Music on the Bamboo Radio Page 3

  With that, the old man returned to the pigsty and the old woman disappeared into the farthest building whilst Tang and Ah Mee went out through the gatehouse. The girl giggled coyly and stepped towards Nicholas who wondered how he would be able to talk to her. His knowledge of Cantonese was, at best, very basic.

  ‘Hello,’ Nicholas said, adding as an afterthought, ‘tso shan.’

  ‘Hello,’ she replied. ‘No need for you to speak Cantonese to me. I speak English. I go –’ she corrected herself – ‘I went to school in Kowloon. Uncle Tang say you must speak English with us. That way, my English will improve and you will not forget it.’

  ‘Forget it?’ Nicholas responded with puzzlement.

  ‘If you live here for a long time, maybe you forget your own language. You must not. When the Japanese go, the British will return and you must be English once more.’

  ‘I won’t be here that long,’ Nicholas said confidently.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Qing-mai replied, a little pensively. ‘Who can say? The Japanese army is very strong, with plenty of soldiers. England is many thousands of li away. Now I will show you our home.’

  For twenty minutes, Qing-mai led Nicholas around the buildings. They started in the pigsty, over which was a fodder store, went on to the house in which Nicholas had spent the night then passed into the main home where Tang’s parents lived. It was the largest of the buildings, with a big main room, a small kitchen and a second floor made of rough-hewn planks reached by an open ladder. All the beams in the buildings were entire tree trunks blackened by years of smoke from the cooking fire or oil lamps. The next house was that in which Qing-mai lived.

  ‘Is this all yours?’ Nicholas asked, looking round at the dark rosewood furniture, a shelf of Chinese books and a framed painting on silk of sparrows sitting on fronds of bamboo.

  ‘It is my father’s home,’ Qing-mai explained.

  ‘Where is your father?’

  ‘Like your parents,’ Qing-mai said. ‘My father is away because of the war.’

  Nicholas thought for a moment then asked, ‘Has he been captured?’

  ‘No,’ she answered with a quiet voice, ‘my father is fighting.’

  ‘Where is your mother?’ Nicholas enquired.

  ‘My mother died when I was six years,’ Qing-mai replied.

  The last two buildings were a storehouse containing a few agricultural tools and a small, one-roomed temple. As they approached it, the black dog he had noticed earlier rose lazily to its feet and sauntered towards Nicholas, halfheartedly wagging its tail. Nicholas, despite having always been warned by his mother not to go near what she had termed native pi-dogs in case they were rabid, gave the dog’s head a stroke. Its hair was hot from the sunlight.

  ‘What is his name?’ he asked.

  ‘The dog is called Dai Kam,’ Qing-mai stated. ‘This is an old name. Many dogs have it. It means Bring Gold. It is a lucky name. There,’ she pointed to the tiled roof of the gatehouse where a cat lay stretched out in the sun, ‘is Laan Doh Mao. Lazy cat. He sleeps all day.’

  They entered the temple which contained an altar and a low stool for kneeling on. A single oil lamp flickered in front of an idol which was surrounded by a drapery of scarlet silk embroidered with a gaudy phoenix, a dragon and a bird Nicholas thought resembled a peacock. The idol itself was about a metre high, its stark white porcelain face smiling benignly from under a quaint tricorn hat with a veil. Its body was bedecked in an old-fashioned brocade gown. In front of the god stood a brass urn with a dozen sandalwood joss-sticks glowing in it, the heady blue smoke wafting up to the rafters.

  ‘This is Tin Hau, the goddess of the sea,’ Qing-mai explained, adding simply, ‘She guards us.’

  Leaving the temple, they went out through the gatehouse down to the path which wound through trees, parallel to the shore. For a little way, Nicholas followed Qing-mai in silence.

  He went over everything that had happened since he saw the two Japanese soldiers in the street, assessing his situation. He had escaped the invaders, had crossed through occupied territory and was comparatively safe. In his mind, he pictured the prisoners of war marching along Boundary Street.

  At the memory of the shabby column, a shudder of apprehension ran through him. Try as he might, however, Nicholas could not imagine his father as a scruffy, dejected prisoner. He would always be a banker in a smart suit going to his office in a black saloon car. As for his mother, he reasoned, she had not been a soldier so the Japanese might not have imprisoned her: she might well have gone back to Peony Villa, would have read his note and would not be fretting. Yet he could not help worrying, his fears nagging at him like a dull toothache in his mind.

