by Michael Kaan
“What is it?”
“Just wait. I feel sick.” He held his stomach and leaned over. I thought he was going to vomit on the pavement, but he just hung there for a moment. Then he straightened up and rubbed his eyes.
“Did we get away from it?” I asked.
“From what?” Leuk was squinting again. He rubbed his eyes furiously as though dust had blown into them. He opened them and squinted again and started rubbing hard, grinding the knuckles of his index fingers into his eyes so hard I worried he would injure himself.
“Stop that!” I shouted. Then I envisioned the cart and smelled the stable air, a dry mist of ground manure and human bones. I choked and retched. Bile burned my throat.
“It’s so bright,” Leuk said. “My eyes hurt. Give me a minute.”
He passed me his rice sack as I coughed, and he leaned against the wall with his hands cupped tightly over his face. My coughing slowed. It was very quiet in the street, just the sound of the sacks crackling in the breeze. I heard vehicles and voices somewhere, though everything seemed far away.
Leuk dropped his hands. His eyes were red and watery, but he wasn’t squinting anymore.
“I’m all right now.” He took back his bag, an empty thing that flapped crazily in the wind, as though to plead that it didn’t belong there.
After that, we stuck to the main roads on the way to the ration centre. The Japanese had set it up in an occupied post office, where we waited in line with dozens of others. Inside, the young soldiers looked down at us with stony boredom as they dropped small bags of rice into our sacks. They all displayed the same contempt and sternness, as though trying to appear older. I saw them as infinitely dangerous, indifferent to violence. We avoided their eyes, and Leuk and I didn’t speak until our house was within sight.
As we walked up Wong Nai Chung Road towards the house, the bags of rice exerted a satisfying tug on my wrists, and I realized how tense I was. I swung my arms at my sides and liked the way the weight of the bags pulled on my shoulders.
I couldn’t help seeing all those faces, like sleepers frozen in a moment of nightmare. I tried to understand it, like a hand grasping for a light switch in a dark room. I tried to focus on the sensations of my body: the pull on my shoulders, the string handles of the rice sacks cutting around my wrists, the warmth in my shoes, and in my left ear the stuffy, nasal breathing of my brother as we tramped up the dirty pavement.
I recall this moment as the first time I became aware of the changes that had started in my body. I sweated more and my voice was breaking. I woke up in the middle of the night or in the morning with an erection, or one appeared suddenly as I dressed. I had grown a little taller and had just inherited some of my older brother’s clothes — the first time any of us had ever worn hand-me-downs. Wearing them was like pretending to be another person.
As we walked up the last stretch of pavement, Leuk stopped and looked up at our house.
“Who’s that?” he said.
It was late afternoon now, and a few illuminated windows in the house stood out against its soft grey walls. A girl in silhouette stood in a third-floor window. The curtains were drawn, but the yellow light of the lamps threw her form crisply onto the cloth. She was brushing her hair with steady strokes like a rower on a lake in summer. We stopped and watched her for a moment.
“It’s Shun-Lai,” I said finally. “What’s she doing there? That’s where the Japs are staying.”
As soon as I put my hand on the gate handle, I knew something was different. The sentries were gone, and the front courtyard was empty.
We hurried through the courtyard and up the front steps. Leuk pushed hard on the door and we nearly tripped over each other getting in. The lights were on, but there was no one in the front hall. As I looked up the staircase, I felt my face flush and my hands turned cold. It was so quiet, and I thought of the stables.
Then my mother appeared. Her shoes clicked evenly over the floor and the yellow lamplight washed over her shoulders. The sight was so familiar that the past few weeks were almost erased. When she saw us, she hurried over, shut the door behind us, and put her hands on our shoulders.
“They’ve left. An officer summoned me an hour ago and said they had been told they don’t need the house. They’ve taken all their things and left half an hour ago. We have our house back.”
We brought the rations into the kitchen, and my mother shut them up in a cupboard as though she were putting ivory into a vault. We told her we were starving, so my mother warmed some gruel for us. We ate quickly and went upstairs.
