Night of Many Dreams

by Gail Tsukiyama

  Emma swallowed hard, knowing that despite her mother’s protests, nothing would really change. Whenever her father and mother were back in Hong Kong, Joan would return to what she loved most—the movies. Her dark eyes would gleam for hours every week as she watched Nancy Chan and Li Qinian, or Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor. Foon often waited for Joan after school in front of the King or Queen’s Theatre to collect her books before the movies began. Emma tagged along whenever she could. During those two hours of movie magic, she saw Joan enraptured as she sucked on the small, salty-sweet dried plums or the hard strips of Chinese beef jerky she savored. Joan never tired of watching the same film over and over again, though Emma saw each only once, preferring to return to a good book.

  For the next few months Joan would be freed from having to collect, but Emma knew that once her parents left Hong Kong, Joan would have to become her father’s bill collector again.

  Emma turned around and watched Joan, suddenly paralyzed with the fear that she might say something disrespectful back to their mother. Emma hated it when they argued. It usually began with simple words as short and sharp as quick slaps: I won’t…You must…I can’t. But this time Joan remained quiet, her smooth face absolutely calm. Emma knew Mah-mee could be right. Joan’s money-collecting days might nearly be over. China was being devastated. As each day passed, rumors moved through school of how the Japanese devils were moving closer and closer to Hong Kong.

  Watching her mother unpack, Emma breathed in the flowery air and leaned back just enough to feel the warmth of her sister behind her.

  By June of 1940, Emma began to see serious signs that life in Hong Kong was changing. Westerners began to leave, taking their families with them. One morning two weeks before the term was over, many of Emma’s European classmates were suddenly evacuated from Hong Kong to Australia. The sky rumbled, then rained, leaving a damp smell of concrete behind.

  “Will your father leave with you?” Emma asked her friend Mary Clarke.

  Mary slowly cleaned out the last of the colored pencils from her desk before she answered. “No, he can’t. He must stay to fight, in case the Japs dare to invade Hong Kong.” She looked down, avoiding Emma’s eyes.

  “Do you think you’ll come back after all this is over?”

  “I suppose so.” Then Mary glanced up toward Emma. “I was born here, you know.”

  “So was I.”

  “Well, then, we’re sure to see each other again. Here, you can keep these for me until I come back.” Mary handed Emma the colored pencils like a bouquet of flowers.

  Throughout the summer, other signs of war began to appear in careful, measured ways. Sandbags were piled against the Government House and important banking buildings in case of bomb blasts. There were periodic practice blackouts and halfhearted drives to sell war bonds. Emma watched the people in Hong Kong move through each exercise as if it were some kind of game. No one, herself included, believed the Japanese would ever really come this far. Otherwise, life in Hong Kong remained the same. The Pan Am flying boats arrived on schedule, while mah-jongg games and afternoon teas were a daily ritual. Joan talked excitedly about the all-China premiere of The Philadelphia Story, starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. All around her, Emma heard reassurances: “The Japanese will never attack us. We’re part of the British Crown.”

  By the fall of 1941, Ba ba had returned to Hong Kong from Japan. He looked tired and thin after months of trying to save his business. Emma was just happy he was safe and back home having dinner with them.

  “There’s nothing more I could do,” he said, shaking his head. “The Americans and British have imposed embargoes on all exports of steel and oil to Japan. It has increased tension throughout the Pacific. The Japanese have confiscated much of my merchandise, but I’ve hidden some pieces away in warehouses and cargo containers until this is all over.”

  “What if they find out?” Joan asked.

  “I have many friends there who will cover for me.”

  “What does it matter anyway,” Mah-mee said, waving to Foon to begin serving. “As long as you’re not caught in the middle of it all.”

  Emma knew her father had been fortunate that the Japanese hadn’t found all of his goods. So many others had lost everything.

  Foon emerged from the kitchen carrying a large covered soup tureen. When she raised the lid, a strong, pungent smell of sea-weed filled the room. Emma wrinkled her nose, but kept silent as she watched Foon generously fill a bowl and present it to Ba ba.

