The Piano Teacher

by Janice Y. K. Lee

  “Did Trudy know about this?”

  “I don’t think so, or else she wouldn’t have run around so hard, trying to procure the information. I think Victor got some pleasure out of seeing her work so diligently to get something that he already had. And Dominick too. The two of them were something to see. Victor watched them for a while, and then I think he decided they were getting a little too influential and he decided to do something about it. He was really the one pulling the strings. They were just his puppets.”

  Edwina paused.

  “Do you want some of these scones?” she asked. “They’re the best in Hong Kong. Made by a Mr. Wong who I trained myself. He’s the best Chinese English baker in the colony.”

  “No, thank you,” Claire said.

  Edwina spread jam on a chunk and popped it into her mouth.

  “Mmmmm,” she said. “I’ve lived here so long but still can’t get by without my tea and scones.

  “So, Victor Chen started to get irritated with the way Trudy and Dominick were carrying on. They were being rather conspicuous and too cozy with their relationship with Otsubo. It was quite unseemly. So, he started to sow a little unrest between them. He wanted them more under his thumb than Otsubo’s. He also included Dominick in his business, which was flourishing. He was supplying Japanese troops in Guangzhou with petrol and basic supplies and making an absolute fortune. What Dominick had been doing before was small potatoes and he told him that. He had factories and enormous resources backing him up. Then he told Dommie that Trudy was going behind his back and trying to get the information without him, and of course, Dominick believed him. So Dominick started to do things that would undermine Trudy. He told Otsubo that Trudy knew where the Crown Collection was but just wasn’t telling him. Victor was only too happy to back this up.”

  “Did Dominick know that Victor knew?”

  “No,” scoffed Edwina. “Victor didn’t tell anyone. I was the only one who knew. But you know, the funny thing is . . .” Edwina’s eyes looked far away. “It was very odd. It was as if Trudy knew what was going on but she didn’t do anything about it. She had already given up. It was as if she didn’t care anymore and she was just going through the motions.”

  Someone opened the door and looked inside. Edwina Storch didn’t look up. The door closed silently.

  “And so, Otsubo decided that Trudy was too much trouble and he’d grown tired of her. He’d moved on to Dominick, at any rate. They were lovers as well. He liked anything and everything, that man. He was insatiable. A real pig. So he used this as an excuse to get rid of her. And he asked me to help. But you know, the odd thing was that nothing he did seemed to faze her. She was untouchable and it made him crazy. After she fell pregnant, he told her he was giving her to his lieutenant, that he was done with her, but she went quietly. She did everything he said and didn’t give him any satisfaction. I think he wanted her to suffer. So he passed her around—she was an heiress, you understand, had been given the best of everything from birth, knew everyone. I don’t know why she did it. She just did not care anymore.” For the first time, Edwina Storch seemed saddened.

  “So how did Trudy die?” Claire asked.

  “Dominick had told Otsubo that Trudy knew where the Crown Collection was. Trudy denied it. Otsubo thought she might confide in me because I was English so he had me bump into her a few times so that we could rekindle our acquaintance. It was easy because he knew where she was all the time. So Trudy and I bumped into each other regularly.”

  “Did you feel any scruples about doing this for this man?” Claire asked.

  “Not at all,” Edwina said instantly. “You have to understand, Claire, that no one was a saint in any of this. Otsubo was the enemy, but Trudy, Dominick, Victor, they were all getting in bed with him, so as far as I was concerned, they were all the enemy. They didn’t have anyone’s interest at heart except their own.”

  “It was almost your patriotic duty,” Claire said quietly.

  “Yes.” Edwina seized on this idea. “I thought this was one way I could help our country. I knew Victor Chen was going to give up the Crown Collection at some point. It was just at what price. And I thought if I kept tabs on it, I might be of some help in tracking it down. So, what I did was . . . I told Otsubo that Trudy did know.”

  “What?” Claire’s mouth hung open. “But . . .”

  Edwina stiffened.

  “I thought it was the best approach. The man had to be led down the wrong path so he wouldn’t find the right one.”

