“We went to one of these dinners, and an old family friend of ours, David Ho, stood up and offered a toast to Pan-Asian superiority. Now, mind you, he was married to an Australian woman, and devoted to her, but she died a few years back, and he remarried, lucky for him, to a Chinese. He’s such a coward. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. He has children in school in Australia. Don’t know how he’ll be able to look them in the eye now. They are the funniest dinners. They have them in the ballroom of the Gloucester and try to make them fancy but they are just the worst functions you’ve ever seen. Propaganda films, bad alcohol, and hypocrites. Nothing worse.”
“So why do you go to these things?”
She gets out of bed, her body a long rebuke.
“I had forgotten what it was like to have my conscience with me always. Sometimes, Will, you have to do things you don’t want to. We can’t all live in perfect harmony with our integrity.”
He hears her turn on the water. She has always loved baths and used to spend so much time in them she would emerge with her glossy skin pruny and her face glowing with the absorbed heat.
“How’s the water here?” he calls out, by way of apology. Their time is too short to be beset by old complaints.
“Not bad, as these things go. Nothing worse than a lukewarm bath, don’t you think? Do you want to join me?”
She pours in Badedas, bubbling the water hot and steamy. The green, limy smell rises in the heat. Together, they slip and slide, washing each other while careful not to prod too deeply, keeping everything on the surface, their mood as fragile as the bubbles in the bath.
Outside is strange-an odd approximation of free society. Pinched faces, suspicious shoulders, everyone trying to blend in and look inconspicuous. The opposite of normal-Americans speaking softly, British acting humble, Chinese acting shy. Everything is hushed, except for Trudy and Dominick, who’s joining them for lunch. He meets them in the lobby of the hotel and kisses Trudy on both cheeks and nods slightly to Will.
“Hello, darling,” he says to Trudy, handing her a large envelope filled with papers. “This is from Victor. He sends his love.” Trudy blanches.
“Love, is it? ”
As they leave the hotel, Trudy and Dominick walk down the street as if they own it, laughing loudly and wearing flamboyant, obviously expensive clothes.
“If you act as if you’re bulletproof, most people will assume you are, darling,” Trudy assures Will. “Believe me, I’ve tested this theory extensively.” She pulls out a worn blue booklet covered in stamps. “And this helps enormously, of course. It’s from Otsubo and it tells whatever foot soldier stops me that he better treat me with kid gloves or there’ll be hell to pay. Usually, when they see his stamp, they sort of freeze, then shove it back toward me as if it’s on fire, and they bow and scrape to an embarrassing extent. I’m quite addicted to it.”
“And Dommie?”
“He has one with his patron’s stamp. All the best people have one, you know.” Her laughter is brittle.
“And what does Otsubo think of you springing me from the camp? Does he know? ”
“Well, he arranged it for me. I don’t think he’s the jealous type, to be honest. I don’t think you will be spending much time together. Do you want Cantonese food? I’m in the mood for noodles, actually.”
“Chinese?”
“Yes, the other food is unbearable these days since there’s no one proper to cook it.”
“Have you ever missed a meal?”
“Darling, if you miss a meal, the light quite goes out of the day. All Chinese know that. I wouldn’t unless things were absolutely desperate. Dommie knows this little place where they serve the most amazing rice noodles with broth they steep all day long. Of course, it’s better at two in the morning since it’s been cooking all day, but nowadays you’re viewed suspiciously if you’re out late without one of our great leaders.”
“How is the Grill? Still operating?”
“Oh, we still go. It’s pretty jolly, actually. And not all Japanese. There are groups of Americans and British on the outside, and it’s not done to ask why, and the Japanese don’t seem to bother them, and all sorts of other people, you know, Swiss Red Cross, the occasional German. I tell you, Hong Kong right now is the most interesting mix of people. The war just shook out all the people and what remained behind in the sieve is diverse, should we say. There’s this woman, Jinx Beckett, who’s an American, and I can’t quite figure out what her story is and why she’s not in Stanley with you as I’m sure she’s not an important banker or government official. I’m sure you’ll meet her. She is absolutely everywhere, and poky too, nosing around in all sorts of things. And there are still parties. We still go to the Gripps for dancing but they’ll stop the music every once in a while and project these hilarious propaganda films onto the ballroom walls. It’s all about Pan-Asiatic superiority, don’t you know? They don’t seem to understand that they’re screening for a bunch of non-Asiatics. Screaming irony.”
Will sees a newsstand, for him a startling sight.
“I’d love a newspaper. How is the English broadsheet these days?”
“Run by a Swede under the careful watch of the Japanese,” says Dominick. “Result as you would expect. Piffle. I expect you’d like one.”
“I would,” Will says and takes the Standard and the News. Trudy pays.
“It is propaganda,” whispers Trudy. “They print whatever they’re told to.”
“Subtlety, my darling,” Dominick says, shushing her. Suddenly he relaxes and turns to Will. “So, how is it being on the outside?” They have exchanged only the barest of civil greetings. “And is it as atrocious on the inside as they say? Of course, the paper claims that you are being treated as if you were honored guests at the Ritz.”
“Certainly not ideal. But it seems rather fraught out here as well. Everyone tiptoeing around.”
“Is it true that Asbury is in there, doing his own wash like a common rickshaw boy?” A famously haughty banker, whom Will has indeed seen poking around in the dirt, trying to establish a garden, and hanging up his undershirts to dry, as his wife is abed most days.
“He is, but he’s holding his own. Surprising, the dignity that still holds in any circumstance.”
“Yes, we’re not our own men anymore, are we? ” Dominick looks around. “But some are more so than others.”
Will says nothing.
“It’s better to be a free person, though, isn’t it? ” asks Trudy. “We have to mind our manners out here but there’s no one telling us what to do or when to eat. Services are all getting back. Food prices were going up and down but they seem to have stabilized. We can withdraw small amounts of money. Public transport is working, as is the mail, in a way, and people are starting to settle, although it’s still a hard life. You do still run across the occasional corpse in the street, which is unpleasant. And the Japanese do work the coolies quite hard, harder than any Chinese I’ve seen, and they are having a hard time of it. They’re sending them back to China in droves as well. I think they aim to reduce the population by half.”
“Nothing is easy these days, is it? ” Dominick says. “Aaah, here’s the noodle shop.”
After lunch, Dominick goes to work, “such as it is,” he remarks, languid as always, and Trudy and Will go shopping. Trudy frequents the markets in search of treasures.
“I’ve seen things that I recognize from friends’ houses!”she says, rifling through a table of pilfered goods. “The ormolu clock from the Hos’, and that extraordinary dagger that was hanging above the mantel at the Chens’. I wanted to buy them but didn’t have enough money. Those,” her voice drops, “filthy rats just took away everything they could carry, and then the locals came after, and picked every house clean. Enough to make you weep, seeing those ships set out for Japan filled to the brim with all the lovely things our friends had collected. Cars and furniture and jewelry! Many a soldier’s wife is playing tea party with someone else’s Wedgwood these days.”