by Tan Twan Eng
‘She said her sister was a woman I prosecuted – Chan Liu Foong. She was deported.’
‘Ah… ’ Lee studied his notes. ‘You helped some high-ranking CT surrender a few months ago – it’s possible that the MCP was taking revenge. Did Wong Mei Hwa mention anything about that?’
I shook my head.
‘What the devil is he talking about?’ Magnus broke in. ‘You helped some CTs surrender?’
I told them what had happened.
‘I remember that!’ Emily said. ‘It was in the Straits Times, I remember now,’ Emily said.
‘The man got a big reward. He said he was going to open a restaurant.’
‘I didn’t want to say anything – you would have been worried,’ I said.
‘ Blerrie right!’ Magnus exploded. ‘You put all of us at great risk!’
‘Not so loud- lah! ’ Emily said. Magnus pushed back his chair noisily and stalked off to the far end of the ward.
After the sub-inspector left, Emily opened the thermos flask she had brought and filled a bowl with chicken essence soup. ‘Drink this. Can poh your body. I boiled it myself. There’s ginseng in it.’
It tasted vile, but I knew it would be easier to swallow it than refuse her. ‘We called your father,’ she said, watching me to make sure I finished every oily drop in the bowl. ‘He wants you back in KL.’
I wiped my lips. ‘I’m not leaving.’
‘Well, you can’t continue staying on your own!’ Magnus said, returning to stand over the foot of my bed. A nurse silenced him from across the ward and Emily gave her an apologetic smile.
‘I’m not a child, Magnus,’ I said.
‘You heard Lee – that woman could have killed you. Go home to KL. You can always come back again once the Emergency is over.’
‘And when will that be?’ I said. ‘Perhaps you can tell me?’
Emily touched Magnus’s hand, and he swallowed his temper with visible effort. He sighed. ‘Come on Lao-Puo,’ he said, pulling Emily to her feet. ‘Stop tiring her out with all your chatter – let the stupid girl get some rest.’
* * *
With the nurse’s reluctant assistance, I hobbled to Dr Yeoh’s office to telephone my father. The office was a large, sunny room at the end of a long corridor and my brow was damp with perspiration when I got there. He was out and the nurse, after some fretting and some sharp words from me, left to do her rounds.
‘Thank God you’re safe, Ling! I’ve been worried sick about you,’ my father said. ‘I have to be in Singapore tomorrow. I don’t know how long I’ll be there, but I’ll send my driver to Majuba for you. Just let me know when you’ll be discharged.’
‘I’m all right. It’s nothing serious.’
‘Nothing serious? You were assaulted! And stabbed! I hold Magnus responsible for this.’
‘I insisted Magnus let me have my own place, Father. I hope you didn’t tell Mother what happened.’
‘I didn’t. But there’s no point anyway – she doesn’t recognise me or Hock anymore.’ And you should be here, looking after her. He did not say it aloud, but I could hear his thoughts.
‘Magnus offered us a safe place to hide out during the war,’ I said. ‘You never told me that.’
‘Under the protection of his Japanese friend? It was unacceptable,’ my father said. ‘And you… to work for a Japanese! After what they did to us... ’
‘Yun Hong would still be alive if you had taken up Magnus’s offer,’ I said. ‘We would all have been safe. And Mother wouldn’t be... She would still be fine.’
‘You think I didn’t look for you? That I didn’t do everything I could to find out what happened to you and Hong? I’ve lost count of how many Japs I begged to let me know what had happened to you. I paid them whatever they wanted. But they toyed with me! Told me they knew nothing. Said you were not on any of their records.’
‘Don’t bother sending your driver, Father,’ I said. ‘I have no intention of leaving.’
All I could hear was silence. Then he hung up.
* * *
When I woke up that evening, Aritomo was in the same chair Magnus had sat in earlier. He put down his book – Somerset Maugham’s The Trembling of A Leaf – and went over to a side table on which stood a tiffin carrier.
It was already dark outside. ‘What time is it?’ I asked, sitting up against my pillows.
