Deep Night

by Caroline Petit

  Once or twice a week she returned at night to work at the consulate. If there was no one around, she searched Albemarle’s office for information for Chang. No one noticed the lights on in the consul’s office; often they burned unintentionally when the electricity flowed again. She passed low-grade policy documents to Chang. It wasn’t much. It was more like gossip, hard to tell if it were true or not. The Americans were holding their own in the Pacific; China was a disaster. The Kuomintang and the Communists were busy warring among themselves. Allied war materiel was to come through Burma—Burma was overrun. There were no supply lines.Whitehall was too busy fighting the war to be concerned about the Empire and what colonial Hong Kong would be like after peace had been declared.

  Over the past few months, she had shot three rolls of film and killed one bird. Billie—named after the sad American jazz singer—died mysteriously. Perhaps she had forgotten to leave Billie enough water, or perhaps the bird died of fright when she left it hanging in the branches of the banyan tree. There were no cats around. They had all been eaten. Now she had a second bird, olive green to blend in with the leaves. She kept it covered up when she came home at night and didn’t give it a name. The bird seemed happy enough with the arrangement. The information she was giving to Chang must have satisfied him. She hadn’t seen him since their beach meeting.

  Vasiliev remained in Macau. He lived off the black market and held extravagant parties. He invited important men and the prettiest women. Albemarle was invited, but never went. As consul, it might look as if he were condoning Harris’s excesses. She was a regular.A contingent of well-to-do young Portuguese men gave Vasiliev’s parties a veneer of respectability.The parties often devolved into sordid drunken revels that scandalised a small section of Catholic Macau. Albemarle was convinced it was Harris’s way of being undercover.Leah knew it was because Vasiliev was a drunk, a liar and a lech, but she didn’t tell Albemarle this. Sometimes, before the parties degenerated, she learned interesting things. Chang turned up at one and spent most of his time with the Minister of Finance Pedro Lobo and the Chinese head of the Committee of Refugees. He left before midnight and didn’t bother to cross the room to speak to her. She was relieved. She made conquests amongst the young Portuguese men; most spoke some English and paid her outrageous compliments. She became a kind of mascot and they showed her off at dingy clubs and the casino at the Hotel Centro where she watched them gamble.

  The casino was a good place for gossip: who was paying off the Japanese and getting goods through to China; or, who had a short-wave radio set to pick up Chinese war news. It was all useful stuff and her Portuguese admirers were fun and kept a respectful distance. Tonight, she watched three Japanese naval officers in full military dress with clanking swords steadily lose. Their faces were tight with disappointment as they exchanged angry glances. They hooted their disapproval at the fan-tan dealer, who did his best to ignore them as he scooped up the buttons and threw them down again in the cup while the crowd of Chinese and Portuguese gamblers shouted their bets louder.

  The Japanese officer with the hint of a moustache screamed “Cheating” in mangled English while the other two officers banged furiously on the fan-tan table, yelling in Japanese. In Cantonese, the dealer, white-faced but calm, explained he wasn’t favouring the locals.Not understanding a word, the moustached officer grabbed the dealer’s arm. Several Chinese goons, who kept the peace, pushed in. The Japanese pulled out their swords and sliced the air. The goons backed off as the casino fell silent. The Portuguese floor manager raced in, using the few polite words of Japanese he knew as he bowed and bobbed his head like a marionette, repeating Sorry, Sorry. Then, he reached into his own wallet and made a small pile of large pataca notes. The Japanese stared at the growing pile with contempt. The manager added more. The moustached officer let go of the dealer’s bruised arm.Wreathed in smiles, the manager signalled to three Chinese hostesses who inched forward beaming. The officers C141 returned their swords to their scabbards. The moustached officer picked up the money and gave it with derision to one of the girls who, smiling prettily at the enormous gift, led the men away to the bar.

  The onlookers and the gamblers grumbled loudly.The manager shrugged. It was better this way. The fan-tan dealer rattled his cup with his good arm and called for bets. Instantly, the casino was alive with a chorus of bets.

  Leah’s Portuguese friend Aubertin commented, “At heart the Japanese are bullies.They think they can get away with anything. If they threaten violence, we give them money. They are the thugs of the world.” He looked to Leah for confirmation.

