by Nigel Barley
‘Yoshi, darling. You are so clever! How do you ever think of such things?’ Her eyes were bright and admiring and her hand was—most excitingly—stroking the hairless muscularity of his inner thigh. ‘But I can’t think what it would look like. Draw it for me, darling. That’s right. Just here on the back of this piece of paper. Lovely!’
* * *
Professor Tanakadate leaned over the breakfast table, gathered his workaday kimono about him and sat back to light a cigarette—a sort of oriental Noel Coward—to take away the taste of the endless manioc paste. They had grown so bored with it that they had just used it to create a model of a volcano, the Professor explaining its inner workings with congealing slime and demonstrating the erosive effect of rainfall with the Flit gun filled with water. Its ruins lay before them—magma cum laude—on a chipped non-tectonic plate of blue PWD china. He drew the moral, as in one of his lectures at the university.
‘That is why the eruptive as opposed to the sedimentational model of atolls such as Cocos-Keeling has attracted more support. But perhaps one day we shall go there together and do joint research and finally settle the matter.’ He sighed and eased stiff thighs. ‘But before that, I have received an unusual request from Captain Oishi at the new Shinto temple. It seems they need a botanist you see—like yourself. Not a vulcanologist, like me. I expect it’s a matter of trees, plants, grass—what to plant, how to get a satisfactory display at all seasons—you know the sort of thing.’ Pilchard made a questioning face. ‘Apparently Captain Oishi asked for you specially. You can use the motorbike.’
In a lean-to out front, stood a raddled BSA motorbike combination, painted matt grey and looted from God knew where, that served as the Gardens’ only official transport. It too leaned from the fact of the third tyre being the wrong size. Pilchard knew that riding it would be an adventure, a welcome excursion from the confinement of the Gardens, his first real journey since release from Changi, but …
‘But I am not a real botanist. It is just that, out here, we all have to turn our hand to whatever crops up—botany, zoology, anthropology, geology …’
‘Then this is what has cropped up.’
‘But we have no petrol.’
The Professor smiled. ‘I have two gallons … tucked away? Is that the expression? Yes, tucked away in my bedroom. Under the bed.’ He gestured upstairs with his head.
‘You keep petrol under the bed? What about the fire risk?’
The Professor shrugged. ‘When there are so many easy ways to die, one more or less seems unimportant.’ He rattled the matches roguishly.
‘But it’s endless trouble what with the roadblocks when they see a gaijin riding a bike. I wouldn’t get through. They’d take the motorbike. You would have to come with me.’
‘This conversation sounds like a British song I learned in school called “There’s a hole in the bucket”. If you take the goggles and crash helmet and wear an armband that I shall give you, they will not notice what you are.’
And so it was that, the next morning, Pilchard left the Gardens from the northern gate, relishing the sound and the surging vibration of the old engine between his legs and hammered on rattling pistons up towards Bukit Timah, where the stench exhaled by the camp on the old Sime Road golf course wafted foully across from behind screening trees, restoring the animality that humans habitually denied and reducing them to it and nothing else. A sweet compound of woodsmoke, toothrot, farts and despair, it was somehow far worse than that he remembered from Changi, the boiled-down essence of human misery choking in its own filth. Perhaps it was simply that it had had—how long?—eighteen months more to mature and fester. Being mainly for Eurasians rather than whites, camp conditions were much more relaxed in Sime and many proud Brits had suddenly discovered multiracial skeletons in their fitted, pukkah closets and rattled them at the Japanese in their haste to be reclassified. He turned off onto the rutted, dirt track that led to the MacRitchie reservoir, grateful for the cleansing breeze that blew off the water. Each time he hit a bump, the ruined saddle poked sharp metal into his backside. There had been a lot of heavy traffic, army trucks mostly, churning up the soil to the unsightly morass of water and weed that he thought of as ‘a French lawn’. Quite a few were parked there, some with the big rubber bladders on the roof they used to run them on coal gas and idle soldiers were just lying around. There is nothing so dangerous as idle soldiers. All the uniforms made him nervous and he retained the helmet and goggles as a mask.
