Lucy smiled back. ‘Yes.’
The sound of a flute being played drifted in from outside.
Nadine squeezed out the cloth and threw the contents of the bowl out of the window.
At the sound of the water splashing onto the foliage, the flute player paused and looked up. He was an officer. Their eyes met and for a moment the world seemed to fall to silence.
‘Who’s playing?’ asked Lucy.
Nadine gritted her teeth. ‘Just another Nip.’
There was a faraway look in Lucy’s eyes, as though she wasn’t really listening. ‘When they abused me I pretended I was not here. I imagined I was back in Singapore. What a different world that was.’
Nadine clutched at her throat. If she hadn’t, she would have sobbed out loud. But she mustn’t do that. Giving in to despair would help no one.
‘We’ll be back there before very long.’
Lucy appeared not to have heard what she’d said. In her thoughts at least she was still in Singapore.
‘The parties, the nights of stars, the smell of the sea, and all those beautiful people…’
‘None of them were as beautiful as you.’
Nadine could have bitten her tongue out after she’d said it. ‘And you still are,’ she added, regretting that she’d used the past tense.
Lucy smiled. ‘Here’s to Singapore,’ she said, raising her hand and cupping her fingers as though she were holding a glass.
Nadine copied her. ‘Here’s to Singapore.’
The truth hurt and clutched at her chest. This battered, bruised woman had once dressed in the latest fashions and had been married to a handsome Dutch planter. Lucy had been the epitome of a Westernised Chinese girl. Her perfume, like her body, had been elegant, refined.
Small cries of entreaty came from one of the small rooms adjacent to the one Lucy was lying in.
Through a gap Nadine saw a man sandwiched between two Malay girls over in the corner, switching from one to another as the fancy took him. His voice was low and guttural; she had no idea what he was saying.
In the next cubicle, the young lieutenant she’d seen earlier was examining Peggy’s pubic hair. He looked totally entranced by the fact that it was a little more reddish blonde than the lighter hair on her head.
Peggy was good at smiling and snarling at one and the same time.
‘Do you realize how much I hate you?’ she was saying sweetly, her words barely sliding through a clenched smile. ‘Yes, you’re the conquerors now, but you know that old saying, he who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind. I hope you get sucked up in the worst of it, sucked up into a bloody great fiery tornado, you nasty little bugger!’
Being here was difficult. Death or dishonour. A fate worse than death. All those trite sayings trailed through her mind. Words Shanti had once spoken to her overshadowed them all: life is precious, no matter what.
The man who’d been with the two Malayan girls came out from behind the bamboo curtain. He was naked and made no effort to put his clothes back on. Like most Japanese, he was fastidious about bathing, preferring to swim before visiting the women and swim or bathe again afterwards.
A bathhouse was provided adjacent to the Bamboo Bridge House for the use of officers. Sometimes the women were taken there to scrub their backs and help them bathe, the custom in Japan.
The officer padded on bare feet the length of the room to where the old Korean woman sat behind a cash register. It was extremely ornate and silver in colour. Rumour had it that it had come from a haberdasher’s shop in Singapore.
The officer paid and the old woman stabbed at a key – not always the right one, but any would do in order to open the drawer.
Nadine lingered, her eyes feasting on the amount of money going into that till. Think what you could do with it. Only a little so it wouldn’t be noticed; enough to buy medicines and extra food and, best of all, pay someone to take them out of here. But how? Madam Cherry didn’t let the cash register out of her sight unless it was with the old woman. Nobody else was trusted, and when the old woman wasn’t sitting there, madam took the money herself, two guards groaning beneath the weight of a silk brocade armchair brought from her private quarters.
The naked man went outside to pee over the front veranda before returning to put on his uniform.
Rosalyn was waiting outside as Nadine left.
‘The prodigal returns,’ sneered Rosalyn. ‘Are you back to suffer like the rest of us, Nadine, or still intent on saving your own skin?’
