His house was lit only by a single lamp and the doors were open. I walked around to the rocky outcrop facing the open sea, and saw his dark figure standing on the rocks. A light flashed like a captured star from his hand and, far out to the darkness of the sea, a flicker of light could be seen in reply.
I crept back to my boat, my need to see him abruptly taken away.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I sent a note to the Japanese consulate and canceled the classes I had arranged with Endo-san. I could not face him at this moment. I could not deceive myself anymore. It was one thing to hear him admit his knowledge of his country’s intention to attack us, but quite another to witness his active role in it. I kept seeing him on that rock again and again, flashing his secret signals out to the waiting sea. I knew for certain now what he was doing, and the role I had played in helping him.
Tanaka, Kon’s
sensei,
was the only person who would be able to help me, and I decided to visit him the day before Ming’s wedding.
I made my way to his house in Tanjung Tokong and waited in the shade of the veranda. I sounded the wind chime. “Tanaka-san!” I called out.
The door with the mosquito netting opened and he came out. “Ah, good! I have been thinking about you. It is timely that you have come.”
Once again we sat on the veranda, but this time there was no tea. “I apologize but I have packed away most of my things,” he said.
“You’re leaving? Are you going home?”
“No. I have decided to find refuge in a monastery in the hills around Ayer Itam.”
“You too think there’ll be a war,” I said.
“There will always be wars,” Tanaka said.
“Stop talking like a novice monk, Tanaka-san,” I said and then, shocked at my own rudeness, I apologized.
He leaned closer and studied my face. “What is troubling you?”
I told him everything, about Endo-san’s activities and how he had manipulated me. It was an immense relief to finally confide in another person who had known Endo-san, someone who would not condemn me.
Tanaka closed his eyes and appeared to have gone to sleep but he said, “Your duty to your family and home is heavy, as is your obligation to your
sensei.
I know how you feel. Especially about Endo-san.”
“How could you, when there is so much enmity between Endo-san and yourself?”
He opened his eyes in surprise. “Enmity? There is none, none at all.”
“You barely spoke to each other at the party.”
“That doesn’t mean we did not communicate. Endo-san has been, and will always be, the greatest friend I’ll ever have. In fact, your friendship with Kon reminds me very much of us when we were younger.”
“What happened?”
Tanaka listened to the breeze on the bars of the wind chime. It was so quiet I could hear his breathing. I found it hard to believe that an invading army was at that moment preparing to spill over the country like beans poured out from a gunnysack.
Finally he said, “The pacifist views of Endo-san’s father were considered not in harmony with the emperor’s vision and he was removed from his post as a courtier. The family was disgraced and moved back to Toriijima, where they started a business.”
His continued evasiveness exasperated me. I made up my mind that I would obtain the truth during this visit, for another opportunity might not arise. So I said, in a firm and resolute voice, “I’ve heard all of that before. Why are you actually here? Why of all the places in the world did you choose Penang? You told me once, but I knew you were lying to me.”
He flashed his teeth in a quick, guilty smile, but his eyes remained sad. He understood the situation I had been put in and that I could not now accept anything less than the complete truth.
“I apologize for not having been completely frank with you,” he said. “As Japan extended her influence further into China, Endo-san’s father attacked the government publicly, which in Japan can be seen as a personal attack on the emperor. He was imprisoned and subsequently fell ill and Endo-san’s mother retreated into her own world. Endo-san and Umeko, his sister, were the only ones who could take care of their young brothers and sisters.”
He stopped, pausing to arrange his words like an
ikebana
expert with his flowers, shifting, bending, adding, and taking away to achieve the results he desired. “Endo-san was never close to his mother, but even he was affected by her mental state. She would sit in the sun and stare at the lake or watch the farmers planting rice. I visited her often. Sometimes she would sing to me or to her sleeping children.”
I heard my own voice reciting the lines of the poem to Endo-san, in exchange for his Nagamitsu sword. I saw now why the poem had touched him so much more than I had anticipated.
“Endo-san’s father’s health worsened. The government was aware that Endo-san had traveled extensively and so decided to make use of his experience. He was given the choice of working for the government in return for medical treatment and nursing care for his father. When Endo-san was given a position in the consulate here, his father, Aritaki-san, asked for me. I went to the prison to see him and he asked a great favor of me.”
“He asked you to look out for his son. And you followed Endo-san all the way here,” I said, making a correct assumption.
“I refused at first. Umeko, Endo-san’s sister, begged me. And there was a young girl, Michiko, who loved Endo-san so much, and I—” he stopped.
“And you were very much in love with her,” I said, finishing it for him.
“I was very much aware that Michiko did not return my feelings. But because I loved her, I promised her that I would look after Endo-san, wherever he went. And also because Endo-san was my friend. Aritaki-san even begged our
sensei’s
help to persuade me. My
sensei
felt that Endo-san required a constant reminder of his teachings. I am that reminder. That is why he dislikes my presence here.”
“But you can’t leave now. Endo-san will need a friend now more than ever,” I said.
“I have seen how he has changed, since he began his work here. We have different beliefs now. I cannot condone this war my country has started. This is the moment when our paths diverge. I will not watch over him anymore. I have tried, but he has closed himself off from all others.”
“You’re running away,” I said in disbelief. “You have put aside your duty.” It was a serious accusation to make but the facts were clear and irrefutable. Tanaka did not disagree but sat quietly, his face like a Noh mask, unreadable.
“You cannot outrun a world at war, Tanaka-san.”
