Janice Lee - The Piano Teacher

“How’s your father? ”

“Fine,” she says abruptly. “He’s fine.”

“What are you doing for funds?” Now that he is outside, he is thinking of matters he has not had to worry about in weeks.

“We’re allowed to withdraw a little money every week, but it’s touchy. Not large amounts, obviously, but nonetheless it’s odd for them to know you have accounts that you’re drawing against. You don’t want to make them wonder too much. Everything’s fluid, in a bad way. There are no rules, and even if there were, they could be changed at any moment.”

“Do you have to look out for yourself? Isn’t Otsubo the magic trump card?”

Trudy considers. Her mouth draws into a bow. Will resists the urge to kiss her small, self-preserving face.

“Mmmmm… I wouldn’t say a trump card because he’s rather mercurial. He does favors and then regrets them. He gives and wants to take away. And he has to be persuaded rather strongly not to. Not a generous man. Powerful men usually aren’t. Here we are.” She opens a door into a room that is a veritable palace compared with his quarters back at Stanley. A suite with large windows overlooking the blue sea dotted with boats, plush carpet, thick silk draperies, and fans that swing lazily around and around.

“Welcome to the Pen!” Trudy curtsies.

“Look at this,” he says, sitting on the bed. “A bed made up with actual linens! Curtains to draw against the sun! And I wager there’s even toilet paper in the bathroom.”

“You would be right. And now, do you want to thank me, you ingrate? It’s been complaint and suspicion ever since I cooked this up. Thank me.”

The reunion is sweet, the late afternoon sun slanting through the window, the flat horizon of the sea and the boats floating in the harbor, and Trudy, right here, right next to him. He has thought of her for so long, missed the feel of her skin and the smell of her breath, that he moves as if he’s in a dream. She is quiet, more than usual, and seems skittish. They are both too sapped, too thirsty, to ever be quenched by something as mundane as the physical.

“Tell me the truth,” she says, sitting up afterward, clutching the sheet, “is there a hussy you have in Stanley? Some American vixen who’s stolen your heart? Surely you can’t have been celibate all this time, someone as voracious as you. What else do you have to amuse you in that dreary camp?”

“I’m only voracious around you, you know.” He doesn’t ask her the same question, feels any answer would be unbearable. If he can keep some small part of her for himself, it might be all right. “Don’t mind about those things, and I won’t either.” He extends this olive branch so that their time together might be enjoyed.

She relaxes and curls into him.

“It’s been horrible,” Trudy says. “The Japanese are rounding up Chinese who are sympathetic, shall we say, or pretend that they are, for business purposes, and holding these absurd dinners where their policies are toasted with champagne and they’re lionized as if they’ve made enormous contributions to society. All quite surreal. Victor Chen is hot and heavy with the Japanese, of course, and trying to do business with them every which way. I’m worried about Dommie. Victor is just using him.

“We went to one of these dinners, and an old family friend of ours, David Ho, stood up and offered a toast to Pan-Asian superiority. Now, mind you, he was married to an Australian woman, and devoted to her, but she died a few years back, and he remarried, lucky for him, to a Chinese. He’s such a coward. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. He has children in school in Australia. Don’t know how he’ll be able to look them in the eye now. They are the funniest dinners. They have them in the ballroom of the Gloucester and try to make them fancy but they are just the worst functions you’ve ever seen. Propaganda films, bad alcohol, and hypocrites. Nothing worse.”

“So why do you go to these things?”

She gets out of bed, her body a long rebuke.

“I had forgotten what it was like to have my conscience with me always. Sometimes, Will, you have to do things you don’t want to. We can’t all live in perfect harmony with our integrity.”

He hears her turn on the water. She has always loved baths and used to spend so much time in them she would emerge with her glossy skin pruny and her face glowing with the absorbed heat.

“How’s the water here?” he calls out, by way of apology. Their time is too short to be beset by old complaints.

“Not bad, as these things go. Nothing worse than a lukewarm bath, don’t you think? Do you want to join me?”

She pours in Badedas, bubbling the water hot and steamy. The green, limy smell rises in the heat. Together, they slip and slide, washing each other while careful not to prod too deeply, keeping everything on the surface, their mood as fragile as the bubbles in the bath.

Outside is strange-an odd approximation of free society. Pinched faces, suspicious shoulders, everyone trying to blend in and look inconspicuous. The opposite of normal-Americans speaking softly, British acting humble, Chinese acting shy. Everything is hushed, except for Trudy and Dominick, who’s joining them for lunch. He meets them in the lobby of the hotel and kisses Trudy on both cheeks and nods slightly to Will.

“Hello, darling,” he says to Trudy, handing her a large envelope filled with papers. “This is from Victor. He sends his love.” Trudy blanches.

“Love, is it? ”

As they leave the hotel, Trudy and Dominick walk down the street as if they own it, laughing loudly and wearing flamboyant, obviously expensive clothes.

“If you act as if you’re bulletproof, most people will assume you are, darling,” Trudy assures Will. “Believe me, I’ve tested this theory extensively.” She pulls out a worn blue booklet covered in stamps. “And this helps enormously, of course. It’s from Otsubo and it tells whatever foot soldier stops me that he better treat me with kid gloves or there’ll be hell to pay. Usually, when they see his stamp, they sort of freeze, then shove it back toward me as if it’s on fire, and they bow and scrape to an embarrassing extent. I’m quite addicted to it.”

“And Dommie?”

“He has one with his patron’s stamp. All the best people have one, you know.” Her laughter is brittle.

“And what does Otsubo think of you springing me from the camp? Does he know? ”

“Well, he arranged it for me. I don’t think he’s the jealous type, to be honest. I don’t think you will be spending much time together. Do you want Cantonese food? I’m in the mood for noodles, actually.”

“Chinese?”

“Yes, the other food is unbearable these days since there’s no one proper to cook it.”

“Have you ever missed a meal?”

“Darling, if you miss a meal, the light quite goes out of the day. All Chinese know that. I wouldn’t unless things were absolutely desperate. Dommie knows this little place where they serve the most amazing rice noodles with broth they steep all day long. Of course, it’s better at two in the morning since it’s been cooking all day, but nowadays you’re viewed suspiciously if you’re out late without one of our great leaders.”

“How is the Grill? Still operating?”

“Oh, we still go. It’s pretty jolly, actually. And not all Japanese. There are groups of Americans and British on the outside, and it’s not done to ask why, and the Japanese don’t seem to bother them, and all sorts of other people, you know, Swiss Red Cross, the occasional German. I tell you, Hong Kong right now is the most interesting mix of people. The war just shook out all the people and what remained behind in the sieve is diverse, should we say. There’s this woman, Jinx Beckett, who’s an American, and I can’t quite figure out what her story is and why she’s not in Stanley with you as I’m sure she’s not an important banker or government official. I’m sure you’ll meet her. She is absolutely everywhere, and poky too, nosing around in all sorts of things. And there are still parties. We still go to the Gripps for dancing but they’ll stop the music every once in a while and project these hilarious propaganda films onto the ballroom walls. It’s all about Pan-Asiatic superiority, don’t you know? They don’t seem to understand that they’re screening for a bunch of non-Asiatics. Screaming irony.”