The Harbour

by Francesca Brill

  The hall was steamy and echoed with the voices of over-excited children. The next class had started and Hal sat alone on a chair at the side of the room, his legs dangling, his head hanging, the very picture of abandonment.

  ‘Darling, was it fun?’ She knew her voice sounded tight and self-conscious. The gym teacher had already made comments about how difficult it must be bringing up a child on her own. Consequently, she had made a point of always being on time to collect him and was obsessively careful that his kit was clean. He was probably the cleanest kid in the class. He slipped down from the chair and, still avoiding eye contact, picked up his jacket from the floor. The healthily proportioned gym teacher ran over to them. She was always running, maybe that was part of her job description but it hadn’t done much for the width of her behind. The woman was smiling her dealing-with-parents smile.

  ‘Everything all right now?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘You must be very busy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Good.’ She tousled Hal’s hair proprietorially. ‘We don’t like waiting after class, do we?’

  Hal stood politely still.

  Stevie managed her own perky smile in return. ‘No, we don’t.’ And she took Hal’s hand and drawing him towards the door, rescued him from the familiar barely concealed moral indignation.

  As she opened the door to their apartment she thought of Declan, and the pang of regret propelled her into the living room. He hadn’t deserved to be dismissed so harshly. It wasn’t his fault that she couldn’t let him in. It had been nearly two years since he had brought some light back into their lives. Declan had found his way to New York via Dublin – as soon as he could he had taken his chance and headed for the New World. His paper was very happy to have him file the occasional freelance, poorly paid piece and he had picked up other commissions fast.

  He had called her from the port and through the early morning fog she had heard his voice and momentarily mistaken it for Harry’s. The jolt of it had stayed with her for a long time.

  ‘I knew that the smallest noise could mean the difference between life or death. I was walking a tightrope into the unknown with nothing to trust in but a complete stranger leading the way.’

  It was weeks after that call, as the light had dimmed in her apartment and the buildings opposite had become silhouetted against a spectacular sky, that Declan had told her about his escape from Hong Kong. His voice was low and he lit one cigarette after another. Finally, the night descended and all she could see was the orange point of light, a firefly in the velvet dark, as he talked.

  Declan’s Irish passport had kept him out of the camp at Stanley. For three months he had dropped out of sight of the authorities, writing as much as he could about what he was witnessing and taking down accounts of other people’s experiences.

  ‘How did you send them out?’

  ‘It was tricky.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  ‘At first I just put copies in the post. But it became clear pretty quickly that it wasn’t going to work. The Japanese censors were just as efficient as the British and much more aggressive. They knocked the door off its hinges when they came to tell me to stop.’ He took a long drag of the cigarette. ‘I got the message.’

  ‘So they knew where you were.’

  Declan nodded. ‘I thought I’d better activate my exit strategy.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘To find Chen. He’d said that if I was ever in need I should place an advert in the Hong Kong Times. It was to read “Frau Steinschneider offers singing lessons Reply to PO Box 230.” ’

  ‘A bit Scarlet Pimpernel.’

  ‘Exactly. It seemed ridiculous but the day after I put the advert in I was approached by a young Chinese woman outside my apartment. After some initial confusion and once I’d established she wasn’t generously offering to have sex with me, she whispered very precise instructions in my ear.’

  That evening, carrying as little as he could manage – a rucksack with a notebook and pencil, a chunk of bread, some cheese and a spare pair of socks – he had gone to a bar on Hollywood Road. There a man he had never seen before, wearing a chauffeur’s uniform, had indicated that he was to follow him. Throwing himself into the hands of fate, he had done so. They did not exchange a single word. Taut with tension, he had climbed on to a tram behind the man.

