“I know, I know. My masters at Harrow were always on me for tardiness.”

Trudy will tell him later, the Japanese love that Dominick was at the best schools in England, they want to know all the details, and that Dominick indulges them at every chance. “They hate it but they love it too. Isn’t that always the case?”

He presents a box to Otsubo. “A gesture of my appreciation for everything you’ve done for me, and for Hong Kong.”

Otsubo grunts thanks but does not receive the box. Dominick, so obviously unused to gruffness, takes a step back, recovers, and slides smoothly into a chair.

“Maybe later, then,” he says to Will, a collusive greeting that implies they are made of finer stuff than this Japanese man.

Will turns away, unwilling to be allies with Dominick, unwilling to be as stupid as he. Trudy pours more tea.

“Mr. Truesdale,” says Otsubo in English. Then he speaks through his translator.

“How are you finding the camps?” The translator is a young, slender man with spectacles. His accent is almost unnoticeable.

Will hesitates. How honest to be? “It’s livable but, unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the camp officers, there are often shortages of food and medicines and, as there are also women and children in the camp, we feel this need acutely.”

Otsubo listens and nods. He replies, “That is a shame. We will look into the matter.” The translator looks nervous.

The first dish is served. Chinese-style, it is a cold jellyfish appetizer. Will has learned from Trudy that a proper Chinese meal unfolds in a certain way. First, a cold appetizer like pig’s feet over jellyfish vermicelli; then a warm one, perhaps sesame-crusted shrimp, a shark’s fin or winter melon soup; a signature dish such as Peking duck, a meat-sweet-and-sour pork or braised beef with choi sam, a fish, a vegetable, finishing always with noodles or fried rice, depending on the region. Chinese don’t take to heavy desserts-enjoying a cold coconut-milk dish or, if especially peckish, apple dumplings fried in hot oil and then immediately crisped in ice water.

Otsubo takes the first portion, then spins the lazy Susan around to his men. Trudy pretends not to notice the slight. She serves Will and Dominick before taking her share, a minute serving of amber tentacles covered in mustard sauce.

After chewing laboriously, Otsubo speaks again.

“There are many illustrious people in the camps, are there not? Leaders of society and business?”

“I suppose there are. But we’re all reduced to the same circumstances now, really. Nobody has more than anyone else.”

“It must be curious for them to be in such a place. Quite difficult to come down so much in life.”

“I imagine it is.”

Trudy has been uncharacteristically quiet.

“Like poor Hugh,” she interjects finally. “I can’t believe that lovely man has to wash his own socks. I don’t think he’d ever made himself a ham sandwich before this.”

They eat the jellyfish. It is cold and rubbery.

Otsubo speaks again.

“And there is a man named Reggie Arbogast?” asks the translator. “A businessman? With ties to government?”

“Yes, Reggie is one of the interned.”

Otsubo looks at Will thoughtfully.

“Is he a friend of yours?” he asks through the translator.

“Friend is too strong a word. We are acquaintances but our mutual experience has made us more intimate, no doubt about it.”

“Have more drink.” The translator fills Will’s glass with whiskey.

“Thank you.” He raises his glass to Otsubo.

“Whiskey good.” The man speaks for himself, pronouncing whiskey “whysky.”

“Yes, very good.”

“Drink. Tonight you are free.”

“Not so bad.” Will holds the door open for Trudy. The evening air is crisp and clean after the smoky, warm room.

“Yes,” Trudy says. She seems happy, relieved the evening is over and her pass has not been revoked. “Better than expected.”

“He’s an interesting…”

A car stops in front of them, and a window rolls down. A pudgy hand emerges and waves Trudy in. She looks sick, then gives him a quick kiss and climbs into the car.

“I’ll see you later, darling,” she says. “Don’t wait up.”

Early in the morning, around three a.m., while he is sleeping restlessly, the door opens quietly and Trudy stealthily pads her way to the powder room. He turns on the bedside light, listens to the water running, and waits for her to come out from her ablutions. When she slides into bed, he sees the enormous yellow bruise starting to form around her left eye. Something about her demeanor warns him not to fuss.

“That’s quite a shiner you have there,” he says.

“He’s surprising, that one,” she says, and reaches to turn off the lamp, plunging them into gray, a wakeful twilight where they listen to each other’s breath.

After a few long minutes, just when he is about to drift into sleep despite himself, seduced by the utter luxury of the soft bedding and the now unfamiliar warmth of another, she murmurs, “You know, when I said surprising, I meant a surprising lover. You knew that, right? He’s not a bad man. Really.” At that moment, lying there with the moonlight glinting off her shiny hair and smooth, glossy skin, he thinks she looks like a scorpion.

He cannot let it go. He sits up. She looks at him, quizzical.

“Trudy.” He stops, to think how to say this. “I need you to know there is a limit.” He raises her chin toward him. “There is a limit to how sophisticated I can be.”

“Oh.”

“I’m not the person you want me to be. Not right now.”

“I should be careful. I should take care.” She says it penitently. “I’m sorry, darling. I’m drunk. Don’t let’s quarrel.”

“Yes.”

She sits up and turns on the light.

“Sleep is not something I can do right now. Should we talk? Should we try to become who we were before all this happened, just for a moment?”

“That’s impossible.” He brings her to him, her head nestled in his shoulder. She smells of cigarettes and liquor. He tells her so.

“I smell like a whore.” She moves closer to him. “I told you Frederick died but I didn’t tell you how.”

“No,” he agrees. “You didn’t.”

“Well, he was able to get back to Hong Kong. His whole regiment had been slaughtered, and since he was the head, or whatever his title was, they allowed him his life and let him walk back, escorted. They let him come back, but they made him carry…” Her voice falters. “They made him collect the ears of all of his fellow soldiers, and he had to put them in a little bag and carry it. They said his hands were soaked in blood and the bag was drenched. And the smell… I keep thinking about it, over and over, and how it must have smelled awful and how it must have been slippery and how he must have been so tired…

“And then, the hunger and the famine right after, before they could reestablish some of the markets. The rumors, the horrible, horrible rumors. Pets disappeared. Even…” A hiccup. “Even babies, they said.”

“Trudy, there’s no end to the misery if you keep thinking about it.”

“And that dinner I told you about, the one where the local swells were trying to get on with the new order, where my family friend who had married an Australian denounced the white races, you remember that one? The one Victor organized?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I didn’t tell you but at that dinner, we were all sitting, all trying to sit in our fancy clothes without feeling too hypocritical, without feeling like we were giving up too much of ourselves and hoping we could still look at ourselves in the mirror at the end of it all, and then at some point in the evening-there had been quite a lot of drinking-Dominick said something stupid. I don’t even remember what he said, but it was silly and clever, you know, like him.”

“I do know,” he says.