The Piano Teacher

by Janice Y. K. Lee

  “Melodrama,” he says. “You’re being absurd.” She is quiet, one hand nervously pulling her hair back from her face, the other fluttering around her mouth.

  “Don’t ever say I didn’t tell you. I told you. You must know that I told you.”

  The phone rings in the room.

  Trudy picks it up and her mouth draws into a tense line.

  “Yes, of course. Of course. I’ll see to it.”

  She hangs up and turns to him, face unreadable.

  “As it turns out, Otsubo is interested in meeting you. Intéressant, non?”

  “Is it?”

  “I don’t know what his intentions are. But we have to do what we’re told, don’t we? You don’t mind? It’s not as if we have much choice in the matter. Dommie will be there too.”

  So that evening, after another silent, hot, soaking bath and having got dressed in silence—Trudy had brought some of Will’s old clothes and they had laughed to see how they hung loose on him, one spot of forced gaiety in a tense afternoon—they are seated in a small room of a restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui, contemplating nuts in a small porcelain dish embellished with red dragons, as Trudy quaffs champagne at a rapid clip. Will lights a cigarette.

  “This place any good?”

  “Not much to look at but currently the best seafood in town.” They had seen the tin buckets in front upon arriving, large, lazy fish swimming inside, oblivious to their fate.

  “He likes Chinese food?”

  “Seems to be acquiring a taste.” Her nails clatter on the table as she drums her fingers. “Dommie is late, the fool. Why does he do this all the time?”

  “You eat with Dominick often?”

  “Every night.”

  “Why are there so many seats? Who else is coming?”

  “They travel in packs, darling. He wouldn’t dream of being seen without his entire coterie of yes-men and sycophants.”

  “And he is, of course, late.”

  Just then, the door opens and a string of men is ushered in. It is immediately clear who Otsubo is as the others wait inside the room until he has entered, and wait for him to choose his seat.

  “Otsubo-san,” Trudy says gaily, standing up. “You’re late as always.” She looks lovely tonight, dressed in a sleek tomato-red silk tunic dress, her hair swept back into a chignon.

  Time to sing for supper. Will stands up.

  “Very nice to meet you. I’m Will Truesdale.”

  “Otsubo,” the man says gruffly, and gestures that they are all to sit. “Mr. Chan not here?”

  “He’ll be here soon. It’s a difficult time to get around.” Trudy sits between Otsubo and Will.

  The man is stocky and short, in a finely cut suit of tropical-weight wool. His hair is cut close, military-style, a centimeter long so the oily surface of his scalp shines through. His eyes, porcine and bulbous, sunken in a puffy, smooth face. In short, an unattractive man. Next to him, Trudy looks like a gaudy, gorgeous flamingo.

  His men sit down at the table, anonymous in their multitude. They talk among themselves, but quietly, so that Otsubo needn’t talk above them. He orders Cognac.

  “Otsubo’s acquiring Chinese tastes,” Trudy says. “He loves XO now.”

  “Some things Chinese are good,” Otsubo says. “At least they are Asiatic.”

  There is a silence.

  “What should we eat?” Trudy asks into the void. “Abalone? Shark’s fin? Would you like me to do the honors?”

  Otsubo nods and she orders rapidly in Cantonese. She speaks everything well—Cantonese, Shanghainese, Mandarin, French, English. Some of the men look at her as she is ordering, their faces unreadable. She must be a complete mystery to them, probably straight from the countrysides of Japan, pressed into service for their country to come to this place, where the language and customs are different, where a woman like Trudy flits around like a flamboyant butterfly. They drink beer straight from the bottles, and smoke without ceasing. They are not offered Cognac.

  Dominick enters hastily.

  “Otsubo-san.” He bows. “So sorry to be impolite. Urgent matters held my attention.” Will has never seen Dominick in this ruffled state.

  “You are late again,” Otsubo says. “Bad manner for business and society too.”

  “I know, I know. My masters at Harrow were always on me for tardiness.”

