The Harmony Silk Factory (29 page)

I reached across to him and gathered him in my arms. His head lay heavily on me, cradled against my neck.

IT WAS LUNCHTIME when Peter asked us to accompany him on a walk.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m up to it,” I said. I had not slept well—the wailing had disturbed my sleep and I was feeling very tired.

“Come come,” he said, “a walk will do you a world of good. What about you, Professor? You’re game for a stroll through the woods, aren’t you? It’s not as if there’s anything pressing to do.”

Mamoru looked at me and shrugged.

“And why don’t you come too, Honey?” Peter continued. “I know how you don’t like being left out of anything.”

“This is ridiculous,” Honey grunted, but he stood up nonetheless, tagging reluctantly onto the back of our reluctant group.

“Where’s Johnny?” I asked as we followed Peter.

“He’ll come. He knows where we are.”

I was not surprised to see that Peter was leading us to the house of antlers.

“You’re up to something, aren’t you, Peter?” I said.

He laughed. “Of course not.”

He sang all the way there. I recognised one tune in particular. He has sung it so many times since we started our trip that I have grown fond of its melody.

We went up the stone steps and into the house. Peter led us through a vast room and out through another doorway to the back of the house. Set in a clearing next to a small muddy brook there lay a table covered with a startlingly white linen tablecloth. Above this floated a canopy of ivory-coloured sheets, fluttering gently in the imperceptible breeze. I looked to see how this umbrella remained suspended in midair, but I could see no strings or ropes; it hovered over us of its own accord. The table was laid with the same enamel plates we used at the camp but there were silver knives and forks and glass tumblers. A bottle of wine stood in the middle of the table. On a smaller table nearby there were more bottles and some dishes of food.

Johnny stood up when he saw us and smiled. It was the first time I had seen him smile for some time.

“It’s my birthday today,” Peter said, hands in pockets, shifting from one foot to the other. “My first Oriental birthday.”

“Happy birthday, Peter,” Johnny said.

I turned to Peter and said, “I didn’t realise. Happy Birthday.”

“Do you like our tropical
baldacchino
?” Peter asked, noticing me looking upwards. “Johnny did that.”

I looked at Johnny, not knowing what to say.

“How did you manage it?” Mamoru asked. “It looks as if it is floating unsupported. Where is your rope system? Did you use pulleys?”

Johnny merely shrugged.

Mamoru smiled and shook his head. “The power of illusion,” he said.

There was something odd about the clearing we were in. Its edges seemed sharply defined, as if cut out of the jungle. Then I noticed the machete marks on the tree trunks and the pale imprint of dead logs that had been cleared from the ground. Several flowering plants had been allowed to remain, but otherwise the place was stripped of the jungle.

“You’ve cut down the plants that grew here,” I said to Peter. “You’ve made this place yourself.”

“Yes,” he said, looking at his feet. “It’s my little garden. I did it specially.”

Its ordered calm soothed my senses. Amidst the tangle of the jungle, this little clearing
did
feel like a garden. “I like it,” I said. “I like it very much.”

We sat down at the table. “Terribly sorry,” Peter said. He reached underneath for a few pieces of broken crockery, which he held aloft. “The Spode didn’t survive the storm. Nor did the wineglasses, so I’m afraid you’ll all have to put up with this unspeakable barbarity.”

“Peter,” I said, “do you mean to tell us that you brought all this with you in your luggage?”

He nodded. “There was hardly space for my shaving brush.”

Peter poured the wine and passed the food round the table. We began to eat but were all somewhat subdued. I think we were overcome by the sight of this feast. There was a thick stew of vegetables—tapioca and beans and yam—which tasted of meat, such was its rich taste and chewy texture. There was a bowl of little prawns, their pinkish shells suggesting that they had only just been cooked. Not far from the table, Peter had built a small makeshift grill. Its fruit lay before us: an impressive pile of grilled fish, large
kembong
that Peter said he had netted himself. Their silvery skins bore the hot dark scars of the grill, and they were delicious. Finally, Peter disappeared into the bushes and emerged with a large dish covered with a piece of cloth. With a flourish, he slid the cloth away to reveal a large unidentifiable lump.