After seeing Lucy, she couldn’t be upset by anything Rosalyn might do or say. Her voice was as chilly as the look in her eyes. ‘Leave me alone, Rosalyn. I don’t like you and you don’t like me. Let’s leave it at that!’
‘Just you watch your step.’
‘Shut up, Rosalyn.’
Rosalyn sniffed in a haughty manner. ‘I’ve spoken to madam about laying down certain rules in this house. She agrees that we should be self-governing and will be mentioning it to the colonel. She’s sure he’ll agree.’
Nadine gritted her teeth. ‘Oh, I’m sure he will. Divide and conquer, and you’re handing him victory on a plate!’
Before crossing the bridge she saw a bruised and battered native being manhandled by two guards and shut in a box made of corrugated iron. She shivered. If Rosalyn had her way she’d be in there too.
Chapter Sixteen
Madam Cherry set the auction of Nadine’s non-existent virginity for one month hence. Nadine was told this as she helped check the stock piled ceiling high in the small room behind the main living quarters. She’d been hoping for longer, enough time to plan her escape, but she had learned to flatter. ‘How very wise. Leaving it so long will generate the optimum interest. Do you think I should put myself on display a little more? You remember, I did say if I gave dancing displays outside the camp, to rich merchants perhaps? Or I could go back to the Bamboo Bridge House and dance there. More men, more bids.’
Madam rocked her head from side to side on her slim little neck as she thought about it. ‘It could indeed be financially rewarding, but…’
Nadine waited in a sweat, praying she’d say exactly what she hoped she would.
‘But,’ said Madam, holding up her customary warning finger, ‘the men may see you and take advantage. All girls in the Bamboo House are there for one reason.’
Nadine wanted to say, to make you money. But she didn’t.
‘So,’ said Madam, looking as though the idea was all hers. ‘You will not go there.’
‘Yes, Madam.’ She paused, apparently concentrating on folding some fine white table linen stolen from those fleeing the Japanese. She imagined it had once graced the table of a very fine house. It seemed an odd thing to pack when an invasion was imminent, but people have affection for different things. Now she was unpacking it. Goodness knows whom madam intended selling it to.
‘I hear the old Korean woman who oversees the cash register is not well at present.’
‘She has bad feet and is not Korean. She married a Korean. She is Chinese. Did you not see her feet? The toe was broken as a very small child – little more than a baby. Her feet were then bound, the toe gradually rotting into the soles of her feet. That is why she has such trouble walking.’
Nadine pretended the catches on the brown suitcase she was struggling to open were stiffer than they actually were. The woman with the bound feet was bad-tempered, ate fruit all day and spat the pips and stones all over the floor. Some of them stuck to the sides of the cash register.
Madam crouched down beside her, her black eyes glinting like polished jet.
‘When Anku, the old woman, is not there to take the money, you will take her place. That way you are seen but unavailable.’
It had worked! She would have access to the till. A thrill of triumph shot through her, but she was careful not to let it show. ‘Of course, Madam.’ Few words meant less chance of elation seeping into her voice.
* * *
Peggy, Betty and one or tw
o others were amazed to see her replace the old lady with the bound feet.
‘Saves us having missiles spat at us,’ said Peggy. ‘She must think you’re a good honest Asian at heart.’
Nadine grinned. ‘Think of it as a shop window and me as a box of chocolates. Highest bidder gets to taste.’
The population of the Bamboo Bridge House had grown to twenty. Madam selected a number of girls to move to the comfort house used by the common soldiers. Fear spread like wildfire. Rumours had reached them of girls servicing more than twenty officers a day in such places.
One of the girls selected to go escaped into the forest where she devoured poisonous fruit. She died in agony. The rest were closely guarded until it was time to go.
‘These girls leave,’ said Colonel Yamamuchi cheerfully, proud that he had managed three words of English.
There were no cheerful goodbyes.
‘No point in worrying about them – we have to worry about ourselves.’
