The Language of Threads Read online

  Mrs. Finch knew Pei was concerned about Ji Shen. In the past few months, the girl’s grades had been slipping, and she didn’t seem to care about anything but clothes and listening to the latest records. The situation had gotten so bad that Mrs. Finch had taken away Ji Shen’s phonograph privileges: “Just until your grades pick up.” Ji Shen had simply shrugged and pressed her records tightly against her chest.

  “Growing pains. She’s seventeen,” Mrs. Finch said. “They’ll pass.”

  Pei nodded and sat down at the side of her bed. “What mischief were you making in here?” She pointed to the cardboard boxes on the floor.

  “Packing away more of the past. No point in cluttering up the room anymore!”

  “Soon I won’t recognize this room.”

  “Maybe later you can help me put those boxes away in the hall closet.”

  “Of course,” Pei said, standing up. “Would you like your tea now?”

  Mrs. Finch gently reached for her arm. “Sit awhile.”

  Pei sat down as she always did, without protest. Mrs. Finch had grown so fond of Pei, so quickly. There was something genuinely good and honest about her. As in her Howard. She also liked Pei’s quick intelligence, and her ability to compliment an old lady who talked too much.

  “Have you ever lost someone you felt was your entire life?” Mrs. Finch watched the expression on Pei’s face change from surprise to understanding.

  “Yes,” she answered calmly.

  “Do you believe that kind of love ever dies?”

  Pei brushed back a strand of her hair and looked squarely into Mrs. Finch’s eyes. “No. I believe it lives within you down the most difficult paths in life.”

  Mrs. Finch smiled and wondered if it was the friend who had died in a fire that Pei was remembering. She had said so little about her past life, offering only tidbits: that she was born in the delta region outside Canton and had grown up doing silk work in the village of Yung Kee.

  Mrs. Finch leaned forward. “Yes. But sometimes, we do find others to love and cherish.” She looked down at her swollen hands and pulled off her emerald ring with difficulty. “This ring was the first anniversary gift Howard gave me, over forty years ago. I want you to have it.” She pushed the ring into Pei’s palm.

  “Oh, no.” Pei pushed it back.

  Mrs. Finch persisted. “You are the child I would have hoped to have. You and Ji Shen have given me great joy in the past year. I want you to have something that was a token of the great happiness that Howard and I shared. You deserve no less, my dear.”

  Pei looked down at the ring, then back at Mrs. Finch. “But I can’t . . .”

  “Of course you can. Now, how about that tea? I’m parched.”

  Mrs. Finch eased back against her pillows. As if some great weight had been lifted off her shoulders, she watched Pei hurry out of the room, still clutching the ring in the palm of her hand. Mrs. Finch breathed in the warm, slightly sweet air. It was much easier to let go than she had thought.

  Chapter Six

  1941

  Pei

  The long, high-ceilinged room was hot and steamy. The faintly sweet scent of cocoons unraveling in boiling water rose up around her. Pei’s legs felt numb from the long hours of standing. Her reeling machine whizzed faster and faster, and she rushed to pick up the main threads from the cocoons soaking in the iron basin in front of her. But just as Pei finished reeling the one bunch soaking, she’d look down to see another sink full of cocoons waiting for her. She couldn’t keep up, no matter how fast she worked, her fingers scalded by the hot water each time she reached for a thread. Pei glanced up through the steam and spoke to Lin working right beside her, but Pei’s voice was lost among the whirling machines that whistled louder and louder. . . .

  The high-pitched whistling sound startled Pei awake. For a moment, her hands still grasping at the invisible thread, she couldn’t tell where she was. At last she roused herself from her steamy sleep and looked over to see Ji Shen sitting up, wide-eyed, in the bed next to hers.

  “What’s that noise?” Ji Shen asked, her voice trembling.

  The whistling grew louder. “I don’t know.”

  Pei jumped from her bed and glanced out the window, just as a quick shadow shrieked by her toward the stone wall that divided the building behind them from the one next to it. The shell exploded with such a roar Pei thought the entire building would collapse on them. The force of the blast knocked her to the floor. Glass from their window splintered everywhere and Pei felt a sharp sting along her hairline. The entire flat was vibrating. Pei’s ears rang and her eyes watered as acrid smoke drifted through the broken panes. She faintly heard Ji Shen’s screams through the haze; then she became aware of the muffled sounds of barking dogs, and high, frantic cries from the street. Then Mrs. Finch’s voice rose louder yet, calling from her room in a mixture of English and Chinese. “Oh, dear God! Are you girls all right?”

