As soon as the servant was dismissed, Takeda leaned towards her. His expression was grim as she explained something of what had happened.
‘Harry is in the camp at Argyle and a few weeks ago I tried to take him food but I was stopped and told to go to the Supreme Court.’ She faltered but Takeda had already interrupted.
‘The gendarmes? Why?’
‘My papers, I think. I don’t know.’ And the sharp sting was behind her eyes, the dry closing of her throat. ‘We haven’t any money left, Mr Takeda. I can’t feed the baby. Lily’s ill and I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know how to keep us going. I’m Chinese for now but who knows how long they will accept that and then what? Half the men I know are dead and the girls are standing in line with cup in hand waiting for a handout of thin rice stew.’
Takeda had stood up, he had gone very pale and was almost wringing his hands as he spoke. ‘I understand.’ He looked at her. ‘When was this, the interview with the gendarmes?’
‘Like I said, a few weeks ago. Six, maybe? Seven?’
‘They came to see me too.’
‘You? Why?’
Takeda was pacing. ‘This is bad, Miss Steiber. Very bad. This is the trouble I feared.’
‘But I don’t understand, what’s it got to do with you? It was all about Harry.’
He sounded angry but in fact he was aggrieved. ‘I’ve always felt a certain – a certain loyalty to Major Field. They know this.’ He fixed her with a stare. ‘And I am an honourable man.’
‘I know.’
He was agitated and forceful, quite unlike himself. ‘So I too have been questioned by the gendarmes. About you. I’m only glad I know nothing of what you may have been doing.’
A blush spread across her face. She had been more stupid than even she had realised; stomping like a fool into a terrible game whose rules she did not understand, implicating and endangering others. Many others. The voices of recrimination were loud in her own head but Takeda was speaking with such urgency that she heard him above them.
‘Listen to me. There’s a plan to repatriate all American civilians. There’s to be an exchange, Japanese citizens in America for Americans under Japanese occupation.’ He frowned. ‘But, as you say, you are carrying Chinese papers. There would be questions raised about your nationality.’
‘Repatriated? You mean – sent home?’ The words seemed hard to grasp, slippery and unlikely.
‘Yes – home.’
She heard an echo of Nakamura’s voice and then she saw the shadow of her mother and caught the faint scent of leather and freesias that clung to the hallway of their house. Home.
Takeda was thinking hard. ‘You’d have to refute your Chinese marriage and volunteer to go into the internment camp at Stanley. I don’t know how long it will take for the exchange to happen. There’s so much negotiation and nobody knows what or who they can trust. And of course there’s always the chance it may not happen at all.’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t. What about Harry? And Lily?’
Takeda’s voice shook as he grasped her hands too tightly. She was surprised by the anguish on his face. ‘You must. It’s your only chance. You think the war is going to end well? You think it’s going to end at all? You want your little boy to grow up in the shadow of fear as a third-class citizen on an occupied island? For what? For the romantic idea of being somehow close to Harry? You think he would want this? If you give up this opportunity at the very least it would be misplaced loyalty. And God knows I know about that. But at the worst it would be murder. You have no choice.’
He stood up again. ‘The fact is I can’t protect you any longer. I’m being sent back to Tokyo.’
She understood instantly. His war was over and he would be returning home very far from a hero. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’
‘We are all prisoners of the war one way or another.’ He shrugged and gave a small bow. Then he walked across the room to a delicate little desk that stood under an ornate mirror. She could hear the incongruously comforting hum of a lawnmower and the quiet ticking of a clock. He opened a drawer and pulled out a large brown envelope which he proffered to her in a quick movement. She had the impression he would withdraw it if she didn’t accept it equally fast.
She stood up and took it. Then she clasped his hand, standing close enough to smell his lemony eau de Cologne. His fingers were dry and cool.
‘May I see him? Please may I see him? Fix it for me, Takeda-san. I’m begging you.’
He was momentarily taken aback by the physical contact but recovering nimbly he shook his head, a smile breaking out on his pale face.