‘Just after six.’ He opened the lid of the tiffin carrier, lifted out the top container and gave it to me. I looked inside and smiled, shaking my head. The movement set off spasms of pain over my face. ‘Bird’s nest soup,’ I said, once the pain had subsided. ‘I’ll be back at work again in no time.’
‘So you are staying?’
‘The monsoon hasn’t started.’
He went to the window. Pressing his face close to the glass, he peered out at the sky. ‘I think it will be delayed this year,’ said.
* * *
He visited me every day while I was recovering in the hospital. He always brought a tiffin carrier of bird’s nest soup with him, watching me to make sure I ate it. Then he would push me out to the hospital garden in my wheelchair. The garden was nothing more than a broad, sloping lawn with some hydrangea bushes planted around its borders; we redesigned it again and again during those occasions when he wheeled me along the paths.
‘Ah Cheong’s getting married tomorrow,’ he told me when he arrived one evening.
‘Some girl in Tanah Rata. His mother arranged it. He invited us, but in your condition I thought it best to decline.’
‘You must give him money,’ I said. ‘Put it in a red envelope.’
‘I have already done so,’ he said, opening the tiffin carrier.
I was getting tired of birds’ nest soup by now but I kept silent, not wanting to hurt his feelings. ‘What’s this?’ I said when I looked into the first tray and caught the smells steaming from it.
‘From Ah Cheong. Abalone. There is shark’s fin soup as well. And some grilled lobster.
It seems his half-brother is providing the food for the wedding banquet. Owns a restaurant in KL, apparently. I never knew he had a half-brother.’ Aritomo’s smile was so brief and quick that I almost missed it. ‘Did you?’
* * *
On my last afternoon in the hospital a nurse brought Magnus out to the garden. He had a bunch of lilies and he smiled broadly when he saw Aritomo there, helping me move about with a pair of crutches. He gave the lilies to me.
‘A bit late to be giving me flowers, isn’t it?’ I said, smiling as they helped me to a bench.
‘I’ll be discharged tomorrow.’
‘It’s from Frederik. He only heard what happened two days ago. He’s been in the jungle.’
For a while we talked only of inconsequential things. More than once I noticed Magnus fidgeting. Finally he turned to me and said, ‘Your father rang me yesterday.’
‘Oh, for god’s sake. I’ve already told him not to send his driver.’
‘That’s not why he called. He wants me to stop letting you stay by yourself in Majuba.’
Magnus rubbed the strap of his eye-patch. ‘And after what’s happened, Yun Ling, I have to agree with him.’
‘You’re asking me to move out of Magersfontein Cottage?’ I said sharply.
‘Emily’s packed your things and moved them back to our house.’
I understood the quandary he had been placed in, but I was furious with him nevertheless.
‘I’ll look for another place to stay. Outside Majuba.’
Magnus turned helplessly to Aritomo. ‘Will you talk some sense into her?’
Aritomo did not speak for a few moments. Finally he said, ‘You can stay with me.’
* * *
I resumed working in Yugiri after a month. Aritomo gave me only the easier chores, keeping back the heavier tasks until I had built up my strength. Magnus and Emily tried to change my mind about staying in Yugiri. I ignored them. People would talk and I knew gossip would reach my father within days, but from the moment I m
oved into Yugiri I felt insulated from the world beyond its borders. Despite the killings going on all across the country, it was the first time in years that I felt at peace. But the world outside soon intruded; I had been foolish to think that it would not.
Coming to the end of our kyudo practice one morning, I noticed Ah Cheong from the corner of my eye. He was standing outside the archery hall, not saying a word until Aritomo had shot his second arrow and lowered his bow.
‘There are some people at the gate who wish to see you, sir.’
Aritomo’s attention remained fixed on the matto; his arrows were slightly off-centre. ‘I am not expecting anyone. Tell them to go away.’
‘They said to tell you that they’ve come from Tokyo. They’re from –’ he glanced at the scrap of paper in his palm and tried to read it. Sensing Aritomo’s impatience, he gave it to me.
I could just about make out the Japanese characters. ‘ The Association to Bring Home the Emperor’s Fallen Warriors,’ I read slowly.
