The Piano Teacher (13 page)

They toss a coin for the bed, and Will gets the floor.

“You could sleep in the old bird’s bed.” Evers nods toward the small room the amah has in the back.

“I’m not that hard up,” Will says lightly. “She’s had a rough time of it too, without me taking her room.”

“Just thinking of you, mate.” Evers shrugs. “Do you think she could rustle up some supper? ”

Will rummages in his pack. Trudy, still Chinese enough to be obsessed with food, had made sure he had some tins in his rucksack although he had deemed it unnecessary. “I have bully beef and some carrots.”

The amah is happy to have something to do. She holds up a cup of rice and cooks it with the meat and vegetable, and then they eat—she taking a bowl to her room, and the two men in the dining alcove, with the radio turned on, disembodied voice crackling on with news of the war.

“The bridges at the northern frontier have been blown up to prevent the advancement of Japanese troops. . . .” Later, someone who was there will tell Will of the surreal scene—the British assiduously setting up their explosives in plain sight of the Japanese, who were just as diligently building another bridge to swing across once the destruction had happened, the two sides studiously ignoring each other, neither questioning the inevitability of what the other was doing, nor trying to stop it. “Doesn’t that just sum it all up,” this man, a policeman, said. “Thoroughly demented.”

All through the night, the flat shudders and is lit with the fire of bombs. Will hears Evers, his rapid breath, neither of them asleep.

 

In the morning, Evers washes himself thoroughly.

“Don’t know the next time I’ll be able to do this,” he says, toweling off with one of the Weatherlys’ linens and tossing it in the corner. “Do you think breakfast is in the offing?”

“Do you think of anything else but food? ”

“What else is there to think about, mate? Times like these, you get to the basics—what you eat, where you shit, finding a place to sleep. It’s what keeps you sane.”

They call HQ to see what to do next. Nobody knows a thing.

“Just stay there for now,” a voice barks at them. They hear clattering and men shouting. The line clicks off.

“Good to know they’re on top of the situation,” Evers says.

“We’re the civilians. I’m sure the top guys know what’s going on.”

“One would hope.”

They decide to go out. Montgomery Street is empty, being primarily an enclave for European expatriates who have all fled to higher ground or to China. The few storefronts—a bakery, a shoe repair shop—are closed up and dark inside. The windows are already dirty from the soot and dirt kicked up by the bombs, but through one, Will can see a rotting egg tart, its glistening yellow surface slowly being invaded by green mold. A fly lands on top and starts making its way across the mold, twitching its antennae. An airplane whines overhead and Will flinches instinctively.

When they go back to the flat, the amah is gone, her room as clean as if she had never lived there.

“Nothing to do here,” Evers says. “I think we should try to get back to HQ. It’s going to drive me mad staying here doing nothing.”

They gather their belongings and pick their way in the gathering dusk through the streets. Refuse has started to build up on the curbs and a low, persistent stench rises from the road. They see a car speed up as it approaches them, and in it a Chinese man averting his gaze. They are in sight of the lorry and Will remarks that the doors are open when they hear it. Evers’s head cocks up to the whining sound, and Will watches him watch the first bomb come down and destroy a building not fifty feet away. It is as if it is in slow motion. Evers yells, “Watch out!” and dives for the ground. Will follows and he feels the earth open up and fall below them, his body dealt an enormous crushing blow, ears ringing and eyes stinging, and then in the next moment—the next moment of clarity—they are crawling toward the shelter of the lorry, the closest thing there is. In the back of his mind, as the ground is pounded and shaken by the intensifying chaos, Will notes the lorry has been picked clean. The tires are missing and the open doors reveal a missing steering wheel. Evers is shouting something else, something about this being civilian territory and why are they bombing, but Will can’t hear the rest because he is thinking that the tires are missing and that it is hard to move forward with the ground shaking like this, and then all is white.

WHEN HE WAKES UP, he is woozy and cold. Overhead, an enormous light is glaring down at him. The sheets are like ice on his swollen limbs. He is afraid to look at his own body.

But here is relief. He is not dead. Then he remembers. Evers. But he doesn’t remember. Every part of his body hurts so much he feels as if his head is about to explode. He lifts the sheet. His left knee is swollen to the size of a small melon. Around the bandage bulges flesh colored purple, black, livid, angry.

Jane Lessig, whom he has met before at parties, comes by. She is dressed in white, and in his woozy state he thinks she looks like an angel.

“There you are,” she says. “You had us worried, you know.”

“Water? ”

“No water for you right now. Doctor’s orders.”

He doesn’t think he’s ever felt quite so awful in his life.

“I’m so embarrassed,” he tells her.

“What on earth for?” She cranks up his bed with a quizzical look.

“It was just a short experience,” he tries to explain. “Nothing warlike about it.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

He sees she doesn’t understand his meaning. He tries again.

“Evers?”

“Don’t worry about him,” she says, and walks quickly away.

 

He wanders in and out of consciousness.

He sees Trudy in a white dress, like a nurse, like a bride, like a shroud. She sponges his forehead. But her hair is blond now. She is not Trudy.

“Listen,” whispers the wondrous Jane Lessig. “You were not in the Volunteers. You’re a civilian who was walking down the street and hit by debris from a bomb.” She doesn’t want him to go to a POW camp. It’s unclear who is going where but she thinks the civilians will be better off than the soldiers. He nods. He understands, then forgets. She says it to him every day, like an incantation that will save him.

 

Jane Lessig brings him a bowl of pudding.

When he gets up to look out the window, the first time he has been up, he is surprised to find that he has a limp.

“I’ve a limp!” he says to Jane Lessig.