  Trudy will tell him later, the Japanese love that Dominick was at the best schools in England, they want to know all the details, and that Dominick indulges them at every chance. “They hate it but they love it too. Isn’t that always the case?”

  He presents a box to Otsubo. “A gesture of my appreciation for everything you’ve done for me, and for Hong Kong.”

  Otsubo grunts thanks but does not receive the box. Dominick, so obviously unused to gruffness, takes a step back, recovers, and slides smoothly into a chair.

  “Maybe later, then,” he says to Will, a collusive greeting that implies they are made of finer stuff than this Japanese man.

  Will turns away, unwilling to be allies with Dominick, unwilling to be as stupid as he. Trudy pours more tea.

  “Mr. Truesdale,” says Otsubo in English. Then he speaks through his translator.

  “How are you finding the camps?” The translator is a young, slender man with spectacles. His accent is almost unnoticeable.

  Will hesitates. How honest to be? “It’s livable but, unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the camp officers, there are often shortages of food and medicines and, as there are also women and children in the camp, we feel this need acutely.”

  Otsubo listens and nods. He replies, “That is a shame. We will look into the matter.” The translator looks nervous.

  The first dish is served. Chinese-style, it is a cold jellyfish appetizer. Will has learned from Trudy that a proper Chinese meal unfolds in a certain way. First, a cold appetizer like pig’s feet over jellyfish vermicelli; then a warm one, perhaps sesame-crusted shrimp, a shark’s fin or winter melon soup; a signature dish such as Peking duck, a meat—sweet-and-sour pork or braised beef with choi sam, a fish, a vegetable, finishing always with noodles or fried rice, depending on the region. Chinese don’t take to heavy desserts—enjoying a cold coconut-milk dish or, if especially peckish, apple dumplings fried in hot oil and then immediately crisped in ice water.

  Otsubo takes the first portion, then spins the lazy Susan around to his men. Trudy pretends not to notice the slight. She serves Will and Dominick before taking her share, a minute serving of amber tentacles covered in mustard sauce.

  After chewing laboriously, Otsubo speaks again.

  “There are many illustrious people in the camps, are there not? Leaders of society and business?”

  “I suppose there are. But we’re all reduced to the same circumstances now, really. Nobody has more than anyone else.”

  “It must be curious for them to be in such a place. Quite difficult to come down so much in life.”

  “I imagine it is.”

  Trudy has been uncharacteristically quiet.

  “Like poor Hugh,” she interjects finally. “I can’t believe that lovely man has to wash his own socks. I don’t think he’d ever made himself a ham sandwich before this.”

  They eat the jellyfish. It is cold and rubbery.

  Otsubo speaks again.

  “And there is a man named Reggie Arbogast?” asks the translator. “A businessman? With ties to government?”

  “Yes, Reggie is one of the interned.”

  Otsubo looks at Will thoughtfully.

  “Is he a friend of yours?” he asks through the translator.

  “Friend is too strong a word. We are acquaintances but our mutual experience has made us more intimate, no doubt about it.”

  “Have more drink.” The translator fills Will’s glass with whiskey.

  “Thank you.” He raises his glass to Otsubo.

  “Whiskey good.” The man speaks for himself, pronouncing whiskey “whysky.”

  “Yes, very good
.”

  “Drink. Tonight you are free.”

  “Not so bad.” Will holds the door open for Trudy. The evening air is crisp and clean after the smoky, warm room.

  “Yes,” Trudy says. She seems happy, relieved the evening is over and her pass has not been revoked. “Better than expected.”

  “He’s an interesting . . .”

  A car stops in front of them, and a window rolls down. A pudgy hand emerges and waves Trudy in. She looks sick, then gives him a quick kiss and climbs into the car.

  “I’ll see you later, darling,” she says. “Don’t wait up.”

  Early in the morning, around three a.m., while he is sleeping restlessly, the door opens quietly and Trudy stealthily pads her way to the powder room. He turns on the bedside light, listens to the water running, and waits for her to come out from her ablutions. When she slides into bed, he sees the enormous yellow bruise starting to form around her left eye. Something about her demeanor warns him not to fuss.

