“And I didn’t abandon Trudy, not totally. Otsubo stopped signing the furloughs when he realized I wasn’t giving him anything. But there was never one time, or one big reason, that I couldn’t get out. I had a year of furloughs. Trudy would have got me out if I had wanted. That’s one of my deepest regrets. That it just kind of… fizzled. She deserved better than that. And I don’t know, really, what happened to her. I don’t know. I suppose I could find out. There are only too many people who would be delighted to tell me all about it. Including Victor.”
“But what could you have done?”
“Anything but what I did,” he said. “Anything but the nonsense I did in camp: form committees, campaign for hot water or more sheets!” His voice rose, grew violent. “I was a coward, a coward. And didn’t do anything to help her. The woman I loved. I did nothing. Hid behind what I pretended was honor.”
“Did Trudy ever…” Claire couldn’t finish the question.
“She never said anything. She never reproached me or challenged me. She was always who she said she was. She never pretended to be anything else. That was the beauty of her.”
He straightened his back.
“She behaved as if she believed me when I said I couldn’t help her. But she was so clever-she saw the real situation. But she didn’t say anything; she forgave me.”
He stood up, walked over to a tree, and absently snapped off a leaf. He split it in half, then half again, then scattered the pieces on the ground.
“ Hong Kong is always so damn green,” he said. “Don’t you wish for some absence of color sometimes? Some English gray, a little fog?”
Claire nodded. He was unraveling, slowly, and she wanted to give him some room.
He continued. “Sometimes, I hate her for that. That she didn’t call me out on it. That she let me be a coward. It was cruel, in the end.”
Trudy would despise a man who wept, he knew.
“I have this image,” he said slowly. “This image of Trudy running around outside, frantic, like a chicken with its head cut off, not knowing what to do, not having a center, just desperate. I feel like she was desperate. But she didn’t come to me for help. Not after the first time. When I said no, she never asked again.”
Claire reached for his hand, resting on top of his cane. He didn’t yield and she settled for placing her hand on top of his.
“And she wouldn’t have had anyone to confide in. She was totally alone. And I made her that way.”
The air was damp still with the ever-present Hong Kong humidity. A drop of perspiration slowly wended its way down Claire’s back.
She willed him to look at her, to acknowledge she was there, a part of this, but he stared out at the harbor, his eyes blank. Slowly, she realized: His new lightness was not just relief at the passing of his burden. There was emptiness there too.
HE SEES TRUDY, waving on the steps of the Toa, as he gets in the car that will drive him back to Stanley. She has a wistful look on her face, her amber hair lit from behind, the setting sun sinking into the Hong Kong horizon. Pregnant Madonna. She blows him a kiss, suddenly winks. He hates how she does that-always turns a serious moment into a joke. But this is how she lives, how she survives. This is the animal she is. She had never told him anything different. She had warned him.
Arbogast broke, she had told him during this furlough, and he had nodded. “Yes, I saw him afterward,” he said.
“But you know,” she said, her voice slightly panicked, “it wasn’t the correct information. Otsubo is furious. But there was evidence that it was there. An old storage building in Mong Kok. Someone else got to it first.”
“How did Otsubo know that Arbogast might know where it was?” he asked.
She hesitated.
“I think, Victor,” she said finally. “Although I have nothing to back that up. He has his finger in every pie, that man.”
“Be careful,” he said.
“I know.” She nodded. “Otsubo’s tired of me now, anyway. I think we’ve run our course.”
“What does that mean for you?” he asked, careful to mask his relief.
She laughed.
“Oh, nothing good, I’m afraid. Just means I’m under his thumb just as much as always but I no longer have the means to coddle him out of his bad moods.”
“Do you want to come into camp now?”
“Again, with the camp! You cannot cage this bird, my love. I’ve grown used to dark, dangerous freedom and all its attendant humiliations.”
“But you could…”
“I am in the process of lining up another… sponsor,” she said slowly. “Or one is being lined up for me. So don’t you worry.”
Tears sprang to his eyes, hot, unexpected. He felt as if he might die if she saw them.
“I should go,” he said.
“Yes.”
He turned to go. She caught his arm, studied his face.
“Every time I say good-bye to you, I wonder if it’s au revoir or adieu. You know what I mean?”
He nodded.
“You’ve too much power over me,” she said lightly. “I have to pretend like it doesn’t matter, like you don’t matter. How did that happen?”
He looks at her, his love, her face ruddy with pregnancy, birdlike ankles swollen, this woman, a survivor, six months pregnant with an unwanted child, and finds he cannot forgive her this last transgression. It is easier to brand her a villain and go back to camp, play the victim, lick his wounds. This is what he does. There is no glory in it, but there is survival. And he realizes that is what they are playing at now.
May 27, 1953
EDWINA STORCH had told her everything, sure that she would pass on the information to Will.
Edwina’s voice in her head, the old woman pouring tea in the dark club.
“Trudy redoubled her efforts to be indispensable to Otsubo. She knew what kind of asset she had in him. I knew Otsubo because he had been of some help to me in getting my pass, and I kept in touch and tried to help him in whatever small matters I might be of assistance.” She had peered at Claire over her spectacles. “You understand, I was not collaborating with the enemy. I thought I would be of better use to England and everyone if I kept abreast of the situation, and there was no reason to alienate the man.” She took off her glasses and rubbed them again.
“And when Trudy started to prove herself really indispensable to Otsubo-you know, the girl knew everything about Hong Kong and all the skeletons in the closet-her cousin, Dominick, who I never liked, started to get jealous. It was as if they were both vying for his favor, and there was only room for one. Dominick was a terrible person. I don’t know if you know anything about him but he was just awful. A sadistic, small man who always felt that life owed him everything. They were both Otsubo’s flunkies and ran around getting him meetings with Chinese leaders and keeping him informed about everything that went on in the Chinese community, and even in the small European community that was still outside. Dominick made some money buying and selling necessities. He would buy it cheap through his sources and charge exorbitant rates to the local market. Very distasteful. He’d also try to get information on who was helping whom and report back to Otsubo. Needless to say, this made him less than popular with their old crowd, but he was certainly the best fed. Dominick was more out in the open about it than Trudy. People stopped talking to him.”
Claire interrupted.
“Did you have to do any work? How did you survive?”
Edwina pursed her lips.
“I’ve always preferred not to dwell on the unpleasantness of the past.”
Claire almost laughed aloud, but saw that Edwina Storch was unaware of the enormous irony of what she was saying.