All That Matters (44 page)

WAITING ON THE RAISED
station platform, impatient for the arrival of the Red Cross train, I looked at my watch and said, as much to myself as to Jenny, “He’ll be here soon.”

I followed a flight of gulls as they swooped over the dark waters of Burrard Inlet and soared over the Second Narrows Bridge, and felt lost. Jenny, too, seemed disoriented. She leaned against my shoulder, her arms resting on her swollen belly; it was 1947, and our first-born was due in less than a month. But for now, with the taste of soot on my tongue, we waited anxiously for another arrival: Jack was coming home.

Families wandered about us, smiling bravely. People clutched each other for support. Volunteers and Red Cross nurses in dark capes paced attentively. The temperature felt mild for December, and the air smelled of wet hay.

We were all waiting next to a fenced-in yard with chutes usually used for transferring prize livestock to the Exhibition grounds. The long platform built alongside the tracks next to the station office had been swept clean, and wide wooden ramps were lined up, ready to be lifted into place. Severely wounded veterans—amputees, paraplegics, burn victims—were returning to their homes in Vancouver. High above the flat roof, a flag flew for King and Country. There were no news photographers or politicians.

I had been meditating on what had brought us to this station platform. Deep in thought herself, Jenny did not mind my seeming indifference. Invisible forces, like luck or fate, and like the ghosts of Old Chinatown, had come back into our lives, if they had left us at all. Jack, too, must have had such hauntings.

Mr. O’Connor had not been told how his son had escaped the Japanese. Jack himself recalled nothing. The official report stated that during the defence of Hong Kong, Jack had been trapped in a firestorm of burning buildings, and it was only the fragments of his uniform—labels stuck to his skin—that enabled the Chinese underground to identify him as an Allied soldier and smuggle him onto an American ship. Months later, he woke up in Winnipeg, in the burn ward at Deer Park Veterans’ Hospital, with his arms tied to a special bed. And then after years of intensive care, refusing to see any visitors, after his massive wounds had healed into scars and his memory had slowly returned, he asked to be transferred home. His father was too sick to
leave the house, and so his mother had come to our apartment one evening.

“Jack asked if you and Jenny would bring him home,” she said. “Just the two of you. No one else.”

“Yes,” I said, as simple as that. Jenny, unable to speak, took Mrs. O’Connor in her arms, and the two women embraced as if they were companions in loss.

“Don’t you mind if my boy looks so terrible?” Mrs. O’Connor kept saying, over and over. “Don’t you mind?”

If Jenny minded, she said nothing. And while we waited for Jack’s train, she said even less. A cloud passed over us, melting away the shadow of the bridge, and a light rain began to fall. Jenny lifted her shawl into a makeshift hood. Her eyes were sad, but in the sombre light she looked even lovelier.

“Jack won’t know me,” she said. “I’m a different person.”

A horn shook the air, followed by a clanging bell.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” announced a man wearing a CPR cap, “please stand back from the tracks.”

A small crowd rushed to the farthest end of the platform to wait for the engine to round the bend. Some openly wept.

The young nurses passed among us to explain how the arrivals might be expected to disembark. Ramp A was for veterans who would be arriving strapped in rigged cots, and B and D, fitted with extra handrails, were for those using crutches. Ramp C, the longest ramp, was for those using wheelchairs. Each passenger car would display a designated letter.

An old man standing near us glanced at his watch and made a face, as if to say to everyone,
Get ready
.

A short blast sent flocks of gulls into the sky. The train’s clanging bell echoed under the bridge and reechoed between the inlet shores. Jenny and I headed towards ramp C.

Voices rose and fell.

“Tell me, Kiam …”

We stopped. There was no rush.

“Tell you what, Jenny?”

Another blast sounded. Attendants shouted instructions. The heavy wooden ramps were being lifted and dragged, leaving behind claw marks.

“Tell me, Kiam, why you and I can’t let him go.”

The train thundered forward and drowned all our voices. Puffs of white smoke billowed under the bridge. I held my breath. A long time ago, I had seen such clouds of steam rising from a great distance. With an ear-wrenching screech, like the cry of a dragon, the train halted. Soon we would be home. I put my hand on Jenny’s shoulder. We watched as ramp C was locked into place.

