The Harbour

by Francesca Brill

  The journey started badly. Stevie had just about got used to pushing the pram, though one of its wheels didn’t turn properly. All the shops on Queen’s Road – now Nakameiji-dori, a brand-new sign announced its Japanese name – were shuttered but the pavements were lined with hawkers selling piles of food at extortionate prices along with candlesticks, pots and pans, plumbing pipes, electric lights, bedding and porcelain trinkets, all clearly freshly looted from the abandoned flats on the Peak. She wove past them, half-expecting to recognise something of her own on a stall. There were the usual long queues of Chinese families waiting to receive cooked rice from the newly established congee kitchens.

  In a narrow street she had to step back against the walls of a building when a convoy of Japanese military lorries rolled by. She knew well enough to keep her eyes down and not catch the eye of any of the soldiers and she mentally checked the pocket in which she had put her identity card. Woe betide anyone who was stopped without one. She wasn’t the only non-Chinese person in the streets but she was one of the very few. The British and Americans had been interned at the former military base at Stanley but German, Swiss, Portuguese, Spanish and Scandinavian nationals were still at liberty. Her card identified her as Wu Stevie, the wife of a Chinese citizen.

  As the last of the lorries passed she glimpsed the pale faces of European men and women, small moons in the dark interior of the trucks. When one of the lorries slowed a thin voice called out.

  ‘They’re taking us to Stanley. We were in the Peninsula Hotel. Name of Taylor. Please get news to my mother in Manchester.’

  It was thrown out with the same hope as a message in a bottle.

  She pushed on and from a vantage point at Wyndham Street she caught sight of an implausible scene. The cricket green had been transformed into a giant car park; it shimmered in the sunshine. There were hundreds of cars in neat lines, their bodywork sparkling. Every car on the island that hadn’t been destroyed in the invasion must have been there. Big American limousines and tiny British Austins, a democracy of stolen vehicles. And as she watched she saw other cars being loaded on to the deck of a cargo ship. Further out in the harbour there were crates of what looked like canned food being transferred from small boats on to another large ship. The Japanese were taking everything. She stared for a moment too long. A Japanese soldier turned the corner and she glanced up. Two Indian policemen in ill-fitting uniforms were at his side. She had seen quite a few former Indian Army soldiers. They were cynically being encouraged, as fellow exploited Asians, to join the Japanese civilian police force rather than accept imprisonment among their oppressors. The soldier stooped and picked up a broad piece of wood, the size of a baseball bat, from the rubble. He threw it directly at her. It caught the top of her head and she staggered from the force of the blow. She did not cry out and, disappointed, the soldier moved on. Tears of humiliation and pain burned the back of her eyes as she steered the pram past the lump of wood.

  She whispered, ‘It’s all right, baby, it’s all right,’ but since Hal hadn’t woken up the words of comfort were more for herself.

  The Star Ferry trip across the harbour was an ordeal of tense vigilance and by the time she got to Argyle Street she was exhausted. There was a queue of hollow-eyed, mostly Chinese women and their oddly subdued children waiting to deliver food parcels. Everybody seemed to have a layer of dust on their skin – a matt greyness had settled around their despair. The ground was uneven, pebbles and lumps of earth kept getting stuck in the pram wheels. Luckily, Hal didn’t seem to mind. Lying on his back was a new adventure and he wasn’t missing being tied tight in his sling. The sky was blue, the day pleasantly cool. Stevie concentrated on not falling too far behind the woman in front of her. They walked in a kind of parade along the outside perimeter fence of the camp. They were mostly silent. Progress was slow but Stevie was aware of a young Chinese woman behind her. She had a small child hanging on to each hand and they were dragging tired feet and seemed unnaturally quiet. An incongruous birdsong rose above the sound of tramping feet and the squeaking of the pram wheels.

  At a little distance behind the wire fence the prisoners also walked. This was their daily ritual. On both sides of the fence Japanese soldiers patrolled. The women and the prisoners scanned the lines, looking for each other. Stevie studied each gaunt face in turn. Would she see Harry? Suddenly there was a shrill shout. The Chinese girl directly behind Stevie had rushed to the wire.

