Certainty (5 page)

Later, they heard that the British and Australian prisoners had been sent on a long march through the jungle to Ranau, a town more than 250 kilometres away. Those who could not walk had been killed, at the outset or during the journey, and their bodies left unburied.

Now, from the crater where they sat, he and Ani could see smoke, thick and dark, rising from the airfield and the prisoner-of-war camps. Flames suddenly became visible, flickering above the trees. Without speaking, they got to their feet, hearing a truck, an engine idling somewhere nearby. Half-running, half-walking, they went back along Leila Road in the direction of Ani’s hut.

It was on the hillside, one in a row of similar structures, built from discarded wood and topped with a tin roof, now rusted. Inside, it was empty except for a few items of clothing folded neatly on the ground. Everything else had been sold or traded. They lay back on the mud floor, flies hovering around them, but he was too tired to brush them away. Rain began, millions of tiny hammers on the roof.

“I brought these for you.” He reached into his pocket and retrieved the two slightly crushed cigarettes. He knew they could be used to buy food on the black market, that cigarettes had become more valuable than the Japanese imperial money that everyone carried.

She smiled, holding them up, turning them round and round, then she laid them on her stomach. He saw the first tear trickle out of one of her eyes, slide into her hair, and disappear.

For a moment he was stunned silent. Then he said, hesitantly, “When the British return, the shops will open again, and we’ll go down to the market to buy rice, and also flowers to decorate the table.”

Ani nodded, listening, and he went on. He said that the mission school would reopen, and they would each be assigned their own desk, with its sliding drawer for pencils and paper and textbooks wrapped in brown paper. At lunchtime, they would play football on the
padang
. The field would be watered each evening so that, under the noon sun, the grass was a brilliant green.

He remembered the ringing of the St. Michael’s Church bell on Sundays, how all the men stood together in their crisp, white shirts, and the women, in their sarongs and brightly coloured dresses, laughed together under the shade of the trees.

He and Ani lay in silence, and he reached out and held her hand. When sleep began to brush at the edges of his thoughts, he heard her voice beside him. “Once,” she said, “a long time ago, there was a man who was very poor and desperate. His wife had died, and then each of his children.” For many years, he had wandered the island, but the land was not plentiful as it once had been, and all the plantations were owned by only a handful of wealthy men. One night, as he slept beneath the open sky, he was surprised by thieves, and these men took from him all that he had. Even this was not enough to appease their anger, and the men beat him and threw his body into a canal and ran away into the night.

Matthew nodded and sighed; in his mind, he cradled the bleeding man and wiped the blood from his wounds.

Ani spoke quietly, her voice a whisper, leading him through the story. When the man opened his eyes, she said, it was daylight. He crawled out of the canal and found himself in the centre of a vast
padi
field that had not yet been planted. In all his years of wandering, he had never come across a field like this; from east to west, from north to south, he knew, the land was jealously guarded. In the distance was a simple house, and the man began to walk in that direction, hoping to be granted work that would see him through the coming season. His knock at the door was answered by an old woman. When the man offered his labour, she asked if he would take one-fifth of the crop in lieu of payment, and the man joyfully accepted.

The man laboured in the
padi
fields, trying to remember all the skills he had learned. Month after month, he poured his knowledge into the field. The soil was rich and fertile, and the rains arrived and watered his crop. When it neared the time for harvest, he opened one pod but found it was empty. Each night he opened another, and each night he found it empty.

This was where Matthew began to drift to sleep, breathing in the dry muddy smell of the hut, Ani’s calm, low voice blanketing him. The afternoon rainfall began to ease. He thought he lived inside a cupboard, then, some place warm and safe that housed only he and Ani.

“Every day, the old woman asked him, ‘When shall we harvest?’ And he said, ‘Tomorrow.’ The man was so ashamed that he decided he had to run away.

“On the day he was to leave, he decided to look one last time. When he opened a pod, he saw that it was filled with gold. He opened another and another, and each pod spilled tiny pieces of gold into his open hand.”

