The Gift of Rain: A Novel

by Tan Twan Eng

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I accepted the Penang Historical Society’s invitation to attend the party for the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Japanese Occupation, to be held at the residence of the governor of Penang. Since Independence in 1957 a succession of Malay and Chinese appointees has held the post. The days of the British live now only in fond memories.

  A few days before the event, the secretary of the society called me and asked if I could donate a souvenir from the war and I replied that I would see if I could oblige her.

  I informed Adele and the staff of Hutton & Sons that I had found a suitable buyer for my family’s company and that their positions would remain secure, as one of the expressed conditions of the terms of sale. Ronald Cross, who now ran Empire Trading, having returned from Australia after the war to succeed Henry Cross, was keen to expand his family business for his grandchildren. I was certain that Ronald, having lived in Penang all his life, would honor the memory of all the Huttons who had been linked to my great-grandfather’s dream.

  After my announcement Adele came into my office and embraced me. “I’m going to miss you terribly,” she said.

  “You should retire,” I said. She was not much younger than me, I recalled.

  “And do what? Sit at home and take care of my grandchildren?” She shuddered at the thought and I laughed.

  “It’ll take months to finalize the sale. I’ll still be in Penang, you know that. I’ll never leave,” I said. “You can come and visit me any time at Istana.”

  She pulled back from me. “In all these years, this is the first time you’ve asked me to come to your house.”

  “I should have done it a long time ago,” I said.

  Everyone who had fought in the war, those who still lived, came to the anniversary party. It was a strange crowd, mostly of very old people meeting their friends again, knowing it might be for the last time. And so, when they spoke fondly of the antics and quirks of dead friends and lost lovers, the voices were louder, the laughter richer, and the tears heavier yet gladder than in previous years. I walked around the glass cases exhibiting my father’s collection of keris, which I had donated to the Penang Historical Society in his name. There was also an exhibition of memorabilia and documents relating to the war and I came to a frame where a faded photograph caught my attention.

  It showed a young European man—not much more than a boy, I thought—standing in a row of stern-faced Japanese officials, watching as the Japanese flag was raised. He appeared lost, out of place among that crowd, but there was a strong and determined expression on his face. It took me a few seconds to come to the realization that I was that young man. I searched for Endo-san but he had been cropped out of the photograph a long time ago.

  The president of the Penang Historical Society, in his rather lengthy speech thanked Mr. Philip Arminius Khoo-Hutton for his efforts in protecting the heritage of Penang and for his generosity in donating a pair of invaluable weapons to the society. It was the first time ever that I had requested the use of my full name and I experienced a moment of wonder, almost turning to see who was being spoken of, before I walked to the podium and handed the Nagamitsu swords to the president. They appeared almost unremarkable under the spotlights. Flashbulbs went off and as I let the swords go I said a silent farewell to them.

  When I arrived home I did not go to bed but went and stood by my lonely casuarina tree. I took out my grandfather’s jade pin, which I had worn from the moment he gave it to me. It felt cool and weightless, nestled there in the cryptic creases of my palm, and I thought of my life, of everything that had happened and everyone I had known.

  There had been many at the party tonight who still considered me a friend of the Japanese in the war, as many as those who knew of the innumerable lives I had helped save. But in the end, did all of that matter? All those people would soon, like me, be ground into the ashes of memory, to rise into the sky and leave the world.

  The fortune-teller, long since dead, had said I was born with the gift of rain. I know now what she meant. Her words had not been a curse; nor had they been words of blessing. Like the rain, I had brought tragedy into many people’s lives but, more often than not, rain also brings relief, clarity, and renewal. It washes away our pain and prepares us for another day, and even another life. Now that I am old I find that the rains follow me and give me comfort, like the spirits of all the people I have ever known and loved.

  When I had heard my name—my complete, dear name, given to me by both my parents and by my grandfather—used for the first time earlier this evening, I experienced a feeling of integration and fulfillment that had eluded me for all of my life. With the delicacy of a butterfly entering the reveries of the venerable Chinese philosopher, as though alighting on the most fragile of petals, that feeling sought and found a permanent abode within me and stilled forever the empty echoes of my dreaming heart.

  The night was so full of stars and the sea so dark, I could not tell where the ocean clasped the sky. Endo-san’s island looked so peaceful, waiting for me as it had been doing even before the day I was born. I knew the time had come for me to spend the rest of my days there. I looked forward to it.

  I would like to borrow a boat from you.

  I thought again of the first moment we had met in this world. I could not blame him for coming into my life. And I could not blame him for leaving it, leaving me on my own to face the consequences of my choices and my actions in the war.

  My grandfather had tried to show me the truth of this when he told me the story of the forgotten emperor: even with all the warnings we had, still our lives followed the direction that had already been inscribed and nothing could have changed it.

  Since Michiko’s death, I have thought over my grandfather’s words and I have come to the conclusion that he was not entirely correct when it comes to the inevitability of a person’s destiny. While I now accept that the course of our lives has been set down long before our births, I feel that the inscriptions that dictate the directions of our lives merely write out what is already in our hearts; they can do nothing more. And we, Endo-san, Tanaka, Michiko, Kon, myself, and all the lost members of my family, we were beings capable mainly of love and memory. These capabilities are the greatest gifts given to us, and we can do nothing else but live out the remembered desires and memories of our hearts.

  And that is the point of life itself, I whisper into the night, hoping my grandfather has heard me.

  A breath of wind brings the scent of the fragrant tree to me and, as I curl my fingers gently around my grandfather’s pin, a growing lightness lifts my heart to a place it has never been before. I know this feeling will never leave me again.

  Author’s Note

  All characters who play active roles in the novel are fictional and bear no resemblance to any person living or dead.

  All military and government personnel depicted in the story are fictional, with the exceptions of Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, General Yamashita Tomoyuki, General Arthur Percival, and Sir Francis Light, founder of Penang, who are mentioned as part of the historical background.

  Historians however will quickly recognize that I have taken certain liberties with events. There was, for example, no ceremony on the surrender of the island of Penang to the Imperial Japanese Army and the occasion depicted herein is based on the actual surrender in Singapore.

  Also, while the Emperor Kuang Hsu and the Dowager Empress Tzu Xsi were actual historical figures, the “Forgotten Emperor,” Wen Zu, is entirely my own invention. The reform movement under the Ching Dynasty occurred only once, in 1898, and my description of its recurrence in a weakened form eight years later is merely dramatic license.

  Morihei Ueshiba was the founder of modern-day Ueshiba-ryu aikido. But I should make it clear that the consequences of the use of his techniques in this story in no way reflect his philosophy.

  La Maison Bleu, Cheong Fatt Tze’s mansion where Philip’s parents met, still stands. I urge all visitors to Penang
to go and see it and to admire the impressive work of restoration that has been done.

  Acknowledgments

  My grateful thanks to my agent, Jane Gregory, and to Mary Sandys and Broo Doherty for their unwavering faith and support.

  I would also like to thank the following people for their kindness, hospitality, and friendship: Professor Jan Botha, Louise Botha, Mr. Justice Edwin Cameron, Natie and Sonya Ress, Ian Hamilton, Wade van der Merwe, Professor Dr. A. Archer, Paul van Herreweghe, Professor John McRae, Ferdi and Elsa van Gass, Coba Diederiks, Dawid Klopper, and Teo Bong Kwang.