The Gift of Rain: A Novel

by Tan Twan Eng

  I knew the scant facts and now Kon told me in greater detail. The British government had made a deal with the leaders of the MCP—ammunition would be supplied to them if they worked in tandem with Force 136 to carry out attacks against the Japanese.

  War, I suppose, made strange bedfellows of former enemies. The Malayan Communist Party, known by the abbreviation-mad British as the MCP, had been active in the late 1920s, spreading its doctrine among the plantation workers and tin miners. There had been extensive strikes which had been put down brutally by the government. Driven underground, the MCP had taken to the jungle, vowing to take over the country.

  Their success rate had been impressive, Kon said. Military bases, prisons, government offices, and the homes of high-ranking officials had been attacked, bombed, or successfully destroyed. Occasionally a village on the outer fringes of smaller towns would supply Force 136 with food and medicine. However, reprisals by the Kempeitai against these villagers were swift and fatal.

  “I know that too well,” I said. I told him about Ming’s village, and countless others that I had visited with Goro. “The cleansing campaign, as the Kempeitai call it, is still going on.”

  “Do you know where Tanaka-sensei has gone to?” Kon asked. “Did he go into the mountains as he had planned?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose so.”

  “And your sensei ?”

  “He’s second in command of Penang.”

  Kon widened his eyes and I decided to tell him everything.

  He laughed bitterly when I finished. “Tanaka-sensei and I often wondered what he was doing with you. Now we know. All those times you took him around the island ...” He shook his head. “So it’s true that you’re working for them. We heard that you were helping them. But I’d always dismissed it.” The word “Kempeitai” was unspoken but it hung between us like a bad smell.

  “Do you think I was wrong to do so?”

  He shook his head. “I’m sure you have your reasons.”

  I glanced at Su Yen quickly, but decided to ask Kon anyway. “Is it wise, working together with the MCP?”

  “As wise as working for the Japanese,” Su Yen said.

  “I suppose I deserved that,” I said. “But why are you here? It isn’t safe for you.”

  “Five of us have come out of the jungle. We’re all in Penang but we have no idea of each other’s precise whereabouts. We’re to meet in two days’ time at an appointed location to carry out our assignment.”

  “And you need my help.”

  “We have to destroy the military’s main radar and radio station in the north. You’ve told me before that it’s on The Hill. We need to know exactly where it is.”

  I got to my feet and walked to the window, peeping out through the slit in the curtains. It was already dark and the sea was indistinguishable from the land, except for a strip of gleaming foam where the ocean surrendered to the earth, again and again.

  “I can’t tell you that,” I said.

  “It’s important. We have to blind the Japanese so our ships and planes can come in undetected. They have to drop supplies to us and we have to open a safe lane for the eventual assault.”

  “I can’t allow you to bomb the station. Do you know what will happen if you succeed? The retribution against the people of Penang will be horrific. Innocent people will suffer. And the Kempeitai will hunt you down and kill you.”

  “That is the price of winning the war,” Kon said. “We have no choice.”

  “Of course you have. Forget your assignment.”

  “The MCP leaders will kill him if he fails,” Su Yen said.

  “Then hide here, in Penang.”

  “I can’t,” Kon said gently. “I took on a duty and I have to complete it.”

  I squeezed my temples. “Too many people have died already.”

  “Do it, Philip. For me,” Kon said. “Tell me where the station is.”

  He did not have to mention the debt I owed him for saving my father’s life. So I told him the location of the house on Penang Hill, which I had pointed out to Endo-san and which, in effect, I had recommended to the Imperial Japanese Army.

  “You can’t go up by the funicular. The station was damaged by the Japanese bombing and there are now guards watching it,” I warned him.

  “How, then?”

  “You hike up, through Moon Gate.” I explained to him where that was. “Keep your eyes open for army patrols.”

  “That was the way you showed your sensei,” he guessed.

  I nodded. “I have to go.”

