The Harmony Silk Factory

by Tash Aw

  The journey to the Soong house was an arduous one. The glare of the sunlight was too much for my etiolated constitution and instantly my head began to swim. My legs felt shaky, and I stumbled repeatedly on the smallest pebbles. I marched on, my shirtsleeves hanging dismally from my torso; in the warm Valley afternoon I became aware that my body had become reed-thin and worn. My shoes chafed at my toes and I felt blisters begin to form. I walked through the plantation and into the yard of the Soong house. A group of men, neatly dressed in clean, smart clothes, stood leaning against a car smoking cigarettes. All shared Kunichika’s sharp, hawkish features, his muscular stance. I passed without addressing them and proceeded up the stairs, heading straight for the front door. When I reached the verandah at the top of the steps, Kunichika emerged from the house, his brow knotted tightly in a frown. He paused when he saw me, his face relaxing into a smile. He looked at me with languidly narrowed eyes, and then, wordlessly, descended the stairs and joined his cigarette-smoking coterie.

  The house was dark and cool as I stepped inside. I passed through the anteroom into the large sitting room. T. K. Soong sat at the piano, his fingers moving lithely over the keyboard. He played a Chopin nocturne, gently and easily, without any hesitation or restraint.

  “I thought you didn’t play the piano,” I said.

  He did not turn around. “A little. We all have our secrets.”

  I stood motionless, listening to him play. He remained looking into the shiny black face of the upright.

  “Your daughter,” I said. “May I see her?”

  “Snow is,” he said, over the sad, playful notes, “not here.”

  I stayed for a while, listening to him finish the nocturne and proceed seamlessly into the next one. And then I left the house. I walked down the steps and crossed the dusty yard into the plantation. The rubber trees on either side of the path stood unmoving in the windless afternoon. I passed into their shade and looked up; not a single leaf quivered. Where there was a gap in the trees sunlight fell in deep bright pools, bathing me luminous white. I walked like this, through shadows and light, until I reached the main road back to the rest house.

  “There you are!” a voice called as a car juddered to a halt next to me. It was Gerald and Una Madoc, the couple I had met at the party. “We heard you were back, but no one knew where you were,” Gerald said, out of breath as if recently returned from a long walk.

  “I’ve been—I haven’t been well, you see.”

  “Well, you could have told one of us, what with all this going on.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know there was such a fuss about things.”

  “Such a fuss?” he said. “Good God, man, haven’t you heard what’s happening?”

  “Yes,” I said, “yes, I have.”

  “Come on,” Una cried, her face flushed and agitated by the heat, “just get in the car. We have to be quick.”

  “Good boy,” Madoc said as I climbed in. “We’re rounding up the stragglers and taking everyone down to Kuala Lumpur. The plan’s to get to Singapore. There’ll be boats back to Blighty. We’ll stop to get your things. Don’t take everything—just the essentials. Be quick.”

  I knew exactly what to take, and soon we were speeding away from the rest house. In town the shops were closed, their painted concertina doors drawn firmly shut. A few people walked briskly in the street, and a lorry was being loaded with sacks of rice, but otherwise the main street was quiet. On the outskirts we found ourselves caught behind a herd of cattle. They milled indolently in the road, ignoring the harsh barks of the cowherd. We fell into a slow crawl behind them, Madoc furiously gesticulating at the skinny half-naked boy who flailed pathetically at the cows with his rattan whip.

  “I couldn’t believe it,” Una said quietly, “I just couldn’t believe it. The Prince of Wales, my God. Could you?”

  “No,” I said, clutching my satchel to my belly.

  The road began to widen, curving towards the river, and the cattle broke into a lazy trot.

  “A lot of us were hit hard when we heard the news,” Madoc said. “We couldn’t believe the Japs could do that to us. One of the chaps was at the naval base in Singapore when the Prince of Wales docked, and he said it was unsinkable.”

