The Harmony Silk Factory

“Come on,” I urged, taking him by his arm. “A gentle walk will do you no harm. There’s something I’d like you to see. No one else knows about it yet — I want to keep it a secret, but I want you to see it.”

He nodded and tried to smile, but it seemed as if the faint frown that had settled on his face held his features in too tight a grip; his brow remained locked, his eyes were dead and dark, his mouth drawn thinly as if smirking. No laugh could break through that cladding; fatigue had imprinted itself on his face. He trailed after me without saying a word until we reached the ruin.

“I don’t see what’s so interesting about this place,” he said.

“I seem to be the only one on this island to appreciate the beauty of abandoned buildings. A ruin resonates with the lives of the people who once lived there. Just shut up and follow me, will you?”

“But it’s just a pile of rocks. Why do you spend so much time here?” he said as I scrambled down a bank to a clearing on the edge of the forest behind the ruin. He remained standing above me, hands obstinately on hips.

Containing my impatience, I said, “Being an aesthete, I am always hungry for beauty. You wouldn’t understand this.”

“I’ve noticed this hunger.”

“So has everyone. I don’t hide it.”

“But maybe there’s something else they haven’t seen about you?”

“Something else? What — like that something you were sharing with Honey just now?”

He made his way down the bank and fell in step with me as I headed for the trees; we did not speak until we were in the broken shade. “This is it,” I said. My earlier enthusiasm had dissolved into the afternoon heat. We stood in the middle of the irregular-shaped clearing I had made — created — over the past few afternoons. I had brought down saplings with a machete, slashed away the shrubby undergrowth, and broken off the lower branches, cutting a view towards the ruin and the dirty brook that ran beside it. I worked vigorously, singing as I heaved and perspired in the jungle’s hot hammam, but now it seemed that love’s labour was lost. The clearing no longer seemed as clean and virginal as it had when I left it: its boundaries were obscure, encroached upon by plants that seemed to have crept into its confines overnight. Outlines of dead logs I hauled away remained impressed on the damp earth, scarring the ground with their funereal shapes. Broken branches littered the place I had worked so hard to cleanse, and above us the canopy of leaves suddenly seemed more opaque than ever.

“What’s that?” Johnny said, pointing at a shady corner.

“A few things I brought with me,” I said, shuffling over to the small parcel I had left under a bush. “Some wine, knives and forks, one or two dishes. Most of them were broken in the storm.”

“Peter,” he said, fixing me with a squinting look of incomprehension. “Why did you bring this here? And your luggage — you must have had no room for your clothes. What’s this, you brought wine?”

I shrugged and surveyed the sorry assembly of dull silver and cracked china. Against the dark foliage and muddy soil they looked silly, a still life long abandoned by its painter.

Johnny said, “Peter, this is wonderful.”

“It seems a waste of effort, doesn’t it?”

“No, it’s magnificent,” he said, placing great stress on the second syllable. When he did so, I recognised that it was the way I pronounced the word. “Why did you do it?”

“I really don’t know. It seemed a good idea at the time. I had visions of a rather romantic holiday — a backdrop of steaming tropical forest, beautiful servants waiting at the table, crystal glasses, laughter and merriment, music. I wanted a celebration. Instead we have this,” I said, looking around me, “this abject failure. Rather fitting, I think. You see, it’s my birthday tomorrow. Or the day after — I’ve lost count. It doesn’t seem to matter now.”

We remained silent for some time, fatigued, I think, by the intense afternoon heat. Then Johnnny said, “I want to tell you something. I don’t care if you repeat it or not — as you say, nothing seems to matter now. But all the same I want you to know it. It’s about Kunichika. He has given me a choice. He knows, Peter, he knows. He knows everything about me — what I do away from the shop. He knows about the people I meet, the places I go to, the things I say. He knows what I believe in.”

“How?” I said weakly.

“I don’t know. Someone must have told him. I have been betrayed. You were right, Peter — I will never know who my friends are in this Valley. It must have been someone who wants something from Kunichika. Who? I don’t know. Could be anyone. Kunichika can give anyone anything they want. To me, he has given a simple choice. It is more than anyone will ever get from him. If I choose correctly, if I help the Japanese, I will have everything I desire. They will protect me. I will be richer than T. K. Soong, richer than anyone in the Valley, more powerful. If. But if not, then I lose everything I have. My shop, certainly, but also my wife.”