I left Majuba House at half past six the next morning. Even after more than five years the routine of the camp had never left me, and I had been awake for the past two hours. I had slept fitfully, worried by how I would be received by the Japanese gardener. In the end I decided I would not wait until half past nine to see him, but go as soon as there was enough light in the sky.

  Tucking a roll of papers under my arm, I shut the front door quietly and walked to the gate. The air stung my cheeks and the clouds from my mouth seemed to make my breathing sound louder than usual. The Gurkha outside was sharpening his kukri and he slid the curved blade into its sheath before unlocking the gate for me.

  It was Sunday, and the tea fields were deserted. In the valleys, the points of light from the farmhouses were as faint as stars behind a weave of clouds. The smells of the nearby jungle transported me back to the prison camp; I had not expected that. I stopped and looked around me. The moon was retreating behind the mountains, the same moon I had seen at almost every dawn in the camp, and yet it seemed altered to me. So long after my imprisonment, there were still moments when I found it difficult to believe that the war was over, that I had survived.

  I thought back to my conversation with Magnus at the bar of the Selangor Club a month before, when I was still a Deputy Public Prosecutor. Returning to my office after I had finished a case, I had cut through one of the narrow lanes behind the courts. Turning a corner, I found my way blocked by a crowd. Men in white singlets and black pants were setting up paper effigies of Japanese soldiers, the life-sized figures shown being disembowelled by the demons of hell. I had heard of these rites, but had never witnessed one. They were held to soothe the spirits of those killed by the Japanese, spirits now wandering namelessly for all eternity.

  Standing at the back of the crowd, I watched the Taoist priest in his faded black robe ring his bells and write invisible amuletic words in the air with the tip of his sword. The effigies were then set ablaze, the heat from the flames pushing the crowd back. All around me people wailed and keened as the ashes rose to the sky, leaving behind a charred odour in the air. Perhaps the spirits were appeased, but I felt only a renewed sense of anger when the crowd dispersed.

  Knowing that I would not be able to concentrate on my work for the rest of the day, I decided to go to the Selangor Club’s library. I had not seen Magnus in eleven or twelve years, but I recognised him in the foyer – I remembered his eye-patch – and I called out to him. He was with a group of men surrendering their guns to the clerk, and he had looked at me, trying to remember who I was. A smile sprawled over his face when I reminded him, and he insisted on buying a round of drinks. We sat at a table on the verandah overlooking the cricket padang and the court buildings. ‘Boy!’ he called for the waiter – an elderly Chinese – and ordered our drinks. The ceiling fans rattling at full speed above our heads did nothing to dispel the humidity. The clock above the courthouse rang out across the padang. It was three o’clock and the usual crowd of planters and lawyers would not show up for at least another two hours.

  Magnus told me he was in KL to get money from the Chartered Bank for his workers’ payroll, which he did once a month. ‘I heard your parents are living in KL now,’ he said. ‘I never thought your father would ever consider leaving Penang. Your mother…’ Magnus had lowered his voice and looked at me intently. ‘How is she?’

  ‘She has good and bad days,’ I replied. ‘Unfortunately the bad days seem to be happening more often.’

  ‘I tried to visit her, you know. It was just after you went to England. But your father wouldn’t allow it. I don’t think he lets anyone see her.’

  ‘It upsets her too much when someone she doesn’t recognise speaks to her,’ I said. ‘And she has trouble recognising most people.’

  ‘I heard what happened to your sister. Terrible,’ he said. ‘I’ve only met her once. She was keen on gardening, I remember.’

  ‘She always dreamed of building her own Japanese garden,’ I said.

  He studied me, his eye sweeping down to my hands before rising up to my face again.

  ‘Build it for her.’ His finger stroked the strap of his eye-patch. ‘You could make it a memorial for her. I’m not sure if you remember, but my neighbour’s a Japanese gardener. He was the Emperor’s gardener, would you believe? He might be willing to help you out. You could ask him to make a garden for – Yes, ask Aritomo to design a garden for your sister.’

  ‘He’s a Jap,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Well, if you want a Japanese garden...’ Magnus said. ‘Aritomo wasn’t involved in the war. And if it hadn’t been for him half my workers would have been rounded up and taken down to some mine or worked to death on the Railway.’

  ‘They’d have to hang their emperor first before I’d ask for help from any of them.’

