Kazuo Ishiguro (20 page)

‘Open it. See for yourself.’

I watched her remove the lid of the box - roughly the size of a shoe box - and stare inside. Her expression, already cautious, did not change at all. Then she reached in a hand and touched something.

‘I’m afraid,’ I said gently, ‘that’s all I could recover. Your trunk, I discovered, wasn’t lost at sea at all, but stolen along with four others from a London depot. I did what I could, but I fear the thieves simply destroyed what they couldn’t sell easily.

I could find no trace of the clothes and such. Just these little things.’

She had brought out a bracelet, and was examining it carefully as though checking for blemishes. She put it back, then took out a pair of tiny silver bells and examined them in the same way. Then she put the lid back on the box and looked at me.

‘It was very kind of you, Uncle Christopher,’ she said quietly.

‘And you must be so busy.’

‘It wasn’t any trouble. I’m just sorry I couldn’t recover any more.’

‘It was very kind of you.’

‘Well, I’d better let you get back to your geography lesson. I didn’t come at a very convenient time.’

She did not move, but continued to stand there quietly, gazing at the box in her hands. Then she said: ‘When you’re at school, sometimes, you forget. Just sometimes.

You count the days until the holidays like the other girls do, and then you think you’ll see Mother and Papa again.’

Even in these circumstances, it still came as a surprise to hear her mention her parents. I waited for her to say more but she did not; she simply gazed up at me as though she had just put to me a question. In the end, I said: ‘It’s very difficult sometimes, I know. It’s as though your whole world’s collapsed around you. But I’ll say this for you, Jenny. You’re making a marvellous job of putting the pieces together again. You really are. I know it can never be quite the same, but I know you have it in you to go on now and build a happy future for yourself. And I’ll always be here to help you, I want you to know that.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘And thank you for these.’

As far as I recall, that is how our meeting ended that day. We moved beyond the relative warmth of the fire, across the draughty room and out into the corridor, where I watched her walk away back to her class.

That winter’s afternoon two years ago, I had no idea that my words to her were anything other than well founded. When I next visit St Margaret’s, to say goodbye, we may well meet again in that same draughty room, by that same fire. If so, things will be all the harder for me, for there is little chance Jennifer will fail to remember very clearly our last encounter there.

But she is an intelligent girl, and whatever her immediate emotions, she may well understand all that I will say to her. She may even grasp, more quickly than did her nanny last night, that when she is older - when this case has become a triumphant memory - she will be truly glad I rose to the challenge of my responsibilities.

Cathay Hotel, Shanghai,

20th September 1937

Travellers in the Arab countries have often remarked on the way a native will position his face disconcertingly close during conversation. This, of course, is simply a local custom that happens to differ from our own, and any open-minded visitor will before long come to think nothing of it. It has occurred to me that I should try and view in a similar spirit something which over these three weeks I have been here in Shanghai, has come to be a perennial source of irritation: namely, the way people here seem determined at every opportunity to block one’s view. No sooner has one entered a room or stepped out from a car than someone or other will have smilingly placed himself right within one’s line of vision, preventing the most basic perusal of one’s surroundings. Often as not, the offending person is one’s very host or guide of that moment; but should there be any lapse in this quarter, there is never a shortage of bystanders eager to make good the shortcoming. As far as I can ascertian, all the national groups that make up the community here - English, Chinese, French, American, Japanese, Russian subscribe to this practice with equal zeal, and the inescapable conclusion is that this custom is one that has grown up uniquely here within Shanghai’s International Settlement, cutting across all barriers of race and class.

It took me a good few days to put my finger on this local eccentricity, and to appreciate that it was what lay at the root of the disorientation which threatened to overwhelm me for a time upon first arriving here. Now, although I still find myself occasionally annoyed by it, it is not a thing of undue concern.

Besides, I have discovered a second, complementary Shanghai practice to make life a little easier: it appears to be quite permissible here to employ surprisingly rough shoves to get people out of one’s way. Though I have not yet found the nerve to take advantage of this licence myself, I have already witnessed on a number of occasions refined ladies at society gatherings giving the most peremptory pushes without provoking as much as a murmur.

