The Piano Teacher

by Janice Y. K. Lee

“Not bad, as these things go. Nothing worse than a lukewarm bath, don’t you think? Do you want to join me?”

  She pours in Badedas, bubbling the water hot and steamy. The green, limy smell rises in the heat. Together, they slip and slide, washing each other while careful not to prod too deeply, keeping everything on the surface, their mood as fragile as the bubbles in the bath.

  Outside is strange—an odd approximation of free society. Pinched faces, suspicious shoulders, everyone trying to blend in and look inconspicuous. The opposite of normal—Americans speaking softly, British acting humble, Chinese acting shy. Everything is hushed, except for Trudy and Dominick, who’s joining them for lunch. He meets them in the lobby of the hotel and kisses Trudy on both cheeks and nods slightly to Will.

  “Hello, darling,” he says to Trudy, handing her a large envelope filled with papers. “This is from Victor. He sends his love.” Trudy blanches.

  “Love, is it? ”

  As they leave the hotel, Trudy and Dominick walk down the street as if they own it, laughing loudly and wearing flamboyant, obviously expensive clothes.

  “If you act as if you’re bulletproof, most people will assume you are, darling,” Trudy assures Will. “Believe me, I’ve tested this theory extensively.” She pulls out a worn blue booklet covered in stamps. “And this helps enormously, of course. It’s from Otsubo and it tells whatever foot soldier stops me that he better treat me with kid gloves or there’ll be hell to pay. Usually, when they see his stamp, they sort of freeze, then shove it back toward me as if it’s on fire, and they bow and scrape to an embarrassing extent. I’m quite addicted to it.”

  “And Dommie?”

  “He has one with his patron’s stamp. All the best people have one, you know.” Her laughter is brittle.

  “And what does Otsubo think of you springing me from the camp? Does he know? ”

  “Well, he arranged it for me. I don’t think he’s the jealous type, to be honest. I don’t think you will be spending much time together. Do you want Cantonese food? I’m in the mood for noodles, actually.”

  “Chinese?”

  “Yes, the other food is unbearable these days since there’s no one proper to cook it.”

  “Have you ever missed a meal?”

  “Darling, if you miss a meal, the light quite goes out of the day. All Chinese know that. I wouldn’t unless things were absolutely desperate. Dommie knows this little place where they serve the most amazing rice noodles with broth they steep all day long. Of course, it’s better at two in the morning since it’s been cooking all day, but nowadays you’re viewed suspiciously if you’re out late without one of our great leaders.”

  “How is the Grill? Still operating?”

  “Oh, we still go. It’s pretty jolly, actually. And not all Japanese. There are groups of Americans and British on the outside, and it’s not done to ask why, and the Japanese don’t seem to bother them, and all sorts of other people, you know, Swiss Red Cross, the occasional German. I tell you, Hong Kong right now is the most interesting mix of people. The war just shook out all the people and what remained behind in the sieve is diverse, should we say. There’s this woman, Jinx Beckett, who’s an American, and I can’t quite figure out what her story is and why she’s not in Stanley with you as I’m sure she’s not an important banker or government official. I’m sure you’ll meet her. She is absolutely everywhere, and poky too, nosing around in all sorts of things. And there are still parties. We still go to the Gripps for dancing but they’ll stop the music every once in a while and project these hilarious propaganda films onto the ballroom walls. It’s all about Pan-Asiatic superiority, don’t you know? They don’t seem to understand that they’re screening for a bunch of non-Asiatics. Screaming irony.”

  Will sees a newsstand, for him a startling sight.

  “I’d love a newspaper. How is the English broadsheet these days?”

  “Run by a Swede under the careful watch of the Japanese,” says Dominick. “Result as you would expect. Piffle. I expect you’d like one.”

  “I would,” Will says and takes the Standard and the News. Trudy pays.

  “It is propaganda,” whispers Trudy. “They print whatever they’re told to.”

