The Harmony Silk Factory. Tash Aw
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to Johnny, and it was an event that was talked about years afterwards. Many of the guests were English – and not just the District Education Officer either, but luminaries such as Frederick Honey and all the other tuan besar of the British trading companies. It is said that even Western musicians from Singapore were engaged to perform for the evening. A striking operatic troubadour, six and a half feet tall, sang whimsical songs in French and Italian. His face was daubed with theatrical paint which obscured his fine features, but even so, everyone present commented on the delicacy of his looks and the flamboyance of his costume – a flowing cape of Ottoman silk lined with iridescent scarlet. He sang so angelically and played the piano with such lightness of touch that no one could believe that he had not come directly from the great concert halls of Europe. ‘What is someone like him doing here in the FMS?’ people wondered aloud as he improvised familiar songs, teasing his audience. The noble Mr Honey sportingly lent himself to all the women as a dancing partner; he skipped to a traditional Celtic tune, linking arms with his companions as their feet clicked lightly on the teak floorboards. Johnny stood awkwardly in a corner, surveying the scene, trying his best to seem proprietorial and calm. He smiled and tried to tap his foot to the music, but couldn’t keep in time. A scuffle broke out among the servants in the yard outside, and it was up to the magisterial Mr Honey to restore peace. All night there was a constant stream of music to match the flow of alcohol. ‘It’s at times like these,’ the guests said, watching Mr Honey regaling a group of men with stories of adventure, ‘one almost feels glad to be in Malaya.’ At the end of the evening, when the air was cool and the tired guests began reluctantly to drift home, they realised that the music was no longer playing; the lid of the piano was firmly shut. As the guests departed from the darkening house rubbing their aching temples, they struggled to remember what had happened throughout the course of that evening: it had been too wonderful to be true. Had he really existed, that painted troubadour? He had simply vanished, phantom-like, into the tropical night. What a marvellous party Johnny Lim had given, they thought; what a marvellous man he was. They certainly made a lovely couple, Johnny and Snow.
Only one photograph survives of my mother. In it, she is wearing a light-coloured samfu decorated with butterflies. The dress clings delicately to her figure, slim and strong like the trunk of a frangipani tree. Her hair is adorned with tiny jewels too small for me to identify. When I hold a magnifying glass to the picture the poor quality of the old paper makes the image blurred and soupy. Her face is young and soft. Sometimes, I stick the photo into the frame of a mirror so that I can see my own face next to hers. My eyes are her eyes, I think. The photo is too old to give me any more clues. I found it when I was fifteen, in an old tin box in Father’s closet, together with the pictures of Tarzan. It was in a cracked leather frame far too big for it, and when I looked carefully I could see that it was because the photo had been carefully torn in half. Two, maybe three other people would have been in it, but only my mother and father remain, sitting close to each other but clearly not touching. They sit at a table at the end of a meal; before them the remains of their feast appear as dark patches on the white tablecloth. Behind them, merely trees. Beyond those, a part of a building – a ruin, perhaps, somewhere I do not recognise. I am certain it is not in the valley. Throughout the years I have looked at hundreds of books on ruins: houses, palaces, temples; in this country and abroad. Not one resembled the place in the photo. I do not know where it is. Perhaps it does not even exist.
On one side of this incomplete portrait, a hand rests on my mother’s shoulder. It is a man’s hand, of that I am certain. His skin is fair – that too is obvious. On his little finger he wears a ring, probably made of gold. It looks substantial, heavy. Time and time again I looked at the ring through my magnifying glass, but it gave me no clues. It was just a ring.
I took the picture and hid it in my bedroom. Father never mentioned it, and neither did I. I wanted to ask him whether there were any other photographs of my mother, but I never did, because then he would have known that I had stolen the picture. I never dared ask him about my mother; I never knew what questions to ask. Besides, I know he would not have told me about her even if I had. All I have to go on is that single photograph. Whenever I look at it I fold it in half so that Johnny is hidden and I can only see my mother.
A few years ago, I did something I thought I would never do. I succeeded in visiting the old Soong home, the house which my mother and father lived in. I had always known where it was, tucked away a mile or so off the old coast road, west of the River Perak, yet I had never seen it. Partly this is because it is difficult to get to. There are no bridges here, and to get across the river you have to drive a long way south and then double back, travelling slowly northwards along the narrow roads that wind their way through the marshy flatlands. During the latter half of the occupation, the house was used by the Japanese secret police as their local headquarters. They brought suspected communists and sympathisers there to be tortured in the same rooms where TK and Patti and Snow and Johnny once slept. The cries of those tortured souls cut deep into the walls of the house, and when I was a boy I knew – as all children did – that the place was haunted. In those days I did not know that the house had been Snow and Johnny’s. Back then it was merely one of those things which children feared in the same way they feared Kellie’s Castle or the Pontianak who fed on the blood and souls of lone travellers on the old coast road. We were taught to fear these things and so we did, never once questioning them. We believed in those things as we believed in life itself. When, several years ago, I finally learned of the significance of the house, I simply smiled, as if someone had played a joke on me.
How funny it is that the history of your life can for so long pass unnoticed under your nose.
When I say I ‘visited’ the Soongs’ old home, I am exaggerating slightly. My first attempt to visit the place was not entirely successful. I had planned everything meticulously, but in the end my efforts proved to be fruitless.
I decided to go as a Tupperware salesman. This was the first thought that came into my head and it seemed a sensible one, as Tupperware was all the rage in the valley at the time. I purchased a large selection of Tupperware in different colours and sizes and loaded it into my car. I stole a brochure from my dentist’s waiting room and bought a new briefcase into which I packed several ‘order forms’ which I had typed myself. I put on a tie, of course, and combed my hair differently. I had allowed my hair to grow longer than usual, as I thought this would help me to feel like a different person. I gave myself one last look in the rear-view mirror of my car before I set off, and I was pleased with what I saw. My own mother would not have recognised me.
The door was answered by a pubescent child – a girl, I think, though she was dressed as a boy. I searched her face for a resemblance to me but found none. She stared at me with fierce eyes.
‘What are you selling?’ she snapped. She sounded much older than she looked.
‘Tupperware,’ I said, suddenly feeling confident at the sound of the word. I stepped aside and pointed at my car. Large piles of Tupperware rose into view through the windows.
‘We don’t need …’
‘Tupp-er-ware,’ I said slowly. ‘Would you kindly ask your mother?’
‘She’s not here.’
‘Anyone else here?’
She closed the door and bolted it. ‘There’s a tall man selling things,’ I heard her call out to someone inside. When the door opened again a young woman stood at the entrance. She looked at me coldly but did not speak.
‘I’m selling Tupperware,’ I said. ‘It’s from America. It’s very useful.’
She remained silent. I felt my nerve begin to weaken. I had to make a final attempt. ‘May I come in and show you?’ I smiled.
She held my gaze for several seconds. I held my breath to hide my nervousness and tried not to blink.
‘OK,’ she said and let me in.
I stood in the middle of the large sitting room and looked around me. The room led out to a verandah which ran along the entire length of the back of the house. Through the half-open shutters I could see that the land fell away to the jungle, which appeared as a soft green carpet.