How We Disappeared

by Jing-Jing Lee

  ‘What do you mean he didn’t touch you,’ Huay said when I talked about Takeo the following day.

  ‘He just sat there, with his legs crossed. Talked quite a bit. And then he left.’ I referred neither to his name nor his gift of the rice ball. Any mention of food was almost worse than talking about home; provoked jealousies the way lovers might in a world outside this one.

  ‘You be careful of him. I’ve heard about men like that,’ Jeomsun said, ‘they’re always bad news.’

  I made myself stop thinking about Takeo and was surprised when he appeared again in my room two weeks later. There he was, that smile again, showing his white teeth. This time, he reached forward to touch my face. I drew back out of instinct but he didn’t mind. He sat back down and talked. When he leaned forward again minutes later, I hesitated only a little before letting myself be pushed back onto the mat. Nothing new, I thought, but for the first time, I looked up while he was on top of me, saw how he squeezed his eyes closed and wondered if, outside of this, back in my old world, I might have wanted to be with him. I was still thinking this, asking what this question meant of me when he finished, wiping himself with the edge of my dress. Before he left, he reached into his pocket and showed me a small white jewel – a sugar cube. I ate it quickly and was sorry when it was gone, the lingering sweetness a sharp ache on my tongue.

  I thought about Takeo that night and the nights after that, blinking into the dark when I should have been asleep. I didn’t want to but the thoughts came to me, as seductive and inviting as any hot meal. Perhaps I could ask him to get me out of here. Perhaps he might want me for his own. I waited. It was perhaps a month before he returned. This time, when he came in, his eyes were far away. He undressed quickly then pushed me onto the mat. I put out an arm out of surprise more than anything else. This, he took as a slight of some sort, and shoved me back, pinning me to the mat when I was down. When I reacted with a yelp, he slapped me, a tight, matter-of-fact slap. Afterwards, he put on that same smile, the smile that showed his teeth, was all politeness again when he said goodnight and left.

  I would have asked what happened if I could. But the answer was clear to me: that I was as unworthy as my parents had always suggested. That I would have been better born as a boy. Everything that I had done up until my capture – helping around the house, working at the market, was all to do with righting the wrong of my birth. Now that I was here, I wasn’t even nothing. Less than. It didn’t matter what Takeo thought of me – he was what I deserved. Someone like that. After Takeo, the men became faceless again with a few rare exceptions: one soldier seemed to me only a boy. No older than fifteen. He had said nothing as he came into my room and I heard the familiar jangle of a belt being unbuckled, then silence. I lifted my head, looked. He was kneeling. I saw his face for just a moment – a child’s face, with milk fat still on his cheeks – before he put his head in his hands and wept. He stayed kneeling as he tried to compose himself. It took him fifteen minutes. A few more and the next soldier in line would start hammering on the door. I wanted to give him a handkerchief except I didn’t have one, could only sit up as he bowed again and again, whispering something that sounded apologetic. When he recovered, he dried his face on his sleeves, stood, buckled his belt and left, shutting the door quietly behind him. His ticket lay on the floor where he’d knelt. I picked it up and put it away with the rest.

  Trapped within the black-and-white house during the day, my mind wandered through the walls, between the bars of the gate, over the fields in the dark. Most nights, I would dream about waking up at home from a savage nightmare, relieved that it wasn’t real after all. Meng, still sleepy, would clutch my hand as I brought him to school just as light was starting to colour the sky. On my way back to the village, there would be dew on the grass, shimmering like so many glass shards floating in mid-air. I would go to feed the hens and gather their eggs, still warm from the nest, then walk to the market, savouring the electricity of the place, the heat and noise. This is where I want to live, I would think. After dinner, my mother would sit by the kerosene lamp and I would listen to the pluck and weave of her sewing. Her movements set the rhythm for the evening, quieting the boys, making my father relax into his stiff, wooden chair. And then I would go to bed with my brothers next to me, kicking each other as they drifted off. I would wake up seven hours later in the dark, slide forward until my feet touched the floor, and then it was three steps across the bedroom, then six before I got into the kitchen where my mother was. There would be porridge simmering in the pot. I would ask if I should crack a single egg in it as a treat, and she would reply yes, okay.