  “That’s quite a shiner you have there,” he says.

  “He’s surprising, that one,” she says, and reaches to turn off the lamp, plunging them into gray, a wakeful twilight where they listen to each other’s breath.

  After a few long minutes, just when he is about to drift into sleep despite himself, seduced by the utter luxury of the soft bedding and the now unfamiliar warmth of another, she murmurs, “You know, when I said surprising, I meant a surprising lover. You knew that, right? He’s not a bad man. Really.” At that moment, lying there with the moonlight glinting off her shiny hair and smooth, glossy skin, he thinks she looks like a scorpion.

  He cannot let it go. He sits up. She looks at him, quizzical.

  “Trudy.” He stops, to think how to say this. “I need you to know there is a limit.” He raises her chin toward him. “There is a limit to how sophisticated I can be.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m not the person you want me to be. Not right now.”

  “I should be careful. I should take care.” She says it penitently. “I’m sorry, darling. I’m drunk. Don’t let’s quarrel.”

  “Yes.”

  She sits up and turns on the light.

  “Sleep is not something I can do right now. Should we talk? Should we try to become who we were before all this happened, just for a moment?”

  “That’s impossible.” He brings her to him, her head nestled in his shoulder. She smells of cigarettes and liquor. He tells her so.

  “I smell like a whore.” She moves closer to him. “I told you Frederick died but I didn’t tell you how.”

  “No,” he agrees. “You didn’t.”

  “Well, he was able to get back to Hong Kong. His whole regiment had been slaughtered, and since he was the head, or whatever his title was, they allowed him his life and let him walk back, escorted. They let him come back, but they made him carry . . .” Her voice falters. “They made him collect the ears of all of his fellow soldiers, and he had to put them in a little bag and carry it. They said his hands were soaked in blood and the bag was drenched. And the smell . . . I keep thinking about it, over and over, and how it must have smelled awful and how it must have been slippery and how he must have been so tired . . .

  “And then, the hunger and the famine right after, before they could reestablish some of the markets. The rumors, the horrible, horrible rumors. Pets disappeared. Even . . .” A hiccup. “Even babies, they said.”

  “Trudy, there’s no end to the misery if you keep thinking about it.”

  “And that dinner I told you about, the one where the local swells were trying to get on with the new order, where my family friend who had married an Australian denounced the white races, you remember that one? The one Victor organized?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I didn’t tell you but at that dinner, we were all sitting, all trying to sit in our fancy clothes without feeling too hypocritical, without feeling like we were giving up too much of ourselves and hoping we could still look at ourselves in the mirror at the end of it all, and then at some point in the evening—there had been quite a lot of drinking—Dominick said something stupid. I don’t even remember what he said, but it was silly and clever, you know, like him.”

  “I do know,” he says.

  “And then the man who had arranged the dinner, Ito, the head of the economic department of the Gunseicho, whose table it was, he just stood up, walked over, and he walked very deliberately, and the crowd sort of hushed because he had this sense of, I don’t know, I suppose you’d call it purpose, and he walked right up to Dommie—we had been seated at one of the best tables, his table—and he stood in front of Dommie and he slapped him across the face. He slapped him really hard.”

  She works the sheet through her hands over and over.

  “And that sound, you know, it sounded like a gunshot, because everyone had been watching, and it got very quiet, there might have even been a gasp from everybody, I don’t remember, and Dommie sat there, with his cheek getting red, and then he tried to gather himself, he just sort of looked away, and then he picked up his champagne glass, and took a sip. And then the whole room took a collective sigh, and we tried to pick up where things had stopped. And Victor, that bloodless leech, didn’t do a thing about it.

