House of Trembling Leaves, The

by Lees, Julian

  Lu See squeezed her eyes shut in despair. She’d spent most of the previous day making phone calls to the Chinese Embassy; once again she’d been denied an entry permit into Tibet. ‘‘Her brother Hesha occasionally sends me word. He’s in a Gurkha regiment. He writes to tell me that she’s in good health, living in a Tibetan nunnery.’’

  ‘‘Get thee to a nunnery!’’ bayed Pietro, which set Hartley’s wings flapping. ‘‘Oh, I do love my Hamlet!’’

  ‘‘I’d do anything to see her again.’’

  They passed the Sikh temple on Bandar Road where devout Punjabis slept in the gardens on rainless nights. Further along a farmer was blocking the way as he led his water buffalo across the street with a net of pineapples strapped to its back.

  Pietro tooted his horn and drew a sideways look from Lu See. ‘‘I heard about Mabel joining the Communists,’’ he said.

  ‘‘How?’’ She felt her cheeks go warm.

  ‘‘Oh, the usual diplomatic chatter. With a little finesse one can find out almost anything.’’ He kept his eyes on the road. ‘‘Funny isn’t it, how Adrian turned to the Communists, and now Mabel. I do miss Adie so much. He was a wonderful man. Look, you’d better get Mabel out of the jungle soon, dahling. The British boffins have devised a new gadget; a radio with a tracker.’’ He paused, but Lu See said nothing. ‘‘When the guerrillas turn the radio set on it sends a secret signal, a type of homing device that can be detected by spotter aircrafts. Once they make a fix on the camp they bomb it to kingdom come. They’re taking no prisoners.’’

  Lu See’s blood turned cold.

  The following evening Lu See shut the restaurant for the night as usual at 11 p.m., pulling down the iron grille at the front with a pole. She’d been nursing a hangover for most of the day, courtesy of the five whisky stengahs she’d downed with Pietro at Fatty Crab’s.

  Lu See pinched the skin between her eyes and went over her conversation with Pietro. She’d told him about Stan and his deception.

  ‘‘How could he? How could he do this to me?’’ she bawled.

  ‘‘Perhaps he didn’t know.’’ Pietro shrugged.

  ‘‘Didn’t know? Of course, he knew! He’s deceived me all these years, pretended to be my friend.’’

  They had talked deep into the early hours, until the popadums and cigarettes grew damp in the night air. Nothing Pietro could say could console her.

  Earlier in the day she’d rushed over to see ‘the mule’ on Klyne Street, but found the barber shop’s narrow door boarded up. Neighbours said the police had hauled the owner away. And when she telephoned Stan she got no reply from his home and was told he was ‘out station’ when she called his work number.

  When Pietro came over to console her she was frantic. ‘‘What can I do?’’ she cried.

  He held her in his arms. ‘‘There is nothing you can do. The best thing is to ensure that you don’t get into a state over this. You’re looking a bit peaky. You need to rest.’’

  ‘‘I’ve signed her death warrant, Pietro. I’ve killed my own daughter.’’

  ‘‘Go upstairs and rest. Will you promise me, you get some sleep?’’

  She nodded.

  ‘‘Do you want me to stay?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘No. I’ll be all right.’’

  She watched Pietro climb into his Fiat and drive off.

  At the top of the stairs the dogs were all waiting to be fed and once she clicked on the overhead fan, hung up her apron and filled the doggy bowls with scraps, she went to her bathroom cupboard in search of a tin of Tiger Balm for her forehead and a bottle of milk of magnesia.

  She passed her bedroom and saw her plump white pillows piled high behind the mosquito curtain. The news about Mabel, the shock of it all, had made her incredibly tired. She looked longingly at the pillows. Like a set of warm cream buns nestled together, she thought. Right at that moment she wanted her bed more than anything else in the world, but as soon as she applied the mentholated salve to the twin points of her temple, she heard a faint banging on the iron grille below.

  ‘‘Oh God! Not again. Don’t these people have homes to go to?’’

  Expecting to find the black Fiat parked once again in the street below, she peered out of the window and was about to shout: ‘‘Go home, Pietro. I’ll be fine.’’ Yet when she looked from the window, there were no cars at all in the deserted roadway.

  When she heard the indistinct banging once more against the iron grille, she cursed like a Malaccan sailor.