  The first time I had this dream, I woke up thinking that I was back home. There was a wide patch of saliva on my mat and I was getting ready to inch my way off the bed when I realized I was lying on a mat, at ground level. It took a moment before I remembered, before I noticed the smell of damp in my windowless room, the sting of disinfectant, felt the chill of the cement under my hands when I reached out to touch the floor. The blow of realizing where I was took me back to my first week. I thought about drinking all the liquid in the bottle of disinfectant nearby, but I couldn’t move for the weight on my body, my chest. Each time I had this dream, I minded less the moment of waking. After a while, it was all I had to look forward to – sleep.

  It was just after the end of the rainy season when Mrs Sato announced that we had to give a performance in honour of the Japanese emperor on 29 April. The whole of Japan would be celebrating and this extended to all its territories – even Syonan-to, she said, using the Japanese name that had been given to Singapore. I looked around the bathroom as she talked, at the gaunt faces of the other girls and thought she must be blind or mad to ask this of us. Dengue fever had swept through the house for months, felling even the caretaker. But the caretaker received treatment and was given two weeks to recuperate elsewhere. During her convalescence, one girl – just twelve, the youngest I’d seen so far – had been found in her room, shaking and foaming at her mouth as the soldier she’d been servicing kicked at her, thinking it was all an act. Alone, Mrs Sato had seemed frayed. The soldier’s loud fury, and her subsequent attempts to revive the girl had drawn each of us out of our rooms to watch on helplessly as the girl flailed on the ground and then finally stopped, her face still and white. The rest of us only suffered the milder symptoms, a few days of bone-aching fever, a rash, then a long, slow period of recovery, unaided by the fact that our rations had diminished to a third of a bowl of rice for each of our two meals, and little else. What Mrs Sato was after now: a dance, ‘a bit of cheer’ as she called it, seemed impossible.

  ‘It’s an important day so I need all of you to practise once a week for the next four weeks – I would give you more time if it weren’t so busy here but there you are,’ Mrs Sato said, her cheeks ruddy with warmth. ‘Hinata,’ she pointed at Jeomsun, ‘you know what to do. Teach everyone a few songs, a dance. You’ve done this before.’

  Jeomsun was no singer but she taught us the only song we needed to know: ‘Aikoku No Hana’, Patriotic Flowers, which she had learned in Formosa. We practised every Monday, the quietest day after the rush of the weekend. It was only right before the emperor’s birthday that Mrs Sato started talking about the stage, how it would have to be set up outside, close to the trees in case it rained. For seven days, it was all I could think about. The earth, the grass and trees. Outside.

  When the day finally arrived, the six of us were led out by the caretaker and two guards towards a low, wooden platform close to the larger, main house, which was draped with Japanese flags for the occasion, the scarlet centres of them like so many blood-red suns against the white of the building. When we had got into place, one straight line in the middle of the stage, I felt – for the first time in months – the warmth on my face, arms, and legs. It had rained the night before and the air was rich with metal and earth. As we waited, the soldiers filling the rows of seats in front of us, a breeze swept through, loosening a few leaves fro
m the rain tree above us. Green blades, small as fingernails, drifted upon the stage. One landed on Huay’s head and I picked it out and held it in my sweaty hand throughout the rest of the performance. The music started without warning, and I croaked along, letting Jeomsun and the record do most of the work. It didn’t matter, the soldiers were clapping before we’d even finished. We danced and sang (mouthed to) two more songs. The men sitting through it all quietly until we got to ‘Aikoku No Hana’, the song making them spill over with pride so they got up, the mass of them swaying left and right. When the music was over, they roared ‘banzai’ and toasted each other with the cups they held in their hands. A little way off, at the far corner of the stage, was Mrs Sato. Her face was pink and glowing, as if she’d been running laps around the compound. It might have been the heat or the smoke of the men’s cigarettes, but I thought her eyes were filling, were bright with tears.