It was around here that he had served most of his short, sharp time in the Volunteer Force during the battle for Singapore. He had seen the craziness of it all—the men having victoriously fought lethal hand-to-hand engagements with the Japs being then ordered to retreat and offering easy targets for their planes as they made their way bunched along the open roads. The insanity of Dalforce—Chinese volunteers without uniforms, just a bandana and an armband, fighting off Nippon Imperial Guards with old shotguns and parangs and the odd grenade after a few weeks’ limp-wristed training in the woods. Being totally divided between communists and nationalists, they had to fight in separate sections and often preferred shooting each other to killing the designated enemy. British officers, not too sure about their own backs, indulged their private sympathies by issuing the nationalists three times as many bullets as the communists. He had himself seen the famed Madame Cheng, over sixty years old, fighting hand-to-hand alongside her husband, dodging from tree to tree and spitting out invective and bullets against the Japanese as only a very angry grandmother could. There were other things he wanted more clearly to forget. He fought off a flashback, refused to see the tying of survivors to trees to be bayoneted, the hanging of mutilated body parts of Allied conscripts in the branches like Christmas decorations by chortling Japanese troops. It seemed fortunate that the human mind adjusts by being no more capable of recreating, from afar, the true feeling of horror than it is the sensations of ecstasy or gratitude. Then suddenly the fresh, friendly face of Captain Oishi, blushing under long eyelashes, was there and immediately banished the Japanese of his recollection and he pulled the suffocating memory with crash helmet and sticky goggles from his face.
‘Dr Pilchard. Thank you for coming to Syonan Jinja. Here, the souls of the dead are transformed into land-protecting spirits.’ He bowed, contrary to regulations, though less to Pilchard than to the idea of spirits, then hesitated. ‘To be honest, I had not expected to see you so soon. I had thought, perhaps next week …’ The ground behind him had been cleared and finely landscaped and rose towards an arched wooden bridge, painted bright red, that crossed one of the many small inlets of the reservoir. Where it touched the ground at both ends, pink irises had flowered as though its colour had bled, diluted, into the earth and water. Beyond it, stood the Shinto shrine itself, a series of pavilions, some without walls, some hidden behind fences, with thick, thatched roofs and innocent wooden pillars, that explored various shades of muted grey. A snaking path, paved with polished pebbles, led off, under a stone arch like a Chinese character, among bamboo and large rocks. In the midst of it, a man was washing his hands methodically, like a surgeon, at a fountain hewn from a single block of granite. Captain Oishi’s eyes followed his gaze.
‘The stones were intended for the filtering of the city water but now we have a better use for them.’ By the bridge, a bank of bonsai trees and tortured flower arrangements displayed the results of a contest among Japanese forces and showed rain-flecked photographs of bashfully grinning winners. So peaceful, so far from war. The Captain posed winsomely before one of them—standing laughing to attention—two intertwined Cymbidium dayanum tweaked up into a slim tower of blossom.
‘This is mine,’ he preened, unconsciously stretching up with his own thin neck. ‘In the most modern style.’ His hushed voice indicated the daring of it. ‘My teacher in Kyoto would say too modern. Honourable mention.’ The long word attacked him like a foreign enemy.
‘Splendid! If cameras were permitted, I would take your pict
ure. My congratulations. Orchids taken from the wild, I presume?’ Pilchard bowed again. Now to business. ‘Captain Oishi. The Professor sent me here but I don’t know how I can help at all. After all, I know nothing of Shinto gardens, Zen gardens, Buddhist gardens—whatever it is that you require.’ He arranged goggles in crash helmet, folded in the soaking earflaps and tucked the package neatly under one arm, like a medieval knight waiting to be cast in brass. ‘I am sure it involves rather more than the planting of a flower clock or a lush, herbaceous border. But rocks, gravel, trees, the religion of Nature, ikebana flower arrangements—I have no idea what is the correct relationship of it all. It is like asking me to cook and serve a Japanese formal banquet.’
