THE FOLLOWING DAY THE kempetai visited the house on East Coast Road and took Mei Lan away. Ah Siew could think of only one place to go for help. She appeared at the Joo Chiat Hospital before Cynthia, wringing her hands, her face drawn in fear and anxiety.
‘She has no one but me. Elder brother and Grandfather are dead. Second Grandmother is going out of mind and Third Grandmother only thinking of own children. Half-brother’s brain is not correct and Father is staying in Hong Kong. She is always speaking about you. Help her. Please.’ Ah Siew prostrated herself before Cynthia in the Emergency Clinic in the early evening.
After calming the old woman and sending her home, Cynthia hurried to Cousin Lionel’s house in search of Howard, running part of the way from the Joo Chiat Hospital before she found a free rickshaw.
‘The man the soldiers caught yesterday at the hideout must have informed on her. They probably tortured him,’ Howard said, seeing again the soldiers dragging the man into their car. He remembered burying his face in Mei Lan’s hair, inhaling the flowery scent as he held her in his arms.
‘Go to that Indian again, the one who got her grandfather out. For God’s sake, go to him quickly,’ Cynthia told him. Howard needed no prompting; already he was following her down the veranda steps, his heart beating fast in distress.
‘Again?’ Raj said irritably as Howard stood before him in Manikam’s Cloth Shop. Howard was unable to find a rickshaw and had run the whole distance to Serangoon Road, slowing only when he saw soldiers or had to pass a checkpoint, bowing low before the guard.
‘I cannot keep asking Shinozaki for favours,’ Raj frowned as he opened the door. It had been a day of problems, and he had been dozing when the knocking woke him. For a moment Howard thought the Indian might refuse to help, but with an exasperated sigh Raj searched for his keys, shut the shop and went with Howard to the Toyo Hotel where he knew the diplomat would be. As on their last visit, Shinozaki was at dinner with Colonel Yokota. Once again, as Raj and Howard waited in the foyer, the strains of a lively mazurka from the Hungarian orchestra drifted from the dining room.
‘Again? Shinozaki queried drily when at last he appeared, looking at Howard in unfeigned displeasure as he sat down on the same red plush chair as before. His cheeks were noticeably pouched, and his eyes puffy behind his heavy spectacles.
‘I cannot save everyone from everything all the time,’ Shinozaki announced wearily, stubbing out his cigarette before going off to make enquiries about Mei Lan. In a few minutes he returned, a grim expression on his face.
‘It is a serious case of anti-Japanese activities; it seems the woman is a communist. Please understand, it is difficult for me nowadays. I am no longer in charge of the Chinese Overseas Association; Colonel Watanabe is running it now.’ Shinozaki’s voice trembled with anger at the thought of the many humiliations he had recently suffered at the hands of Colonel Watanabe. Sitting down again he reached for his cigarettes.
‘Colonel Watanabe knows I was trying to help the Chinese people through the Chinese Overseas Association. He has told everyone I am not a suitable man to be employed during wartime. I have even been asked if I am really a Chinese instead of a Japanese, because I am so soft on the Chinese community.’ Shinozaki gave a harsh laugh and blew out one of his perfect smoke rings, watching it widen and float away before continuing.
‘Colonel Watanabe and his friends have come up with the idea that the Chinese community must make a donation of $50 million to Japan in apology for their anti-Japanese behaviour before the surrender. Everyone must pay, especially if they are property owners. They say this is a voluntary donation, but I can assure you there will be nothing voluntary about it. I have suffered many humiliations. My voice is no longer heard.’ Shinozaki frothed with anger.
‘Can you do anything for Lim Mei Lan?’ Howard interrupted, unable to sit through any more of the diplomat’s self-absorbed musings.
‘Mayor Odate has understood the difficulty of my position at Defence Headquarters and has asked me to leave the Military Administration Department and join him in the City Administration Department where I can better help the people of Singapore. Soon I shall move there,’ Shinozaki informed them, blowing smoke through his nostrils.
‘Did you find out where she is? You have to get her released.’ Howard was unable to control the desperation in his voice. Shinozaki looked at him coldly.
‘Tomorrow you can try going to Orchard Road, to kempetai headquarters at the YMCA. They are keeping her there. Ask for Lieutenant Colonel Hirose, you can say I sent you. I can do nothing more.’
The YMCA was a prominent landmark with an imposing portico and a gabled roof. Bamboo blinds shaded its airy balconies. It was now one of the kempetai’s main centres and used for interrogation. It had become a building to dread. People avoided walking past it; terrible sounds were said to come from its depths and few of those who entered it emerged again in one piece. Howard went there the following morning with Raj. He had steeled himself for the worst, but saw only an innocuous buzz of bureaucracy as he entered the building. It was a busy place with uniformed men hurrying up and down a flight of stairs, carrying files or sheaves of paper.
