A Different Sky (35 page)

In the afternoon Wilfred unexpectedly returned to Belvedere with Cynthia, who was still in her nurse's uniform. They drove up in a St John's ambulance and looked askance at the flag hanging from the portico.

‘I have to get ready for internment. The British community have been ordered to collect upon the Padang by ten o'clock tomorrow morning, and from there to march to Changi,' Wilfred announced as they entered Belvedere, and Rose and Mavis hurried towards them.

‘Internment?' Rose halted in alarm.

‘At the moment it's the Chinese and Europeans they're interested in, but Eurasians may also be called for screening later,' Cynthia said grimly, pulling off her nurse's cap and freeing her hair. ‘We've come home to pack Wilfred's internment kit. I managed to get off work until tomorrow. Woodbridge Hospital is chaos, morphine had run out and some minor operations are being done even without anaesthetic.'

‘We have to bring clothes for ten days, but they say food will be provided.' Wilfred assumed a brisk manner that Rose now understood often covered disaster.

‘Come and see my kit,' Wilfred invited Rose later, showing her a leather suitcase open upon the bed.

‘Iodine, Dettol, Andrews Liver Salts, Elastoplast, soap, two pairs of shorts, three cotton shirts, a jacket, two pairs of socks, extra shoes . . .' Wilfred went through a lengthy list while Rose and Cynthia stood looking into the case, trying to think of further useful things to add.

‘Scissors,' Cynthia remembered.

‘A torch and some aspirin,' Rose suggested and hurried out to find these things, filled with a weight of dread. With his ambulance duties Wilfred had always managed to be near the hospital and Cynthia, and this had kept her worry at bay. Nothing seemed real.

‘We will be in good company at Changi. The Governor and other assorted bigwigs are being interned as well.' Wilfred sounded almost jocular as he packed the scissors and the torch. Rose hurried away again in the direction of the kitchen building, and returned with two small parcels.

‘Here's some bread, tinned cheese, pickled onions and some rum fruitcake.' Rose held out the packages, blinking back tears.

‘Very soon the taste of rum might be much appreciated,' Wilfred predicted. Cynthia sat down suddenly on the bed and burst into tears.

They saw their first Japanese the next day, soon after Wilfred and Cynthia's departure. A group of four soldiers walked up the hill and turned into the driveway of Belvedere. They stood looking up at the elegant balconies and then put their heads around the door. Rose decided to treat the soldiers as she would a new lodger, pleasantly polite but from the first letting them know who was in charge.

‘Can I help you?' she said, wishing Howard were home and not out again inspecting the lie of the land.

The men turned to stare at her and then burst out laughing, revealing large, nicotine-stained teeth and conferring together incomprehensibly; Rose prepared herself for the worst. The men were darkly weathered from weeks of fighting their way through the jungle under fierce sun and monsoon rain, and their uniforms were in tatters. They were smaller than Rose had imagined. It was then that she noticed their bayonets and that they wore strange canvas shoes that split the big toe apart from the foot, like the cloven hoof of an animal.

Ignoring Rose, the soldiers turned towards the stairs, stopping to observe the dining room stretching away in a sea of red tiles. Rose waited, listening to the pad of feet on the floor above and the knock of bayonets on the skirting board. There was a constant banging of doors as they opened and inspected each room. Shouts echoed along the corridor, and Rose could not tell if the harsh guttural voices spoke positively or negatively about Belvedere.

Eventually, they reappeared and made their way down to Rose. She noticed now that their weapons were almost as tall as the soldiers themselves; the gleam of the sun from the upstairs window fell on the thin blades of the bayonets. One of the soldiers nodded to her as he passed, before running off across the dining room and out of the open patio doors to the kitchen building. The other soldiers went through the front door and disappeared around the side of the house. Within a few minutes they all reassembled on the gravel driveway, and without a backward glance left as they had come.

The following day they were visited by a Japanese soldier of higher
rank. Rose knew he was an officer because he wore a sword. He was a thin man with skin that gleamed like oiled paper stretched tautly over his face. A wide jaw above a reed-like neck made his head appear too large, but his bulging eyes were not unkind and his manner was civil.

‘I Captain Tanamura,' he introduced himself in English. Several soldiers accompanied him, all anxious to show him deference.

