The Black Isle (22 page)

“Mrs. Odell, is everything all right?” I glanced at the untouched place setting across from her. “Isn’t Mr. Odell joining you?”

The maître d’ cleared his throat to remind us of his presence. Fluidly Mrs. Odell raised one frail arm. I was sure she was telling him to leave so we could speak in private.

Instead, her face creased with anguish. “Make her go away.”

“Mrs. Odell…” I was choking up. “You misunderstand me, ma’am. Mr. Odell—he told me to find you here.”

“Remove her now, please!”

Hands dragged me out of the chamber. Mrs. Odell stared at me from her perch with a look that wasn’t unsympathetic—merely exhausted. She tugged at her pearls.

And then I was out in the pouring rain, the back exit closing behind me. I banged my fists against the inhospitable barrier and shouted an oath through it, hoping it was loud enough to jolt the gilded tea drinkers. To my surprise, the door immediately flew open. The maître d’ stood safely within its mouth, where neither rainwater nor I could touch him.

“I really shouldn’t have let you in.” His tone was gentle. “But I was curious to see if you could draw her out. You clearly did.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

He winced, the first genuinely human expression to trouble his face. “They were my best customers. The most loyal, the most generous. Then, about fourteen years ago, on the ship to Shanghai, Mr. Odell contracted meningitis. Nothing could be done—he died. After that, Mrs. Odell lost her life, too, in a way. Her mind followed him out to sea. She clings to this tea date like it’s the most sacred thing, and has been coming here alone now for close to fourteen years. They let her take the taxi from Woodbridge hospital once a month. After the first couple of years, she stopped needing a chaperone. She never strays.” He bowed his head. “I don’t know who you are or how you knew to find her here…Anyway, I apologize.”

The door closed once more and did not open again.

I circled the city on the No. 3 tram, wet as a rag, bedraggled inside and out. With the silk dress clinging to my skin, I must have looked like a wrinkled red blister. Riders rushed on, filtered out, rushed on, filtered out. The sun retreated behind shops and hotels as the gas lamps flared on. After three complete loops, the elderly conductor begged me to go home. “The other passengers find you a bit unsettling.”

I gave everyone a defiant stare as I stepped off at Wonder World.

Why there, of all places? I suppose I was lonely for a familiar face from the past, even if that face happened to be my father’s.

There was certainly nothing consoling about Wonder World otherwise. In the three years since our return, it had allowed itself to become run-down and seedy through greed and overuse. The whole city, it seemed, had come hurtling through its crimson gateway demanding amusement. Rents had shot up and the old harmless game stalls surrendered to more profitable ventures: bars, lounges, exotic shows. The attractions had become very colorful, too florid, in fact, for my taste. Walking along, I saw Australian servicemen tumbling out of doorways clutching free beer in one hand and Thai prostitutes in the other. Nearby Filipino midgets played Cuban cha-cha on xylophones, dressed in nothing but silk pantaloons. The Westerners, of course, lapped all this up. Jean Cocteau, I later read, was a repeat visitor, praising its commingling of “the black, the white, the yellow, and the tawny” as only a French artist who saw all things in chroma could have put it. Had I been a large and hairy man, I, too, might have seen the fun in this unwholesome parade, but being what I was, a young Chinese female in a low-cut dress, I could have been mistaken for an extra in this Dionysian spectacle—cast in the role of vulnerable meat.

I was keenly aware I was the only unsmiling customer. The only one, that is, until I spotted my mirror—my brother—grim as ever. This was Li’s day off and he’d chosen to spend it here, squatting by a tin barrel, diluting Father’s “bird’s nest” syrup with tepid water direct from a communal tap. It filled me with anger and pity that he’d rather sacrifice himself to duty than improve, or at least enjoy, himself. Where was the spirited, restless boy I’d once known and loved?

“Don’t you judge me,” he said. His insolence only brought more attention to the purple swelling over his left eye, a bruise that was causing his eyelid to droop. “Since you refuse to help, you have no right to judge.”

