“It must have been very hard to make them leave,” he says, reaching for her hand.
She shakes him away.
“It’s fine, Will. Please don’t be sentimental right now. I couldn’t stand it.”
“What day is it?” he asks.
“Almost Christmas. The twentieth, I think.” She looks wistful. “The parties should be in full swing by now.” Then, “Will.”
“Trudy.”
“I’ve some things I’ve had to hide, but I want you to know where, because if something happens, you should go get them.”
“Like?”
“I’ve a lot of money that my father gave me before he went to Macau, and my jewelry too. Altogether, it’s worth a lot of money . . . more than enough to live on for ages.”
“I’ll take note but I don’t need it, if that’s what you’re implying. I’ll be fine with what I have.”
“And I hired a box at the bank, the main one. And I’ve your name and Dominick’s name down as people who can access it. But the thing is you have to both sign for it, unless one is dead, so you have to get along. Although I imagine things are different in wartime. There’s a key. It’s in the planter off my bedroom window in the flat. I’ve brought it inside, and it’s just filled with earth. It’s on the bottom, so you’ll have to dig it out. But if there’s no key, you can still get to it—it will just take a bit longer. Legal things, you know.”
“Noted,” he says.
“You must remember,” she says. “You really must.”
Angeline emerges from her bedroom in a dressing gown and they explain about the missing servants. She collapses into a chair.
“I don’t understand,” she says again and again. “They’ve been with me for years.” Quickly, she becomes practical. “Did they take anything?”
They hadn’t thought to look. They go to the pantry and see their fast-dwindling supplies—rice, a few potatoes and onions, flour, sugar, a few soft apples—untouched.
“Servants get a raw deal,” Will says. “They’re always the last thanked and the first accused.”
“This is survival,” Angeline says. “I’m surprised they didn’t take anything. I would have, and not had a single qualm.”
“Let’s all have a drink,” Trudy says.
“That’s the most sensible thing you’ve said all week,” Will says.
He goes to get a bottle of scotch—they are not in danger of running out of liquor anytime soon. They pour glasses, turn on the radio, and the announcer is reading a message from Churchill. “The eyes of the world are upon you. We expect you to resist to the end. The honor of the empire is in your hands.”
“We’re being abandoned,” Trudy says. “They’re not doing anything to help us. What do Churchill and the goddamned British empire expect us to do? ” Her eyes look hard and glassy but Will sees they are filmed with tears.
Every day leaflets fall from the sky, Japanese planes whirring overhead and letting loose propaganda, all over the colony, telling the Chinese and the Indians not to fight, to join with the Japanese in a “Greater Far Eastern Co-Prosperity Sphere.” They’ve been collecting them as they fall on the ground, stacking them in piles, and Trudy wakes up on Christmas Day and declares a project, to make wallpaper out of them. In their dressing gowns, they put on Christmas carols, make hot toddies, and—in a fit of wild, Yuletide indulgence—use all the flour for pancakes, and paste the leaflets on the living room wall—a grimly ironic decoration. One has a drawing of a Chinese woman sitting on the lap of a fat Englishman, and says the English have been raping your women for years, stop it now, or something to that effect, in Chinese, or so Trudy says.
“Hmmm . . .” she says. “Isn’t this a drawing of you and me?” She sits on his lap, puts her arms around his neck, and bats her eyes. “Please, sah, you buy drink for me?”
“It’s of me and Frederick, you idiot,” says Angeline. “Look at how fat the man is.” It’s the first time she’s mentioned her husband in days.
Another leaflet has two Orientals facing each other and shaking hands. “Japanese and Chinese are brothers. Do not struggle and join our side,” translates Angeline.
“They seem to have forgotten Nanking,” Trudy says. “They weren’t so fraternal then, were they?”
“I feel . . . oppressed,” says Angeline. “I think we should turn Will in, don’t you, darling?”
“I think that fellow is Dominick.” Will points to one of the Chinese figures.
“Don’t joke about that,” Trudy pouts. “Why do you think we have so much food? Dommie’s taking care of us, and I don’t really care how at this point.”
