Part 6
I didn’t realise my exhaustion, if I don’t sleep my mind will become dormant. There’s just one more day to get through, then six of us are to be choppered out of here by the UN. It’s just a sheet on the floor, but to be honest, it looks like a feather bed right now.
She is smiling at me; her hand on my heart.
Sister…is everything okay?
I don’t know how long I’ve been sleeping.
I need you, Harry, she says, placing a sack-cloth bundle in my arms. Inside is a child, I wonder if its Olga. No. The child’s eyes seem barely open in a face that is fleshless and feeble.
Hold her. Don’t worry too much if the child does not fuss, just be sure to hold her in your arms for the night.
She directs me to sit, touches my shoulder, kisses the child’s head, pulls a mosquito net over us, and leaves.
Huddling the child close, I think towards home, to Katherine. It seems awfully ironic. The eyes of this child are bare of lashes, deep, and dull. I’ll sit for a few hours, nursing the child, thinking about home, about my darling wife, and the child we are soon to have. I look up, wondering about God, about humanity under the desperately beautiful Cambodian skies.
I’m roused by Sister McMahon. She is lightly brushing my head. She brings her hands down to a prayer position. She is saying a prayer. I wait patiently for her to finish. Gently she takes the child from me.
The child is at peace with God Almighty, she whispers.
At peace with God — she said that, the child is at peace with Almighty God.
I cannot contain my anguish.
Did you know…did you know this child would not live, and me exhausted, and you gave me a dying child! I feel agonised and painful. Why…why would you do such a thing?
The doctor determined the child had only hours to live, Harry. Even with all the medication you brought with your friends, it was hopeless. Should I have left the child in the dirt? If this were your child, would you rather the child die on the floor, or in the arms of someone who cares?
It’s not right…you gave me a child knowing it was close to death and said nothing.
Out here everyone is close to death. You nursed a child as though it was your own, and for her last hours you were that child’s comfort, Harry.
No…no…you gave me a child to nurse to its death and told me nothing — nothing! I came here to help children live, not to help them die!
The last thing this child knew was the comfort of your arms, not the hardness of the sun-dried soil, the emptiness of a place without comfort.
I turn away, my eyes flooding with hurt. There is no telling what courage is. There is no telling what compassion is. This is the time when both have left me. This is a time when God and the idea of right and wrong are so confusing all I can do is weep and be humbled by those who have the strength to see the goodness in a bad situation.
As the chopper ascends, beating the hell out of the air, Frid is waving. She is holding the bundle of child we named Olga. I will miss her.
Then gone.
*******
I board the hydrofoil, having passed through the congested immigration barriers, and sit back enjoying the air-conditioned cabin skimming across the hazy South China Sea. It isn’t long before the islands of the British Colony loom on the horizon. Skyscraper’s rise up along the Hong Kong and Kowloon harbour front. It looks impressive, as it should, being the most expensive real estate in the world.
I disembark the ferry, passing through yet more immigration terminals then join the sweating crowd moving along the walkway above Connaught Road. All the time I’m trying to get home, remembering the disappointment in the voice of my wife, imagining her glorious nakedness in our bed, the satin-soft touch of her skin, being there when she smiles all over her lovely face. But I’m not with her, I’m here, among the spicy smells of China, amidst the clamouring and jostling, trying to find a hotel; the hotel which is scribbled down on the message left for me at the Yacht Club.
Pedestrians hurry and scramble to work, cars, buses, taxis all coughing out pollution. The early morning sun beats down maddeningly hot. The message includes directions and instructs me to remain at the hotel till the following day. When I arrive, it doesn’t look much; in fact it’s pretty awful. Not anything resembling the hotels I saw close to the ferry terminals. I let my overnight bag slip from my shoulder and slam the palm of my hand on the plunger of a tarnished brass bell. An elderly Vietnamese woman shuffles from behind a bamboo curtain. She doesn’t smile. The name on the badge reads, Miss Tuo.
