Matthew nodded and sighed; in his mind, he cradled the bleeding man and wiped the blood from his wounds.
Ani spoke quietly, her voice a whisper, leading him through the story. When the man opened his eyes, she said, it was daylight. He crawled out of the canal and found himself in the centre of a vast padi field that had not yet been planted. In all his years of wandering, he had never come across a field like this; from east to west, from north to south, he knew, the land was jealously guarded. In the distance was a simple house, and the man began to walk in that direction, hoping to be granted work that would see him through the coming season. His knock at the door was answered by an old woman. When the man offered his labour, she asked if he would take one-fifth of the crop in lieu of payment, and the man joyfully accepted.
The man laboured in the padi fields, trying to remember all the skills he had learned. Month after month, he poured his knowledge into the field. The soil was rich and fertile, and the rains arrived and watered his crop. When it neared the time for harvest, he opened one pod but found it was empty. Each night he opened another, and each night he found it empty.
This was where Matthew began to drift to sleep, breathing in the dry muddy smell of the hut, Ani’s calm, low voice blanketing him. The afternoon rainfall began to ease. He thought he lived inside a cupboard, then, some place warm and safe that housed only he and Ani.
“Every day, the old woman asked him, ‘When shall we harvest?’ And he said, ‘Tomorrow.’ The man was so ashamed that he decided he had to run away.
“On the day he was to leave, he decided to look one last time. When he opened a pod, he saw that it was filled with gold. He opened another and another, and each pod spilled tiny pieces of gold into his open hand.”
The first time he stepped onto an airplane, it was 1953. He was eighteen years old and he was heartbroken. From the air, he had gazed down at Sandakan, the tidy rooftops, the vast plantations and, surrounding everything, jungle. In the years after the war, people in North Borneo had grieved their dead, laying stones and burning incense, tending the graves of their loved ones. But a collaborator is someone forever apart. His father had no grave in Sandakan, and his spirit floated untended, unmourned, except in Matthew’s thoughts, and in those of his mother. As the airplane rose higher, the thread that connected Matthew to the town grew taut, stretching, until it finally gave way. When the plane turned towards Australia, he looked down and saw the island of Borneo, so grand and beautiful in his imagination, diminish to a speck on the wide sea.
That memory merges into another, of his daughter, standing in the departure lounge of the Vancouver airport. He watches as his daughter embraces his wife. They are at ease with one another, they have always been, their attachment visible for all to see. She is twenty-four years old, full of hopes, expectations, on her way to study in Europe. This is her first journey away from them.
The fluorescent lights press against his eyes. He is brought back by his daughter’s touch. She has turned towards him, and in Matthew’s arms now she is slender and fragile. She has Clara’s face, open and generous, always perceptive. The airport, brightly lit, full of noise and chaos, falls away from them. For a moment, he is a child again, sitting on his father’s shoulders, far above the ground. This is a time before the war, the leaves in the rubber plantation are a canopy high above them, and he listens to the sound of his father’s footsteps. But the lamps go out and he is alone in the trees. The question haunts him still: To what lengths would he go to keep his child safe? How much of himself would he sacrifice? When she was young, Gail had followed him everywhere. All these years, he has tried to understand how their relationship changed. He has failed her in some way, he thinks, closed himself off in order to protect her, to protect them both. Whenever she asked about his childhood, about her grandparents and the life he lived in East Malaysia, he smiled, looked away, or brushed her questions aside. In this new country, he told himself, there would be no need to reach back into the past for consolation. He has long accepted that some questions will find no meaningful answers, some stories cannot bear repeating.
Don’t leave, he wants to say, holding her. How can I help you to understand?
Instead, he keeps his peace. And his daughter, so full of life, so young, kisses him gently on the cheek. Then she turns and walks away, disappearing through the gate.
Inside the hut, the absence of noise wakes him. Matthew sits up, cross-legged, waiting patiently to get his bearings. Outside, the rain has stopped, and the doorway is edged in faint light. Ani is still asleep, her mouth slightly open. A jade pendant, once worn by her mother, lies beside her on a square of cloth.
He touches her shoulder to say goodbye. One of her hands clutches the fabric of her sarong. She does not stir.
Outside the hut, he sees the last of the sunset, a sliver of turquoise light against the curve of the hill. He follows the road, where the thin trunks of the rubber trees leave a shadow, barely perceptible. At the side of the track, almost hidden by the grass, he notices a bicycle wheel lying abandoned and he goes to examine it. Lifting the wheel in his hands, he remembers a game of main lering played on Jalan Campbell on a hot, dusty day, how the rains started and the wheel was forgotten. Someone found fruit on the ground, a fresh coconut, and the children broke the shell open and shared the liquid between them.
There were other games, too. Congkak, played on a wooden board pitted with eight holes. Its bottom curved like a boat, one end rising up in the shape of a magical bird. To play, they’d used shells, seeds or stones, whatever was at hand. The loser would have to place the congkak board on his head and walk up the road and back again, the other children laughing alongside him.
Matthew finds a branch at the side of the road and sets the wheel upright, then pauses, listening. It is a busy time of evening, yet the road is empty. Where are the trucks, the labourers returning from the plantations, people hurrying home before curfew?
He puts the wheel in motion, using the branch to keep it steady. As he quickens his pace, the sky changes to red, to purple. The colours appear so solid, he feels that he could reach up and pull the sky down, settle it over him like a vast curtain.
Eventually he comes to a place where the trees part, and he has a clear view down to the harbour. Below, smoke is rising from the Japanese administration buildings, the wind carrying it towards the water, where it hangs, suspended, in the twilight. There is a bonfire, soldiers gathered around. Fragments, pieces of paper, float in the air above them.
Even after the heavy rain, the road is dusty once more. He continues walking, and the bicycle wheel rolls quietly beside him.
The hut comes into sight, his father standing in the doorway. Matthew is suddenly aware of the dust on his skin, the layer of dirt on his clothes. He hesitates, not wanting to disturb his father’s thoughts, not wanting to be seen, and the wheel, steadied by his hand, glides to a standstill beside him.
His father is looking in the other direction, down the road. Then he turns, sees Matthew, and motions him forward with his hand. “Come, Matthew,” he says. “There is something I need you to do.”
Matthew lays the bicycle wheel against the side of the hut, then follows his father inside. His mother is nowhere to be seen; she must still be visiting her brother on the far side of the plantation. His father pushes the cabinet aside and brings out the radio, but he doesn’t switch it on. Instead, while Matthew watches, his father kneels down again. When he straightens, he is holding a large glass jar filled with coins and bills.