On the second floor, a door near the landing opened and Shun-Lai stepped into the hallway with a hairbrush in one hand. The news about the Japanese had made my head swim and I’d forgotten about seeing her in the window. She was in her pyjamas and a soft grey flannel bathrobe. She turned to me as I got to the top. She knew where I had been and asked how it went, and we talked a little about how good it was to have the house back.
She smiled, and her brushed hair glowed in the faint hallway light. I had seen this girl so many times, but now in the yellow light she looked different: the pale cotton, the dark bristles of the hairbrush, the wintry flannel, all lifeless things and yet painting a picture of life. Suddenly, I found her beautiful. As I thought of this, she wished me good night. I echoed her faintly and walked to my room, slightly confused.
Once in the darkness of my room, I remembered the stable and the cart. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten those people in my brief talk with Shun-Lai. I shut the door and sat on my bed as shame overcame me, and I cried quietly until Leuk came in.
That night, I lay in my old room again, with Leuk in the bed next to mine. I shook the sheets a few times because I was warm, and I felt them sink slowly downward as they expelled air over my face. The bedclothes settled on my abdomen, revealing the profile of my new body. I was thinner.
Was there less of me? I pondered the question for a while as I listened to my older brother breathe. I felt overloaded and burdened, and my head ached. My brain was turning into a crowded landscape of pictures and sounds, and my own thoughts were becoming indistinguishable from the noise I absorbed from the world around me. I felt exposed, unable to conceal my chaotic inner world.
I shut my eyes and tried to focus on the sound of Leuk breathing. Then I gave up and turned to look at him. The shutter slats were still open and the moonlight glowed on the sheets. I glanced at the clock — half past midnight. I had never lain awake so long before. Leuk was lying on his side facing me. He was quiet, his breathing hushed and tidal in the bluish light, defiantly calm. I turned away onto my side and gave in to the ticking of the clock.
TEN
It was now February 1942, and we had just two things left: our house and each other. When the weather began to improve that month, I felt life in general should improve, as though the invasion had been timed with winter and so must die with it too. But food was in even shorter supply, and instead of returning to school, I had to endure the constant drone of propaganda in the streets and on the radio. The cruelty of the Japanese bit harder.
A strange thing began to happen in the evenings. Sometime before dark, usually around six, a low ringing of bells could be heard in the street. The first time we heard it, Leuk and I were sitting in our room playing cards. I put my cards down and accidentally exposed them to his view, ending the game. I opened the window and listened. At first I heard what sounded like horns blowing from far away, and then I realized it was a gong being struck — not a large temple gong, but a smaller one like the one we used to call everyone to dinner. I looked out into the dark streets and tried to track the sound, and Leuk silently joined me.
The sound faded and came closer, then moved farther off again, until I could distinguish many gongs being struck at once. They rang just loudly enough to be heard, as though struck with extreme care. The gongs seemed to ring in triplets now, fading in and out over the streets, quick but unpredictable, like a school of fish darting through water.
The bedroom light went out, and I turned to see Ah-Tseng hurrying towards us. She pulled the shutters closed, lowered the window, and drew the curtains over it.
Leuk asked her if she knew what it was. She stared nervously at the curtains and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
“It’s a warning.” She seemed distracted. She reached over and fingered the thin white cloth of the curtain as though to reassure herself. “To get off the street. You hear it more during the day, before the curfew starts.”
I caught the vagueness in her voice and I watched her. She looked away and her voice turned blunt.
“It’s a warning to girls and women,” she said, “that the Japanese are off duty. Don’t you hear the screams at night?”
She put her hand over her mouth and bunched a dust cloth tightly in her other hand.
I backed away from her. My voice dropped as though in apology. “I do. I hear them.”
She looked quickly away from the window as though a gong might sound again any second. She smoothed her skirts and said that dinner would be ready soon.
