Deep Night

by Caroline Petit

  They were fiends. They enjoyed torture. “I know about all your dirty dealings, both of you. After the war, I could have you imprisoned for black marketeering, financially benefiting from the Japanese in Macau, money laundering.”

  The men shrugged in unison. Chang blew a wavy smoke ring. “People are tried after a war. Everyone knows we all do things that we wouldn’t normally do in wartime. If it feeds people, what is a little harmless corruption? Or, using our charms to elicit information? It’s the same thing.”

  “The same thing, exactly,” echoed Vasiliev. “Join us, Leah. It is a wonderful opportunity.”

  Chang lit another cigarette and offered one this time to Vasiliev.The men smoked, studying her as if she were an exhibit under glass.

  How she hated them and their grubby disgusting schemes. “I want my cut and I want to be on that boat,” she declared.

  “You don’t want to do that,” said Vasiliev. “If anything happens you could end up in jail.”

  “So could you,” she retorted. “If I’m on the boat, it will be a guarantee that the rice is legitimate. There won’t be any questions asked. I have a diplomatic passport.”

  Both men brightened. “Five per cent,” offered Chang.

  “Who do you think British naval officers will believe, you two or me? Twenty per cent.”

  “No,” said Chang. “Five per cent, take it or leave it.

  She stared them down. “Fifteen per cent. You need me.”

  With begging eyes, Vasiliev looked at Chang. “Very well, Miss Kolbe, we’ll split the difference, ten per cent.

  “Done,” she said, her voice sounding thin and hollow in her ears.

  The men got up to leave. Chang left the newspaper on the bed. Silently, Leah handed it back. Vasiliev gave a weak smirk. “We’ll be in touch,” said Chang. He opened the door and followed Vasiliev out, pulling the door closed with a thump.

  Exhausted, she lay on the bed, breathing hard. The pillow reeked of Vasiliev’s hair oil and the clove smoke lay heavy in the sheets. She got up and changed them, flapping the sheet to dispel the smells.

  18

  TODAY, AS LEAH neared her street, a welcoming breeze sprang up, puckering the shop banners. The cooling wind made the thin people, who peddled their few remaining pots or their six peaches artfully displayed to conceal their blemishes, smile.Leah stopped to talk.Yes, she agreed, victory was in the air, better times were coming.

  She stopped cold when she saw Tokai sitting on his haunches, squatting like a coolie under her banyan tree. His hair was unbrushed and his suit wrinkled. Tottering to his feet, he lurched and fell into her arms, murmuring “Leah, Leah,” a drunken grin on his face.

  “You’re drunk,” she said, holding onto him and dragging him towards the door.He fell through the doorway, pulling her on top with sloppy kisses.

  “Miss me?” he managed.

  Leah pushed him off and shoved him onto the bed where he lay stunned, hiccupping loudly. He patted the pillow, a crafty sly look on his face as he fought to remove his tie. In frustration, he yanked it off over his head.

  “How long have you been waiting out there?” she demanded.

  “I want you,” he said, his eyes wide with desire.

  “Why did you come?”

  “You’re beautiful. I thought I made it up. But no, you’re beautiful. Lie down. I’m going to stay with you forever.” He smiled with satisfaction, closed his eyes, and began to snore.

  His mouth was ajar.A line of spittle collected in the corner, then slid down his unshaven chin. He reeked of cigarettes. His skin had a bruised, unhealthy tinge. He must have been drinking for weeks. He resembled those sodden bankrupt gamblers, unhinged and unable to recall how they had lost everything despite their conviction they were on a roll. She had seen them reeling through the streets of Macau, blinking in the bright sun.

  She listened to his drunken snores with growing rage and impotence. How dare he think he could come to her drunk and expect her to provide sanctuary. He could still destroy her. She should pay a couple of labourers a few patacas and have him dumped in a squalid traverssa. Chinese resentment would do the rest.

  Rolling him onto his side, she hauled off his jacket.When she finished undressing him, she was breathless and sweaty.He could be a coolie in his unkempt state, only his undershorts were silk and his hands were soft. What was she going to do with him? He couldn’t have come straight here. It had taken weeks of steady drinking to reach this state. He must have stayed somewhere in Macau where he could drink safely, away from prying Japanese informant eyes, plucking up his courage to come to her.

