The Garden of Evening Mists

by Tan Twan Eng

  ‘Of course I’ve seen it. It’s famous.’

  ‘Well, that was made by Hokusai.’ He wagged a cotton-white finger at me. ‘Most people think they know him, if only because of The Hollow of the Deep Sea Wave. But he was much more than that.’

  He slid the book towards me. A vertical line of Japanese writing in red ink climbed down one side of the ash-grey cover. The book opened from right to left, and the first ukiyo-e print was of a view of a narrow mountain, with a miniscule temple clinging to its side. The room became completely still as I paged through the book.

  ‘They’re very detailed,’ I said.

  ‘Depending on the colours he wanted to have and the effects he wanted to achieve, he would have had to carve more than one wooden block.’

  ‘They look like Japanese tattoos,’ I said. ‘ Irezumi, aren’t they called?’

  ‘That,’ he glanced at me, ‘is an unrefined word. Do not use it. Ever. Tattoo artists refer to them as horimono – things that are incised.’

  ‘ Horimono,’ I repeated the word. It was so foreign, my tongue so unused to its shape, like how his name had once sounded to me. ‘During the War Crimes trials in KL,’ I said. ‘I had to record the interrogation of a Japanese prisoner of war. The guards had removed his shirt and his chest, arms and back were tattooed with birds and flowers, and even a demon with bared teeth.

  One of the guards later told me that the man’s tattoos covered his entire body – his thighs, buttocks, legs.’

  ‘That is unusual for someone in the army,’ Aritomo said. ‘Full body tattoos are seen only on criminals and the outcasts of society.’

  ‘The tattoos seemed... alive.’

  ‘He must have had a good horoshi – a tattoo master.’

  ‘Magnus has a tattoo,’ I said. ‘Did you know that?’

  ‘You have seen it?’ Aritomo looked at me.

  ‘He came to Penang for a weekend. I was sixteen or seventeen then,’ I said. ‘He invited us to tea at the E & O.’

  The gardener crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for me to explain.

  * * *

  The ceiling fans in the hotel lobby fought a permanent losing battle with the humid air, the brass tips of their wooden blades volleying shards of light onto the walls and the marble floor. Dressed in a linen jacket over a white cotton shirt, a maroon tie and sharply creased grey trousers, Magnus was quite unlike the image of a planter I had in my head. The black silk eye-patch over his right eye gave him a roguish charm, and I could not help but notice how it drew glances from the other hotel guests, particularly the women.

  ‘Only the four of you?’ he said to my mother. ‘Where’s Kian Hock?’

  ‘Up in Batu Ferringhi,’ she replied. ‘Camping on the beach with the scouts.’

  A waiter showed us to a table on the terrace by the sea, among the Europeans and wealthy Chinese and Malay families. Magnus hung his jacket over the back of his chair. My parents nodded at a number of people who recognised them. A pair of Chinese boys, about five or six years old, chased each other around the tables, much to the obvious disapproval of the European mems. In the narrow stretch of water between Penang and mainland Malaya, liners and steamers and tramps sailed past the hotel, some coming in from the Indian Ocean, others from the Andaman Sea, all of their passengers, I was certain, rejoicing at entering the Straits of Malacca after weeks and months out in the open water.

  ‘How’s your estate?’ my father asked. My parents seemed uncomfortable with Magnus, and this made me even more sensitive to the tension in the air.

  ‘Doing rather well, Boon Hau,’ Magnus replied. ‘You should come and see.’

  ‘We should,’ my mother said. I recognised the tone in her voice which she used with my father, when she was making promises she had no intention of keeping.

  ‘What happened to your eye?’ The question had been troubling me from the moment I had first seen him.

  ‘Don’t be rude, Yun Ling,’ said my mother.

  Magnus waved away her reprimand. ‘I lost it fighting in the Boer War.’

  ‘That was in Africa,’ my sister said.

  ‘ Ja,’ Magnus said. ‘The Brits tried to take our land. We fought back, but they burned our farms and put our women and children in concentration camps.’

  ‘Look here,’ my father cut in before I could ask Magnus what a concentration camp was.

  ‘I don’t want you talking any of that rubbish to my girls. You Boers were a bunch of thugs. You lost the war. Naming your tea estate “Majuba” isn’t going to change history.’

