Three Came Home

by Agnes Newton Keith

  When I was ten we moved to Venice, a near-by beachresort, for the health of my brother, Al. Here free passesenabled us to ride the roller coaster and Ferris wheel untilwe could not stand up, and gave us an early training instomach control to which we attributed our later ability tosail the sea unmoved. Our home life was ideal because ourparents loved each other and us, and we loved them, andthere is nothing more important that parents and children cando for each other.

  Meanwhile I attended school frequently enough to getcredits to admit me to the University of CaHfomia atBerkeley. From there I graduated with two engagement rings,a sorority pin, a prize for essay writing, a respect for learn-ing, and a promise of a job on the San Francisco Examiner.I got the job and started work as the lowest paid person onthe staff; I used to sit in the city room praying for fires,murders, suicides, without knowing that I was to be thecentral figure in one.

  I worked on the paper eight months and two things hap-pened: I was almost murdered by one man, and my heart wasbroken by another. The experience of a broken heart wasnot without benefit because I learned through it what qualitiesI wanted in a husband when I married again, but the brokenhead was totally destractive.

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  To Us a Son

  A loafer on the streets of San Francisco whom I had neverseen before, crazed by drugs and alcohol, decided that theExaminer was persecuting him by printing the cartoon calledKrazy Kat: Kjrazy Kat, he said, was himself. He decided tokill the first person who came out of the Examiner office,and I was that person. He swung on me with a two-footlength of iron pipe, and struck my head twice before anyonecould stop him, and fractured my skull front and back.With this injury I nearly lost my liJFe, my memory, my eye-sight, and I did lose the idea that God had created theworld primarily for me.

  After my assailant had been sentenced to prison, I wenthome to recuperate, broken physically, mentally, emotionally,if I would have admitted it. But I would not; I was living upto a picture I had painted for myself in which I was braveand courageous. Nobody knows how much I wanted to breakdown and weep in the comers, and cry out, “It’s no use! Iknow I’m done for! I can’t go on!” Instead I went to parties,rode horseback, swam, drove a motorcar, and pretended tohave fun and be human, believing throughout that I waslosing my mind.

  After two years of illness, hoping that a change wouldhelp, my father sent me to Europe with Al, who was goingto study an engineering project. The night we left home Alsaid to me, “Don’t die on me. Old Scout! I could never ex-plain it to Pop!”

  But I didn’t die; instead I began to live. Al was the besttraveling companion in the world because he let nothinginterfere with enjoyment. If we were enjoying ourselves atthe time our train was leaving, we let the train go without us.Working on this principle we toured on foot, horseback, byFord and train through England, France, Germany, Austria,Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Montenegro, and I ceasedto need to forget. When I came home everybody said, “Well,you just must be strong!”

  8 Three Came Home

  By the time we returned to the United States I was sure ofmyself again; I rented a garage and typewriter and settleddown to be a writer. Then without warning I lost the use ofmy eyes, as a result of the frontal fracture to my head, andfor two years I could not read a page of print. While havingtreatment for my eyes I started to study dancing in a Holly-wood studio, and while dancing I injured my foot. Then, asI had a clotheshorse figure, I tried modehng clothes, and be-cause of a photogenic face I did bits in the movies. Mean-while everybody said, “Poor Agnes! A girl of such promise!”

  Out of that specialized training I learned one thing — thatnone of it was what I wanted.

  Then a young Englishman who had been a friend of mybrother’s and mine since childhood came home on leave fromBritish North Borneo, where he was engaged in GovernmentService. Harry Keith had been at school in San Diego, Cali-fornia, and I had met him first as a ginger-haired schoolboyswimming in the clear pool of the Coronado Hotel. Standingdripping in blue bathing trunks one day, he had grinned atme and dared me to go down the slide in his arms. I did so,and never really got free of them afterwards.

  We had not seen each other for ten years when Harryreturned to the United States on leave in 1934. As soon as wecame together again we made up our minds to be married, andafter three days waiting for the license to mature, we were.This was completely satisfying to both of us. In that tenyears apart we had both known different lives, but we hadcome back to each other with renewed desire. We believednow that we were fated to be together.