  She rifled his pockets and found his wallet. Inside were his Japanese military identity card with his photograph and a great deal of military currency. In the photograph he looked very pleased with himself, an amused stare on his unlined face. The real Ito looked like a lost older brother who inhabited doorways and lived off the street.Why had she agreed to help Eldersen on that cloudless sunny day in her garden? Eldersen should have warned her out of friendship or love—she had seen his longing— that spying was an occupation that ended in wrecked lives.

  “Get out,” she hissed.

  He didn’t move. She made her finger into a gun, pointed and yelled ‘Bang.’ He snored louder.

  The light in the flat was fading;Tokai was becoming a dark lump on her bed. His animal smell was everywhere. It filled her with a hopeless lassitude. She was so tired. Slowly, she undressed and, clad in only in her slip, eased his comatose body onto the bare floor. She closed her eyes as the alcohol seeped out of Tokai’s pores and his snores filled the night.

  In the morning, Leah stepped over Tokai and got ready for work. Tokai opened one eye and groaned.

  “You should go,” she said.

  Tokai lurched from the floor to the bed to pull the sheet over his head. He peeked out, massaging his head with his hands as if struggling to collect his thoughts and stop the throbbing. “It’s over,” he said dully. “Tokyo is ash.Our latest shipment has been blown up. My father’s had a stroke. He’s an old man now.”

  As hung over as he was, Leah detected a new watchfulness in his face. He wanted to blame her for his misfortunes and he wanted a sympathetic audience. She said nothing.

  Tokai stumbled on. “People cheered when Tokyo was bombed. It was a spectacular performance.We Japanese enjoy a good spectacle.”

  She looked at her watch. “I’m late. Make sure you lock the door when you leave.”

  After the door closed, Tokai made up reasons to hate her.

  SHE let him stay. There was no place for him to go. No one would accept Japanese military notes, not even the long-term Japanese residents. Besides, they too had barricaded themselves in. Tokai lived like a hermit, only moving from the bed to the floor. She’d brought blankets and made a nest for him there. He did go out to buy whisky.How he got it was a mystery.When she asked, he only grunted or mumbled incoherently. She bought him food from the street vendors. He held the chopsticks in his hands and manoeuvred the food around his bowl, washing non-existent mouthfuls down with swigs of whisky. She took his clothes to the laundry and threatened if he didn’t pull himself together she’d kick him out.

  With the sly knowledge of a drunk, he replied, “No, you won’t. I’m your dirty secret.”

  It was a standoff.

  In the third week of his stay, Albemarle came running into the consulate, ghost white. The Japanese consul Nagotchi and his secretary had been shot at point blank range as they walked along Avenida de Praia Grande, enjoying the cooling breeze from the Inner Harbour.Nagotchi was dead. His secretary was expected to live.

  “Serves them right,” said Spencer with satisfaction.

  “It’s murder,” said Albemarle. “He was a friend, once. He tried to soften Sawa’s madness.Who knows if he isn’t the reason Macau was spared a Japanese occupation.”

  ”You can’t believe that,” argued Spencer. “He wanted Japan to win. If they won, all of us would be in a prison camp or dead. You ca
n’t trust any of them. They are born liars and torturers.”

  “After the war, we will have to learn to live with them,” Albemarle said mildly, upset at Spencer’s rage.

  “Shoot the lot of them,” responded Spencer, red-faced and fuming with moral indignation.

  “Who shot Nagotchi?” asked Leah.

  “Rumours are running wild.Take your pick. The Chinese— both the Kuomintang and the Communists—claim credit. Even the triads want to get in on the act. But my money is on Sawa. It has all his nasty little hallmarks. The man is furious Macau is not blacked out and is giving aid to the enemy.He blames Nagotchi for not insisting Teixeira jail those who kept their lights on or those who smuggle out money and material for the Chinese cause.”

  Calmer now, Spencer raised more theories and provocations, but Leah could only see Tokai, unwashed and reeking, dead on the pavement. If Sawa was on rampage, then Tokai might be next. She had to keep him safe.

