The Harmony Silk Factory (13 page)

He fired once more. I do not know how it happened, how the bullet found its way to Frankie’s stomach. I saw the old man collapse, doubling over and sinking to his knees before falling to the ground. The side of his head hit the concrete hard; the sound it made cracked loudly in my ears. The third shot was aimless and desperate. It shattered a glass cabinet full of coffee beans, filling the air with the smoky-sweet smell of rough Javanese coffee.

The gunman pushed past me as he fled. His arms were slick with sweat. His clothes smelled of ripe fruit and mud. I felt his hot, heavy breath on my face and heard the thin wheeze in his chest. In a second, the shop emptied. I watched as people disappeared into the bright, dusty street, melting into the quiet afternoon.

I went to Father. His mouth rose in a half-smile.

“Did you see the Merdeka?” he said.

I nodded. Through the black blood and angry flesh on his shoulder, I caught a glimpse of bone. It was pure, glowing white. I moved to the other side of him, trying to hold him and drag him to the front of the shop. He was heavy, immovable. His eyes closed slowly and he chuckled so faintly that if my face had not been next to his I may never have heard it.

I don’t know quite how I managed it, but finally I got him into the back seat of the Mercedes. I had just turned sixteen and I had never driven before. Somehow, though, I made it, stuttering through the white empty streets to the General Hospital. The nurses there put their arms around my shoulders and told me not to worry. They brought me warm bottles of Green Spot and stale curry puffs.

“Can you believe it, all by himself, you know. He got his father here all by himself,” I heard one of the nurses say in the next room.

“He’s not his father’s son for nothing,” whispered another.

Later that evening, as I sat waiting for news of Father’s condition, a nurse brought me the blue batik shirt Father had been wearing. It had been badly damaged in the shooting: only one sleeve remained and a few of its buttons were missing. But the people in the hospital had washed it and pressed it and folded it neatly. It was only when you held it up to the light that you could see the faint outlines of the washed-out bloodstains.

There were no witnesses other than me. No one else admitted to being there. People were afraid to get mixed up in police business. They did not want to become targets themselves for the dwindling but by now hard-line group of Communist guerillas who roamed the darkest reaches of the jungle, where even the British army could not get to.

In failing to kill my father, these Communists only succeeded in strengthening his aura of invincibility. People began to say that Johnny could not be killed, that the bullet passed straight through his heart but still he lived to rule the Valley. That is because he did not
have
a heart, other people said. He was otherworldly, not flesh and blood at all but a phantom. His son was half-man, half-ghost. Soon I noticed that every time we walked into a shop or any other public place, a hush would descend and men would lower their gaze. Father began to be more casual in his behaviour—he stopped carrying a gun himself, and while many of his accomplices had armed bodyguards, he strolled freely down the main streets of all the towns in the Valley.

His right shoulder hung in an odd way now, stiff and unmoving, jerking from time to time with an occasional spasm, which made it look as though the shoulder was trying to bring itself level with the good one. You might have thought that this incident changed Johnny. Perhaps the spirit of Independence infected him with notions of human pride and sympathy, but it did not. He grew even more withdrawn, more inside himself.

To understand why he was hated so much by the Communists—those people who, after all, were once his own—you have to go back to the war. You have to remind yourself, as I have many times, that he was a Communist but also the second-richest man in the Valley. You must also remember that the richest man was his father-in-law, T. K. Soong.

But even the undisputed Number One Tycoon would have to defer to a god. Johnny knew that much.

 

 

HEN, IN MID-1941, the Japanese began to make landings in Thailand, Johnny seemed to be the only man in the Valley who thought that they might, someday very soon, invade Malaya. One or two of the people who came into the shop muttered quietly about “what the bastards are doing in China,” but otherwise people went about their business as usual. Even the English planters whom Johnny met while with T.K. are unconcerned. Over
stengahs
of whisky they joked about what would happen if, God forbid, the Japs did invade.

“I’d mow them down with my Bren gun. Every bloody one of those slit-eyed animals.”

“I’d feed them to my dogs.”