  Kon walked me out to the road in the dark. “We shouldn’t meet here again,” he said.

  I felt compelled to ask, “What happened in the days before Penang was lost? I went to look for you but your father said you had left.”

  He told me. After the day of Ming’s wedding he had made his way to Singapore to meet Edgecumbe at the headquarters of the Special Operations Executive, under which Force 136 operated. He was put through some quick general training, along with police inspectors, planters, miners, schoolteachers, anyone who knew the country and could speak its varied languages.

  “It was exactly as Edgecumbe had described. We parachuted into a landing zone in the jungle on the day Kuala Lumpur fell. An earlier team of guerrillas met us. It was a strange group—pale, weak-looking English, surly Chinese communists, and friendly Gurkhas and Temiar aborigines.

  “The first few weeks were good and everything was new and exciting; we all thought it was an adventure. But then the monotony set in and we were constantly on the move, always on our guard. Food became scarce and I wondered how a handful of us could make any difference to the war.

  “But the worst times were during the monsoon. The rain often fell for weeks without stopping and we had to sit under a leaky, overpatched tent for days and days. And when we were on patrol we would sit huddled beneath our oilskins, or under the giant ferns, in constant misery. I almost gave up. Quite a few went mad.” He paused for a long moment. “They became safety risks and I had to shoot them.

  “Things began to improve when Chin Peng, the head of the MCP, ordered us to team up with Yong Kwan. We made our way to his hideout, which has been our base for—what is today’s date?”

  I told him and he became silent. He crouched down and scratched at the ground with a stick. “October 1944,” he said, his voice sounding lost. “So I’ve been away for three years.” When he looked up I saw fatigue in his eyes.

  “It’ll be over soon,” I said, but the words rang with hollowness.

  Yong Kwan had taken an instant dislike to Kon. The Communists had a history of enmity with the triads. “The men in the group realized I was a better tactician and fighter than Yong Kwan. We made so many successful raids and attacks on the Japs that we had to lie low for months. We managed to hit quite a few important targets. And we took food and medicines from the camps we had attacked. I fed my team well. Things became worse when I met Su Yen. We became friends and, because we were young and lonely, we became lovers.”

  “Yong Kwan’s woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re insane. Why is she here with you?”

  “She is carrying a child.”

  “Yours?”

  “We don’t know. But we have to abort it. We don’t know how much longer the war will drag on. She can’t give birth in the jungle.”

  “Let her stay here. You can’t make her get rid of her child.”

  “I’m not making her do anything. She insisted on it.” He saw the look on my face. “That’s not your worry. I can deal with it myself. I know people in town. Thank you for giving us the information we needed. You and I are even now.”

  “Yes, we are.”

  “Come with me,” he said. “You know it’s the right thing to do.”

  “I don’t know anymore, Kon.”

  I did not know when I would see him again, if ever at all. I was torn between wishing him success in his mission and hoping he would not carry it out. In the
end I decided not to say anything and bowed to him.

  The radar station was destroyed three days later. It happened at midday and the explosion could be heard and seen from Georgetown. Part of me exulted, and hoped Kon had managed to get away. But I was also fearful. The Japanese responded decisively and indiscriminately and I was called on to read out more names in town and in the outlying villages. I knew the people they dragged out were blameless but there was nothing I could do. I felt angry with Kon because he did not have to live with the consequences.

  A deep fear, so constant now in my life, was like a growth in me. When did I let it enter, steal silently in, and latch on to me? There were days when I could hardly breathe, as though my blood, coagulated by fear, could not flow.

  Each day I accompanied Goro to the Sook Ching exercises and he would return from them triumphant. I felt the rage in me burn stronger and I wanted to kill him.

  I knew I had saved countless lives through the information I had been supplying to Towkay Yeap. But I could not save all of them. Enough had to go into the fire in order for me to stay unblemished in the eyes of Fujihara and the Kempeitai. The secret police had taken to following me and made no effort to hide themselves. I made a bitter complaint to Endo-san.