He looked into my eyes. “And you cannot outrun your fate, my young friend. It is time to say my farewell to you.”
“Will we meet again?”
“Definitely. When all this madness is over; when harmony is restored, you and Endo-san will find me here.”
“What must I do, Tanaka-san?” I asked.
“What do you think you must do?”
I was unable to reply. He gave me a sad, sympathetic smile. “You already know what you have to do,” he said.
I made one final attempt to sway him. “You’re his friend; you must stay.”
He shook his head. “He doesn’t need me anymore. He has you.”
* * *
We followed the map Uncle Lim had printed on the back of the invitation card. The village was thirty miles away from town, on the southwestern tip of the island, known to the locals as Balik Pulau, Back of the Island. My father drove the Daimler, jaws tight, his expression replicated on Isabel’s face. I did not have to be told how the discussions for her engagement to Peter MacAllister had gone in the past two weeks.
I had been too distracted to pay attention to them. Tanaka’s disclosure had unveiled another aspect to Endo-san’s presence in Penang and amplified the sense of unbalance I was experiencing. It was akin to being thrown continuously by Endo-san at the conclusion of every lesson. I would fall, get up quickly, and be met immediately by another technique until the flow of my blood seemed reversed and I was vertiginous, not knowing where earth and sky stood.
I knew it would make me even more miserable than I felt now but I made a decision to avoid contact with him for the moment, until I was able to overcome my feelings of confusion. I did not know how long that would require and a great heaviness settled itself upon me.
* * *
Instead of going through miles of jungle, my father decided to drive around the island, heading to its westernmost tip before turning south. The road rose up on the shoulders of low hills and faithfully followed the curves of the coastline. Below us the thick green of the trees was stitched to the blue of the sea by a seam of white, endless surf. Light splattered like careless paint through the trees above us and the wind through our open windows smelled clean and unblemished, tasting of wet earth, damp leaves, and always, always the sea.
We passed Malay kampongs, slowing down to avoid the naked children playing on the roads. They shouted with excitement when they saw the car. Birds called and flew from tree to tree, disturbed by our passage. Wild orchids clung to the face of the cliff that the road skirted. At Teluk Bahang, the road faded into the jungles and we turned south, passing fruit orchards and durian and coconut plantations. The spiky durian fruit clung like immense burrs on the trees, infusing the air with their pungent, flatulent smell.
Following the little signs planted along the road by the villagers, we went off the main road and entered Kampong Dugong. Banners, all red, fluttered in the air, golden congratulatory words painted on them by a master calligrapher. Uncle Lim met us dressed in formal crimson robes, happy to see us. We were the only Europeans in this village today.
“Please meet Mr. Chua, the groom’s father,” Uncle Lim said. “He’s also the village headman.” Chua was in his fifties, a gentle-looking Chinese with a wispy goatee and tough sinewy arms.
My father shook their hands. “May your son’s longevity be as the Southern Mountain, his wealth be as the Eastern Sea,” he said, the traditional phrases of felicitation in Hokkien.
Chua looked surprised and then he laughed. “Now I know why you have such a formidable reputation, Mr. Hutton.”
The village had about five hundred people in it, making their living from the sea and from the surrounding orchards and vegetable farms. There were friendly stares as we walked to the wooden jetty, which appeared to have been constructed whenever an extra plank, an abandoned table or a broken door could be found. It seemed to rock gently as we walked on it, our shadows frightening the translucent shoals of fish in the clear green water.
Isabel refused to set foot on it. “I’m not going on that rickety thing,” she said. “I’ll go for a stroll in the village with your grandfather.”
My father and I walked the twisting jetty to its end. Despite the heat he was formally dressed and he had insisted that I be as well. I took off my hat and leaned against a shaved rubber sapling that had been planted into the seabed to support the walkway. The sky was clear, blue as a dream. All the boats were in and they lined the length of the jetty, swaying and creaking, tied to poles. The smell of salted fish and shrimp drying in the sun brought me back to the village where Endo-san had stopped on our journey to Kuala Lumpur.
“What do you think?” my father asked.
I tried to guess what he was talking about. “About what?”
“Your sister.”
I wondered if I could ever tell him about the connection between Endo-san and me. Perhaps Isabel and Peter MacAllister had a past together too. “She loves him, and I think he feels the same for Isabel,” I replied.
“That’s never enough,” his quick reply came.
“Then nothing will ever be enough.”
“She needs more time and she’s too young.”
“She doesn’t have more time.” I told him then about Endo-san’s words to me, about the coming invasion. “MacAllister will either be told to evacuate by the government, or be interned by the Japanese.”
“Mr. Endo has no idea what he is talking about,” he said, looking hard at the sea. “There’ll be no war in Malaya.”
I thought again of Endo-san flashing his cryptic light out to sea and felt afraid. The island of Penang was so vulnerable, so easy to pluck, like a child awakened by kidnappers at night from his bed.
“Just speak to MacAllister, find out what he is like. You know how it feels to be the unwelcome man in love with another man’s daughter,” I said.
“Look,” he said, pointing out to sea, apparently not having heard me. A school of dolphins streaked past us, the rambunctious ones leaping out from the sea and then falling in again. We watched as they chased the fish. We could hear their clicks and their strange infantlike cries. “Always loved them,” he said. “If I could live again, I would want to be a dolphin, forever swimming the oceans, seeing sights no human eye will ever see.” His voice was soft, his eyes softer, their blueness not of light anymore but of a warm, rippling liquid that was depthless.