The Harmony Silk Factory (19 page)

“But we have been married for more than a year,” I said.

“I suppose it will be a belated honeymoon, if such a thing exists,” he said. “Think of it merely as a vacation. Your mother and I think that it is a healthy and fitting thing for you to do.”

I still did not understand. “You and Mother have never been on vacation,” I said.

“We are old people.” Father smiled. “From a different era.”

The idea of being alone with Johnny unsettled me. “This means you will not be accompanying us?”

“Of course not,” Father said. “We would only get in your way.”

“Is it acceptable for us to travel alone?” I asked.

“That is something your mother and I have considered at length, and we have decided, for the sake of safety rather than decorum, that you should have a chaperone, someone who will ensure safe passage for you wherever you choose to go.”

“Who is it?”

He paused to finish his tea. “Frederick Honey,” he said.

Instantly, Johnny said, “Then Peter can come too?”

Mother left the table. There was silence. At last Father said, “I don’t see what harm can come of that.”

I thought about this for some time. The combination of Johnny, Peter, and Honey was not one I wanted to be near. But then again, perhaps once we were away from my parents and this house, Johnny and I might converse more easily; the opportunity to tell him everything might arise.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

Father said, “I thought perhaps you might like to see the Seven Maidens.”

MY POWERS OF DECEPTION are being tested to their limit. Today Johnny came home and said, “Peter has found a house for us. It is a house
and
a shop.” His voice was full of vigour and hope and longing. “Soon we will be able to move out of this house, away from your parents—at last.”

I smiled to mask my unease.

“I will be able to run my own business, a shop with my own name. We will be able to build a new life without
them,
” he continued, dropping his voice and looking over his shoulder as if wary of some hidden danger. Since the Incident at the Shop, Johnny has been very restless; he speaks constantly about plans for a new shop. This enthusiasm seems to have escalated since Peter arrived in the Valley last month.

I searched for something to say. “What is this place like?”

“It is
magnificent,
” he said. I noticed that it was the first time he has ever used that word; he has learnt it, no doubt, from Peter. “It is by the river. I will take you there soon.”

“That would be nice,” I said. “Have you thought of a name for it?”

“Yes,” he said, fetching a piece of paper. He reached for a calligraphy brush from my desk and wrote out its name in slow, uncertain strokes. He had obviously been practising this for some time. He showed it to me as if it were a secret, holding it close to his chest, just beneath his chin.

“The Harmony Silk Factory,” I said.

He gave me the piece of paper and brushed my hand with the lightest of fingertip touches. That is the only way he has ever touched me.

HONEY CALLED ROUND AGAIN for tea today. He wore a white shirt and a cream-coloured suit made of linen that was crisp and flat as a sheet of paper. I have never seen him wear anything else. His tie, too, was the one he always wore—black with thin diagonal purple stripes.

“Frederick,” said Father, without getting out of his chair, “how nice to see you. How are the mines doing?”

“Reasonably well,” Honey replied, hovering at the threshold of Father’s study. He looked at me uncertainly. “Will you be joining us for a cup of tea, Snow?”

I looked at Father. He was sitting at his desk with a half-written poem on a scroll before him. Slowly, he placed his brush on its rest. “Yes,” he said, “why don’t you join us briefly?”

“Let me see,” said Honey, inclining his head as he sat down. Father’s gramophone was playing so softly that it was difficult to hear the music. “Bach. The forty-eight. Prelude in, hmmm, F-sharp major.” Though he is not fat his chin has a habit of wobbling when he speaks. I have always found his face perfectly ordinary and featureless. I decided once and for all that he looked like a schoolteacher.

“You have a very good ear indeed, Frederick,” said Father.

“Father always listens to music when he works,” I said.

“Always Bach?” Honey asked.

“Yes,” said Father. “I feel there is a certain symmetry in Bach which mirrors the construction in Chinese poems. Chopin—whose works I am very fond of—I find too . . . what is the word . . . ?”

“Vulgar? Florid?” said Honey.

“. . . no . . .”

