The Gift of Rain: A Novel

by Tan Twan Eng

  I ceased all movement abruptly, placing myself in the spot where the sea touches the sky. I became the center. I opened up myself. Goro saw the opportunity and swung a hard unstoppable punch into my chest that would certainly have ruptured my heart. But he would never know.

  When Goro punched I was already entering to his side and my palm slammed upward into his face and broke his nose. He stumbled to his knees and I circled my arms around his neck, cutting off the flow of air. A deliberate fury overtook me, sharpening my senses, so that I could feel each frantic throb of the pulse in his neck. I wanted to tighten my hold on him, to squeeze until not even a single atom of oxygen could penetrate him. I increased the strength of the lock on his neck and his body jerked with dying spasms, his arms flailing wildly and impotently behind him.

  I heard my grandfather’s voice saying, as he had the last time I saw him, Do not let hatred control your life. But the pull of my rage was as strong as the treacherous currents of the sea, taking me out further into the deep. I began to add pressure to my grip. I decided then that Goro would die.

  At that moment Endo-san spoke and his voice brought me back to the shore. “Let him go.”

  I released Goro and he folded like a piece of cloth to the ground, his eyes fluttering as the air rushed into the vacuum in his lungs. I breathed with difficulty, my entire body shaking, my vision askew. I felt Endo-san put his arms on my shoulders and the disjointed world focused itself again.

  He was bleeding but, for a fleeting moment, his smile made him look young again. “That took too long,” he said.

  “I shall strive to be quicker the next time,” I answered, and for those few moments we were once more merely a sensei and his pupil.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Endo-san was taken to the General Hospital where an army doctor removed the bullet from his leg. He slept deeply for the first time in a long while, assisted by ample doses of morphine. I sat by him every day and, to pass the time, I would look at the flowers in the garden of the hospital from the window. Some days it rained and my attention would be mesmerized by the droplets of water trailing down the glass panes.

  One evening, when the lights on Penang Hill were beginning to show themselves, General Erskine visited us. He was a stocky man, hair cut short, his face indicative of getting his own way. I heard the creak of boots on the tiles and the guard by the door stood to attention and saluted him.

  “We still can’t decide whether to arrest you as well or not,” he said. “We’ve received so many conflicting reports. Some say you aided in mass murders, others say you saved entire villages.”

  “When you make up your mind, I’ll be here. I won’t be going anywhere,” I said in a tired voice. I was uncertain what to feel. The years Endo-san and I had shared seemed like they had been a whole lifetime. I could not believe it would all be over soon.

  General Erskine indicated the sleeping figure of Endo-san. “Who is he to you?”

  “My teacher and my friend,” I said.

  “He taught you how to fight like you did at the harbor the other day?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Dangerous chap. We’re going to make sure he and all his men pay. A War Crimes Tribunal has been set up. He’ll be charged as a war criminal,” he said.

  “I owe him a great deal,” I said, looking out through the window as though I had not heard him, which annoyed him.

  “He and his kind killed your entire family,” he said, then his voice became quiet, but not soft. “I absolutely loathe them. My brother was in Changi Prison. They came up with all sorts of amusing games to torture their prisoners. Now I’m informed that you worked for them. Disgraceful.”

  “Will you send him back to Tokyo?” I asked.

  General Erskine shook his head. “He’s not too important in the scheme of things. The tribunal will be convened here.”

  “Who will be in charge of it? You?”

  He nodded with satisfaction. When I looked into his eyes I knew what the outcome would be.

  I unlocked the door and let myself into the offices of Hutton & Sons. The damage suffered in the bombings had not been repaired and the entire place had been vandalized by the Japanese staff— chairs broken, paintings slashed. Filing cabinets lay overturned, spilling paper onto the floor. I entered the room where my father had always sat, which was now mine. I found comfort in the little things he had left behind that had not been stolen or destroyed: his letter opener, the spare Trinity College tie he kept in his drawer, the notebook in which he had scribbled down his ideas. I removed all signs of the Japanese administrator and tidied the room as best I could.

  The bell rang and I went downstairs and opened the door. A young girl stood on the steps, pale and uncertain. She gathered her courage and her words and spoke in a rush. “I’m looking for work. I’m hardworking and I know how to type—a bit.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Adele.”

  “Can you start now?”

  She smiled with relief as I made my first decision as the owner of my father’s company.

  I spread the word and, gradually, the old staff returned, bringing with them relatives or friends who were also looking for employment. My past role in the war was never raised openly, but I knew the people of Penang would never forget. Some saw me as a courageous person who had resisted the Japanese as much as he could. To my surprise, I found that this view had a large element of truth to it. Others thought of me with contempt and hatred, telling people of the deaths I had caused. This too had the resounding ring of veracity and I never refuted it.