“I haven’t said a word.”

“I can tell what you’re thinking. You think I’m wasting my life because I’m not following my dream. Well, I have news for you.” He looked up long enough to sneer, “I have no dream.”

He had every reason to be cross with me—I hadn’t seen him since abandoning him at the Troika—yet it was clear his resentment ran deeper than that. He had allowed the cold Confucian obligations of the old country to chase him into the warm waters of the Nanyang: Children were to stand by their father, no matter what.

I teased out a wad of bills from my purse, enough to cover the Troika incident.

“Keep your filthy money.” He shut the tap off and began heaving the barrel back toward Father’s stall. I followed close behind.

“Do you need a hand?”

“They called the police. Did you know that?”

“Who called the police? When?”

“That
bloody
restaurant, who do you think? They threw me in jail for two days until Father came up with the money. But, of course, you wouldn’t know. Nor would you care. I hope this answers your question about why I don’t hate him. He’s the
only
person who gives a
damn
about me.” He dumped the barrel down on the pathway with a grunt and rolled it edgewise to the back of Father’s stall. “It’s him you should be giving your filthy money to, not me.”

Father was ladling out cups of bird’s nest to a Burmese couple and hadn’t even noticed my arrival—or at least, he acted as if he hadn’t. Li stalked off into the crowd, leaving me stranded by Father’s side. I waited for the customers to leave, then brought the money to his hand. His fingers closed around the cash without a word.

“Your brother’s very bitter,” he finally spoke. “He tried to join the civil service as a clerk, but they refused to take him. Didn’t matter that his written and spoken English are both good. He’s not European, not even Eurasian.
Not even Eurasian
, they said.” He shook his head. “I worry for him. This bitterness is landing him in trouble. Last week, he picked a fight with an Australian sailor at one of those new bars on the other side.” He pointed to the far end of Wonder World, now chockablock with drinking holes. “If you hear of any good office job, please tell him. I don’t want him to be a servant boy much longer—my son deserves better than that.”

“He’s not going to want any help from me.”

“Surely Ignatius Wee has a friend who will hire him? Why don’t you find out?”

“It’s not that easy. I can’t just ask my boss like that.”

“Li is your only brother.”

Li stormed back to the stall at this moment, carrying a big block of ice in a burlap sack. He flung the thing on the floor at the back of the stall and began attacking it with a wooden mallet. He was allowing me no opportunity to apologize or explain myself. I waved him a neutral good-bye and prepared to leave.

“We men have the odds stacked against us,” he blurted out. “But you, on the other hand, could be making yourself useful.” Smash—his ice block became two. “It’d be so easy for you to make three, four times what we make—just pretend to read them their stupid fortunes…”

“I’m not going to prostitute myself.”

“As if you’re not doing that already.”

We stared at each other for an instant before I turned and walked away. There was no point in arguing.

“Go on, run away! That’s all you ever do! You live in a dream world!”

I had hastened for the exit but found myself nudged and jostled by a whirlpool of elbows and thighs back into the dead heart of the park. All around me were hawkers pushing all manner of food and drink, hot and cold; hustlers shaking their cues at gullible marks; boxers, pimps, towkays, playboys, dandies, all of them strutting up and down the pedestrian boulevard.

An irate Hakka woman peddling bags of peanuts jabbed me rudely in the ribs. “You taxi dancers can go to hell with all that union nonsense! Those strikes cost me a lot of business! You girls should be grateful you can find work at all!”

I fled her, only to be accosted by a white-bearded Arab who pinched my bottom and winked as he passed. This was almost courtly compared to another, more odious ruffian who grabbed me by the waist and cooed in hillbilly Hokkien, “What’s your rate, Little Flower? I don’t have much, but I’m small and I’m fast. Maybe give me a discount.”

