Authors: When We Were Orphans (txt)
Removing my jacket, I tore several strips off the lining to use as dressings. Then I did my best to clean the wound with my handkerchief. Though I tried to wipe the pus off as gently as possible, his sharp intakes of breath told me I was causing him pain.
‘I’m sorry, Akira. I’ll try to be less clumsy.’
‘Clumsy,’ he said, as though turning the word over. Then he gave a sudden laugh and said: ‘You help me. Thank you.’
‘Of course I’m helping you. And very soon, we’ll get you proper medical help. Then you’ll be fine in no time. But before we do that, you’ll have to help me. There’s a very urgent task for us first, and you’ll understand better than anyone why it’s so urgent. You see, Akira, I’ve located it at last. The house where my parents are being held. We’re very near it at this moment.
You know, old chap, for a time, I was thinking I’d have to go into that house alone. I’d have done it, but really, it would have been an awful risk. Goodness knows how many kidnappers are in there. I’d originally reckoned on getting a few Chinese soldiers to help, but that’s proved impossible. I was even thinking of asking the Japanese to help me. But now, the two of us together, we’ll do it, we’ll manage the thing for sure.’
I was all this time attempting to tie the improvised bandage around his torso and neck in such a way as to maintain some pressure on the wound. Akira watched me carefully, and when I stopped speaking, smiled and said: ‘Yes. I help you. You help me. Good.’
‘But Akira, I have to confess to you. I’ve got myself rather lost. I was doing quite well till shortly before I came across you.
But now, I really don’t know which way to go. We have to look out for something called the East Furnace. A large thing with a chimney. I wonder, old chap, do you have any idea where we might find this furnace?’
Akira was continuing to look at me, his chest heaving. When I caught sight of him like that, I was suddenly reminded of those times when we had so often sat together at the top of the mound in our garden, recovering our breath. I was about to mention this to him when he said: ‘I know. I know this place.’
‘You know how to get to the East Furnace? From here?’
He nodded. ‘I fight here, many weeks. Here, I know just like’
- he suddenly grinned - ‘like my home village.’
I smiled too, but the remark had puzzled me. ‘Which home village is this?’ I asked.
‘Home village. Where I born.’
‘You mean the Settlement?’
Akira was quiet for a moment, then said: ‘Okay. Yes. Settlement.
International Settlement. My home village.’
‘Yes.’ I said. ‘I suppose it’s my home village too.’
We both began to laugh, and for a few moments we went on giggling and laughing together, perhaps a little uncontrollably.
When we had calmed down somewhat, I said: ‘I’ll tell you an odd thing, Akira. I can say this to you. All these years I’ve lived in England, I’ve never really felt at home there. The International Settlement. That will always be my home.’
‘But International Settlement…’ Akira shook his head. ‘Very fragile. Tomorrow, next day…’ He waved a hand in the air.
‘what you mean,’ I said. ‘And when we were children, it seemed so solid to us. But as you put it just now. It’s our home village. The only one we have.’
I began to put his uniform back on him, taking every care not to hurt him unnecessarily.
‘Is that any better, Akira? I’m sorry I can’t do more for you just now. We’ll get you properly seen to very soon. But now, we’ve important work to do. You tell me where we go.’
Our progress was slow. It was hard for me to keep the torch pointed before us, and we often stumbled in the dark, at great cost to Akira. Indeed, he more than once came close to losing consciousness on that lap of our journey, and his weight around my shoulders grew immense. Nor was I without my own injuries; most annoyingly, my right shoe had split apart, and my foot was badly gashed, causing a searing pain to rise with each step. Sometimes we were so exhausted we could go no more than a dozen steps without stopping again. But we resolved on these occasions not to sit down, and would stand swaying together, gasping for breath, re-adjusting our weights in an attempt to relieve one pain at the expense of another. The rancid smell from his wound grew worse, and the constant scuffling of the rats around us was unnerving, but we did not, at this stage, hear any sounds of fighting.