  ‘Jamie – they’ve cut off our water. Jamie!’

  One of the men, emaciated and exhausted, made a rush out of line towards the fence. Before he could get close a soldier on the women’s side of the fence ran forward and pushed the crying girl with the butt of his gun in the small of her back. She moved on, sobbing. In front of her, Stevie speeded up and forced herself not to stare at the spot in the pram under which lay the doctored tub.

  As they approached the gatehouse they slowed again and came to a standstill. Women and children waited, some squatting, some shifting from foot to foot, but all silenced by a combination of resignation and anxiety. Stevie was aware of the occasional soldier strolling past the line but she averted her gaze so as not to call attention to herself. Curiously, what she felt wasn’t fear but a kind of anticipation. A low-level hum of adrenalin. A few steps forward. A few more. And she was at the gate. A guard peered into the pram. Hal, playing with his newly discovered hands, smiled at him. The guard poked around in the shopping baskets. Stevie kept herself very still. He picked up one of the baskets. The one with the tub in it. She felt panic rise in her throat like bile. Her fingers tightened on the pram handle to stop her reflex desire to tear it out of his hands and run through the gates with it to find Harry. To rescue him. To see his long-limbed body and be comforted. To bring back their life.

  A slim man in the high-booted uniform of the sinister gendarmes stepped out of the shadows beside the gatehouse and smoothly took the basket from the guard. There was a short exchange between them and the guard moved on to the girl behind, who was still quietly crying for her Jamie. Dapper and all the more menacing for the pleasant tone of his voice, the gendarme smiled at Stevie as if they were old friends. He leaned into the pram and stroked Hal’s face.

  ‘That’s a great kid you’ve got there.’ His English had an American tinge to it. Stevie restrained her urge to slap him away from her baby. Her jaw was set tight against making a mistake. He straightened up and indicated the basket he was holding gingerly in his fingers. ‘And this is for?’

  ‘Major Harry Field.’ The tremor in her voice almost derailed her.

  He weighed the basket in his hand. Then he picked out the tub of lard. For a moment it seemed as though he might open it. He examined the label. A second later he dropped it back among the other groceries. He gestured to the guard and handed him the basket with a small nod, saying, ‘Major Field.’ The guard picked up the other two baskets as well and took them in the direction of the camp gates.

  Stevie tore her eyes away from the baskets as they continued their journey into Harry’s hands. A journey she herself longed for. Stiff with the effort of behaving normally, she managed what she hoped was a smile to the gendarme. ‘Thank you.’

  Then she pressed on the handles in an attempt to manoeuvre the pram around the other way. All she could think was that maybe she had just signed Harry’s death warrant. Maybe Chen had conned her into this delivery, which, in a moment of awful clarity, she saw was certainly an act of stupidity and madness. She might as well have primed a bomb and addressed it with Harry’s name. What proof did she have that Chen was what he said he was? Yes, he was Jishang’s cousin – at some complicated remove – but what did that really mean in the scheme of things? And for that matter, it was not exactly clear where Jishang’s true loyalties lay. She wanted to turn back and grab the baskets out of the guard’s hands. She was so consumed with doom-laden thoughts that she didn’t notice the gendarme keeping pace alongside her.

  ‘May I walk with you?’

  She
glanced at him, startled.

  He laughed, a tight grim staccato sound. Mirthless. ‘I don’t want to say goodbye to my little friend.’ And he put his hand on the side of the pram.

  Stevie concentrated – one foot in front of the other and again and again.

  ‘I do hope they are treating Major Field well.’ His voice was smooth and insinuating. ‘I met him a few times, you know, and I always found him to be most candid.’

  Stevie nodded. ‘Yes. He is.’

  ‘You are American.’ Not a question, a statement.

  She glanced at him. His hand still rested on the edge of the pram. ‘I have Chinese papers.’

  He nodded as if she was just confirming to him something with which he was already quite familiar. ‘There is an agreement, you may have heard, to repatriate all American citizens. A mutually beneficial exchange. There will be a ship, not ideal of course should you suffer from seasickness but a way back nonetheless.’

