He gave a heavy sigh. “Time is running out. We can’t win this war without the Americans, and the Americans can’t defeat the Japanese without us.”
87
ERNEST
When he left the small shop with bread, Ernest noticed a young Chinese in red suspenders in the corner. He had been there for several days, chewing on a toothpick or something, watching the jail across the street. Once in a while, he pressed down his brown-and-green plaid cap. The man reminded him of a petulant godlike youth in fine suits and a purple tie. Aiyi’s fiancé, Cheng. But the youth in suspenders was not Cheng.
Ernest’s thoughts drifted to Aiyi. Last time he saw her, she was alone, poorly dressed, and seemed hungry. He wondered if something happened to her, Cheng, and her family. And their child. He hoped she was treating the child well, and he longed to know whether it was a boy or a girl. With all his heart and soul, he wished someday he could meet his child, the proof that he still had something precious.
He turned onto a lane to his attic room.
He felt tired. Each day he took the same route from the cobbler to his attic: the dingy cobbler, the bread shop, the jail, a rice shop, an apothecary, a deserted dentist’s shop, and then the row of wooden buildings that held his attic. Climbing on a narrow and steep staircase, he entered the room and ate half of his bread. Then he helped Old Liang scrape taros downstairs. Before dusk it would be time for bed; before dawn he would awake.
The sky, a vast ocean of gray brine, didn’t change. The sound of Japanese fighters, a constant drum above the roof, didn’t change. Part of him believed his entire life would be spent like this; part of him hoped he was wrong.
A sleeve of wind, vibrating with music, brushed his face, smooth like a woman’s fine hair. Entranced, Ernest turned away from his usual route and walked toward it, the low, mourning tune like nothing he had heard. He padded toward the wooden sign that marked the border of the area, walked toward the towering stone gate decorated with a curved pediment etched with smooth carvings, a vestige of the neoclassical buildings at the Settlement, and peered down the dim narrow alley inside, where a few people, their faces coated with grime, squatted.
The dirgelike tune continued, enticing him to walk into the alley. He ducked under the barricade of damp tunics, long trousers, and red underwear, passing the men staring at him expressionlessly.
The tune grew louder with each step, and he stopped, breathlessly, outside a small gate. Through the gap of the gate, he could see a courtyard where a girl with braided hair did laundry in a bucket and two men knitted a rope. Near them an old man was fiddling a guitar-like instrument with two strings. Each time he pulled the bow, a melancholy tune waltzed in the air.
Just like that, the memory of music galloped toward him: the tender notes of Schumann’s Kinderszenen, the intricate murmurs of Scriabin’s preludes, the epic thrust of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 5, Emperor. And jazz. The music of freedom, the music of his success, the music of love.
Hot tears ran down his face, tumbling, rumbling, wetting his chin and hanging on his bony jaw. His shoulders trembled and his entire body shook. He cried, like a child who lost his way home. Since Miriam’s death, he had never hummed or wanted to play the piano again. And now, listening to the melancholy tune, after two years of being a prisoner, he realized he had forgotten what music had meant to him. He had forgotten it was once his life, forgotten it had helped him survive; he had forgotten it was a sacred land of joy and sorrow, the art of remembering and forgetting, the language of love and forgiveness.
Would she forgive him? Would he ever listen to music with her again?
He would do anything he could to see her, one more time, and his child, just once. And he promised he would be the balm to her pain, the building blocks to her happiness. If she were mad at him, if she felt like she should strike him, shatter him, he would willingly be torn apart to make her happy again.
He ran out of the alleyway, laughing; he could feel the keys under his fingers, hear the sound of the piano, and smell the air of music. He had wasted much time, so much time.
He went to Goya, asking for permission to leave the area. The gaunt, detestable man asked for a payment and berated him when he had none to give. Ernest went to the metal Garden Bridge, where a Japanese soldier in the sentry tower inspected a caravan of trucks entering the area, and asked for permission to leave. The soldier sent him back to Goya.
He would keep trying.
Three days later, when Ernest walked toward home with a loaf of bread under his arm, the Chinese youth in suspenders appeared again. The man looked up, catching his gaze. Ernest gripped the bread with two hands—many robbers and thieves these days. Then a prick of memory stabbed him. He jerked and went back to the youth, his heart pounding with excitement.