  By early December, the war turned their lives into a nightmare none of them had ever really believed possible. Auntie Go shut down her knitting factory, just before the Japanese crossed the Chinese border into Hong Kong, bombing Kai Tak Airport and crippling the Royal Air Force. Within four days, the radio announced that Japanese troops had swept through the northern New Territories, reaching the Shing-mun redoubt.

  Mah-mee tried to keep some semblance of calm and routine. She even made Emma practice piano one hour every afternoon.

  “What’s that?” Emma asked, abruptly stopping her Chopin polonaise. She cocked her head sideways listening, then stood up and went to open the terrace doors.

  “What are you doing?” Joan asked, throwing her movie magazine down on the sofa and following Emma.

  “Don’t you hear it?”

  Mah-mee stepped out and joined them. “Hear what?”

  “That!”

  From the distance faint strains of music drifted toward them. They could just make out the static, crackling notes of “Home Sweet Home,” coming from the direction of the harbor, followed by the words, “We have come to liberate you from British imperialism,” repeated in English and Chinese.

  “Will those devils stop at nothing!” Mah-mee snapped, turning back into the flat. “Come, moi-moi. You have to practice.”

  A thin bead of sweat glistening on her forehead, Emma looked at Joan and said, “Come on, we better go in.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Joan said, her thin body leaning back against the stone wall.

  Emma went inside, sat down at the piano, and began to play loud and furious.

  For days the air was filled with the high shrill of air-raid sirens. Positioned on the Kowloon peninsula, the Japanese began shelling Hong Kong Island. Again and again, Emma retraced her anxious footsteps over the cracked pavement as they made their way to one of the designated bomb shelters. Usually, these were nothing more than crowded, rat-infested basements. Emma sat on the cold floor, crushed between Ba ba, Mah-mee, and Auntie Go. Joan’s eyes were squeezed shut, most likely dreaming of the last movie she’d seen. A child cried as her mother whispered, “Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet,” in a frantic chant. Emma tried to imagine that the explosions were firecrackers filling the air and prayed that the long, sad wail of the all-clear signal would sound before they all suffocated in the hot, musty air.

  Most of the time, Emma and her family stayed inside as much as possible. The heavy woolen blankets draping the windows for the blackout left them cocooned in their flat. One morning, after days inside, Emma and Joan begged to go to the market with Foon. Mah-mee hesitated, while Ba ba watched his daughters, then said, “I’ll go along with them.” They willed themselves invisible. Ba ba and Foon moved through the devastated streets like ghosts, while Emma and Joan sidestepped large craters, like deep, jagged wounds in the streets. The corpses of those killed by the bombings often lay in the streets for days, as the nauseating stench of death and dying enveloped Hong Kong.

  “They’re coming! They’re coming!” Emma would wake up sweating from bad dreams. Often, she tiptoed across the hall to Joan’s room to sleep. Each day she became more terrified. Just the thought of the approaching Japanese made her sick to her stomach.

  From their rooftop, Emma and Joan watched stunned and helpless as the Wanchai district went up in flames, and Statue Square drowned in a thick, suffocating smoke. “It’s all ‘Gone with the Wind,’” Emma heard Joan whisper. Emma wanted to guess Vivien Leigh as
Scarlett O’Hara, but when she opened her mouth, no words emerged. Finally, on Christmas Day, 1941, the British surrendered Hong Kong to the Japanese.

  The Japanese occupation brought life in Hong Kong to a near standstill. An eerie silence descended upon the city as Emma and her family held their breath and waited. All the while Mah-mee insisted Auntie Go move in with them.

  “Aii-ya, a woman alone, at a time like this! Go, quit your foolishness and move in with us. Those Japanese devils will stop at nothing!”

  Emma watched Auntie Go weigh Mah-mee’s words, which lingered heavily in the air. Emma knew independence was something her aunt guarded as closely as treasure. What Mah-mee considered foolishness was something Auntie Go cherished. Unlike other Hong Kong Chinese women her age, Auntie Go had never married and often wore Western clothing, sometimes even slacks like Katharine Hepburn. She had made a life of her own running a small knitting business. Now in her midthirties, Auntie Go did as she pleased and was in some ways closer to Emma and Joan than their mother was.