  “It is for your safety. You are a target for the anti-Japanese groups, you realize that? And besides, you have nothing to hide from me, have you?”

  I nodded my head but averted my eyes from his. Did he know of my collusion with the triads? Was he aware of the role I had played in the destruction of the radar station on The Hill? There was no way in which I could elicit anything from him. He was too canny, with the cunning and maturity of a man three times my age. I was outclassed and I realized, too late, that it had been like that from the very first day.

  Walking on the beach with him after work, a mile away from Istana, I asked, “You must be aware of what Fujihara-san is doing.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “And yet you feel nothing?”

  “I feel a great shame and pain. But I have my obligations. And this is war. This is part of the journey we have to travel. And, yes, it is a hard road.”

  A squadron of Zeroes flew over us, tiny as mosquitoes above the land they were patrolling.

  “When I am gone, what will you most remember of me?” Endo-san asked, his eyes on the planes as they faded into the distance.

  I pondered the question. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what to think of you now; how can I even contemplate what to recall of you?”

  The island settled down after the first burst of arrests, watching, waiting. I had become very much feared through accompanying Goro and I felt the hatred of the people as I went about my work.

  The streets remained relatively empty as most people were in the jungle or in the countryside, where contact with the Japanese was minimal. In Georgetown entire streets of houses stood empty, their inhabitants either in hiding or taken away by the Kempeitai. Food supplies were hard to obtain and prices on the black market were astronomical. People resorted to planting sweet potatoes and yams in their gardens. Inflation went unchecked and more and more banana notes were printed. I stopped bringing food and supplies home from work, even though I was entitled to, because my father and Isabel refused to touch any of it. That angered me and left me with a growing sense of helplessness. If they did not want to accept my assistance, what was the reason for my involvement with our new masters? I sat mutely as they consumed watery yam broth cooked with the leaves of the sweet potato trees the servants had planted in the vegetable yard at the back of the house. Eventually I spent most evenings at Endo-san’s island. More and more I depended on him for support and I would sit in silence with him, staving off the sense of loneliness and rage. It was ironic, as he was their cause.

  “Tell me it will all be fine one day,” I said to him as I cleared away our meal.

  “It will be. But to get there you will have to travel across the landscape of memories, across the continent of time,” he answered softly.

  “As long as you are there to guide me.”

  “Only sometimes. Like now for instance. Sometimes you will be alone; sometimes you will be with others. But I will be there at the end, waiting for you. Never forget that.”

  “What if I forget you?”

  “You have not so far. You cannot forget what is within you. And I am within you. Look into yourself when you feel lost and you will find me there.”

  “I’m so afraid, Endo-san. So very frightened. I’m not strong enough for this,” I said, and he came and hugged me. I listened to the inner sounds of his body, the beating of his heart, the exchange of breaths in his lungs, the roar of blood rushing through his veins. A universe was in there, dying and being renewed every second.

  His short burst of laughter was weighed down with irony. “I am afraid too.”

  He pushed me away gently and gave me a letter. “I received this today,” he said. “I am sorry.”

  I read the letter from Edward. “No,” I said. I felt fatigued, sick with the war. “I’ll have to tell them.”

  “I do not envy the burden you have to carry.”

  “Some of the burdens came from you, Endo-san. You and your people.” I went outside to the strengthening stars. “I have to go home now.”

  “Of course you must.”

  I sat at the breakfast table and waited for my father and Isabel. They saw my face and sat down. I handed the letter to my father. He read it, folded it and said, “Peter’s dead. He was killed trying to escape. Edward thinks he can’t go on any longer. He’s suffering from dysentery and starvation. There is no medicine for them.”

  Isabel gripped her fork tightly, pushing it into the surface of the table. I reached out to hold her wrist but she turned the fork and stabbed it into my hand. “Don’t touch me!” she said as I suppressed a cry of pain.

