Tash Aw - The Harmony Silk Factory

As I left the room I heard Alvaro playing umpire amidst the melee. “Okay, okay, calm down,” he said as I walked along the darkened corridor back to my room, where I sat alone before the open shutters. The sea breeze had calmed and the air in the room was still. I lit a mosquito coil and placed it by my bed to keep the tiny winged vampires away. In the dark I could not see the flotsam that lay scattered on the grey, muddy sea. At night only the light of fishing boats is visible on the purple-black waters, and the sea almost looks beautiful. I lay down on my bed, watching the jewelled specks of light on the faint horizon. I did not fall asleep for quite some time.

THERE WAS NOTHING this island could not offer us. The forest was rich with wild mango, custard apple, breadfruit, and coconut. Huge shoals of tiny silvery fish shimmered in the shallows; they did not swim away when we cast our net over them, but swum lazily in different directions, flashing iridescent in the sun.

“This place is very strange,” Johnny said. “It’s an island, but somehow doesn’t feel like an island.” We were out walking together, exploring the low shoulder of hills that rose above the sheltered bay in which we had camped.

“What on earth do you mean?” I laughed.

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “The trees, the streams — everything seems perfect but wrong. It feels as if we could live here forever and yet. . oh I don’t know.”

“I expect you’re still exhausted after the storm — and everything else,” I said. He looked better now, and his humour had improved immeasurably. He looked fit again, walking ahead of me on the cool, damp forest trails. His eyes were shadowed by dark circles of fatigue, it was true, but his limbs had recovered their litheness, and his stride was calm and steady.

“I don’t like the sea,” he said. “I can’t swim.”

“I can certainly testify to that.”

“Last thing I remember,” he said, turning to look at me with a faint smile, “you weren’t doing so well yourself.”

“Oh, the cheek of it!” I cried as we negotiated a slippery uphill path. “The cheek of it, the cheek of it. I was enjoying standing on the deck. Don’t you know the laws of physics don’t apply to me? I would have withstood anything that storm could have thrown at me. Like Idomeneo, I would have survived even if we had been shipwrecked. My catlike reflexes would have seen me through — but no, you came hurtling towards me, determined to spoil the moment.”

“Sorry.” He laughed. “You were whimpering like a madman. What was I supposed to think?”

“I wasn’t whimpering, my dear boy, I was singing.”

“Sounded like whimpering to me.” As he turned to look at me he stumbled on a small rock; his foot scraped a long angry scar on the mud as he slipped and fell, landing heavily on his right elbow.

“Good God, are you alright?” I said, crouching by him. “You haven’t twisted your ankle, have you?”

“No, it’s my shoulder that hurts,” he said, breathing heavily. He cradled his arm to his body as if it were a dying animal. “Funny — I must have landed awkwardly.”

“Look at you: how are the mighty fallen. This wouldn’t have happened if you’d had my mountain goat’s agility,” I said. “Come on, we’d better head back to the camp.”

“No, I’m alright. We must try and find a good supply of fresh water. It’s important.”

“You don’t look in any state to continue,” I said firmly. He was still sitting on the muddy path, shaken and weak once more.

“I’ll manage,” he said, raising a smile. “Besides, Kunichika and Honey are out on a search too, and we don’t want them to beat us to it.”

I laughed. “That’s a good point, but not good enough for you to go charging off. You should be back in camp nursing a stiff drink.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted. “I want to continue.” The familiar flash of stubbornness returned to his eyes, but his arm was still held awkwardly, as if any movement of it might cause pain.

“How about this for a compromise?” I said. “I’ll go on a quick reconnaissance, just till the brow of that next hill. If I do see something I’ll come back for you, otherwise we shall head straight back to camp.”

He looked dubious but nodded solemnly. “Look carefully, Peter,” he said as I set off. “There’s water nearby, I can sense it.”

“Yes, yes,” I called as I strode away. Of course I had every intention of dashing quickly to the top of the hill and then returning with the disappointing news that no stream had crossed my path. The terrain proved to be more difficult than I expected, however. The trail soon disappeared in a tangle of roots and foliage, and though I managed to regain it, sometime later it vanished again, washed away by recent rains. The trees closed in around me, the broken cover of leaves becoming a thick canopy. I did not panic, but kept moving in a straight line. I had fixed the position of the next hill in my mind’s eye, and trusted my instincts to find my way there; not once did I feel that I was cut off from Johnny.

The calm of the jungle impressed itself upon me, and I resolved to forget all that had happened before our arrival on this island — the storm, the rescue, everything. The sea did encourage madness amongst men, and women too. We all said things we did not mean; we were not ourselves when we spoke. Now, with solid ground under my feet, I knew better. Where was Snow, and what was she doing at that precise moment? I didn’t know: I hadn’t thought of her for a moment since arriving there. Such was the lucidity with which I was thinking that when I saw the first of the stones emerge from the forest before me, I merely paused to examine them. They were ancient and monumental, that much was clear, but still I did not rush to conclude what they might once have been. I was measured and calm throughout, testing the accuracy of my senses by touching every stone I saw. I followed the broken trail of stones until finally I saw it: a perfect tropical ruin, rising proudly from the jungle as if emerging from the pages of a dusty antiquarian lithograph. I walked around the ravaged, crumbling wall that guarded the perimeter of the tenebrous building. Che veduta: Piranesi could have spent a lifetime sketching this place. The ruinous state of the structure rendered it unidentifiable. A temple or a dwelling place? The creeping vines had long since claimed it as their own; epiphytic plants, some bearing grotesquely shaped flowers, sprouted from every crack in the once-magnificent masonry. Wasn’t it Aldous Huxley who likened tropical botany to late and decadent Gothic architecture? I had never truly believed him until now. Roots and stems and arching leaves so shrouded the stone structure that they ceased to be mere ornamentation; without them the building would surely collapse.

Remembering Johnny, I resisted the urge to venture inside the building and began to make my way back. Retracing my steps proved impossible. Nothing seemed familiar; all landmarks had vanished into the jungle. The blackened stump of a tree felled by lightning was nowhere to be seen; the egg-shaped boulder had camouflaged itself amidst the undergrowth. I sought higher ground, thinking that this would at least afford me a view of how hopelessly lost I was. I pushed my way through the unyielding trees, my arms becoming lacerated by invisible razor-thin whips. My progress was not encouraging: the topography of the land suddenly conspired to be flat and densely forested. Finally, however, a gentle incline offered itself to me, and I began to see the clear glint of sunlight at the top of a hillock. When I reached its summit I found myself surveying a shallow valley. A stream ran through this clearing, its banks lined thickly with gentle spikes of elephant grass and umbrellas of wild banana. And in the water there were two naked figures, Snow and Kunichika. I crouched low and watched them paddle in the water. He cut through it like a straight sharp knife whilst she splashed tentatively, occasionally arching her neck backwards to feel the cool of the water on her hair. She let the stream carry her to where it was deepest and darkest, allowing herself to be borne gently away before splashing back; he never seemed to venture far from the shallows, where the current was at its gentlest. Against the black water their skins glowed with an eerie luminescence. Pure white? No, it was beyond colour. They approached each other and he lifted his hands to her face. I turned away, my face hot, temples pulsing. I ran down the hill, letting instinct guide me through the trees. I had to get back to Johnny.