Captain Tanamura stood looking with interest about Belvedere, almost courtly in his attitude and his few words of English. Rose felt bound to offer some tea, and he accepted agreeably. She showed him to the alcove with the chintz sofa where Mavis was waiting to be introduced. He had some difficulty manoeuvring his sword as he lowered himself on to an upright chair, and it pushed up awkwardly at his waist. Military aides stood to attention behind him. Hamzah served tea, the cups rattling slightly on the saucers in his nervous hands. The officer sipped the tea with a loud slurping that Rose took as a sign of appreciation. At last, placing his cup on the table, he leaned forward over his sword.

‘You. Leave house.' He spoke suddenly in a forceful manner that reminded Rose that their meeting was not a social occasion.

‘We have been told it is safer for us to stay at home until things settle down,' Rose reassured him, thinking he was enquiring if she had been out, but the officer frowned.

‘You. Leave house,' he repeated in a louder voice. One of the young soldiers standing behind him stepped forward and spoke in fluent English.

‘Captain Tanamura wishes you to vacate this house. It is needed as an officers' army billet. You have very nice house, it will be useful to the Japanese Imperial Army.'

Rose recoiled in shock. Beside her Mavis gave a small cry that caused Captain Tanamura to frown even harder. He said a few stern words in Japanese to the young interpreter.

‘Captain Tanamura is giving you two days to vacate your house. Two days is very generous time. Everything must be left as it is, no food or linen or anything else is to be taken away. You may take only your clothes and personal items. By 5.30 day after tomorrow we will move in. You will not be expected to be here.'

As the young soldier finished this speech, Captain Tanamura gave
a nod of approval. He rose from the chair and walked back to the door followed by his aides, his sword trailing the ground behind him. Soon there was the sound of car doors shutting, engines starting and a crunch of gravel beneath car wheels as they drove away.

Within a short time of the soldiers' departure Howard returned from a further reconnaissance and was told the news.

‘I should have been here,' he said, distressed that his mother and Mavis had had to face rough soldiers alone for the second time.

‘Better you weren't. They say they're taking young men for slave labour,' Rose answered, feeling sick at the thought.

Howard said nothing, not wanting to admit to his mother the things he had seen on his outing. It was not young men so much as young women who were at risk. He had seen a girl of no more than twelve or thirteen dragged from her home into the bushes to be raped by three soldiers, while her parents sat helpless within the house, held prisoner by a fourth man waiting his turn with the girl. The men had left, laughing. The child's screams still echoed in his ears; he knew he would hear them for ever. Trembling with horror and revulsion he had run off, shocked by his inability to do anything.

At the corner of Prinsip Street he had bought three small sweet potatoes for Rose from an old woman hawking a basket of the vegetable, and watched a group of emaciated British POWs go about the business of clearing the city of corpses. They pulled a rotting body from a pile of rubble and threw it into a handcart on top of other corpses. Japanese sentries stood everywhere, stopping people and questioning them. Then, rounding a corner, he found himself facing three decapitated heads stuck upon spikes by the roadside. The heads were so fresh they did not look properly dead; blood still oozed, congealing about their necks. The eyes of one were open and stared straight at Howard. A cigarette stub had been thrust between the blackened lips of another. Howard began to run and did not stop until he was in the vicinity of Belvedere. It was impossible to tell his mother any of these things or that the Radio Delhi news he heard each night on his short wave radio was only of Japanese victories and British retreat.

‘What are we to do? Where are we to go?' Rose moaned softly, giving in to despair.

‘We could go to Cousin Lionel,' Mavis suggested, getting up and pacing about to clarify her thoughts.

‘I have not kept in touch with him,' Rose replied, her heart sinking, imagining the indignities that might now await her; Cousin Lionel lived in Katong in a disintegrating house on a coconut estate.

As she assessed the future, there was a knock at the entrance. Howard opened the door, peering into the dark garden. A figure stepped abruptly out of the bushes and Howard drew back in trepidation. In the porch light he saw a filthy face with a head of short matted hair and the androgynous loose clothes of a Chinese servant. He started when the woman spoke and he heard Mei Lan's voice.