I wriggled out of his rough brown hands and burst into the nearest bar—its theme was Wild West bordello. My bet was that this foreigners’ drinking hole would intimidate my would-be suitor. It certainly intimidated me. A fat, wordless Chinaman in a sombrero poured whiskey at the candlelit bar, and I planted myself before him, fortifying myself with thoughts of my new favorite movie duo, Nick and Nora Charles, and how they drank and drank and laughed. I had to act casual.

“Give me a double, straight.”

It was then that I noticed from the corner of my eye that the shadowy interior of the place was filled with uniformed armed forces men. Some bordello. Aside from me, there was not a dame in sight. I took my Scotch and drank it standing up, by the swinging saloon doors in case I had to make a quick exit.

A voice bellowed from the gallery, “Just when we fought all’s gone to ’ell, a livin’, drinkin’ China doll!”

The speaker sounded young—a boy really, certainly no older than I was. I kept my shoulders squared and my eyes on the drink. Some of his mates chimed in with the squeaky rasps of schoolboys: “Bird holds down her drink betta than you do, Ron!”

“Bollocks!”

“
I’ll
be ’avin’
her
wiv a squeeze o’ lime, I will!”

“Aww, Musgrove wants to ficky-ficky!”

“Shut yer gob, Jonesy!”

Squealing chair legs told me at least two of the lads had peeled out of their seats, either to fight one another or to approach me. I trained my eyes on the counter while I paid the fake Mexican and strode quickly out of the bar with my head held high.

“Oy, come back ’ere! We just wan’ a talk!” yelled one who had followed me out of the bar, his voice so new that it still cracked. “A li’l chat is all!”

I turned back to face him: He was at most fifteen, poignantly rosy-lipped and apple-cheeked, his freshly shaved sideburns beaded with sweat. My glance sent him scampering back into the bar. How did a child like this get let into Wonder World?

How did a child like this get into the army?

Again, I joined the shoving cavalcade as I sought the shortest route out of the park. The gate seemed no closer than before—if anything, the path seemed even more convoluted, even more elusive.

“Follow me,” a voice boomed by my ear, with an authority so calm I could not ignore it.

Something caught my hand and pulled me deeper into the crowd, instead of out of it. I was as helpless as a fisherman being sucked into the ocean by a shark. Swimming against the human current, I saw the distinctive black knot that was Issa’s hair and tried to break free, but his grip only tightened. We were at the gate in no time.

Yes, I was grateful for the rescue. But I wondered about his well-timed appearance. Once we were outside, I shook off his hand and saw the red marks on my wrist where he had fixed his grip.

“Did you follow me after dropping me off? Did Mr. Wee ask you to spy on me?”

Issa laughed dryly as he led me to the Bentley. “Mr. Wee has more important things to do than worry about you roaming around town. The
senior
Mr. Wee, anyway.”

I didn’t like what he was insinuating about Daniel, not because it couldn’t be true, but because he had no business making such judgments.

“And no, Young Master didn’t ask me either.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

In the rearview mirror came a little smile. “You’re not the only one with secrets, you know. One day, the two of us should have a little chat.”

I DIDN’T CARE FOR THE SWIMMING CLUB
. Dipping into the Olympic pool for the first time, I opened my eyes to gray torsos jutting out of the deep end, their arms flailing, eternal victims of drowning. It was the worst baptism. I never took a swim again.

But I will come out and admit it: I was seduced by the life the Wees had. The air-conditioned bedrooms; the freshly pressed, rose-scented laundry; the larder stuffed to the rafters with cans of abalone and hanging pallets of salt-cured duck; the lavish restaurant dinners that appeared to be a twice-weekly affair. Although Mr. Wee claimed that chicken rice was his favorite food, I learned that this wasn’t quite true. Rice was a peasant starch—it rarely appeared at the Wees’ dinner table, for if one could afford meat and vegetables, there should never be any need for rice; only the gauche asked for it. Mr. Wee, in fact, had an enthusiastic appetite for shark’s fin, lobster, and buttery blocks of foie gras. The bird’s nest I ate at his table was the genuine item, swallow spit retrieved in the Dutch Indies by nimble cave climbers, not the dismal agar impostor cooked up by Father at his stall.