  ‘It’s my small way of honouring the battle where the Brits were soundly thrashed,’

  Magnus said in a silky voice. ‘And it gives me great pleasure to know that in Malaya and all over the East they’re taking in a bit of Majuba every time they have their tea.’

  ‘Somebody at the Penang Club mentioned that you’re flying the Transvaal flag,’ my father said.

  ‘It’s the flag of my home, the country I fought for,’ Magnus said. ‘You don’t begrudge me that, surely.’

  ‘What about the garden, Mr Pretorius?’ Yun Hong asked in the silence that had hardened over our table. ‘Has the Japanese man started building it?’

  ‘How on earth did you know about that?’ Magnus asked.

  ‘The girls read the feature on your estate in the Straits Times,’ my mother said. ‘You mentioned the Japanese gardener and the garden he was making. Hong has been fascinated by Japanese gardens ever since we visited Kyoto.’

  ‘It’s coming along nicely, Yun Hong,’ Magnus said. He was sitting next to me and he turned his body to include me in the conversation. ‘Aritomo says it’s not quite finished yet. He’s clearing the trees at this moment. Perhaps in another year or so. You’re most welcome to visit.

  He won’t mind, I’m sure.’

  ‘Will it have a pond and a bridge over it?’ Yun Hong asked Magnus. ‘And a rock garden?’

  Before Magnus could reply, a waiter walking past our table collided into one of the Chinese boys running between the tables. The waiter stumbled, tipping over the tray he was carrying. Spoons and china cups and saucers clattered onto our table, some crashing onto the tiled floor. Yun Hong shrieked a warning at me as hot liquid drenched my shoulders and arms, soaking my blouse. My mother pushed back her chair and rushed to my side, grabbing a table napkin and wiping me with it. ‘Are you all right? Yun Ling? Yun Ling!’

  I did not hear her, nor was I paying attention to the burning on my skin. I was staring at Magnus: he had also been splashed with hot water. His shirt and tie were soaked, and I watched as a patch of blue slowly bloomed on the left side of his chest, just above his heart. Other colours were soon appearing as his shirt remained plastered to his chest: orange and red and green.

  He saw me looking at it. ‘It’s just a tattoo, Yun Ling,’ he said.

  * * *

  ‘That was the first time I had ever seen a tattoo close-up,’ I said, gazing down at Hokusai’s woodblock prints but not seeing them. ‘My parents were horrified that he had marked his body like that, like… a gang member.’

  Aritomo closed the book and returned it to its box, pressing down the lid firmly and snapping the clasps shut. Outside, the rain had stopped falling, but water continued to taper off the eaves.

  * * *

  Stepping out onto my verandah early one morning I was startled by a man standing in the driveway. Even in the murky light I knew that he was not Siva; he had taken ill a few days before and, knowing how short-handed Magnus was, I had not seen the need to trouble him for another escort.

  ‘Miss Teoh?’ the man said. It took me a second or two before I recognised Ah Cheong’s voice. We had hardly ever talked to each other in all the time I had been in Yugiri. He approached the verandah steps.

  ‘What’s wrong? Has something happened to Mr Nakamura?’ I asked.

  ‘My elder brother… ’ he began in halting English, ‘my elder brother is with the People Inside... but now he wants to come out from the jungle
.’

  I went down the steps and broke into a brisk walk. Aritomo would be angry if I kept him waiting. ‘You’ve been in contact with him?’

  ‘Ever since he went into the jungle, when the Emergency began,’ Ah Cheong replied, keeping up with me. ‘I’d hear from him once a month, sometimes two months.’

  ‘You’ve been giving him food? Money?’ I slowed down, glancing at him. The housekeeper shook his head. He was not being truthful but I did not press him. I remembered that morning when I had gone for a hike and had seen the figure in khaki by the pond. He had probably been a CT. I was not sure now if the other person who had joined him had been Aritomo or his housekeeper. ‘What is it that you want me to do?’

  ‘He wants to know if he can trust this… ’ Ah Cheong gave me a piece of brown paper.

  Unfolding it, I saw that it was one of the thousands of safe-conduct passes the government air-dropped into the jungle.

