The Harmony Silk Factory (14 page)

“What is it? Maybe buying the whole of the Kinta Valley from the British?” someone said, and everyone in the room laughed politely.

“T. K. Soong does not need my help to do that,” Johnny said, smiling, as he led T.K. away to the money room.

A new pot of tea was ordered and brought to the room. Oolong was T.K.’s favourite, and Johnny laid out the cups while the tea steeped gently in the pot. Two minutes. Then Johnny poured the water away, filling the pot again with just-boiled water.

“I see you’ve learnt how to make tea—properly,” T.K. said.

“Yes. You taught me that, of course,” Johnny said. Before he sat down he shut the heavy door and bolted it twice.

“I see you are well liked in the shop,” T.K. said. “True to your reputation as a man of the people.”

“I try my best.” Johnny looked at T.K.’s long wispy beard.

“So before you tell me what your problems are, tell me how you find my daughter,” T.K. said. “Is she satisfactory?”

“Of course,” Johnny lied. He did not know whether she was or not, or even in what way she was meant to be “satisfactory.” The truth was, he wasn’t interested.

“Now, tell me what are all these problems you have created for yourself,” said T.K.

“Problems?” said Johnny, hating T.K. even more now. “Like I said, they are not really—”

“Just tell me.”

Johnny looked at him with flashing eyes. “Three small things,” he said as calmly as possible. “The first concerns a new shipment of sackcloth which I was proposing to sell on to Gim’s warehouse in KL. The second is a new venture—rice—which I am thinking of importing from Thailand. And finally, just a small question concerning your tin-mining businesses when you die.”

“Pardon? I am still very much alive.”

“Of course, of course. But I am merely planning for the future.”

“I do not know what you mean,” T.K. said. “Tin mining has been a family business for a very long time.”

“Best to keep it in the family, then.”

“Yes, I suppose. But I have not devoted much thought to it.”

Johnny cleared his throat. “Father,” he said, “did I tell you that Snow and I, well, we are planning to have a baby. It will be a son, of course.”

T.K.’s eyes widened.

“Yes,” Johnny continued. Lies, he found, came easily to him now. “I hope Snow has not mentioned anything. It is the kind of thing best kept between father and son-in-law, I think.”

“I see now, I see,” T.K. said, mouth pulling into a wide smile. “I see why you have been so mysterious about your so-called problems. Problems, indeed! You have no problems, you merely wanted to make an old man happy.”

“So you are agreed the tin mines are to stay in the family?”

“Of course! There is no question of anything else. The rubber business too, and the tea plantation—everything will go to you to hold in trust for my grandson. What else can I do? I have no sons of my own, after all. What a happy man I am! Thank you.”

“So you are certain it will all pass to me?”

“Who better? I may have had my doubts about you, but now I see that you are an able man indeed!”

Johnny smiled and bowed his head. He checked the time on T.K.’s watch.

“One more cup of tea?” Johnny said.

“Why not,” said T.K. as Johnny poured the tea. “What’s more, I propose a toast.”

They lifted their cups, holding them level with their chins.

“To Johnny Lim, and to my grandson,” T.K. said.

They moved the translucent cups slowly, touching them together with the faintest clink.

The first explosion was loud, clean, and sharp. The second, which followed exactly six seconds later, was louder still but blurred by the sound of shattering masonry and splintering wood. The initial blast, which happened just as the two men concluded their toast, spilt tea over T.K.’s shirt. As he dabbed at it with a handkerchief, Johnny leapt to his feet and ran to the door. “Fire! Fire!” people were shouting in the kitchen.

“Don’t move an inch,” Johnny said to T.K. “You’ll be safe here. The walls are solid stone and the door is thick.” T.K. looked at him with puzzled eyes and continued dabbing at his shirt. As Johnny went out he pulled the door to and locked it from the outside.

The money room was midway between the shop and the kitchen. From where he was standing, Johnny could see flames engulfing the kitchen, and a mass of fleeing customers.

“Hurry, hurry! Get out!” he screamed at the workers still in the shop. “Get everyone out before the whole place goes.”