“Too poetic,” I ventured.

“Thank you, Snow,” Father said, looking me straight in the eye. “Yes, too poetic in its sensibility. Too full of emotion, you might say. Inappropriate. It should only be listened to in times of turmoil.”

Honey laughed politely. “Speaking of things vulgar and florid,” he said, “what about this chap Peter Wormwood? I can only apologise for his performance at your Autumn Festival celebrations the other week. I’m terribly sorry. You must have a terrible impression of Englishmen. We’re not all like that, you know.”

“Of course not,” Father said.

“What was he thinking?” Honey continued. His face became flushed, and deep lines scarred his furrowed brow. “What on earth was he thinking? I mean, that . . .
costume
. . . I’m so awfully sorry. It must have been dreadfully embarrassing for you—it certainly was for me. What sort of man behaves like that? He must be insane. Needless to say, we haven’t welcomed him with open arms at the club.”

“He hasn’t been here for long,” I said. “Perhaps he is uncomfortable in these surroundings.”

Honey regarded me with a strange expression. His voice quietened. “There is one rule, one golden rule, which an Englishman observes when he comes to a new place: never ruffle any feathers. Follow local customs. Blend in. Be respectful. Even those of us who were never taught this, well, we just know. It’s the key to our success here.”

“Yes,” I said, “your success.”

Father began to cough violently. Ever since the Incident at the Shop, he has had uncontrollable fits of rasping, wheezing coughs, which suggest that, in spite of his protests, he has not quite recovered. I wonder if he simply does not want to acknowledge what Johnny did for him on that day. Even I do not know everything that happened between them.

“I know you were upset, Frederick,” Father said when he had regained his composure. “You told me at the time. But frankly I still cannot understand what the fuss is all about. Call me an old fool, but I could not see what you saw. I thought his appearance somewhat unusual, of course, but only because I had never seen such dress in real life. In books, yes—it reminded me of the opera, of pictures of Venice and Vienna from the last century.”

Honey rolled his eyes. “This is what I feared. You think we all dress and behave like that. Let me tell you, all that cheap Oscar Wilde nonsense is
not
an accurate representation of European attire.”

Father raised a laugh. “The two of you will have plenty to talk about, that’s for sure.”

“I’ll be damned if I ever speak to that man.”

“It may be difficult to avoid him,” I said, resisting the urge to smile. “He is coming on our trip to the Seven Maidens too.”

Honey looked at me with unblinking eyes. “Dear God,” he whispered.

“Now, Snow, Mr. Honey and I have some business to attend to,” said Father. “Shut the door behind you, please.”

As I left I heard the lock on the door click quietly into place.

WHEN JOHNNY CAME TO BED last night, I pretended to be asleep. I have taken to doing this recently, because I think it is easier for both of us. Bedtime is when I am at my most vulnerable; my body is tired and it is difficult to maintain my façade of innocence, and so I err on the side of caution.

Johnny undressed silently, adjusting the lamp so that only the faintest flicker of light invaded the room. I watched him through narrowed eyes, my head resting deep in a pillow. I am certain he did not know I was watching. In the dim light his skin looked taut and brown. His skin was one of the things I loved most when I first saw him. It spoke of a life exposed to the sun and the rain, as if it had been rendered smooth by the elements. The faint scars on his back were like the patterns on the hide of some strange, sinuous animal. My skin could never be like that, I thought; it is almost as if we were of different races.

He came to bed and for a while I remained motionless, inhaling his scent of earth and wet leaves. It was a long time since I had smelt that perfume. I felt the weight of his body next to me, depressing the mattress and pulling me closer to him. I allowed my body to fall slowly towards his until my cheek came to rest on his shoulder. His skin was warm and clammy. I put my hand on his chest, feeling his heavy heartbeat on my palm. At last I felt his fingers run lightly through my hair like a thin, prickly comb. It was as if he was afraid to touch me. My head began to itch; I wished his fingers would scratch me, claw at my scalp—anything except tickle in this manner. I could bear it no longer. I pulled away, withdrawing to the other side of the bed. I could not sleep.