  A small row of whitewashed houses appeared before us, sheltered by a colossal banyan tree; I remembered that I had been here before, with Johnny. I remembered that we sat on the riverbank and talked about how he would make this his new home. He talked about where he would position his bed—facing the window, looking out onto the wide sweep of the river, so that Snow would be able to rise to this view every morning. His eyes shone when I suggested filling the courtyard with earthenware pots decorated with dragons, with lilies and goldfish. He laughed when I asked him about children. “When I have a son,” he said, “he will inherit this place. He will inherit the home that I built. No, that you built.” And then he threw back his head and chirruped with laughter.

  Johnny was standing in front of this house as the car crept past. The sight of him did not surprise me, for in truth I was expecting him. Boxes were piled high at the entrance, and all the doors and windows lay open. Johnny stood shirtless in conversation with a few labourers. He shielded his eyes from the sun as he spoke.

  “Bloody animals,” Madoc cursed through his moustache, the car slowing to a halt.

  Johnny was pointing to a spot on the façade, making wide circling sweeps with his arms, and the workers were nodding acquiescently. He turned around and looked at the car, and for one dreadful second caught my eye. His openmouthed face fell silent, the light in his widened eyes dying even as it flickered to life. I allowed my eyes to glaze over, fixing my gaze at some point in the distance, as if I had not seen him. And then I bowed my head and turned away.

  “At last,” said Una. The cattle were beginning to scatter across the widening road, and the car picked up speed.

  I wanted to look back but didn’t. Cows cantered clumsily alongside the car until the herd parted and the open road lay before us. It began to drizzle, a light flurry of brilliant watery jewels glinting in the sunlit sky. I lifted my face to the open window, feeling the gathering breeze on my skin as the car sped through the glittering afternoon.

  “When the ships sailed into Singapore there were so many people there to greet them,” Una was saying. “It was just like Portsmouth, wasn’t it, Gerald, Portsmouth in Navy Week? And now it’s all gone.”

  MY TAXI IS LATE and I am impatient. “Hujan,” rain, the porter-cleaner-cook said, shrugging, when I went to complain a few minutes ago. It explains everything, the rain. Power cuts? Hujan. No post? Hujan. What, no vegetables at dinner? Hujan. Why are you looking so sad today? Hujan. It drips steadily from the eaves outside my window, forming trembling pools on the flagstones below. Out over the silent sea the rain falls in fluttering pulses, like great lengths of translucent cloth caught by the wind. The shapes float across the broad and empty sky, chasing after one another until finally they fade, sinking into the sea.

  I sit at my desk and survey my room. Nothing is out of place. The bed is neatly made and not a single objet appears on the surface of the tables. Inside the cupboards and drawers only a few items of clothing and two pairs of shoes remain. I am certain that these will soon find new owners amongst the impoverished, eagle-eyed staff here (who, mercifully, appear untroubled by sartorial trends). When I am removed no one will be able to tell that anyone lived here. All that will remain is a large room of spartan furnishing. The new occupant will move in and fill the place with his own dismal ephemera, and all traces of me will soon be erased.

  I am taking nothing with me to Kampar. Only a small box, carefully wrapped in a piece of moonlight-blue cloth. Before I secured the parcel with string I paused and looked at its contents one more time. My drawings for the garden, folded and laid flat at the bottom of the box. On top of that a notebook whose crinkled, yellowed pages I have read a thousand times before, the words repeating nightly in my head. I opened it
one last time and looked at the even, rounded handwriting. And then I returned it to the box, along with the final item—a torn fragment of a photograph. In it I am standing alone. My right hand is missing from the picture; the jagged tear runs through my forearm, leaving me marooned and disabled in the jungle. I fill in the image of Snow, composing her from nothingness as I have done countless times before, and the picture becomes whole again. I can see her sitting next to me. My hand rests on her shoulder; she does not shrink from me, but moves her neck to receive my tentative touch. It is my birthday. Though we do not yet realise it, we are already somewhat in love. I am frowning but impossibly youthful; she is placid and half-smiling, her cheeks flushed, hot. In the distance a ravaged building rises from the trees. My gorgeous ruin, fading, as I am, on the sepia-tinted paper.