  Stevie was a fly in a perfect web. She shook her head. ‘Like I said. I have Chinese papers.’

  He stopped suddenly, his voice formal. ‘I am inviting you to an appointment at the gendarmerie tomorrow at three. It’s in the Supreme Court building. My name is Nakamura.’

  Leaning into the pram he squeezed Hal’s cheeks. ‘You are quite something, kid, quite something.’ Then, turning sharply on his heel, he walked back towards the gatehouse.

  Stevie barely lifted her head on the journey home. She was passing a small park when, alerted by the shouts, she glanced up. The first thing that caught her eye were the white armbands of the gendarmes. The men were laughing. One of them waved his bayonet in the air in a kind of celebration. The limp body of a baby was impaled on the end of it, its limbs loose, its head lolling like a doll. Oddly there didn’t seem to be any blood.

  The next day at two in the afternoon, Stevie and Lily stood together in the house. Stevie held tight to the squirming solidity of Hal and her voice sounded firmer than she felt.

  ‘If anything happens to me – if I don’t come back, please get a message to Harry. And to my mother.’

  Stevie inhaled the sour-sweet smell of Hal and then plunged him into Lily’s arms. They were standing in the sleeping room. She had taken great care to dress well. Lily had resewn the loose buttons on her shirt and her straight grey skirt was freshly ironed. She had not slept except for maybe a few fitful minutes towards dawn and she felt strung out like a thin rubber band.

  She reached down and picked up the gabardine coat. Fumbling with the lining, she retrieved her totem and held it out to Lily, its cover tired but still there.

  Lily seeing what it was, took a step backwards. ‘No, you keep that. You never know, it might make all the difference in the end.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The pseudo-classic façade of the Supreme Court building was supposed to convey the idea of power and justice marching shoulder to shoulder through the empire, ensuring the security of all those lucky enough to be ruled by the British. Now that it had fallen so fast and so comprehensively into the hands of another empire-building nation, it offered Stevie little reassurance as she walked up its steps, past the towering wall of sandbags, to the veranda. What protection was there now from the mighty scales of justice?

  Among the uniformed soldiers Nakamura lounged conspicuously against one of the pillars, sallow and sinister. He smiled as he watched her climb the steps. As she approached he waved away the guard who stood ready to ask her to identify herself.

  ‘Miss Steiber, how marvellous. So punctual.’ He glanced at his watch, a heavy gold affair, and flicking open a silver cigarette case offered her one of his gold-tipped Turkish cigarettes. As he held out the case she caught a glimpse of the revolver in its strap under his right arm. She took one of the cigarettes, slim and silky in her fingers as she turned it. When he leaned towards her again with the flickering flame of the lighter she inhaled deeply, savouring the smooth, strong tobacco. The sharp burn at the back of her throat was a pleasure, a taste from a recent past that might as well have been centuries ago. He indicated a row of simple wooden chairs that were lined up in the shade of the veranda.

  ‘I’m so sorry my colleagues are running late.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘There is much to do.’

  ‘I can imagine. It must be awful for you.’ If he understood her tone he didn’t acknowledge it. She cursed herself silently and smiled a small smile at him.

  He slipped the silver case back into his breast pocket. ‘I hope not to keep you waiting too long. After all you must get back to your baby. A baby should not be separated from its mother unless it absolutely can’t be helped.’ And with that, the threat almost explicit, he wandered, louche and unhurried back to his pillar.

  Stevie sat. She was acutely aware of the wooden bars of the chair pressing against her back, the sound of the soldiers pacing across the front of the building, the slight soreness of the blister on her heel – waiting. Maybe half an hour passed, maybe longer. It was time enough for her to have slumped in the chair and closed her eyes, pressing her fingers to her temples. A shout from the oversized entrance door made her flinch. She sat up straight and saw the guards stand to attention in a flurry. A stocky, bushy-haired gendarme officer marched officiously along the veranda. When it became clear he was approaching her she stood up. He looked at her with no interest and barked, ‘Papers.’

