The Harbour

by Francesca Brill

  ‘Mama?’

  Lily indicated the door of the sleeping room with her head but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Everything all right?’

  Lily snorted. ‘All right? You ask if we’re all right? Mother doesn’t move or speak, I don’t dare leave the compound, I’m looking after someone else’s baby and I’ve got no idea when I’ll eat again but apart from that, yes, we’re all right.’

  ‘Where’s Stevie?’

  Chen only asked as an afterthought. He was intent on having a quick shave and getting back out into the slippery world. Lily’s answer brought him to a standstill.

  ‘She went to the Supreme Court yesterday and hasn’t come back.’

  ‘Yesterday?’

  Lily nodded. There was a huge sense of relief at sharing this information but at the same time the fear crept closer.

  His voice was low. ‘Why?’

  Lily’s voice rose in panic. ‘She took food to Argyle and a gendarme followed her back. I don’t know why she had to go there anyway. It was stupid to go right there and be seen and have her papers checked. Stupid.’

  Chen moved very fast. He was at the gate before Lily understood he was leaving. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked, but her plaintive voice followed him out and she was alone again but for the baby and her fear.

  Chen ran, always staying close to the buildings or what was left of them; he negotiated the new cityscape without hesitation. Like a whisper he insinuated himself through alleys and along wide avenues until far beyond the city he reached a wooden fishing shack, hunched against a rock in a small bay. His knock was sharp on the weather-beaten door.

  ‘It’s me, Chen,’ he rasped.

  He pushed the door open. Two men in loose fishermen’s clothes were squatting in the candlelight. They looked up, alarmed. One of them was the gentle-faced Ping Wei, the other had intelligent eyes glittering above his fine, high cheekbones. Jishang was hardly recognisable, but that was the point.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you back so soon,’ Jishang said, rising to his feet. ‘How was she?’ He smiled. ‘I hope she didn’t mind my not coming in person. What did she say, will she meet me?’

  Chen didn’t take the time to close the door. He said, ‘Stevie was called to the gendarmes yesterday.’

  Ping Wei stood up. Jishang’s eyes darkened with concern and he took an urgent step towards Chen.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And she hasn’t been seen since.’

  Jishang paused, his normal composure unseated. He thought fast. ‘She’s too well connected to disappear. Even the gendarmes wouldn’t take that chance.’

  Ping Wei spoke quietly. ‘Do you think they found the radio part?’

  ‘We’ll know soon enough. If Major Field is still alive we can assume they didn’t.’

  Jishang brushed past Chen and stepped out through the open door. Chen’s voice was young and insecure.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I have a fair idea of where she might be.’

  Chen scurried after Jishang, who was melting into the darkness. Ping Wei made as if to follow too but Chen stopped him. ‘Wait here for news.’ The young man’s eyes lowered in acquiescence and he waited until the other two had vanished before withdrawing into the hut.

  Stevie lay on the day bed. Her eyes were half-closed. The opium smoke formed a haze around her. She stirred and reached out again for the pipe. But another hand got there first, moving it away. She tried to focus through her daze. There was somebody, a coolie, who looked like Jishang. She smiled and muttered something quite impossible to decipher. Then she slid back on to the cushions. Her eyes closed against the world.

  A little later, Lily, too tired to be afraid, looked up from where she was sitting on the veranda steps. She kept one hand lightly on Hal’s chest as he lay across her lap, splayed out in sleep. She immediately recognised the skinny outline of her brother silhouetted in the gateway, but who was that with him? As they approached, to her amazement, she made out the broader, taller man to be Jishang and she saw that between them they were half-supporting, half-dragging the limp body of Stevie.

  Her first thought was that Stevie was dead. But her relief on discovering that her friend was alive was quickly followed by fury when she learned that she had been found in an opium den. It was all she could do to restrain herself from lashing out at Stevie. An opium den! She couldn’t differentiate between her anger and her disgust. Chen had to lead her out of the room, stiff with resentment and worry. Jishang stayed with Stevie and waited, patient as time itself.