  As the smoke cleared, Pei picked herself up off the floor and rushed to Ji Shen, who’d also been knocked down. “Are you all right?”

  “Your head?” Ji Shen pointed, as she rubbed her arm.

  Lightheaded, Pei tasted the salty, metallic tang of blood that dripped from her temple to the corner of her mouth. “I’m fine,” she assured Ji Shen, though her head throbbed. “Let’s see about Mrs. Finch.”

  She grasped Ji Shen’s hand and pulled her through the debris to Mrs. Finch’s room. The hallway was dark and smoky. Pei’s eyes stung as her thoughts flickered back and forth from the shocking to the mundane—the sight of Lin’s charred body after the fire, the dark spot she had tried endlessly to rub out of the kitchen floor, the clothes she washed yesterday and hung to dry in the back room . . .

  Mrs. Finch met them halfway, wobbling unsteadily to her doorway in a rose-patterned cotton nightgown. “A fine wake-up call,” she said, pale and shaken, then added, “Thank God, thank God!” She opened her arms wide as both Pei and Ji Shen rushed into her embrace.

  The following morning, after the first all-clear siren sounded, they made their way back to the flat from the nearest bomb shelter, still dazed by the violent events of the night before. Mrs. Finch walked briskly and tried to keep up a cheerful demeanor. “What I wouldn’t do for a nice cup of tea,” she remarked lightly.

  But when they opened the door to the flat Pei heard Mrs. Finch’s stunned intake of breath. A smoky veil still lingered in the air. While the building itself was mostly intact, everything in it seemed to have been lifted up and slammed back down again. Windows had been blown out. Glass figurines littered the floor; many were smashed beyond recognition. Paintings and needlepoint pictures that once hung on the wall had been hurled across the room. The heavy furnishings lay toppled.

  Mrs. Finch coughed in short sputtering sounds. Pei quickly picked up an overturned chair for her, and patted her back as Ji Shen ran to the kitchen for a glass of water.

  When Mrs. Finch had drunk it, Pei cleared her own dry throat and said, “Let me make some tea.”

  “No, please.” Mrs. Finch grasped her arm. “Humor an old lady. Allow me to fetch the tea this time.”

  Pei and Ji Shen watched as Mrs. Finch stood up and hurried to the kitchen, shattered glass grinding beneath her shoes.

  Later that afternoon Mrs. Finch suggested that Pei and Ji Shen move into the living room, which faced the other side of the building, but Pei refused.

  “Once we sweep up the glass and pick up the pictures, it will be our room again. We can’t run away from our fates.”

  Instead of arguing, Mrs. Finch relented. “I don’t imagine I’ll change your mind now that it’s made up.” She looked pale and tired.

  Pei and Ji Shen immediately set to work cleaning their room and putting everything back in order. While Ji Shen held board after board across their blown-out bedroom window, Pei nailed them down until the window was completely covered. When they were done, Pei stood back, her head throbbing from all the pounding.

  That night Pei was suddenly awakened by
the floor creaking under footsteps. She heard the soft cadence of Ji Shen’s even breathing accompanied by another rhythm—shallower and faster. Pei lay still, her heart racing, her eyes darting across the dark room. It took her a few moments to realize that it was Mrs. Finch’s thin figure standing so quietly in the doorway.

  “Is everything all right?” Pei’s voice jumped out in the darkness.

  Mrs. Finch took a step forward. “I’m sorry to wake you. I couldn’t sleep, and I wanted to check and see if you girls were all right. I was also wondering . . . if you’d ever gotten around to putting by some supplies?”

  Pei threw her covers off and in the next moment stood grasping Mrs. Finch’s trembling hands in hers.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve put aside enough to last us a good month or more,” Pei whispered.

  Mrs. Finch squeezed Pei’s hand tightly as she struggled with her words. “You needn’t worry about me. According to rumors I’m afraid the Japanese will probably call me in if it comes to that. If so, I want to make sure there’s enough for you and Ji Shen. I’m just glad Howard isn’t alive to see how the world has gone mad.”