Even more than the elaborate feasts, the thing I appreciated most about being with the Wees was the ease with which the past and the outside world could be sidelined, excised, dismissed. Neither Mr. Wee nor Daniel mentioned my job interview or questioned me further about my prospects; whether this was politeness, forgetfulness, or happy indifference on their part, it suited me fine. Even Violet and I arrived at some sort of a truce. Her disapproval of my friendship with her brother simmered down to a tolerable hiss.

“Shall we get out of here?” Daniel asked me one gray afternoon, as the Wee household was awash in an uncharacteristic dolefulness. Violet was cramming for her O-Level exams—ten subjects in which she could score no less than a B or be thrown out of Connaught Academy—and had taken to plodding up and down the stairs making distressing grunts and sighs. Mr. Wee was picking up and slamming down the telephone in agitated spurts, all the while riffling through stacks of Chinese tabloids with Little Girl loyally translating by his side.

I threw down my
Modern Screen
magazine, banishing the beaming face of Olivia de Havilland to the foot of the bed.

Daniel smiled. “I know just the place to take you.”

Issa drove us in the Bentley. Issa and I hadn’t spoken since Wonder World, and I treated him coolly, since any hint of familiarity would only give rise to questions. But I had nothing to worry about—in Daniel’s presence, Issa was a perfect stranger.

As the rain trees and angsanas of the suburbs gave way to coconut palms and vine-draped banyans, I knew that Daniel’s “place” wasn’t going to be the botanic gardens or even his swimming club with its quartet of shimmering pools, but somewhere farther east. We passed Forbidden Hill, Jervois Swamp, even the power stations that kept the Isle electrified. On we drove, coming finally to a private turnoff. The lane was shielded on both sides by casuarinas, their pointy tops catching the breeze. In the distance, a lighthouse stood like a solemn cigarette.

Salt brightened the air. The conifers thinned as we went on, revealing a pristine stretch of white sand. Gentle waves rolled up in jade green, their foam edges as playful as chiffon trim on an evening gown. This beach was irresistible, yet nobody was on it, not even a ghost. Not since the jungle had I seen a place this deserted.

Mesmerized by the sight of water, I hadn’t noticed our actual destination. Issa turned right into a narrow driveway about midway down the road and pulled under a porte cochere. We had reached what appeared to be a villa, Italianate in aspiration—salmon-pink walls, wrought-iron balustrades—but equatorial in modification: Like the homes of the rural Malays, it was raised five feet aboveground for ventilation. Daniel took my hand and led me up mosaic-covered steps to the verandah, which wrapped around the house.

“What a bizarre place,” I murmured without thinking.

“It is, isn’t it?” Daniel smiled. “My grandfather built it. It’s very much a typical Peranakan villa, with a bit of everything. We’re a hodgepodge people, as you know. But don’t worry, it’ll grow on you.”

It already had. The villa was nowhere as large as the Wees’ city house, but its idiosyncrasies made it even more appealing—for a start, it was less somber. The furniture was plantation-style rattan stuffed with brightly colored cushions. There were cheerful paper lanterns, orchid-print drapery, and even an upright Steinway in the main room, its lid left open and ready for an impromptu sing-along—though I couldn’t imagine any of the Wees participating in such a thing.

“Do you play?” I asked.

“Nobody does. But Grandpa thought every country house had to have a piano. He must have read that somewhere. When he died, the house became my father’s. Aunt Betsy did some redecorating, but Daddy insisted we keep the piano.” His voice swelled with boyish pride. “This place will be mine someday.”

The casualness with which he laid claim to such a luxurious abode brought a chilly quiver to my heart. I couldn’t claim anything but a wardrobe of simple dresses and a shelf of dog-eared books. What different universes!

“How many other houses does your family own?”

“Just these two, and then there’s the flat in Hong Kong, on the Kowloon side. But that’s just a flat and I’m told that it’s very small and dull because only Father uses it. No frills.” He smiled, a little apologetically. “My father’s not a man with many frills.”