  In the pale dawn light Jishang lay on his side, watching her sleep. A slight breeze from the open window whispered across her face and she opened her eyes. Her first feeling was one of disappointment. She was alive. She was also numb, so deadened that it didn’t surprise her to hear Jishang’s voice.

  ‘You must be thirsty.’

  She shook her head, feeling the clean cotton of the pillow against her cheeks.

  ‘Why did they let you go?’ he asked, his voice even but urgent.

  Her eyes closed against him.

  ‘What did they want to know?’ He pressed her, not without sympathy but clearly in need of an answer. Other people’s lives were at stake.

  There was no response.

  He lowered his voice to an almost inaudible whisper. ‘What did they do to you?’ But he already knew the answer.

  Tears ran from under her eyelashes. She turned away from him, huddling as close to the wall as she could, holding herself tight – her entire body a fist.

  Hours later, Stevie uncoiled herself, aching from the tension. Jishang, her sentinel, handed her the waiting glass of water. She took it and awkwardly pulled her reluctant limbs into a sitting position. Her body felt different, alien. For a wild moment she thought that maybe it was actually someone else’s. Then quickly the horrible truth returned and she understood that this was the way she would always feel. The scar tissue was hardening and she was remade. She would never be the girl she had been before.

  Jishang spoke so quietly that even though he was close enough for her to see the pores of his familiar smooth skin she had to strain to catch the words.

  ‘I’m sorry. Chen should never have asked you to help. It was reckless and dangerous but he is young and therefore stupid. He wanted to be a hero and of course getting a radio into Argyle is one of our aims but –’ He sighed. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Stevie kept her head down. Her eyes focussed on the weave of the dark-red blanket.

  ‘You know, your friend Madame Kung is helping us. She sends money. Even-handed of her, don’t you think.’

  Stevie blinked. That name seemed to belong to an ancient time. It was an echo of another life.

  ‘She’s in America,’ he continued, ‘but she keeps a very close eye on all of us. I wasn’t much use in Shanghai so I came to see what I could do here. There are many people, Stevie, many people. Resistance to the Japanese is not confined to the political factions, whatever the Communists may claim.’

  Jishang stopped and suddenly he was talking in what seemed almost to be a different language. He was speaking to her from his rare, raw centre. ‘Stevie, you’re difficult and stubborn and you’re also brave and clever and you must look after yourself and your baby now. How far do you have to go before you can admit this? How hurt do you have to be? Maybe only death would be enough for you. But you can help more by staying alive. You can tell the world what’s happening here. Stevie, do you hear me?’

  Stevie raised her eyes and found comfort in the familiar darkness of Jishang’s insistent gaze. He went on, ‘And although you have many of the characteristics of a good wife, I accept that fidelity isn’t one of them.’

  He glanced towards the door. On the other side of it real life went on. Hal gurgled, tied tight in a bundle on Lily’s back. The fruit on the trees ripened. Mrs Li pulled her shawl over her face as she stayed resolutely turned to the wall.

  ‘Luckily, as you know, I make it a habit not to care too
much about anybody and in that we’ve been well-matched.’ He added this for old times’ sake but they both knew the depth of the lie. He turned back to her. ‘I know you’re not mine, any more. And this isn’t your war. You’re a fighter but this isn’t your battle.’

  Stevie drew herself tighter, the foreign body that was hers braced against further pain.

  ‘Why have you come back?’ Her voice, though familiar to her, also seemed to belong to someone else.

  He shrugged. ‘Let’s say I’m keeping an eye on my interests.’

  Stevie shook her head. ‘God, I’d forgotten how irritating you are.’

  She thought that maybe he smiled, but in the half-light his fine profile gave nothing away. Through the window, across the soft, pink light of dusk, a flock of geese flew in perfect formation.

  Jishang unreeled himself and stood up, stretching to ease the aching of his muscles.

  ‘We need food,’ he shouted as he took long strides towards the door.

  ‘Make it yourself,’ Lily yelled back from the courtyard, bad-tempered from anxiety. But she was already on her way to the kitchen.

