EIGHT

 

Two days after Christmas, we met in the library with the Yees to discuss if it was safe to go outside. We were living off the dwindling store of food in the pantry and Ah-Ming guessed we had about a week of it left. The meals were already smaller and I noticed how little my mother and the servants ate. The night before, my mother had sat at the table and taken nothing but water.

After the meeting, Tang and Chow went into the streets to see if any markets were open. It was the first time in two weeks any of us had left the house. I was in the front hall with Shun-Yau when Tang and Chow returned. As they shut the front door, a cold breeze blew in, metallic with stale smoke. Their shoes and the bottoms of their trousers were covered in ash, as though they had been wading through it. They gave a grim report on the city: crumbling apartments, blackened storefronts, bodies. They said nearly all the shops had been raided and there were few farmer’s carts on the streets, but there were signs of people returning to the market. Tang caught me staring at his shoes. He turned and looked at the trail of grey dust behind them, and both of them stood by the door and knocked the ashes off their clothes. Tang took out his handkerchief and wiped the ash off the floor, and then he smiled at me.

“I’m afraid that’s all I brought back.”

Throughout the night, gunfire erupted in the streets. After one episode I heard the tires of a large vehicle screeching over the pavement, and then a crash and a muffled explosion. I thought of the truck that had burned in our back lane, of a hundred such vehicles, of burning buildings, all dusted in ash.

The next day, my older brothers went out again to the market and returned with a small amount of dried vegetables and sweet potatoes.

 

The following day, my mother said others should take turns going to the market. Ah-Tseng volunteered and I quickly offered to go with her, and we went to the kitchen, where she kept her shopping baskets. As we prepared to leave, she adjusted her sleeve where she hung the basket on her left forearm, and I realized I had seen her make that gesture a thousand times over the years. As soon as she slipped her arm through the handle and held it to her stomach, it was as though we were back in the summer before I’d left for school and the past month had never happened.

Ah-Tseng and I walked down to the market street. We turned the corner onto a larger avenue that was empty and silent. She was very nervous. I’d volunteered to go out with her because I wanted to help and felt badly for her, but when I sensed how close she walked beside me — a twelve-year-old boy — I didn’t want the responsibility.

The market was gone. The stalls and carts had been smashed and were strewn across the street like kindling. On the posts of the buildings where the hawkers and farmers used to stand there were posters in Japanese and Chinese saying the markets were disbanded and rationing was being imposed. They bore yesterday’s date. I read the sign out to Ah-Tseng. She was fairly literate, but I think her eye first hit on the Japanese characters and she was so frightened that the rest of it confused her.

“Chung-Man, we should go home.”

“Maybe we should walk around a little more and see what we can find. There might be some shops on the side streets.”

She took my arm and hurriedly turned back homeward.

We turned onto a street where more people had ventured out, mostly women with empty shopping bags in hand. A few took note of us walking away from the market street with nothing to show for it; the rest stared anxiously ahead as they hurried through the chill.

Then I heard shouts, formal and rhythmic, almost like dogs barking, and what first sounded like applause. A troop of about fifty Japanese soldiers marched around a corner towards us. They held their rifles tightly over their shoulders and their boots struck the pavement in unison. In an open car at the front of the troop, two officers rode in the back seat. They had identical thin moustaches over which they stared past the black-helmeted driver, a man whose sunglasses, white gloves, and grip on the steering wheel seemed crafted to project an image of supreme impersonality.

Everyone on the street backed into the doorways of the buildings behind us. But this was pointless. The Japanese knew we were there and that there were others on the streets ahead of and behind them and people hiding inside buildings asleep or sick. We were all of us, every resident of the city, under watch and swept into a single glance as quick and sharp as the snapping of a flag.

At first their perfect marching and the barking of the sergeant over the engine were unsettling. But it was the flag that awoke my fear. The white banner with the radiant red disc sailed from the car and from poles carried by the soldiers in the lead. I had never seen it before. It looked like the Union Jack, its cool naval blue torn off to make a banner of pure heat and searching fire.

A quartet of soldiers brought up the rear in another car with a long rope tied to its back fender. In contrast to the timed marching of the soldiers, the rope swung awkwardly over the pavement. Tied to the rope, around the corner a man in a bloody shirt appeared, and then behind him walked a line of prisoners, bound at the wrists and necks by cords. I guessed there were forty men and women of all ages. To those of us pressed into the doorways and crevices, their bodies offered up the promise of the coming days: heads lurid with bruises and dried blood, hair torn out in fist-sized gaps, arms enlarged and loose from broken bones, mouths gaping. In their eyes was the vacancy of those who understand they are about to be forgotten.