  I worked myself to exhaustion, making hazardous journeys to our plantations and mines. Standing in the sandy, pitted landscape of the tin mines outside Ipoh, I realized I could not fully regenerate my business yet. There was another storm coming. And so when the Communist terrorists started their guerrilla war against the British government we were not unduly affected. We had enough to keep the business afloat, but not so much as to suffer great losses whenever the Communists attacked our mines and rubber plantations. I recalled Kon warning me that these terrorists, who during the war had been allies of the British, would eventually seek the death of every Englishman in Malaya. It was also ironic that the terrorists now adopted the term “running dogs” to refer to the local inhabitants who refused to aid them, who chose instead to assist the British.

  I missed Kon. One evening after work I made a visit to his home. I knocked at the gates but no one came to open the doors. I climbed up the outer wall and sat on the top, looking down at my friend’s home. It was empty, no lights shone and the great lanterns remained unlit, even though twilight had come. Towkay Yeap had disappeared. I sat on the high walls until the streetlights came on and cast my shadow into the neglected garden, onto the pure white orchids of Towkay Yeap. I took one last look and then jumped down onto the road and made my way home.

  I had visited Endo-san regularly over the previous weeks. He was still detained in the General Hospital although his leg was healing well. He continued to bear himself with great dignity. Sometimes we would talk as I wheeled him around the gardens, and sometimes we sat in stillness, watching the movement of the world, listening to the unspoken words between us and finding comfort in them.

  One evening he said, “I promised you once that I would tell you everything, why I did all those things.”

  I held my fingers to my lips and let him know there was no need. “I understand now why you had to work for your country,” I said. “You did it because of your father, and your family. Because you loved them.”

  “As did you,” he said.

  “It doesn’t make it easier.”

  “No, it does not. But still the attempt must be made.”

  “Yes. There is no other way. There never has been.”

  “Are you still practicing?”

  “No,” I said.

  “You must not be lazy.”

  “I’m waiting to train with you again.”

  “Then you ha
d better maintain your standards and not waste my time.”

  He asked me to wheel him to a grove of hibiscus trees. “It is good to be outside, even in this weather,” he said. “I could never stay cooped up within walls. You understand that?”

  I placed my hand on his shoulder. It seemed a long, long while before I could speak again.

  “Yes, I understand,” I finally said, wiping a drop of rain from my eye.

  “Good. Now, while we are out here every day your lessons shall continue. Go through your footwork exercises and show me how far you have deteriorated.”

  On the day of Endo-san’s judgement I made a ritual of putting on my clothes, feeling the quietness of the house as I left. I drove slowly in the cool dawn, enjoying the light fragrant smell of the dew on the trees that grew along the Tanjung Bungah Road. I parked behind Hutton & Sons and walked to the Esplanade, sitting on the stone breakwater, my legs dangling over the rocks and the sea. Fat, gray pigeons waddled up and down the pavements, pecking for food. Some stalked up to me and when I waved my hands at them they hopped away on a clatter of wings as if affronted by my rudeness.

  Just before the clock struck I walked to the courthouse. Although the War Crimes Tribunal was headed by the military, General Erskine had decided to hold the hearing in the High Court building, probably to give a cloak of justice to the proceedings.

  A crowd of people had already gathered and they became silent as I passed them. From the first day of the hearing the court clerk had, for a discreet payment, kept me a seat near the front. There I sat, conscious of the eyes upon me. I had no doubt that Endo-san ould be found guilty, for there had been no lack of witnesses; even my own testimony had been torn apart and I had been left looking like a war criminal myself.

  The crowd in the public gallery wanted to taste blood and they jeered as Endo-san was brought in. At a quarter past nine, led by General Erskine, the members of the Tribunal appeared and the spectators were silenced.

  I could only see the back of Endo-san’s head as General Erskine read out the judgement. Endo-san was found guilty of the massacre of civilians and soldiers during the course of the war and was sentenced to imprisonment for the rest of his life. He would never see Japan again.

  The crowd burst into cheers, shouting and stamping as Endo-san was led out. Our eyes met, and I nodded. I was soon forgotten as the crowd left the building. I sat alone, until the court clerk informed me in soft whispers that he was sorry, but he had to lock up the courtroom.

  Three days later I found General Erskine waiting for me at Istana, sitting on my rattan chair on the patio, his jaw tight with anger. Out of the corner of my eye I noted his men moving through the grounds and the house.

  “What are you doing in my house?” I asked.

  “Where is Mr. Endo?”

  “I suppose he is no longer in your custody, if you are asking me that,” I said.

  “He escaped while being escorted from the hospital to the jail. Knocked five of my guards unconscious. It seems likely that he would come to you for shelter.”

  “No, he hasn’t come to me.”

  “Where did he stay during the war?”

  “At the Japanese consulate,” I said, certain that he was unaware of Endo-san’s island.

  He removed a creased photograph from his wallet and showed it to me. It was an aerial shot of Istana and there, prominent and visible on the roof, were the stripes of the Union Jack I had painted.

  “I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that on your roof today. A pilot who flew one of the Halifaxes took this. He’s made a barrow-load of money selling it to every British soldier out in the East. They say it reminds them of what they’ve been fighting for. It probably saved your house from being bombed.” The general shook his head in wonder. “Strange, sometimes, what wonderful things can emerge from a war like this.”