  His stare disconcerted me; it was as though the power of his lost eye had been transferred to his remaining one, doubling its acuity. ‘This hatred in you,’ he began a moment later, ‘you can’t let it affect your life.’

  ‘It’s not up to me, Magnus.’

  The waiter returned with two frosted mugs of Tiger Beer. Magnus emptied half of his in one swallow and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He continued to stare at me. ‘My father was a sheep farmer. My mother died when I was a four. I was brought up by my sister, Petronella. My older brother, Pieter, was teaching at the Cape. When the war broke out – that’s the Boer War I’m talking about, the second one – I joined up. I had just turned twenty. I was captured by the English less than a year later and shipped out to a POW camp in Ceylon.’

  He had brought his mug to his lips again but then, without drinking from it, put it down heavily on the table. ‘I was away fighting the English when Kitchener’s men showed up at our farm one morning,’ he said. ‘Pa was at home. He put up a fight. They shot him, then burned down our farmhouse.’

  ‘What happened to your sister?’

  ‘She was sent to a concentration camp in Bloemfontein. Pieter tried to get her out. He had an English wife, but even he wasn’t allowed to visit the camp. Petronella died of typhoid. Or perhaps not – survivors later said the English had mixed powdered glass into the prisoners’ food.’

  He gazed across the padang; the grass was dry, the heat warping the air. ‘Coming home after the war to find out all this about my family... well, I couldn’t live in that part of the country again – not where I had grown up. I went to Cape Town. But still it wasn’t far enough for me.

  One day – in the spring of 1905, I’d guess – I bought a ticket for Batavia. The ship was forced to dock in Malacca for repairs and we were told it would take a week to complete. I was walking in the town when I saw an abandoned church on a hill –’

  ‘St Paul’s.’

  He gave a grunt. ‘ Ja, ja. St Paul’s. In the church grounds, I came across gravestones three, four hundred years old. And what do I find there, but the grave of Jan Van Riebeeck.’

  Seeing the blank expression my face, he shook his head. ‘The world is not made up of only English history, you know. Van Riebeeck founded the Cape. He became its governor.’

  ‘How did he end up in Malacca?’

  ‘The VOC – the Dutch East Indies Company – sent him there, as punishment for something he had done.’ Memory softened his face, seeming to age him at the same time.

  ‘Anyway, seeing his name there, carved into that block of stone, I felt I had found a place for myself here in Malaya. I never returned to my
ship, never went on to Batavia. Instead I made my way to Kuala Lumpur.’ He laughed. ‘I ended up in a British territory after all. And I’ve lived here for – what...’ his lips moved soundlessly as he counted, ‘forty-six years. Forty-six!’ He sat up in his chair and looked around for the waiter. ‘That calls for champagne!’

  ‘You’ve forgiven the British?’

  He subsided into his seat. For a while he was silent, his gaze turned inward. ‘They couldn’t kill me when we were at war. And they couldn’t kill me when I was in the camp,’ he said finally, his voice subdued. ‘But holding on to my hatred for forty-six years... that would have killed me.’ His eye became kindly as he looked at me. ‘You Chinese are supposed to respect the elderly, Yun Ling, that’s what that fellow Confucius said, isn’t it? That’s what my wife tells me anyway.’ He managed a sip of his beer at last. ‘So listen to me. Listen to an old man… Don’t despise all Japanese for what some of them did. Let it go, this hatred in you. Let it go.’

  ‘They did this to me.’ Slowly I raised my maimed hand, protected in its leather glove.

  He pointed to his eye patch. ‘You think this fell out by itself?’

  Three weeks after that meeting with Magnus at the club, I was sacked. His idea of building a garden for Yun Hong had stayed with me; in fact it had grown more insistent. In the camp, she had often talked to me about the garden she would build once the war was over and our lives were returned to us again.

  On my last day at work, I sat down to clear my desk. Packing away my personal things, I stopped when I saw the news article I had clipped from the Straits Times. The photograph accompanying the article showed a group of Japanese men in tailcoats standing behind their Prime Minister, Yoshida, as he signed the Japan Security Treaty with the Americans. Staring at the photograph, I thought about the camp. And I thought about Nakamura Aritomo, recalling the first time I had heard about him, all those years ago. I had never forgotten his name; it had followed me wherever I went. It was time I visited him. Creating a garden was something I had to do for Yun Hong, something I owed her.