May 20, 1953

THE SHARKS WERE BACK. They had been sighted off Stanley Beach and Shek O as well. A local man had been dipping his hands in the water while on a diving platform in South Bay, and had a finger nipped off. He had sat in blind panic waving his hand about while screaming until a woman on the beach had heard his cries and they sent a boat out to get him.

Claire and Will liked to bathe at Shek O but they could only go in the early morning or in the late afternoon during the week, when it was unlikely that anyone they knew would see them. On this day, they drove in silence to Will’s flat and picked up some bathing clothes, drove to the beach, and parked the car. They were in luck. The beach was empty.

The sand in Hong Kong was gritty. Will had told her of beaches in India where the sand was like sifted flour, so fine you could almost inhale it. But at Shek O, when the tide went out, there were tidal pools filled with hermit crabs, and in the past they had caught them and Claire had brought them back home and put them in a bowl with seawater until they had started to smell fetid.

“You are a mermaid,” Will said, finally breaking the silence. He was sitting on the straw blanket they had unfurled on the beach, watching her as she undressed.

She still got tongue-tied around him, unable to respond to his teasing. She folded her clothes and put them in her basket. He stood up.

“Let’s swim to the dock,” she said, then remembered. “Do you think there are sharks around?”

“The unfortunate man from last week would say it is a certainty,” he said, getting up.

“Should we bathe, then? I’ve been longing to all day.”

“How adventurous are you feeling?” he asked. They were both facing the water, she slightly behind him.

“Never very, but it’s so hot.” She put her hands flat on his back. He had taken off his shirt and his back was already slick with perspiration. “Do you ever get used to it? The heat?”

“No, you just live in it.” He reached behind and took her hands off his back. He did things like that a lot, gestures that felt like rebukes, ways to keep a distance between them. She pretended not to notice and moved away, walked into the water up to her knees.

“And the water’s never cold here either, is it?”she called back to him. “More like a bath.”

“Yes, Claire,” he said. “Hong Kong is not England.”

She looked toward the horizon. This day had had a jerky quality-things happening that were out of control, that she didn’t know how to react to or how to feel about.

“Why so rude?” she said, but he didn’t hear her, or pretended not to.

He plunged into the water.

“Last one there loses.”

“Wait,” she called. “I don’t…” But he was already in the waves, swimming a fast crawl toward the diving platform. She hesitated but, watching him grow smaller and smaller, knew she would have to follow.

“Damn you, Will Truesdale,” she said.

The water had two levels-the warm layer above, heated by the sun, and, somewhere below waist level, the frigid water of the deep. She tried to swim in the warm part, frightened by the cold, but her legs sometimes sank into it.

She did a leisurely breaststroke and tried not to think of sharks. Ahead of her Will pulled up onto the diving platform. His body glistened in the sun. His was an older body, but still lean. He evoked desire in her, so strange when her body was surrounded by water. She swam on, pushing away the panic, the desire.

By the time she got to the platform, she was furious.

“I told you I didn’t want to swim out here.”

“You didn’t.”

“Only because you were so far out already you couldn’t hear me.” She sat away from him, on the bobbing disk. “You gave me no choice.”

“Don’t be angry, kitten.”

She didn’t answer, just twisted her hair into a ponytail and squeezed the water out. The drops puddled onto the wood and disappeared into a large dark stain.

“Do you remember the first time we were on a platform?” He was trying to make amends. “Doesn’t it seem so long ago?”

On the beach, a local couple appeared, set up a blanket and an umbrella.

“It does, yes,” she allowed. Then, “You should know I can go. You could lose me.”

He nodded, understanding, capitulating for the moment.

“You don’t need me anymore, Claire, if you ever did.”

“Yes,” she said.

They sat together peaceably now, the pressure let out. The weather was perfect, the sun slowly sinking toward the horizon, a cool breeze coming off the water.

“Will,” she said. “What is going on?”

When he didn’t answer, she said, “You know what I’m talking about. Everyone is behaving in such a queer manner, and you’re at the heart of it.”

He lay down and shut his eyes.

“You know, the most absurd things happened during the war,” he said. “Do you know that while we were interned, the Japanese administration presented us with a bill for accommodation and food? Can you imagine? And we couldn’t very well throw it back in their face, so we had to tell them we would write promissory notes that would be honored by our government when everything had been worked out. They wanted us to pay for the rotten vegetables and cup of rice we got every week.”

“But now?”she asked.

“I’m getting there,” he said with an edge to his voice. “Just listen.”

He began again.

“And so we danced with them, our captors, although it was always a fine line between being good and being proud. We always hoped. There were small things like growing the vegetables in the garden inaVso that when it sprouted up, it would be a nice surprise and an encouragement. Childish, you know. One never gets used to being a prisoner, although we got used to our daily routine.

“And people were petty, of course. And others were unbelievably kind and generous. You had all sorts of behavior. The Japs too. There were good ones and bad ones.”

“There was a woman,” Claire said. “Trudy.”

“Yes, Trudy.” He stopped. “Trudy. I think you would have liked her.”

“We are different,” Claire said. She didn’t know why, as she said it, she felt that she was being kind to Will.

Will snorted. “Yes, you are. That’s an understatement. But you would have liked her, I know.”

“You were with her.”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

“And…”

“No longer. She’s gone,” he said.

“How? ”

“I failed her,” he said. “She wanted me to come out and live on the outside with her. She was on the outside because she wasn’t British. She got me a pass. But I refused.”

“You didn’t want to leave the people inside the camp?”Claire asked.

“Yes,” he said. “That was part of it. I was helpful inside the camp and could get things done. Certainly no one wanted me to leave. But-” He stopped.

“Yes?”Claire prompted.

“But I think I was afraid too,” he said softly. “If I went outside, it was a whole new world and I’d have to learn the new rules. I would have to start as a beginner, disadvantaged, get my bearings all over again.

“I was tired,” he said simply. “And I didn’t want more change. It was hard in the camp but if you obeyed the rules, you weren’t bothered. Outside it was chaos. Trudy had things snatched from her hands as she walked down the street. Once it was food and the boy crammed some bread in his mouth as he ran. He was starving and couldn’t run properly. He had no shoes and no shirt. I think all he had was the trousers he had on. There was starvation and desperation and misery. She told me about it. There was no filter. It was real.”

He looked at Claire.

“And she died,” Claire said, almost without knowing it.

“Yes, she died.”

“How?”

“Some would say by the hand of her benefactor,” he said. “A man who gave her many things, and took them away when he wanted. If I had been outside with her, he would have controlled me too.”