Rosalyn had spoken.
Nobody argued. The ringing cash register was the happiest note in the whole place. The officers who called were a little subdued. They’d been quite happy to be outnumbered.
‘How far are we to paying off madam for our purchase price?’ Betty asked Nadine.
Nadine had access to the accounts. She grimaced. ‘The closer you get to paying it off, the more expensive your needs become.’
Betty nodded. ‘That’s what I thought.’
Everything had doubled, and that included food, clothes and other essentials like medicines. Even if they were still fairly reasonable on the black market, madam upped the prices a bit.
* * *
The days went past and the auction loomed. At night Nadine awoke in a cold sweat wishing she hadn’t taken this option. Sometimes in the night she saw Martin’s features bloated and fish-eaten, open eyes staring up at her through the water. And then everything was blue again.
It was a morning like any other in the camp. Madam Cherry was smiling like a cat satisfied that the mouse was not able to escape her sharp claws. She was explaining why she’d scheduled the auction for the end of the month.
‘The paymaster arrives then. That is when the officers are paid. Their pockets will be bulging, they will get drunk on sake and by the end of the night their pockets will be empty again.’
The slight perspiration caused by the consistent humidity froze on Nadine’s skin. She hadn’t prayed much since childhood except when Martin was partaking of his conjugal rights and she’d prayed for him to hurry up and finish. Now she prayed for courage.
‘You must show me that dance again,’ demanded her benefactress, breaking into her thoughts.
Nadine slid the pencil inside the leather-bound notebook in which were the written details of all stock kept and any up-to-date transactions. Teaching madam to dance in the Indian way had become a daily duty.
‘Like this.’
Bending her knees, toes pointing outwards, Nadine showed her how to position her feet, how to move her hips and how high to raise her arms, the hands bent from the wrists and the fingers held straight. She brought them across her face, palms turned inwards, her grey eyes peering over them. ‘This is the screen through which the princess observes the man she loves…’
The older woman copied though her limbs were stiffer, the effect less fluid.
‘She aches for him,’ Nadine added, twisting from the waist so that one hip formed a voluptuous curve. She crossed and uncrossed her feet in a series of intricate steps that symbolized indecision. ‘But she does not know whether she should run away with him or obey her father and marry the man he has chosen.’
Madam Cherry followed every movement, teetering slightly when she whirled like a top. Back in India the skirts of the nautch dancers would be spinning round at waist height, the dancers’ limbs hidden in silken jodhpurs. Here their movements were restricted by slimmer skirts that barely skimmed their thighs.
‘You dance well,’ Nadine remarked, careful to pitch her voice between flattery and outright condescension.
The nut-brown eyes glowed with pleasure. ‘I think one day when it is free of the British that I would like to visit India.’
Nadine bowed her head and hid her smile, thinking that if madam had been a peacock she would have displayed her tail in a dazzling fan.
‘Such a pity we do not have music,’ said Nadine. Her willowy body moved in time with a silent tune. Her tiny head tilted on its slender neck. She had a beady-eyed look, like a snake before it strikes.
Suddenly Madam Cherry stopped dancing. ‘I have an idea. Major Genda Shamida has a flute. We will ask him to play for us so we can practise better. I am sure the commandant will allow it.’
Major Shamida! So that was the name of the flute player. She’d heard the flute many times but had not known the player’s identity up until now. He’d never frequented the Bamboo Bridge House. On the few occasions she’d seen him go past, he’d never once looked in that direction. Out of all the officers he was the most intriguing.
Nadine maintained her tone of gilded sincerity. ‘That seems a very good idea, Madam. How clever of you to think of it.’
‘Of course, we will have musicians when we entertain beyond the barbed-wire fence and on the night of your auction. Major Shamida will do for practice. Did you have many musicians when you danced for a maharajah?’
‘Indeed we did, Madam. The palace used to ring with the sound of many instruments and with the bells that tinkled around our ankles, and the sound of rattling bracelets around our arms and wrists. There was much sound.’