They were shown into an office on the second floor where they met Lieutenant Colonel Hirose.
‘You realise of course that you have only got to see me because of Mr Shinozaki,’ he informed them immediately, his voice smooth and cool as he gestured to the chairs before his desk. He spoke good English; all the top kempei spoke English so that the interrogation of non-Japanese could be all the more thorough. They sat down and Howard asked the question he had come to ask.
‘Ah yes. That woman.’ Lieutenant Colonel Hirose nodded. ‘There are several serious charges against her. From the beginning we were aware of her anti-Japanese activities with the China Relief Fund but her grandfather was of more interest to us. However, she is now known to be consorting with communists and supplying them with medicines. Her home was searched and documents of an incriminating nature were found.’ Hirose reached across his desk for a small cup of Japanese tea and took a sip.
‘What is your relationship with this woman?’ he asked, his eyes upon Howard.
‘She has no family to speak for her; that is why I have come.’ Howard returned the man’s gaze, holding his anger in place, sensing danger.
‘You keep the company of communists? That is most interesting.’ Hirose raised his eyebrows above the blue patterned teacup.
‘She is not a communist and neither am I.’ Howard could not control the indignation in his voice.
‘Interesting,’ Hirose said again, almost under his breath.
Howard had the sensation that he was sinking to the bottom of a great empty space. Then, unable any longer to control his desperation he found himself on his feet, facing Hirose behind the desk. Before he could speak Raj jumped up and stepped forward beside him, bowing to the officer in a subservient way.
‘We apologise for wasting your time. The woman is not related to Mr Burns. He is a kind-hearted man and did not know properly the charges against her. Of course, he now understands your need to keep her here.’ Raj bowed low again.
Observing them sourly, Lieutenant Colonel Hirose replaced his teacup on its wooden saucer and with a curt nod of dismissal turned his attention to the documents on his desk. Raj took hold of Howard’s arm and hustled him from the room.
‘Why don’t you help find out where she is?’ Howard burst out furiously as the door shut.
‘Keep your voice down. He will do nothing. I have an idea. I will ask Shinozaki to request them to release her so that she can arrange to make her share of that $50 million donation Watanabe wants from the Chinese community. She cannot make arrangements for this while she is a prisoner. I have heard some prisoners have already been released for this purpose,’ Raj said.
As they came down the stairs a guard was ascending with a middle-aged Chinese man, thin as an ancient in filthy clothes, who climbed the stairs painfully beside him. As they stepped back to let him pass, Howard found his mouth was dry and his heart beat rapidly with the thoughts that came to him. Somewhere in this terrible place Mei Lan was incarcerated, subjected to a force of malevolence he had yet to fully comprehend. He wanted to run from the building, but instead made himself walk without haste down the stairs.
‘You have put both of us in danger by coming here,’ Raj whispered angrily from behind him.
At last they reached the entrance and passed the guards with bayonets. A thick blade of sunlight thrust into the building as they pushed open the door. Outside in the road, Howard saw a stray dog cock its leg against a tree; a man on a bicycle passed, cars and rickshaws rattled by and he clung to these harmless sights. The menace he felt from the building pressed upon him: he expected at any moment to be apprehended and dragged back into the darkness. Before meeting Lieutenant Colonel Hirose he had hoped someone could be persuaded to release Mei Lan, or take him to her so that he could assure her he would soon get her out. A guard was watching and seeing Howard’s hesitation stepped forward, gesturing to him to leave, his bayonet catching the light.
Howard breathed in the wholesome smell of the road again. As he turned away he heard at last the cry he had steeled himself to hear all the while he had been in the building. It came from the depths of the place and floated down upon him, a spasm of tortured sound that carried all the pain of a ravaged humanity. He began to run.
A year had passed since Singapore surrendered to the Japanese. Chinese New Year approached again. Everything was becoming scarce. A place had to be secured in the ration shop queue by 4.30 a.m., otherwise things ran out. Ingenuity was stretched to the limit. Soap, like every other commodity, was hard to come by. Ava announced she was going to make some soap, but produced only a grey pebble that refused to lather and was the consistency of pumice stone.
‘They put lots of ash in it, you know,’ Rose told her, turning the misshapen rock in her hand. ‘You don’t get soap at the ration shop unless you can give them a bag of ash.’ She was aware of Ava’s crestfallen expression, and was ashamed at the pleasure this gave her. All she wanted was for the war to end, so that she would be free of life with Ava and Lionel and could return to Belvedere. Even Mavis’s continual effort at good spirits now annoyed her.