Another small explosion, this time in the shop, shattered the glass cabinets and sent bales of cloth tumbling from the shelves. Sharp screams. People looked around. The blast seemed to come from the ceiling, but the rafters looked intact. Noise seemed to come from all around them. They did not know where danger would come from next.

The fire was spreading in the kitchen now, encouraged by more small explosions which belched and spurted amidst the flaming mass. The old wooden rafters began to crash down onto the blackened stoves and the sacks of rice. There was no means of escape through the rear of the building now. Johnny heard screams. Someone, maybe more than one person—he couldn’t see—trapped in the fiery tomb. He saw a figure stumbling blindly in the flames; it passed like a shadow across his field of vision, howling in terror. He turned his back and went to the front of the shop, where the air was clear.

“Everybody, run!” he screamed as loudly as he could. “Stand far away!”

The crowd now assembled outside moved slowly backwards. They saw Johnny’s face contorted with anguish. His eyes could barely open in the heat of the fire and his face was black with soot; his mouth grimaced, turning upwards, smile-like, at the corners. Behind him they could see the first of the flames from the kitchen begin to leap and lick at the main room at the front of the shop. Smoke was now smothering Johnny, but still he stood at the doorway with his arms stretched out on either side of his body to prevent anyone from going back into the fire.

“Come out here with us!” people shouted.

Instead, Johnny turned around and dived into the smoky, fiery sea.

There were small gasps and cries of confusion, followed by a prolonged silence. Everyone knew that Johnny had gone back in to save those who were still trapped inside. He was going to save his father-in-law. He was risking his life for people who were in all likelihood already dead. But if anyone could save those poor souls, it was Johnny.

No one was certain how long he remained in that fire-filled hell. Some said as little as ten minutes, others said a whole hour. All, however, agreed that it felt like a lifetime. The morning’s heavy rain continued to fall, but it did not seem to lessen the ferocity of the blaze. Where each raindrop fell on the inferno, a thin column of mist hissed into the air, and as the fire grew stronger the whole shop became transformed into a giant spitting monster, shrouded in haze. It was later said that this hellish creature could be seen fifty miles away, from the slopes of Maxwell Hill.

The crowd backed away even further, for the heat was too intense now even for their rain-soothed faces to bear. They could feel the glow of the fire throbbing on their cheeks, even as they covered their noses and mouths to protect against the choking smoke. Several of them exhanged glances now and then. No man on earth could withstand that fire; only a god could survive that long in a fire like that, their eyes said. Another small explosion caused half the shopfront to collapse across the entrance. Many people thought: Surely this is the end of Johnny now.

What happened next is not disputed by any of the surviving eye-witness accounts. Old or young, man or woman, Chinese, Indian, Malay—all say the same thing. They were not crazy from the heat or the shock, they did not imagine it. It actually happened.

The flames, they say, parted.

The dancing fire opened up, separating in two as if commanded by Allah, Guan Yin, Moses, Shiva—whomever.

And out of the parted flames emerged Johnny. All around him the great fire burnt strong and bright, but it did not touch him. He walked steadily and firmly, his magnificent head held proudly. On his shoulder he supported the limp, soot-blackened body of his father-in-law. Next to T.K., Johnny appeared fresh and unspoilt. Though his face was dirty, his eyes shone brightly. He carried T.K. out to the crowd of people and laid him gently on the ground. Slowly, Johnny took off his own shirt and held it aloft to catch the rain. He touched it to T.K.’s face, cleaning away the soot; he put his ear to T.K.’s mouth, listening for the faint breaths, and then, slowly, he looked up at the anxious faces around him. He smiled a gentle smile and his eyes said, I have saved this man.

Everyone remained still and silent. There was no need to speak. As they looked at Johnny the same thought ran through their minds: This man was no mere human, he was something more.

T.K. lay on the wet dirt gasping thin breaths. His smoke-burnt lungs would never serve him properly again. He would spend the remainder of his days frail and infirm and in gratitude to Johnny, to the man who had saved his life when it seemed lost for certain. With his head resting on Johnny’s knee, T.K. opened his eyes to the soft rain. In the distance the famous Tiger Brand Trading Company lay smouldering, lost forever. Like everyone else present, T.K. knew that it was the end of his time as a great and powerful man. He knew it was the beginning of a new time in history.