  “But it was as if the whole room had been slapped. And Dommie, you know, he tries to be a cool customer, but his hands shook the whole night after. I know you think he’s dreadful and soulless, but you do not know him. You do not know him. I’ve known him all my life and he’s fragile, and can break at any minute, and I want to protect him and save him from himself if that is at all possible. He is my only family out here. We are looking out for each other. He can be a terrible person, but there are reasons for that, you know. Not like Victor, who’s hateful because he only thinks of himself and money. Dommie hates himself, and so he can be awful.” She pauses. “I’ve never told anyone this, but Dominick was never quite right. There was a scandal when he was younger, around twelve, something about him and the maids. He made them . . . do things, and he did things to them, and they were found out. Someone walked in on them. So his parents were dreadfully embarrassed and they got rid of the maids, young girls from China, paid them off, and sent him to England when he was really too young. They were never really cut out to be parents. I think he was a mistake. And although he had done these terrible things, he was still so young. And he went, and he didn’t speak very good English at the time, and he stuck out with his odd clothes and his funny accent. And then somehow, it got out at the school what he had done, and the older boys . . . they made him do the same things. They made him . . . you know. You know what it’s like in those schools. He told me this one night when he was dreadfully drunk. I don’t know that he even remembers telling me. But we’ve always been like brother and sister. So, after that, I don’t think he was ever quite the same. How could you be? And that’s why he hates the English, for the most part, although he is so damn English in so many ways. It’s very complicated. And in the end, I think, we’re all just trying to survive, aren’t we?”

  “Sometimes there are things more important than survival.” It sounds self-important but he cannot help himself. He wants to warn her, not for himself but for her own sake. And to defend a horror like Dominick! She was blinded by misguided loyalty.

  “Tell that to someone who’s about to go under the guillotine,” she retorts hotly. “Tell that to someone who is about to get shot. I’m sure all they’re thinking about is how to get out of the situation. I’m sure survival is quite important to them at that moment. You might even say, the only thing. You might have the luxury of pondering the dignity of the soul, but . . . never mind.” She stops. “I can’t explain it to you, or justify to you, or anything, so what’s the point?”

  “I’m sorry you feel like you have to justify yourself to me.”

  She waves her hands above her slowly, like small satellites.

  “This night feels like forever. I feel like Scheherazade tryi
ng to prolong the night.”

  “Do you think I’m going to kill you come morning?”

  “Everything changes when the light comes, doesn’t it?”

  Later, he will wonder what exactly she meant.

  They go to sleep, or their approximations of it, each careful not to disturb the other.

  In the morning, over coffee, she offers her feet to him to be rubbed.

  “Everything seems better in the morning, don’t you think?” Her implicit peace offering. She pours cream into her cup and spills some into the saucer. Her hands are shaking a little.

  “Mon amour,” she begins.

  “Yes?”

  “Une question pour toi.”

  “Yes?”

  “The good general is interested in me for many reasons,” she begins. “One of which is that I’m rather pretty. But, as you know, Hong Kong is filled with pretty women, and so his interest in me has lasted the time it has because he is also very interested in assuring his future while he’s here. An ambitious man, Otsubo. And he thinks I should be able to help him. And being a man of large appetite, he is not content with the occasional wristwatch and woman’s trinket—his sights are set much higher. He’d take land if his government would let him, but it won’t, and he’s getting rather frustrated.” She pauses. “There are those in Tokyo who are particularly interested in the Crown Collection of Hong Kong. It’s supposed to have many priceless Chinese pieces, centuries old, inestimable in their value, politically sensitive, of course. And those have not been found. It’s thought they were secreted away before the war began here. And the Chinese want their heritage back, the Japanese want them for their value, and the English think it all belongs to them. It’s very confusing.

  “To make a long story short, Otsubo thinks that a few of the men in Stanley are privy to information that would help him locate these pieces. In particular, he has an idea that Reggie Arbogast knows where it is. I think Otsubo would be handsomely rewarded for locating these items and getting them back to Japan. You know, it’s been a complete madhouse over here with the looting and the ransacking and things turning up in the market places, museum pieces selling for two cents or worthless twaddle being shipped off to the homeland like it’s worth something. No one really knows what’s going on, but he’s determined to find these pieces. He’s had me look through the pawnshops and talk to people, but nothing. So, that is why he furloughed you and wanted to have dinner with you and talk to you.”