1943

THERE WAS A BABY.

There was a man with eleven fingers. Now ten. Now eleven again. The finger always grew back, taking one year, exactly. A good measure of time.

There were good men.

There were bad men.

There were dead men.

There was a woman, disappeared.

There was a baby.

Trudy, her slim figure enveloped in looser and looser tunics. Her face growing rounder, her skin mottled with the mask of pregnancy. When had he noticed? It came upon him, like so many revelations, when he was about to drift off to sleep, after another furloughed weekend. He jerked, realized: a baby. He could not sleep after that, turning on his thin mattress, restless and wild, his mind aflame.

She had not told him. He had not noticed. It had been so gradual.

His thoughts like an old woman’s. What sort of world is this to bring a child into. How was she going to have a baby during a war. And then the other thought, the one he pushed down, but kept surfacing into his consciousness.

Did those things even matter anymore at a time like this?

Then one day, another weekend, Trudy saying abruptly, “I always knew I’d be one of those women who grew enormous during pregnancy.” The first time she had acknowledged her condition. She said it gamely, over a breakfast of noodles and roast pork, shoveling the long noodles into her mouth like a street hawker, not caring what she looked like. If she had told him a few weeks earlier, before he had noticed himself, he would have been more generous, said it suited her, but he kept quiet. His small, petty revenge. But against what, whom? Not the woman. The war. The unfairness of it all.

And then it grew obvious, suddenly, in that way women look pregnant overnight. Her growth accelerated. She was still small, but her belly swelled and spilled out of whatever loose dress she was wearing. It looked like a tumor to him. He was ashamed he felt that way.

She never said anything else about it.

There was a man with eleven fingers.

Dominick. His face grown sharp with his newly acquired cunning, his body gone soft with indulgence. Trudy, saying, sotto voce, “Dominick has changed. He’s with that odious Victor Chen all the time. They’re trying to get my father to go in on some Macau company they’re setting up that’s doing a lot of trading with the Japanese. I don’t want my father involved in any of that-he’s not well-but Dommie won’t listen. He’s gone over to Victor’s side.” And in that statement, her profound disappointment. Her best friend, gone. A loneliness. Will was inside. Dominick was changed. Trudy didn’t have anyone anymore.

There were good men.

When Will went back to camp, after the first furlough, eager faces greeted him, hungry for news and hope. He distributed what he had brought back-the guards left him alone now, as news had spread that he had a connection outside-and went back to his room.

Johnnie Sandler appeared at the doorway.

“You prefer to be alone?”

“No, it’s all right.” He waved him in.

“So, how was your furlough? Lots of jealous people back here at home base, you know. The news spread like wildfire. You’re either a scoundrel or a hero. Lots of divided opinion.”

“Johnnie…” he started. He didn’t know where to begin.

“Anyone still out there that we know?”

“Yes, but… They say that two hundred Chinese die every day on the streets. Brutally. Anonymously. Half the hospitals are still closed.”

Johnnie studied his face.

“You look a bit shell-shocked. Is there anything else going on?”

“Too much, my friend. Too much.”

“Trudy doing all right out there?”

Will nodded.

“You don’t know her that well, do you?”

“Just from around,” Johnnie said. “As well as I knew you, I suppose.”

“And what did you think of her?”

Johnnie hesitated.

“That’s a rum thing to ask. She’s your girl.”

“No, really. I want to know.”

“I liked her. What I knew of her. There was always the noise about her, I know, but I’ve learned that most of that is just that-noise. She seems a good sort, just had a lot of attention on her all the time, and I thought that must be hard.”

“Very diplomatic,” Will said.

Johnnie grinned. “What do you expect, old man?”

“Why did you never find someone? I always saw you around with a few girls, never one, never for a long time.”

“Never found anyone who’d have me,” Johnnie said lightly. “Once they’d spent enough time with me, they’d be off like a rocket.”

They sat together for a while. Johnnie brought out some homemade cigarettes.

“The good stuff, rolled from native Stanley grass.” He offered one to Will.

Will shook his head.

“What am I thinking?” He produced two packs of Red Sun cigarettes from his bag under the bed. “I brought these back for you. Japanese, of course, but the real thing, nonetheless. I don’t know if your scruples will allow it.”

Johnnie laughed with delight.

“That’s very good of you, sir!”

They smoked for a while, enjoying the small pleasure of nicotine.

“There’s a few men in C Block who’ve rigged up another shortwave,” Johnnie said. “They haven’t gotten anything interesting, but they’re trying.”

“Trudy’s got in with a bad sort,” Will said.

Johnnie looked at him. “I’d figured as much.”

“She’s in over her head, although of course she doesn’t think so. She thinks she’s doing well, surviving, getting in with those she thinks will be helpful.”

“What does she need?”

“It’s not what she needs. They’re asking her for things. Asking her for things that could compromise others.”

“That is dangerous,” Johnnie said simply. “She should watch out, and you too.”

“Yes,” Will said. “We will.”

“It’s almost time for supper,” Johnnie said, standing up. “Our brilliant cooks have invented a new dish that is startlingly good. Banana peel fried in peanut oil. If you close your eyes, it tastes like mushrooms. I can’t get enough of it.”

“Sounds good,” Will said. He was glad to stop talking about Trudy.

There were bad men.

Victor Chen, embracing Reggie Arbogast, both in the Western dress, the blue tropical wool suit, red tie. He had thrown a cocktail party for select Stanley survivors after the release. Not the riffraff, of course, but the doctors and the barristers and the company heads. He commiserated with them about what the war had done to them and their countries and plied them with champagne.

And imagine this. Governor Mark Young returning from his Malaya arrest to the site of his humiliation and that of his country. The war is over. Every effort is made to glorify the triumphant return. An RAF Dakota, escorted by Beaufighters and Corsairs of 721 Squadron. A dramatic landing at Kai Tak. Motorcycle escort back to the Pen, and then the ceremony. Guns, uniforms, pomp. He shakes the hand of community leaders, is welcomed back with speeches. And see Victor Chen there, reading a speech of his own, about Hong Kong’s fortitude and greatness of spirit.

Otsubo, reading documents in the dark, a table lamp illuminating only a small circle on the desk. His lips moving as he reads, Trudy and Dominick sitting next to each other on a bench in the office. They do not talk or look at each other. They wait for his signal.

There were dead men.

Was it his imagination? The sound of a man screaming. Will sat up in bed and tried to listen. The sound of the sea came in through the open window, but he did not hear anything else. A child cried out in his sleep. A mother shushed, drowsy.

In the morning, passing by, he discovered Johnnie gone from his room. The room was ripped apart, although the man was fastidious. The mattress lay half off the bed, sheets hanging off.