Deep Night

by Caroline Petit

  “It could work,” she said, mulling it over, trying to determine if there were any flaws. “Especially, if you were quick. He’d never attempt blackmail if you were able to wangle his release on black marketeering charges. He’s tried jail. It didn’t agree with him.”

  “It will work,” said Albemarle. Already, he had the telephone in his hand dialling De Rey’s home number.The two men talked for a while, then Albemarle put his hand over the receiver, whispering, “I’m going to meet with him tonight.

  The chauffeur dropped Albemarle at De Rey’s, then took Leah home.

  The next morning, Spencer took an urgent phone call and the consul left with him and a flurry of papers to rescue the British passport holder Boris Harris from the clutches of Por-tugese colonial justice.

  Spencer returned crowing. The consul was attending to the details of Harris’s release.The Macau police had very flimsy evidence. Albemarle had been able to duck and weave through all the Portuguese red tape. The charges, Spencer sniffed with superiority, would in all probability be dismissed. Leah wished she had been there to see it. Spencer thought about this. It was no place for a woman. And for once, Leah was happy to concur.

  Later in the afternoon, Albemarle stuck his head around Leah’s office door beaming.

  “Done?”

  “Done,” he said and closed the door. “I insisted that I go with De Rey and his men and Harris as they searched his suite. De Rey was magnificent. He kept playing with a pair of handcuffs and inspecting Harris’s garish hotel suite, commenting how comfortable the bed was and how somehow Harris, or whatever is name is, had the best food in Macau. Harris said nothing, just looked at us with his lizard eyes. I don’t know how I could have trusted that man. There is something distinctly unsavoury about him. The word blackmail never even made it into the conversation. Harris won’t be bothering us anymore.”

  Leah let out a whoop of joy and hugged Albemarle. He C197 smelled of lavender and toothpaste. She pulled back, flustered. “Are you sure?”

  “Afterward, I mentioned to Harris that it has come to my attention that his passport might be a forgery.Without a passport, he’d be stateless. Have to remain in Macau forever. That didn’t go down well. You could see he was trying to decide if he should try to bribe me instead of blackmailing me.” Albe-marle laughed. “We won’t be hearing from him again. If he stays quiet, he knows I’ll let him retain his passport.”

  “You’re going to allow that man to remain a British national?”

  “For now,” he said.

  She smiled a conspirator’s grin. “Lovely.”

  Spencer stood at the doorway, resentful and accusatory, “Am I missing something?”

  All business, Albemarle said, “I was just telling Miss Kolbe that the official Allied policy on Hong Kong had changed.We will continue British rule in Hong Kong. I’m going to write an article about it for the Macau Tribune and invite all Hong Kong refugees—Chinese, British and Eurasian—to meet and plan a new type of government for the Colony.What do you think?”

  “Well done for us,” declared Spencer as if it were a football game.Then he cleared his throat and looking only at Albemarle, said, “Do you think that wise, to let anybody have a say?”

  “It’s a new world order,” declared Albemarle who couldn’t contain his high spirits.

  Leah glimpsed the boy beneath the man: his eyes alight with hope, the lines on his face softened. What an idealistic young man he must have been, full of goodwill, believing the best of everyone. Macau must have changed him, left to languish in this diplomatic backwater dragged down by an unhappy, complaining wife. What if she had met him when he was young? She could imagine him young and as her lover, the two of them lying together in his mahogany bed upstairs underneath the slowly revolving ceiling fan, sharing gossip, making fun of diplomatic functions. Now he was talking to Spencer, outlining the article he was going to write. He had lost a bit of his enthusiasm and was speaking slowly, reverting to his stiff, formal self, a bit diffident and anxious about how to represent this resurgence of British power. The momentary desire passed and she simply said, “Peace. It will be wonderful.” She was liberated. Chang no longer had a hold on her. Everything was going to be done in the open. She would be happy; peace was on the horizon.

