The Harmony Silk Factory (44 page)

“ ‘Mr. Lim was the son-in-law of the scholar and industrialist T. K. Soong, who died during internment by the Japanese during the war. Many believe he was a victim of summary executions ordered by Kunichika. Mr. Lim married Snow, the only daughter of T. K. and Patti Soong. She died in childbirth in 1942; they had one son, Jasper, who survives Mr. Lim. The funeral will be held at the Harmony Silk Factory on Monday 17th.’ ”

Gecko said, “That doesn’t tell you anything about the man. It doesn’t say he was a Communist, for example.”

“Nor does it give you details about his heroism in the war,” said Alvaro.

“Or that he was a goddam collaborator. I don’t suppose it matters now,” said Gecko. “It was so long ago.”

“Peter, did you ever come across Johnny Lim?” Alvaro said. “You spent a lot of time in Perak just before the war, didn’t you? I remember you saying that you knew the Kinta Valley quite well.”

“He’s an Englishman,” Gecko said. “Englishmen didn’t mix with local people back then.”

I poured water onto a flame-coloured orchid, watching beads of moisture collect on its sinuous leaves. “No,” I said, “I never knew him.” I put the watering can on the table and went back to my room.

 

 

 

 

I WAS DETERMINED that my birthday party would be a riotous success. Johnny and I spent many hours clearing the chosen site of debris. With a shovel and a pick-ax we flattened the smallest undulations on the surface of the soil; we filled in depressions and poured sand onto the boggiest patches of earth. Straggly shrubs were cut down and all offending weeds hacked to the ground with Johnny’s parang. We assembled a camp table which we brought from the boat, placing it so that each diner would have a view of the ruin. With surprising ease, Johnny built a rudimentary but perfectly sturdy bench with some logs he found. We talked about the kinds of food the jungle could offer us—some root vegetables, possibly an edible flower or two, fish from the sea in abundance. Other animals, we decided, would not be on the menu. Birds were too difficult to snare, Johnny said, and the only mammal we had seen was an anaemic macaque sitting dejectedly in a seaside tree. Johnny was certain, however, that snakes and lizards would be easily caught. He drew pictures in the sand of the simple traps he would use, and assured me of the delicacy of such prey; but my stomach instantly felt uncomfortable at the thought of a reptilian dinner (
mon Dieu: civet de vipère!
) and I convinced him that we did not need such exotic meat. I showed him the bag of flour that I had found amongst our rations.

“What are you going to do with that?” he asked.

“I shall make bread,” I announced.

“How?”

“I honestly don’t know,” I replied, watching him convulse with laughter.

All this time no more was said about Kunichika.

The day before the party I left Johnny at the site. I said, “I’ve left something back at the camp, something I need—a damask tablecloth I’ve brought with me in my luggage. Do you mind terribly if I retrieve it? I shan’t be gone long.”

“You go ahead. There’s something I need to do here anyway,” he said, somewhat hesitantly. For a moment I wondered if I should abandon my plan, but I held my nerve.
Courage, mon brave.
“See you later,” I said.

I ran back to the camp, gambling that Snow would not be there. It was a foolhardy thing to do, but I had to have her diary. I had seen her embark on a walk with Kunichika earlier, and since their strolls tended to be long and leisurely, there was every chance that they would not have returned. I slowed to walking pace as I approached the camp, shortening my stride to appear as casual as possible. Who knows—Honey may have been lurking. I paused, listening for sounds of movement, but there was nothing. I sauntered into the camp, hearing the soft slush of my feet on the sand.

“Peter,” a voice called. It was Kunichika, kneeling beside Snow’s camp bed. His knees were buried in the soft sand but he held his torso erect, hands on hips. He spoke in a bright and overfriendly voice. “I thought you were off somewhere with Johnny.”

“I forgot something. What are you doing over there?”

“I forgot something too. It seems to have gone missing, and I’m searching for it.”

“Where’s Snow?”

“She’s bathing—on her own.”

“I thought you two went for a walk.”

“We did. How did you know—have you been spying?”

“I might ask you the same question.”

He stood up, and I noticed again that we were well matched in height. I said, “I know what you’re up to.”