‘And the palace was beautiful?’
‘Indeed.’ Nadine twirled on the spot. Madam Cherry followed suit. ‘It was built by a great Moghul emperor. The floors were of pink marble, the walls white run through with rose-coloured threads – like veins, I used to think. And there were the gold and jewels, rubies, emeralds and sapphires, glorious statues of marble, gold and silver all encrusted with stones. I remember a life-size elephant made entirely of silver with sapphires for eyes and rubies in his ears.’
Madam Cherry’s own eyes grew round as saucers. ‘Was this so?’
‘Indeed it was.’ One arm curved over her head, the other across her belly, Nadine turned on the spot, carefully placing her feet and flexing from the waist. Again madam copied her, and she surmised from her pupil’s dreamy expression that she was inflamed with descriptions of a place that only existed in Nadine’s fertile imagination.
‘You must tell me more about the palace.’
‘What do you wish to know?’ asked Nadine, seemingly concentrating on placing one foot behind the other, her torso above her waist, held at an angle to her hips.
The woman who now managed her life – and those of the other women – looked thoughtful.
‘Tell me about the city you lived in.’
‘Benares? It is ancient. It sits on the banks of the holy River Ganges.’
‘Is that all?’
Nadine stepped sideways, one foot behind, one in front… one behind… one in front. Shanti came into her mind. Forcing herself to concentrate on increasing the tempo helped her endure the pain that never really went away. She spoke eloquently.
‘It is a city of Muslim minarets and Hindu shrines, of richly ornate palaces, bustling bazaars and holy men. There is also much gold, beautiful gardens with tinkling fountains and many elephants adorned with richly decorated caparisons, their tusks studded with jewels.’ Not that I’ve ever seen one decorated so richly, thought Nadine, but madam loved ostentation and rich descriptions of affluent worlds.
Madam’s eyes sparkled. ‘The Japanese say that soon they will be liberating India. That India will be freed from British rule. This will make you happy?’ she asked, a little breathless as she tried to keep up.
Nadine thought on her feet before answering. She felt a surge of patriotism for British sovereignty, and fear and hostility for the invading Japanese.
She was succinct. ‘India will be hap
py to be free.’
As she slid into the last movements of the tuneless dance, she sensed Madam’s quizzical regard.
‘I find it hard to believe you have never known a man. You cannot fool me. I know dancers do more than that. They arouse the sleeping snake. Do you not admit this?’
Sureya came to mind. Nadine kept her voice light. ‘Of course. But we have very pretty hands. Do you not think so?’
Smiling, she waved her right hand to emphasize the point.
Madam Cherry, having knowledge herself of the dancer’s life, and even more for that of the houri, the prostitute, smiled in an equally knowing fashion.
‘Ah, yes. Using one’s hand to relieve a man. That is indeed true.’
* * *
After tucking her mosquito net securely around her sleeping mat, Nadine lay in the darkness listening to the night sounds drifting through the glassless window.
Sleep would not come as she wrestled with her conscience. It was like climbing a very high mountain that grew taller the higher she climbed. Her cunning had got her comfort; it had also brought her the envy of the other girls. Even those who weren’t as outspoken as Rosalyn showed it in their eyes. Taking care of number one. The thing was, they were all doing it. The girls argued over trivialities such as not taking turns ‘entertaining’ the troops or observations that whoever was in charge of doling out the rice portion that day was keeping the biggest portion for herself. Even the pillow Lucy was lying on had been taken; somehow it had been deduced that everyone should take it in turns to use a pillow.
Nadine sighed. To some extent they were all taking care of number one, generous spirits swiftly turning mean – and all over such simple, everyday things.
The keys to the locked storeroom glinted in the darkness.
Madam had been at the bottle again and the sound of her snoring was enough to stun the crickets into silence.
Nadine rose naked from her bed, her bare toes gripping the rough floor.
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