  When she arrived home, she opened the door to find Tokai sitting on a chair with a new half-drunk bottle of whisky on the table. “You’ve been busy,” she said.

  “I heard about Nagotchi. I’m mourning his death,” he said, his forehead puckered into a frown, his face a study in defiance.

  She handed him a large package wrapped in a Chinese newspaper. “Open it. It’s for you.”

  He ripped at the paper and found a cheap shirt, cotton trousers, a straw fedora and a pair of dark glasses. “This my disguise?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe I should pull a rickshaw too.”

  “I’m only trying to help.”

  “Have a drink.”

  She put the hat on his head and pulled the brim down. “It suits.”

  “Ha!”

  She unbuttoned her blouse to reveal the bullet scar on her shoulder. “Sawa’s men did this.”

  He touched the raised red lumpy scar, harsh against her creamy skin. Up till now, he had been too sunk in his own misery to take much interest in her sexually, had not even attempted to sneak into bed late at night. It was too much effort and he preferred his drunken stupor. “What was it like, being shot?” he asked, suddenly hungry for details.

  “I can’t remember anything,” she lied.

  “It’s beautiful in its own way.”

  She took his hand away and began to button her blouse.

  “Don’t.” He drew her close and took off her blouse. He no longer seemed so drunk.

  “It’s sexy,” he said and kissed the scar, his hand cupping her breast. As he touched her, he said, “In Japan little girls are taught to sleep with their legs together. In the night, their mothers come and move their legs just so.” He moved his hand down.

  “Don’t.”

  “You hate me. I see how you look at me,” he said, his hand moving under the elastic of her underpants.

  She held his wrist. “I let you hide here.”

  “I’m not hiding.”

  “No? Then why are you here?”

  “To be with you, where there is no war,” he said, removing her restraining hand and her underpants. In bed together, there was a relentless despair in their pursuit of pleasure.

  A few weeks later, Leah read the newspaper aloud to Tokai. ‘The Japanese government is unperturbed by Germany’s defeat. Japan will never surrender.We will fight on.’

  Tokai acknowledged the truth of the statement. “In Tokyo during the fire bombing, people remained with useless buckets of water as their houses burned and walls of flame trapped them. They burned to a crisp. It was a terrible smell.We don’t know how to surrender.”

  “When are you leaving to fight?” she challenged, hating him today.

  “Soon,” he shot back.

  THE swiftness of victories in the Pacific left her breathless. Whitehall’s interest in Macau was aroused with the issuing of the Potsdam Edict calling upon Japan to agree to unconditional surrender or face prompt and utter destruction. Albemarle was to devise a plan immediately to aid Hong Kong. The plan was to be put into practice the moment Japan capitulated. The foreign office wanted an orderly transfer of power in Hong Kong, not chaos and retribution.

  Spencer found an enormous blackboard and propped it up between two chairs in Albemarle’s office. Across the top of the blackboard in chalk, he wrote: The Plan. He turned casually to Leah and announced with supreme pleasure that Albemarle was going to be the Acting Colonial Secretary for Hong Kong.

  “Is it true?” asked Leah.

  Albemarle looked embarrassed. “There has been talk, but things change very fast.”

  Leah stared. She had heard nothing.Her deal with Chang and Vasiliev was off. She could hardly turn up with forged papers bearing Albemarle’s signature and expect to get away with it if he was in Hong Kong. The consul would arrest her; Chang would be furious. She hated to think how he would take his revenge. He’d think she’d kept him in the dark on purpose.

  “Aren’t you pleased?” asked Spencer, twisting the knife.

  “I’m shocked,” said Leah. “You were so looking forward to being reunited with your family, sir.”

  Albemarle gave a small shrug. “What can you do?”

  Spencer sniffed. “Duty first,” he bragged.

  “Spencer,” Albemarle explained, “will be Acting Consul in Macau.”

  Leah said nothing.

  “Congratulations wouldn’t go amiss,” said Spencer.

  “Well done,” said Leah without enthusiasm.