  “We’re still together,” Pei whispered. She wanted to say something more comforting, but in the dark warmth of the room, she simply put her arms around Mrs. Finch, wishing she could protect her forever.

  By December 12, Japanese dive-bombers were devastating Central both day and night, while artillery screamed across the harbor from Japanese-occupied Kowloon. Mrs. Finch, Pei, and Ji Shen huddled in the darkness of the rank, crowded bomb shelters. Fires raged through Central and Wan Chai, and Pei prayed to the goddess Kuan Yin that somehow Song Lee, Ma-ling, and Quan were safe from all the destruction. So far, there had been no word from any of them. When the bombs finally stopped long enough for an all-clear siren to wail, the night air was thick and bitter with smoke.

  By the end of the second week in December, the blackout was enforced every night, while constant shelling targeted the Central District. Japanese propaganda blasted from the harbor in English, Chinese, and Hindi: “We have come in friendship to free you from British imperialism.” Next came the staticky strains of “Home Sweet Home.”

  When they weren’t rushing to a bomb shelter, threading their way through debris and craters that scarred the roads, Mrs. Finch drowned out the constant propaganda by playing her own records. Pei knew this was for the benefit of Ji Shen, who’d grown increasingly quiet, barely saying a word to anyone. School had been canceled and Quan was nowhere to be seen. Every time the high shrill of the air-raid siren went off, she covered her ears with her hands and silently followed Pei to the shelter. Pei wondered what kind of fate would force Ji Shen to endure the trauma she had experienced in Nanking yet again. How many times would she have to relive that nightmare? It seemed so unfair.

  Every evening after dinner, Mrs. Finch carefully slipped an old record from its envelope, telling a story with each song she played, helping Pei and Ji Shen forget for a moment that they sat defenseless against the Japanese. Pei watched with gratitude and admiration as Mrs. Finch placed a record lovingly on the Victrola, which had miraculously suffered only minor damage through the bombing of the last week.

  “The first time Howard and I tried to dance the Charleston, he threw his back out and had to stay in bed for a week! I don’t think there’s anything more difficult than a bedridden man. Come on now, let me show you the steps.” She placed the needle on the record and tapped her foot to the fast, jumpy beat. “Let’s kick up our heels,” she said, coaxing Ji Shen to join her.

  Ji Shen hesitated, then joined in, alternately kicking up her right leg, then her left, with the beat. Their laughter filled the flat, and for those fleeting moments, Mrs. Finch had convinced Pei and Ji Shen that there wasn’t a war going on and that nothing had changed. But at the sudden shriek of the air-raid siren, Ji Shen stopped and covered her ears. They all stood frozen in the middle of Mrs. Finch’s room.

  Mrs. Finch glanced over at Pei, then shouted above the wail of the siren. “I think they could use a little cheering up in that bloody old shelter this one time!” She stopped the music and quickly disassembled the Victrola, handing each of them a piece. Pei insisted on carrying the heavy base of the phonograph as they hurried toward the shelter.

  Voices buzzed through the stale air. Pei caught bits and pieces of their neighbors’ low, anxious conversations: “De-capitated . . . Strung up . . . Speared right through . . .”

  “What have you got there old girl?” The elderly man calling out as they squeezed through the gathered crowd was Mr. Spencer, a retired British engineer who lived nearby.

  “I thought it was about time we had some fun,” Mrs. Finch answered.

  “There’s nothing like music to soothe a savage beast,” said Mrs. Finch’s friend Mrs. Tate.

  They made room in the dimly lit basement as Pei cranked up the Victrola. Glenn Miller sailed through the gloominess and reverberated off the walls.

  “I should have taken the gin,” a voice piped up.

  “And the latest Benny Goodman,” Mrs. Tate added.

  Just then a nearby explosion shook the room and the needle screeched across the record. Ji Shen screamed and covered her ears. When the dust settled and the explosions had grown distant, Pei got up and put another record on, then watched as Mrs. Finch pulled Ji Shen’s hands away from her ears and said, “I believe this was my dance.”

  Less than a week later, on Christmas Day, 1941, the Japanese took control of Hong Kong, and Pei knew that nothing would ever be the same.

