Janice Lee - The Piano Teacher

“Who don’t you hate, Victor?” She thinks privately that his speech is undermined by his Oxford accent.

“You are more Chinese than anything else, Trudy. You will always be viewed as foreign in any other country. You belong in Hong Kong.”

He lights a cigarette, doesn’t offer her one. She knows he’s always disapproved of her smoking in public. He thinks women should be demure and quiet when out.

“These are going to be currency too now, you know,” he says, inspecting the lit tip. “Things are going to be different, and getting a foothold in the new world is going to be like building a foundation on quicksand. You have to be adaptable.”

Trudy puts her hands on the table and leans forward. If she could, she would bare her teeth and hiss.

“I’m busy, Victor. Why did you want to see me?”

“I just want to be sure we’re on the same side,” he says. “Being as we’re family and all.”

Trudy laughs.

“You’ve never felt so familial before, I’m sure.” She hesitates. “Maybe I’ll go into Stanley instead. Will said…”

“Don’t be idiotic, Trudy. You can get a lot more accomplished out here than you can by being in a prison. And make no mistake, that’s what it is in there, a prison. Why would you give it up?”

“But Will…”

Victor laughs.

“I didn’t know you were so sentimental, my dear. And of course, there’s the matter of your father.”

Trudy tenses. “What of him?”

“I didn’t want to say anything but… he is not well.”

Trudy’s face doesn’t move. “He’s never said anything to me.”

Victor looks at her as if she were stupid.

“And you think he would?”

“I don’t believe you.”

Victor waves his hand. “It doesn’t matter to me in the least.” He catches himself. “Of course, I am concerned with his welfare and I thought you had a right to know.”

In the restaurant, the pianist comes in and sits down. He starts to practice. Trudy and Victor sit across from each other, each unwilling to make the next move.

“Debussy,” Trudy says.

“Yes.”

They sit, two chess players, looking at anything but each other. Victor smokes his cigarette down to the stub and crushes it in the crystal ashtray. He speaks first, oblique.

“The Players are already hard to get. The Japanese are bringing in their own brands, Rising Sun and rubbish tobacco like that. It’s going to be all about transportation and access to imports. The channels are going to get narrower. Goods will be dear.”

Trudy looks up. “Goods like, say, medicine, you mean?”

“Well, of course. That’s just one example. Good-quality medicine. American and British pharmaceutical companies are certainly not going to be shipping goods to conquered territories. At least not legally. People are going to have to be clever.”

“And you’ve always been clever, Victor. And criminally unsubtle.”

He throws up his hands. “I’ve always been called something. But I’m just trying to make sure you understand the entire situation. Food is going to be in very short supply. It’s not just a matter of silk stockings and good port.”

Trudy stands up. “Excuse me, I just have to powder my nose.” She walks gracefully over to the powder room and the door closes silently behind her.

Victor waits, tapping his pack of cigarettes on the tablecloth. When she emerges, she is fresh-faced, with a new coat of lipstick, woman’s armor.

“People will think we’re in love, Victor. This illicit meeting in an out-of-the-way restaurant.” She smiles at him.

“Having an affair?”

“You don’t fancy me?”

Victor considers her teasing more seriously than he should.

“You’re like a sister to me, Trudy. Melody has always been very fond of you. She asked me to take care of you while she was gone, make sure you were all right.”

“That’s funny. She told me to go to Macau, to be with my father.”

“He does need someone to help him out, take care of him.”

“He has Leung.” Her father’s devoted houseboy, with him for forty years. “He’ll take care of him better than I ever could.”

“Didn’t you hear?”

Trudy’s face falls. “No, what?”

“Leung was knifed in the lung. Seems he was trying to prevent some Japanese private from taking your father’s Rolex. It was touch and go for a while, but then he finally succumbed. These soldiers know just where to put the knife.”

“Father would have told me,” Trudy says. “He would have contacted me.”

“You know how it is with your father,” Victor says soothingly. “He doesn’t want to be a bother to you. But don’t worry, Trudy. I took care of it. I have a woman from Shanghai living with your father, cooking and taking care of him. He didn’t want you to worry. I didn’t want you to worry. I only brought it up because…”

There is a long pause. Trudy looks up and smiles at Victor, brittle. She reaches slowly across the table for the pack of cigarettes and takes one out. Victor does not offer a light so she goes into her handbag and gets a lighter. Her hands are shaking. She inhales deeply and blows the smoke at Victor.

“Otsubo…” she says. “He adores me. Thinks I’m some exotic flower.”

“I know,” Victor says. “You should make sure that lasts.”

He looks at her searchingly with narrowed eyes, then turns away, satisfied.

“I’m having a garden party next week,” he says. “You will be the hostess. We are family, so people won’t talk. Bring Otsubo and tell him to invite whoever he wants.”

Trudy nods, so slight a movement it is almost unnoticeable.

“I think we’re finished here,” Victor says. “But one more thing, Trudy. When you decide to do something, you should do it all the way. There’s nothing worse than indecision, or ambivalence. That’s the kind of thing that endangers lives. But you’re a smart girl-you know what I’m talking about. Have a good day.”

He tosses some bills on the table and walks out.

CLAIRE SAT in the library with the retired headmistress, stunned.

“Victor Chen?” she asked. “He was one of the three? Why didn’t he just…”

“Oh,” Edwina said. “He didn’t want to sell the information too cheap. Nothing if not a good businessman, that fellow. Very misinformed about him, the government was. I could have told them he’d sell his own mother if the price was right. They thought it would be good to have a Chinese person know, in case the English were all imprisoned or killed. And they thought he had loyalties to England because he had been schooled there. He found out that I knew and that Reggie knew, but Reggie was in Stanley and he knew he’d never say anything. Me, he didn’t know so well. So he had me over a few times as well. I’ve never been so lavishly entertained and skillfully interrogated about my intentions. But I knew better. We played cat and mouse for a while and he always kept tabs on me.”

“Did Trudy know about this?”

“I don’t think so, or else she wouldn’t have run around so hard, trying to procure the information. I think Victor got some pleasure out of seeing her work so diligently to get something that he already had. And Dominick too. The two of them were something to see. Victor watched them for a while, and then I think he decided they were getting a little too influential and he decided to do something about it. He was really the one pulling the strings. They were just his puppets.”

Edwina paused.

“Do you want some of these scones?” she asked. “They’re the best in Hong Kong. Made by a Mr. Wong who I trained myself. He’s the best Chinese English baker in the colony.”