  She tried to imagine Tokai wild-eyed and threatening. He wasn’t like that. He was kind and patient and shared her love of antiquity. “They can’t all be like that,” she said softly.

  Aubertin gave her a searching look. “Don’t be fooled by their politeness. It’s a mask they wear.”

  “Maybe only the bullies come here.”

  “Wishful thinking.” Aubertin changed the subject. He wanted to go dancing in one of the small Filipino clubs he knew. It was a happy place. It made him forget he was stuck here in this tiny crowded colony until the Japs were defeated. He signalled to his friends and they nodded their approval. Leah begged off.Aubertin planted a brotherly kiss on her cheek. “Suit yourself.” The Portuguese men left in a noisy high-spirited group. Leah took the bus home.

  TOKAI managed to return to Macau in April. It was a rushed three-day visit. He took the precaution of renting an expensive hotel room, going there only to bathe and change. Leah remained indoors at her flat, not going to work even during his absences. She told Tokai that she had called in sick to her bosses at the wine merchants. They were very understanding. Tokai had long lunches and nights on the town, cajoling Japanese merchants and a few sullen Portuguese businessmen to invest in ships to transport more steel and war materiel. The rest of the time he was in bed with Leah.

  Tokai had been ill in China—malaria—and spent several months in Tokyo recuperating. He looked very well now. “Your father must have taken very good care of you,” she said and kissed his mouth.

  Tokai had hated every moment of it, having to remain in bed, seeing doctors he didn’t want to see, later accompanying his father to board meetings, unable to say a word as his father railed against his workers who weren’t meeting his unrealistic quotas. “The only thing I liked was visiting the Zero plant.”He became animated and made his hands into wings, flying them at her, ducking and weaving as she squealed in mock fright. “They are marvellous. I have begun taking flying lessons. Unfortunately, I am learning on out-of-date planes,” he complained.

  Horrified at his new hobby,Leah asked questions about the Zero factory and why his father’s manufacturing plants weren’t meeting their quotas.Later, when Tokai was out, she wrote about the labour problems and the place names of the plants on rice paper,wrapping it around an exposed roll of film. She hung the cage outside. The bird was moulting and regarded her with his unblinking black eyes. It seemed a reproach.

  Before Tokai left that afternoon for Hong Kong, he demanded to know if she missed him already.

  “Yes,” she said and kissed him extravagantly.

  “Good.Now, I have something to look forward to,” he said C143 and she saw sadness in his eyes as he lingered by the door, unable to let her go. Sighing deeply, he hugged her tight and left. At the door she watched him walk away. He still had his jaunty boulevard stroll. She could imagine him high up in the clouds wanting to lord it over the world.Maybe he wouldn’t come back. She didn’t know if this would make her sad, happy, or simply relieved.

  One hot airless spring afternoon after the electricity stopped and poor Spencer, panting from the heat had left for the day, Albemarle entered Leah’s closet of an office. He closed the door, cutting off the last hint of cool air. “It’s come through,” he announced. “They’ve agreed Harris is to go to China and have allocated him five thousand pounds. It’s marked as charitable contribution in my accounts.”

 
; “My God, five thousand pounds. It’s too much. It will be noticed.”

  “There are so many charities now, who will notice?”

  She didn’t bother to answer because they both knew the Japanese would find a way. Sawa probably had two or three informers inside the bank, competing against each other for the juiciest morsel, busy checking for irregularities, anything out of the ordinary.

  “They should have sent it to Firecracker Kwong. Then you wouldn’t be compromised, sir.”

  “They couldn’t do that. You’re to give the money to Harris. They’ll know you are the go-between,” he said grim and scowling, his face flushed from the heat and the stupidity of bureaucrats who inhabited a place thousand miles away from Japanese suspicions and their strangled-hold grip on the policies of Macau. “It’s British money and they don’t like using foreign nationals as a conduit. Too messy.” He pulled out a revolver from his coat pocket and laid it on the desk. “The Firecracker gave me this. It’s a .38 Smith and Wesson. Luckily, I won’t shoot myself in the foot as it requires a long pull on the trigger. It’s called a ‘New Departure’ in the brochure that came with it. It makes me nervous. I can’t bring myself to load it.”