He laughed, crumpling his face into his chest as if defeated by exhaustion. “You’re a real joker,” he said. “I’ve never met anyone as amusing as you.”

“I’m watching you. I know.”

He looked me straight in the face with cold eyes, black beads set in white stone. “What has Johnny told you? That man’s a liar, you know. His own people don’t trust him.”

“If you must know, Johnny has hardly said a word to me since we came on this trip. But you’ve got me interested now—is there something he ought to be telling me?”

“No. I should just warn you that he is not what he appears to be.”

I moved half a step closer to him. “Who is?” I said, before walking away with my cheeks hot and my eyes swimming with brightly coloured shapes.

When I arrived back at the little clearing by the ruin, I stopped and stared above me. “Good God,” I breathed. Fluttering overhead was a white sheet, suspended in midflight as a mystical rug in some strange Oriental myth. It captured the thin streams of light that broke through the foliage, intensifying them in the small area above the table.

“Do you like it?” he asked. A half-smile illuminated his face. Behind him, the murky backdrop of foliage framed him as if including him in a narcotic, half-dream landscape, a Giorgione canvas.

“The word ‘paradise,’ ” I said, “comes from the ancient Persian word for ‘garden.’ Did you know that?”

He shook his head. “It’s easy to see why we used their word,” he said.

“Really? I’ve never seen any similarity between backyard allotments and the garden of Eden. I’ve never been fully convinced.”

“Oh.”

“But this is different. This truly is a garden.” I looked up above me once more. I wanted to say, “Thank you, Johnny,” but I didn’t; there was no need for it.

THE WINE WAS TOO MUCH for me. It colluded with the heat and worked its insidious way into my blood. There it became infused with the poison that ran thickly throughout my body; my limbs became leaden, my head light as yarn on a weaver’s spindle. My vision dazzled with the colours of richly shot silk; above me the sky was a tentative white canopy. Every time I looked at Kunichika he was leaning over to Snow, hissing sweet nothings in her ear, looking at me with a slow, sly sideways leer. The execrable remnants of our meal lay on the table, filling the air with their fetid odour. The two halves of the hunk of bread I had baked (in my “Mongolian oven,” a small mud kiln Johnny had built) lay at the heart of this devastation. Its damp lumpen texture began to harden in the hot air, crusting scablike on the surface.

“That was delicious,” Snow said.

“No, it was truly awful,” I said quickly before Honey had a chance to do so. Humiliation is always more bearable if inflicted by oneself. “Tasted of vinegar and hyssop.”

“Not at all, it was a lovely surprise,” Kunichika said, a smile tearing his face slowly in two. I lowered my face and rubbed my aching temples with my fingers. Under my breath I could hear my incoherent, mumbling voice. What was I trying to say? There was nothing to do, I thought, but sing.

 

Yes, my dear, come with me, let’s leave this place. I looked up and saw Snow smiling intensely; her wine-glazed eyes were moist and reddened, her face flushed and damp with perspiration. Kunichika continued to speak to her, the low rumble of his voice playing
sostenuto
in my ears. I continued to sing:
I fear I will be deceived.

“Why are you singing Zerlina’s part, Peter?” Kunichika said politely. “Why are you playing the woman’s role?”

“So that you can sing your part—your true part. Come on, sing, you know the words.”

Snow laughed. Kunichika spoke his words slowly in unaccented but articulate Italian.
“Io cangierò tua sorte,”
he said. “I will change your fate.”

I sang again, falsetto, my voice cracking and ugly.
I can resist no longer.

He spoke again, entreating us all into his lair.

I stood up and walked away from the table, stumbling towards the ruin.
Misera me, misera me.

I sat down on the broken stone steps and began to weep. I closed my eyes, a sea of silk shimmering before me. I stepped onto the water and began to sink into its voluptuousness. I was weak and there was nothing I could do.

 

 

 

 

WHEN I AWOKE it was dark and I could taste the bitter furriness of food and wine in my mouth. My shoulder was stiff and aching where I had fallen asleep; I could still feel the poison of the alcohol in my blood, and I sank to the ground again.

A voice said, “Feeling sick? So you should. That was a nasty little performance you gave just now.” It was Honey, sitting on the step above me, smoking a cigarette.