  17

  THE WAR IN Europe was turning. The newspapers proclaimed it breathlessly all through June 1944. In Macau, the streets were crowded with pedestrians, a sea of humanity. Everyone walked. There was no longer any gasoline for buses. People cobbled together radio receiving equipment. And above the hubbub of the street could be heard the high-pitched whine of radio frequencies as apartment dwellers twisted knobs and fiddled with wires to reel in information about far away battles.

  For Leah, life had become routine. There was work, there were charity events and there was scrounging for food. Like everyone else, she was eating little. Still, she was filled with optimism during the long sun-drenched days of simmering heat as she devoured the heartening news.

  It was only at home that doubt set in.To avoid the let down of her empty flat and still no more postcards from Jonathan, she walked the streets of Macau. Often she strolled through Tap Sec Square, skirting Cemitério de São Miquell where the dead slept peacefully, to the São Lazrus district. This was China with its cobbled streets and shuttered Coast houses with turned up eaves and terra cotta tiles.Walking the familiar path, she pushed away thoughts of Tokai. She told herself she would be glad if he were dead. Even as she considered this, she hoped it wasn’t true.

  At night when she lay on her uncomfortable bed, a wet facecloth over her eyes and the soft humming of the fan moving the heavy humid air over her, she regretted taking Jonathan for granted. He was a gift. He had worked so hard to make her happy. Discounting the days and nights they spent in bed making love, she had done far less: swanning around oblivious to his worries about his mother and sister in England, teasing him about his inability to reproduce the tones of Cantonese and lecturing him like a schoolboy on the finer points of Oriental art. He had improved her life with his love; in comparison, her love seemed smaller and inconsequential. Often, she got out of bed and wrote postcards to him about nothing very much to provide tangible proof of her love. Even as she posted them, she knew they had very little chance of getting through. It was what made them precious. She had made an effort.

  There were errant bombings of Hong Kong, as if to reassure people to hang on. The Macanese turned on their lights to guide Allied bombers towards Hong Kong. The Japanese sent a stern warning to Governor Teixeira demanding street and shop lights be turned off. The lights were dimmed, but many disobeyed and whole streets became beacons when planes were heard overhead.

  An Allied plane bombed the Macau airport by mistake, or on purpose. It was rumoured the Japanese stored petrol there. A few weeks later, bombers attacked the Inner Harbour ferry building searching for more Japanese gasoline to destroy. It caused an enormous fire and ten Portugese and two hundred residents were hurt. The Japanese language paper was full of outrage.Men in their employ massed and paraded shouting death slogans to the Allies. Stones were thrown at the British consulate, breaking two windows. Spencer was incensed. He wanted to station Portuguese troops outside the consulate. Albemarle calmed him saying, “Why give the Japanese the satisfaction of knowing we are upset,” and quietly called in the glaziers.

  Then all hell broke loose. An American plane crashed near Guia Hill. Sawa insisted De Rey send out a search party to find the missing airmen. They were war criminals, invading a neutral country. De Rey’s men scoured the countryside.They found nothing.

  A few days later Fire Cracker Kwong stood in front of Spencer’s desk with a grave face and insisted with quiet dignity he had to see the consul now. Spencer stared into the clear appointment book and was evasive. Mr. Kwong then asked for Miss Kolbe, perhaps she could help. Affronted, Spencer sat Mr. Kwong in the reception room and made him wait. Mr. Kwong did not complain, merely flipped through the consul’s five-year-old
magazines. They always put him in a good mood. He loved the pictures of the royal family.

  Closeted together with Leah and Albemarle, Kwong dangled two sets of American dog tags. “They’re safe for now,” he said. “But they are big men and one is blonde. Even with hair dye . . .” He frowned. “We need your help to get them out.We thought a boating party. A junk will meet them further out and get them to safety. And Miss Kolbe would make it look natural. She knows this group of young men well.No one will stop her.”

  “I’ll go in Miss Kolbe’s place,” Albemarle volunteered. “I won’t put her in danger. She was shot.”

  Mr. Kwong looked at Leah. “It will look suspicious. You are never with these young men, Consul. And I would not ask, if it were not . . .”

  “I’ll do it,” declared Leah, brushing off Albemarle’s misgivings.

  “Use my car,” urged Albemarle. “It will be safer than walking.”