  “I’m only two houses away,” Go finally said, sighing.

  “For the girls,” Mah-mee continued, knowing Emma and Joan were Go’s weak spot. “They’ll worry if you are alone.”

  “I have Ming and Chen.”

  Mah-mee waved her hand through the air, as if slapping Auntie Go’s words away. “They’re servants. What do they care if the Japanese soldiers take everything? They will be gone out the back door before those devils reach your front door! Please, Go. Come and stay with us.”

  Auntie Go remained silent. She looked over at Emma and smiled and then relented. “All right, Kum Ling. But Ming and Chen come with me.”

  Emma was delighted Auntie Go was moving in with them. Whenever possible, Emma went over to Auntie Go’s house to hear the stories of her business travels. Emma sat and listened engrossed, sucked into the exotic tales of different people and places.

  She’d been with her aunt just the afternoon before. “And what about New York?” Emma had asked.

  “Big and noisy,” Auntie Go had answered, “but also very exciting. The first time I saw the Statue of Liberty, I understood why immigrants felt America was such a great country.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of her size and strength,” Auntie Go had answered, then sipped her tea.

  Emma had smiled, reminding herself to move New York up on her list of places to visit when the occupation was over. It would be second to Paris, just before Egypt.

  Every day, Emma watched the Japanese impose their own image upon her once vibrant city. All the streets, hotels, and even restaurants were given Japanese names. She could never get used to shopping at Matsuzakaya’s, instead of Lane Crawford’s, or having tea at the Toa, which had been the Peninsula Hotel. Royal statues made of iron were removed and sent back to Japan to be melted down. The rising sun fluttered from flags on buildings and automobiles. Foon flatly refused to walk down Nakameiji-dori, which just the previous week had been Queen’s Road.

  Emma and Joan spent the first few weeks of the occupation trading one set of rules for another. They kept their eyes fixed on the ground in front of them and learned to bow low to any Japanese soldiers they weren’t able to avoid. One afternoon, they watched terrified as a young Chinese man was repeatedly slapped for not bowing low enough to satisfy a Japanese sentry. Emma still saw the thread of blood that had run from the man’s lip as they dragged him away. In her mind she wanted to scream, “Stop them! Stop them!” to all the Chinese men and women who simply stood passively by, watching. Surely they outnumbered these Japanese devils! But in her heart, Emma knew they were as frozen as she was, shocked into disbelief at what was happening right in front of them. Even Joan averted her gaze and stared blindly toward the ground.

  And the horror stories multiplied. Emma heard that most of the remaining British officials and their dependents were being herded into Stanley Camp, beside the seaside village less than an hour away. Emma was glad her friend Mary Clarke had left the year before. She missed the cheerful, colorless faces of her other English classmates and wished she could make all the Japanese soldiers disappear.

  But day after day, low whispers moved through the heavy air telling of the torture of Catholic Maryknoll fathers and civilian doctors, who were bound hand and foot and suspended from the ground with a rope tied around their neck. They were then made to stand for days, without food and water, on a narrow piece of bamboo for support. Emma even heard Mah-mee and Ba ba whispering of the countless English and Chinese nurses and servants who were beaten and raped in broad daylight.

  “What does rape mean?” Emma had asked.

  Mah-mee’s eyes darted over to Ba ba, then back again. She cleared her throat. “It’s when someone forces himself on you without your consent. Do you understand what I mean, moi-moi?” she said in a dark, serious voice.

  Emma trembled, felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. “Yes,” she whispered back, not daring to look at Ba ba.

  Emma saw little of Mah-mee during the first weeks of the occupation. Her mother spoke perfect Tokyo-dialect Japanese, having spent a great deal of time there with Ba ba’s business, and was often called away by frantic friends who begged her to negotiate with the Japanese commanding officers. All Chinese and British possessions were being systematically confiscated—money and jewelry, furniture and automobiles—much of which was then sent on ships back to Japan. Her mother worked day and night saving small, priceless family heirlooms: a brush and comb set, family photos, a porcelain vase handed down through generations. Foon shook her head and would no longer smile for fear of losing her gold tooth.