The signing-in book is turned in such a way I can enter my details, and a pen placed on the page. I pick up the pen, sign, and pay a hundred Honk Kong Dollars in cash. I refuse a receipt, bringing an approving smile to Miss Tuo’s face. I note how much work her teeth require and understand her reluctance to smile as she beckons me to follow. We climb the stairs, me following, observing the small bones in her ankles below a fluorescent pink kimono. Her small childlike feet snug in pink slippers.
The room is barely decent: the shower infested with insects, a cracked washbasin, and a broken set of drawers, but I’m uncomplaining for the seven pounds sterling the room cost. I throw my bag to the bed and go directly to the window which looks across a narrow ladder passage and into another seedy hotel room. A western man with hairy shoulders is humping an Asian girl, not more than twenty feet away. It looks ridiculous, a scene from a Tarzan movie, the hero riding on the back of a wild cat. I drop the blind, kick off my shoes, and fall backwards onto the bed.
The whining of a motorcycle brings me out of a deep slumber. Night sounds and neon lights shaft into the room through slits. I look at my watch. 9.30 P.M. I roll onto the edge of the bed, cram my feet into stinking shoes, unzip my hold-all, pull out a wallet and a can of deodorant, which I squirt under my arms. I slip the wallet into my back pocket, checking the condition of my hair in a corner of the broken mirror, set precariously above the basin. I tidy with a brush of fingers and leave the room.
At the foot of the staircase an opening on one side leads to a bar. On the other side Miss Tuo sits at the desk. I smile but am not encouraged to let it linger too long. Sweeping aside the bead curtain I enter the bar. It is strangely erotic, enchanting and exotic, with shady looking men sitting round bamboo tables. The air hangs thick with smoke, blue and spicy. Two women sit close together and my entrance brings a glimmer of expectation to their faces.
I’ve woken with a hell of a thirst and order a pint of their coldest beer, letting it slide down my throat till the coldness brings a satisfyingly sharp pain. I don’t sit but lean against the bar, raising one foot on the cross piece of a stool. In dark corners, men sit huddled together talking about indiscreet things. Secret conversations waft on the air, gathering with smoke and disappear under dark beams. I don’t look too closely left or right but slug down another welcome chug of beer. I’m enjoying cold pain when a women sidles up to me. She has slick olive toned skin, oily looking under the lights, with deeply innocent eyes. Her mission is least of all innocent. Her friend watches from behind a curtain of cigarette smoke as I slug down the last of my beer, gasping at the chill. She touches my arm.
I can help you through the long night, she says, stroking my shoulder with an index finger.
I smile and place my hand on hers, and will you keep me company for free?
Fuck off, you English con-man! She turns smartly and slides back to her friend.
On the street I’m grateful I only attracted the attention of a whore and not the sinister character’s in string vests.
The night is sick with heat. Teeming masses move up and down narrow streets, ladder passageways and allies, selling, driving, partying, whoring, all in chaos and confusion. Smells sift under doorways and float from windows, light as happy memories. I need to find the quiet exclusiveness of the Hong Kong Yachting Club, a mile farther.
Gate security looks briefly at my papers then raises his hand to his cap and opens the gate. I can finally breathe in open space and revel in the fact my shoulders aren’t being constantly bumped. I walk in a straight line to the edge of the marina where I watch container ships, freighters, cargo junks and sampans compete for space on the water jam-packed with ferries. I am, in my way, spellbound, the whole thing: the lights, the water, and the people, all very unusual. A dramatic place, San Francisco on speed!
Hell mate, you look like shit.
I turn to find Steve standing behind me, arms open and grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat.
Thought I’d find you here. Miss Tuo said you left. He steps in to give me a bear hug.
He relaxes his grip, looks at his watch. Com’on, let’s have a drink inside, it’s a bloody sight cooler.
When the door to the club opens, the pleasant cool air greets us. We slump down on armchairs and order a couple of beers. Above us, scattered on a lilac wall are several old photographs of the Hong Kong Corinthian Sailing Club. A club steeped in history.
I think about Katherine, about tomorrow’s flight home.