  “But you assured her death by telling this to Otsubo.” It was out before she could stifle the thought.

  “So simple,” Edwina said. “So black and white for you, is it? The truth is, dear, Trudy was doomed from the start. The way she was acting. She wouldn’t have lasted another month. So, Otsubo had two sources telling him that Trudy knew but was keeping it from him. So then he asked me to escort her to his office. It was very odd the way he wanted to handle it. Must be Japanese. Odd people, you know. She knew something was off because she went there all the time and didn’t need me to escort her, but she was very polite. When I showed up at her door, we sat down for tea and had a nice chat. And then we walked over together and she went into the building by herself. I told her he was expecting her. And, that was it. No one ever saw her again.”

  The room seemed colder. Claire folded her arms in front of her chest.

  “So . . .” The thought hung in the air.

  “No, dear,” said Edwina. “The Japanese are quite unsentimental about that sort of thing and don’t leave witnesses. I think they may have let her have the baby and then I don’t know what happened after that.”

  “And Dominick, her cousin?”

  Edwina shook her head.

  “That one was never going to come to a good end. He got in over his head. He was used by everyone. Victor installed him at a company he had formed called Macau Supplies. He made sure Dominick’s name was on all the legal papers so he could keep his hands clean. But it didn’t matter. I think Dominick got greedy and started skimming, and the Japanese found out. It was never clear what happened to him either but at least there was a body. He turned up in a canal in the seedy part of town. All of his fingers had been cut off, save one—an eleventh finger he had, apparently a birth defect.”

  “Oh.” Claire exhaled slowly. It was so much to take in. “And whatever did happen to the Crown Collection?”

  “Well, you can never let it be said that Victor Chen is not clever. He had an inkling that the secret might leak, either through me or Arbogast, so he had the collection taken away and stored somewhere else. And then he intimated to Otsubo that he had found out Arbogast knew where it was. So he was masterful at manipulating the situation. He had Otsubo owing him a favor then, you see. And Arbogast never knew. They took his hand. He was lucky they didn’t do more. So Arbogast broke, as many men would have under that sort of . . . duress, and then when Otsubo sent his men, the collection was no longer there. Arbogast had some rough days after that as well, but Victor Chen got off scot-free. Arbogast never knew whether he had given it up or not. I think that was worse than the torture.” Edwina’s face turned contemplative. “Funny what the mind can do to you. He did very well for himself after the war, and did a lot for the unfortunate, but he was never happy. Felt he had failed his country, you see, and he was the sort of man that the notion would always haunt him.

  “Anyway, later, Victor could sense the tide turning in the war and he thought it might be more advantageous to give it back to the Chinese and bank a few favors from them. So he put the collection on a train to China. A gift from a loyal citizen. I didn’t know until after the fact.”

  “And that was the end of it. And you never told anyone?”

  “No,” Edwina said. “Victor made it abundantly clear it was to my advantage to keep silent.”

  Claire thought of Edwina’s comfortable life, her large estate in the New Territories, all apparently paid for on a headmistress’s civil pension. />
  “Who knew?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, my dear. Victor plays his cards close to his chest.”

  “How much of this does Will know?”

  Edwina smiled.

  “Well, you’d have to ask him, wouldn’t you?”

  “And why are you telling me this? I have nothing to do with this story.” Claire asked.

  “You are . . . close to Will, are you not?” asked Edwina.

  “I know him,” Claire allowed.

  “Don’t be coy,” Edwina snapped. “He listens to you?”

  “Not at all.” Of this she was sure.

  “Well, I think you’d be surprised. You’re the first person in a long time that our Will has deigned to spend time with. I just think he needs a little push to do the right thing. A woman knows the right thing to say. It’s our instinct.”

  “I don’t know that I understand what you’re saying.” Claire was deliberately being obtuse.

  Edwina slapped her palms on the table.