  It took Stevie some while to move. By the time she dragged herself outside Jishang had gone, like a pantomime character, almost in a puff of smoke. She pulled herself along the wall, learning how to use this new body of hers. When she appeared in the courtyard Lily was halfway across it, a bowl of warm soup in her hands, Hal in a papoose on her back. She stopped mid-stride. Steam from the bowl made a film on her face. They looked at each other across a divide far deeper than the few yards of bare earth that separated them.

  Stevie spoke first. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Lily stood as implacable as stone.

  Stevie struggled. ‘What can I say?’

  The stone Madonna held her ground. There was a grim silence. Stevie leaned her head against the wall. Hal made a small, sweet gurgle.

  Lily could not help herself. ‘He’s fine. Though you don’t deserve to have him.’

  At those stinging words, tears came flooding down Stevie’s cheeks. Hot like blood. She wailed, a terrible primitive sound.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ She was sorry for everything. For the war, for the brutality of it, for bringing Hal into this world of fear.

  She grieved as she stood against that wall in the quiet courtyard in Hong Kong. And Lily, unable to grasp the meaning of her grief but recognising it as profound, softened. She let go of her resentment and at the same time let go of the bowl. It dropped on to the hard dirt and shattered loudly. The noise startled Stevie into silence.

  Lily laughed nervously. And as Stevie tried to draw breath she found laughter replacing the keening. Lily pulled her into her arms. Stevie, taller by a head, leaned into her friend and opening her eyes she saw the curious face of her baby peering at her. She laughed again, and still there were tears, but the three of them stood for a moment supporting each other. Then holding on to each other and gasping for breath they went to the kitchen in search of more soup.

  The rain came and later, while Stevie held Hal until he slept, Lily went to fetch Stevie’s bag from near the gate. Jishang and Chen had dropped it there when they had brought Stevie back. As she picked it up the clasp flicked open and Lily saw the torn, scrunched-up underwear. She quickly closed the bag and glanced over at Stevie, who was rocking Hal and humming to him. She blanched with pity. She never asked Stevie what had happened. And Stevie never said.

  But here, now, in her friend’s kitchen with the dying light obscuring their features and her baby safe and asleep beside her, Stevie allowed herself to take comfort. She turned her face towards the door and to the darkening sky. A bird swooped through the fat raindrops from the shelter of one tree to the next.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Harry heard the rain. There wasn’t a part of his body that wasn’t in pain. It was possible that bones were broken but between the bruises and the sharp edges inside him he could not decipher what was what. He had lain where they had left him for a long time. Squinting through the one eye that wasn’t completely sealed by dried blood and swelling, he could see the gap under the door. Occasionally the shadows of feet passed by but clenched though he was in anticipation, nobody stopped. After a while he stopped expecting another invasion of his hut. He stopped expecting anything at all. In his mind he groped for the technical terms of medieval fortifications and grappled with the frustration of not remembering. Yes, of course it was a crenellation but what the hell was it in Portuguese? God damn it. The noise of the rain on the corrugated iron was a welcome distraction. And at first so were the drips that fell more and more insistently on him. Realising that finally he would not be made better by being wet as well as broken, he tried to haul himself out of the way. The enormous effort that this entailed winded him. Well, he thought as he lay, shaking and exhausted under another leak from the roof, at least I’m alive. And if he’d had the energy he would have laughed.

  There was the sound of Japanese voices passing outside – and he was no longer lying broken on the floor of a hut in Hong Kong. He was lying on the thin mattress roll in the dormitory at the Military Academy in Kyoto, trying to contain the hysterical laughter that Takeda’s imitation of their colonel had brought on. It had been pitch-perfect, right down to the slight lisp. It was a year of laughter. His pleasure at discovering the delicate beauty of the landscape and the fragile beauty of the social etiquette had been intense. Every day since the ship had brought him to this new land Harry had thanked his lucky stars and soaked up every new challenge, mopping his plate with relish. He was twenty-two and glad to be alive.