  She picked up her handbag and, clicking open the clasp, rifled inside so clumsily that she tore the silk lining. ‘Sorry, yes. Just a minute.’ She pulled out the pass she had carried since her careless and light-hearted wedding to Jishang in Shanghai. The pass which identified her as a Chinese citizen.

  The gendarme studied it for a while. ‘You are American?’ His eyes were still on the paper, with its spidery ideographs.

  ‘My husband is Chinese.’ She hoped her voice did not sound as thin as it felt to her.

  The officer raised his eyes and stared at her, brow furrowed. ‘You have Chinese husband?’ He shook his head, contemptuous. ‘Why?’

  The question flummoxed her. She said the first thing that came into her head. ‘Because he’s handsome.’

  He looked at her with derision. Then he spun on his heel and headed back the way he had come. Stevie guessed that he wanted her to follow him. Clutching her bag to her chest like a shield, she walked towards the imposing door. The full weight of the stone edifice was crushing. She felt herself disappearing, her edges blurring with every step she took.

  Nakamura was behind her at his practised discreet distance. The muted sound of their footsteps tap-tapped on the polished parquet floor. Then came the sharp knock on a thick dark door and the moment of suspension before the gendarme turned the brass knob and pushed the door open.

  The room was long and large. Three windows looked out on to an inner courtyard and light from them fell in heavy girders, striping the space with shadows. At the far end was a wide desk, the shine of its red leather surface visible even from where she was standing. With a jolt she recognised the man who sat behind it, barely looking up to register her presence. It was Shigeo, the man who had punched her during the fracas at Kun Lung Wai. He was wearing the uniform of a gendarme this time and his demeanour was quite different. He was a man at home in his fiefdom, secure in his unassailable position of power. Stevie briefly wondered what kind of man had sat at this desk a few weeks ago and whether he had borne the weight of responsibility with the same degree of entitlement.

  Next to her she noticed that Nakamura and the officer were bowing deeply from the waist, their heads as low as they could feasibly get them without falling over. She copied them. Shigeo glanced up and waved a dismissive hand. The officer left the room, bowing and walking backwards. Shigeo addressed Nakamura in Japanese, who then indicated a chair which was set at an angle in front of the desk.

  ‘Sit.’

  It seemed to take a long time to get to the chair. As she walked, Shigeo watched. There was something about his watching that made her uncomfortable about her
threadbare stockings and the button on her sleeve that didn’t quite match the others. Something was wrong in the room and it didn’t yet occur to her that it might not be her. She sat. A small distance behind her, just beyond her peripheral vision, there was another chair, into which Nakamura settled.

  Shigeo clasped his hands in front of him and gazed at his own fingers. Stevie swallowed, trying to clear the constriction in her throat. After the longest time, Shigeo’s voice, soft and bored, filled the vacuum. Nakamura translated, the words coming like an echo behind her.

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I was told to come.’ She turned round to look at Nakamura. ‘Yesterday, you told me.’

  The thud of Shigeo’s hands hitting the leather-top desk vibrated through the room. Stevie jolted back to look at him. Later, she realised he had obviously understood her and that the translation was just for show, part of the game. He shook his head, impatient. His voice was harsh. Again there were the implacable tones of Nakamura as he bowled the English words at her.

  ‘When did you come to China?’

  ‘Nineteen thirty-six.’

  ‘What year did you marry?’

  ‘Three years later. Nineteen thirty-nine.’

  ‘Where did you live?’

  ‘In Shanghai. I lived there for four years. Then I came to Hong Kong.’

  The questions came fast and she was still struggling with the tightness in her throat. As Shigeo threw out the next round of Japanese she felt an actual pain in her chest. Harry’s name, he had said Harry’s name.

  A stab again as Nakamura repeated it. ‘Do you know Major Harry Field?’

  ‘Of course I know Major Field. I’m his girlfriend. We have a baby.’

  Shigeo unclasped his hands and laid them flat on the desk in front of him, wrong-footed by her frankness. This time he spoke in English, dispensing with the farce of translation. He leaned forward, directing his sharp focus at her, in which lay the first real intimation of his capacity for cruelty.