  I hesitated for a moment after I wrapped the box in its silken cloak. I wanted to fling it from my window, out onto the soggy lawn, and myself with it. But I breathed deeply, and the murmur of doubt soon passed. And I am resolute: I shall take these things with me to Kampar and present them at the funeral to the son whom the newspapers say survives his father; they say his name is Jasper. I have no other gift for him, only this little box. So many lives have I changed, destroyed. It makes little difference now, Wormwood.

  Forty years have passed since I last saw Jasper. My body has begun to dissolve into the dank air of forty long monsoons and the desiccating heat of forty dry seasons, and yet, strangely, I know I will recognise him. How little he will have changed since the last time, when I stumbled across a group of children at play by a riverbank. He will be older now, his hair will be streaked with grey and his face scarred by the passage of time, but he will be as blithe and carefree as the day he spoke to me, the day when my meanderings led me innocently to him.

  Correction: I was never innocent. Even that day, when I had resolved to spend some time in meditative, monastic isolation in the cleansing air of Fraser’s Hill, the purity of my intentions was quickly sullied by the primeval bitterness that resides deep within me; and soon I found I was driving towards the low heart of the Valley, where the flatlands are cleft in two by the great river. I was drawn by the languid flow of the muddy water; the river would run along the road for a time, appearing between gaps in the trees before curving out of view again. I followed it unthinkingly, until finally I came to the outskirts of a small town where the view of the river broadened and bade the weary traveller stay for a moment or two. I knew this place. Did I know that my journey would lead me here? I think, perhaps, I did. I left the car and walked to the riverbank. I could hear the carefree calls of children at play, the splashing of water over the stillness of the afternoon. I sat in the shade of an immense banyan tree, watching the children swing from its thick hanging vines, arcing ever higher into the air, again and again, as if hoping to break free from the constraints of gravity and propel themselves forever into the heavens. They fell silent, unsettled by my presence, and huddled together in the shallows. I shifted uncomfortably, preparing to move away, when one of them swam from his shoal and walked up the slippery bank towards me. He was a boy of ten, perhaps, his slender nakedness unwearied and unencumbered yet by the awfulness of life. The boldness of his loose-limbed stride made me shrink away; I could not bear to look him in the face. I knew—immediately and absolutely—who he was. I heard the wet slap of mud under his feet as he ran the last few steps towards me, slowing to a halt. I felt the weight of his stare but still I continued to look into the distance, pretending not to notice him. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him examining every line, every tiny imperfection on my face, and I felt my skin grow hot. How easy it would be to turn my head now, I thought, and smile. How easy. But I did not. I looked away instead, at the unmoving clumps of elephant grass on the other side of the river, the white spears of their cotton-tipped flowers rising proud above the dull green carpet. At last he walked to the base of the tree and began to climb its lower branches, and then he paused and turned towards me one last time. “You look just like my father,” he said, his voice playful, teasing. “So sad.” And with a laugh he was away again, shimmying and scrambling until he was halfway out on a broad bough. He reached for a vine and, in one fluid motion, launched himself into the air. He went so high I thought the vine might break, but it did not. At the zenith of his untrammelled flight he tilted his head, lifting his chin to face the sun. For a moment—a moment that is embalmed in my mind’s eye—he remained utterly motionless, fixed against the cloudless sky, his arms flung deliriously behind him, face thrust forward to confront the world. Jasper. Clear as crystal, the foundation of a new Jerusalem. Only I was marooned outside the city walls. And then he fell headlong into the river beneath, sinking into its depths. I gathered myself and ran to my car, breathing hard in the damp afternoon. For a second I thought that tears had begun to form in my eyes but I blinked once, twice, and realised that it was just the dust, and soon I was on the road once more, heading away from the Valley. I think I was humming, though I cannot remember the tune.