The next morning, I slept late. As I roused myself and took in the mid-morning light, the clock read a quarter to ten. I was embarrassed. Leuk was gone and his bed was made, and I imagined he’d been up a long time. I dressed quickly, worried that others were up cleaning or running errands to the ration centre. I hadn’t gone to bed more tired than usual or exerted myself the day before, but when I pulled my belt through the buckle, I was reminded of why I was so tired: the pin ran an inch past the last hole. My stomach grumbled while I took the cloth belt out of my bathrobe and ran it through the loops. I pulled it tight, fixed a careful knot, and tucked the loose ends into my waist to conceal them.
Mrs. Yee’s door was open and her room was empty. From far downstairs I heard the distinct quaver of her voice, beaten thin with distress and calling for her elder daughter. When I got downstairs, I found her by the front doors, rigid with dread and yelling at Chow. My mother and Ah-Tseng stood next to him.
“She was supposed to be back by now! Where is she?” she shouted. “You sent her out there and told her it wasn’t far! She wouldn’t get lost. Go and find her! Bring her back before they take her!”
She reached out to grab Chow by his jacket and he moved awkwardly away. She stood frozen, her hands clawing the air, a pantomime of utter helplessness. Then she caught me staring at her. Her eyes paused on my improvised belt before flitting away. Then she started wailing. Twice Chow and my mother had to drag her from the front door. Mrs. Yee staggered back and collapsed at the bottom of the staircase, where she cried over and over again, “Go get her! Bring her back!”
Earlier that morning, Shun-Lai had argued that she should be allowed out to line up at a nearby vegetable stall. Mornings were safer, as the Japanese were assembled in their headquarters at the French Convent School. Her mother had agreed only if Chow went with her, but when he arrived, she had already run out on her own. It was eight o’clock when she left, nearly two hours ago.
Mrs. Yee sat on the bottom step, staring downward in despair. Her hair had come loose and she splayed over the marble like a large injured insect. At the top of the stairs, Shun-Yau and Shun-Po appeared. They made their way down tentatively, first holding each other by the hand, then letting go when they reached the bottom, where their mother shook and sobbed, unaware her other children had come to her.
Shun-Po crouched down and extended a hand towards her mother’s back. “Mama, please —”
Mrs. Yee shivered and raised her head, until at last she looked up and took her daughter’s hand. She looked into her daughter’s face. “Please, go find her.”
Shun-Po froze and her brother stepped forward. “Mama, come back upstairs. Shun-Lai will come home.” He leaned forward but didn’t touch her.
Mrs. Yee didn’t respond. My mother turned to Ah-Tseng and told her to take some tea upstairs. Then she walked over to the stairs and gave each of the children a quiet nod; they stepped back with visible relief. Leaning forward, my mother took Mrs. Yee’s wrists in her hands and spoke to her in a quiet voice.
“Mrs. Yee, I’m sure you cannot be comfortable here. I will send someone to look for your daughter, but you must go back up to rest. Now, children,” she said to the Yee children, “go with Chung-Man and Leuk to the library, and do your studies. Ah-Ming will find you a snack.” She stood back and Mrs. Yee rose with her, her face distorted by tears. She was exhausted and her sobs had shrunk to dry, hollow whispers.
“My daughter…” she started, and my mother put one arm around her and helped her back upstairs as Shun-Yau and Shun-Po stepped quickly away. My mother wrapped her arm close around Mrs. Yee’s shoulders, holding her like a child so that Mrs. Yee inclined her head towards her. My mother turned her head and looked back at the four of us one more time.
“To the library, please,” she whispered.
I scanned the street from the library, thinking I might pick out the form and movement of a sixteen-year-old girl among the few people out. But the picture in my mind was of a body moving carefree and lightly, and there was nothing like that in the world before me. Chow and Tang said they would go out to look for Shun-Lai, but by midday the soldiers were everywhere. My mother and I sat down on a sofa and looked out the window together. Japanese troops paraded nearby, the thrum of their boots and martial calls beating the air. A trio of transport vehicles rode down the street, wrapped in canvas and dark paint, their back ends bristling with young arms clutching machine guns. The sidewalks emptied.