The sun slipped out from a seam in the clouds. In the distance, birds erupted soundlessly from a tree, like leaves stripped by strong wind. Aritomo looked around the archery hall as though seeing something about it he had not noticed before. The joss-stick he lit to mark our practice hour was burning down to the end. A final line of smoke, now untethered, curled away into the air.
‘Let them wait on the front engawa,’ he said. The housekeeper nodded and left. Aritomo looked at me. ‘Come with me.’
I hung up my bow at the back of the hall, then turned back to look at him. ‘I don’t want to meet these people.’
I strode past him, but he caught my wrist, gripping it for a second before letting go. He went to the urn and blew gently at the stem of ash. It disintegrated, flouring the rim of the urn and the air around it, and then a passing breeze dissipated it into the light.
* * *
A woman stood apart from the three men, all of them studying the rocks in the kore-sansui garden and commenting in low voices. They turned around when Aritomo called out to them; I received only a cursory glance. The men wore black suits and ties in muted colours, except for one who was completely bald and in a grey traditional robe. The woman was in her fifties, dressed in a well-tailored emerald blouse and beige skirt. The pearls around her neck were as delicate as morning dew beaded on a spider web.
The first man put down his briefcase, took half a step forward and bowed. ‘I am Sekigawa Hisato,’ he said in Japanese. ‘We should have informed you of our visit in advance, but we are grateful that you have agreed to see us.’ He was in his fifties, a narrow-shouldered man made larger by the confidence of acting as the leader of the group. It was a position he was accustomed to, I suspected. The others bowed as Sekigawa introduced them in turn. The man with the shaven head was Matsumoto Ken. The woman, Mrs Maruki Yoko, smiled at me. The last man, Ishiro Juro, merely nodded indifferently.
‘The Association to Bring Home the Emperor’s Fallen Warriors was formed four years ago,’ Sekigawa explained, as they sat on the tatami mats around the low table. I felt his gaze linger on me as I folded my legs into the seiza position. ‘We have been travelling to all the places where our soldiers fought and died.’
Ah Cheong came out to the verandah with a tray of tea. Once Aritomo had poured for everyone, Sekigawa sniffed his cup and lifted his eyebrows. ‘Fragrance of the Lonely Tree?’
‘Yes,’ said Aritomo.
‘How wonderful! Exquisite!’ He took a sip, holding it inside his mouth for a moment before swallowing. ‘I have not had this since before the war. Where did you get it?’
‘I brought a few boxes of it with me when I moved here, but it is almost finished. I will have to order more soon.’
‘You cannot obtain it anymore,’ said Sekigawa.
‘Why not?’
‘The plantation – the tea fields, the storehouse – all were destroyed in the war.’
‘I ... I had not heard... ’ All of a sudden Aritomo appeared lost.
‘ Hai, it is very sad.’ Sekigawa shook his head. ‘The owner and everyone in his family were killed. Very sad.’
Mrs Maruki shifted her position and said, ‘We are here to find –’ she paused and gave me an uncertain look.
Aritomo gathered his thoughts together. ‘Yun Ling speaks Nihon-go well enough.’
Mrs Maruki nodded. ‘We are here to find the bones of our soldiers, to take them home for a proper burial.’
‘They will reside in Yasukuni with the souls of all our soldiers who died in the Pacific War,’ added Matsumoto.
‘The beaches of Kota Bahru, and the area around Slim River,’ Aritomo replied after thinking for a moment. ‘The heaviest fighting between the British and Japanese forces occurred there.’
‘We have already been there,’ Mrs Maruki replied. ‘My brother was killed at Slim River.’
She waited expectantly. Aritomo said nothing, and neither did I. Something about this group of people made me uneasy. I gave Aritomo a sidelong glance but his face was unreadable.
‘How do you differentiate the bones of the British troops from the Japanese ones?’ I asked. ‘I doubt if the families of British soldiers would appreciate their bones being taken back to a heathen shrine.’
Mrs Maruki’s head jerked back, as if I had spat in her face. Her cheeks reddened.
Sekigawa slipped in with the conciliatory voice of a seasoned peacemaker. ‘The act is symbolic,’ he said. ‘We take only pieces of bone from each site we visit.’ He pinched a bit of air with his thumb and forefinger. ‘Very small pieces.’