“I’d invite them to tea with my mother-in-law and
murder
them with hospitality.”

T.K.’s response was similarly placid. With the unshakable assurance possessed only by the very wealthy, he behaved as if life would go on as usual for him and his circle of friends, even if war did eventually come to Malaya. “British, Japanese, Dutch, Russian—all the same,” he said with a shrug. This attitude surprised Johnny but did not alarm him. On the contrary, it made him feel cleverer than even the wisest old men. Only he knew that the Japanese would reach the Valley—the question was how long it would take. So Johnny began to listen to the crackling World Service broadcasts on his wireless set. He did not blame T.K. and the other old fools for believing that Malaya would never fall, for the reports sounded calm and full of confidence in the might of the British army.

But Johnny knew better than this. He drew a line on a piece of paper, dividing it in two. He headed one column “Date” and the other “Place,” and then he made notes from the wireless reports. He made entries which simply read: 24th July | Camranh Bay. When the piece of paper was merely half full, Johnny knew for certain that he had been right all along. The Japanese were moving swiftly and inexorably southwards, unimpeded, it seemed, by mountains or jungles or oceans. A quick mental calculation told Johnny that they would be in Malaya before the end of the year. As a Communist, he was especially at risk. He had heard rumours of Japanese torture methods and he did not want to find out if the rumours were true. He had to act quickly.

At dinner that evening, he looked at T.K., who was wearing a silk shirt with a perfectly cut mandarin collar. With his silvery hair and thin nose, T.K. radiated silent authority. Johnny remembered the time Humphrey Yap, another of the rich old tin-mining men, came to visit, together with Tuan Frederick Honey. The four of them had withdrawn after dinner to talk about various matters such as the future of the mines, the new district officer—all the usual inconsequential things. For a time Johnny felt honoured to be in such company; he could not have envisaged this several years previously. He tried to contribute to the conversation but found it nearly impossible to do so. Everything he said was ignored, passed over without comment. Not once did the other men address him directly, and Johnny felt invisible, as if he had dissolved into thin air. Without looking at him, Tuan Honey called out to him to ask for some tea, and then a glass of cognac, and then a refill. All this time they had been laughing and joking, even breaking into song—but never with Johnny. T.K. was who the important people wanted to see, not Johnny. Johnny imagined a Japanese general standing astride an armoured tank, riding into the conquered lands for the very first time. “Bring me the most important and powerful man in the Valley,” the general would say, and there would be no hesitation: everyone would point to T. K. Soong, not Johnny Lim.

Johnny thought of the shop. How long would it take, selling textiles, for him to become as respected as T.K.? Perhaps never. The shop itself was still named after Tiger, for God’s sake. He thought of the rows and rows of textiles, rolled up in tight bales stacked against the old wooden shelves. He had never truly been interested in them anyway. How demeaning it was to sell these dull, limp rags that people wore next to their crotches, next to their sweaty skin. His shop, the most famous in the Valley, was just a shop, a goddam useless shop. He was admired, even loved, but not by the people who mattered. When the Japanese came to Kampar they would only see a shit-worthless shop and a shit-worthless shopkeeper.

Unless, of course, something was done.

Sitting there at dinner looking at T.K., Johnny knew at once what he had to do.

It took several days for Johnny to lay the foundations for his plan. He collected all the equipment he needed, travelling as far afield as Tanjung Malim. He called in on many of his old contacts, who were pleased to see him after such a long time. Everyone remarked that he was in particularly good cheer, and he affected halfhearted demurrals. He invited them all to come to the shop and promised them special discounts. “Great things always happen when there are many people around,” he said. At home he tried to behave as usual, but his excitement was not easily contained, especially as he grew closer to putting his plan into action.

“How’s the shop?” T.K. asked at dinner one evening. “You seem to be working very hard, always at the shop late.”

“So-so,” Johnny replied. After a short pause, “A few small problems. Nothing much.”

“Problems?” T.K. looked up, resting his chopsticks on the table. He did not like problems.

“It’s nothing, really.”