I did what I could to keep our spirits up, making lighthearted remarks whenever I had the breath. In truth, though, my feelings concerning this reunion were, during those moments, of a complex hue. There was no doubting my huge gratitude at fate’s bringing us together just in time for our great undertaking. But at the same time, a part of me was saddened that our reunion - which I had thought about for so long should be taking place in such grim circumstances. It was certainly a long way from the scenes I had always conjured up - of the two of us sitting in some comfortable hotel lounge, or perhaps on the veranda of Akira’s house, overlooking a quiet garden, talking and reminiscing for hours on end.
Akira, meanwhile, for all his difficulties, maintained a clear sense of our direction. Frequently he would lead us along some route I feared would finish in a dead end, only for a doorway or opening to appear. From time to time, we came across more inhabitants, some no more than presences we sensed in the darkness; others, gathered around the glow of a lantern or a fire, would stare at Akira with such hostility I feared we would be set upon again. But for the most part we were allowed to pass unmolested, and I once even managed to persuade an old woman to give us drinking water in return for the last banknotes in my pocket.
Then the terrain changed perceptibly. There were no more pockets of domesticity, and the only people we encountered were isolated individuals with abandoned looks in their eyes, muttering or weeping to themselves. Nor were there any more surviving doorways, but only the gouged-out holes of the sort the lieutenant and I had negotiated at the journey’s start. Each of these presented us with much difficulty, Akira being unable to climb through - even with me assisting his every move without inflicting dreadful agonies upon himself.
We had long since given up conversation, and were simply emitting grunts in time to our steps, when suddenly Akira brought us to a halt and raised his head. Then I too could hear a voice, someone shouting orders. It was difficult to say how near it was - perhaps two or three houses away.
‘Japanese?’ I asked in a whisper.
Akira went on listening, then shook his head.
‘Kuomintang. Christopher, we now very close to… to…’
“The front?’
‘Yes, front. We now very close to front. Christopher, this very dangerous.’
‘Is it absolutely necessary to go through this area to reach the house?’
‘Necessary, yes.’
There was a sudden burst of rifle fire, then from further away, the reply of a machine-gun. We instinctively tightened our grasp on one another, but then Akira freed himself and sat down.
‘Christopher,’ he said quietly. ‘We rest now.’
‘But we have to reach the house.’
‘We rest now. Too dangerous to go in fighting zone in darkness.
We be killed. Must wait morning.’
I saw the sense in this, and in any case, we were now both too exhausted to go on much further. I also sat down and switched off the torch.
We sat in the dark for some time, the silence broken only by our breathing. Then suddenly the gunfire started again, and for perhaps a minute or two continued ferociously. It ended abruptly; then after another moment of quiet, a strange noise rose through the walls. It was a long, thin sound, like an animal’s call in the wild, but ended in a full-throated cry. Next came shrieking and sobbing, and then the wounded man began to shout out actual phrases. He sounded remarkably like the dying Japanese soldier I had listened to earlier, and in my exhausted state, I assumed this must be the same man; I was on the point of remarking to Akira what a singularly unfortunate time this individual was having, when I realised he was shouting in Mandarin, not Japanese. The realisation that these were two different men rather chilled me. So identical were their pitiful whimpers, the way their screams gave way to desperate entreaties, then returned to screams, that the notion came to me this was what each of us would go through on our way to death - that these terrible noises were as universal as the crying of new-born babies.
After a time, I grew conscious of the fact that should the fighting spill into our room, we were sitting in a completely exposed position. I was about to suggest to Akira we move somewhere more hidden, but then noticed he had fallen asleep.
I switched on the torch again and shone it about cautiously.
Even by recent standards, the destruction around us was severe. I could see grenade damage, bullet holes everywhere, smashed brick and timber. There was a dead water-buffalo lying on its side in the middle of the room no more than seven or eight yards from us; it was covered in dust and debris, a horn pointing up to the roof. I went on casting the beam about until I had established all the possible points from which combatants could enter our enclosure. Most importantly, I discovered, on the far side of the room, beyond the buffalo, a little brick alcove, which perhaps had once served as a stove or fireplace. This struck me as being the safest place for us to spend the night.
Shaking Akira awake, I put his arm around my neck, and we both rose painfully to our feet.