  We were married, I had an operation on my head whichcured my eyes, and we returned to Borneo. On the way out,when we had cut loose from my world and not yet touchedhis, I said to Harry, “I am doing what I would rather bedoing than anything else in the world, with the person I’drather be doing it with.”

  He said, “I hope you feel that way after four years inBorneo.”

  And after five years in Borneo, I still did.

  Those were the facts which I gave to the publishers in 1939.

  While home on leave that year we flew from the PacificCoast to Boston for Harry to deliver some Borneo bones tothe Harvard Museum, then back to Los Angeles where wepurchased a secondhand car, then, accompanied by bilious-ness of unknown origin on my part, and malaria on Harry’s,we drove down into Mexico, then up north to Canada. ByAugust 1939 we had arrived at Victoria, British Columbia,where Harry owned a small home.

  Here we intended to wait for our sailing date to England.Harry had been given extended leave in order to take arefresher course in Forestry at Oxford, and we were lookingforward to three months of study and play in the Englandwe used to know.

  But before we sailed, September third came; war began,European states vanished, Germany rolled forward, and theBritish Empire mobilized. From that day on, Harry was tmdergovernment orders. Our leave in England was canceled, andhe was ordered to report in Borneo immediately. He wasenjoined not to enter the armed forces; his job was Borneo,his war was there.

  Every war has its tune, a song to make forever sad thehearts of those who have listened. “RoU Out the Barrel” wasthe enhstment tune in Victoria, played by the CanadianScottish on every street comer then. It followed us every-where—into the Canadian Pacific steamship office gettingour tickets changed, into the telegraph office writing cables,standing on the streets looking up to read the news bulletinsabove our heads, news which made our hearts stand still.Into the bakery and the liquor store it followed us, onto thebus and the tram.

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  Three Came Home

  And it followed us into the doctor’s office, where I learnedthat the bihousness I had been treating with calomel and saltswas a baby. Heartsickness and morning sickness are foreverinseparable now in my mind from “Roll Out the Barrel.”

  The doctor’s report on me was upsetting. Because of acuteanemia developed in the East as a result of prolonged malariaand much quinine, he said that I should not have the baby;in any case not to have the baby in Borneo, and in fact not togo East at all in the teeth of war.

  But none of this medical advice took into consideration thefact that I was first of all my husband’s wife, both beheved ourlives were cast together; both were now determined to livethem through side by side. Faced by the war, we wereespecially anxious to stay together. And both wanted that son.

  So, stocked up on iron and liver compounds and calcium,to supply what the Borneo vegetables didn’t, with a book en-titled The First Five Years of Life, with a trunkful of tweeds,woolens, and a velvet dinner gown for the winter in Englandfor which we had prepared, the nicest clothes I ever had, butwithout baby clothes or tropical cottons, we boarded theEmpress of Russia, the first transpacific steamer to Safi, afterthe war began.

  Once on board we relaxed, though conditions were not re-laxing. At least our decision was made. And the ship cut us offfrom the past and the future.

  In Victoria we had listened to the terror of war far away.Now in the ship we were in it. It was easier there, with thesubmarine menace
, with airplanes expected, living in fife belts,and being with Harry, than waiting on shore alone, to hear.Even more I became convinced of my theory: the war wasour time — we could not now escape it. To try to do so wasto fail our time.

  I was traveling on a British passport, as American passportswere not allowed East. The Empress of Russia passengers wereall civil service and military people returning hastily fromEngland to their posts in the Far East, routed via the U.S.A.

  To Us a Son 11

  because they could not get through the Suez Canal. They wereaU one-minded. I was the only alien idea.

  I fought the war two ways, on that boat. In every smoking-room conversation America was condemned for her isolation-ism: if America entered the war speedily, it might be a savingfactor; it was life against death. But from the American pointof view, if America could stay out of the war I knew sheshould do so. No nation fights to save another nation; theBritish were engaged in battle to save themselves, and I be-lieved that the Americans would have to enter that battle tosave themselves. Only time could prove that point. Meanwhilebecause my heart, my life, and my material interests were withmy husband, and he was British, I longed for anything to hap-pen which might save the British Empire. But I saw theAmerican point of view.

