Waiting for Venus - A Novel

by Robert Cooper

  ‘But there is nothing to suggest Chin Peng was behind that revenge killing; I suppose we could ask him yet again and mention your name or names. But he’s living in Beijing now and while Beijing and Singapore are friendly, we have yet to become the best of friends. And you might brush up on your history. Chin Peng was born Ong Boon Hua – like you, he adopted an alias. He did not take the word of a clansman against that of a Malay, since Chin Peng was never a Chin.

  ‘The large sums salted away by Chin Jin-Hui – with or without your assistance – were never found. Millions of dollars’ in gold and silver collected to help resistance against the Japanese remained with Chin Jin-Hui until his death and then mysteriously disappeared. Since you were working with Jin-Hui during the last year of the war, perhaps you got your hands on it.’

  ‘If I had the money, I would have spent it by now. You see how I live. Half my salary went into keeping my wife alive. I don’t even have a car. Anyway, if Chin Peng had been suspicious of me, I would not have lived longer than Harry Chin’s father.’

  Silence. Point to Ra’mad.

  ‘Who killed Harry Chin’s father?’ the super demands bluntly.

  ‘How would I know,’ Ra’mad whines.

  ‘Because you worked with the Japanese on their death list; people to be eliminated as enemies of Japan.’

  ‘I had to do that. They’d have killed me if I didn’t. I only gave them names of people safely in the jungle with Chin Peng.’

  ‘One of whom was Bernard Fox. And another who had never been in the jungle in his life. You worked with him in Singapore. Harry Chin’s father, Jin-Hui.’

  ‘Yes. But Chin’s father was playing a double-game and the Japanese knew it towards the end, so I told them what they already knew. They let him live because he was important in business circles. They used him to give orders to Chinese commerce and to pass false information to the British in Ceylon. But I warned Ceylon. None of the false information he passed to the British was acted on, but the Japanese did not know that and Jin-Hui escaped with his life until after the Japanese defeat.’

  ‘When somebody came for him, tortured him and strung the body up outside his own house for everyone to see the traitor. Who did it?’

  ‘I don’t know who did it but I can guess who ordered it done.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Bernard Fox. With the blessing of Chin Peng. Rumour had it the two of them were hand in glove, even at the height of the Emergency.’

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘I said rumour. Word was that Li Fang, that idiot at Guild House, continued to act as messenger for Chin Peng throughout the Emergency. I would guess Fox took advantage of the lawless period between Japanese and British rule and had Chin Jin-Hui killed – and Li Fang led the execution party.’

  ‘You’re saying Fox, a colonial civil servant awarded an OBE for his anti-Japanese role and one of the first Singapore nationals after Independence, was working against the British and against the Federation?’

  ‘Chin Peng got an OBE at the same time as Fox. A lot of men played double games.’

  ‘That’s true! But if Bernard Fox and Li Fang killed Chin Jin-Hui, what happened to the war loot after Jin-Hui died?’

  ‘If you are asking for my opinion, Superintendent, just for my opinion mind, I would say either the hiding place died with Jin-Hui or someone took the stuff. Perhaps there wasn’t all that much and Jin-Hui gave it away. He did leave large amounts to the Chinese University and to his son, Harry Chin. On the other hand, maybe Jin-Hui talked before he died and the treasure passed into the hands of Li Fang or Bernard Fox.’

  ‘Professor Fox left no great treasures in his Will. As for Li Fang, he doesn’t act like a man with a fortune tucked away.’

  ‘Who would? There are still people around who would settle old scores.’

  ‘Perhaps you are one of them, Ali. Was it to repay an old score that you killed Professor Fox? Or was it in the hope of getting your hands on the loot you thought he might have?’

  ‘I did not kill him, Superintendent.’

  ‘You have no alibi, had the opportunity and had what nobody else has – a motive. Perhaps two motives. The lure of gold and to ensure Bernard Fox remained silent about your past. Perhaps three motives: you were next in line to become dean.’

  ‘You might say the same for Harry Chin. Now, with or without your permission, I am going to get a cold drink from the refrigerator. If you want one, the offer is still there.’

