House of Kwa

by Mimi Kwa

  Two years on, in the spring of 1930, a new blossom falls from the Kwa family tree and a fresh bud appears. Ng Yuk gives birth to a baby girl. Number Four Daughter Wai Ching Kwa is hoisted high. She has plump cherry cheeks and a permanently inquisitive look about her, an old soul in taut rosy skin. Eighteen months later, in the mild November heat, Ng Yuk has another baby girl, this one with bright eyes and a shock of lustrous black hair; Wai Mui Kwa has a beguiling smile.

  In line with Chinese naming custom, each Kwa child is bestowed with the same first character of their two-character names – Wai for the girls and Tak for the boys, although Ying Kam takes the liberty of deviating from this tradition, in accordance with modern thinking, or simply when he feels like it.

  Great-Grandfather writes, Japan has invaded North-East China. I’ve heard that Hong Kong is swamped by a hundred thousand refugees. Japan’s invasion of Manchuria is so far north-east, Ying Kam pays little attention to rumours spilling over his factory floor, or in smoking dens, about Emperor Hirohito’s militaristic ambitions for China, let alone Hong Kong.

  His household is once more filled with the joy of healthy dumpling babies, and while Ying Kam would prefer a small army of boys to swell the family ranks, these girls will help in the home and perhaps fetch fine dowries one day. In truth, the girls of Ng Yuk have an enchanting way of capturing his heart. Perhaps he is softening with age. They are Kwa and the youngest of his blossoms.

  News travels to Hong Kong about the Japanese invaders still on the long march from China’s north, swallowing up villages as they head south. Rumour falls on the marketplace and stumbles over oranges and melons, rearing up between rice bags and carrot barrels.

  ‘They commit heinous acts of depravity,’ a fishmonger says.

  ‘They are under orders to kill boy children,’ a flower seller cries.

  ‘They kick in doors, terrorise families and do unthinkable things,’ a herbalist whispers.

  Ng Yuk will take no chances. Her triplets are dead and, if rumour is to be believed, Japanese soldiers are killing newborn boys. Fortune-tellers and midwives confirm Ng Yuk is carrying a boy this time, and when she calls on a shaman to look at her palms, and he frowns, nods and frowns again, she knows she’ll need to play a clever tile in order to outwit fate.

  ‘Trick both the gods and the invaders,’ the wise man says. ‘It is the only way your son will live.’

  In the depths of night on 30 May 1935, the auspicious Year of the Wood Pig, a cry from the healthy lungs of a fat baby boy heralds a new heir. My dad, Wing Nin, is born into the House of Kwa. The hospital birth was disastrous luck for the triplets, so Ng Yuk’s insistence on a homebirth held sway this time.

  Exclamations of ‘Lang Loi!’ ring out to fool gods in the sky and demons on earth. Lang Loi means ‘beautiful girl’. Ying Kam forces a diamond earring with a solid gold stem through Wing Nin’s earlobe; it bleeds, and the baby suckles his wet nurse harder. ‘This will protect him. It will confuse immortal gods and human defilers.’ Ying Kam takes Wing Nin from the nurse and brings his son to his shoulder. He looks to the heavens and then to his son and whispers, ‘You are Kwa.’

  The Buddhist, shaman and priest are back with their palms open for silver before a procession through the house to deliver blessings from every god.

  Neighbours are told: ‘It’s a girl! No name yet. “Lang Loi” for now.’

  Ng Yuk imagines that if Japanese soldiers tear through the house and happen upon Wing Nin swaddled in the arms of a nursemaid, Ng Yuk will stay calm and ask them, ‘This beautiful girl, Lang Loi, is she not truly just like a Japanese blossom?’ The soldiers will then turn to leave without checking if the baby is a girl or not. Ng Yuk lies awake at night and frequently rises to ensure the nurse never takes her eyes off Wing Nin.

  When the child turns one in 1936, the Kwas feel it is safe to stop calling him a girl in public, although Lang Loi remains his nickname at home. The shaman is again summoned and paid handsomely for his wisdom. ‘This boy must have a new name so the gods will never know they have been tricked,’ the shaman advises with a stern flourish. ‘So they cannot trace him.’ He taps a metal bowl with a small wooden stump, and a mesmerising chime rings throughout the house.