‘You overestimate my influence, Miss Steiber. Greatly, may I say.’
‘But is it possible?’
‘I am flattered.’
She let go of his hand and stepped back, feeling extremely foolish. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Is there anything else I can do?’
Stevie thought for a second and was only half-joking when she said, ‘I’d kill for a bath.’
The pleasure was intense, almost as engulfing as any other she had known. The water, hot enough to sting and blush her skin a broiled pink, contained and comforted her. Beyond the open Tudor-style window a tangle of jasmine blew, tap-tapping on the small glass panes.
She lay marooned with her hands on her belly and looked at the sunken seascape of her distorted legs, her toes protruding at the far end like stones flung beyond the edge of a landmass. She had hardly been able to bear the fact of her body since that terrible day, let alone look at it. Now, in this stranger’s bathroom in a stolen moment of calm she allowed herself the beginnings of an appraisal. It was disturbing to her that there was no visible scar, not even bruising to announce the damage. There should have been purple and blue contusions, raw blood vessels mapping the surface, swellings and bones at sickening angles. But, no, it was an invisible wound. Nobody would avert their eyes from her disfigured face and whisper to their children not to point. Nobody would offer to help her mutilated limbs negotiate the street. Nobody would know. It was a secret and the weight of it was hard to bear.
She closed her eyes and let the tall sides of the bath contain her until the water cooled and her fingertips wrinkled like used tissue paper. Then, sitting up in a tsunami of lukewarm water, she scrubbed herself with the bar of lavender soap and stepped out on to the mat.
As she caught sight of herself in the mirror, she saw that her hair was thinning and shiny grey hairs caught the afternoon light. Her dress hung off her bones, her skin was flaky dry and curdled in colour. She averted her eyes and tried to concentrate on the marvellous scent of lavender that still clung to her as she opened the door back into the house.
Stevie still smelt faintly of lavender as she bent over a sleeping Hal that night. The scent might have lingered longer had she not thrown up as soon as she got home. Her poor shrunken stomach had been too shocked by the richness of the cakes and pastries to contain them. Now she peered down at Hal and wondered how he would like fresh milk every day. And grandparents. And no soldiers with guns. She stroked his face and allowed herself for the first time to remember the sidewalks of Utica, the shopfronts of her youth. And like a slap she felt a spasm of longing for all those everyday assumptions like food and work and a cup of coffee. Maybe life didn’t have to be like this. Maybe Hal could grow up in a different world. Maybe.
She was suddenly afraid of her own thoughts – could she go? Could she really give up her freedom on the chance that there might be an exchange and that she and Hal might really get back to the States? Could she leave Harry, and Lily, and the old lady and Declan? Declan! Where was he? She thought suddenly of Phyllis and little Margaret and wondered how they were surviving in the camp. How could she even think of joining them there? It was impossible. She shook her head and delved into her bag for a rare cigarette. As she did so, she found the envelope that Takeda had given her earlier that afternoon.
Inside it there was enough money
to keep them all for a month and a photograph. Harry and Takeda standing arm in arm, young and fit, wearing white fencing uniforms, their faces radiating with enormous smiles, their foils raised high in a salute.
She stared at it for many minutes, hoping it would provide an answer. By the time she put it back in the envelope their faces had blurred. She had not registered that she was crying.
She went into the kitchen to wash her face. Every detail of their compromised way of life struck her anew. She couldn’t even look at the useless tin of powdered milk. But all at once she knew what she was going to do. She glanced into the tiny shard of mirror that hung over the sink and grimaced. She snorted to herself. ‘Mother’s going to be very disappointed by my lack of grooming. I sure have let myself go.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
April 1942
The rackety old pram barely made it over the ruts of dried mud. The ritual walk along the perimeter fence at Argyle was as silent and as tense as the first time. But Stevie was spurred on by a feeling of defiance that had driven her across the harbour and over the obstacles that threatened to de-wheel the pram and disrupt her own private act of rebellion. Despite Lily’s tearful and furious pleading she was determined to take the supplies for Harry to the gatehouse herself. This was the last time she would be able to do so, and Lily had sworn on her life that she would continue to take them when Stevie had gone. Stevie had offered to give her all her remaining clothes in return. Lily hadn’t said no. Her old passion for clothes had not faded. A few weeks earlier Stevie had found her poring over the pages of an old copy of Vogue she had pulled from the smoking ruins of a building.
