The Harmony Silk Factory

I WATCHED HER BATHE in the cold dawn stream. Mist drifted down from the hills and clung to the trees around us. The cobalt waters seemed scarcely to ripple as she waded slowly into its depths. I sat naked on the grassy bank, my wet skin prickling in the dewy air. I could not look at her face, her silent eyes. She rose from the stream, picking her way slowly through the muddy shallows. Beads of water clung to her skin, adorning her body with a thousand tiny jewels. Even then I knew, of course, that we would never be together again. We would return to the forlorn remains of our camp, where Johnny would be waiting with wordless inscrutability, and Kunichika would be calm and charming once more; we would not speak about this night again; we would scarcely even touch, other than the accidental brushing of hands as we passed food or water to each other in some prosaic domestic routine. Only we would know what had passed between us. I wanted to believe that this secret acorn would flourish in its hiding place and one day grow into a stately invisible oak, but even as we walked back through the lightening dawn I knew it would not happen. Our secret was always destined to fester, growing more unhappy with each passing day, for such is the bitterness of Wormwood: it poisons everything.

I fell heavily into a dreamless sleep, and when I awoke there was no one around. The tarpaulins had been dismantled and packed bags lay piled on top of one another like the bodies of small dead animals. I walked calmly over to Snow’s things and searched for her journal. I found it — a simple clothbound notebook filled with neat handwriting on unlined paper. I took it and placed it in my satchel.

The tide was at its lowest when we carried our things through the trees across the wide, flat beach. The sea had retreated a long way into the distance, leaving the boat marooned on an expanse of grey sand. We splashed through the shallow streaks of warm brine as we ferried the remnants of our camp to the boat, and then we sat on the deck waiting for the tide to come in and bear us away. The sky was deepening with rain clouds and the air was very still.

I FELL ILL almost as soon as I arrived back in Kampar. I collapsed on my bed and locked the door, leaving strict instructions not to be disturbed. My room smelled of mothballs and cat piss; I sank heavily into a fever, my bedclothes damp and peeling from my bare skin like old bandages every time I moved. And then came the shivers, the awful gripping shivers that made me whimper silently into the wet sheets. I could not escape this punishment, so I closed my eyes and surrendered to it. I let my insides be burnt by the fever and cut by the cold until I began to find relief in this cycle. Fever sweats shivers fever sweats shivers. Several times Johnny came to the door, imploring me to emerge. His frenzied voice cajoled and begged and raged, but I remained in my fetid den. I was safer there; torture had become my companion and I did not wish for anything more. When, several days (weeks? who knows?) later my condition “improved,” and the tremors no longer wracked my body, I sat on my bed and found myself alone in a bare, airless room. The thin hiss of the wireless was the only noise I heard. The Prince of Wales, it announced, had been sunk. Together with its mighty companion the Repulse, the HMS Unsinkable had been destroyed by Japanese kamikaze planes in the South China Sea off the coast of Kuantan. Pearl Harbor, I learnt, had already been attacked. Hong Kong and the islands of the Philippines had fallen; Siam would soon follow. Landings had been made in the north of the country, in Kota Baru, and soon they would be upon us in the Valley. I rose unsteadily to my feet and made for the door.

The journey to the Soong house was an arduous one. The glare of the sunlight was too much for my etiolated constitution and instantly my head began to swim. My legs felt shaky, and I stumbled repeatedly on the smallest pebbles. I marched on, my shirtsleeves hanging dismally from my torso; in the warm Valley afternoon I became aware that my body had become reed-thin and worn. My shoes chafed at my toes and I felt blisters begin to form. I walked through the plantation and into the yard of the Soong house. A group of men, neatly dressed in clean, smart clothes, stood leaning against a car smoking cigarettes. All shared Kunichika’s sharp, hawkish features, his muscular stance. I passed without addressing them and proceeded up the stairs, heading straight for the front door. When I reached the verandah at the top of the steps, Kunichika emerged from the house, his brow knotted tightly in a frown. He paused when he saw me, his face relaxing into a smile. He looked at me with languidly narrowed eyes, and then, wordlessly, descended the stairs and joined his cigarette-smoking coterie.