Only I among all these people know the truth. I have had the help of books, official records, memoirs; I have history on my side. If the poor uneducated people of the Valley knew what I knew, Johnny’s life would have turned out very differently. I know, for example, that no one but the sixteen commanders — no one — knew the date and location of the meeting. I also know that during the Occupation, when no one had any money and tens of millions of dollars in crippling taxes were being poured into the Japanese treasury, my father built the Japanese-Malayan Peace Monument on the site of the smoking ruins of Tiger Tan’s old shop. It was made of carved sandstone and marble, paid for by my father’s personal funds. He bought a new motorcar and smoked cigars with Japanese generals. He searched the Valley for the biggest, most expensive building and turned it into the most famous palace of sin in the country. He named it the Harmony Silk Factory. It was the envy of every man, woman, and child in the country.
THE FUNERAL OF A TRAITOR is a tricky thing, particularly if that traitor was someone close to you. You may be tempted, as I was, to avoid it altogether as a sign of protest at the crimes that person has committed. But if that person is your father and you are his only son, you have no choice. If no one else knows that he was a traitor, then your protest becomes meaningless. So I stood alone throughout the three-day ceremony, locked away with only my terrible, secret knowledge for company.
In truth there was little for me to do. By the time I returned to the factory from KL, all the arrangements had been made. People were only too keen to help. Mrs. Ginger Khoo and her five children looked after the catering, serving a thousand meals over the course of the three days. Gurnam Singh, one of Father’s former chauffeurs, who had had to give up work because of chronic syphilis (now cured, he told me), was on hand to organise the tables, chairs, and electric fans. Father’s closest friends, his old business partners, were in charge of the most important things: the priest, the undertaker, and the paper offerings. Securing my arrival was another one of their tasks, and my appearance was greeted with some relief.
“I am glad you have decided to make peace with your father,” Mad Dog Kwang whispered in my ear.
“There was never anything broken that needed repair,” I replied.
“Oh,” he said.
Many hundreds came to pay their respects. All kinds of people turned up — princes, peasants, politicians, criminals, pensioners, toddlers. They travelled from far afield, not just from the remotest reaches of the country, and some came from abroad. There were mourners from Hong Kong and Indonesia and Thailand, together with the odd Filipino. A few white men were there too, though where they were from was anyone’s guess. One of them was an Englishman, I think, though he was so old it was difficult to tell. He sat folded over in a wheelchair, barely able to move amid the crowd of bodies, looking lost and confused. He seemed not to be able to speak, though occasionally he coughed and wheezed a few curious sounds. “Is he mute?” I asked Madam Veronica (as she now liked to be called — when I was a small boy I knew her as Auntie Siew Ching).
“Don’t know. I heard that something happened to him in the war,” Madam Veronica said as she adjusted the gold bangles on her wrist.
“What’s his name?”
“Can’t remember. Peter Something. Or maybe Philip Something.”
I found myself standing next to this ancient Englishman on the first day. Trails of thick spittle hung from the roof of his gaping, trembling mouth, but no words emerged. Finally he repeated a few sounds; he clutched at my sleeve and stared at me with wild staring eyes.
“What the hell is he saying?” Mad Dog said as he walked past.
I listened carefully. “He is asking me who I am. He is asking what my name is.”
The man’s head jerked and nodded involuntarily as he spoke. I felt strangely sorry for him. “I’m Johnny’s son,” I said, wondering if he could understand me.
“Johnny’s son,” he repeated blankly, “Johnny’s son.”
“People say I don’t look like him,” I said patiently. “I take after my mother, you see.”
When he looked at me I could see the fine red veins in his yellowed eyes. “Sons never resemble their fathers,” he said before wheeling himself away slowly.
“Shit, you could understand that guy? No one even knows what language he’s speaking,” Mad Dog remarked in an uninterested way.
“Crazy foreigners,” Mrs. Khoo said as she swept past me carrying a plate of fluffy white buns in each hand.
Children played with yo-yos and plastic action heroes which Gurnam had handed out. “Where did you get so many toys?” I asked him.
“I found them at the factory,” he said, “many bags full of them. Just arrived from Taiwan.”