  Dungeonboy came running to tell her, all panting and excited, ‘‘Somebody at door, Missie – somebody small and like black shadow at door.’’

  She went down the stairs to lift up the metal shutters. ‘‘It’s probably Mr Pietro.’’ She told Dungeonboy to fetch a stick in case it was a burglar.

  ‘‘What do you want?’’ she yelled. Then, filled with a sudden sense of foreboding, she placed her palms on the grillwork and jerked it skyward.

  The metal clattered.

  A young, painfully thin woman stood with her head bowed. The smell of the jungle was on her, in her skin and clothes. There was grit and dirt on her face and crushed earth matting the ends of her hair. One arm, her right arm, was supported in a crude sling.

  Lu See caught her breath. Her mouth fell open. She threw a hand against the wall to steady herself. ‘‘Oh my God,’’ she gasped, ‘‘Mabel.’’

  9

  Eight years had passed since the Chinese crossed the Jinsha River to invade Tibet and for seven of those years the monasteries remained untouched. There was no sacking of temples, no offences aimed at the monks, no quarrels with Tibetan religion. But then one afternoon in the spring of 1958, that all changed.

  It was the day of the horse festival. Many hundreds of people, including nuns and monks, flocked to the grasslands to enjoy the entertainment. Setting off at dawn, it took Sum Sum and Tormam three hours to reach the venue; as they trekked along the hillside trails a pure crystalline sunshine washed the plateau gold, gilding the nomadic sheep that gnawed at the fresh green felt. When they reached the grasslands they found a hive of activity.

  Yellow and blue tents set up days before dotted the plain. Over the snowy passes, caravans of pack-horses and donkeys appeared laden with bricks of tea and great blocks of salt. Pilgrims passed through – devotees from Nepal and Sikkim – offering sutra streamers and aromatic smoke to the Mountain Gods, whilst merchants and nomads and pedlars came from far and wide to do business. Leather traders arrived from Mongolia. Chinese vendors of gold, turquoise, borax and musk set up wooden stalls in the temporary market. A Manchurian silk dealer laid out several colourful bolts of fabric as Bhutan rice suppliers haggled with farmers, behind him a Muslim spice runner exchanged salaams with an Indian indigo broker whose white teeth flashed bright against his burnished skin. Everywhere people wheeled and dealed.

  There were archery contests, feats of balance, rope-walking, tumbling and wrestling. Local women, wearing their hair in plaits, mounted their yaks to get a better look. Many had their babies strung to their backs. Sum Sum and Tormam joined them to watch the horsemen show off their skills. One of the disciplines was to fire their arrows at a coloured pole while riding at full gallop. With the springtime sun warming her scalp, Sum Sum oohed and ahhed as the riders thundered past, enjoying their graceful athleticism, applauding as the arrowheads found their mark. Amid this constant activity, pilgrims burned green cypress branches for incense and spun their prayer wheels.

  Later, she and Tormam collected alms from the horsemen in fox-skin caps as they fed barley straw to their stallions. Not far from them she saw clusters of red-robed monks, young and old, gathered for ritualized debate. The young monks sat on the hard ground as an older monk faced them. Every few seconds an elder would rush at his fledglings, arms flailing and clapping, to launch obscure questions of Buddhist orthodoxy. The older monks lunged and the younger ones parried, soon a sharp rat-tat-tat of voices filled the dry air as these thrusting debates grew fierce
r and more boisterous.

  In the background several open fires burned. Warmed by the flames, people ate on small blue Tibetan rugs, offering their neighbours yak dumplings and deep-fried flat bread. Sum Sum sniffed more delicious smells of cooking. She saw the glistening flesh of spit-roasted mutton, the saddles of venison, the hind-quarters of deer and goats and beef turning on long metal rods, dripping meat juices into the flames. The trailing scent-scarves of food reminded Sum Sum of Cambridge, of May Week, when whole oxen sat roasting on the lawns of Trinity and St John’s, ribs showing like the staves of a boat. Try as she might, she couldn’t help salivating.

  Crows hopped about cackling as they edged closer to the fire. Their cries crescendoed when a group of boys threw stones at them.