  While we sang, I couldn’t help but think the gate was just a short sprint away. A few hundred yards at most. How long would it take me? I wondered. And how long would it take for the men to draw their guns? The same men who had visited me in my tiny room, spat on me, kicked me and threatened me with their guns and knives. I stayed where I was between Huay and Jeomsun, filed back in the direction of the little black-and-white house. Once we were inside, the smell of the house alone – the rotted-fruit stink of crushed bed bugs; the deep, vinegary musk the men left behind – was enough to make me wish I’d run.

  Celebrations for the emperor’s birthday also meant time off for the men and so we worked long into the night. We were all surprised when Mrs Sato came in with extra rice balls for breakfast the next morning.

  ‘These have sour-plum centres, my daughter’s favourite. I made them myself,’ she said as she handed me my portion. ‘The army was kind enough to share its extra rations with me yesterday,’ she added under her breath, secretive, her cheeks flushed red. She watched me take a bite, smiled, and closed the door behind her.

  ‘Mrs Sato has been different, don’t you think? A little…softer.’ I asked later, in the bathroom.

  I’d expected Jeomsun to pipe up with a precious nugget of information. She had been here the longest, had experience from her time in Formosa as well, but it was Huay who spoke.

  ‘You mean yesterday? She was drunk. Most of the men were, didn’t you see? I could smell it even from where we were standing. My father, he used to…’ She stopped, the shame of this confession burning her cheeks.

  Even Jeomsun seemed surprised by this insight. ‘I know the men were drunk last night but Mrs Sato…’

  That many of the soldiers got drunk on weekends was no secret; they were usually the ones who spat on me after they were done, or who worked themselves into such a rage that they spent their twenty minutes beating and cursing me. ‘I thought something was different but I meant today. This morning –’

  ‘Well, she hides it and she’s not a bad drunk. Not like my father. He’s sneaky as well and can turn into the devil without anyone noticing him take a drink. Then the next morning he would be sick. But Mrs Sato is one of those who wake up rosy-cheeked and refreshed, like nothing happened the night before.’

  I couldn’t picture it. Except for one time when my mother was cajoled into taking a sip from my father’s glass at a wedding, I had never seen any woman take a drink of alcohol.

  Jeomsun looked around her before she whispered, ‘I heard she was a brothel owner back in Japan.’

  ‘Who said that? The caretaker?’ I asked.

  ‘No, the men. Sometimes they talk. But my Japanese isn’t very good. I might be mistaken. But this I know: she was married; her husband got conscripted and killed in Korea. That’s why she hates me so much.’ It was true. Mrs Sato never missed an opportunity to pinch her or yell at her. ‘She’s soft with you though,’ she continued, looking at me. ‘Maybe you look like someone she knew back home.’

  I waved a hand at her, dismissing the thought.

  Huay bit down on the side of her thumb and winced. ‘Do you really think she was a brothel owner?’ I knew what she was thinking: if Mrs Sato was a madam, what did this make us?

  ‘I don’t think anyone else would be able to do this. Anyone who had a normal job before the war, I mean. Don’t be fooled by her. She smiles a lot but I’ve seen her slap a girl so hard she lost two of her teeth.’

  ‘I didn’t know that. I thought she was nice.’

  ‘Huay, you think everyone is nice.’

  ‘I think… I don’t know. I think she’s just trying to survive.’

  ‘Oh, you two. Tell that to the parents who’re never going to see their daughters again.’ Jeomsun went into the cubicle, leaving us to steep in a hard silence and wish we hadn’t begun the conversation.

  To change the subject, Huay asked, ‘What did you do? You know, back home?’

  Back home. ‘Nothing much. Helped out by selling eggs and vegetables at the market.’

  ‘Oh, I remember now. I saw you at the market a few times with Yan Ling. Is that her name? Or Yan Qing?’

  ‘Yan Ling.’ Her name caught in my throat as I said it.

  ‘I was in school. You know, I’d just decided that I would go to teacher’s college straight after high school. I wanted to go back to teach in our village.’

  I know the place, I wanted to tell her. ‘What would you teach?’

  ‘Chinese and maths.’