  From the point of view of conversation, that was the bestboat journey I have ever had. British social conversation ceasedto be social and we talked about things that mattered. Foronce, we were not afraid to be honest with ourselves, in-tellectually or emotionally. On that boat in danger I gotcloser to the heart that is England than in four yeare inSandakan.

  We were caught in a typhoon off Japan, and cut off fromradio communication for three days. When we finally ar-rived some days late at Yokohama, we read in the newspapersthat the Empress of Russia had been sunk by a German sub-marine. While sending cables home to assure our family thatwe were not drowned, we were interrupted by the Yokohamapolice and taken to police headquarters. We had been unableto get Japanese visas on our passports before leaving Victoria,and had thought to get them at Yokohama, as we had donebefore. But this time the Japanese were not being co-operative;they successfully refused to xmderstand anything we said,and held us in the police station throughout our stop in port.

  At Nagasaki, however, we overpowered the officials withAmerican cigarettes, and raced ashore in time to grab a

  12 Three Came Home

  broken-down taxi and motor along the magnificent coast linewith the choppy bright blue waves that Japanese printsalways have, and which do really exist. We drove to a moun-tain resort with an extinct volcano and a very alive inn, andonce away from official uniforms and brass buttons we foundthe people of Japan were as friendly and courteous as ever.

  In drydock at Nagasaki, the mystery ship was building —said to be designed as the largest, fastest, and most heavilyarmed ship of war in the world, waUed in for secrecy. Welooked at the high walls with apprehension.

  Arrived at Hong Kong we were immediately in the midstof war, and the one topic of conversation was. When willthe Japs start it? Most people said within six months. Womenwere expecting to be evacuated at any time, and wives whowished to remain with their husbands were taking up emer-gency nursing as an excuse for staying.

  By the time we reached Borneo, the new member of theKeith family had seen the world through as many portholes asa Marine and was kicking at it. He was now known as “LittleJo.” Little Jo had hung on for dear life despite many hazards.Conceived in Boston, diagnosed as biliousness, flown acrossthe continent twice, motored from Mexico to Canada, almostsacrificed to medical caution, cradled in a Pacific typhoon,nursed in a Japanese police station, landed in a Hong Kongheat wave, delivered to Borneo in a freighter in a squall, hehung on still. It seemed that prenatal training was alreadytrying to make Little Jo tough.

  Meanwhile Mama went from strength to strength, flourish-ing on iron and liver compounds, vitamins, and pregnancy.Everybody said I had never looked so well, but nobodyguessed the answer. Harry said it was like walking by anempty bottle in the road for years; then one day it is full ofwhiiskey, but nobody stops to pick it up, supposing it still tobe empty.

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  To Us a Son

  And so on his father’s birthday in Sandakan, North Borneo,our son was born. George was nicely tanned from the momentof birth, so much so that everyone commented on it. Thedoctor called it jaundice, but it gave him a well-done look.He had yellow hair like Harry’s but without the ginger streakand the curl. He had two complete facial expressions, both

  like Harry, one being acute amusement and the other acutedistress, and, as with Harry, there was no doubt which waswhich. He had a long head shaped like mine, and my fore-head and gray-blue eyes. He had no prickly heat, and no nose.I don’t know what happened to the nose because both Harryand I have quite a nose. But Harry said that a baby with aRoman nose would be revolting, if I ever criticized George,to hide my pride, Harry didn’t like it. He didn’t hide his pride;he said George was wonderful.

  For others, that was the awful spring. Through whiffs ofchloroform, the scent of tropical flowers, the excitement offan mail from my book, the sizzle of whiskey sodas, the sizzleof George in his basket, the hiss of mosquitoes, the hum ofcicadas, lying in the hospital, I listened to thunder overEurope, the retreat across France, the invasion of Norway

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  Three Came Home

  and Denmark. Every radio, every paper, every visitor, toldme the same thing. . . . Slowly, surely, inescapably, impend-ing disaster settled over us. We knew we were for it; Europewas far, but Japan wasn’t. There was only one good thingin our world then. That was George.