  Barnaby picks just that moment to charge into Ra’mad’s kitchen and cannonballs into the back of my legs, blocking my retreat for two vital seconds. David’s hyperactive reflexes have already taken him out onto the staircase. Ra’mad walks straight into my face.

  ‘What the …? How long have you been here?’

  Before I can think of a reason for my presence, Ra’mad calls out to the superintendent. ‘Doctor Haddock has just come up to say it’s already very late and they are waiting for me to join them at lunch. Any objections, Superintendent?’

  The super is with us instantly. I must look guilty as hell. ‘The invitation extends to you, Superintendent. There is plenty for everybody.’

  ‘Thank you, Doctor Haddock, but I must decline. As for you, Doctor … er … Ra’mad, I will speak to you again very soon.’

  * * *

  Ours is not the jolliest of lunches. Ra’mad, David and I are mute. Ra’mad picks at his pie until he sees the super drive off, then pleads that he has much to do if he is ever to get his wife into the ground and scurries off back to his rats. K and Venus immediately ask what I overheard in Ra’mad’s flat. My suspicions raised by K’s false alibi rise to the surface of my mind, advising caution.

  ‘Do you mind if I don’t tell you just yet?’ I say lamely.

  ‘Of course we mind!’ Venus retorts.

  ‘Come on, David,’ K coaxes. ‘If Haddock has gone weird, you tell us.’

  I shoot David a look of ferocity. It’s Bernard’s look rather than mine.

  ‘I’d rather not say,’ David answers. ‘Sorry.’

  I know David’s resistance will last no longer than the steak and kidney pie. I am not sure why I do not want to share the news. But I don’t. ‘Lovely pie, Toshi,’ Venus says pleasantly within the tension. ‘Pity I’ve got to be off to work. Anybody like a lift into town? David? Toshi?’ They both almost rush out with Venus, who is sure to winkle everything out of David before they clear the campus.

  I grab K before he too can leave; I feel more than a bit annoyed with him. ‘Look, K, it wasn’t clever of you to invent such a pathetic alibi, particularly after your first one failed. Saying you were here when Bernard died was stupid. What if I had told the super the back bedroom was empty that night?’

  ‘Now, now, Haddock, don’t be rhetorical and hypothetical, especially at the same time. I was here. You simply did not see me here.’

  ‘I did not see you. I also did not play any music that evening.’

  ‘Is my word not good enough for you?’

  ‘Have you told the superintendent who was in the back room with you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘Maybe I didn’t feel like it, Haddock. Now, stop asking questions and tell me what you heard upstairs.’

  ‘Maybe I don’t feel like it.’

  ‘Please yourself.’ With that, K walks proudly out to his car, drives off and disappears.

  15

  Bernard’s War

  ALONE. K HAS GONE and I’m glad; sometimes he’s just too … too … K. Venus is at work, making news. David and Toshi are playing away. Agnes jogs back home. The sun sets. The cicadas start screaming. I retreat to the kitchen. Bernard calls me from his carrier bag. I pick him up and carry him through to my bedroom. I switch on my reading light and stack the notebooks beside me on the bed in the order Bernard wrote them. Time to find out what he was like at my age, so very long ago.

  A world war is raging but Bernard gets only snippets of
news in his jungle seclusion; snippets brought back by his wife after meetings with Li Fang. His initial boredom is replaced by Syep; the girl who gave him the first notebook and keeps him supplied with fresh ones and pencils. By book twenty-seven, into Bernard’s third year in the jungle, they are a couple and have a two-year-old daughter, the one Bernard mentioned in his post-mortem letter: Syou – also known as Norsiah, the cleaner. Far from the rest of the world, Bernard keeps track of the calendar as days move into months and years. He’s no Robinson Crusoe. He has plenty of company; he calls it splendid company in splendid isolation.

  It’s all there: sumpatan blowpipes, poison-tipped darts, quiet kills in the forest, clear mountain streams, comradeship around an evening fire, split-bamboo beds, shaman’s magic, nose flutes at sunset, stories told as mothers suckle their young. Beautiful people … naked breasts. As I read on, I feel I am there with him.

  Some things he finds unlovable, like hunting monkeys and grilling them over a fire; Bernard says they look like children and refuses the meat. His wife loves it; the two do not agree on everything. One book is full of Semai words, a sort of dictionary, with the English and Malay equivalents and notes on syntax. He learns Syep’s language and uses it.