  “Subtlety, my darling,” Dominick says, shushing her. Suddenly he relaxes and turns to Will. “So, how is it being on the outside?” They have exchanged only the barest of civil greetings. “And is it as atrocious on the inside as they say? Of course, the paper claims that you are being treated as if you were honored guests at the Ritz.”

  “Certainly not ideal. But it seems rather fraught out here as well. Everyone tiptoeing around.”

  “Is it true that Asbury is in there, doing his own wash like a common rickshaw boy?” A famously haughty banker, whom Will has indeed seen poking around in the dirt, trying to establish a garden, and hanging up his undershirts to dry, as his wife is abed most days.

  “He is, but he’s holding his own. Surprising, the dignity that still holds in any circumstance.”

  “Yes, we’re not our own men anymore, are we? ” Dominick looks around. “But some are more so than others.”

  Will says nothing.

  “It’s better to be a free person, though, isn’t it? ” asks Trudy. “We have to mind our manners out here but there’s no one telling us what to do or when to eat. Services are all getting back. Food prices were going up and down but they seem to have stabilized. We can withdraw small amounts of money. Public transport is working, as is the mail, in a way, and people are starting to settle, although it’s still a hard life. You do still run across the occasional corpse in the street, which is unpleasant. And the Japanese do work the coolies quite hard, harder than any Chinese I’ve seen, and they are having a hard time of it. They’re sending them back to China in droves as well. I think they aim to reduce the population by half.”

  “Nothing is easy these days, is it? ” Dominick says. “Aaah, here’s the noodle shop.”

  After lunch, Dominick goes to work, “such as it is,” he remarks, languid as always, and Trudy and Will go shopping. Trudy frequents the markets in search of treasures.

  “I’ve seen things that I recognize from friends’ houses!”she says, rifling through a table of pilfered goods. “The ormolu clock from the Hos’, and that extraordinary dagger that was hanging above the mantel at the Chens’. I wanted to buy them but didn’t have enough money. Those,” her voice drops, “filthy rats just took away everything they could carry, and then the locals came after, and picked every house clean. Enough to make you weep, seeing those ships set out for Japan filled to the brim with all the lovely things our friends had collected. Cars and furniture and jewelry! Many a soldier’s wife is playing tea party with someone else’s Wedgwood these days.”

  “Is there food we can buy so I could bring it back to camp?”

  “Depends on the day and what they’ve been able to find. Sometimes there’s powdered milk, sometimes there’s crates of mustard. We’ll see.” She pauses. “It’s sort of freeing, this paring down to the necessities. It seems so frivolous to have thought about dresses and picnics.”

  “You and Dominick seem to have your meals and lodging pretty well figured out.” He says this striving for a tone without judgment.

  “Yes, we do,” she replies carelessly. “But it could all be taken away tomorrow so we must enjoy it while we can, no?”

  She cuts down Pottinger Street and into a small alley.

  “There’s a small shop here where you can get some amazing things.”

  “What’s in demand?”

  “Food, mostly. Some people have started speculating in gold and such. We’ll go to the market after this.”

  A bell jingles as Trudy pushes open the door. Inside, it is dark and pungent with the smell of teakwood and the waxy oil used to polish it. A curio shop, with scratched, smudgy glass counters filled with Oriental peculiarities. Trudy speaks in Cantonese to the woman behind the counter, who scurries to the back, cloth slippers swishing on th
e floor.

  “What are we looking for here? ”

  “Oh, I’m just doing an errand for my master. You know.”

  “How mysterious,” he says.

  The woman comes back with a man, small, with a bent back, dressed in black silk. He seems irritated. Trudy speaks rapidly again, her small hands outlining a large rectangle in the air. The man shrugs and shakes his head. Trudy’s voice turns shrill. She ends with a sharp outburst and turns to leave.

  Outside, the sun is shining, an abrupt change from the dark gloom of the shop.

  “So, food?” he asks. She will tell him when she’s ready.

  “Yes, food,” she says, taking his arm, an implicit gesture of thanks. “Sometimes, I think you could be Chinese too.”