“Tell me—what are these problems?”

“Really, they’re very small things. I should not have mentioned them even.”

“If there is a problem,” T.K. said, “perhaps it will help you to speak to me about it. I have an interest in my son-in-law’s business, after all.”

“As I said, it’s nothing.” Johnny smiled. “But I would prefer not to discuss these matters here, at home.” He glanced at Patti and Snow.

“Of course, of course,” T.K. said, “it’s not polite to talk about these things in front of women.”

“Maybe you’d like to come to the shop instead?”

“Yes. That way you will be able to explain any problems—if there are any—fully.”

“What a good idea.”

“Tomorrow?”

“No—the day after would be better.”

“Fine. Let’s say eleven o’clock.”

That evening Johnny lay on his side of the bed, cocooned in his world of hot hazy dreams.

“What’s the matter?” Snow asked.

“Nothing,” he said, and he turned on his side. He could not fall asleep.

 

 

HE DAY T.K. CAME to the shop, it rained heavily and unexpectedly. It was mid-August and the dry season was at its peak, shrinking the rivers into cracked brown beds and rotting the overripe mangoes and jackfruit which lay blackening on the ground. At this time of year the people of the Valley shut themselves indoors in the afternoons. They fan themselves with rolled-up newspapers and wait for the odd breeze to stir the heavy air. Occasionally, even at the driest times of the year, there may be a brief rain shower, sweeping swiftly across the Valley, gently moistening the parched leaves of the trees. Barely an hour after it passes, the earth is dry again and does not smell of water.

But the rains which came on the day T.K. travelled to the shop were not like these short showers. On that day the Valley woke up to an unfamiliar smell: the flower-sweet breath of overnight rain. The sky was a brooding grey. From early in the morning, people went out into the streets, walking in the warm rain. They left their umbrellas at home and splashed childlike through the puddles, their feet clad only in flimsy rubber slippers. They shopped for food at the market, where water streamed off the tarpaulins and made the ground soft and slippery. Sometimes raindrops would hiss on the charcoal fires upon which sardines and cuttlefish grilled; the smell it made filled the air with the scent of the sea.

Johnny wondered if the weather would affect his plans. He worried that all the little fuses and wires he had prepared might have become damp during the night. Who could have thought of rain at this time of the year? He felt a sudden shiver of doubt. It was too late now. All was set in motion. If he was to become the most famous man in the Valley he had to carry on regardless. He would not fail.

The intricate system of wires, fuses, and timers ran all over the shop, hidden from sight behind panels, skirting boards, door hinges, and floorboards. Johnny went to the main control box in his money room as soon as he arrived at the shop. All seemed fine. A sleepy-eyed boy had arrived early, his thin singlet drenched in rain.

“Go make some tea,” Johnny said, “and fetch yourself a new shirt from the shop.”

Once he was alone Johnny ran through the entire circuit, testing connections and switches to make sure nothing had been affected by the damp. Only one isolated part of the system, which lay behind some earthenware pots in a roofless corridor, had to be hastily replaced. As he fixed the small defect, Johnny resisted the temptation to smile. It would be his finest day yet.

When T.K. arrived at the shop, business was brisk. People sat patiently on high stools, waiting to be served. They drank complimentary cups of coral-red Pu-erh tea, which were the hallmark of the shop’s legendary hospitality. Johnny himself was serving behind the counters that morning. Customers remarked that he seemed to be exceptionally vigorous and enthusiastic. Everyone was pleased to see him serving in the shop again; they shared jokes with him and teased him about his good health. It must be marriage, they said, winking and roaring with laughter.

“Ah, here is the man who made it all possible,” Johnny proclaimed loudly when T.K. came into the shop. All heads turned. A chorus of greetings bubbled across the shop. “Soong Sir, good morning,” people said, making little bows.

T.K.’s long white eyebrows lifted in bemused pleasure.

“Please, everyone, excuse us. It’s not every day that Mr. Soong visits the shop, and when he does, we all know that something important is happening,” Johnny said. “We have some private business to attend to.”