  Back propped against pillows, I’m happily in another world. Looking at my clock, it’s after 10.00. Will Venus call by after work? Maybe she’ll send a message through Li Fang. I’m learning such a lot about him from Bernard’s journal. He wasn’t with Bernard most of the time, not until towards the end, when he daren’t return to Singapore. Bernard writes about him as a welcome visitor and as Syep’s childhood friend. Seems Syep and Li Fang had a history, although Syep never went to school and Li Fang got the best education available. Bernard wonders if there was anything more to their relationship, but doesn’t seem worried if there was.

  Bernard saw more of Chin Peng than of Li Fang. He calls him Boon in the texts – a reference to Chin Peng’s birth name, Ong Boon Hua, but I only know this because Wong mentioned it when questioning Ra’mad upstairs.

  Bernard and Chin Peng seem to spend more time playing chess together than planning sabotage. Unlike Li Fang, Chin Peng had gone mostly to Chinese-language schools before the war; he is keen to improve his English and does so with Bernard. The two discuss widely – politics, history and philosophy – and Bernard is impressed. The undisputed leader of the stay-behind forces teaches Bernard to use a tommy gun but won’t allow him to practice with scarce ammunition; he insists the training is only for Bernard’s self-protection in case the camp is attacked and he refuses Bernard’s pleas to accompany sabotage missions with the words, ‘You’re just the wrong colour’.

  Bernard worries whenever Syep is away from the camp. She is the contact person who meets Li Fang in a small town three hours’ jungle walk away. Li Fang carries news about the larger war from Singapore, obtained over covert wireless sets tuned into allied forces in Ceylon; he also relays operational messages like supply airdrops verbally through Syep. In return, she gives Li Fang news of sabotage activities and Japanese troop movements. All goes well until one day Syep fails to return by sundown.

  * * *

  ‘Syep’s late back today.’ I say to Boon, seeking reassurance as I move my queen.

  ‘You’re not concentrating,’ Boon pins my queen to her king with his protected rook. ‘Don’t worry, Syep is safe with Li Fang. She’ll bring us good news, I’m sure. Maybe the British counter-attack has begun.’ He pours another splash of arak into my enamel cup and tops up with water. ‘Cheers.’

  It’s at times like these that I feel myself less the white man’s burden as the burden of being a white man. I can’t go looking for my wife because of the way I look. A white man in the jungle is just too noticeable, too tempting to report to the Japanese for a reward; if seen, I would risk the entire camp by being white.

  ‘Be nice if that counter-attack does materialise,’ I say. ‘But I’ve been sitting here for three years waiting for such news, so I’m not holding my breath.’ I lift Syou into the air and swing her from side to side; she loves that. I should be fighting Japanese, not drinking arak, playing chess and babysitting. ‘Can’t you let me go with you on your next sabotage do? You taught me how to use a tommy gun but won’t let me fire it.’

  ‘Once the Japs are on the run, I promise you can come with us and hurry them along. It can’t be long now. With the Germans on the run, it might be just days before America opens an Asian offensive. Let’s see what news Syep brings back.’

  ‘I’m worried. She’s never been this late before.’

  Boon suddenly jumps up and runs to the edge of our clearing. I look up. Li Fang comes out of the trees. He shouldn’t be here. That’s not in the plan. He looks exhausted. The two of them yammer urgently. Boon goes to the alarm rod and bangs it frantically, yelling in Hokkien, ‘Alarm. Emergency. Move camp. This is not a drill.’

  Li Fang approaches me, ‘Tom, I’m sorry …’

  * * *

  Empty pages follow. I am left wanting to know what happened. I skim through the other 26 books in case I somehow missed book 28. I haven’t. I must imagine the rest of Bernard’s war. I hear a familiar car outside my shutters. Venus. Time for a Tiger.

  16

  Enter the Baron

  WHEN THE TAMIL GIRL who makes tea comes into my office and says, ‘Doctor Chin wants to see you,’ I’m surprised. It’s rare for Chin to call for one of his staff. ‘He just wants you, now, in his office, without Barnaby.’ She offers to Barnaby-sit. Thus, dog-free, I approach the chamber of Chin and knock at the door.