  Leah picked it up and balanced it in her hand, its barrel pointed toward the door, the black grip smooth in her grasp. “It’s no good without bullets.”

  Albemarle reached into his breast pocket and brought out a crushed envelope. He dumped twelve bullets onto the green blotter, staring at them as if wishing they would disappear. “It’s enough,” he said. “I don’t think there will be a shootout. Macau isn’t the Wild West and the Japanese are too smart to do anything in the open.” He made a show of a wry smile.

  She was certain he had thought of this line before he came to see her in a misguided attempt to disguise how troubled he was about Harris, the money, and the gun. “No,” she agreed. “But they’re unpredictable. They kidnapped that gambler from the hospital to make his family pay.”

  “—And then, there’s Moy . . .Maybe you should have one, too. I can ask for another.”

  Shaking her head, she returned the gun and watched him slowly insert a bullet into each chamber. She felt such a connection to him in this quiet office. She had an urge to confess everything: the true villainy of Harris/Vasiliev, how he shouldn’t be trusted under any circumstances and her own miserable Quisling existence: bedding Tokai, spying for Chang and killing Moy.

  “I’m so glad you’re here, Leah. I miss not having someone who understands.” He dropped the gun into his pocket and leaned across the desk, earnest and solemn. “Your young man is one lucky fellow.” Then he lurched from the room his face convulsed with emotion.

  Her young man. Her young man would never understand, and he would never find out. It was the one vow she intended to keep.

  VASILIEV had a suite of rooms at the Rialto Hotel.They were a mixture of gilt, gloss, and pillowed furniture that one could sink into. The only thing Leah liked in the room—though they were only copies—were sketches by the eighteenth-century English artist George Chinnery who fell in love with Macau street life.What would Chinnery make of today’s crowded, hungry streets? He’d become a modern day Hogarth, she supposed.

  Vasiliev was bemused. “You think this war would be won if I lived in a hovel?”

  She shrugged. In the past few months, Vasiliev had grown a moustache, perhaps in a bid to be taken for a Portuguese, but he still looked Russian with his large head and peasant hands. He wasn’t quite Vasiliev and he would never be Harris.

  He played with the tips of his moustache, turning up the ends—he waxed the ends—and ogled the custard tarts set on a silver platter. “I’m thumbing my nose at war,” he declared.

  “It’s what keeps the black market running.”

  “Don’t be so high and mighty. Sit, eat my fine tarts, and drink my good tea. You don’t fool me. You are used to the best. We eat; we do business.”

  She told him about the five thousand pounds.

  Bits of tart clung to Vasiliev’s moustache, his face alight with greed and congratulations. “Give it to me. I knew they would need me.They will give me even more when I return. Five thousand will not last long.With more money, all China will be in flames. The Japanese will be forced to clear out. Chang Kai-shek will praise me. I’ll go down in history books.” He stared at her with immense satisfaction. “Take a hundred pounds. A present from me to you.”

  “No!” she said, furious that he considered her a low-rent thief.

  “You want more? Okay, you helped.Take two hundred. But, you can get more anytime. I’ve seen how the consul looks at you.”

  Vasiliev was a fungus, infecting everyone with his own warped view of the world. “I don’t want or need a bribe.”

  He winked. “I understand. You’re his mistress.”

  She stood up. “If you don’t bring back concrete evidence of how this money helped, you won’t get another penny.” She opened a briefcase and handed him a huge wad of cash in pat-acas, Chinese yuan and English sterling. “Otherwise, I’ll tell the consul everything. He’ll believe me.”

  Vasiliev leered. “Will he?” He cleared a space on the table, crumbs of pastry cascading onto the floor as he counted the money with a wet thick finger. In the higher denominations, he used Russian numbers.

  She turned away and opened the door. He didn’t stop counting or say goodbye.

  LEAH had given Tokai a key to her flat after he’d had a number of incidents—that’s what he called them—while hanging around waiting for Leah to arrive home. Once, a well-dressed Chinese man spat at him. Another time a group of teenagers, C147 hissing loudly in Cantonese, plagued him. He didn’t understand the words, but he got the message, especially after they pulled out knives and practiced throwing them near the banyan tree.