“Go away.”

“No, I rather like being out here,” he said. “You see all manner of things in the jungle at night.”

“Just bugger off.”

“Language,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “I’m only now discovering just how vicious you can be. You’re a right little vixen, aren’t you? How pathetic. An attention-seeking, misguided child, that’s what you are.”

I heaved myself into a sitting position. My head convulsed with pain.

“What do you think she thinks of you? Do you think she even notices you leering at her?”

“I haven’t a clue what you mean. Please leave me alone. I don’t feel well.”

“She loathes you. She finds you faintly amusing—a ridiculous freak in a travelling circus. She wants a man. A real man, not some confused schoolboy like you. She told me herself.”

“You’re a liar,” I said, louder than I expected. My throat felt hot and inflamed. “You make things up as you go along, just like the rest of your type.”

“My
type
?” he said, moving down to sit next to me. “My type is
your
type, I’m afraid to say. And that type is not
her
type. You poor, stupid fool. Can’t you see that these people loathe us? They’ll always keep to their own colour, even if it means lowering themselves for some peasant like Johnny. Do you think they want to get involved with an Englishman like you, only to produce half-caste babies who’ll be shunned by their friends? You haven’t a chance. Kunichika’s the one she wants. Even you must see that.”

I didn’t answer. I could feel the heat of his cigarette.

“And not just her. Her parents do too. That’s why they sent her on this bloody holiday.”

“No, she’s here because she never had a honeymoon with Johnny,” I said.

“She’s just a plump little carrot dangled oh so temptingly.” He leant in very close to me, inclining his head towards mine. He had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and over the brilliant pain of my headache I could almost feel the clamminess of his skin. “She’s here as bait for the professor, who may or may not rise to accept this tasty morsel. He’s only interested in Johnny, that filthy Commie guerilla. Why do you think he saved Johnny and not Snow from drowning? The whole trip’s been arranged so that Kunichika can become best chums with his soon-to-be chief informer.”

“I’m not listening to your revolting lies.”

He laughed amidst a plume of purple smoke. “Listen. I’m only telling you this because you’re one of us, and it’s my job to look after our kind, even if they’re as foolish as you. And you really are very stupid, I must say—you still haven’t worked things out for yourself. That’s what love—or lust—does to you, I suppose. Her father’s a clever man, isn’t he? He knows the Japs are coming. I do too. And when they come, he wants to be in their good books, he wants all the favours he can get. What can he give them to make sure he gets this? Mining concessions, certainly. Information on his dirty Bolshie son-in-law, gladly. And of course, there’s his daughter too, oh yes. No, it’s not nasty, it’s a question of survival. Everyone’s just doing their bit.”

“And what about you—what’s your bit?”

“Keeping the peace. Making sure everyone’s able to do their bit. Saving what I can for our lot.”

“Aren’t you afraid things might backfire?”

He laughed. “No fear of that. That’s why I’ve been sent along, to make sure business happens as usual. As long as I’m here, nothing will rock the boat.”

“So you’re here as a chaperone, I take it.”

“I suppose so,” he said, moving closer to me. I felt the hot smoke of his cigarette on my neck. “But I told you—I’m also looking after our kind,” he said.

“You’re lying about all of this,” I said.

“Am I?” he said, flicking the stub of his cigarette into a tangle of bushes. “Put the woman out of your mind. You’ll walk away from her and in a few months’ time you’ll forget she ever existed.” He reached across and put his hand on my thigh, his fleshy fingers gripping hard. I pushed him away, feeling a sudden rush of strength in my arms. He fell against a stone step, looking at me quizzically.

“I shan’t forget her.”

He smiled, his body supine and relaxed. “Come come, dear,” he sneered, his teeth showing in the hazy darkness. “You’re being silly. She loathes you; you’re a freak. Johnny hates you too. Everyone does except me. Come here.”

And then I was upon him, hitting and scratching and kicking. His neck was soft as mud as I forced my hands around it, pushing and pushing and pushing until he struggled no more. A sneer remained etched on his face as I dragged him out into the sea, letting the waves take his body. It was nearly morning and I felt very strong.