“Point taken but not agreed with,” Will says. “Why are those damn leaflets so obvious and inflammatory?”
They hear a car motoring up the driveway and tense their shoulders. Trudy runs to the window and tentatively lifts up the drape.
“It’s Dommie! ” she shouts with relief and goes to open the door.
“Speak of the devil.” Will sits down.
Dominick enters and unwraps a muffler from around his neck.
“Merry Christmas and all that,” he says, languid even in the midst of war.
“And to you,” Will says.
“I’ve brought a few provisions to make it feel extra holiday-ish.” He brandishes a basket from which he extracts the South China Morning Post, a tin of pressed duck, a sack of rice, a loaf of bread, two jars of strawberry jam, and a fruitcake. The women clap their hands like pleased children. “Can you make anything with this, Trudy?” He sprawls into a chair, elegant limbs splayed out, the hunter having provided for his women.
“I’m hopeless in the kitchen, you know that.” Trudy grabs the newspaper.
“ ‘Day of good cheer,’ ” she reads. “That’s the headline. ‘Hong Kong is observing the strangest and most sober Christmas in its century-old history.’ ”
“It’s as if Hong Kong didn’t exist before the English got here,” Dominick interrupts.
“Shut up, I’m reading,” Trudy says. “ ‘Such modest celebrations as are arranged today will be subdued. . . . There was a pleasant interlude at the Parisian Grill shortly before it closed last night when a Volunteer pianist, in for a spot of food before going back to his post, played some well-known favorites in which all present joined with gusto.’ ” She looks up. “People are at the Grill and I’m not? That’s a travesty if I ever heard one. I’ve been isolated up here in the Peak and people have been going out? Have you been going out, Dommie? And how dare you not take me with you! ”
“Trudy. It’s not good for women to be out these days. You should be tucked away, safe, at home. Now, mend my trousers and make us some lunch.”
She throws the paper at his head.
“What’s the news?” Will asks.
“Not good for England,” Dominick says easily. “They’re outnumbered and outclassed. There are just so many Japanese and they’ve been properly trained. They’re on the island already, swarming around everywhere. They landed the night of the eighteenth. The English are depending on soldiers who haven’t been trained on the terrain and don’t know what to do. The chain of command is not being well executed. And malaria’s running rampant.”
Will notices Dominick is careful not to say “we” or “our.”
“So we’re not doing well, it sounds.”
“No,” Dominick says evenly. “You are not doing well at all. I think it’s only a matter of time. The governor’s a fool, rejected an offer of cease-fire with some absurd British proclamation of superiority. Has his head in the sand. I’ve been getting news from our cousin Victor, who always knows what’s going on with these things. He’s still at home.”
“Do you want pancakes? ” Trudy interrupts.
“No, thanks,” Dominick says. “I can’t stay long.”
“What are you doing with your time these days?” Angeline asks. “Besides taking care of us, I mean.”
“You cannot believe what is going on,” he says. “You’re in
a cozy little bunker here. It’s horrific out there. I’m just trying to keep on top of the situation.” His face is bland and smooth, eyes like black coals. Will wonders if it would be right to call a man beautiful.
“If we hear of a surrender, we’ll leave, since I assume they’ll be looting up here in the Peak first thing,” Will says.
“And if you see any uniforms at all, you should be out of here like a shot.”
“Is there anything else we should be doing? ” Angeline asks.
“No, not really. You have money, I assume. If it gets really bad, I suppose a hospital is the safest place. You know where they are. They’ve turned the Britannic Mineral Water Works factory over in Kowloon into a temporary shelter as well. But then you’d have to get over the harbor. Stay on this side, actually. There’s some Japanese custom that when they win a battle, the soldiers get three days to run wild and do whatever they wish, so that’s the most dangerous time, obviously. Try to be indoors at all times.” Dominick pauses, and looks at Will. “By the way, I’ve got a Christmas present for you.”
He goes back to the car and comes back with a cane, a beautiful one, made of polished walnut, with a brass tip.