The first time he stepped onto an airplane, it was 1953. He was eighteen years old and he was heartbroken. From the air, he had gazed down at Sandakan, the tidy rooftops, the vast plantations and, surrounding everything, jungle. In the years after the war, people in North Borneo had grieved their dead, laying stones and burning incense, tending the graves of their loved ones. But a collaborator is someone forever apart. His father had no grave in Sandakan, and his spirit floated untended, unmourned, except in Matthew’s thoughts, and in those of his mother. As the airplane rose higher, the thread that connected Matthew to the town grew taut, stretching, until it finally gave way. When the plane turned towards Australia, he looked down and saw the island of Borneo, so grand and beautiful in his imagination, diminish to a speck on the wide sea.

That memory merges into another, of his daughter, standing in the departure lounge of the Vancouver airport. He watches as his daughter embraces his wife. They are at ease with one another, they have always been, their attachment visible for all to see. She is twenty-four years old, full of hopes, expectations, on her way to study in Europe. This is her first journey away from them.

The fluorescent lights press against his eyes. He is brought back by his daughter’s touch. She has turned towards him, and in Matthew’s arms now she is slender and fragile. She has Clara’s face, open and generous, always perceptive. The airport, brightly lit, full of noise and chaos, falls away from them. For a moment, he is a child again, sitting on his father’s shoulders, far above the ground. This is a time before the war, the leaves in the rubber plantation are a canopy high above them, and he listens to the sound of his father’s footsteps. But the lamps go out and he is alone in the trees. The question haunts him still: To what lengths would he go to keep his child safe? How much of himself would he sacrifice? When she was young, Gail had followed him everywhere. All these years, he has tried to understand how their relationship changed. He has failed her in some way, he thinks, closed himself off in order to protect her, to protect them both. Whenever she asked about his childhood, about her grandparents and the life he lived in East Malaysia, he smiled, looked away, or brushed her questions aside. In this new country, he told himself, there would be no need to reach back into the past for consolation. He has long accepted that some questions will find no meaningful answers, some stories cannot bear repeating.

Don’t leave
, he wants to say, holding her.
How can I help you to understand?

Instead, he keeps his peace. And his daughter, so full of life, so young, kisses him gently on the cheek. Then she turns and walks away, disappearing through the gate.

Inside the hut, the absence of noise wakes him. Matthew sits up, cross-legged, waiting patiently to get his bearings. Outside, the rain has stopped, and the doorway is edged in faint light. Ani is still asleep, her mouth slightly open. A jade pendant, once worn by her mother, lies beside her on a square of cloth.

He touches her shoulder to say goodbye. One of her hands clutches the fabric of her sarong. She does not stir.

Outside the hut, he sees the last of the sunset, a sliver of turquoise light against the curve of the hill. He follows the road, where the thin trunks of the rubber trees leave a shadow, barely perceptible. At the side of the track, almost hidden by the grass, he notices a bicycle wheel lying abandoned and he goes to examine it. Lifting the wheel in his hands, he remembers a game of
main lering
played on Jalan Campbell on a hot, dusty day, how the rains started and the wheel was forgotten. Someone found fruit on the ground, a fresh coconut, and the children broke the shell open and shared the liquid between them.

There were other games, too.
Congkak
, played on a wooden board pitted with eight holes. Its bottom curved like a boat, one end rising up in the shape of a magical bird. To play, they’d used shells, seeds or stones, whatever was at hand. The loser would have to place the
congkak
board on his head and walk up the road and back again, the other children laughing alongside him.

Matthew finds a branch at the side of the road and sets the wheel upright, then pauses, listening. It is a busy time of evening, yet the road is empty. Where are the trucks, the labourers returning from the plantations, people hurrying home before curfew?

He puts the wheel in motion, using the branch to keep it steady. As he quickens his pace, the sky changes to red, to purple. The colours appear so solid, he feels that he could reach up and pull the sky down, settle it over him like a vast curtain.

Eventually he comes to a place where the trees part, and he has a clear view down to the harbour. Below, smoke is rising from the Japanese administration buildings, the wind carrying it towards the water, where it hangs, suspended, in the twilight. There is a bonfire, soldiers gathered around. Fragments, pieces of paper, float in the air above them.