  “Yes, strange things we have seen,” I said, my mind on Endo-san.

  “Did you paint it?” General Erskine asked.

  I brought my attention back to him and nodded.

  “Must’ve been bloody dangerous to climb up there. What possessed you?”

  I thought for a moment of those last days of the war. “It was a tribute to my father.” As I spoke I felt that, somewhere, my father had heard and that he was smiling at me.

  Chapter Twenty

  Michiko’s condition was deteriorating and, although she attempted to conceal it from me, I knew. I heard her pain in the quiet of the night when she thought I was asleep. As I sat up in my bed, a memory of the time when my mother lay suffering returned and I saw what was required of me. This time I did not run away and hide.

  I went into Michiko’s room and sat next to her bed. There would be no sleep for us tonight.

  “Where were you when the bomb fell?” I asked, taking her hand in mine. It was clammy and rigid with pain and I stroked it gently as I spoke.

  “Far enough away not to die immediately. But now I think, not far enough,” she said, allowing me to assist her into a sitting position against the headboard. “I thought I had escaped the worst of it, but my doctors have told me that they have seen cases like mine. The body only shows the damage when it wants to, even if it is years later. At least, that was their conclusion, since they could find no other reason.”

  “And your family?”

  She closed her eyes and wiped her mouth with a silk handkerchief. “I lost everyone of my family. My brothers and sisters, my father and my mother. Endo-san’s family and everyone who had stayed in Toriijima were all killed.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I. I did not love Tanaka-san, yet I used his feelings for me and asked him to follow Endo-san here. And now you have told me that I caused his death.”

  “He would have died as a soldier in the war or when your village was destroyed,” I said.

  She shook her head. “I was selfish.”

  I handed her the pills that she continued to take out of habit, even though they had long ceased to make a difference.

  “I blamed Endo-san for agreeing to work for the government in exchange for his father’s freedom. After the war I waited for him to come home. But he never did, and no one ever knew what had happened to him. But I never stopped thinking of him.” She winced with pain.

  “He only did what duty demanded,” I said, holding her hand more tightly. “He tried to bring a sense of harmony to all the conflicting elements of his life.”

  I could not bear to see her suffering. And I felt a selfish fear that I would not be able to tell her everything. I had waited so long for all of it to come out: the guilt, the regrets, the darkness that had filled my days for such an eternity. There was nobody else I could ever have spoken to about the mistakes of my life and to have found her, someone who had known and even loved Endo-san, was something I had never dared or hoped to ask for.

  “I do not have much time left to me,” she said.

  “We will go to Endo-san’s island when morning comes,” I said to give her something to focus on, to look forward to. My initial reluctance to show her Endo-san’s island was gone, now that I had come to know her better. It would be cruel not to take her there.

  “Yes,” she said. “I want so much to see it.” She coughed and then said, “May I live there, until ...”

  “Of course,” I said quickly, not wanting her to finish what she was trying to say.

  “Are we going in your little boat?” she asked. “I would like that very much.”

  I shook my head, and told her about my boat, the boat that had taken me so many times across the sea to Endo-san’s island. The wood was rotten and falling to pieces and it had sprung an irreparable leak. The last time I would ever use it, I took it out to sea at sunrise. I rowed to a position just off Endo-san’s island and waited with it as it slowly filled with water, stroking its peeling sides and cracked wood, talking softly to it. The sea came in with respect, a little at a time, and I felt the water rise up my feet, then my shins, and then my knees. All the
while I watched the light of a new day touch the trees of the island, until a strong wave came, leaving me to float on the surface. I held my breath in the water and watched as the boat of my childhood dropped soundlessly away, raising silent clouds of sand when it hit the bottom of the sea. Like the lonely casuarina tree it was as old as I, and I never regretted not giving it a name. It had been my boat, and that was enough for me.

  There was nothing much to pack. She had left all her clothes in her valises and Maria helped me carry them. I held Michiko’s arm as we made our way carefully down the steps to the boathouse. She was dressed warmly. A storm had come in the early hours before dawn and the air was still cold. We had sat watching the lightning from her room, wondering what the day would bring.

  The journey across to Endo-san’s island, which I had made so often and so easily in my youth, tired me now. “It seems such a distance away,” she spoke, shading her eyes with her hand.

  “We will be there soon. These old bones of mine are making the trip seem long, that’s all.”

  “I am glad I came here, and I am glad I met you. Thank you, for last night.”

  I grunted as drops of perspiration stung my eyes. She reached across and dabbed them away with the edge of her sleeve. We passed the rocks that had once appeared so much like a row of rotting teeth to me but which I discovered later on in my life looked beautiful, like ancient markers warning people to stay away from the place they guarded.

  I pulled the boat high above the waterline and helped her step out. Her eyes went immediately to the landmarks I had described. “Here is the rock where you wrote your name!” she said, running her fingers over my scratching. “It is real,” she whispered, wonder in her voice. “It is all real.”