  ‘As far as I’m aware the government has always honoured its promises to… communists who’ve surrendered voluntarily,’ I said. ‘What’s your brother’s name?’

  ‘Kwai Hoon. How much will the government pay him if he surrenders?’ We had arrived at the heart of the matter: the pragmatism of the Chinese; even in the midst of danger, one should determine how much one is able to profit from it.

  ‘Well... it all depends on your brother’s rank and importance, the usefulness of the information he brings with him. The reward for Chin Peng is set at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.’ Chin Peng was Secretary General of the MCP. I was quite certain that the communists were aware of the hierarchy of rewards already. ‘That’s not the reason you’re here, is it?’

  ‘Kwai Hoon knows about you,’ the housekeeper said. ‘He knows you are here. He wants to surrender.’

  ‘He can walk into any police station. There’s one in Tanah Rata. I’m sure he knows where it is – he’s probably attacked it a few times already.’

  ‘He says the government won’t cheat him if you bring him in.’

  ‘What does Aritomo say?’

  The housekeeper’s eyes evaded mine. ‘Mr Nakamura will be very angry if I bring trouble to his house.’

  ‘There are proper channels for your brother to follow if he wants to surrender,’ I said, returning the safe-conduct pass to him. ‘There’s really nothing I can do. And Special Branch will have a file on him. They’ll know he’s your brother. They’ll want to question you. Whether you intended to or not, you’ve already brought trouble to Mr Nakamura’s house.’

  ‘Kwai Hoon’s mother was my father’s Number One wife. My mother was Number Three. He never registered his marriages. We have not lived in the same town since we were boys. No one knows we are half-brothers.’ The housekeeper continued to look at me, lacing and unlacing his fingers. I did not want to involve myself in his troubles, and I wanted to turn him away. Sensing my reluctance, he said, ‘He is waiting in the jungle behind your house. He has some friends with him. Help him. Tolong-lah, Miss Teoh . ’

  * * *

  The CTs pulled the curtains over the windows as soon as they entered through the back door. All four were Chinese, one of them a woman in her twenties. A chill ran through me at the thought that they had been hiding behind my bungalow, watching my every move since who knew when.

  I was about to switch on the lights, but a voice stopped me. We sat around the dining table in the kitchen, their pale complexions giving off a faint glow in the shadows. Ah Cheong’s brother spoke to me in Mandarin but, realising that I was struggling to keep up with his words, he switched to Malay. ‘We’re with the Third Regiment, Southern Division,’ he said. ‘We want to surrender.’

  ‘Why?’ I felt vulnerable speaking to a bandit outside a prison cell and unprotected by guards. It was hard to believe that I was sitting here sharing a pot of tea with terrorists when, a few months before, I would have been doing my best to ensure that they were hanged.

  ‘Our superiors eat three full meals a day, while the rest of us starve. They get money to spend. Medicines when they fall sick. Their women are allowed to live with them.’ Kwai Hoon’s fist thumped his chest. ‘I complained about these things at the Central Committee meeting. I criticised the leaders.’ His chair rocked as he became more worked up. ‘Three days ago the commander ordered me to meet up with another regiment in Tanjong Malim. It was just an excuse to get us away from the camp – take us to some spot in the jungle to kill us.’

  ‘It won’t be long before they realise we’re gone,’ one of the other CTs spoke up. ‘We have to move.’

  Kwai Hoon turned to me again. It was getting brighter outside and I could see his face more clearly. ‘I want to bring the mata-mata to our camp before it’s abandoned. The more officers we catch, the more money we’ll get. And I know where Chin Peng is. I want you to talk to someone with authority, someone who can give us the best deal. You would know who to speak to.’

  * * *

  Nearly all of the shops in Tanah Rata had already closed up for the Chinese New Year. I turned off the main road and drove down a leafy road to the Smokehouse Hotel, purple bougainvillaea growing in front of its mock-Tudor facade. With its low wooden ceiling beams, thick brown carpets, heavy furniture and walls decorated with oils of fox-hunting scenes in dusty gold-painted frames, the hotel reminded me of the country inns around Cambridge. The clerk at the reception desk pointed me to the telephone in an alcove behind the lobby. Inspector Woo answered just as I was about to hang up, and I told him about Kwai Hoon’s intention to surrender. His low whistle scraped up a storm of static over the line.