  “You can’t blame him, Isabel,” my father said, but the words had a tone that came from duty and obligation, not belief.

  “Edward’s dying, and he continues to help those killers, those monsters who’ve killed Peter.” She pushed her chair away. “Get out. Get out of this house. You don’t belong here anymore.”

  “Maybe you should stay away for a while,” my father said. “Until you decide where your loyalties lie.”

  I watched as the four points of blood from the tines of the fork erupted from my skin, my wounded hand growing cold as though the chill of the air had found an opening to penetrate me. I knew my father’s heart was breaking and, because I loved him, I agreed. “Yes, perhaps that would be better,” I said. I folded my napkin properly, placed it back on the table and left the dining room.

  People refused to let their rooms to me. Hotels and guesthouses told me they were full. And after walking the streets of Georgetown I knew I could not stay there, even if I had been able to find a place. I was too hated by now and the townspeople did not encourage me to linger. Even Towkay Yeap refused me lodgings when I showed up at his gates, saying he did not want it to be known that he was sheltering me. “That is the price of playing both sides. Eventually all sides mistrust you.”

  “But you trust me, don’t you?”

  He merely looked at me, then closed his door.

  I made my way to Aunt Mei’s home and, like the other time I visited her, she came to the door reluctantly and closed it quickly behind us. “I told you not to come here until everything was safe,” she said, not hiding her anger. I felt something was wrong for she looked as though she was hiding something. I opened my senses, sending my ki outward, and sensed she had a visitor.

  “I cannot give you a place to stay,” she said.

  “How did you know I wanted a place to stay?” I asked.

  “I—I heard word on the streets, that’s all,” she said. “Now you must go. Your presence here is not good.”

  As I left her I glanced up and saw a figure hiding in the shade of the veranda upstairs. Isabel. I stood under the sun, willing her to come out. The figure moved and she
looked down at me. We stood that way for a long time. I lifted up my hand in a half wave. She closed her eyes and returned to the darkness of the house.

  I walked to the end of the road and summoned a trishaw. I would ask Endo-san for shelter. It was the first place I should have gone to.

  Endo-san had never named his island and I asked him the reason for that lapse.

  “I never wanted to give a name to this island,” he said. “Look around you. What name can you give to something like this?”

  We had been swimming in the sea after my lesson with him and were now resting under the shade of the curving coconut tree, its spiky leaves rustling like a thousand beetles as the wind shook it. We sat in a shared silence for some time, watching the cormorants dive for fish.

  My hands touched the rock on which I had, a long, long time ago, carved my name. I found it difficult to fathom the swiftness of time, to accept that it was already two months into 1945. The Japanese had been in Malaya for four years; I had known Endo-san for almost six. He and I had drifted into a comfortable routine, although I remained worried that I would give away my role as Towkay Yeap’s informer.

  I thought of Kon for a moment and said a prayer that he would be safe. I wondered where Tanaka was and, thinking of him, I recalled him telling me how he had followed Endo-san to Penang.

  “Tell me why you came here,” I now said to Endo-san. “I’ve asked you once and you never answered. Let me know now, please.”

  He shook his head. “Some other time, when this is all over.”

  My disappointment showed and he said, “I promise you I will tell you, when the time is right.”

  I thought of that moment on the ledge, of letting go, trusting him. That feeling would always be there, giving me strength again and again, whenever his actions affected me.

  “I will hold you to your word,” I said.

  But he was looking at the cormorants and appeared not to have heard me.

  Chapter Ten

  Something in the air had changed, something indefinable, as though a new element had been dipped into it, slowly spreading like the coming of a different season. We received radio reports relayed from India and Australia and we knew that Japan was suffering badly in its engagements against the United States in the Pacific Ocean. When I walked to town to make purchases, people’s faces were lighter, stronger. Shopkeepers began to sound defiant to me.