  Chin sings out a merry ‘jin lai’. Why’s he speaking Chinese to the backside of his door? Even Chin can manage ‘come in’, he knows I’m not Chinese. I press down on the handle slowly. ‘Jin lai ba,’ Chin calls again. Hesitantly, I open the door.

  Four people sit talking in Mandarin. Chin, Super Wong, Li Fang and the ageing bronze god with the finest of patinas who wanted to use the phone I don’t have, the one with the VW problem. The Adonis sports an immaculately tailored short-sleeve shirt and a pastel flowered tie of matching silk; both look as casually expensive as his golden skin. It’s the first necktie I’ve seen on open-neck campus in two years. His close-cropped hair denies rather than defies age. An Aryan nose – of course. A firm jaw clean-shaven. A square head, clean-angled. Muscles well-toned. I put him around Bernard’s age but much better preserved. He’s the kind of physical jerk who plays tennis every evening, swims ten lengths before his morning muesli, goes sailing at weekends, skis down Mont Blanc in avalanche season, punches sharks on the nose, never wears a condom and takes daily water-soluble Vit C. I dislike him instantly.

  ‘Doctor Haddock,’ Chin says, as if explaining a regrettable smell.

  The stranger stands, stretches out a golden hand and I have to surrender my palm to its firm and solid grip as his eyes – ice blue, wouldn’t you know – fix on mine and his thin lips part just wide enough to show a gleaming set of real teeth. His head inclines briefly forward and I half expect him to click his heals. He is horribly assured and upper crust. The cruel thought crosses my mind that this is the genuine Übermensch version of the man K pretends to be. I am chilled. Chin’s air-con is too cold.

  ‘Von Führer Düsseldorf,’ he says.

  ‘What?’ I ask, wondering for a moment in what language Zarathustra spake.

  ‘Baron Fon Fu Rer Du Se Dof,’ Chin repeats the introduction and then corrects himself, ‘Professor Baron Fon Fu Rer Du Se Dof.’

  ‘Herr Professor Baron Fon Fu Rer Du Se Dof,’ Bernard says in my mind. From the tone, it sounds like Bernard likes him less than I do.

  ‘Call me Adolf,’ says the Baron.

  Chin rattles a rattan chair; I sit on it.

  ‘Adolf will teach anthropology,’ Chin says in English.

  ‘Where?’ I ask, aiming my question between Chin and the Baron. Only K and I teach anthropology in Singapore. Maybe, I think, he’s just passing through on his way back to Düsseldorf after swimming the Pacific. W
ishful thinking.

  ‘I vill lecture here. Doctor Voolf’s courses. Ve vill be vorking together, you and I. Harry has invited me to be Visiting Professor. I understand you vill give me the run down on the anthropology here, yes? I look forward to our social intercourse.’

  ‘Coffee?’ asks Chin, reaching for the pot.

  ‘Tea,’ I say, just to be awkward.

  ‘We must call the girl,’ Chin says in Mandarin – I can just about understand that much.

  ‘Never mind,’ I say magnanimously. ‘Coffee is fine.’

  ‘I have known Adolf a long time,’ Chin says. ‘And father.’

  Since Chin never knew his father, I gather he means his father knew VD; must have been a WWII connection. ‘You’ll be working with Doctor Woolf and me?’

  ‘No, Doctor Haddock. I’ll be vorking only vith you.’

  ‘What about K … Doctor Woolf?’

  My question is answered by the super.

  ‘You don’t know Doctor Woolf disappeared four days ago?’

  ‘Disappeared? He didn’t say anything to me.’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to know,’ says the super seriously. ‘Was there no indication he might suddenly disappear? You see more of Woolf than anybody.’

  ‘None at all. I can stand in for his lectures; I have before.’

  ‘Not necessary now Adolf is with us,’ Chin informs me, delight in his voice.

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’ the super asks.

  ‘When we had lunch with Ra’mad, four days ago.’

  ‘Not since? I thought Woolf was in and out of your flat all the time?’

  ‘We are usually in regular contact.’

  ‘He’d have told you if he planned to go away? Asked you to take over his teaching duties and so on?’

  ‘Normally, Superintendent. But maybe he drove off for a short trip and his car broke down.’