  The path turned towards the shore and went down some worn stone steps towards a small, curved beach of shingle in the centre of which was a huge boulder overhung by the spreading branches of a banyan tree. A stream tumbled over the shingle into the sea. At one end of the strand a small wooded promontory jutted into the sea. A kilometre offshore was a small wooded island and, in the distance beyond that, a range of mountains sharply defined in the clear winter sunlight.

  ‘Our village is called Sek Wan,’ Qing-mai announced as she clambered up the boulder and sat on the top. ‘This means Stone Bay. But my grandfather calls it Sek Lung Wan.’

  ‘That means Stone Dragon Bay,’ Nicholas replied.

  Qing-mai laughed. ‘You understand Cantonese well. Who taught you?’

  ‘Ah Mee,’ Nicholas admitted. ‘But I’m not very good. I only know a few words. Why does he call it that?’

  ‘The stream is called Lung Mei Kai which is Dragon Tail Stream. This is an old name, many centuries old. My grandfather says if the stream is a dragon’s tail, the beach must be the dragon.’

  A fishing sampan appeared around one of the promontories. It was, much to Nicholas’s consternation, being oared by Tang whom he had always thought of as a cook and senior servant, never a fisherman. Turning, the craft headed inshore to run up on the shingle, its hull scraping on the smooth stones. Tang fastened a mooring line to a metal ring set in the banyan tree and beckoned to them.

  ‘Now we help Uncle Tang,’ Qing-mai announced.

  Stepping up to the sampan, Nicholas saw in the bottom of the vessel a tangle of netting alive with small, twitching fish.

  As Nicholas helped remove the fish from the net and drop them into two wooden pails filled with sea-water, Tang said, ‘We must give you Chinese name.’

  ‘Why?’ Nicholas asked.

  ‘If people come, you must look like Chinese boy, speak Cantonese. They must think you Chinese boy.’ He ran his eyes over Nicholas. ‘I give you Chinese name. You no more Nicholas. You Wing-ming.’

  At this announcement, Qing-mai giggled. Tang grinned.

  ‘What does it mean?’ Nicholas enquired cautiously, glancing from one to the other. He would rather have chosen his own name.

  ‘Look down,’ Tang replied.

  Nicholas looked down. Silver fish scales patterned his jacket, glistening in the sunlight.

  ‘It means Always Bright,’ Qing-mai declared.

  Nicholas soon settled into life at Sek Wan and was allotted certain chores, as was everyone. His first task every day was to bring two buckets of water up from the sea and sluice out the pigsty. He chopped kindling for the fire, gutted the fish Tang caught and was taught by Venerable Grandmother how to fillet and salt them, then hang them from a pole to dry in the sun. On the hillside above the village, surrounded by trees and invisible from below, were three terraced fields irrigated by the stream. Here, Venerable Grandfather grew vegetables. Every afternoon, it was Nicholas’s duty to scare away the birds from the pak choi cabbage seedlings.

  In the evenings, when the work was done, he sat with the rest of the family in the main house. For half an hour, Tang gave Nicholas lessons in rudimentary Cantonese yet, for the best part, the family did not talk very much but busied themselves with tasks which had not been possible in the day. Tang fashioned wooden net flo
ats or sharpened hooks, Ah Mee sewed or helped Venerable Grandmother prepare their simple meal and Venerable Grandfather squinted at a book, the oil lamp close to his face. Qing-mai spent most evenings meticulously inscribing characters into a hide-bound book with a brush pen. When Nicholas asked her what she was writing, she informed him it was a long poem about her life and would take many years to write. When he asked her to translate some of it, she refused saying it was her secret life.

  Nicholas, feeling somewhat left out, found an abacus in a cupboard in his room. At first, he thought it was little more than a childish bead frame but, with Venerable Grandfather’s tuition passed to him by Tang, he learnt to use it to conduct quite complex mathematical sums, his fingers flicking the polished bamboo counters to and fro with increasing speed and alacrity.

  The war seemed far away, a distant memory, until one afternoon several weeks later. Nicholas was busy gutting fish on the flagstones before the houses when a shadowy figure appeared under the gateway. He was instantly alert for, since he had lived at Sek Wan, only two people had visited the village, one a wandering Buddhist monk whose bowl they had filled with food and the other a fisherman whose sampan had sprung a leak, forcing him to beach it on the shingle while he effected running repairs.