Oishi laughed lightly, covering his mouth with one hand. ‘Oh Dr Pilchard, I realise that. We have not brought a southern barbarian here to teach us about Shinto.’ He would repeat that one back at the mess and make all the other officers laugh too, maybe even Mother back home in Kyoto. ‘In the course of our work we have disturbed certain orchids that I should like you to look at. Please to follow.’ He led down a path, torn through rampaging bamboo and ferns. After several hundred yards, they came out into a clearing where twenty or more burly Japanese soldiers, stripped to the waist, were working at digging an enormous excavation. It is always ill-advised to dig a hole next to a reservoir and they spent more time bailing out water than digging. As he stepped out into the clearing, they looked up, bathed in perspiration, surprised, assumed expressions of extreme unfriendliness, some stretched out a hand for their rifles, then saw Oishi and grumbled quietly among themselves. A colder sweat trickled down Pilchard’s back. To one side, a dozen or more aluminium containers were stacked in a pile, roped together, snarling with ideograms. You never saw Japanese troops doing physical labour. That was for POWs, or—sometimes just out of spite and contempt—for the Indian National Army.
‘What is this? Something in case the balloon goes up?’
Lieutenant Oishi spun round aghast. ‘Shh! Balloons? What do you know of balloons?’
Pilchard shrugged. ‘It is an expression only, meaning “in case of a major event”.’
Oishi frowned, unconvinced, and batted the question away. ‘Oh, it is a thing…a thing for the General. This is my squad. The orchids are over here.’ He led down a path over the other side and soon the vegetation swallowed them up. Since he had met Orchid, he could not bear any thought of unkindness to the plants that bore her name. When he returned to the office, he would try again to perfect the origami version of her flower that he had been labouring at, a work of art folded out of drab military circulars. Failed attempts overflowed his wastebasket like tribute. Pilchard peered into the tangled shade. Insects buzzed around them. It was some kind of Aerides, a monopodial epiphyte, attached to the bark of a non-shedding tree, long pendulous inflorescences, waxy pink blooms. Hmm. Perfectly standard but, at the Gardens, he had been schooled in sparing the tender feelings of … amateurs.
‘Absolutely fascinating! Highly unusual. But then this is a unique environment. Let me take some samples and I can compare them with our own back at the Herbarium.’ He dutifully snicked with the illegal weapon of his penknife. Thus had the great pioneers of his profession whittled and sliced their way to posterity in a dozen hazardous lands. ‘It may be that they are unknown to science. Then we can name them after you, can’t we? Let me see. That would make them oishii wouldn’t it? All those i’s in a row.’ The Captain glowed and purred with-horticultural pride.
‘Yes. I should like to live long enough to have an orchid named after me.’ A simple statement said quite without affectation, unperfumed. Pilchard tucked the samples away in the crash helmet. Once inside, they looked ridiculously small. Ungratefully small. He took more just for the sake of it, trying to make a sort of gracious bouquet of it.
‘I am surprised to see you still here, Captain. I thought you were to go home. Is there some delay?’
Captain Oishi led the way back, taking another, much longer path and avoiding the clearing and his own men. ‘The command of the Seventh Army is still unfixed. I have no orders from Tokyo. And there are matters left from the General that I must finish before I can travel.’
‘And perhaps you have new interests that make you less eager to leave. Orchids, for example.’ The young man blushed and laughed in delight.
‘Yes, yes, orchids. I am very interested in orchids. All sorts of orchids.’ He looked swiftly sad and snapped off a branch from one of the bushes, shredding the leaves and scattering them miserably. ‘Orchids are very different in books and in the flesh. Of course, in Japan, people do not like orchids so much as here. There it is all bonsai, twisted, stunted.’ He tied his hands in demonstrative knots.
‘No. I should imagine transplanting them would be very difficult and perhaps they would not thrive there if you took any home with you.’
‘Impossible,’ sighed the Captain ruefully. He carried his burden of unwieldy emotions around with him, like a man toting a long plank through a crowded street. They arrived back at the motorbike and Pilchard bowed low to him for the benefit of the other soldiers lounging there and received a smart salute in exchange. He hung the goggles round his neck and braced himself for the clammy humidity of the helmet. Too late, as he placed it on his head, he remembered the samples now falling about his ears. Oishi politely averted his eyes. As he grubbed for them in the mud, a grey, wood-burning truck heaved axle-wrenchingly towards them and stopped. Two Japanese infantrymen jumped down and waved fixed bayonets at the interior, shouting the inevitable, ‘Speedo! Speedo!’ Guards were always angry. What were they so angry about? And why were they all in such a perpetual hurry? What did they intend to do with the thirty seconds gained by all that shouting? A group of POWs clambered wearily out clutching Asian hoes. At their head was Major Spratt. He and Pilchard looked at each other and hesitated. One of the guards was already striding across, rifle raised for a blow when Spratt went into a deep reverential bow to Captain Oishi, who further wrong-footed the soldier by saluting smartly so that he fell back, perplexed. Pilchard shook hands in a determinedly civilian fashion.