  I shook my head admiringly. ‘I can’t even write my name.’

  For a second, I had the image of Auntie Tin writing my name in her notebook, then shook my head again, quicker this time, to rid myself of the matchmaker’s face, the feeling of falling that was about to overcome me, and watched as Huay leaned across me to write in the condensation on the mirror.

  望 弟

  ‘Wang: looking forward to, wishing, looking out at. Di: brother,’ she said. Half smiling. As if she felt sorry for me.

  That was when the image formed: there I was, waiting at the door for my brothers. Except I couldn’t remember what home looked like, couldn’t picture anything more detailed than a house made of wood. I wondered how they were doing. Imagined them going to school, playing football afterwards in the fields, and in the evening, Yang pointing out the mistakes in Meng’s Chinese homework as my father looked on, unable to help. Not for the first time, I wondered how my life would have been if I had been one of them. A boy instead of who I was. What I was now. But perhaps this was all for them – as my name suggested. My life for two of theirs.

  I could almost tell myself that I had become used to it. The fact of my new life. Except that this was not my life, couldn’t be anyone’s – not in the sense that this was an existence I (or anyone else in the house) could have chosen for myself. A life that involved each day being divided up into twenty- to thirty-minute segments, during which my body was not my own and belonged to strangers, who seemed not to think I was human. Things were done to me that I would never speak about, could only deal with by believing that it was happening to someone else – ‘Fujiko’, my changeling. Unlike me, Fujiko deserved it, this other life, because she willingly pressed her lips over rouge paper to put colour into them, and wore clothes that gave the men easy access. Fujiko received the tickets and tucked each one under her mat before she lay down on the mat. She was no one, and she was me.

  Throughout the months I wished for death, until that too became something that I didn’t seem to deserve. I kept this thought to myself, harboured it feverishly – the way I used to dream of a better life when I was living at home with my family.

  All the women in the house kept falling ill. Colds. Stomach bugs. Infections that none of us talked about because it was clear the men had passed them along to us. The three of us took care of each other in turns by saving any food we got from the soldiers and passing it along to the one who felt poorly. Other than this act of comradeship, each of us reacted to illnesses and our constant hunger in a different way. Jeomsun coped by talking about the food she would eat if she got the chanc
e again. I coped by keeping quiet and gritting my teeth.

  ‘Why don’t you say something,’ Jeomsun once begged me. ‘What hurts?’ And I – not knowing the proper words, only the ones used by men for cursing – could only point down.

  Huay, usually the most sanguine of us, turned sombre and morbid. It seemed to be a cold, this time, though it was hard to tell. Eating little else but rice made us vulnerable to infections and stomach ailments. She had become more and more lethargic, lost all her appetite. Her forehead, when I felt it, was hot to the touch and she began to complain of aches and pains. A week after that, rashes appeared on her body – scatterings of brown spots flecking her pale skin. When I asked, she said they didn’t itch, that she didn’t mind them that much, not compared to everything else.

  ‘Wang Di?’ she whispered one night. Both of us had taken to pushing our mats right next to the dividing wall so we could talk sometimes. Even when we had nothing to say, hearing her breathe or mumble in her sleep gave me a small measure of comfort. ‘Am I dying?’

  ‘Don’t talk like this. It’s just a cold. Jeomsun had it last week and now you have it… You’ll be fine.’

  ‘I feel terrible. Maybe I should ask Mrs Sato for the doctor.’

  ‘No, don’t. You know what will happen if they get involved.’

  ‘How do you know for sure? Maybe they were taken to hospital and let go afterwards. Did you actually see it happen?’

  ‘I believe what Jeomsun told us.’ I didn’t need to add that they didn’t think much of feeding us only rice and thin soup for months, much less depriving us of penicillin during the outbreak of dengue fever. I didn’t dare to imagine if it might be true, what was rumoured – that they wilfully discarded girls who were too far gone to work by bringing them to a copse and shooting them, leaving their bodies to rot in the undergrowth; or else by driving them to the centre of town in broad daylight and abandoning them by the side of the road barefoot, barely dressed. Let their own people kill them with shame and loathing.