  That spring for the first time Harry and I got a radio.Radios are not much good in Borneo because the island is sur-romided by layers of loud noises. Everybody says, “Comeand listen to my new radio. You can hear Raffles’s Orchestrain Singapore, the Hong Kong Hotel, and Big Ben strikingthe hours!”

  You go and listen, and what you hear is electrical stormsenlarged, and the voice of your host saying, “I can’t under-stand what’s the matter — I got it perfectly last night! ”

  But Harry and I got a radio; it was awful to hear the news,but it was worse not to know, and somehow the war alwayscame through. That radio collected violence, outrage, terror,suffering, from the comers of the whole world, and laid themat our feet in Borneo. As we sat barefoot in our living roomon the hilltop, with every window open to the hot night air,to the scents of flowers and trees, with the wind coming upfrom the harbor with the sound of the town below, withGeorge safe asleep upstairs in his mosquito room, with theservants’ wooden clogs clattering in the back, the agony of allEurope came to us.

  Homes like ours were being blown to bits, babies likeGeorge were being lolled, lives like our own were destroyedand loves like ours were tom apart. Thus in the shadow ofEurope’s destraction, we waited with dreadful certainty forPearl Harbor.

  Again we went through the decision: Should I go home, orstay.!* Again I knew that my life was with my husband, andGeorge was part of us now, he was fated, too. If we were bomto war in our time, then we would face it together, all three.* # * * #

  To Us a Son 15

  The same year that George was bom there were sevenother white babies bom in Sandakan, an accomplishment forour small European community where usually there was onlyone poor lone child. We mothers all said, “What fun! Ourchildren won’t be alone! They can have birthdays, andChristmas parties, and lots of fun together — if — if — the wardoesn’t come!” That was behind all we thought and said.

  We were a simple group of mothers. We wheeled the kidsabout in their prams, compared them daily, talked aboutprickly heat and wet pants, brought them up by the book, hadformulas for their milk, boiled their dishes, fussed about theirstrained foods, and wanted them to have the best of every-thing. We couldn’t send home for much, because thingsalways got sunk between England and Borneo, and financialregulations forbade us to shop in the U.S.A. Perambulators,powdered milk, vitamins, diapers, came from Australia.<
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  George didn’t wear clothes much. First, because I didn’thave them, and couldn’t get them or the material in Borneo.Second, because I beheved in no clothes for babies, in a hotclimate. So George always kept his infant tan.

  The first year and a half of George’s life nothing happened.Europe crashed, civilization teetered, the world rocked, butnothing happened. It’s what goes on inside his perambulatorthat counts to a baby.

  Only once in that eighteen months was George’s future atstake. It happened like this. George slept every morning inthe garden in the pram. Changing diapers in a perambulatorunder a green canvas tropical-top shade shelter, inside amosquito net, is a trick for Houdini. I always warned Harryto be careful with the safety pins, for little boys are exposed,and a part of George usually got in the way.

  One day I was doing the changing, working at arm’slength, touch system, inside folds of mosquito net, one pin inmy mouth, the other plunging through depths of diaper,when George gave a yelp. The depths had not all been diaper!

  In horror I examined: the pin had gone in one side and comeout the other like an aboriginal phallic decoration.

  I withdrew it in horror, begging George to forgive me. Hedid: he only gave that one yelp, then looked at me in re-proach. But the yelp brought Harry and the Chinese amah,Ah Yia. It was no use my trying to explain to them; theyhad felt aU along that I wasn’t to be trusted with George.

  The wound never festered, or became infected, or evenseemed very sore; I decided that despite testimony to thecontrary, that must be an insensitive region. George nevermentioned the matter to me again. But it took a long, longtime for Harry and Ah Yin to forgive me.

  George’s name was “Mistah Groge.” So said Ah Yin, theChinese amah, Ah Kau, the Chinese cook, Arusap, theMurut boy, Usin, the native gardener, for “George” theycould not say. Harry was the Mastah or Tuan, I was Mis-see or Mem, and those honorifics by which we were aUcarefully referred to were symbolic of the Borneo we livedin then. Mistah Groge was wonderful, all our householdsaid. The house just opened and closed for him; he was thereason for our being. He fed well, slept well, howled well,and never mewled or puked.