  For fully half a minute, the figure stood quite motionless. It seemed to be surveying the buildings, scanning them as if it could see through the stone walls. Nicholas watched it, his mouth dry, his blood racing. At last, the figure stepped forwards into the sunlight. It was a man dressed in peasant’s clothing but with a khaki-coloured floppy peaked cap on the front of which was a small red star. Over his shoulder was slung a rifle.

  Despite his fear, Nicholas slowly stood up. There was something familiar about the figure which he could not quite place. Yet, as it came towards him along the terrace, he suddenly recognized the man. It was Ah Kwan.

  ‘Hello, Young Master,’ Ah Kwan greeted him hastily. ‘Where Tang?’

  Before Nicholas could answer, Tang appeared from the store, a scythe in one hand and a whetstone in the other.

  ‘Japanese coming,’ Ah Kwan said, ignoring any form of polite greeting. He spoke in English so Nicholas could understand. ‘Maybe twenty minute. Ten man, one gunso.’

  ‘What’s a gunso?’ Nicholas asked. He imagined it was a kind of weapon.

  ‘Gunso Japanese small-time officer,’ Ah Kwan replied tersely, adding to Tang, ‘No hide Young Master. Japanese know six people live here. Must see six. Now I go.’

  With that, he was gone at a run, through the archway and off along the path out of sight.

  ‘Is Ah Kwan in the army?’ Nicholas enquired.

  ‘You no talk Ah Kwan. You no see him,’ Tang retorted firmly, then his voice softened. ‘Ah Kwan soldier of Communist. He fight Japanese all same Qing-mai father.’

  With that, he called out to Ah Mee and his father, giving them curt instructions in Cantonese which Nicholas did not understand. This done, he looked at Nicholas and said, ‘Hide you picture.’

  Nicholas sped into his room, took the silver-framed photo from its shelf and stared around for a hiding place. He thrust it into the cold ashes under the kang but they were little more than a pile of powder soft as talcum and did not cover it.

  Frantically, he searched for an alternative hiding place. He tried sliding it under the seat of the chair but the bars were too close together. He wondered if he could reach the beams above but there was no way of climbing to them. Then, by chance, he saw a thin dark line at the point where the stone base of the kang met the wall. Some mortar had come loose forming a crevice a centimetre wide. Nicholas poked his finger into it but could not feel the back. He pressed the frame into the gap. It slid in quite easily, stopping just as the edge of the frame disappeared into the stonework. To complete the camouflage, he sprinkled the frame with a dusting of ash.

  Ten minutes later, footsteps were heard approaching along the path.

  Tang gathered his family together, whispering encouragement to them. To Nicholas, he said, ‘No be scared. No talk. Look down, like you very afraid. Japanese no problem for us maybe.’

  When they reached the gateway, the Japanese soldiers deployed themselves ready for an ambush then burst on to the terrace, bayonets fixed, only to find four Chinese adults and two children huddled outside the door to the main house.

  Without speaking, one Japanese stood guard over the little group, his rifle levelled at them whilst his comrades conducted a quick house-to-house search, rummaging in cupboards and turning the quilts over on the kangs. In the pigsties, they looked about for the pigs. They were not there.

  Satisfied there were no other people present, the patrol joined the guard. The gunso stood with his arms akimbo.

  ‘I no can talk Chinese talk. I talk English,’ he announced. ‘You talk English?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tang said.

  ‘Where you pig?’ the gunso demanded to know.

  ‘Pig die,’ Tang told him. ‘Two day before.’

  ‘Where die pig?’

  Tang pointed to the sea. Nicholas, wearing his varnished cane hat and keeping his head slightly bowed, wondered where the pigs were. Only half an hour ago, they had been snorting contentedly in their sties.

  ‘Put in sea,’ Tang said, pinching his nose as if at a noxious smell. ‘Die pig, no good.’

  The gunso stepped quickly forward and slapped Tang hard across the face. Tang’s head slewed sideways but he did not stumble. Ah Mee squeaked with horror. Venerable Grandmother began to shiver and her husband put his hand on her arm to steady her.