  At midday, with the sun as sharp as the edges of a knife, Sum Sum’s mouth, throat and nostrils grew parched. A windblown silk trader offered them butter tea, which they drank from wooden bowls. Sipping her tea, Sum Sum looked up from her bowl to see pinheads on the horizon moving along the Tea Horse Road, a cloud of dust trail on the stony ridges. Shimmering charcoal spots against the pale grasslands, they grew larger with each passing second. They spread like dark stains.

  Within minutes, several dozen thick-legged Chinese soldiers arrived on horseback; carnivorous men with leathery, thunderous expressions, casting blue shadows. ‘‘Faces so sharp and ugly, they scratch the wind,’’ observed Sum Sum.

  They pulled a woman from her long-haired yak; her scream was as shrill as a false note on a violin.

  A skillet-faced officer, full of false bravado, spoke in his guttural northern tongue, jabbing the air with aggression. He slapped a hand against his rifle; his eyes were like a pig slaughterer’s.

  When he spat a bullet of phlegm by his feet, leaving a dull green smear, Sum Sum knew the festivities were over.

  As soon as they returned to the nunnery Sum Sum and Tormam were confronted by prayer hall manager Jampa. ‘‘Ay-yi! They have stolen our country,’’ the old lady said as soon as she heard their news. ‘‘Do you know how they stole it? Under threats of death. A Tibetan delegation to Peking was forced to sign a 17-point plan handing control to China. When ministers in Lhasa complained to Peking claiming the treaty was not legal because it was signed under duress and because there were no official Lhasa seals to certify it, the Chinese said they don’t care.’’

  ‘‘But it is wrong,’’ said Sum Sum, as prickly as a Himalayan porcupine. Tormam could not speak: she was stunned. They walked through a narrow corridor into a candle-lit room adorned with frescoes of bodhisattva Tara. Several nuns sat in meditation; in the dim light their heads, brown and pitted and hairless, looked like overgrown potatoes.

  Jampa, lowering her voice, continued, ‘‘Then Lhasa says that under some rule called Vienna Convention, treaty is null and void. So what do Chinese do? They send in military.’’ She reached into a leather satchel concealed in her sleeve, pinched off a thumb of snuff. ‘‘All this happened a few years ago. But now there is unrest in Kham and Amdo so Chinese shut the door to the Land of Snow. They clamping down on all festivals and on monks.’’

  ‘‘What will happen to us?’’ asked Tormam.

  The yak butter candles guttered. Juniper and written prayers burned in censers. Jampa took another hit of snuff and rubbed the skin between her eyes. ‘‘Things will get worse for all of us. The abbess says the Communist invaders will suppress and mutilate our culture.’’

  ‘‘Do you really believe that?’’ questioned Sum Sum. She couldn’t believe this was the same communism that Adrian had advocated in Cambridge.

  ‘‘When you have lived as long as I have, you believe everything about the Chinese. Their arrogance has no limits.’’

  Sum Sum stamped her foot. ‘‘I wish I had a chestnut pan to hit all Communist invaders’ heads!’’

  ‘‘There is open fighting on streets in eastern parts of the country.’’ Jampa leaned in close, collusively. ‘‘Some people even gossip-talk that the Chinese invaders want to kidnap our young God-king.’’

  The girls sucked in their breath, shocked to hear such words spoken aloud. Their fingers stiffened with imaginary cold. ‘‘Ndug’re. Come,’’ said Jampa. ‘‘Let us engage in meditation.’’ Jampa closed her eyes and made her face appear calm and at peace. When Sum Sum shut her eyes too all she saw were the red posters plastered on the walls of the town – posters showing the face of the one they called the devil-man, Mao Tse-tung.

  10

  Folding into each other, they held on as tight as they could. Just to feel her daughter’s touch made Lu See want to cry. They pressed foreheads together.

  She could not believe how skinny Mabel was, how gaunt her face had become. She touched her all over as if checking she was still intact. With her matted hair full of bugs and muddied skin she could have been a vagabond. Eventually Lu See heard a high voice from the basement. ‘‘Missie, is you? Is ok to come upstair?’’

  ‘‘Yes, yes, Ah Fung. It’s my daughter, Mabel,’’ she said wiping away her tears. ‘‘Look at me, bawling like a watering-can.’’

  Dungeonboy climbed up to the top of the basement steps. His look was full of bewilderment.

