by Tan Twan Eng
“Yun Hong would still be alive if you had taken Magnus up on his 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,” he 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 bird’s-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.”
“They’re 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 moved 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-center. “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 colors, except for one who was completely bald and in a gray 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 spiderweb.
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 traveling 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 bef
ore 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 centers as well.”
“Civilian holding centers?” I said. “You mean slave-labor camps. I’m sure you’ll find those in your army’s records.”
Ishiro Juro, who had been silent all this time, spoke up. “The army destroyed all of its . . . unnecessary documents when it became clear that we would not win the war.”
“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 inquiries 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 organization’s purpose,” Mrs. Maruki said.
I turned toward 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 brutalized 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.”
“Your 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-colored 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 center 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 brushstrokes 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.”
Learning of Tominaga’s death stunned me; he had been the last link to my camp, the only other person I knew who had been there, who I had suspected was still alive. And now he too was gone.
“Did he leave a note?” Aritomo finally spoke again, the hollowness in his voice the only indication that Ishiro’s words had affected him.
“None was found,” said Ishiro. “The servants said that, the day before he killed himself, Tominaga-san burned all his papers—his documents, his notebooks, his diaries. Everything.”
“Perhaps he was afraid that the Americans would put him on trial,” Aritomo said.
“His name was never mentioned in any of the hearings,” Sekigawa said, “not by any of the witnesses or any of our people who were charged. I am sure that Tominaga-san, like so many of us, simply could not bear to see our country occupied by foreigners.”
A familiar, half-forgotten fear seeped slowly through me as I studied the priest, Matsumoto; I should have been able to recognize a former Kempeitai officer from the first moment I saw him, but he had learned to camouflage himself well. “And how about you, Matsumoto-san? Was your name ever mentioned in any of the war crimes hearings?”
The Shinto priest did not look away, but his companions leaned back into a wary, watchful silence. “I should have realized earlier that we were speaking to a former Guest of the Emperor,” he said.
“Former? We will always be guests of your emperor.”
Sekigawa attempted to lighten the heaviness in the air. “Ah! In a month’s
time the American occupation will end. We will be free again. Seven years under the Americans. It feels so much longer!”
“If you like, we will extend our stay here for a few more days, to give you more time to reconsider your reply,” said Ishiro.
“That is not necessary.” Aritomo stood up in a fluid movement that allowed no argument. The other three looked at Sekigawa. He nodded and all of them got up at the same time, Matsumoto helping Mrs. Maruki to her feet.
“We have heard so much about your garden,” said Sekigawa. “May we see it?”
“Oh, and the waterwheel too,” Mrs. Maruki added. “It was a great honor, I am sure, to be presented with such a gift by the emperor.”
“I am making some renovations in that section,” Aritomo said, with just sufficient regret for the lie to almost convince me too. “Another time, perhaps, when all the work here has been completed.”
“You must inform us when it is possible to visit,” Sekigawa said.
“Come back when the Emergency is over. It will be safer to resume your search then,” Aritomo said. “The countryside is not a safe place to be at this moment.”
“We have had problems from the authorities,” Ishiro said. “They refused to let us visit quite a lot of places.”
“How long will the Emergency last?” Mrs. Maruki asked. She was, I recognized, the type of woman who was unwilling to leave until she obtained something, however insignificant.
“Years, I would think,” Aritomo replied. “Years and years.”
The envelope was still lying on the table, the chrysanthemum crest gleaming like the sun’s distorted reflection on the surface of Usugumo Pond. Aritomo poured himself a cup of tea and held out the teapot to me. I shook my head.
“Is it true, that you’ve been asked to go home?” I was worried by the possibility that he might.
He set the teapot on the brazier. “Apparently there is a shortage of us now—the younger gardeners have been killed or wounded in the war and the older ones can no longer keep up with the work.” He swirled the tea in his cup a few times, squinting into it. I wondered if he was thinking of the tea plantation his wife had grown up in. “I have been away from Japan for so many years,” he said. “So many years.”
