The Harmony Silk Factory

I paid little attention to the show. Our seats were a row of tiny wooden chairs arranged in the middle of the clearing in front of the screen. All around us the rest of the audience sat cross-legged, or else squatted in that loose-limbed Oriental fashion, almost resting on their haunches. I felt very disconcerted; I could barely stretch my legs for fear of kicking some poor urchin in the back. I found myself seated next to Snow, who remained utterly still throughout. My eye was constantly drawn towards her pale, luminescent blouse, which matched the intensity of her skin. It was impossible to concentrate on the show; I could not understand the constant lunging of the bizarre spectral shapes. I leaned across to ask Snow to explain what was going on. She spoke somewhat curtly, as if displeased at being disturbed during the performance. Yet a few moments later I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that she was exchanging whispers with Kunichika. Quickly, I leaned over towards her again. “Who’s that character? There, that one,” I said, pointing. Kunichika answered for her, providing me with rather more information than I needed — I paid little attention to his tutorial on the philosophy of Eastern theatre. I was not effusive in my thanks, and spent the rest of the show trying to anticipate the next exchange between Snow and Kunichika. Every time I sensed she might be about to speak to him I quickly presented her with some spurious question about the characters, the story, the music, etc. I could not stop myself from doing this. I knew, of course, that there was a risk that my behaviour would be interpreted by Snow as being juvenile in the extreme, but the risk of not behaving thus felt even greater. Whenever Kunichika bent his nobly sculpted neck to whisper in Snow’s ear, the sense of panic that welled inside me was violent and painful. I had to do everything I could to stop it.

As the performance ended I noticed Johnny looking at me with an expression of some concern. We had been separated throughout by Snow’s parents, who sat between us, unmoving and silent as boulders. “Is everything alright?” Johnny asked me later.

“Oh yes,” I said. “I was on the edge of my seat. Utterly gripping.”

Back at the Soong house Snow took her leave and retired to bed. She offered her hand once more to Kunichika, who did, this time, kiss it briefly as he bowed. To me she said, “Good night, Peter,” and then disappeared down the long, dim corridor to her bedroom.

The bitter seed had been sown inside me. I tasted it at the back of my mouth and felt its dark, dirty tentacles creeping slowly inside my body, probing for where I was weakest. Johnny walked me home, chattering constantly about some poems — Shelley or some other nonsense — he had just read; about plans for his new house; about one day travelling to Europe. “Will you teach me to play the piano?” he said brightly.

I grunted.

“Is something wrong, Peter? Are you unwell?”

“I’m tired,” I said. I left him standing at the steps to the rest house with a vague promise of meeting the next day. I went to the bathroom and retched with dry, painful heaves. I fell asleep after drinking half a bottle of neat gin I found in the communal drinks cabinet. My dreams were filled with a single repeating image, that of Kunichika violently ravishing Snow. Their bodies twisted and glistened and pursued me wherever I went. In my bedroom at Hemscott they copulated in a frenzy by the window, silhouetted against the winter sky; in the Bodleian they thrashed amongst the dusty bookshelves; here, in the rest house, they formed a single pure-white creature, thrusting and jerking and swooning before my eyes. I could not escape this monster. I ran into the jungle, but they were above me in the trees, shrieking, wailing, crying. They pointed at my limp penis, for I was naked. It hung miserably like a rag, turning a bilious green in colour as I tried furiously to resurrect it, pumping it with both fists. All this time that howling two-headed white animal laughed at me from the forest above. I could not escape it.

Not once did I think of Johnny, my only friend in this world.