  ‘‘Please heat up this evening’s pork stew and boil some fresh rice,’’ she instructed. Like any mother, Lu See’s first instinct was to feed her daughter; perhaps if she could succeed in nourishing her child, all was not lost. ‘‘Also fetch some clean bath towels and soap. Hurry, hurry! Then I want you to make the bed for her. My daughter is home to stay.’’

  He flipped his thumbs skywards. ‘‘Of coss, no problem, Missie.’’

  Mabel was home. Yet as the days went by Lu See began to panic. What about the authorities? Should Mabel go into hiding? Was she on a ‘wanted’ list?

  Taking the initiative, Lu See went to the nearest police station and told them that her daughter had returned voluntarily from the jungle weeks before but had been ill with dengue fever. ‘‘Ai-yahhh!’’ exclaimed the duty sergeant. ‘‘Dengue terrible thing to catch, meh? My brother had it last year. They call it bone-breaking disease. Your daughter better now?’’

  ‘‘Yes, she is.’’

  ‘‘Here, I fill out this report and send to Special Branch for you. When did you say she come back?’’

  ‘‘Five weeks ago.’’ She lied, naming a day. He filled in the date with a pencil.

  ‘‘And she returned home voluntarily?’’

  ‘‘Yes. Will she have to go to a rehabilitation camp?’’

  The duty sergeant made a face. ‘‘I don’t think so. Only senior officers of the guerrillas are forced to. But she will have to come in for interview and remain on probation. Give me your telephone number. I will call you.’’

  ‘‘Will she be all right?’’

  ‘‘Ai-yahh! Don’t worry, lah. Emergency is over. This country has other things to worry about now.’’

  Mabel went for the interview a week later and was given the red ‘all clear’ chop on her papers. She didn’t tell them she was close to Bong Foo. And even if they knew, there was no way she was going to voluntarily incriminate herself. Rather, she said she didn’t really understand the Communist cause, that she was cajoled into it through peer pressure, that she felt shame for disgracing her family. She also claimed that she had wanted to surrender months before, but her superiors had threatened to have her shot. ‘‘I was the medic, you see. Without me, they would have succumbed to all sorts of infections. I helped injured enemy soldiers too, so I suppose I was saving lives on both sides. I never raised a gun against a Commonwealth soldier.’’

  She also told them she was terrified of her mother. ‘‘I knew she would raise maximum bloody hell when I came home, so I kept delaying my return.’’ The interviewers, all men, said they understood that Chinese mothers could be very strict. They laughed when she told them how often she was smacked on the bottom with a wooden ruler. When they stopped laughing their faces turned serious.

  ‘‘You have shown suitable remorse,
’’ the chief-interrogator said. ‘‘However, it is our recommendation that you return to this station every week for the next twelve months and check in with our duty officer. Just to ensure that you do not relapse.’’

  With the ordeal over, Mabel returned home.

  She tried to fit back in. But having been away for so long, she found it hard adjusting to life in the city. For one thing, her civilian clothes, left behind in her previous existence, felt awkward. And when she looked at herself naked in the full-length mirror, she saw a stranger – her ribs jutted out and her arms were like reeds. There were damp blisters on her feet. She touched the scars on her shoulder, red weals like wrinkling red chillis. Her arm was fully healed from the python bite, but as she stroked her thighs and her pubis she wondered if her periods would recommence once more; the weeks of eating jungle food had put a stop to her monthlies.

  Everywhere she went she walked silently, the way she’d been trained; it felt strange walking on dry land and not pulling her feet out of sticky mud. She found it odd, too, not having to lug a pack around all day. And she felt defenceless without her gun. I’m not the same person I was, she told herself.

  She still couldn’t understand how she had survived when everyone else had been killed. Why am I standing here scarred but alive, when all those others are lying dead in the forest?

  She felt disconnected from the people around her, and the more she tried the harder it was to regain her sense of self. It took a while, but then one afternoon she stood at the entrance to the restaurant and saw her mother at the cashier’s till, her grandmother scratching her palms and Old Fishlips complaining about his soup. It was a scene she’d witnessed a thousand times and yet she suddenly saw it in all its splendour and complexity. She saw her family, and this family was a symbol of all that was valuable in the universe.

  That same afternoon she told her mother and Old Fishlips about the explosion; how, to her despair and confusion, her entire platoon had been killed, how it took her weeks to find a way out of the jungle.