  “Are you going to have your chauffeur push it?” asked Kwong.

  “I can find enough petrol.”

  “You would draw attention to us,” said Leah.

  “We will have other people in the street.No harm will come to Miss Kolbe. It is well planned.”

  Late in the afternoon when the weather was warm and windy, a group of young Macanese men—Chinese and Portuguese— entered the consulate in high good spirits asking for Leah. “We’re going to kidnap Miss Kolbe,” they joked to Spencer.

  For a moment there was a cloud of doubt on Spencer’s face, then he realised they were teasing. “She’s working.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Aubertin. “It’s a perfect day for sailing,” and marched down the hall to extract her from the growing mound of paperwork littering her desk.

  Out on the street, Aubertin draped an arm around Leah’s shoulders and hurried her along. As they walked amid the boisterous men, two solidly built European men in tight suits—one with dark hair and blond eyebrows—popped out from a narrow traverssa and merged into the group. One kissed Leah on the cheek and she smiled her welcome.

  There were four lounging Mozambique army men guarding the charred dock. Aubertin invited them along for a sail. The soldiers joked, “Next time,” and let them pass without glancing at their papers.

  A fisherman rowed the party out in two groups. When everyone was on board, a strong offshore breeze filled the sails and they left the confines of the Inner Harbour without tacking. A Portuguese patrol puttered past.The yachting party waved and sailed on.

  By nightfall, they reached the waiting junk. The American airmen thanked everyone in their creamy Southern drawl. On the way back, Aubertin and his friends did bad imitations of the Americans’ accents, adding words they had heard only in movies like Stick ’em up, Bad guys and Soda pop.Leah laughed and laughed, clapping her hands and added other words like Baby and Sugar.At the dock, the Mozambiques, who were eating, called out their greetings. Aubertin said they should have come along.The stars were fantastic. The guards were too busy eating their fish to respond.

  ONE late summer evening when the sun hung low and her windows were open to the breeze, there came a loud knock on her door.Leah looked through the grille and saw Chang’s face staring back.

  “Go away,” she said.

  He remained at the door and signalled to someone. Up popped Vasiliev’s large head. He smirked.

  “I’ll tell De Rey,” she threatened.

  “It’s important.We can help you,” said Vasiliev.

  Reluctantly, she opened the door. The two men sat on her bed. Chang wore an elegant summer suit, a Panama hat and carried a rolled up newspaper. He looked like a prosperous businessman. Vasiliev was hot and sweaty; his tie had a stain on it. De Rey must be making things very tough for him. Good. She refused to even offer tea. Her shoulder ached. It hadn’t hurt for months.

  She turned on Vasiliev. “I don’t know how you dare show your face here.”

  “I needed money,” he said. “It was for a good cause.” He turned to Chang for help.

  “It’s true.We needed to buy weapons and medicines.”

  “Two patriots,” she said.

  “Theo would have been disappointed to see his beloved daughter had become such a cynic.”

  “Shut up. I don’t care what you are offering, I’m not interested.” She knew they’d been conspiring, cooking up something together. “You might as well go.”

  “Don’t be nasty,” said Vasiliev. “We’ve come to help you.”

  “And,” interjected Chang smoothly, “to offer you something. Mr. Harris is a reformed man.”

  “We both know his name is Vasiliev.”

  “I prefer Harris. Everyone in Macau knows me as Harris.”

  “Go away, Vasiliev.”

  “That is no way to treat a friend of the family. I knew your mother, Vestna. We were children together in Odessa.” He sighed. “A lovely childhood. You should listen to Mr. Chang’s proposition.”

  Vasiliev was telling lies. She was sure of it.Well, almost sure. She could never tell with Vasiliev. He could be very believable, his big Russian face full of the woes of his past and his endless, depressing fatalism. But he was so ugly. Her long dead mother could never have known such a creature.