“But he’s very generous.”

“That he is. That he is.” He paused, and I sensed a peculiar hint of disapproval. “Actually, if I’d gone to study in England like I was supposed to, there’d probably be a flat for us in London, too.”

“You were supposed to go to England?” I hadn’t known this. “Why on earth didn’t you go?”

He banished the topic with a shrug and flopped down into an armchair. “Know what I like best about being in this house?”

“What?”

“No servants.” He grabbed my waist and pulled me down onto him. This was the amorous side of Daniel that I adored, that I wanted more of. I curled up on his lap and we locked lips until he groaned under my weight. Together, still entwined, we migrated to the settee, where I allowed myself to be pinned against the backrest.

Kissing Daniel was like coasting on air—light, pleasurable, slightly precarious. It was a plane we could have remained on indefinitely without either backing down or venturing any further. I wanted, of course, to venture much further, but each time I tried to slide myself beneath him, he pulled me upright again. I chaperoned his hand up my inner thigh, and though his breath grew heavy, he broke loose and planted his fingers on my head, combing my hair as one would a beloved Maltese. And so we merely kissed and kissed.

“But I want you, Daniel.”

“I want you, too. But we can’t.”

After about two hours of pleasant but increasingly frustrating caresses, I insisted that we step outside for air. I ran barefoot on the white sand ahead of him while he ambled along in leather sandals, as if afraid of what sensual urges the beach might arouse on his naked feet.

The sand was soft and warm. The sea began a hundred yards behind the villa, and I pictured the water kissing the lip of the threshold at high tide.

“Does it ever flood?”

Daniel shook his head. “This is a strait. It’s the most docile water imaginable.”

Indeed. I thought of leaping nude into the clear turquoise water. There were no other houses for at least a mile in either direction. Far to the right, a villa perched on a rocky promontory like a pelican, and to the left was a limestone castle nearly hidden in a grove of coconuts. The singular lighthouse loomed yonder.

“You own this entire beach?”

“Not all of it,” he laughed. “Just this two-mile stretch or so. Truthfully, I still prefer the swimming club.”

“Why?”

“There are no surprises there. You know exactly how far it is from Point A to Point B—no sand, no waves, no jellyfish, no variables. After a good swim, all I want is a clean, fluffy towel, and the club has plenty of them. Cold drinks, too.”

“But no islands.” I pointed to the small atolls across the strait that appeared to be bobbing on the water’s surface.

“Oh, those are the Spice Islands. They’re Dutch. Cinnamon Bay is the one closest to us. My grandfather used to tell me it would be his one day. Sadly, not so.”

I strolled to the waterline and let the waves wash up to me. Their cool foam nipped at my toes like hundreds of tiny mouths. Immediately I felt a giddy passion for the water and everything related to it, as if the fine sand between my toes, the wet breeze in my hair, and the faint scent of nutmeg in my nose were all part of my most natural state and that all of my previous life spent inland and without access to the sea was a travesty, an abomination. I wanted to live in Daniel’s villa. No, not just wanted—I craved it.

We walked, holding hands, occasionally pausing to press our mouths together and brush away the hair that had blown into each other’s eyes. We aimed for the black rocks near the lighthouse because I wanted to see what they were. To my surprise, Daniel had never wandered that far. As we drew nearer, I spotted an undulating speck on the beach ahead. Driftwood? Kelp? No, more likely a ghost. I said nothing and tried to act natural.

The closer we came to the thing, the more clearly I made out the shape of a head on the sand. It was vaguely humanoid and attached to a bulbous mass of deepest purple, perhaps the carcass of a sea lion. Each time the waves came up and lapped at it, the whole blob shook as if electrified.

“Do you see that?” Daniel asked.

My heart jumped. “See what?”

“That.” He pointed at the creature. “Looks like a giant turtle or something. Maybe a stranded dugong.”

