The Harmony Silk Factory

“And you already know what you are going to do.”

He sat down on the ground, resting his back against a tree stump. “There is no way ahead for me.” He smiled.

I said, “Principles are one thing, survival is another.”

“Survival,” he said, chuckling as if chancing upon a novel idea. “Do you know what will happen to me if I collaborate with the Japanese?”

“No one need ever know.”

“I will always know, Peter,” he said, a thin smile settling on his features. “And you will always know.”

I looked at him and tried to recall the face I had first seen in Singapore. It was still there, obscured by the lines of doubt and fear, but there nonetheless. “Listen,” I said. “When we get back to the Valley we shall sit tight and let Kunichika make the first move. If it looks as if the Japanese will invade, you shall come with me to Singapore. There we shall ensconce ourselves in the disgusting opulence of the Raffles Hotel, where we shall sit listening to the firing of British guns whilst sipping pink gins.”

He laughed and shook his head. “That may work for you but not for me.”

“Why on earth not — don’t you like pink gin?”

“I’ve never had one. Is it nice?” he said, his face breaking into a broad smile. “Do you think Chinese people are allowed to drink it too?”

“You were made for pink gin. I’ve never been so certain of anything in my whole life.”

“It’ll be your fault if I don’t like it.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll adore it.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m serious, Johnny. I shall take you with me, wherever I go. You’ll be safe with me. God knows there are some privileges of being British.”

He laughed and shook his head.

“You poor bastard,” I said. “You really have been sick, haven’t you?”

He didn’t reply, but leaned forward and rested his forehead on his arm. I could not see his face.

“Don’t think about it, Johnny. Kunichika’s nothing.”

He was breathing very heavily, and when he spoke his voice was quiet. “I’m not afraid of that. It’s Snow I’m worried about.”

“What?”

“I’m resigned to losing her.”

“You silly creature,” I said. “I told you to forget about Kunichika — he’ll move on. You won’t lose her to him.”

“Not to him,” he said, diminuendo. “To you.”

I did not answer. I sat on the moist soil next to him, legs crossed uncomfortably.

“At first I was angry,” he said, without bitterness. “I saw you talking to her. You spoke so freely, and she to you. I knew I would never be able to speak to her like that. But now I think — perhaps it’s better for her. Who wants to be the wife of a Communist? When the Japanese invade, it’ll be the end for me, however I choose. If she is not with me, at least with you she will be safe.”

“Please don’t speak like this.”

“Just promise me, Peter. Whatever I choose to do, you know that I am finished. Please look after her.”

“You aren’t finished. Nothing will happen to either of you. You will both be with me in Singapore.”

“Look after her. Promise. Swear it to me.”

I did. We sat staring up at the impenetrable forest.

After a while he said, “This is a nice spot for a party.”

“You don’t think it’s too small, do you?”

“No, but it could do with a tidy-up.”

“That’s easy enough.”

“I don’t mind that you love her,” he said calmly.

I paused and looked him in the eye. “Johnny, Johnny,” I said. “I’m very fond of Snow but I don’t love her.” I don’t know why I lied.

He put his hands over his face and began to cry. There was nothing I could do to console him. I put my arm around his shuddering shoulders but he would not stop. He cried in a thin wail that cut my insides to shreds; it ran through the trees, filling the jungle with its noise. To this day I can hear its shrill soliloquy, reciting in my head. It comes to me at night, when all is quiet and I can feel nothing but pain.

THE BEST THING ABOUT THE TROPICS,” I said as I watered the orchids, “is that the seasons never change. There are the monsoons, of course, but there’s never a time when the garden becomes a frozen graveyard. We don’t have to worry about dead leaves littering our perfect lawns or the ornamental ponds freezing over.”

“I think autumn in England is very beautiful,” said Gecko without looking up from his newspaper. “I’ve seen pictures of it, the mountains all covered in red leaves. Very nice.”

“I think you mean New England,” I said, knowing that the latest issue of the National Geographic contained a photographic feature on the people of Vermont and their ghastly faux-naïve clapboard houses. “That’s in America.”