“I’m afraid I didn’t have time to wrap it. But I thought you might find it useful.” He smiles crookedly and hands it to Will. “There you go, old chap.”
“Thank you,” Will says. He takes it and hangs it on the arm of the chair he’s sitting on.
“What about me? ” Trudy says. “Nothing for me? ”
“This just fell into my lap.” Dominick says. “I saw it on the black market and I had just enough money for it. Didn’t ask for much. I guess the market for canes is not so good in wartime.”
“Funny, that. I would have thought they would be popular, what with the war creating all those cripples and everything,” Will says.
“One might think, yes.”
Trudy stops the exchange. “But the doctor says that Will is going to be as good as new, so he won’t need it in a few weeks, will you, Will? We’ll use it as a poker for the fire, then.”
After Dominick leaves, they sit, the air somehow gone from the room. It feels colder, the evening approaching.
“Turn on the phonograph,” Angeline says. “I want to hear music and dance, and feel normal.”
“And drinks!” Trudy cries. “It’s Christmas and we should be having drinks.”
She fetches new glasses, lights candles, and puts the duck and bread and jam out on the table, and it tastes marvelous, their Christmas supper, with the liquor warming their cheeks and stomachs.
They carry on in this way, Trudy and Angeline dancing, carols playing, Will applauding, pouring more drinks. They drink and dance in the chilly drawing room of Angeline’s grand old house, the twilight encroaching, glasses in hand, tippling until they are all quite drunk and they stumble up to their rooms and collapse. Trudy is sweet to Will in bed, her hands and mouth moving over him until he forgets the dull throb of his knee and the spinning of the ceiling. That is the Christmas of 1941, a wistful, melancholy, waiting kind of day he will remember forever.
In the morning, Angeline knocks on their door. Will opens it, groggy, his mouth feeling like cloth. For some reason, she leaves her hand suspended in the air, frozen in midknock.
“Morning,” he says. She looks at him, her face pale and hung over.
“Happy Boxing Day,” she says. “It’s finished. I just heard on the radio. We’ve surrendered.”
December 26, 1941
TRUDY IS FRANTIC to find Dominick. “He will know what to do,” she says over and over.
“We will just stay here until we can’t anymore,” Will says, trying to calm her. “It will be fine in the long run. The Japanese cannot win against England, and America, and Holland and China. It’s just going to take a little while.”
“Would you mind if I went into town and tried to find him? Or maybe I should try to find Victor,” she says, ignoring him. “I don’t think you should go.”
“I would slow you down, I know.” He cannot calm her. “How are you going to find them? It will be impossible. Just stay and see. It will all be fine, you will see.”
She whirls on him, her face unrecognizable.
“And in the meantime?” She almost spits it out. “What do you suggest we do in the meantime while the Japs are swarming over the town, doing whatever they like, to whomever they like? They’re going to be all over the place, like filthy little ants. What do you think America and Holland and jolly old England are going to do then? Are you going to help me? With your leg the way it is? We have to.”
He hesitates, then takes her shoulder with one hand and slaps her face with the other. “You need to settle down,” he says. “You are hysterical.”
She sinks to the floor, weeping.
“Will,” she says through her hands. “Oh, Will. What are we going to do?”
He gets up with difficulty and kneels down on the floor with her.
“Darling Trudy,” he says. “I will take care of you, even with my terrible, gimpy leg. I swear.”
Later, after he has put her in a bath, and gotten her a drink, there is a knock at the door. With the women upstairs, he goes to answer it, first looking outside to see who it is. A sandy-haired man in uniform is standing by the door.
“Who is it?” he shouts.
“Please, sir, it’s Ned Young, from Canada. With the Winnipeg Grenadiers.”
He opens the door.
“Come in. Are you all right? Are you alone? What the devil are you doing all the way out here? ”
“Yes, sir. I was on a van being transported with the others, as POWs, you know, and I managed to jump off and just walked and knocked on doors that looked safe.”