  The wet market seems the same as ever—wizened old ladies with wide-brimmed coolie hats, dressed in black smocks, bent over their wares, calling out to potential customers. Here, a basket of greens; there, soybean curds resting in a container of milky water, with yellow sprouts. He remembers the smell, the green, slightly brackish scent of dirt and water still clinging to the vegetables. He used to come with Trudy on weekends, her mother having told her that she was never to become too grand to go to the market for her own food. “At least, every once in a while,” she says. “Not all the time, of course. And you won’t catch anyone we know here. But I don’t mind. It’s kind of elemental, isn’t it? Deciding which exact onion you want, or what fish you’re going to eat and have them clean it for you.”

  “How is it that there isn’t a shortage? ” he asks, as she bends over to inspect some radishes.

  “There is, but these are available for exorbitant prices. All the peasants from the outlying territories make the trip into town now because they know they’ll get five or six times what they could get out there, so it’s all concentrated here. They come out with ten watermelons or a bag of watercress. It’s good for the soul to see how basic life can be. Grow something on the land, dig it up, sell it for some money, buy something you need.”

  Afterward, when they have procured some tinned foods, vegetables, and cigarettes for Will to take back to Stanley, Trudy takes him for a drive around the Peak, to see all the bombed-out houses and ruined roads. Every wall is crumbling, bricks falling to the road.

  “Can you believe what all the bombs did? They’re starting to rebuild, though. They have the slave labor or Volunteer Corps from China, as they call it, and they’re patching up the roads and trying to salvage the homes. Some have been taken over by Japanese military, and they look quite nice.”

  They pass a house where some dozen coolies are painting the exterior white.

  “The king of Thailand has an elephant that they trained to paint.”

  “That is one of your outlandish stories.”

  “No, I’m serious. Father said he saw it himself.”

  “They had the elephant paint the palace? ”

  “Certainly not! I’m sure he just painted the rough outbuildings and barns and things like that.”

  “Of course, darling.” They’ve stopped at an overlook where tourists used to come to look over Hong Kong harbor.

  “Should we get out? ”

  There is a wobbly iron fence, pebbles and dirt underneath, wind with the metallic smell of lingering winter. She leans into him, hair blowing wild, as they look out onto the green sea, the white, stocky buildings crowding the shore and the harbor.

  “It looks so peaceful now, doesn’t it? ” Trudy says musingly. “The water in Hong Kong is a different color from anywhere else in the world—kind of a bottle green. I think it’s the mountains reflected in it.” She pauses. “It was quite red with blood just these few months ago. There are boats and bodies on the bottom of the sea, thick on it, I’m sure. It was shocking how quickly things looked normal again, how nature swallows up the aberrations.”

  “What happened to Angeline’s house?”

  “She’s managed to hang on to it, although I don’t know why she doesn’t come into town. This place is filled with Japanese army officials who have taken over the houses and I don’t see how it’s safe for her here. We have lunch every once in a while, Dominick, Angeline, and I. Try to pretend things are normal.”

  “She’s all right, though? ”

  “Not really. None of us are.”

  They return to the hotel, where Trudy starts to pack his newly accumulated things into his suitcase.

  “You’ll be popular when you get back.”

  “We have to figure out a way to get supplies into the camps. The children need vitamins and protein.”

  The phone rings.

  “Victor,” says Trudy when she picks it up. Her voice is even.

  “Yes, I did get it. Dommie gave it to me.” She pauses. “I know. I’m trying.” Another pause. “I’ll be in touch when I can, but please don’t call me about this again.” She hangs up the phone with a bang.

  “Everything all right? ” Will asks.

  “Watch me be frugal, Will,” Trudy says instead, ignoring his question. She starts to brew coffee on a small cooking plate. “This is my third go-around with these grounds. Have you ever seen anything so industrious? Aren’t you proud of me?”

  They sip the hot, bitter drink without milk or sugar.

  “Oh, I forgot. There’s something I wanted you to see.” She goes to the bedside table and pulls out a folded-up newspaper.