Singapore had become a vegetable garden: the slogan everywhere was GROW MORE FOOD. Every available patch of grass was dug up and in its place tomatoes, cucumber, tapioca, sweet potato and spinach of all varieties were planted. The vegetable of choice was tapioca because it took only three months to grow; no amount of neglect could obliterate it and nothing filled the stomach so quickly, if tastelessly. It became a wayside crop. Every road was lined with the plant, schools gave part of their playgrounds to the tuber and balconies that had once grown ornamental bamboo or bougainvillaea, now cradled the ubiquitous root.
‘There may be no flour for bread but we grow tapioca. Tapioca bread cannot be hard to make,’ Mavis suggested; the ration shop bread for which they queued for hours was stale and weevil ridden. Desperate recipes now circulated for adhesives, soap, hair dye, tapioca cake, tapioca bread, tapioca biscuits, tapioca noodles, tapioca ice cream and tapioca face packs.
Although Mavis’s tapioca bread was a trial for bad gums and loose teeth, people still came some distance to buy it. Everyone wanted to know the secret, but Rose kept her tins of condensed milk well hidden. Nothing was allowed to go to waste. When the starchy tapioca tubers had been steamed, the discarded pink under-skin was dried and fried and the crisps sprinkled with chilli and sold in rolled newspaper cones of the Syonan Times, a propaganda tabloid extolling everything Japanese. Ava and Mavis began to be known for these products.
Lionel went into business in a bigger way than bread, harvesting his toddy to purpose, buying up empty bottles on the black market in which to distil the liquor. He also set up a makeshift bar beside his distillery at the back of the house. Friends who had been served freely before were now charged for a drink; the bar quickly became an evening gathering place. Lionel was now collecting toddy from other people beyond the estate, and great vats of the alcohol fermented in the house. The place smelled yeasty and Lionel was permanently high on his produce, forced to taste it frequently for professional reasons. At night the loud strumming of his guitar could be heard accompanying his friends’ drunken singing. A pub-like atmosphere pervaded the house.
Howard kept clear of the place, continuing to work as a grass cutter and oiler. He volunteered at the hospital each evening. All he could think of was Mei Lan and his inability to help her. His sleep was disturbed by raw images, and that one terrible sound he had heard as he left the YMCA building. He had gone to the East Coast house but they had no news, and the old nursemaid, eyes wild with worry and imaginings, had clung to him, imploring him to find Mei Lan. Behind her he had seen the old grandmother stumbling about upon her canes, vacant eyed from opium and dementia. Of Little Sparrow there had been no sign. The misery of his powerlessness consumed him afresh.
‘There is nothing more to be done. Communists are not so easily released.’ Raj was irritated beyond measure by Howard’s constant visits. He was also nervous for himself; Shinozaki’s need to keep running around doing good had brought them both under the kempetai’s eye. The diplomat’s own band of spies had now been set to watch their spymaster.
Howard worried about his radio. He no longer felt easy about retrieving it from the space beneath the balcony, to listen to the news on Radio Delhi; he knew he must find a new hiding place for it. Lionel, his mind in free flight on his toddy, did not know what he did half the time. The day before, just as Howard was retrieving the radio from beneath the floorboards, he had stumbled on to the veranda with Ronnie Remedios, who had worked with him before the war in lift repair.
‘He’s a good friend; won’t tell a soul about the radio. Only wants to hear the news,’ Lionel spluttered. Ronnie had nodded agreement, drawn a line across his throat and rolled his eyes to heaven.
‘It’s broken,’ Howard replied hastily, thrusting the radio back into its hiding place. He slept fitfully that night; Ronnie Remedios, with his large soft belly and wide flat nose, loomed ominously in his dreams. However much the man laughed and joked, his eyes remained watchful in his fleshy face. Kempetai informers were everywhere, offering the authorities information in return for their own protection. For this reason Rose had begged him to get rid of the radio, always prowling about anxiously while he listened to the news, on the lookout for anyone suspicious.
To Howard’s relief Ronnie Remedios did not appear the next evening. Later, as Howard sat on his pallet cleaning his saxophone he heard loud guttural shouting coming from the back of the house where Lionel had his bar. There were often inebriated fights about the toddy bar and Howard leaned over the veranda balustrade, trying to see what was happening. He drew back quickly in alarm. The place was surrounded by kempei flashing their bayonets, and Lionel’s friends were fleeing in all directions. A tall thin kempei had got hold of Lionel and was slapping his face and shaking him. Lionel was sobbing and squealing like an abattoir animal, yelling out Howard’s name and pointing into the house. Howard turned in panic, uncertain what he should do, his heart pounding in his throat, sure that Ronnie Remedios had informed the authorities about his radio. As he looked wildly about, Rose appeared before him in a pink flowered housecoat, Mavis behind her.
‘Run. Go to Cynthia,’ Rose hissed, pushing him down the steps.