NOT LONG AFTER the shop burnt down and Johnny saved T.K.’s life, the Japanese invaded Malaya. They marched unimpeded through the Northern states and in just two months took control of the entire country. Penang, Pearl of the Orient, and Singapore, the great Lion City—both surrendered in a matter of days. Between these two treasures the Valley fell swiftly, almost unnoticed, into the hands of the Japanese. They ran through the towns and villages, barely pausing to plant flags of the Rising Sun before moving on. The red dust kicked up by the soldiers’ boots hung in the air, turning it crimson before settling on the leaves of the trees; all along the roads the trees turned red, and in some parts of the Valley it was said that the streams ran deep scarlet. A hush fell across the land. At night people closed their eyes and covered their ears. They did not want to hear the sound of locked doors being broken down or the distant crackle of a village set on fire.

It was here, in the early months of this strange new land, that Johnny committed his most terrible deed. Nothing in his later life can ever be compared to what my father did on 1 September 1942, the day my mother died and I was born.

By the end of January 1942, a Japanese administrative office had been firmly established in the Valley and was beginning to put things in order. The head of the Kempeitai, the Japanese secret police, was a man called Mamoru Kunichika. After the war he published a book about his memories of the war called
Memories of Wartime Malaya.
The photograph of him on the dust jacket shows a genial-looking man, thin and angular, with smiling eyes. The book presents a picture of the Valley so calm that you wonder if war was actually taking place at the time. It tells the story of a young man plucked from the relative obscurity of Kyoto University and thrust into the Secret Service solely because of his academic brilliance and fluency in Southeast Asian languages. He finds himself in Malaya, where the local people are welcoming and cooperative. They are glad to be rid of the British and thankful for Japanese rule. Of course there are disturbances now and again, for Communist guerillas are active in the jungles, but by and large the Occupation runs smoothly, without incident. The book is full of anecdotal incidents of Japanese and local people sharing cigarettes and whisky and other such wartime luxuries; minor altercations with deceitful servants; “amusing” misunderstandings of local customs; etc.

We are told how he acquired his nickname, The Marquis. Not long after he arrived in Malaya, he was visiting the regional administrative office in Tapah when he was introduced to an (unnamed) “eminent and influential leader of the Chinese community.” This Chinese gentleman seemed young but very enlightened, unlike most sullen-faced and devious Chinese Kunichika had come across. Although, through his education, Kunichika had managed to overcome the traditional Japanese prejudices against the Chinese, he nonetheless felt the need to be cautious when dealing with them. Mistrust runs deep between the two peoples, he says. This Chinese gentleman, however, made him feel perfectly at ease because of his dignity of bearing and propriety of etiquette, and Kunichika felt no need to be wary. The gentleman thought that Kunichika himself must be a man of good breeding and considerable education; he asked Kunichika if he was of samurai descent, for he had read about the histories of the great samurai families and recognised Kunichika’s surname. Bashfully, Kunichika answered: yes, he was. It was a relief to have one’s background appreciated, writes Kunichika, especially by such an unlikely person. This gentleman went on to say that it was an honour to meet such a distinguished person, and that if Kunichika did not mind, he would address Kunichika by his proper title, Marquis. Kunichika felt inclined to tell him that this was technically not his correct title, but refrained, so as not to cause any offence. That was how he got his nickname. As for the Chinese gentleman, well, Kunichika and he became good friends during the Occupation, spending much time together despite comment from Kunichika’s colleagues and the man’s Chinese friends. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, Kunichika took his leave from his friend and parted with tears in his eyes.

The war was a happy experience for Kunichika, so his story goes.

Yet it is not difficult, if you bother to read old newspaper reports and books on the Occupation, to piece together what Kunichika did when he got to the Valley. It is not difficult to know why his other nickname, the one given to him by the ordinary people of the Valley, was the Demon of Kampar.