  A deep flush of wounded pride crept up Spencer’s face.

  “Now, now,” calmed Albemarle. “It’s early days and plans keep changing.”

  The telephone on the consul’s desk rang. Spencer made a grab for it. He put a hand over the receiver, “It’s the governor’s office, sir,” and gave the phone to Albemarle. Albemarle motioned for Leah and Spencer to leave.

  As they walked down the hall to their offices, Spencer said, “When there is a change in consuls, people hand in their resignations. The new consul chooses his own local staff. That’s protocol.”

  “You’re temporary,” she pointed out and hurried down the hall into her office. She could almost hear Spencer gnashing his teeth.

  19

  THE FLAT WAS no longer a refuge with Tokai there. She could never predict if today would be one of his good days: the flat tidy, he’d be dressed and full of plans to rebuild his factories working himself into a frenzy of optimism. On the bad days, he was drunk. Drunk was easier.

  Today, she was hit by Tokai’s sour alcoholic reek. He lay spread-eagled under the thin sheet feigning sleep, one naked arm dragging on the floor. His discarded clothes lay next to an empty bowl swimming in fermenting soy sauce and a bottle of half-drunk cheap port. She banged the door closed.

  As though in a movie,Tokai sprang awake, rubbing his eyes. “I’m sick,” he whined.

  Leah snapped the blinds up and opened windows.

  “People can see in. You are cruel. You should understand how I feel,” he said, holding up a hand to protect his eyes from the late afternoon sun.

  With disgust, she stepped over his clothes on the floor. “They need washing.”

  He muttered, “Hazukashii.”

  “I don’t speak Japanese.”

  He bounded out of bed and grabbed the rose silk kimono off the wall to drape it around him like a geisha, the silk flapping about his legs as he minced and batted his eyes.

  “I can’t take this anymore. You’ll have to leave.”

  He stopped dancing and took off the kimono, smoothing the silk, then folding it into a neat square, and returned to bed using the kimono as a pillow while Leah edged towards the door, uncertain what he might do next. “Go back to Japan,” she begged. “There’s nothing for you here.”

  With the cunning of the deranged, he pleaded, “Come with me.”

  “You’re mad.”

  “No, you can’t,” he replied coolly. “I’m getting married when I return to Tokyo. Her name is Joji.” He pawed through his discarded trousers and pul
led out a photograph. “Isn’t she beautiful? She’s nineteen. She will be a very good wife to this very good Jap.” He threw the picture towards her.

  She caught it. Joji looked barely fifteen. It was a full length studio portrait.The backdrop was a painting of waving palms and a bright round sun. Joji stood in a kimono and obi, her head angled down, a demure smile peeping from her cupid’s bow lips.

  “Congratulations. I hope you will be very happy.”

  Snarling, Tokai jumped off the bed and grabbed it away. “She’s prettier than you. Her family is very wealthy.”

  “Lucky you.”

  He raised an arm to strike.

  She ducked and sidestepped him. “Going to bleat about the war now? How it was all a mistake? How Japan was forced to defend itself to aid its Asian brothers?”

  He flung her onto the bed, pinning her shoulders down, a murderous look in his eyes. “You think because your skin is white, you’re better? I never saw you as a patriot. You were quite willing to open your legs to me, a Jap.” He dug his fingers into her scar, forcing her to gasp with pain. He smiled.

  “Get off of me,” she said. “The British Secret Service had you in their sights long before you came to Hong Kong. Perhaps in France,Monsieur Martin realised your usefulness. You belong nowhere and were easy prey. He leaked your weaknesses for European women to his contacts in the Resistance. This . . . this liaison was always in the cards. It was all an act. You mean nothing to me.”

  Staring down at her, he felt strange, as if another person occupied his body. He could easily kill her. He was stronger than her. He placed a tentative hand on her throat and tightened his grip.

  She looked into his eyes, challenging him, almost urging him on.

  “Demon,” he hissed and eased his hold. “I’m still rich,” he taunted. “My money is safe in the Bank of Lisboa.”

  He looked pleased, as if he had provoked this scene to prove his superiority and her stupidity and gullibility. He rolled off her and stood, gloating.