When on my second night here I entered the ballroom on the penthouse floor of the Palace Hotel, I had yet to identify either of these curious practices, and consequently found much of that evening undermined by my frustration with what I then took to be the inordinately crowded nature of the International Settlement. Stepping out of the lift, I had barely glimpsed the plush carpet leading into the ballroom - a row of Chinese doormen lined all along it - when one of my hosts for the evening, Mr Mac Donald from the British consulate, put his broad frame before me. As we strode on towards the doorway, I noticed the rather charming way each doorman, as we passed, would bow and bring his white-gloved hands up together. But we were hardly past the third man - there were probably six or seven in all - when even this view was obstructed by my other host, a certain Mr Grayson, representing the Shanghai Municipal Council, who stepped up beside me to continue whatever he had been saying during our ascent in the lift. And I had no sooner entered the room in which, according to my two hosts, we were to witness ‘the city’s smartest cabaret and a gathering of Shanghai’s elite’ than I found myself in the midst of a drifting crowd. The tall ceilings above me, with their elaborate chandeliers, led me to suppose the dimensions of the room were pretty vast, though for some time I had no way to corroborate this. As I followed my hosts through the throng, I saw large windows all along one side of the room through which, at that moment, the sunset was streaming in. I glimpsed too a stage at the far end, upon which several musicians in white tuxedos were wandering about talking. They, like everyone else, appeared to be waiting for something - perhaps simply for night to fall. In general there was a restlessness, with people pushing and circling one another to no clear purpose.

I almost lost sight of my hosts, but then saw Mac Donald beckoning to me, and I eventually found myself sitting down at a small table with a starchy white cover to which my companions had pushed their way. From this lower vantage point I could see that in fact a large expanse of floor had been left vacant - presumably for the cabaret - and that almost all present had squeezed themselves into a relatively narrow strip along the glazed side of the room. The table we were sitting at was part of a long row, though when I tried to see how far the row extended, I was once again thwarted. No one was sitting at the tables immediately neighbouring ours, probably because the jostling crowd made it impractical to do so. Indeed, before long, our table came to feel like a tiny boat assailed on all sides by the tides of Shanghai high society. My arrival, moreover, had not gone unnoticed; I could hear murmurs spreading around me conveying the news, and more and more gazes turned our way.

In spite of all this, until things grew quite impossible, I recall trying to continue the conversation I had started with my hosts in the car bringing us to the Palace Hotel. At one point I remember I was saying to Mac Donald: ‘I very much appreciate your suggestion, sir. But in truth, I’m happy to pursue my lines of enquiry alone. It’s how I’m accustomed to working.’

‘As you will, old fellow.’ Mac Donald said. ‘Just thought I’d mention it. Some of these fellows I’m talking of, they certainly know their way about this city. And the best of them are as good as anything you’ll find at Scotland Yard. Just thought they might save you, all of us, some valuable time.’

‘But you’ll recall my telling you, Mr Mac Donald. I left England only once I’d formed a clear view of this case. In other words, my arrival here isn’t a starting point, but the culmination of many years’ work.’

‘In other words,’ Grayson suddenly put in, ‘you’ve come here to us in order to tie up the case once and for all. How marvellous!

It’s wonderful news!’

Mac Donald gave the Municipal Council man a disdainful glance, then continued as though the latter had not spoken.

‘I don’t mean to cast any doubt upon your abilities, old fellow.

Your record speaks for itself, after all. I was only suggesting a little back-up in the way of personnel. Strictly under your command, naturally. Just, you know, to quicken things up.

Having only just got here, it mightn’t be so clear how urgent our situation’s become now. It all looks pretty relaxed here, I know. But I rather fear we don’t have a great deal of time left.’

‘I fully appreciate the urgency, Mr Mac Donald. But I can only say again, I’ve every reason to believe things will be brought to a satisfactory conclusion in a relatively short time. Provided, that is, I’m allowed to go about my enquiries unhindered.’