  ‘You lie me!’ the gunso screamed. ‘Where pig?’

  Tang looked him straight in the face and said, ‘No pig. Pig die.’

  The gunso gave an order. The guard raised his rifle and pointed it at Ah Mee. Nicholas wanted to shout out that the pigs were not dead. They must have run off into the woods. He reasoned that, if he said that, the soldiers would run off after them and leave the family all alone. Yet he kept his head down and held his silence, casting a sideways glance at Qing-mai. She caught his eye and, to his amazement, he saw a tiny smile flit across her face. It gave him heart.

  ‘Where pig?’ the gunso shouted at Ah Mee.

  She shook her head and said, ‘No Eng Lesh.’

  Stepping back, peeved at his failure, the gunso looked along the terrace to where Nicholas’s fish were hanging on their pole to dry. Taking a soldier’s rifle, he marched over to the pole, smashed it to the ground with the rifle butt and stamped on the fish, grinding them into the flagstones with his heel. The other soldiers laughed but Nicholas was enraged. And that was his mistake. He raised his head, the shadow from the brim of his hat sliding across his cheek.

  The gunso ran at Nicholas and swung the rifle at him. He was so quick Nicholas did not even have time to flinch. The butt sent his hat spinning into the air, the chin cord tearing across his nose and bringing tears to his eyes.

  ‘You no Chinese!’ the gunso screamed.

  Qing-mai grabbed Nicholas towards herself, yelling, ‘Bruffer! Bruffer!’

  The gunso slapped her hand away, shouting, ‘English! English!’

  He clamped his fingers on Nicholas’s jaw, ramming his face upwards, so that the sun blazed into Nicholas’s eyes.

  ‘You English!’ he screamed again, his rage building further, his fingers tightening. ‘You English! Where parent? Where father?’

  Nicholas was terrified but his mind was quite clear. If he kept his mouth shut, he might get away with it. If he spoke English, he was done for and so, he realized, would be Tang and his family.

  The gunso unsheathed a dagger from his belt and held it to Nicholas’s throat. The steel was cold against his flesh.

  ‘English! English!’ he bellowed.

  Tang, his face already swelling from the slap, stepped forwards.

  ‘No English,’ he said quietly. His calm tone seemed to mollify the gunso somewhat. He stopped shouting but was still clearly excited by his discovery.

  ‘Chine
se?’ he muttered sarcastically, letting go of Nicholas’s chin and squaring up to Tang.

  ‘No,’ Tang said slowly, his head downcast as if with shame. ‘No English, no Chinese. He name Wing-ming. He my wife son. English master no good, make son with my wife.’

  The gunso looked hard at Tang for a long moment, seeking the lie but not finding it.

  ‘Ah, so!’ he said at last. ‘English no good. Very bad to Asia people. You no like English.’

  ‘I no like English,’ Tang agreed.

  ‘Japanese good for Chinese people,’ the gunso continued. ‘You like Japanese.’

  ‘Yes,’ Tang said and he bowed. The others hastily followed suit.

  The gunso accepted this humility, barking an order to his men. They formed up in a line, marched out of the gateway and disappeared.

  For more than a minute after the footsteps were no longer audible, the little group stood quite still until, at last, Tang broke the spell of their fear.

  ‘Japanese no problem,’ he said triumphantly.

  Ah Mee tended to Tang’s bruised face, Venerable Grandmother and Qing-mai tidied up their belongings and Nicholas salvaged those fish which had not been trampled. As he did so, it came to Nicholas not only how very lucky he was to have been taken in by Tang and his family but also just what a risk he posed. He would have to take great care never to jeopardize them.

  Venerable Grandfather disappeared. A quarter of an hour later, the pigs were back rooting in the straw of their sties. How the old man had hidden them so successfully was something Nicholas never discovered.

  PART TWO

  SEPTEMBER 1942

  The months passed. Nicholas’s life became a routine. He grew accustomed to his daily chores and his knowledge of Cantonese increased. He could understand much of what was said to him and could make simple replies, but he often mispronounced words which caused Qing-mai to giggle uncontrollably, Venerable Grandmother to cackle and Tang to frown and click his tongue with disapproval.

  ‘If you make wrong word with strange people,’ Tang warned him ominously, ‘they know you not Chinese boy. You must study more hard, Wing-ming. If you make mistake, can be big trouble.’