  “The Japanese don’t stand a chance once the Germans surrender,” said Chang. “It’s only a matter of time. But the Japanese are fanatics. Already they are boasting their people will fight to the death. If they do, it will be on the back of millions of starving Chinese.We get daily reports from Hong Kong of how the Japs are hoarding rice. The Chinese population eat hardly anything; European prisoners starve. Many will die before peace comes. Even with peace, nothing may get into Hong Kong for weeks. The harbour is mined.”

  She nodded. Albemarle had relayed similar reports. Every time she sat down for another inadequate meal, she thought how little Jonathan would be eating and how her Red Cross packages were so inadequate or would probably be confiscated. She forced herself to buy whatever was available at the Red Market or from stalls and asked no questions.

  “What has this got to do with me?”

  “May I?” asked Chang as he reached for cigarettes.

  “I hate the smell.”

  “It’s relaxing,” said Chang with a tight smile and lit up.

  The smell of cloves was strong. She noticed he didn’t offer one to Vasiliev. Somehow, she didn’t think they were on quite such good terms as they pretended. But certainly they were united against her and they wanted something.

  “As soon as the Japanese surrender, I can have access to rice for Hong Kong. Don’t look like that, Miss Kolbe, the Macanese aren’t starving, those in Hong Kong are.”

  “You’re a black marketeer, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Of course not,” Vasiliev smirked.

  “A modest profit. It will be a gift from the Kuomintang. We must all play by new rules now.Later,Hong Kong will return to us.We are realists. Our time will come,” said Chang.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “The British will be in charge again.They will require confirmations, bills of lading, certificates of all kinds. They are trying to stamp out war profiteering.”

  “Good luck,” said Leah.

  “Not luck, Miss Kolbe. Hungry people don’t care about that. But we must have the requisite forms and approvals.”

  She watched the clove smoke spiral towards the ceiling. She would have to burn incense to get rid of the smell. “No.” The room went very quiet. She heard Chang’s sharp intake of breath; Vasiliev drilled into her with his eyes. And she knew any minute now, he’d begin making threats.

  “You won’t get back to Hong Kong for quite a while, nor will food. Commercial shippers won’t run the risk and, perhaps it will take several months until the mines are cleared. People,” Chang said ominously, “might be dead by then. Especially POWs. Often they die just as they are being liberated.”

  She wasn’t surprised Chang knew about Jonathan. He had an army of spies and informants. Some must work
in the post office, waging a silent war of information gathering against Japanese informants. And Chang knew exactly which strings to pull to make his victims cooperate.

  “We want you to get us the forms, all correctly filled in, of course,” said Vasiliev.

  “I said no.”

  Vasiliev looked at Chang. Into the silence Vasiliev blurted, “I’ll tell you how Theo died.”

  Chang glared at Vasiliev.

  “What?” whined Vasiliev. “We agreed.”

  “Perhaps, Miss Kolbe no longer cares,” said Chang smoothly, covering up Vasiliev’s gaffe.

  “No,” declared Vasiliev, “Leah cares. They were very close.” He looked at Leah for confirmation.

  “It won’t bring him back,” said Leah. “I won’t do your dirty work.”

  “Go on,” Vasiliev encouraged Chang. “Ask her about Ito.”

  “I haven’t seen Mr. Ito for quite some time,” she said dully.

  Chang spoke in a calm voice: “Mr. Harris, how would you feel if you found out your fiancée had been sleeping with a Jap munitions dealer while you rotted in a Jap POW camp?”

  She felt her hands inching up to block out their terrible words, forcing herself not to react as they played out their vile game. She kept her hands pressed tight together. The tips of her fingers whitened from the pressure.

  “The English word you are searching for is ‘aggrieved’. One would feel aggrieved, Mr. Chang.”

  “Is that all?” asked Chang.

  Vasiliev mouthed, “Whore.”

  Leah raised her hand to slap him, but Chang was quicker, like a snake, and hit her a stinging blow with his rolled up newspaper. She cried out. Chang ignored her cries and opened the newspaper. There on the front page was a young woman with terrified eyes. Her hair was shaved off and a swastika had been painted on her bald head. An angry man held her arms from behind, parading his handiwork. “I think this is in France.”

  Vasiliev squinted at the caption. “You’re right. The French flag is behind them.”