‘It's dangerous for women to go out. Ah Siew would not let me come until she had made me look as ugly as possible,' Mei Lan apologised, glancing nervously about her. Howard was silent with shock, his heart leaping beneath his ribs.

‘Come in quickly,' he said at last. As she slid past him he caught the scent of her again and recalled the smooth skin of her cheek beneath his lips, the taste of her mouth. Mei Lan gave him a hesitant smile, trying to conceal her agitation at the sight of him and the turmoil of feelings that had brought her so desperately to his door.

The agony of waiting had overwhelmed them at Bougainvillaea House. Neither Bertie, the slave girls or JJ had returned, and there was no news to be had of Lim Hock An. Second Grandmother was half out of her mind. Mei Lan had suddenly remembered Cynthia telling her that Howard had an Indian friend who supplied Japanese ships and knew many Japanese people. The thought that such a man might have the power to help them would not leave her, however tenuous the hope. Ah Siew had insisted on rubbing boot polish into her hair and smearing mud over Mei Lan's face and blouse. Although it was only a short distance along Bukit Timah and up the slope to Belvedere, Mei Lan had kept to the shadows, stooping as if she were an old woman.

Rose looked from Howard to Mei Lan in irritation. Beneath the dirt she now recognised the headstrong girl from Bougainvillaea House who had led Howard astray. Her annoyance was so great that at first she did not listen to Mei Lan's story, or wonder why she had appeared at Belvedere in such a filthy disguise. Within a few moments the girl's words began to filter through, and Rose listened to her distressing story. After the visit of the military men to Belvedere, Rose was newly sensitive to all issues concerning the Japanese. The day had been spent
in the heartbreaking business of packing for the move to Cousin Lionel. What to take, and what could not be taken had involved them all. The thought that Belvedere's beds would now be filled by rough Japanese soldiers, sleeping on Belvedere linen and eating off Belvedere plates, was more than Rose could digest. She felt too ill now to protest about the unexpected arrival of Mei Lan. Imagining the three frightened women – the young girl, the old grandmother and the ancient servant – she felt her resistance dissolve.

‘You'd better sit down,' she told the girl, gesturing towards the alcove beyond the dining room where they usually sat in the evening. She called to Ah Fong to bring a lime cordial.

‘I have only met the Indian a few times, at political meetings. He has a shop in Serangoon Road,' Howard explained and, seeing the disappointment in Mei Lan's face, knew he would explore any risky and unlikely hope in order to see her again.

In Serangoon Road the street lamps were either destroyed or without gas and Manikam's Cloth Shop was in deep shadow. At first Raj did not recognise Howard in the darkness; he had just returned from the Toyo Hotel where Mr Shinozaki was still staying at the invitation of Colonel Yokota of Defence Headquarters. It was a shock when two people stepped out of the gloom before him; nowadays, everyone waited to be apprehended and, like everywhere else, Serangoon Road was deserted, shops boarded up against looting. No one could do business without a licence from the military, and these licences had yet to be distributed. Raj opened up the shop, lit an oil lamp and invited Howard inside. A Chinese woman of servant class followed. Raj was annoyed that Howard did not tell her to wait outside.

‘It is for her we have come,' Howard smiled as he sat down and began to explain about Mei Lan's situation. ‘You know Mr Shinozaki, perhaps he can help her,' Howard urged.

Raj nodded politely, but did not want to hear of any new trouble the occupation was causing. He knew exactly the situation Mei Lan described. He had been running about all day on rescue errands of this nature for Shinozaki. Each night when the diplomat returned to the Toyo Hotel a queue of desperate people was waiting for him. Shinozaki's reputation as the man to contact to liaise with the Japanese military was now firmly established.

‘There is nothing I can do tonight.' Raj rubbed his brow with the back of his hand and yawned. All he wanted to do was sleep.

‘My brothers have done nothing to deserve arrest, and Grandfather is old and sick. He may not survive,' Mei Lan protested, trying to keep her voice steady. Raj sighed deeply and stood up.

‘I do not know why I am doing this,' he said, picking up his keys. ‘Mr Shinozaki is probably still at dinner with Colonel Yokota at the Toyo Hotel. He will not be pleased to see us at this hour. Find a rickshaw if you can while I lock up the shop,' Raj told Howard.