Inside, the man is revealed to be a boy, so young acne still pocks his skin. His trousers are soiled and he smells to high heaven.
“Have you had anything to eat? ”
“Not in the past few days, sir.” He looks ravenous and polite at the same time.
“Here, sit down here in the dining room. I’ll get you some things to eat.” He gets a plate and puts out some bread and the remaining duck from last night. There’s a beer and he opens it, pours a glass of water as well. The boy falls upon it, shoving the food in his mouth.
“There’s more. Don’t worry,” Will says. “You’ll get your fill.”
“It was awful out there,” the boy says. His mouth is full and he begins to weep. “It was awful. We were in the mountains, in trenches.”
“Don’t talk. Just eat and try to relax.”
The boy goes on, as if Will hadn’t spoken. “I saw my buddy’s guts come out. He was alive. He was talking to me, and his guts were outside. Then I smelled him, he was cooking, his guts were cooking and it smelled like food. I saw a woman with her head blown off and her child sitting next to her, naked, with shit running down his backside, with flies buzzing. We had to leave him. They wouldn’t let us take the child. I’ve never seen such things. We were in Jamaica just a month ago, training, eating bananas. They told us we wouldn’t see any action here.” He weeps and weeps but keeps eating. “And I didn’t have water for days, it seems. I just wanted to die, but I jumped off that truck ’cause I seen what those Japs do. They’re not human, what they do to other people. They’re not human. I saw them rip a baby out of a pregnant woman. I saw them chop off heads and put them on fence posts.”
Angeline walks into the room.
“What on earth?”
The boy stands up, still crying, still eating.
“Hello, ma’am. I’m Ned, Ned Young, from Winnipeg.”
“I see,” Angeline says, and sits down. Will appreciates for once her cut-and-dried sophistication, so needling in peacetime. “Ned Young, where were you? Did you see any of the Volunteers?”
“We’ve lost. We’ve surrendered. I haven’t seen anyone but Japs. They’re so well equipped. They have mountain shoes, and belts with food concentrate, and maps. We didn’t have any of that. They gave us rum
for breakfast. They just dropped us here weeks ago and told us we’d have time to train.”
“What did you see in town? ” They want information. He wants balm.
“There’re riots, and dead people. Everything smells so bad, you want to die too. It’s thick out there, the smell, and people are scared, but the scoundrels are out, stealing, burning. They’re taking advantage, before the Japs get everything.”
“Why don’t you rest, Ned,” Will says, realizing he is not able to give them anything. “You bathe and rest. There’s a bed upstairs and we’ll wake you if anything happens.”
Angeline brings him up. When she comes back down, Will feels the need to be outside and get some air. The young boy has brought a tantalizing glimpse of the outside world with him.
“I’m going out,” he says. “My leg feels better and I need to know what’s going on. It’s driving me mad being cooped up in here all this time.”
“Fine,” Angeline says. “Just don’t go too far. When Trudy wakes up, she’ll be wanting you.”
Outside, the sky is still blue, and there are birds singing faintly. Save the occasional plume of smoke, it is quiet and lovely up here on the wide, well-paved roads and green manicured hedges of the Peak. From a cliff-side fence, he can see Hong Kong spread out before him, the harbor glistening, the sky gleaming. It is so still outside, he can hear himself breathing.
“One of those moments,” he says, before realizing he has said it out loud.
He comes back to Trudy and Angeline in the kitchen pouring all the bottles of scotch down the sink.
“Don’t worry,” Angeline says. “We got blotto first. And we saved some for you, and our new friend, young Ned Young.”
“Only thing worse than a Jap is a drunk Jap, right? ” he says. “Keep the empty bottles. They might come in useful.”
“We’ve been thinking, Will,” Trudy says, “and we think the best thing to do now is stay here since we don’t know that anywhere else will be any better, but we think that you and Ned should stay hidden. Since it’s so very obvious you are not Chinese, you know. Unless, of course, you are needed to rescue us, but Angeline and I could pretend to be the servants in the house and they might leave us alone.”
The Piano Teacher Page 11