‘The families are always grateful that some remains of a son, a brother, or a father, can be brought home,’ Mrs Maruki said.
‘There are no dead soldiers in Yugiri,’ Aritomo said.
‘Of course, of course. We know that,’ replied Sekigawa. ‘We hoped that you might be able to tell us of any other places you may have heard of, places that we have been unable to find any information about.’
‘We have been to all of the well-known battlefields,’ Mrs Maruki said. ‘We want to visit the unknown ones, the forgotten ones. Civilian holding centres as well.’
‘Civilian holding centres?’ I said. ‘You mean slave-labour camps. I’m sure you’ll find those in your army’s records.’
‘The army destroyed all of its… unnecessary documents when it became clear that we would not win the war,’ Ishiro Juro, who had been silent all this time, spoke up.
‘Well, maybe I can help you.’ I said. ‘I’ll show you where the Kempeitai tortured their prisoners. The buildings around the government rest-house in Tanah Rata are still unoccupied today. The locals say that on some nights they can hear the screams of the victims.’ I pressed on, relentless as a jungle guide hacking through the undergrowth with my parang. ‘The villagers speak about a mass grave somewhere in the Blue Valley, a few miles from here. Hundreds of Chinese squatters were taken there in trucks and bayoneted by your soldiers. I’d be happy to make enquiries about it for you. In fact, I could probably find fifty, a hundred, probably even two hundred, of these places for you, all across Malaya and Singapore.’
‘Such… regrettable… incidents are not within the scope of our organisation’s purpose,’
Mrs Maruki said.
I turned towards Matsumoto, pointing at his robes. ‘You’re a Shinto priest, aren’t you?’
He tipped his head. ‘I took my vows a year after the surrender. I have no reservations about conducting a blessing ceremony for these places. Sometimes that is all we can do – help the souls of the dead find some peace, be they Japanese or British, Chinese or Malay or Indian.’
‘They’re dead, Matsumoto-san,’ I said. ‘It’s the living you should be helping – those who were brutalised by your countrymen, those who were denied compensation from your government.’
‘This does not concern you,’ Ishiro said.
‘Yun Ling is my apprentice,’ Aritomo said before I could reply. ‘Treat her with courtesy.’
‘Yo
ur apprentice?’ Ishiro said. ‘A woman? A Chinese woman? Is that permitted by the Bureau of Imperial Gardens?’
‘The Bureau ceased to have any hold over me years ago, Ishiro-san,’ Aritomo replied.
‘Ah, the Bureau… ’ Sekigawa interceded, ‘…that brings us to another reason we came to see you, Nakamura-sensei.’ He took a cream-coloured envelope from his briefcase. ‘We were asked to deliver this to you.’ He held it in both hands, treating it with the reverence shown to an ancestral tablet. Embossed in gold in the centre of the envelope was an emblem of a chrysanthemum flower. Aritomo received the envelope with both hands and placed it on the table. Sekigawa glanced at it, then looked to Aritomo again. ‘We are to wait for your answer.’
Aritomo sat there, completely still. All of us were looking at him. No one said anything, no one moved. Finally he picked up the envelope again and broke the seal with his thumbnail.
He removed a piece of paper that he unfolded and began reading. The paper was so thin that the black brush strokes written on it appeared like the veins of a leaf held up to the sun. At length he refolded the document, his thumb pressing hard into each crease. He sheathed the letter into the envelope and carefully set it down on the table.
‘We understand that you are to be reappointed with immediate effect to your former position in the palace,’ Sekigawa said. ‘Please accept our congratulations.’
‘My work at Yugiri is not finished.’
‘But surely the letter makes it clear that the Bureau has forgiven you for what happened between you and Tominaga Noburu,’ Sekigawa said.
The sound of that name jolted me. I was grateful that the Japanese were looking at Aritomo and not me.
‘You have heard what happened to Tominaga-san?’ Ishiro said in the silence.
‘I have not kept up with events in Japan,’ Aritomo replied.
‘He served in the war. He returned to his grandfather’s home after the Emperor announced the surrender,’ Ishiro said. ‘The servants reported that a few days later he went out to the tennis court in his garden and committed seppuku.’