I KNOW HOW I AM GOING to do it. I have enacted it in my head, a thousand times over, every sleepless night. This is what will happen:

I choose my moment carefully, waiting until Johnny is in a particularly cheerful mood. Perhaps it will be at the end of a day when he has been with Peter and is filled with the blind, childish optimism that I see in his eyes every time they are together. I do not know what Peter has that inspires such exuberance, but I do know this: a child’s optimism is less easily crushed than an adult’s, or at least, once crushed, it is more quickly restored.

Finding Johnny in this buoyant state, I sit down with him and give him a drink. I have gone to great lengths to secure some wine. (A few days prior to this, I force myself to smile sweetly at Honey and tell him how pleasant it is to have him come to visit us; he is so taken aback he cannot resist my request for a bottle of French wine from his extensive collection.) This pleases Johnny because, thanks to Peter, he has recently become fascinated by the taste and exotic nature of wine.

Casually, I ask him about this new house he has seen. He needs little encouragement and begins to tell me about his plans, schemes that no one in the Valley has ever imagined. Tiger would be proud, he says. He misses Tiger, I know. His voice barely rises above its usual gentle monotone, yet it is easy to sense how thrilled he is. His thoughts flow faster than he can speak; he pauses now and then, his brow furrowed as he tries to recall a word. Sometimes the force of his emotion is so great that he cannot find the words; he looks at me with an expression that is at once imploring and resolute in its determination to continue unaided. The cloud that hangs heavily over me begins to lift: he does not need my help. He does not need me. That is why I want him to think of the shop. It is something—the only thing—that is truly his. People come and they go, fluttering at the edge of his world, never properly entering it. I, his wife; Peter, his fleeting foreign friend: even we merely hover outside. But long after we are gone, he will still have that shop. It belongs to him; it is utterly his: to mould, control, love, and destroy. As he speaks he looks at me and it is as if we both know: I will never belong to him. Nothing needs to be said. A blank, inscrutable expression returns to his face. He realises, just as I do, that all the things that stood between us before we were married, well, they remain. We were wrong to believe that we could pull down the barriers. It was a mistake, a simple failure, that is all.

I begin to tell him that it’s no one’s fault, but I stop because I know, even if he does not, that the fault lies with me.

Thus, wordlessly, our world ends.

I WAS SITTING on the verandah reading when Johnny appeared. I was not surprised to see he had Peter with him.

“I heard you had dinner with the bishop,” Peter said. “How was the Right Reverend? Fat as ever?”

“It was the first time I met him,” I said, continuing to read, “so I cannot say if he was as fat ‘as ever.’ ”

“Well,” said Peter, “one savage bout of dysentery is all it’ll take to make his figure sylphlike.”

I did not answer. Johnny was holding a fine fishnet, which he proceeded to add to the pile of things he has assembled for our trip. Peter stood with his scrawny arms folded across his chest. I knew he was watching me, but I kept my gaze firmly on my book. I heard Johnny packing and unpacking some boxes in the room. I wished he would hurry up and return, but he seemed to go on forever, clanging metal plates, dropping tin cans, dusting off canvas sheets. All this time Peter and I remained motionless, unable to move. I read the same words over and over again. Finally, I could not bear it. I snapped my book shut and looked straight into his face.

“How are you finding life in the Valley?”

He looked startled. I noticed his milk-white skin has not reacted well to the sun—his cheeks and forearms bore hot, tender red burns.

“Fine,” he said, “fine. In fact, more than that, it’s a ball. With sequins and tiaras.”

“I’m pleased to hear that. Foreigners usually do not adapt well to the conditions here. They find us primitive.”

“Primitive?
Mais non, mais non,
” he said, looking at the house. “If this is primitive, then I am a savage.” He lifted both arms in a strange gesture I could not decipher. I think it was perhaps intended to be theatrical in its effect. I could not stifle a giggle. To my surprise, he laughed too, a whooping, singing laugh that seemed to come from the depths of his body.