I asked my mother if she thought Shun-Lai would be found. Of course, I knew that if she could have come back, she would have. There were no distractions left out there for a girl: no market, no chance meeting of friends. My mother put her arm around me.
“I don’t think she will. But no one knows anything, and we mustn’t say things like that to Mrs. Yee.”
I leaned against her, pressed my head on her shoulder, and she reached up and touched my ear. I didn’t want to move now, and my mother was very still. I looked up at her when I felt her shake. Her eyes were shut and tears ran down her face, and she had pressed her lips together tightly, believing I wouldn’t notice.
Three days passed, and Shun-Lai did not return. Mrs. Yee fell into a kind of trance, silent and haunted, as though she craved to rejoin her daughter. I felt pity for Shun-Po and Shun-Yau as their mother receded from them and became a ghostlike creature who wandered the halls, her face sunken and lost inside her knotted hair. The only sounds she made were the shuffling of her feet and the rustle of her clothes. Her clothes almost drowned out her voice as she whispered to her children in fixed phrases throughout the day: wash your hands, come and eat, don’t go out. Her son and daughter drew back from the woman who recited these words with feeble gestures, a woman who seemed no longer there.
After that day, each time we gathered together, we were confronted by the cruel contrast in our fortunes: the Leung family remained intact while the Yees diminished. From the servants and even Mrs. Yee, I heard superstitious whisperings about the meaning of this cruelty. Sometimes at night I imagined ancestral voices muttering bitterly about it from their cold seats in the afterworld, denouncing the stacked evils of homelessness, husbandlessness, and poor eating, as though they couldn’t see the changed world outside our walls. But here among the living we were assailed by events that seemed to have no explanation, and our connections to the past grew weaker every day.
Over the next two days, I tried to fight the gloom pervading the house. Leuk and I managed to coax Shun-Yau out into the courtyard with us, and then his sister joined us, though they were withdrawn and never stayed for long. But Leuk and I revived all the quieter games that we could play outside without drawing too much attention from soldiers on patrol.
That was how we spent our last days in the house: hemmed in by our ornamental walls and our invaders, re-enacting the fragments of our former life, waiting to be thrown out into the world.
In N
ovember 2001, I went to visit my son Chris at his home in Seattle. I remember the halo of street lights at the city’s edge, porcelain white like in a surgical theatre, though softened by the rain. I had decided to visit him after the anniversary of Alice’s death, and from my first day there I felt a loneliness that followed me through his house like a python. I am not a lonely person by nature, but his house imposed it on me through its quiet greyness. He’s always been a man with little to say, withdrawn and unhappy. I was glad to see him, but I felt I needed a break. So I went for a drive and then hiked through a small suburban park until almost sundown, and in defiance of the temper of that house I climbed in my unsuitable shoes up the wet grass of a hill, pushing off an irritable mood.
I slipped a lot. My god, I thought, you’re past seventy now, get back down there. But I kept climbing, gripping trees or anchoring my feet over rocks to pull and push myself upward. The misted air collected on my face in the twilight, and I breathed harder. Then I reached the top. I leaned over, bracing my hands on my knees, and paused for several minutes.
The hilltop wasn’t much to look at, for all the effort of the climb: a derelict bench sat next to an old garbage can lying on its side, braced by tall grass. The hilltop was the size of a small yard, and the view of the city was obstructed by trees. A few yards ahead I found a statue half hidden by a sprawling yew, and I went over to inspect it. There was a rusted plaque on its base, almost illegible except for the initials W.B. and some dates. And the stone, of whatever kind, was pitted and broken over its surface, and everywhere worn to indistinctness by the weather. I ran my fingers over the statue’s face, the lips a mere rippling interruption in the lower half, the nose gone. I yearned for my son’s house again and felt bitterly cold. A sudden sharpness pierced my chest, I leaned against the statue in the wind, and I saw how much this little spot looked like a graveyard.