  When Leah turned the key in the lock, Tokai sprang off the bed, calling excitedly, “At last.” She fell into his arms and together they toppled onto the bed, pulling at their clothes. He delighted in the whiteness of her skin and the ruff of pale blond hairs on her arms. Their bodies found a common language and neither cared what boundaries they crossed.

  Later, unbearably hot and sweaty, scrunched against Tokai on the narrow bed listening to him breathe, she was swept by remorse. How could he stir up such feelings of lust and desire? How could she be in love with one man and spend hours making love to another? She stared at Tokai asleep and was once again stuck by his beauty: his thick black hair, his straight eyebrows, his cheekbones, his smooth buttery body. She needed a bath, to sit quietly and let all her misgivings float away.

  The water was clear and hot—a good sign. Sometimes, it only trickled out, stopping at her ankles, brown and disgusting. She sank down into the welcoming water, resting her back against the cool tub, a washcloth over her face. She drifted. Distantly, she heard Tokai padding around. A book fell to the floor with a heavy thud. She didn’t like him rummaging around, but was careful never to bring anything from the consulate home. She relaxed, ducking under the water to wet her hair.

  The door burst open.Tokai flapped a manila postcard madly in front of her, heaving with injustice.

  “Why?” he demanded.

  “That’s mine.”

  He held the postcard above her head, his eyes on her wet naked body. “I’ve read it.”

  On the front of the postcard was a printed address in red: Japanese Prisoner of War Camp, Hong Kong. On the reverse side were her twenty-five heart wrenching words—the Japanese mandatory limit for POW correspondence to allow censors to monitor the mail efficiently.

  In a tight voice, Tokai read aloud: Am safe in Macau. My heart in HK. Red Cross packages sent.Other wants? His voice cracked as he said, “This is followed by a question mark, I think.” He shoved the card under her nose.

  She nodded.

  His face contorted, he spat out her words: “Am still engaged. Hopes and dreams. I love you Leah.” He paused, struggling to keep his voice cool and indifferent. “You forgot: ‘Am fucking the Jap Tokai
Ito.’ No, won’t fit. Too many words. Leave out the word Jap. He’ll know. No. Still too long, twenty-eight words.” He ripped the card to pieces, then rushed out, slamming the bathroom door behind him.

  Bits of postcard floated towards her breasts. Tenderly, she fished them out, only the printed red line still visible on the fragments. In the cooling water, her head was full of Tokai’s voice as he mocked her words. She forced herself to get up, dry her body and face Tokai: the enemy, the Jap, her lover.

  Tokai was dressed. On the table was a Hong Kong newspaper in English. “They’re still printing in English,” he observed.

  She shrugged, careful to keep a good grip on the towel. She felt at such a disadvantage. He knew so much about her. What was he getting at? Was he going to humiliate her further? Even now, she thought he might be quite prepared to parade her naked through the streets of Macau with a sign around her neck, SLUT. Only she knew that he wouldn’t dare. It would mean his ruination too.

  He pointed to the headline.

  Slowly she took it in: WORKERS TAKE PRIDE and the photograph. It showed Tokai at the Hong Kong ship building yards looking proud and shaking a Chinese worker’s hand. The caption read: Steel magnate Mr. Ito congratulates a worker for building a ship in record time.

  “It’s a good likeness. You must be pleased.”

  “I shouldn’t have shown it to you.”

  “Are you angry that I still love Jonathan?”

  “We are going to win. No one knows what will happen to prisoners.”

  Appalled that he was bullying her with Japanese power, she raged, “You want to talk war, look at this.” She dug out The Macau Tribune. It’s headline screamed in 24-point type: ADMIRAL ISOROKU YAMAMOTO KILLED BY US P-38 LIGHTNINGS OVER BOUGAINVILLE.

  “That’s a lie,” he said. “Propaganda.”

  “No, listen to this.” She read, “It is widely believed that the Japanese Government has not released news of the Admiral’s death in Japan because he was that country’s master naval strategist and national hero. It is likely the Japanese will delay making his death public for as long as possible.”