‘That’s splendid news!’ Grayson exclaimed, earning another cold look from Mac Donald.

For much of the time I had been in his company that day, I had been growing increasingly impatient with Mac Donald’s pretence at being nothing more than a consulate official charged with protocol matters. It was not just his inordinate curiosity concerning my plans - or his eagerness to foist ‘assistants’ on me - that gave him away; it was the air of refined duplicity he carried along with his languid, well-bred manners that marked him out so readily as a senior intelligence man. By that point in the evening, I must have grown weary of humouring him in his charade, for I put my request to him as though the truth had been acknowledged between us long before.

‘Since we’re on the question of assistance, Mr Mac Donald.’ I said to him, ‘there is in fact something you might be able to do for me that would be of immense help.’

‘Try me, old fellow.’

‘As I mentioned before, I have a particular interest in what I believe the police forces here are calling the Yellow Snake killings.’

‘Oh yes?’ I could see a guardedness falling over Mac Donald’s face. Grayson, on the other hand, seemed not to know to what I was referring, and looked from one to the other of us.

‘In fact’ I went on, looking carefully at Mac Donald - ‘it was when I’d gathered sufficient evidence on these so-called Yellow Snake killings that I made the decision finally to come here.’

‘I see. So you’re interested in the Yellow Snake business.’ Mac Donald glanced about the room nonchalantly. ‘Nasty affair. But not all that significant, I wouldn’t have thought, in terms of the larger picture.’

‘On the contrary. I believe it to be highly relevant.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Grayson managed finally to put in. ‘But just what are these Yellow Snake killings? I’ve never heard of them.’

‘It’s what people are calling these communist reprisals.’

Mac Donald told him. ‘Reds murdering relatives of one of their number who’s turned informer on them.’ Then he said to me: ‘We get this happening from time to time. The Reds are savages in such matters. But it’s a matter between the Chinese. Chiang Kaishek’s well on top of the Reds and plans to stay that way, Japanese or no Japanese. We try to keep above it, you know.

Surprised you’re so interested in all that, old fellow.’

‘But this particular set of reprisals,’ I said, ‘these Yellow Snake killings. They’ve been continuing for a long time. Off and on for the last four years. During which time thirteen people have to date been murdered.’

‘You’ll know the details better than me, old fellow. But from what I’ve heard, the reason the reprisals are protracted is that the Reds don’t know who their traitor is. They began by slaughtering the wrong people. A little approximate, you see, this Bolshevik vision of justice. Every time they change their ideas about who this Yellow Snake chap might be, they go out and slaughter another family.’

‘It would help things greatly, Mr Mac Donald, if I were able to speak to this informer. The man referred to as the Yellow Snake.’

Mac Donald shrugged. ‘That’s all between the Chinese, old fellow. None of us even know who this Yellow Snake is. In my view, the Chinese government would do well to announce his identity before more innocent people get mistaken for his relatives.

But honestly, old fellow. It’s all between the Chinese. Best leave it that way.’

‘It’s important I get to speak to the informer.’

‘Well, since you feel so strongly about it, I’ll have a word with a few people. But I can’t promise much. This chap seems pretty useful to the government. Chiang’s men keep him pretty well under wraps, I’d imagine.’

I had become aware by this point of ever more people pressing in on all sides, eager not just to glimpse me in the flesh, but to overhear something of our conversation. In such circumstances, I could hardly expect Mac Donald to talk frankly, and I decided I should abandon the matter for the time being. In fact, I was overcome at that moment by a strong urge to rise and get a little air, but before I could move, Grayson had leant forward with a cheerful smile, saying: ‘Mr Banks, I appreciate this might not be the best time. But I wanted just to have a quick word. You see, sir, I’ve been charged with the happy task of organising the ceremony.

That’s to say, the welcoming ceremony.’

‘Mr Grayson, I don’t wish to seem ungrateful, but as Mr Mac Donald here just put it, time is rather pressing. And I feel I’ve been welcomed already with so much lavish hospitality…’