He started jogging toward it and I followed, relieved that it wasn’t a ghoul I had to pretend I didn’t see.

The truth was worse. This was no turtle or manatee but a beautiful woman, naked, on her back, being crushed alive by a giant octopus. Its legs were coiled around her fair torso and its slimy head—the size of two pillows—had pressed itself against her face, so close that they were eye to eye. The monster had trapped her so absolutely it was hard to tell if she was still breathing. We were twenty feet away when Daniel stopped; his head jerked back in shock.

“Mrs. Nakamura!” he gasped, then turned to me. “That’s the lighthouse operator’s wife. I have to do something.”

I grabbed his arm. He would need at least a long crowbar to pry off the beast, and there wasn’t anything like it near us.

“Mrs. Nakamura!” Daniel called out to her.

The woman did not respond but remained on the ground, motionless. We waited. When the next wave pulled in, all of a sudden she moaned in agony, an eerie bovine lowing, and the octopus went into a mad convulsion, tightening its grip on her and throbbing like one gigantic muscle. As it contracted and revealed more of Mrs. Nakamura, we discovered that the creature’s mouth—an obscene beak at the base of its greasy head—was clamped over the poor woman’s breast, leaving viscous trickles down her side as it sucked.

Daniel squeezed my hand. “It’s devouring her!”

As the surf swept up once more, Mrs. Nakamura moaned again, this time a human-sounding moan. Daniel and I experienced a second wave of horror: Mrs. Nakamura was in ecstasy. We watched her hand clutch the creature’s arm and guide it into the glistening crevice between her thighs, forcibly dictating its terms of conduct. With each thrust, she gave out a high-pitched whinny, reserving the shudders and moans only for when the cool sea foam drew up the sand and soaked her hair, her back, her legs. Her aquatic friend, too, was happy. As it closed its big cloudy eyes, the suction caps on its arms puckered up in unison and the tips of its seven remaining tentacles writhed in the air, each conducting its own lewd symphony. When the convulsions ceased, black rivers of ink flowed down the pale sides of the woman’s thighs and into the receding tide. Before long, the cycle began again, both lovers goading themselves to a new state of exquisite tension until the next big wave.

“Mrs. Nakamura…,” Daniel murmured with strange wonder. Blushing furiously, he avoided my gaze.

We watched longer than we should have, confused and afraid. Silently, we continued our stroll to the cluster of black rocks. Again, looks proved deceiving. The rocks turned out to be massive prehistoric boulders, each rugged block propped against the other to form caves and catacombs. On an ordinary day, we might have worried about pirates hiding in them, but our day had revealed itself to be anything but usual.

We ducked into one of the alcoves to listen to the waves echo in its melancholy womb. The air was cool and smelled of the ocean. We found ourselves standing on a tapestry of seaweed—red, green, brown, maroon. Some of these spongy alveoli housed families of tiny crabs, three of which tried to climb up my shins.

“This is why I wear sandals,” said Daniel, smiling as he plucked the little scramblers off me.

A flat rock near the entrance seemed the ideal spot to rest our tired legs. We collapsed upon it, lifting our feet off the sand. The tide must have rolled in across it for millennia and sculpted the rock face to its present smoothness. It was coated with algae, as feathery as down against our skin. When we realized our hands hadn’t parted since finding Mrs. Nakamura, we laughed with jittery tenderness and kissed, first lightly, then with greater conviction. The cave amplified every sound, every scent, every touch. This time, Daniel didn’t pull away but pressed himself insistently against me, acting on every amorous impulse he’d been holding back.

His eyes shone with a vivid new selfishness, that of a brute who wouldn’t stop until he was satisfied—and this transformed him, made him even handsomer. The force and urgency with which he tore off my clothes thrilled me. I whimpered as he clamped my wrists down and thrust his tongue into my ear.

My back pressed against the green plane of our waterside bed, we did the most natural thing to be done by a boy and a girl bound by the unnatural mystery they had just witnessed together: We made love for the very first time.