  Ying Kam and Ng Yuk visit Hong Kong’s Births, Deaths and Marriages Office and change Wing Nin’s name to Tak Lau. An earnest young man sits very straight and still behind the service desk. Proficient in English and Cantonese, he moves his mouth without expression, encouraging Ying Kam and Ng Yuk to give their son and other children Western names as well. ‘After all, the British are here to stay.’

  My grandparents sign the paperwork for ‘Theresa’ Wai Ching and ‘Clara’ Wai Mui. They settle on two new names for Wing Nin in English and Cantonese. The boy’s name is Francis Tak Lau Kwa. The girls will go by their English names, while Wing Nin will now go by Tak Lau.

  Treachery cannot reach Francis now; curses cannot touch him. Dad’s flower bud blooms on the cherry tree that was always waiting for him to arrive. The baby dragon grows fat and full of adventure.

  BOY AND WRENCH

  IN 1937, TWO YEARS AFTER FRANCIS TAK LAU IS BORN, Japanese troops capture Nanking. The systematic rape of the city rages for over a month, resulting in a massacre of mammoth proportions. Japanese soldiers conduct door-to-door searches for women and girls to brutally defile. Between two and three hundred thousand defenceless adults and children are murdered. Precise numbers depend on who’s counting – the Japanese say less; the Chinese say more. Happy Shadow surprisingly gives birth to another child, a boy Ying Kam names Wing Tai before changing it to Patrick Tak Yeung. Inexplicably he is not called ‘girl’ even though the enemy is closer than ever.

  The invaders move south and within days take Guangdong. The Hong Kong Kwas did well to get out years ahead of the sweep. There is no way of knowing what has happened to Lotus Flower, her children and grandchildren, with mail routes currently suspended and foot messengers suddenly scarce. No town in the Japanese military’s path is left unharmed as the march of destruction ploughs the coast. Ng Yuk delivers another baby girl: Mary Wai Choy, who has irresistibly plump cheeks.

  By 1939, Shenzhen is under attack, and Hong Kong is so near that bombs ‘accidentally’ fall on the British territory; the Japanese seem to be having new ideas.

  ‘But I want to build my tower.’ Five-year-old Tak Lau slaps away the hand of a maid. It is February and cold; with his rosy cheeks, Tak Lau looks like a doll wrapped in layers of wool. He will turn six next month.

  The maid rubs her hand and looks to a more senior maid, but she only shoots her a sharp expression and shakes her head, dismissing any idea that the younger maid should reprimand young master.

  ‘I am the boss – you don’t tell me what to do.’ Tak Lau hits the young maid with flailing fists as she attempts to clear up his collection of tin and wood and wire.

  The little boy has been fashioning these oddments into something from his imagination, maybe a rocket or a ship. Surely not a tower, the maid thinks.

  As if he can read her mind, Tak Lau shouts, ‘This’ – he holds his contraption aloft – ‘is the key to the . . . the . . .’ He hesitates and looks around.

  He can see his father, Ying Kam, in the front room beyond a short corridor, talking with another man. They are speaking so softly Tak Lau cannot work out what they are saying. This is one of the men he must call ‘Uncle’, he knows that much – oh boy, does he ever.

  Distracted by this new thought, he shrieks, ‘I have to call everyone Uncle!’ and slams his contraption onto the Persian carpet. His frustration makes his hands tremble. ‘They can’t all be my uncle, can they?’

  His father and the man are shaking their heads, and his father strokes a wisp of beard.

  Tak Lau turns back to the maid, who sees no choice but to sit patiently through his little episode as he points again at his creation.

  Ng Yuk hobbles in on tiny feet. To keep her balance, she holds on to the arm of a servant girl who is around fourteen, th
e same age Ng Yuk was when she married Ying Kam.

  Tak Lau sees no similarities between the women. The big feet of maids are only good for helping them follow orders. But one maid had grown on him. Like all the other servants, she had not been allowed to use her real name in the house; she had to answer to whatever name Ng Yuk decided on her first day when she arrived for work. ‘“Puddle”, I will call you. Like dirty water on the ground.’ It was meant as an insult, of course, but Tak Lau liked the friendly sound of it. He has always loved jumping in puddles; when splashes end and ripples still, he can see his reflection and that of the sky, and he imagines himself as a dragon soaring through it. Splash, the image disappears.