Even after the heavy rain, the road is dusty once more. He continues walking, and the bicycle wheel rolls quietly beside him.

The hut comes into sight, his father standing in the doorway. Matthew is suddenly aware of the dust on his skin, the layer of dirt on his clothes. He hesitates, not wanting to disturb his father’s thoughts, not wanting to be seen, and the wheel, steadied by his hand, glides to a standstill beside him.

His father is looking in the other direction, down the road. Then he turns, sees Matthew, and motions him forward with his hand. “Come, Matthew,” he says. “There is something I need you to do.”

Matthew lays the bicycle wheel against the side of the hut, then follows his father inside. His mother is nowhere to be seen; she must still be visiting her brother on the far side of the plantation. His father pushes the cabinet aside and brings out the radio, but he doesn’t switch it on. Instead, while Matthew watches, his father kneels down again. When he straightens, he is holding a large glass jar filled with coins and bills.

“Look at me.” His father’s eyes are clear, his shoulders relaxed. “This is British currency,” he says, placing one hand lightly on Matthew’s arm. “This will be valuable again after the war is over. Do you understand?”

Matthew nods.

“I want you to go into the plantation. You must be very careful and you must make sure that no one sees you. No one at all. Not the Japanese, not the workers, nor any children hanging about.” His father puts his cigarette to his lips, draws, then exhales, studying Matthew. “Count out the rows. At the thirtieth row, go to the thirtieth tree. I want you to bury this jar in that exact place. Do you understand?”

“Yes, father.”

“Good.” His father stands up. He puts the jar into an old rice sack. “Take it now. Make sure that you are not seen.”

Matthew nods, his stomach tightening.

“Now,” his father repeats, his voice firm. “Go quickly.”

Matthew takes hold of the sack. He is surprised by its weight, but he swings it carefully over his shoulder.

“When you return,” his father says, almost as an afterthought, “stay inside the hut. Keep the door closed and wait for your mother. Everything will turn out for the best.”

The last of the day’s light is gone, but already he can see the moon, low in the sky. Matthew shifts the weight on his shoulders. He walks forward a few steps, then glances back. His father is outside, leaning against the hut, head bowed, and he reaches into his shirt pocket, withdrawing a handkerchief. He wipes his face and hands, then straightens his body and steps slowly, resolutely, away from the wall.

Matthew begins to run. When he reaches the edge of the plantation, he is breathing fast. Behind him, a truck rumbles along the road, and when he stops and turns he sees that the truck has come to rest in front of the hut and two Japanese soldiers are climbing out. His father goes to meet them. Matthew stands motionless. The leaves of the rubber trees shift in the wind and a light breeze cools his sweating body. He lowers his arm, lets the sack rest on the ground. The sounds twist around him, a bird or an animal crying, and from somewhere nearby, the acrid smell of smoke.

In the distance, he sees three distinct flares as cigarettes are lit; the embers are visible, though small as fireflies. Beside him, the plantation seems immense, unfathomable without the light from the kerosene lamps. He has never gone into it alone, and never when the lamps were unlit.

He walks into the plantation and the light of the moon dims. Beneath the canopy of trees, the darkness seems to press against his eyes, a blindfold, a weight. He walks on and on, touching each tree as he passes it. Something on the ground catches his feet, and he stumbles forward. There is a smell of vomit, of decay. When he puts his hands down, trying to steady himself, they are in water, something wet. His heart collapses inside his chest. He has lost count. Terrified of making a mistake, he retraces his steps. He finds his way back to the road, beyond the trees where the moon is once again visible.

Far away, the three embers glimmer in the dark. His legs, trembling, give way and he crouches on the ground. His entire body is shaking now, and he wishes that his mother would return, that she would light the last candle-end. A tiny flame glowing inside the hut to bring him home.

He does not want to disappoint his father, but he cannot step back into the trees. Breathing heavily, he lifts the sack onto his shoulder and stands. He walks in the direction of the hut.