‘Major Spratt. I thought all officers were excused labour.’ Spratt snorted and cast a wary eye at Oishi. ‘Tell that to our Japanese masters. You seem to have done yourself all right. My god, you’ve got your own motorbike?’
Captain Oishi intervened, ‘As a botanist, Dr Pilchard, would you say those coconut palms over there need to be removed for the proper development of the garden?’
Pilchard looked at the grey, worn men and imagined them hacking away in the broiling sun.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I see no need for that. That would be pointless labour.’
‘Shut up, you bloody fool,’ hissed Spratt. ‘They’ll make us work anyway and if we cut down the trees the men get to keep the nuts and the trunk will give palm wine for a week.’
‘Yes, Captain. I would consider cutting down those trees as essential.’
Oishi smiled and shouted irritated orders at the guards who led the men away, grumbling. They exchanged mute glances of complicity and embarrassment. Pilchard cleared his throat. ‘Thank you,’ he said softly. Then, ‘I’m surprised not to have had more checks from patrols.’ He lay the plant samples respectfully on the sidecar seat and, settling back onto the saddle with assumed dignity, kicked the engine into reluctant life. He ignored the renewed sharp poking in his buttocks.
‘Your armband,’ Oishi pointed. ‘It says you’re a German, friend of Japanese people.’ He stepped back a pace and saluted again.
Embracing his role, Pilchard heelclicked and Sieg Heil-ed parodically—Spratt staring at him in horror—let out the clutch and bounced off germanically down the track and back onto the tarmac humming the Ride of the Walkyries. He clattered along Bukit Timah Road with Wagner pounding in his head until he reached the big crossroads, paused for a moment, then, glimpsing the orchids out of the corner of his eye, switched to soaring Rosenkavalier and, on sudden impulse, pointed the handlebar
s away from the Gardens and turned north, threading out through the traffic heading towards military headquarters. It was as if his heart were infected with the lightness of the love that young Oishi leaked from every pore. Lovers, he decided, were like vomiters. They induced involuntary, sympathetic contractions in everyone who witnessed their spasms. As the morning heat grew, the road shrank down and traffic ebbed to the occasional cart and bicycle. Fields were dotted between the trees, becoming rarer as he moved north with small Malay kampungs set back from the road. The vegetation changed. Bigger, older trees. The wind tugged at his thin, worn shirt and rain prickled in the air. There was another POW camp here and occasional work parties trudged along with shovels over their shoulders, prodded and harried out of his official way by guards who watched him with more interest than was comfortable. The men seemed to look like Spratt but a Spratt with all the starch and swagger knocked out of him, mostly bare-chested and scrawny, like skinned rabbits, with eyes that were either dead or burned with hatred or fever. What did they see in him? Not a German but someone pinker and better fed certainly, probably just a collaborator. Is that what he was? Possibly. But one foreign occupation of Singapore did not seem, to him, any more inherently outrageous than another. The British, it was true, at least had to justify themselves—as Protestants—with good works. Yet it was more that—as the conflict widened and became more abstract and algebraic with people fighting others just because they were the friends of enemies—his own loyalties shrank and became more hesitant, less easily engaged, more focused on those around him. Spratt detested the Indian guards in the camp for their reluctance to lay down their lives for his country. Pilchard simply disliked them for what they had done to him and his friends and despised them for believing one fairy story rather than another. Ideologies, myths, imperial destinies—all such nonsense. All his life he had been told that selfishness, cowardice, lack of faith and belief would be the world’s undoing. School spirit, patriotism, the reputation of the Museum—it was all the same empty words. He suddenly saw that this was the message of his first day at school. It was noble self-sacrifice, blind courage and the willingness to suspend critical judgement in the name of a greater cause that were actually destroying mankind. It was the people with a coherent vision of things that caused all the trouble because certainty was a form of stupidity. The rest of us, who only managed to make the world intelligible for short stretches, were relatively harmless.