  And while Mah-mee saved whatever she could for family and friends, Emma and the rest of the family struggled like everyone else to obtain food, waiting in long lines for nothing more than a handful of rice and a few stringy pieces of bok choy.

  Foon became an expert, bargaining and bartering through the black market for a chicken or two. Once she had even brought back several cans of goose-liver pâté. Emma could still taste its salty smoothness against her tongue as she licked the pâté off a hard, dry biscuit.

  Occasionally, Emma would wake up before sunrise and accompany Auntie Go to wait in the Central Market rice line. When they arrived, Emma stood in line and watched the hordes of men, women, and children push and shove their way forward. Voices rose and fell. The persistent smell of salted fish, sweat, and urine filled the air.

  “Why are they pushing?” Emma asked. “There’s no one selling rice yet.”

  Auntie Go looked around and quickly inched forward in line. “Everyone’s trying to get up front. There’s never enough rice for everyone. Those in the back will most likely go home empty-handed.”

  Emma felt someone push her from behind. She stood her ground, pushed back using elbows and hips. When she turned around, Auntie Go was gone. Emma felt another push from behind and squeezed onward and glimpsed her tall aunt ahead. Emma pushed forward again, felt someone scratch her arm, but didn’t look back when she finally caught up.

  Auntie Go leaned over and whispered, “When I get our rice, we must leave immediately. Sometimes there’s trouble from those who don’t get their share.”

  Emma nodded. She’d heard of riots and fights over a few grains of rice, which ended in cracked skulls when the Japanese intervened.

  When Auntie Go finally maneuvered her way to the front, the Japanese soldier’s glare sent shivers through Emma. His small eyes narrowed at the sight of them, as if he were intoxicated by the power of holding their fates in his hands. He mumbled something in Japanese that sounded rude and coarse, then laughed out loud. Auntie Go didn’t flinch, her face smooth and calm as she held out her burlap bag for a few scoopfuls of the precious grains.

  Emma was hot and exhausted by the time they had their small bag of rice and headed home. She felt the lightness of the rough burlap bag held tightly in her hand, calculated it would last them two, maybe three days, and shivered at the thought of Auntie Go having to wait in l
ine again.

  Schools were also closed after the invasion, much to the delight of Joan, who never liked studying. During the first month, Emma sat home and reread translations of Little Women and The Scarlet Letter. At last, her mother arranged for them to study Chinese classics with Professor Ying, a well-known scholar of poetry and classical essays. “It is a great honor,” Mah-mee repeated to them. “Do you think he will take just anyone? His time is like gold.”

  Professor Ying lived in an old apartment, just off a narrow alley that smelled sour with urine and garbage. Inside, his rooms were dark and damp. Emma knew at once that Ying, who appeared to be in his eighties, was too old to be a teacher. Mah-mee couldn’t have known that his reputation had long outlived his teaching skills. He had neither the energy nor the patience to deal with young students and gave each of them the same assignments, though Joan was so much older.

  In the end, it didn’t matter. Only Emma did any of the written work, while Joan sat and daydreamed or stared into a locked glass cabinet in the small dining room where the professor stored his food. Professor Ying, only too happy to be paid for his services, never said anything to their mother about Joan’s lack of participation. He simply turned all his attention to Emma, who recited poems every week as he sat listening with his eyes closed and his head tilted down as if he had fallen asleep. The memorized lines seemed to float from her lips.

  Her black hair must be wet with the dew

  Of this autumn night, and her white

  Jade arms, chilly with the cold; when,

  Oh when, shall we be together again

  Standing side by side at the window,

  Looking at the moonlight with dried eyes.

  Emma also kept quiet about Joan’s indifference. Emma was sometimes irritated by her sister’s brazen lack of respect, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell their mother, who only wanted to better her daughters’ futures, and whose anger was sometimes provoked by much less. Only after they’d left Professor Ying’s dark, sour apartment and begun the walk home with Foon did Joan come alive again in the fresh air.