  “A Merry Christmas to the gallant British soldiers. You have fought a good fight but now is the time to surrender. If you don’t, within twenty-four hours, we’ll give you all we’ve got. A Merry Christmas to the gallant British soldiers.”

  Mrs. Finch

  The Japanese wasted no time in making their presence felt. Right after the takeover, roving bands of soldiers moved through the streets like locusts, breaking into stores in Central and Wan Chai and taking whatever they wanted. They wantonly destroyed all that was left behind. Mrs. Finch and Pei still heard distant gunfire from the Peak: a hopeless defense attempt by the few uncaptured British troops. Soon, the only gunfire came from the Japanese soldiers.

  Amongst the general panic and uncertainty, there was an emergency meeting of all the British citizens left in the Conduit Road vicinity, who now numbered fewer than forty-five. It was held at the third-floor apartment of Mr. Spencer, less than a block from where Mrs. Finch lived. She had come to know most of her fellow expatriates well during their long hours spent in bomb shelters. In the dim, musty cellars of houses and apartment buildings, a solidarity emerged, based on fear and fading hope.

  “My God, Caroline, have you heard the news?”

  Isabel Tate, also a widow, rushed across the living room. Mrs. Finch watched her quick, nervous movements, thinking Isabel would have been better off returning to London with most of the others.

  “Calm down, Isabel.” Mrs. Finch took her friend’s hand. “What is it?”

  “Have you heard? Now the Japanese are beating and murdering people who aren’t bowing low enough. Gladys says you have to bow like this.” She bowed low toward the ground. “And never make eye contact with them!”

  Mrs. Finch tried to remain calm. “It might be an isolated incident,” she said, knowing full well that the monstrous atrocities increased every day. “Aren’t there other things we could talk about?” She was ready to change the subject.

  But Mrs. Tate continued. “They’re not only confiscating everything they can get their bloody hands on, but raping nurses and bayoneting doctors.” She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped the corner of her eye. “What’s to become of us?”

  Mrs. Finch tried to smile reassuringly, thinking more of Pei and Ji Shen and their vulnerability; she was sick with awareness of what could happen to them when they were outdoors on their own. “What would they want with a couple of old ladies who have one foot already in the grave! We’re m
ore of a nuisance to them than anything else.”

  “Exactly my point. We’re dispensable!” Mrs. Tate anxiously turned to complain to another woman who had entered the room.

  Mrs. Finch shook her head in sorrow, as the horrible news of Japanese brutalities spread through the room. “Why, they’ve left the bloated bodies of soldiers and innocent people just lying on the streets as a reminder of their Japanese superiority,” Mr. Spencer was saying. “And everywhere, there’s the stink of night soil dumped in the gutters!” he went on.

  Mrs. Finch thought of how much easier this would all be if Howard were still alive.

  A young man named Douglas—Mrs. Finch thought he was a barrister—suddenly called for their attention. “There’s no need to panic. We’ve been instructed to stay indoors, and to wait for our next orders from the Japanese commander.”

  Mrs. Finch watched Douglas pace the floor, and thought his voice soothing, perfect for a courtroom or for making these sorts of announcements. Calm and impartial.

  “How long do you think that will be?” she asked.

  “We’re not sure yet.” Douglas smiled reassuringly.

  “I suppose it depends on when the Japanese call each of us in,” she pressed on.

  “Exactly,” he said, his smile disappearing.

  Behind her came the muffled cries from the other women in the room. She swallowed her own fears; they were all in for a bumpy ride.

  In the next few days, Mrs. Finch’s life changed in more ways than even she could have imagined. All British and Canadian civilians in banking and business positions were methodically rounded up and taken away, kept in overcrowded Kowloon hotels to await internment. Any sign of resistance would result in death, slow or quick depending on the mood of the officer in charge.

  Each morning, Mrs. Finch found herself reluctantly picking up The Hong Kong News, the only Japanese-English newspaper, and looking down the list of all Hong Kong and British banks. Each name was followed by neat, narrow columns of safety deposit box numbers. Mrs. Finch anxiously scoured her bank’s column for her own safety deposit box number, 8949. Like all the other foreigners living in the Hill District, she had been allowed to remain in her home temporarily. But when her box number appeared, she would have to report immediately to the bank and empty out her box for the Japanese authorities. Afterward, she’d be sent off to an internment camp at Stanley Beach.