  “That man,” she cried. “That man, Victor Chen, promenades himself around Hong Kong as if he owns it. He hobnobs with everyone who’s important—you know he was chosen to host a party for Princess Margaret when she came to town? And who is he? Some trumped-up Chinaman in a Savile Row suit! A collaborator. An opportunist.” She said this almost spitting. “He pretends to be better than everyone, even English people! It’s nauseating and I won’t have it.”

  Her outburst rang out, incongruous, against the heavy damask curtains.

  “He snubbed Mary in town the other week. He’s forgotten old friends in his haste to ascend to the top. Well, he’ll learn.” She looked at Claire. “He is an awful person who doesn’t deserve anything of what he has.”

  “It’s hard to say who does deserve the good in life,” Claire said. She felt as if she were placating a large, angry animal.

  “He thinks the past can be buried. But it has a way of surfacing, again and again.”

  “And the baby? Trudy’s baby?” Claire asked. An innocent, perhaps the only, in all of this.

  “I don’t know, my dear. I suppose it was taken care of.” She paused. “Yes. That was the end. I think about that last afternoon with Trudy quite a lot, how remote she was, how removed. She didn’t care if she lived or died after Will abandoned her. I always thought that Will Truesdale broke her heart. And how about that? Who knew that the remarkable Trudy Liang had a heart to break?”

  July 5, 1953

  “AND NOW, ” Claire said. “What of us?”

  She and Will had sat in silence for long minutes, looking out at the water, the boats streaming silently through the harbor, passing one another smoothly, like toy boats in a child’s bathtub. It started to sprinkle slightly. It had taken great effort to ask and she could not bring herself to look at him. She put her hands in her lap and cupped them together primly.

  “You don’t need me,” he said slowly. “I’ve said it before and it’s truer than ever. I’m a liability now.”

  Her first reaction: automatic withdrawal. Then she realized, with Will’s new release came uncertainty: he had lived too long with his secrets and now that they had been poured out, he was likely feeling empty.

  “I don’t need you,” she echoed his words. How porous he seemed, how he always slipped through her grasp. Even in their most intimate moments, in bed, his face hovering over hers, intense with passion, he was never fully there. Now she understood why: he had always been with another.

  Another unbidden memory: Will, lifting the strands of her hair as she lay beneath him, letting the fine gold slip through his fingers, his face oddly distant. “Gold,” he had said. “I love hair the color of metals: gold, bronze, even silver. The gold and bronze will turn silver eventually, yes?” The closest he ever got to saying the word love to her. It stung, suddenly. She had turned away, buried her face in the pillow. In bed, she was always shy around him, afraid that she would say something she would regret later.

  “You deserve better, you know,” she said, trying to save what, she didn’t know. “You can live your life without always regretting.”

  “You are trying to be kind but you don’t understand,” he said.

  “It’s not kindness,” she said.

  He didn’t reply.

  “You always tell me to be strong, but you’re never strong yourself. When we first met, you told me I should take the opportunity to become something else, to transcend what I had been given. You can’t do that yourself. You are mired in the past and determined to be unhappy.” She had never seen so clearly before. Anger swept through her—unexpected—clarifying even more. “You cannot let go, and you are sinking. And you pretended to be so strong!” A feeling as if she had been duped, taken under false pretenses. The man she had loved was a mere shell. And she felt something more, unwelcome: a feeling of pity, fatal to passion.

  “And I told you to go, don’t bother with me,” he said, also angry now. He just wanted to be left alone. But she wouldn’t leave him without trying to salvage something.

  “Why did you come to me?” she asked. “You changed my life. You didn’t like me, you said. What was it? Were you bored?” She shot the last word at him, an accusatory arrow.

  “You were pure,” he said, trying to explain. “You weren’t like the others. You had your prejudices and silly ideas, but you were open, willing to change. And I hadn’t minded being alone. But you came along . . .”

  “And you were the great opener of my eyes, the wise and . . .”

  “That’s not fair,” he said. “That is beneath you. I never looked at another woman until you came along. But it felt wrong, as if I were betraying Trudy, who I had betrayed in so many ways already.”

  “You are wasting your life,” she said. Rain had wet his hair so it hung in jagged spikes down his forehead. He made no effort to wipe away the water running down his face. He looked so defeated.