  ‘And, you know, the strangest thing was how silent it was on that tram. The dearth of European faces was not too disconcerting but the lack of chat was. The defining characteristic of a Hong Kong tram ride has always been the deafening, animated shouting, right?’ Stevie nodded in the gathering darkness, not wanting to get up and turn on a light. ‘Well, nobody spoke or even caught each other’s eye. We passed Japanese soldiers in the street and not even the foolhardy looked at them. Most hung their heads to avoid any eye contact because that was all it would take for the tram to be halted, boarded and emptied. You never knew whether it would be your body by the side of the road with your shopping bags spilled and your hard-won vegetables rolling under the wheels of the passing cars. I kept my eyes on the seat in front of me, I’ll never forget that frayed tartan, and held the chauffeur’s hat in my peripheral vision.’

  They had got off at Shaukiwan beyond the yacht club.

  ‘We were headed for the water’s edge. I could hear the lapping of the waves and I saw a glimpse of a couple of sampans in the darkness.’

  Stevie could imagine their low hulls pearly against the dark water.

  ‘The chauffeur gestured to one of the boats and I lowered myself in. The chauffeur climbed down into the other. I had just enough time to notice that the sampan was being rowed by a woman before I was pushed down flat against the boards at the bottom of the boat and heavy blankets were thrown over me. God, it was damp and the stench of fish and unwashed bodies was bad enough, but it got worse. There was a sudden bright light sweeping over us. Searchlights from a Japanese warship. The sampan must have been illuminated as if it was day. But amazingly there was no break in the steady slapping of the oars.’

  He couldn’t say how long the journey had lasted but in the end he felt the hull bump against a stony beach and the smothering blankets were lifted off him. Again without a word, he was helped on to dry land. The man who was waiting for him was wearing the uniform of a Chinese Nationalist soldier.

  ‘The big surprise was that the Communists and Nationalists were working together in common cause against the Japanese.’

  ‘Not before time.’

  ‘Damn right.’

  He had followed the soldier across dense bush country, the stars providing hazy light as they waded through a river and finally, near dawn, stumbled into a small village. In a windowless room dimly lit by a candle, the leader of the local Communists welcomed him with words he could not understand but with a generosity he could.

  ‘Picture this, on one end of the table was a pile of revolvers and on the other a feast of noodles. Not to mention the most welcome warm beer I ever drank. I was given a bed and slept right through the day. In the early evening a kid of about twelve woke me up and, though God knows I was aching all over, he took me to meet the most astonishing person I ever saw. There was this imposing dark-skinned bloke with long, tightly curled hair like twisted ropes falling over these broad shoulders. And he was done up in full military gear.’

  ‘Are you sure you weren’t hallucinating?’

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you, but he was as solid as you or me. Actually, he was taller than me, stooping under the low roof, but the thing was he had these delicate facial features and a totally disconcerting sweetness about him. He said his name was Khan and he had a distinctively West Indian accent.’

  ‘I see what you mean, astonishing. What was his story?’

  ‘I wish I knew. Obviously I asked but he wasn’t exactly forthcoming. I’m pretty sure he was a local warlord of some kind – he was conspicuously armed with a sten gun as well as a revolver. Anyway, he led me for
the next part of the journey until we got to a village built on wooden piles because the land was so marshy, and Khan just melted into the darkness to be replaced by a Chinese man wearing a British uniform.’

  ‘Curiouser and curiouser.’

  Declan smiled but he wasn’t going to be distracted from finishing his tale.

  ‘From there the going was significantly more rough, the pathways barely marked. But by now nothing could surprise me. I was living moment to moment, expecting at any time to be ambushed or simply pushed into a creek and drowned. Hours later we came to a bay where, looming out of the water, there was a sailing junk manned by scarred and ragged sailors who evidently made their living as pirates. I worked that out when I saw the twelve machine guns they handled rather too casually. I was stowed in the stern and, five hours later, was set down on the coast of Free China.’

  ‘God, Declan, that’s some adventure.’

  ‘You know what, the first thing I saw was a cheery Australian bloke and the first words I heard were “Fuck me, mate, you made it.” ’

  Stevie roared with laughter and Declan joined her.