  ‘He’s a member of the South Perak Regional Committee,’ he said. ‘Very high up. He’ll know the names of all the unit leaders and committee members.’

  ‘Well, right now he’s at my bungalow with three of his comrades. He’ll lead you to their camp, but you have to come immediately.’

  ‘Why is your ladle is in this pot?’ Woo asked.

  A porter pushed a trolley of luggage past me, followed by a European couple. I lowered my voice. ‘As you’ve warned me before, Inspector, I’m well-known to the CTs.’

  * * *

  At a few minutes before eleven, Inspector Woo and his men drove up to my bungalow in unmarked cars. The tea fields around my bungalow were deserted, but the police placed blankets over the CTs’ heads before leading them into the back of a windowless van.

  ‘So the buggers just showed up here, out of the blue, asking for your help?’ Inspector Woo asked when his men slammed the van doors shut and locked it.

  ‘Shocking ignorance of social etiquette, isn’t it?’ I replied. ‘They could at least have left a message asking when would be a good time to call on me. How much money do you think they’ll get?’

  He took a long draw on his cigarette. ‘Twenty thousand dollars, maybe. Might even be more if the raid bags us some high-ranking communists. You might get a share of it too. A small share.’ He looked at me, and I knew he was expecting me to turn it down.

  ‘Doesn’t it make you angry, knowing that they’re going to get the reward, while you policemen are the ones risking your lives?’

  ‘The scheme has provided us with quite a lot of useful intelligence.’ Woo threw his cigarette away and got into his car. ‘If I were you, Miss Teoh,’ he said, ‘I’d be very careful for the next few months. If the CTs hear about your role in this, they’ll want to make an example of you. And they have a very long memory.’ He slammed his door shut and wound down the window. ‘You’re visiting your family for Chinese New Year? In case we need to get in touch with you.’

  My father had asked me the same question a week ago. ‘I’ll be here, Inspector Woo.’

  ‘Well, Happy New Year anyway, Miss Teoh.’ Woo gave the order to his driver to start the engine. ‘ Kung Hey Fatt Choy! ’ he wished me again as he drove away.

  * * *

  Tidying up the kitchen, I thought about what Kwai Hoon had told me earlier, when we had been waiting for Inspector Woo. ‘I was trained by the B
ritish, you know,’ he had said. ‘Force 136.

  There were about a hundred of us. They sent us for training in Singapore when the Japs landed.

  And now we’re enemies.’ He went to the windows above the sink and parted the curtains. ‘He’s not far from here.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Chin Peng. There’s his base.’ He pointed through the window to a mountain peak.

  ‘Gunung Plata.’

  I glanced at his rifle he had set down on the table – the wooden butt had been chewed away by termites. ‘You’ll be a very rich man, if you can lead them to him.’

  He looked around the kitchen. His comrades were in the sitting room. He lowered his voice and said, ‘You were a prisoner of the Japs, yes?’ I did not reply, and he went on, ‘We had a few Japs with us.’

  ‘What were they doing?’

  ‘Those bastards refused to surrender when they lost the war. They wanted to keep fighting. They came to see us, begged us to give them shelter. And in return they showed us where the army had hidden their store of guns.’

  ‘They’re still with you, these Japs?’

  ‘Most of them have deserted in the last few months. They left the jungle, surrendered themselves,’ he said. ‘Three months ago the Central Committee decided that the Japs who were still with us couldn’t be trusted any longer. I was ordered to kill them.’ He sucked in his lower lip. ‘We left our camp one morning – me, my men, and the four Japs. I told them we were to meet a senior official and escort him back to camp. Those Japs had been with us since 1945, they’d become my friends.’ He pulled in his lips again, the sound wet and obscene. ‘When we got to a swamp, we shot them.’

  ‘If you ask nicely,’ I said, ‘I’m sure Templer will give you a medal for that.’

  ‘Eh, no need to be so insulting- lah.’ He glowered at me for a moment. ‘The Jap I was closest to... I decided to shoot him last, you know, for the sake of our friendship. Just before I shot him, you know what he tells me? He says he’s heard rumours of a huge pile of war loot the Jap army had stashed away in the jungle – gold bars and gemstones, stolen from us Chinese. If I let him live, he’d help me find it.’