  She was cruel, finally. “You are a coward.”

  How was this the man she had changed her life for? It seemed inconceivable.

  “And you are simple,” he said fiercely. “And naïve. To think that you can just leave the past behind, like shutting a door.”

  “You won’t even look at me!” she cried. “You won’t give me even that. You’ve always been mean with your attention, so measured.” She looked down at herself. She had dressed with care this morning, mindful of the impression she wanted to give: quiet, not reproachful, confident. This had translated into a knee-length navy cotton-voile dress with covered buttons all down the front, a few decorative pleats: tailored, not fussy, freshly washed hair held back with a navy satin headband. She tamped down the word that kept rising to the surface of her consciousness: fool, fool.

  “I am telling you that it doesn’t need to be like this,” she said. Her mother’s voice suddenly in her head: “Chasing a man, are you? Shame!” Her face turned scarlet despite herself. She waved her hand in the air, almost unconsciously, to dismiss her mother’s presence.

  “Do you know?” he asked, fiercely. “Do you know what it’s like to have your life unravel because of something you failed to do?” He stood up. “It haunts you like nothing else.”

  “So you give up,” she said in a low voice.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “you don’t have a choice in how you lead your life. Please stop before I say more things that I will regret later.”

  “You should know about regret,” she said. “It is what you have made your life about.”

  They sat, furious now, their anger running clear through them like a solvent. It washed away their short past and allowed them to wipe it clean.

  He got up and walked away. She didn’t call after him.

  July 12, 1953

  THE NEXT WEEK, Claire went to the Chens’ to resign in person. She went at the usual lesson time and was shown to the drawing room where Melody was by herself.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. The Chinese woman was sitting very still on the edge of the sofa with
a cup of tea cooling in front of her.

  “No,” she said. “Something’s gone terribly wrong. There’s been a misunderstanding. Everyone’s got the wrong idea.”

  “I’m afraid . . .”

  “They cut me,” Melody said with a stricken face. “In town today, I walked through the tea room at the Gloucester, and the room fell

  silent and no one called out to me, not even Lizzie Lam, and I was at primary school with her. We were best friends. She gave me the chicken pox! She pretended she didn’t see me.”

  “I’m sure you are mistaken,” Claire said.

  “No, it’s true,” Melody whispered. “People are merciless, you know. In our world, they can be very cruel.”

  The hypocrisy of the woman was overwhelming. Melody must have seen Claire’s ambivalence because then she said impatiently, “Oh, you will never understand.

  “And you?” she asked suddenly. “I suppose your life is quite different now, as well.”

  “Yes,” Claire said. “I’ve telegraphed my parents to let them know my situation. I will probably have to go home.”

  “It’s a pretty kettle of fish, isn’t it?” Melody said. “Isn’t that what you English say? And you, somehow involved in it. I’d wager you never imagined you would be in this sort of situation.”

  “No,” Claire said. “This is all very foreign to me.”

  Melody nodded and got up. “I’ll let Locket know you’re here.”

  Claire started to explain but Melody interrupted her.

  “They say I took her from Trudy, but I didn’t, you know. Trudy gave her to me.”

  Claire opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

  Melody went on, in a rush.

  “She knew what was coming. She knew she wouldn’t live. And she knew I had lost my baby in California. My baby was born dead. I came home after that. I didn’t want to stay in America by myself, without family. Trudy wanted me to have hers. It was a gift, from one cousin to another. So many people don’t understand, but back in China, it happened all the time, throughout history, particularly during wartime or famine. We are a country used to suffering; our people are practical. Children were given to other members of the family, if they were to be better looked after that way. You Westerners don’t understand. It’s what Trudy wanted, or would have wanted. She knew that Locket would have a good home. And I think Victor thought Locket would be good insurance as well. She is half Japanese, you know, Locket. Half Japanese, a quarter Chinese, a quarter Portuguese. Although you’d never know it to look at her. You’d never know it. You didn’t, did you? And we love her as our own. It was all for the best.”