  He had fenced and ridden and run. He had shot guns and arrows. He had listened to incomprehensibly unfamiliar music and eaten food that had brought tears to his eyes. He had drunk the colourless alcohol and admired the fierce autumn leaves. But the first time he had been in the boxing ring he had nearly come a cropper. The shouts of the other young men had echoed through the wooden hall. The stomping of their feet raised his blood and he launched into an attack on the much smaller, slender boy who was in the ring with him. But the boy had slipped out of his reach and in a series of light-footed moves he had made a fool out of Harry, who was left swinging wildly and spinning, dizzy, sweat stinging his eyes and unable to locate his opponent. The fight ended badly for him when a left hook to his lower jaw dropped him to the canvas floor. He opened his eyes to see the blurry face of Takeda leaning over him, anguished at his victory. Harry had loved him from that moment on.

  They were an odd pair, the leggy, golden English boy and the slight, vivacious Japanese one. Odd but inseparable. Harry had nothing but admiration for Takeda’s sweet nature, vast curiosity and obstinate loyalty and it opened something within him that had been closed for as long as he could remember. He surrendered his guarded cynicism, allowing himself a new softness for which he was grateful.

  One evening at the end of a long day hiking in the mountains they had found themselves in a small village, where the arrival of an Englishman caused a stir. Before too long a small crowd of young men had gathered in the guest house and the atmosphere began to sour. The Washington Naval Treaty had just been signed and Japan had been prevailed upon not only to stop building warships but to return newly conquered Shandong to the Chinese.

  A pock-marked young man with fashionably slicked-back hair spat on the floor near Harry’s feet.

  ‘Go back where you came from, white boy. What business is it of yours to tell us what we can do.’

  Takeda did not bother to translate. He put his head down and without warning ran at the ringleader. He winded him but that was not enough of an advantage to avoid the brawl that ensued. Half an hour later they were in their room tending to their wounds. As he dipped the end of the thin towel into a bowl of warm water, Harry watched his blood swirling, entwining with Takeda’s.

  Takeda followed his gaze. ‘This makes us brothers.’

  ‘What, you mean we have nothing in common and will punch the daylights out
of each other given the slightest opportunity?’

  Takeda grinned. He had heard all about Harry’s tribulations with Roger. ‘No. Not like that. We will be different brothers. We have chosen it.’

  ‘Jolly good.’ Harry winced as Takeda dabbed at a cut over his eye. ‘I agree.’

  And so that night their friendship was sealed. As the years passed and they gradually stopped writing amusing letters to each other and life became a more serious undertaking, Harry had often thought of his time with Takeda as the best of his youth. The world of politics had conspired to drive a wedge between the young men but neither of them had ever forgotten. Then came that moment two years ago in which Harry had caught sight of Takeda coming out of the Japanese barber shop in the Hong Kong Hotel. It had been six years since they had shaken hands and said goodbye. Takeda had filled out and was no longer the willowy young man of before, but the cheerfulness in his wide-set eyes was the same. They had embraced one another, delighted that life had swept them on to the same shore again.

  Harry had put his hand on Takeda’s elbow and pretended to whisper, ‘You know your friend the barber is sending information back to Japan.’

  ‘I’ll remember not to tell him my holiday plans in that case.’

  ‘You do that.’

  And they had both beamed, delighted that they could pick up their friendship again, and without needing to acknowledge the great information game their countries were asking them to play.

  It took the guards some time to bring Harry round. The soldiers had assumed that he was dead and one of them kicked his body to make sure. There was no response. But they were under orders to bring him to the senior officer, so they did. He hung between them, limp and pathetic. His legs trailed behind him as they dragged him across the compound. The officer was not impressed. He shouted at them and they left Harry on the ground as they went in search of the medical officer. The senior officer walked around the Englishman’s inert body, and then, picking up a carafe of water from his desk, he casually tipped it over him. Harry had the good grace to splutter. As the medical officer came in he contributed to the arousal of the prisoner with a firm, efficient slap across the face. This time Harry opened his eyes as best he could.