When Howard reached the Joo Chiat Hospital, breathless from fear and exertion, the Emergency Clinic was almost empty and Cynthia was filling in charts in a far corner. As soon as he told her what had happened, she stood up, took his arm and pulled him after her out of the room.
‘The only reason they didn’t arrest me with Mei Lan was because that boy they tortured only knew her name and not mine. We’re all being watched now in the hospital, those jungle boys can’t come here any more. If your name is on their list, and they know you have a radio, then you have to get away.’ Cynthia opened the door of a broom cupboard under some stairs and shoved him into the blackness inside.
‘Stay here until I let you out, however long it takes,’ she told him. It seemed hours before the door opened and he saw her face again.
‘Quickly,’ Cynthia whispered, thrusting two shoulder bags stuffed with bulky packages into Howard’s hands as she led him to the door.
‘It’s food and medicines. You know how to use the quinine. Brokentooth will take you into the jungle, to their camp. You’ll be safe there. Go quickly.’ She pushed Howard out of a side door and on to a narrow path between two buildings. Brokentooth was waiting: he beckoned for Howard to follow.
They kept away from the road, taking well-worn paths through patches of secondary jungle and then crossed a large rubber plantation. The thick leaves of the rubber trees prevented the sun from penetrating, and trapped the stench of latex from the processing huts. Howard knew he would remember the sickening odour for ever as connected to this night. He stumbled behind Brokentooth. The boy was familiar with the path, only occasionally shining his torch, finding the light of the moon enough. Howard’s heart beat fast and his thoughts were confused. Every few minutes he glanced over his shoulder, fearing the kempetai were following. Possession of a radio was punishable with death: how could he have thought he’d get away with it? Now he was running for his life, filled with remorse at having taken a risk that endangered everyone. He might have escaped – but what of his mother and Mavis? Would Cynthia now be arrested? Everything was his fault; he gave a groan of anguish. Seeing him lag behind, Brokentooth drew to a halt, waiting for Howard to catch up. They were free of the rubber estate. Now there was the smell of the sea and Howard heard the crash of waves.
‘We must cross the water to mainland Malaya before it is light. The overland route is dangerous, we are safer travelling by sea.’ Brokentooth led the way along the beach to a cluster of fishermen’s huts built on stilts above the water.
Howard followed him up a ladder into one of the huts. He had thought Brokentooth was taking him to a hideout somewhere on the island: he had not expected a journey over the sea. Confusion and panic raced through him; he was not thinking properly but just stumbling blindly after a stranger who was a known communist. In the hut a woman crouched over a paraffin stove and heated rice porridge for them by the light of an oil lamp; two children slept in a corner, oblivious to their presence. They ate quickly, listening to the slop of water below the house as the woman’s husband prepared the boat; from the beach came the stink of drying fish. Everything had happened too quickly. How deep in the Malayan jungle was the camp? How long was he to remain in it? When would it be safe to return home? All Howard had were questions, and without answers his anxiety grew. The only thing that kept him following Brokentooth was the thought of the kempetai if he now returned home.
Soon, they clambered into the boat, helping the fisherman to push it from the beach out into the open sea. The boatman took an oar and gave one to Howard and they rowed silently towards the dark coastline of Malaya, Brokentooth sitting in the back of the boat, waiting his turn with the oar. The moon hung low, lighting a narrow path of silver over the dark oily skin of the sea. Howard gripped the paddle, pushing it deep into the water so that a spray sprang up and stung his face and he tasted the brine on his lips. They seemed to row for hours, his body part of the endless rocking rhythm. Only the boat ploughing the water broke the silence of the vast and empty darkness, with the moon their only light. The night swallowed everything, and he felt his smallness on the limitless ocean. Here, existence and death seemed of no more consequence than the breaking of a wave upon the shore and he shivered with new terror. His mother, Mei Lan, Cynthia . . . everyone was far away now. He wondered if Mei Lan shared this feeling in whatever conditions she now lived. If there was a God, he thought bitterly, it must be like the sea, impervious to man’s small trickle of emotion, immune to love or hate, moved only by the laws of its own ceaseless and measureless swell. In that moment, he knew for the first time he would never share his mother’s deep faith in her god.
He had no idea how far they had travelled or for how long. Time had lost dimension. Shadowy inlets, rocky islets and sweeping bays passed, lit faintly by the moon. Then, unexpectedly, the boatman was turning towards the shore. They must be along the coast of Johore, Howard reckoned. Day was already breaking when the boatman left them on the sandy beach of a small cove, and then rowed quickly away. Howard looked back into the emptiness behind him. The first pincers of light were needling open the sky and he wondered when, if ever, he would cross this ocean again. In the course of a night his life had changed.