“What in God’s name is that?” Honey said.

“Bread!” Peter cried. “Bread which I have baked myself!” He cleared some space on the table and explained how he had built an oven from mud and earth. He had brought a bag of flour with him specifically for this purpose, and was amazed that he had succeeded. He stood over the loaf and gripped it with both hands. He began to pull gently but the bread remained resolute. He set it down on the table and clawed at it awkwardly; his fingers, I noticed, were very slim and fine, his nails long, almost like a woman’s. Finally he broke the bread into two uneven pieces. It was soggy and heavy in its texture. “That can’t be eaten,” he said, looking at the pieces of bread in his hands.

“Of course it can,” I said. “Try it.”

He raised a piece of bread to his mouth and took a bite. He spat it out and shook his head sadly.

“Sit still, everyone,” Honey called out. I turned around and saw that he had taken Peter’s camera and was kneeling a few yards from the table.

“Wait,” cried Peter as he came round the table and stood beside my chair; Mamoru took up a position next to Johnny. We sat smiling at the camera. My face felt odd, as if it had forgotten how to smile.

I had never before known the taste of wine. We finished the food and sat under the darkening trees with our tumblers full of that bloodred liquid. I never noticed Peter refilling my glass, yet it was always full, no matter how much I sipped at it. I began to lose track of time. Around me, men’s voices and laughter hung in the air like vines, quivering gently with the wind. I tilted my head and looked at the shadows of the leaves swimming across the canopy above us. Peter was singing.

“What is that?” I asked. “I’ve been meaning to ask you for ages. It’s a beautiful song.”

Peter repeated the tune, louder this time, the rich timbre of his voice vibrating from within his thin chest.

“Is it Italian?” I asked, but he kept singing.

“It is,” said Mamoru. “It’s from the opera
Don Giovanni.
”

“Oh come on, Peter,” I said, “do tell me what the words mean.”

“Ask the professor—he’ll tell you,” Peter said, and he continued singing.

“What does it mean, Mamoru?” I asked, turning to him and grasping his arm. “I really want to know.”

He took a sip of wine, his eyes never leaving Peter’s happy, singing face. Peter sang seven distinct syllables followed by a tangle of many more (I cannot be sure—the wine in my veins, my lack of comprehension, all combined to make the words sound completely mystifying). “It means, ‘There we will take hands.’ ”

“Is that all? What about the rest of it?”

Mamoru translated as Peter sang: “‘There you will say yes. Look, it’s not far from here. Let’s leave this place, my dear.’ ”

“Oh,” I said. “It doesn’t make much sense to me.”

“It’s not very interesting,” he replied. “Peter, why are you singing Zerlina’s part too?”

“Who’s Zerlina?” I whispered as Peter kept singing.

“The woman,” Mamoru replied, “a bride about to be stolen from her husband.”

“I sing all the parts,” Peter said, barely drawing breath before continuing to sing. His voice, though, was tiring. The notes no longer stretched as they had and the words seemed rushed. He seemed out of breath. He stopped singing and looked at Mamoru.

“You sing the next line,” he said.

“What?” Mamoru replied, setting his glass down on the table.

“It’s your line next. Actually the whole thing is yours to sing, isn’t it? But you might as well start with the next line.”

“Peter,” I said, “what on earth are you talking about? I think you have had too much wine.” I could not stop laughing even though my head hurt.

“Right,” Peter said. “I’ll sing a line by Zerlina to help prompt you. You then come in with your line, Giovanni.
Molto espressivo.
Do be a sport.”

Peter sang something in a screeching falsetto. “Come on, you know what to sing, Professor. You know all the bloody words. It’s my birthday—sing, damn you!”

Mamoru spoke some words in Italian.

Peter screeched again—different words this time.

I laughed.

Mamoru spoke again.

“And together now,” Peter shouted, standing up and waving his arms. He screamed the tuneless words up into the trees above us, his throat heaving with the effort. He walked away from the table, stumbling towards the house. It was dark now but the moon was very bright. He sat down on some broken stone steps with his head in his arms.