  His voice was full of professional regret when he said, ‘The biggest story of my life and I’ll never be able to write about it.’

  Declan, being Declan, had made irresistible inroads into her life immediately. And he had stayed there. Both she and Hal were quietly grateful for his good humour and energy and dedication to them. One evening maybe four or five months after he had appeared, he brought boxes of noodles in black bean sauce from the street stalls of Chinatown and they talked by candlelight in the tiny apartment kitchen. This was as close as she came to going out. She had never left Hal with a babysitter at night. It didn’t seem right. This was only one of many small but potent effects of their trauma on their everyday lives. Declan had told her then, lulled by the flickering light, about how he had found his girlfriend’s body in the rubble of her apartment building. He had helped to dig and the first thing they had seen was one of her hands, lovely and perfect and clutching the figurine of a small Chinese god. He knew it was hers because she was wearing the ring which he had refused to consider an engagement token but which she had shown around town as if it was.

  Stevie had followed his bitter laugh with, ‘Maybe it was. Maybe she was right.’

  He had shaken his head and looking directly at her, his eyes glowing in the shadows of his face, had said, ‘You know why I could never promise myself to anybody.’ And before she could stop him he was declaring his love for her all over again and she wanted to believe it. Her hollow, sad heart answered his and for a moment she had thought, ‘Yes, maybe. Maybe I can do this.’ It only took another moment for her to understand the impossibility of it. He had stood up and drawn her to her feet and held her close, his heart beating next to her ear, the tremor of it through his body. For a brief moment she had felt the incredible, baffling relief of human contact. But it was quickly followed by a rising nausea. She had pushed him away and had pressed herself into the corner of the narrow kitchen.

  All she could do was shake her head. Her voice was trapped inside her along with the words. There was nothing she could say.

  Afterwards, she knew she would never have a physical relationship again. She was, quite simply, not able. She did not bewail and mourn this fate. She accepted it. It wasn’t so bad after all. She was alive. She had Hal. She had her work. So what if a part of her had died? It seemed a small price to pay for survival. And she saw Phyllis’ hair held in a string and heard her broken, mad voice and was grateful.

  She didn’t notice Hal picking up an envelope from the doormat. He lingered in the hallway, tearing the paper open as he’d seen her do so often. Unfortunately the opening did not go to plan and he followed his mother into the living room with the two torn halves of the telegram in his hands.

  ‘I tore it.’

  Stevie turned to look and in that moment saw what it was. A cable. Her pulse slowed. She moved towards him and held out her hand. He put the pieces of paper into it. Disconcerted by her silence and misinterpreting it as disapproval, he flung his arms around her legs. ‘Sorry, Mommy.’

  She shook him off gently and took the few steps to the couch. She held the twin slips of paper together, their ragged edges slotting almost perfectly into each other. She read.

  Impossible to ask the things I want to know. Stop. I understand if there is someone else. Stop. Harry.

  Hal’s hands were on her knees, his face puzzled. ‘Don’t cry,’ he said. ‘We can fix it.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The cab drew up outside the low-lying arrivals terminal at New York Municipal Airport. The building hunched over on itself, a timeworn location for crisis and drama. Luckily, Hal’s fidgeting during the journey had prevented Stevie from thinking too hard about what was happening. In the days since the cable she had been too feverish to take in the immensity of it. All she could do was try to keep her feelings of vindication at bay and concentrate on the details. Harry was coming back to her. He really was. Her every waking moment echoed to that refrain. Harry was coming back. But her sleep was disturbed by a nameless anxiety that woke her every hour or so and unsettled her. Everything had been about getting to this day, getting out of this cab and entering this building. She had no idea at all what would happen afterwards. No plan. No contingency. No imagined conversation. This was as far as she got.

  Harry had sent the cable from Hong Kong on the first day of the surrender.

