Close to midnight, they gather around the biggest candle in the living room and count down.
“Ten, nine,” they start, before Trudy interrupts.
“Let’s prolong this. Let’s count down from fifty instead. Do we really have anything better to do?” People are agreeable and start over.
“Fifty, forty-nine, forty-eight…” And then something odd happens. Somewhere between thirty-four and thirty-three, the mood changes and it seems as if they are counting toward something that is rather important. They are chanting and their voices gather force and purpose, so that as they count down into the twenties and into the teens and the single digits, they become louder and braver, until they get to “five, four, three, two… one” and they burst into cheers and hug one another and feel, for a moment, as if something has been salvaged. Women wipe away tears and men clap one another on the back.
“Happy New Year, my darling,” Trudy says, kissing Will. “May this be the worst Eve we ever experience.”
To the room she lifts her glass. “It’s time,” she says, “to bury the silver and put away the sheets in the hot room. It will be over, but we don’t know when.”
At the end, guests leave in the wee hours, or stay, strewn among the many sofas and chairs, scared to go back outside, but wanting to get home. Trudy ministers to them, providing water and soothing words, until they muster up the courage to pull themselves together, expel the effects of drink, and lurch into the night, one eye cocked toward the sky for enemy aircraft.
January 4, 1942
ON THE FOURTH DAY of the new year, Trudy comes in with a leaflet in her hand.
“They’re collecting people,” she announces, and reads from it.
“ ‘Since the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong on Christmas Day, enemy aliens have been allowed free movement in practically all urban districts of the colony’-very generous of them isn’t it? Then there’s something about generals and army orders, and then it says, ‘All enemy civilians’-that does make you sound dangerous, Will-‘all enemy civilians shall assemble at the Murray Parade Ground on January fifth.’ You are allowed to carry personal effects, and the care of your house is your own personal responsibility. Enemies include British, Americans, Dutch, Panamanians and whoever else has been disagreeable enough to war with our conquerors.” She looks up. “I think I’m off scot-free.”
“Are you?”
“Well, I’m none of those categories, certainly. And I’ve secreted my British passport away somewhere very safe so no one need know about it. And I don’t think a dislike of origami qualifies me as warring with the Japanese. But we’ll have to get you there, I suppose, unless you want to go elsewhere? ” She wrinkles her brow. “ China? Some people are arranging passage.”
“No, I think staying in Hong Kong will be better. They will have to do things in a way that is accountable. If they gather us together, they have to register us and let our governments know, I would imagine.” He shrugs his shoulders. “But we should decide what to do with Ned.”
Over a sparse lunch of rice and salted cabbage, they decide to clean the Canadian up and register him as English.
“Pretend you lost your passport-a fire when a bomb hit your home or something. Your accent is a problem though,” Trudy says. “Do you think the Japanese will notice? ”
“I could pretend to be American,” he says earnestly.
“But we don’t know any Americans to take you under their wing. Better you stick with Will and keep your mouth shut.”
Trudy says again she will not register.
“Angeline, you could go with Will and Ned, since Frederick is English. You’re counted as English, then. You have your marriage certificate somewhere, don’t you? I’ll be fine out here without you. So many family friends have offered to take me in, I won’t be alone.” Trudy strokes her friend’s arm.
“I’ll stay here with you, I think. Don’t you?”
“Why can’t you pretend you’re in government and not go?” Trudy asks Will. “Colonial staff are exempt from the order.”
“Darling,” he says. “There are ways of verifying these things. It would be worse if I lied and were to be found out.”
“But you won’t be allowed to come back, then, do you think? They’re not going to write down your name, give you a pat on the back, and send you on your way?”
“Realistically, they’re going to keep us all in a group. So I assume there will be some sort of collective living for a while, as they figure out what they’re going to do with us. I’ve heard of mass exchanges between governments, so they might exchange us for Japanese who are living in our countries. But it might take a rather long time to get all that sorted out, so we should really have a plan of how to keep in contact.”
After lunch, Will and Trudy go upstairs to pack a suitcase.
“What will you need? A toothbrush.” She hands him a new one. “Tooth powder. Surely those are necessities. A comb-can’t have you looking disheveled. On the other hand, perhaps we don’t want you looking too handsome and getting yourself and all the ladies in trouble.”
“Will you come with me?” he says. This is what he has wanted to ask all morning. The thought of leaving her makes him short of breath. He has seen her every day for months, not gone more than a few hours without smelling her skin, her hair. He finds other women grotesque now-they are too large, too loud, too slow. One afternoon, a short while after he had first arrived in Hong Kong, he and Simonds had sat at their desks and watched, mesmerized, as one is by the mundane, as their office lady, Miss Tsai, boiled water and poured it into a thermos. Miss Tsai was thin and wore metal spectacles. Her shoulders, which she covered with the same gray cardigan every day, were so small they looked as brittle as a bird’s bones. Her hair was cropped short and often shined with grease. Simonds had turned to him-this was before Trudy-and said, “I don’t understand how some find Chinese women attractive. They have no sex, so spindly.” Will wishes Simonds had met Trudy, the languorous slip of her. He had shipped out a little after the time Will had first met Trudy at the party, still professing his desire to find a buxom young Englishwoman with whom to form a family. He’s probably found her by now. But Will suspects he would find his English lass too rosy, too exuberant, next to the rapier-sharp silhouette that is Trudy.
She stops at his question, but only for a moment, then continues packing. “Why on earth would I cage myself up if I had a choice?”
“You don’t know what it’s going to be like out here,” he says. “At least in there, you’ll get three squares a day and a bed.” He cannot bring himself to simply ask her to come to be with him. Instead he sells it like some low-cost holiday.
Finished with his package, she begins to pack some of her own clothes in a suitcase.
“I’d rather take my chances out here,” she says. “You don’t know what it’s going to be like in the camps. The Japs can be brutal. And it will be good for you to have someone on the outside. I’ll come and give you packages and news of the outside. The Lusitano Club is taking all Portuguese, half-breeds like me too, and they have decent sleeping quarters. If things get bad, I’ll just go there. And Dommie will take care of me.”
“We could marry,” he says. “I’ll take care of you better.”
She looks up. He is frightened of her face, willfully blank.
“You don’t know what will happen out here,” he repeats. “At least we will be together.”
She goes on folding her sweaters. Her hands are quick and sure.
“Do you know what the Chinese think of the English?” she says a moment later, as if he hadn’t said anything of importance.
“Not really, but I hope Dominick isn’t representative.”
Trudy laughs.
“Well, a bit, although there’s more to that situation than meets the eye. Don’t be too harsh about him. He has his reasons. But many Chinese think English are rude and arrogant and think so much of their own heritage when ours is so much older and richer. And they’re terribly stingy. I’ve never seen an Englishman pick up the bill for dinner, when even the poorest Chinese would be ashamed to let someone else pay if it were his invitation. It’s odd, don’t you think? I like our way so much better. We Chinese are not stupid. We know that most of the Englishmen here live in a way they could never afford in their own country, and they’re living here like kings because their money happens to buy a lot more of our labor than our own money does. So they think they’re the lords here and we’re the serfs. But it doesn’t change the fact that back at home they could never have the lavish life they have here. They’re living on borrowed money, under assumed identities. You’re not very English, Will. You’re generous to a fault and very gracious and humble. I’m so glad you’re not like most of your countrymen.”