  “This editorial was in that ridiculous paper on Valentine’s Day. Dommie wants me to frame it.” She reads, “ ‘The Eurasian is a problem in all British colonies. The term is applied loosely to the offspring of all mixed marriages and to their children, et cetera, et cetera. That Britain and some other of the Occidental powers chose to victimize the Eurasian rather than accept him and make use of his qualities is astonishing to students of the question. The Eurasian could be of great help to these powers, contributing valuable liaison between the ruling nation and the native population.’ ” She looks up. “Want to hear more? ”

  “Can I see that?” She gives it to him. He scans it. A column of coarse intelligence.

  “The funny thing is, I was talking about being Eurasian to Otsubo about a week before it came out.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Isn’t that interesting? I was telling him how when I was young, the other children would laugh and point at me, and on the streets, some Europeans would take my photograph as if I were some animal at the zoo.”

  “It must have been difficult, but those people are just ignorant.”

  “Turn the page,” she orders, gesturing to the paper.

  “More of your influence? ”

  “No, just another example of the absurdities we are subjected to every day. Do you see that piece about the houseflies, there? Where if you catch two taels of houseflies, you are entitled to a catty of rice if you bring it to a district bureau. And I’ve seen people carrying around these bundles of flies. It’s beyond. The Japanese are even more bizarre than the English. I’ve never imagined such a thing.”

  Suddenly, she turns to him.

  “Did you know I was eight when my mother disappeared? And eight is supposed to be such a lucky number for the Chinese. I’ve always wondered if it was because I was only half Chinese. And half of eight is four, which is a terrible number. You know, it means death.”

  “What do you remember of her?”

  “Bits and pieces. She didn’t go out much, because she didn’t fit in. She wasn’t English, so the English wouldn’t have anything to do with her, and the Chinese taitais certainly didn’t like her. And she wasn’t strong enough or confident enough to do anything about it. So she had very few friends and she was at home a lot, dressed beautifully with nothing to do but gossip with the servants. I suspect even they looked down on her. My father loved her, married her despite family disapproval, but he was so busy he didn’t have much time for her. She took me to the botanical gardens every once in a while, and to tea at the Gloucester. She wore gloves and a pillbox hat, and the str
aight skirts. She wanted me to be dressed properly as well. She was very beautiful. But I think she was sad.”

  “You’ve never talked about her before.”

  “I don’t remember that much.” She pauses. “I remember she told me about her childhood. She was very poor. She was funny about it too. She refused to eat soup, because to her that meant poverty. She had grown up in a house where they threw whatever little they had into a pot of water, sprinkled it liberally with salt, and called it a meal. She didn’t want me to grow up oblivious to our good fortune, but at the same time, I think she liked how the rich felt bulletproof—not her, obviously, but I think she liked that I might feel that way, but worried at the same time that it wouldn’t last. And she was right, wasn’t she? I’m not bulletproof. I’ve come a long way in the world, but the world has changed and I’m not sure anymore of what I am or what I can do.”

  After love, they lie on the bed. She shifts away, suddenly shy, and stares at the ceiling. Words burst forth from her, as if unbidden, a confessional fountain she cannot stopper.

  “I’ve always known, my love, that I was a chameleon. I was a terrible daughter because my father let me be one. He didn’t know what else to do with me, feeling so guilty I didn’t have a mother. And I was a good daughter when my mother was around. Because she couldn’t imagine anything else. And then when I was older, I was a different person every year, depending on who I was with. If I was with a scoundrel, then I became the type of woman that would be with a scoundrel. If I was with an artist, then I became a muse. And when I was with you, I was, for the first time, I’m sure people have told you, a decent human being. All Hong Kong wondered why someone like you would bother with someone like me. You know that, don’t you?”

  She props herself up on an elbow, bronze hair falling across her shoulders.

  “But now circumstances have changed, and I have reverted back to form and become a woman who is with somebody because it suits her situation and for no other reason than that simple and venal one. I’m no different from that Russian girl Tatiana, the one I pretend to despise. We’re more sisters than anything else. We recognize each other. I’m sure no one is surprised. Do you understand?”