About a third of the prisoners were women, and they were clustered in the middle. Like the men, they stumbled quickly over the pavement in shoes or bare feet, and the sharp pull of the vehicle rippled through their shoulders. Most of the women were young like Yee-Lin. Their faces and limbs were badly bruised, and some looked as though they’d had their teeth knocked out.

The prisoner at the front stumbled when the car lurched, and he nearly pulled the men behind him to the ground. In the back of the car, one Japanese soldier sat with an arm craned over his seat as he looked back, the only one in a casual pose. He laughed when the man stumbled and at the disarray it caused in those behind him. When the prisoners regained their step and quickly caught up with the car, restoring the slack, he shouted and shook his rifle at them. Then he leaned over the back of the car and hooked the rope up with his bayonet. He stood quickly and gave the rope a violent pull. The man in front fell down onto the road and was dragged forward on his side. The others staggered, bound wrists brought down as though in supplication, and they bent their knees to stop from falling, so that they had to waddle like ducks. Two men near the front tried to help the fallen man back up, until they stumbled against the force of the rope and the captives bumping into them from behind.

The soldier watched. In particular he watched the first man, whose face and torso left a long brushstroke of blood across the road, which the prisoners behind stepped over. Maybe that man cried out as he was dragged over the pavement, but I was spared the sound of it where I stood because of the noise of the vehicles and boots. I felt a cold pain bite into my side. Ah-Tseng gripped my upper arm, her other hand pressed over her mouth. Airplanes soared above us with the red disc on the underside of their wings, birds of prey surrendering to the lordly sun. Like the soldiers’ boots, they moved across the world as though it were rusted metal for them to crush.

 

When Ah-Tseng and I got back from the market, we found a family sitting in the front hall with their belongings rolled up in a single blanket. They said their house had burned down and they’d heard ours was safe and that my mother had let them in. That evening an old couple arrived, followed by their son and his family. Over the next four days, at least fifty people showed up at our gates. My mother took them all in.

By the fifth day, the number of people staying with us was becoming dangerous. The house was crowded with refugees, sleeping on blankets and mats in every available space. The constant foot traffic and the noise were noticeable from the street, and my mother and elder brothers feared it would make the house a target. Tang shut the front gates just as another family was approaching, and he and my mother had to tell them to go somewhere else. The father shouted at my mother that he had nowhere else to go. He tried to climb the gate, and Chow pushed him off it. A grandfather with two children also begged to be let in, a crowd forming behind them. Finally, Chow took the pistol from his belt and waved it in the air. In a cracking voice, he threatened to fire it. The refugees scrambled into the streets. My mother ran back into the house, her hand twisting the dress at her heart.

I shared my room with five younger boys. At bedtime, after Leuk and I came in to sleep, they darted back up from their blankets on the floor and ran out to find their parents where they slept in the hall or other rooms. All night long there were children wandering tearfully through the house until they found their parents. Finally I gave my room up to a family of six. The Yees slept in a single room. Leuk, Wei-Ming, and I moved into my father’s study. We found it comforting to sleep in a triangle around the old stock ticker with its glass dome still intact, an emblem of a quieter world. A childless young couple and the husband’s parents joined us there at night. Sometimes I opened my eyes and saw the wife sitting up and watching us with her hand resting on her belly.

Wei-Ming, who was now seven, hated losing her room. The first night we slept in the study, she refused to lie down and would only sit on her blanket and beg to be taken back. Leuk was asleep. I moved over and sat beside her with my back against the heavy wooden legs of the stock ticker table. I decided this was the time to do something adult, so I took her hand. She pulled it away and whispered that she wanted to go back to her room.

“You can’t. Other people need it now. There’s a family with a baby and a grandmother.”

“I want my room back.”

“Go to sleep.”

“I want to sleep in my room. Why are they here?”

I knew an adult in my place would have invented something. I told her to go back to sleep or our mother would be angry. She started crying at the mention of her and got up and ran into the hall. She shouted in the hall and up the stairwells, and immediately there came the clattering slippers of parents who mistook her for one of their own. I lay down and stared at the moonlight bending over the glass dome. An hour later, Ah-Tseng came into the study with Wei-Ming asleep on her shoulder and laid her back down beside me.