When we reached the brick alcove, I pushed away some rubble and cleared an area of smooth wooden boards sufficient to allow us both to lie down. I spread out my jacket for Akira and carefully laid him down on his good side. Then I too lay down and waited for sleep.
But exhausted as I was, the continuing cries of the dying man, my fears of being caught in the fighting, and my thoughts of the crucial task before us all kept me from drifting off. Akira too, I could tell, remained awake, and when finally I heard him sitting up, I asked him: ‘How is your wound?
‘My wound. No trouble, no trouble.’
‘Let me see it again…’
‘No, no. No trouble. But thank you. You good friend.’
Although we were only inches apart, we could not see each other at all. After a long pause, I heard him say: ‘Christopher. You must learn to speak Japanese.’
‘Yes, I must.’
‘No, I mean now. You learn Japanese now.’
‘Well, quite honestly, old fellow, this is hardly the ideal time to…’
‘No. You must learn. If Japanese soldier come in while I asleep, you must tell them. Tell them we are friend. You must tell them or they shoot in dark.’
‘Yes. I see your point.’
‘So you learn. In case I asleep. Or I dead.’
‘Now look here, I don’t want any of that nonsense. You’re going to be as fit as a fiddle in no time.’
There was another pause, and I remembered from years ago how Akira would fail to follow me if I used colloquialisms. So I said, quite slowly: ‘You’re going to be perfectly well. Do you understand, Akira? I’ll see to it. You’re going to be well.’
‘Very kind.’ he said. ‘But precaution is best. You must learn to say. In Japanese. If Japanese soldier come. I teach word. You remember.’
He began to say something in his own tongue, but it was much too extended and I stopped him.
‘No, no, I’ll never learn that. Something much shorter. Just to make clear we’re not the enemy.’
He thought a moment, then uttered a phrase only slightly shorter than the previous one. I made an attempt, but almost immediately he said: ‘No, Christopher. Mistake.’
After a few more attempts, I said: ‘Look, it’s no good. Just give me one word. The word for “friend”. I can’t manage anything more tonight.’
‘Tomodachi.’ he said. ‘You say. To-mo-da-chi.’
I repeated this word several times, I thought perfectly accurately, but then realised he was laughing in the darkness. I found myself laughing also, and then, much as we had done earlier, we both began to laugh uncontrollably. We went on laughing for perhaps as long as a full minute, after which I believe I fell asleep quite suddenly.
When I awoke, the earliest dawn light was coming into the room. It was a pale, bluish light, as though just one layer of darkness had been removed. The dying man had now gone silent, and from somewhere came the singing of a bird. I could now see that the roof above us had largely vanished, so that from where I lay, my shoulder hard against the brickwork, there were stars visible in the dawn sky.
A movement caught my eye and I sat up in alarm. I then saw three or four rats moving around the dead water-buffalo, and for a few moments I sat gazing at them. Only then did I turn to look at Akira, dreading what I might find. He was lying beside me quite still, and his colour was very pale, but I saw with relief that he was breathing evenly. I found my magnifying glass and began gently to examine his wound, but succeeded only in waking him.
‘It’s just me,’ I whispered as he sat up slowly and glanced about him. He looked frightened and bewildered, but then he seemed to remember everything, and a look of numb toughness came into his eyes.
‘You were dreaming?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘Yes. Dreaming.’
‘Of a better place than this, I should hope,’ I said with a laugh.
‘Yes.’ He gave a sigh, then added: ‘I dream of when I am small boy.’
We were silent for a moment. Then I said: ‘It must have been a rude shock. To come from the world you were dreaming of into this one here.’
He was staring at the buffalo’s head protruding out of the rubble.
‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘I dream of when I am young boy.
My mother, my father. Young boy.’
‘You remember, Akira. All the games we used to play? On the mound, in our garden? You remember, Akira?’
‘Yes. I remember.’
‘Those are good memories.’
‘Yes. Very good memories.’
‘Those were splendid days.’ I said. ‘We didn’t know it then, of course, just how splendid they were. Children never do, I suppose.’
‘I have child.’ Akira said suddenly. ‘Boy. Five years old.’
‘Really? I’d like to meet him.’