Stevie’s armour of obstinacy did not protect her entirely, however, and the underlying fear was hard to ignore. During the whole journey she had been convinced that Nakamura was watching her and, although she hadn’t seen him, she felt sure that he was slipping out of sight down alleyways just beyond her vision. But she pressed on, girded by a new sense of fatality. The worst had already happened.
She lined up with the other women outside the gatehouse, shuffling slowly forward. She did not raise her eyes to those of the guard when he held out his hand for the basket of food and her identity card. From behind her eyelashes she watched as he passed her card on to a second guard while he himself searched through the basket. There was hardly anything in it. Supplies were more precious than ever and though there were cocktails to be had in all the big hotels, there were almost no basic groceries on the streets. She stopped herself from protesting when the guard took a bite out of the one good pear then spat it out before dropping it back into the basket.
The second guard said something in Japanese. Stevie kept her head down. He spoke again, louder this time. She glanced up. He seemed to be beckoning her into the gatehouse. She looked over her shoulder, expecting to see someone else to whom he was gesturing. The young, frightened woman behind her shook her head. Stevie looked back, panic rising. The guard raised his voice again.
She pointed at herself. ‘Me?’
He nodded impatiently. She felt again the sickening sensation of her face against the cold, hard desk. The weave of the uniform fabric. The fetid, hot smell of Shigeo as he stood too close. Concentrating on not shaking, she willed the images away and with the help of the first guard who with incongruous good manners lifted the other end, she manoeuvred the pram into the gatehouse.
Here there was a different kind of quiet. Flies threw themselves against the windows. There was a metal field desk, a typewriter, a fan. The second guard closed the door and pointed to a chair. Hal began to make disgruntled noises. Maybe the stifling, airless room was disturbing him. Stevie picked him up and took him on her lap as she sat down.
‘You are Miss Steiber?’
‘Yes.’ A deep breath. ‘I am.’
‘Wait here.’
The guard left the room and locked the door after him. Her mind reeled. Obviously it was all over for her. But what about Hal? How could she get him to Lily before they did their worst? She had taken one gamble too many and in her stubbornness had killed them both. Holding him so close he was almost a part of her again; she relished the smell of him and whispered as he protested, ‘Oh, my lovely boy. I’m so sorry.’
Hours passed. The light dimmed. The room was silent but for the death rattle of trapped flies. Outside the dusty window the endless parade of women and children slowed and then stopped. Hal settled in her lap and slept again. She rested her head on his.
The light snapped on. Stevie jerked her head up, blinking in the bare bulb’s brightness, adrenalin spiking. She saw two men. Recognising one as the guard who had locked her in she glanced at the other. He was standing to attention just behind the guard. He was not in uniform. He was Harry.
Stevie shouted his name and half-stood up. All was confusion. Hal woke and wailed as she half-dropped him to the floor. Harry seemed to be smiling. Yes, he was smiling, his thin face stretched to its limits. The guard stepped aside, stiffly indicating the desk and the two chairs on either side of it. Harry walked to one of them, supporting his paralysed left arm with his right hand. Stevie, clutching Hal tight, stumbled to the other. With her free hand she reached for him across the desk. At the same moment he reached for her. Palm to palm at last. It was only then that it came to her that she wasn’t dreaming. The only imperative was to touch him and the intensity of his presence froze her mind. She could not think, only feel. They both spoke at the same time, searching for reassurance, Stevie’s ‘Why are they letting us?’ counterpointed by Harry’s ‘You’re leaving. I’m so glad.’