  The mood in the camp had been uneasy for weeks. The guards, by turn jittery and lax, had escalated the paranoia of the prisoners into a kind of frenzy. Gossip had passed like electric currents through the whole camp, more extreme by the minute and at greater speed. They were all going to be shot. They would have to dig their own graves. No, they weren’t going to be shot – in order to save bullets they would be locked in a hut and burned alive, or their rice rations would be poisoned.

  It was in this fevered atmosphere that Harry noticed one day that the guards had disappeared. They had gone through the gate, in small, almost random, groups, taking their weapons with them. They had left the gate open. They had not come back.

  Harry kept his eyes on the gate. His unexpected skill in getting vegetables to grow in the thin soil had earned him a certain quiet respect. In general he spoke only when it was absolutely necessary and avoided anything more than superficial contact with the other prisoners. He was on his knees, making sure that the runner beans were securely tied to their bamboo poles, when Frank Hopkins, who had developed a reputation as a troublemaker, ran past, shouting over his shoulder to another lad.

  ‘Get a move on. I know where they keep the tobacco and there’s nobody guarding it.’

  Harry sat back on his heels and said, ‘Be careful. The supply sheds are booby-trapped.’

  Frank skidded to a halt. It was the first time Harry had addressed him since the terrible day of the beheading. ‘Got something to say, have you?’

  Harry shrugged and turned back towards the beans.

  Frank’s voice came again, tight with hatred and mistrust. ‘Collaborator.’ Harry didn’t move. He had heard it whispered in the lunch queue over the years but it had never been spoken to his face before.

  ‘Why would I listen to you? I know what you did and I know you’re working for them.’

  Harry spoke quietly without looking at Frank. ‘Look out for the trip wires. They’re just in front of the shed.’

  Frank took a step backwards while he considered this. ‘All right if you know so much, where have the bastards gone? Sid says they’re waiting to shoot anyone who steps through the gate.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You would say that, wouldn’t you. It would suit you just fine if they did shoot us all.’ And he turned to his companion. ‘Let’s see what the others think.’

  Harry waited until the sound of their footsteps had faded. Then he stood up. It had been at least half an hour since the last of the guards had left. In a daze of
bewilderment, Harry walked the few yards to the gates. Without stopping, he walked on through them, expecting gunfire with every step. But it didn’t come. There was a silence – the cicadas ear-splittingly loud, the dry leaves rustling like rain.

  Harry walked with extreme caution, each step an exploration of a new reality. His emaciated legs struggled to bear his weight. He was barefoot and though the soles of his feet were as hardened as the sole of any shoe, the joints of his toes were stiff and swollen. He hadn’t taken so many steps for years. The details of this escape were overwhelming. He was concentrating so fiercely on the mechanics of the undertaking that he was taken by surprise when he looked around him and realised that he had turned the corner in the road, the corner that for four years had defined his horizon.

  The surreal nature of the day was compounded by the fact that the road led to a bus stop. And there were buses running from the stop. And the Chinese bus conductor made no attempt to stop him though he must have been entirely recognisable as a prisoner, white, ragged, skeletal. He was not asked for a ticket. It was only when he was sitting in a seat and could feel the harsh upholstery brushing against his shins that he cleared his dry throat and asked the woman opposite him, in English, if she knew whether there was any news.

  She raised her eyes from her embroidery to take in his wretched appearance, then bent her head back down to her silk thread and said, ‘People say the war is over.’

  The woman’s dignified caution expressed more of the horrors and the insecurities of war than any raucous celebration. Harry turned his eyes to the window but the tears were warm on his cheeks. He did not attempt to wipe them away.

  The city of Hong Kong was in paroxysms of chaos. Harry walked through the streets and everybody looked exactly alike – stunned. They could not yet allow themselves to believe that the nightmare might be over. He found the post office still standing right where it had always been. Digging deep into his pocket he brought out the precious sheet of paper, a spider’s web of foldings. It was the one letter he had and he had received it two years after it had been sent.