Tash Aw - The Harmony Silk Factory

“And what about you — what’s your bit?”

“Keeping the peace. Making sure everyone’s able to do their bit. Saving what I can for our lot.”

“Aren’t you afraid things might backfire?”

He laughed. “No fear of that. That’s why I’ve been sent along, to make sure business happens as usual. As long as I’m here, nothing will rock the boat.”

“So you’re here as a chaperone, I take it.”

“I suppose so,” he said, moving closer to me. I felt the hot smoke of his cigarette on my neck. “But I told you — I’m also looking after our kind,” he said.

“You’re lying about all of this,” I said.

“Am I?” he said, flicking the stub of his cigarette into a tangle of bushes. “Put the woman out of your mind. You’ll walk away from her and in a few months’ time you’ll forget she ever existed.” He reached across and put his hand on my thigh, his fleshy fingers gripping hard. I pushed him away, feeling a sudden rush of strength in my arms. He fell against a stone step, looking at me quizzically.

“I shan’t forget her.”

He smiled, his body supine and relaxed. “Come come, dear,” he sneered, his teeth showing in the hazy darkness. “You’re being silly. She loathes you; you’re a freak. Johnny hates you too. Everyone does except me. Come here.”

And then I was upon him, hitting and scratching and kicking. His neck was soft as mud as I forced my hands around it, pushing and pushing and pushing until he struggled no more. A sneer remained etched on his face as I dragged him out into the sea, letting the waves take his body. It was nearly morning and I felt very strong.

I NEVER SWORE not to see Johnny again. There was never any need for such dramatic oath-making. I simply knew our paths would never cross.

After the war I drifted slowly from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur and then embarked on aimless wanderings around the country, never staying in one place for very long. I walked in the thickly forested hills that ran down the spine of the peninsula, but the jungle induced panic within me and I had to leave. I went to Port Dick-son and watched young families at play on the beach; the swell of the waves made me anxious and I moved on again, heading inland, away from the coast. All over the country I saw things that unsettled me — a young woman scribbling in a notebook in Kuantan, a smiling square-shouldered youth cycling under an indigo sky on a sultry afternoon in Terengganu. I did not know whether I was escaping or searching: it felt as if I was doing both, and neither.

Then one day I came face to face with it, that which I was escaping or searching for, that remained nameless to me. I took the train to Kuala Lumpur with the vague intention of travelling back to Singapore. In truth I hardly cared where I went. I was content to go wherever my failed instincts led me, and on this day they led me to that platform at the station in KL. I stepped off the train and paused to buy a bottle of warm orangeade. I lifted the bottle to my lips and there, sitting calmly on a bench before me, was Johnny. He sat with his back to me, the familiar broad shoulders hunched forward as if holding something to his chest. Through the dust-heavy air, sunlight fell in broken streams on his back; the shapes on his batik shirt curled wavelike on a deep blue background. I hid behind a pillar and watched him from a distance. Every few moments he would lower his head to his chest, as if falling asleep. It was only when I moved round to another hiding place that I saw he was cradling a sleeping child, keeping it close to his chest. He bent his neck and kissed the top of the head, and then he shifted his right arm, freeing his hand to stroke the glossy hair, soothing the child’s sleep. The child was no more than two or three years old, a boy of clear, pinkish complexion. He clung to Johnny’s shirt, his tiny fists gripping the colourful cloth as he slept. His legs kicked out now and then in spasms of sleep; every time he did so Johnny would kiss his head and blow gently on his face, chasing the heat away. I watched the child wake, sleepy-eyed and uncertain, surveying the platform — the hawkers touting their wares, the chickens in cages, the rickshaw-pullers and porters. He stood on the bench next to Johnny, never taking his hands off his shoulders. I saw his eyes — bright and deep and soft. He looked around, his delicate brow curving into a frown I knew so well. I moved away from the pillar, hoping that he would look in my direction, but he did not. As I retreated into the shadows once more, he returned to the safety of Johnny’s embrace, resting his head in the hollow of Johnny’s neck. And there the two remained, clinging to each other in the hot dusty afternoon until their train arrived to bear them away from me. I caught a glimpse — only a glimpse — of Johnny’s eyes as the train drew out of the station. He sat at the window, passing so close to where I was standing that I feared he had seen me. But his eyes were dark and hollow, and he saw nothing.

Long after the train had gone I found myself sitting on the platform, alone amidst the chaos. I reached into my satchel and took out a photograph, something I carried with me everywhere I went. Without hesitating I tore it in two, separating myself from Snow and Johnny. Before my nerve failed me, I walked to the post office and put husband and wife in an envelope. And then I sent them away and waited for my memories of them to fade, completely and forever. As they dropped out of my life and into the postbox I saw the words I had scribbled: The Harmony Silk Factory, Kampar. I couldn’t remember the rest of the address, but it hardly seemed to matter.

ISN’T IT FUNNY,” I said, “how your wonderful marquis-professor has stopped speaking altogether.”

“He’s troubled by Honey’s death,” she replied.

“He’s even stopped speaking to you, it seems. How odd that a man who’s been through as much as he has, who’s been part of that vicious butchery in Manchuria, should be so upset by an accidental drowning.” We were sitting in the meagre glow of the after-supper embers, she with her notebook balanced tentatively on her knees.

“I told you never to mention what I’ve said about Mamoru. You aren’t even supposed to know.”

“Only you and I have speaking roles now,” I continued. “Kunichika and Johnny hover silently on the edge of the spotlight; Honey lies inert in the dressing room.”

“I’m not sorry,” she said, “about Honey. I never liked him.”

“Nor I.” In the hesitant light she looked tired and worn and I wanted to sink my head to her bosom. I said, “You do know he isn’t in love with you.” No answer. “Johnny, I mean.”

She said, “How do you know he doesn’t love me?”

“I didn’t say he didn’t love you. I said he wasn’t in love with you.”

“That is not the same thing. You’re right.”

I did not answer.

“And what about you, Peter?” she said. “Are you capable of love?”

“Of course I am.”

“Are you? Name someone you have loved.”

I paused for a moment. A sudden rush of blood inflamed my face, and my throat felt dry, unresponsive. I was glad it was dark: surely she could not have seen my strangled expression. “Not merely one person,” I managed to say after a while. “I am in love with all of this. The Orient and all its peoples.”

She laughed a rich, deep laugh. “That is definitely not love.”

“Yes it is.”

“How so?” she demanded.

“Because,” I said, “the desire and pursuit of the whole is called Love.”

“I never know who you are quoting when you speak, Peter,” she said.

“It’s not important.”

I got up and brushed the sand off my legs. “Tread carefully with Kunichika,” I said.