‘Leaving? How do you know?’
He shook his head because of course he couldn’t say Takeda’s name. But she understood. And so it was decided. Until that moment she hadn’t realised that she was actually going to give herself up. To give herself and her son and her freedom up to fate. She was accepting that there were currents and tides beyond her control. She was accepting and it was necessary but also a relief.
They laughed. And they spoke fast, very fast, to say as much as they could. But neither of them spoke of the fundamental changes that they had experienced. The way that they were both new-minted by compromise and survival. It wasn’t possible. And it never would be. They would have to make do with this new version of each other, the same only different.
Harry reached out towards Hal, who was leaning into Stevie’s chest, a comma. ‘He’s grown so much.’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you been all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not too hungry?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
He shifted as far towards her as he could, the chair legs tipping him. ‘You’re still a terrible liar.’
‘No. We’re fine.’ Her smile was a necessary thing, empty but necessary. ‘You know us. Charmed lives.’
He lowered his voice. ‘Our old friend, the one who has been kind to us, don’t worry about him. He’s masterful, don’t underestimate his diplomatic talents.’
‘That’s all right, then. But I’ve underestimated his compatriots in lots of ways.’ That was too close. She struggled for a joke. ‘Their capacity for alcohol is pretty impressive for a start.’
‘And you should know.’
The humour was mirthless but she respected him for it as he did her. How else to talk in this surreal situation?
‘Are you all right? Are they treating you all right? How’s your arm? Have you seen a doctor? You’re very thin.’
‘I’m fine,’ he lied in return.
There was a loud rapping on the door. They both leaned further towards each other and Hal woke up, squashed between his mother and the desk. He protested. Stevie clutched Harry’s hand.
‘No. No, this is impossible.’
The guard who had brought Harry in and had then withdrawn while they talked, opened the door and had a brief conversation with the officer who had knocked.
Stevie and Harry’s eyes were locked on each other. He gripped Stevie’s hand a
nd pulled himself across the desk to her. At last, there were his lips, dry and sore, on hers. This was the kiss that had to say it all.
Hal yelled louder.
The guard turned to them, very anxious. ‘Stop immediately. This is a military camp.’
Stevie began to pull away but Harry pulled her close again. ‘Don’t stop.’
‘It is finished.’ The guard grabbed Harry’s shoulder and pulled him to his feet. His chair fell, the noise of metal on concrete like the end of the world. As Stevie struggled to her feet Harry was already being dragged through the open door.
She stumbled across the room, Hal’s wails bitter in her ears, and she saw Harry being taken deeper into the darkness of the camp. His head was turned back to her over his shoulder as he walked. The lights from the perimeter fence cast shadows across him as he moved in and out of their rays. Faster and faster, further and further away. A ghost already.
Part Three
Chapter Twenty-Seven
New York – August 1945
‘I have here in the studio with me a woman who will certainly be familiar to many of you –’ the smug-voiced radio presenter was young. An air of entitlement clung to him. Stevie glanced towards the producer’s box and there, through the glass, she could see Hal, his three-and-a-half-year-old busyness causing havoc. He waved at her, pressing his hands against the window. She waved back.
‘She scooped veteran correspondents with her acclaimed book about the Chinese Soong sisters and now she has written the most, well, shall we say the most uninhibited book of the year – Inside Hong Kong.’
Stevie gave her full attention back to the interviewer. The euphoria and surprise that had flushed through her on discovering that the draft manuscript of her book about the Soong sisters had been published while she was incarcerated at Stanley had long ago diminished. She had finished it in the frenzied days before her voluntary admission to the camp. She had left it with Lily in the hopes that she could keep it safe, and Lily had taken it upon herself to pass it to Chen. In this roundabout way the manuscript had reached Jishang, who had masterminded its delivery to the States. The pleasure Stevie had felt in being taken seriously had not been enough to overcome the sinking realisation that the book had not made any real difference. Not in the world and not to her.
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