Page 52 of The Girl with a Thousand Faces
If nothing else, you would later wish that you’d sat with him through the night. Though he wasn’t a perfect human, he was the only father you had, and there would never be a shared grave for the three of you. Your family would not be lucky enough to enjoy such a fate.
But the past is written and unchanging. In my unlying memory of that evening, you merely did as he asked, curling on the bed into a tight ball. Sleep crept up on you like a mountain lion, leaping when your attention lagged.
In the early hours of December 15, 1941, you woke to Baba’s absence with a haunting sense of bewilderment and trepidation. He’d left, taking almost nothing with him except shoes and clothes. There was a note on the kitchen table.
Mami had got up before you, and already read it. She thrust the slip of paper your way.
“He’s written it to you,” she said, and you wince; Baba hadn’t left a note for her. That must have stung.
Still, you took the scrap of writing from her swollen-knuckled hands and silently read your father’s blocky script, the characters so meticulously formed.
Siu Yin, your mother is right. We cannot stay in Hong Kong any longer. There is no time to waste—both of you must leave the city. Go to Shek Ham Chau, as your mother has suggested. She still owns property there. It is bleak and lonely on the outlying islands, and rife with ghosts, but it will be free of invaders.
Either way, look after your Mami until I return. I will wrap up our affairs, use the money to purchase a boat of our own, and pick you both up in a few weeks.
“I’m… so tired, daughter.”
You looked up.
Mami had simply collapsed into a kitchen chair, the sharpness of her dulled and blunt. Her shoulders twitched but her face was a landslide of tiredness, as if all the fight and fury had eroded suddenly. The one person who could always spur her to anger had gone.
She hadn’t tried to go into work, nor had you. The skin across your back tightened as you hunched in shame.
You were too old to cry, too young to know what you should do. Instead, you sat by the window, knees scrunched to chest, flinching when the air raid sirens came on again. It seemed like you should do… something. You felt like doing nothing. There were no words for how you felt in that moment.
Look after your Mami until I return, he’d said, but you had no idea how to do that, how you were supposed to manage this without him.
There is no time to waste—both of you must leave the city.
That directive. You thought about it, reading the words over and over, and realized the stark truth: despite his protestations these past months, Baba knew the city was not secure. He expected it to be either overrun or bombed to fragments shortly, or both. He wanted his family to flee before Hong Kong surrendered.
Go to Shek Ham Chau, as your mother has suggested.
His fears about invasion were well-founded, and you shared them. Everyone had heard what life might be like under Japanese occupation. Citizens whispered about every horror under the sun, citing the massacres and war atrocities, the wanton rape and random slaughter of innocents. That had happened in other places, and if your city fell, it would be your fate, too.
It is bleak and lonely on the outlying islands, and rife with ghosts, but it will be free of invaders.
He had underlined those words:free of invaders. This man, whom you adored and respected, had given you a final task. In the end, how could you refuse him? He was your Baba, after all. That brought an end to any lingering doubts.
“Mami,” you said, “get up. We need to leave.”
17SAFE HARBOR
Thirty-three years ago…
It has been four days since you and Mami fled the city on a rented junk boat, with only a few pieces of luggage. Baba said he’d be with you in a couple of weeks, meaning he’s due to appear soon. That’s your hope, anyway. Every so often you touch the tiger charm bracelet he gave you, and think of him fervently.
But hope is only the ghost of a promise; it has no substance, no weight.
Somewhere to the south of your tiny refuge, Hong Kong is currently surrendering to Japan this very afternoon. The history textbooks will refer to this day as Black Christmas.
Soon, troops will move in to establish martial law and subjugate the population. Soon, thousands of men will die in prisons and POW camps, while thousands of women will face rape and sexual slavery. Thousands more will starve because there is no food coming into the ports, while many will die screaming from torture.
I cannot help most of them, and my heart bleeds for this.
The darkest hours of your city are here, and they will last for three years, eight months. The legacy of pain they leave behind will last even longer. It is everything your parents feared would happen, and more.
You do not know that, though. Not yet.