 

The following morning, I ran to the window of my father’s study when I heard a noise. Two Japanese military vehicles, a truck and an officer’s car, appeared at the gates. A dozen soldiers jumped out of the truck, and at a shout from one of the officers the truck, reinforced with a heavy grille, backed up and smashed through the gate. I ran back out to the landing to look for my mother and stopped as the soldiers broke open the front doors. They stood in the doorway, the dawn light spreading around them with theatrical power.

An officer stepped forward, followed by a civilian in a black suit. The civilian looked around with an air more commanding than the officer’s. Sheung ventured towards them and tried to speak, but they ignored him. The senior officer turned to the man in the suit and spoke to him in Japanese. The civilian was neatly turned out in his clothes and polished spectacles, and he looked around authoritatively as he spoke.

“This house is to be vacated by midnight tomorrow. Those remaining will be arrested or shot.” He was Chinese.

Sheung stepped forward and addressed the civilian. “Sir, I am the —”

“The military government is assuming control of all large facilities and buildings,” he continued, parroting the officer. “Chinese civilians must relocate within the curfew period. All goods, including money or other valuables, other than personal belongings, must be left behind in this house. The resident family of the house may stay but must move to one of the upper floors.” The officers looked around the hall, while the civilian made a point of looking people in the eye.

One of the refugees, a newlywed who had arrived with his wife and her parents, rose angrily. He stepped over mattresses and jumbled clothes, moving towards the door and shaking his fist at the interpreter.

“You are Chinese! How can you —”

A soldier came forward from behind the officers. He swung his rifle around and butted the man’s face with the wide steel cap of the weapon. The man staggered back and tripped on a mattress, and even as he fell, the blood was already pouring from his ear and mouth. He landed on a suitcase and no one touched him.

“A guard will now be placed on this house,” the civilian echoed. “Unauthorized persons must start leaving it immediately.” Then the officer turned and left.

A woman crawled sobbing over the piled belongings on the floor and cradled the wounded man’s head. She gently touched his hair, ignoring the blood soaking into her dress.

 

Within an hour, four more truckloads of Japanese soldiers came to occupy our house. The refugees tried to clear out quickly. My family and the servants were moving our possessions up to the fourth floor. We couldn’t help the refugees anymore.

The family living in Shun-Yau’s room came down the stairs. The father and sons carried heavy suitcases and bundles tied awkwardly with mismatched straps and cords. The mother walked slowly between two ancient grandparents. She held each of them by the arm as the grandfather gripped the railing tight. The grandmother had a huge goitre on her neck, and she wobbled down the marble steps as the woman tried to keep her steady. The grandfather had a bamboo cane hung over his wrist where he held the railing, and it swung and ticked against the banister as they descended. His face was red and screwed tight as though he was in pain, and his bone-white hair hung limp around his skull.

The soldiers brought in supplies and quickly scouted out the kitchen and bedrooms. Yee-Lin and Sheung stood together against a wall in the parlour near the staircase. Two soldiers strolled past them as they looked around. One of the soldiers stopped and stared at my sister-in-law. He smiled and said something to the other soldier that made them laugh, and then said something to Tang. Yee-Lin held his arm. My brother darkened in humiliation. He stood silently and avoided their eyes. They laughed again and went on exploring the house.

The woman and the grandparents were nearly down the stairs. The daughter looked angry as she tried to keep them all steady. The grandfather’s face was strained and he stammered through pursed lips. The woman hushed him with a few short words as she concentrated on their feet going down the steps. Then he stopped and grimaced, stammered a single, desperate syllable, and twitched. Standing at the base of the stairs, I heard the shameful sound of his rectum opening and caught the foul scent spreading through the air. I backed away and kept my arms stiffly at my sides as though I could protect his dignity by not covering my nose. The grandfather hung his head and made strange swallowing sounds while the grandmother asked why they had stopped.

Between them, the woman stared at the hall floor only two steps away. Her chest rose and fell and she shut her eyes for a moment as though remembering something. Then she took a breath. She walked the grandparents down the last two steps just as her husband returned from outside, and they crossed the front hall and left the house.

As many people left as could before the curfew, preferring the burned-out streets to a house full of Japanese soldiers. Tang bravely convinced the Chinese collaborator that the Yees were our cousins, and so they would be allowed to stay. When morning came and the curfew lifted, the last of the refugees left. A few bowed to my mother and thanked her as she stood by the door. She bowed back to them and said each time, “We will meet again soon.” Then a soldier warned her away with a shake of his rifle. We ran upstairs as he slammed the front doors shut.