  His mother cast Puddle out on the street with nothing more than a few days’ pay – that was ‘compassionate’, Ng Yuk said. When Tak Lau cried because his favourite maid had been dismissed, his mother screamed at him that the girl had a ‘baby inside her’ and ‘the devil put it there to put shame on our house’.

  Ng Yuk told her son to stop crying. And then she slapped him. ‘Puddle was stupid anyway. You’re all stupid.’ She glared at the two maids who stood in the doorway, hanging their heads, and took a deep breath to compose herself. ‘Now help me to my feet, to the bathroom.’

  There is contempt mixed with pride and shame whenever Ng Yuk has to call for assistance to carry out this most rudimentary bodily function, the situation always seeming worse when she’s mid-rant and then has a sudden urge. She scolds her helpers all the way to the toilet bowl, relieves herself and scolds them all the way back.

  Since Puddle left him, Tak Lau has not let another maid get close. Not even the ones whose eyes crinkle with laughter or hold a hint of fun. Not kind ones or clever ones, and certainly not dour or miserable ones. There is one reason, and one reason only, for these big-footed females and that is to serve him.

  ‘Tak Lau, darling boy,’ Ng Yuk says, snapping her son out of his reverie. She croons, high on nicotine and black tea, ‘What have we here?’

  Tak Lau raises the metal model towards Ng Yuk’s face as a maid lowers her into a chair. She has days when her feet are so uncooperative she can hardly walk – this is one of those – but on other days she can hold her head up proudly and carry herself unassisted into the marketplace throng. On those days she swats away the helpful maids accompanying her. ‘You’re a nuisance,’ she scolds. ‘Leave me alone.’ One of the maids then has no choice but to follow at a safe distance, just in case, because Ng Yuk sometimes loses her balance or needs to rest.

  She takes the object from her son and turns it over in her sinewy hands as he waits eagerly for her appraisal. ‘The key to the bomb that will defeat the Japanese, is it? Well, let’s see what your father thinks of such a thing.’

  Tak Lau smiles, but Ng Yuk’s face darkens. ‘You’ve been wasting time on this. It is not mathematics!’

  Tak Lau’s bottom lip trembles, but he knows better than to cry. It can be like this: one minute she is full of praise and encouragement and the next, filled with rage.

  ‘Can’t you teach him even the simplest maths?’ she screams at the two young maids. ‘Well?’ Her demeanour betrays the dignified Chinese furniture and modern wallpaper. ‘You are incompetent!’ She slams her hand down on the arm of the polished branch chair.

  While his mother berates the servants, Tak Lau backs out of the room – straight into a pair of legs, which turn out to be attached to the indomitable figure of his father. The tall man hardly ever sees his son.

  ‘Ng Yuk,’ Ying Kam interrupts her, and her cascade of insults freezes midair as though Chinese characters are suspended in the centre of the room. ‘Ng Yuk, I have just finished speaking with the commander. If all of our suspicions are right, we haven’t got a lot of time.’ He sits down and explains. Ng Yuk watches his whiskery chin move up and down as he speaks. She nods, but what he’s telling her is almost incomprehensible. ‘Under international law they are supposed to make a formal declaration of war on Hong Kong. But who knows what they’ll do?’ He stands to leave. ‘We have little choice but to begin preparations.’ He goes upstairs to have the same conversation with Happy Shadow in her apartment.

  Over the following few weeks, Tak Lau shadows the workers who go in and out of the house, while he marvels at all the hammers and chisels dangling from leather loops on their belts. He sneaks out onto the street to visit hardware stores – to him, living in an industrial area is heaven. He runs his hands over the holy grails of building tools and appliances. The shops are narrow and deep, crowded and overflowing with nails and screws, wire coils and pipes, mallets and planks. A handyman’s paradise.

  To the boy’s further delight back at home, a worker says the very words he has been waiting to hear: ‘Pass me the two-inch wrench.’ Tak Lau silently does a little fist pump. ‘Sure,’ he replies casually and reaches into an open bag, so eager to find the correct tool a bead of sweat trickles past his ear. The worker’s head and shoulders are barely visible as he leans on all fours to reach behind a timber partition. He is adjusting the heavy-duty steel hinges on a new false wall – hinges that allow the wall to pivot open, revealing a hidden room.