“Leave him,” Mamoru said. I was not sure to whom that command was directed.

We started to walk back to the camp, Mamoru leading the way. My head felt heavy, my vision untrustworthy. I had to stare hard at fallen trees before stepping over them—I could not tell how high they were or what lay on the other side. The shadows swam amongst the trees, chased by the moonlight. I noticed, though, that Johnny had taken the unfinished bottles of wine with him. I knew that tonight was the perfect time to speak to him, to tell him all that lay in my heart, but I knew, too, that I would not.

I am beginning to doubt if I ever will. In this place, perhaps I will never need to.

THE WAILING LASTED all night, shriller than ever. I fell into a heavy yet disturbed sleep—I had never experienced anything like it. My body felt shot through with poison; my veins were pregnant with it. My sleep was all-embracing yet unreal. In my sleep, things happened to me—to my body—that I could not discern. I saw everything so clearly, yet I knew they could not have been real. I saw Mamoru with my diary. I saw Johnny with my diary. I saw Mamoru and Johnny together. I saw them speaking, touching each other, their foreheads brought together in intimate conversation. Each of them approached me and spoke in languages I did not understand. The wailing burnt through my sleep, never allowing me to escape. Sometimes it sang Peter’s song, screeching his words into the depths of the jungle and the fathomless sea.

I awoke when it was light. Mamoru was already up, collecting wood for the fire. I ran as far as I could, towards the sea. I had made it halfway down to the water when I collapsed to my knees and began to vomit. I knelt on the beach, my insides streaming down the sides of my mouth onto the hot sand. I had never felt anything so painful.

As I fell back into bed I noticed that Peter was asleep, as was Johnny. Only Honey was not there.

I woke again—properly—at midday. Mamoru had left some food and water, but I did not feel like eating. Johnny was sitting some way along the beach under a tree; Peter was swimming in the sea. He saw me step gingerly onto the sand and walked towards me.

“What a party,” he said. “I feel awful. What about you?”

“Worse than death,” I said, and he laughed. When I laughed my whole body hurt.

“Poor thing,” he said. “First time is always the worst. Trust me, next time you have a glass of wine, you’ll
adore
it.”

I smiled. “Where’s Mamoru?”

“Not sure. He said he was off to find Honey. I’m keeping my head firmly below the parapet, though—I’m certainly not his favourite person.”

“Where’s Honey?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Didn’t he come back for you last night? I thought I heard him say he was going back to keep an eye on you.”

“Darling, that was the wine speaking to you. I saw him go back to the camp with you and that was it. I passed out on the steps and didn’t wake up until it was nearly dawn. God only knows how I found my way back to the camp.”

“Oh,” I said. “My head really hurts.”

STILL NO SIGN OF HONEY. Mamoru is getting very worried.

“I can’t understand what the fuss is about,” Peter said

when he returned from another fruitless search of the island. “He’ll turn up eventually.”

“He’s always running off on his own,” Johnny said.

Mamoru remained silent. He has hardly spoken since Peter’s party, not even to me.

MY DIARY IS BEING DISTRURBED. I know this for certain. I do not know who is reading it, but someone is. This morning I began to write but after a few minutes I felt a stabbing pain in my abdomen. (I have not felt right since the day of Peter’s party.) I closed my diary and placed a stone on top of it before walking up the beach to relieve myself. I do not know how long I was away—not more than ten minutes, at most. When I came back the diary was open, its pages fanning gently in the breeze. I must have startled the ghostly reader. Yet I knew for sure that Mamoru, Johnny, and Peter had all been engaged in one activity or another. As I stood there I could see, with my own eyes, Peter splashing in the shallows dressed in his shirtsleeves as always. Johnny was building a small house from shells. They had both been doing that when I left. Mamoru was on the other side of the island searching for Honey (who is still missing). Mamoru’s expeditions last for hours; often he does not return till dark. I did not know which phantom had been reading my diary.

My hands trembled as I sat down. The nightly wailing may continue but this cannot.