  So. Here I sit. Old Mat Saleh, waiting to be taken away, singing in his broken voice. Dove sono i bei momenti? The mosquito net shivers in the wind. Outside, the rain. Hujan, hujan. Nothing more to do. Consummatum est.

  The Harmony Silk Factory

  by Tash Aw

  READERS GUIDE1. “As far as it is possible, I have constructed a clear and complete picture of the events surrounding my father’s terrible past.” These are Jasper’s words for the reader as he begins his story. Has he accomplished his stated mission with the information available to him? What kind of bias does he bring to his interpretation of events?

  2. In Johnny’s house Jasper has learned that things are often not what they seem. The Harmony Silk Factory was a front for his father’s illegal business. His uncle Tony rose to a position of prominence as a hotelier by cleverly concealing his lack of sophistication and schooling. Johnny Lim isn’t Jasper’s father’s real name; he supposedly named himself after Johnny Weissmuller. Did these observations prepare you for the ambiguity yet to come?

  3. Snow repeatedly describes Johnny as childlike and quiet. Peter is obviously fond of Johnny, and dotes on him almost to the point of condescension: “His face was suffused with an unspoilt innocence that I had never seen in all my Occidental years.” How do these disparate characterizations of Johnny affect your view of Jasper and his story?

  4. In contrast to Snow’s place in Peter’s life, Peter is something of a peripheral figure in Snow’s life. She seems only faintly aware of him, and her comments indicate that she does not take him particularly seriously. After reading part three, who has your sympathy? Why?

  5. In part three, Honey confronts Peter with his version of the truth, claiming that Snow’s father is the true architect of their trip to the island and that Peter has wildly unrealistic expectations vis-à-vis his relationship with Snow. Peter reacts with extreme violence. What pushes him over the edge?

  6. What is Honey’s role in the grand scheme of the novel? What is his professed reason for being in Malaysia? Do you trust him?

  7. Discuss the sexuality of the characters and how it influences their relationships with one another.

  8. Throughout The Harmony Silk Factory, the reader is exposed to the various ways in which people attempt to capture history. In part one, Jasper consults all kinds of sources that might help him piece together his father’s life, even going so far as to relay a textbook description of Johnny’s village. Snow’s diary presents another form of record keeping, as does Peter’s memoir. What does the author seem to be saying about how the truth is obtained?

  9. How does the three-part structure of the novel affect your ability to collate the story, and how does that experience mirror Jasper’s quest for information?

  10. Snow is paranoid about her diary falling into the wrong hands. Are her fears well-founded? Did you think about how events in the story might have been altered depending upon who read her diary?

  11. What f
orces are at work in the political environment of mid-twentieth-century Malay, and how do they surface in the lives of the characters?

  12. Discuss the following quote, which Jasper attributes to Johnny: “Death erases all traces, all memories of lives that once existed, completely and forever.” Jasper goes on to say that this was “the only true thing [Johnny] ever said.” In part three, Snow tells Peter that she believes death “erases all traces of the life that once existed, completely and forever.” She adds, “Of course we help it in its task—we’re the ones who do the forgetting.” Do you agree?

  13. As the central character in each of the three narratives, Johnny should be the best-understood character, yet in the end there are more questions than answers. Is he a traitorous opportunist in cahoots with Mamoru Kunichika? Is he a Communist hero working with his sights set on social justice for his people? Is he an Horatio Alger or a Machiavellian tyrant? A social climber or a passive doormat? Discuss your assessment of Johnny’s motives.

  14. Why does Peter deny having known Johnny in part three, when Alvaro reads Johnny’s obituary to Peter and Gecko?

  15. At the end of part three it’s suggested that Snow’s diary is among the items that Peter gives to Jasper at Johnny’s funeral. At the end of part one, it’s also suggested that Jasper disregards the parcel from “the old Englishman in the wheelchair,” classifying it as just another trinket to add to the pile in his trunk. What effect would the contents of Snow’s diary have on Jasper’s research? Would the new knowledge soften his feelings toward his father and/or harden his feelings toward Snow?