  All of Hong Kong seems to be busy reinforcing false floors and walls, hiding valuables and battening down the hatches in advance of the feared onslaught. Tak Lau has been visiting construction sites since he was three with whoever he could coerce to take him – usually a maid or Elder Brother from Third Mother, seven years his senior. Lately, though, he’s been preoccupied with all the building going on at home. And next door. And next door to next door. The activity right here in his neighbourhood gives him so much joy that he goes to bed each night with images of axes and anvils dancing in his head like sugarplums. In his dreams he rides a dragon through the clouds. Both he and the dragon are wearing tool belts.

  ‘Aha!’ Tak Lau finds the two-inch wrench just in time to put it in the worker’s right hand as it gestures from the end of an outstretched arm. The boy places the wrench in the man’s palm with such satisfaction, it may as well be the heart of a tiger he has hunted and killed. ‘Can I look behind there?’ he asks.

  The worker pokes his head out from the other side. ‘Yes, boy, crawl round here and I’ll show you how to fix a hinge.’ The man smiles at the earnest determination of this little boy from a distinguished household, always dressed in his Sunday best, completely enamoured with dusty building materials and heavy tools.

  ‘You’ve made a mistake here,’ Tak Lau calls from inside a cavity in the wall as he passes out a nut that had been loose. ‘Shall I fix it?’

  The worker shakes his head in disbelief and, smiling again, hands the boy a wrench.

  JIGSAW AND JEWELLERY

  HOUSE OF KWA HAS BEEN IN DISARRAY FOR MONTHS NOW, ever since that man in military uniform met with Tak Lau’s father. To the little boy, the low voices of men in the front room sound like how he imagines the rumble of tanks and horses coming over the hills for battle. He’s heard of such things in stories and in snippets of conversations on street corners.

  He knows that his family is having an underground bunker constructed in forested land at the base of the hill where Chatham Road meets the end of Wu Hu Street. It’s a source of great fascination for Tak Lau as he watches teams of poorly paid men excavate the plot with shovels. The bunker has been marked out beneath trees among tropical shrubbery, and the itinerant workers, brought in from China, are sworn to secrecy and threatened with the might of Kwa should they disclose details of the project or its location. ‘When we survive this,’ they are told, their mothers, sisters and daughters can come to work at Kwa factories in prize jobs for a poor underclass.

  In the house on Wu Hu Street, a builder finally loses his patience with Tak Lau and shoos him away from his tools, so the boy wanders down the hall to his father’s study. ‘Why are we building these things and changing our house?’ Tak Lau asks Ying Kam.

  Adjustments have been made to floorboards and ceiling spaces as well. Undetectable trapdoors have appeared under
rugs, while a section of the wall, here in his father’s study, has been refashioned to contain a safe. The desk sits slightly out towards the middle of the room to allow the fresh decorative paper to set. Tak Lau remembers how his mother screamed at the design consultants that she didn’t care about the pattern of the new wallpaper, so they rapidly rolled up the samples they had unfurled for her consideration. She had wanted to hit one of them, Tak Lau could see that. He can always read her temper.

  Father pauses over his ledger, on which he has been writing long lines of numbers Tak Lau does not understand. ‘Boy, we once called you “girl” to save you from the enemy. Now they truly come.’ When he places a hand on Tak Lau’s shoulder, dust collected on the boy’s clothing – from his adventures fossicking among construction rubbish – forms a small cloud and disappears. ‘Being a boy will be a good thing this time.’

  Tak Lau stares at his father, not understanding the logic.

  ‘If you cannot fight them, then go along with them until you can. If you can’t beat them join them.’ Tak Lau has heard this expression before. ‘When they come, and they will, our small territory cannot defend itself with only three aeroplanes for an air force.’ Father refers to the pitiful defence the British have left Hong Kong with; it’s so underwhelming, the colony may as well give up now. Under the oldest monarchy in the world, ruled from Japan’s Chrysanthemum Throne, the attacking forces have every resource imaginable, while this British outpost is completely underprepared. ‘We must take care of your sisters. The work we’re doing will help them. It will help us all.’