NOTE

The “dark time” in the Dedication refers to the year 2001 when my life was interrupted by medical emergencies. This book is dedicated to the excellent medical and rehabilitation teams, the doctors and nurses, and the vital volunteers, of Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital and Bridgepoint Hospital.

The book is further dedicated to the friends and family members who stood by me and rallied my spirit and to the communities of Humber College and the Humber School for Writers who kept in touch during those four months—all of you contributed to my eventual recovery. Many should be named, but I resist for fear that I might, inadvertently, leave out someone who mattered.

And, not least, this book is dedicated to Wayson Michael Lowe, to Quinn Roy and Tessa Hill, to Kathryn Schweishelm, to Tosh and Gary Noseworthy, and to their loyal and affectionate families.

Please know that your love and generous actions have deepened the moral fabric and themes of
All That Matters
.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Regarding this work, the following contributed to my knowledge of the period—aside from those already acknowledged in my novel,
The Jade Peony
, and in my memoir,
Paper Shadows—
the books are: Brereton Greenhous, A
Canadian Catastrophe, 1941-1945
(Dundurn/Canadian War Museum); Margery Wolf and Roxane Witke, ed., Women in
Chinese Society
(Stanford University Press); Ono Kazuko,
Chinese Women in a Century of Revolution, 1850-1950
J. A. Fogel, ed., (Stanford University Press); Thomas Tsu-wee Tan,
Your Chinese Roots, The Overseas Chinese Story
(Times Books International); Bill McNeil,
Voices of a War Remembered
(Doubleday Canada); Michael Kluckner,
Vancouver, The Way It Was
(Whitecap Books); Wing Chung Ng,
The Chinese in Vancouver, 1945-80
(UBC Press); E. G. Perrault,
Tong
.
The Story of Tong Louie, Vancouver’s Quiet Titan
(Harbour Publishing); Faith Moonsang,
First Son, Portraits by C.D. Hoy
(Arsenal Pulp Press); the writings of Roy Mah, Larry Wong, and Paul Yee. Extensive interviews, photos and relevant clippings, school annuals and catalogues were generously shared by King Lee, Robert Yip, Fred Jong, members of the David Lee family, Alex Louie, Norman Wong, David Smith, Marie Yip, Larry Wong, Helen McQuade, Wesley Lowe, Sister Marie-Vie Chua; and in Hong Kong, Watt Chow, Crystal Tang, Allen and Brenda Wong, Donna Mah; and countless others.

The dedicated professionals at the Vancouver Public and Metro Toronto libraries, particularly those members in the reference and archival departments, were an immense help. I must single out John Smith of Toronto who went
searching the War Museum and Ottawa archives for a single detail. Personal help was given by Michael Glassbourg and team members Elisa, Michele, Laura and Tanya.

Of course, for the purposes of a fictional work, I am responsible for my characters’ insights and for their limited and sometimes distorted knowledge of the world they inhabit. I have simplified the various ways to reproduce Chinese dialects, choosing my readers’ comfort over any academic correctness. For the same reason, I have simplified traditional references to family and friendship relations (for which there can be over one hundred possible words in Chinese).

My early and most recent readers deserve thanks for their astute suggestions, including Charis Wahl, Antanas Sileika, Joe Kertes, Ken Dyba, Karl Schweishelm, Betty Thiessen, Janet Somerville, ‘Esco’, Angela Fina, and my indomitable agent, Denise Bukowski. Jacob and Alice Zilber, Kit Wilson-Pote and Mary Jo Morris read the material many times over with a verve for details, as did Judy Fong Bates and Michael Bates. I also thank copy editor Shaun Oakey and proofreader Alison Reid for their professional work.

For their unbending faith that this book would be completed, and as my publisher and editorial advisor, I especially thank Maya Mavjee and Martha Kanya-Forstner.

Finally, the blessings of a community of friends and readers have supported my writing and kept me going. Ten thousand thanks to everyone.