“Yes, you do,” she says. “And a fine one at that.”

“I’m feeling much better,” he says. “I think I could be discharged soon.”

“Do you, now?” she says crisply. “We’ll leave that to the doctors, shall we?”

But he does feel better and when Dr. Whitley comes around, Will is dressed and ready to go.

“I don’t think I’m doing much good here, do you?” he asks.

“Will,” Dr. Whitley says. “It’s very different out there. Kowloon’s besieged and we’re trying to hold out here for as long as possible. There have been enormous casualties. Do you know where you could stay?”

“Could go to Trudy’s? ” he wonders.

“She’s been here every day,” the doctor says. “But I didn’t let her come in. I thought it would be too upsetting for her. You’re not at your most handsome. She said to tell you she’s staying with Angeline and would be by later on today.”

“Oh,” Will says. “Then I’ll stay until she comes.”

The doctor gives him a peculiar look and nods. He’s finished looking at Will’s knee.

When Trudy comes, she is different. He can’t tell why and then he sees—she has no lipstick on, no jewelry, her clothes are drab, no color of any sort. He mentions this to her, sort of an ice breaker to take away from the fact that he is injured, in a hospital, that the world is at war. It is odd to be shy with Trudy. He does not want to seem diminished in front of her.

“I don’t want to attract any sort of attention,” she says. “It’s like walking on pins out there in case you run into a Jap. Father’s gone to Macau. He wanted me to come, but I didn’t want to.” She walks over to the window. “He’s worried about me,” she says, looking down and fingering the cloth of her skirt. “If they win, they’ll be brutal beyond belief.”

“How did you get here?”

“I had Angeline’s driver bring me. We’re camping out at her place on the Peak, although the whole Peak is supposed to be evacuated by now. They think it’s too exposed, but we’ve managed to stay undetected, and it’s quiet up there. She has the dogs and her houseboy along with the amahs and the chauffeur so we have some protection.”

The upper class always do what they want, he thinks, inappropriately.

“It’s nerve-racking, like playing a game of poker,” she says. “You never know when you’re going to be stopped, and people are turning against each other. Old Enderby was roughed up by some Sikhs because they said he looked at them funny. That lovely old man.” She stops suddenly. “How are you feeling? Here I am going on about the outside and you’re all . . .” Her voice trails.

“Evers is dead,” he says. “But you didn’t know him. He was with me when the bomb got us.”

Trudy looks at him, blank. “You’re right,” she says. “I don’t know him.”

“I want all the news,” he says. “Do you have any? ”

“Angeline says that we’re not doing very well. Apparently they expected the Japs from the south, by the sea, but they came from the north instead and just breezed right through the defenses there. And it’s really awful outside.” Her voice hiccups. “I saw a dead baby on a pile of rubbish this morning as I came here. It’s all around, the rubbish and the corpses, I mean, and they’re burning it so it smells like what I imagine hell smells like. And I saw a woman being beaten with bamboo poles and then dragged off by her hair. She was half being dragged, half crawling along, and screaming like the end of the world. Her skin was coming off in ribbons. You’re supposed to wear sanitary pads so that . . . you k now . . . if a soldier tries to . . . Well, you know. The locals and the Japanese both are looting anything that’s not locked down, and thieving and generally being impossible. They’re all over the place in Kowloon, running amok. We’re thinking about moving out to one of the hotels, just so we’re more in the middle of things, and we can see people and get more information. The Gloucester is packed to the rafters but my old friend Delia Ho has a room at the Repulse Bay and says we can have it because she’s leaving to go to China. We can share the room with Angeline, don’t you think? And apparently, the American Club has cots out and people are staying there as well. They have a lot of supplies, I suppose. Americans always do. Everyone wants to be around other people.”

“I suppose that’s a good idea,” Will says.

“Dommie says it’s only a matter of time before the Japanese have the whole island, so he says it really doesn’t matter.”

“That’s hopeful. Always the optimist.”

“I don’t think he really cares.” Trudy laughs, a shrill sound. “He’s just waiting to see what side he should join. He’s learning Japanese at a fast clip.”

“You know what a dangerous thing he’s doing. It’s not a matter for laughter.”

“Oh, bother!” Trudy comes and sits down next to him. “Your injury has quite done away with your sense of humor. Dommie is a survivor, just like you and me, and he’ll be fine. When can you leave?”

“I think soon. And they’re eager to be rid of me. There are people with far more serious injuries, I imagine.”

“But can you walk and all that? ”

“I’ll be fine,” he says shortly. “Don’t worry about me.”

 

Dr. Whitley discharges him with reluctance.

“If it weren’t for Trudy,” he says, wrapping fresh bandages around Will’s abdomen and knee, “I would never let you go. I know she’ll take care of you.”

Trudy is sitting at the foot of the bed.

“And the little fact that you have too few beds,” she rejoins. “Will here is taking up valuable space. I’m on your side, Doctor. I was a nurse for two weeks. Remember? ”

The doctor laughs. “Of course. How could I forget?” He turns serious. “Trudy, you must change the bandages daily, and you must cleanse the skin and the wounds with a solution of water and peroxide that I’ll have the nurse make up for you. No matter if Will says he doesn’t need it, you must do it without exception.”

Trudy nods. “I’ll be a model of reliability and efficiency,” she says.

Once at Angeline’s, she sets him up in bed although he feels fine. Their room is messy, with her clothes spilling out of a suitcase onto the floor and her toiletries scattered on the windowsills, the bathroom basin, the bed. There are model airplanes strung from the ceiling and a wooden desk piled high with schoolboy mysteries.

“Whose room is this? ”

“It’s Giles’s—my godson, did you know him?”