Empire of the Sun - J. G. Ballard [35]
They crossed the floor of the shipyard, past stacks of steel plate, coils of chains and rusting wire, towards the shabby hulls of the three colliers. Jim scurried along, imitating the American’s aggressive gait. At last he had met someone who could help him find his parents. Perhaps the American and his companion in the wheelhouse had also been trying to surrender? The three of them together would be too many for the Japanese to ignore.
An antique Chevrolet truck was parked under the propeller of the largest collier. They stepped through a missing plate into the hull. The American lifted Jim on to a bamboo platform laid along its keel. They climbed a companionway to the next deck, walked across the wheelhouse and ducked through a narrow hatch into a metal cabin behind the bridge.
Faint with hunger, Jim swayed against the door frame. A familiar scent hung in the air, reminding him of his mother’s bedroom in Amherst Avenue, the odours of face-powder, cologne and Craven A cigarettes, and for a moment he was sure that she would emerge from this dark cubbyhole like the Christmas fairy and tell him that the war was over.
11
Frank and Basie
A charcoal stove burned softly in the centre of the cabin, its sweet fumes lifting through an open skylight. The floor was covered with oily rags and engine parts, brass portholes and stair-rails. On either side of the stove were a deck-chair with ‘Imperial Airways’ stitched into its fading canvas, and a camp-bed covered with a Chinese quilt.
The American flung his tools into the heap of metal parts. His large head and shoulders almost filled the cabin, and he slumped restlessly in the canvas chair. He peered into the saucepan on the stove and then gazed gloomily at Jim.
‘He’s getting on my nerves already, Basie. I don’t know whether he’s hungrier or crazier…’
‘Come in, boy. You look like you need to lie down.’
A small, older man emerged from beneath the quilt and motioned to Jim with the cigarette he was holding in his white hand. He had a bland, unmarked face from which all the copious experiences of his life had been cleverly erased, and soft hands that were busy powdering each other under the quilt. His eyes took in every detail of Jim’s mud-stained clothes, the tic that jumped across his mouth, his pinched cheeks and unsteady legs.
He dusted the talc from the bed and counted the pieces of salvaged brass. ‘Is that all, Frank? That’s not a lot to take to market. Those Hongkew merchants are charging ten dollars for a bag of rice.’
‘Basie!’ The young sailor drove a heavy boot into the heap of metal, exasperated more with himself than with the older man. ‘The boy’s been sitting on the pier for two days! Do you want the Japs in here?’
‘Frank, the Japs aren’t looking for us. Nantao Creek is full of the cholera – that’s why we came here.’
‘You practically put up a sign. Maybe you want them to look for us? Is that it, Basie?’ Frank dipped a rag in a can of cleaning fluid. He began to rub vigorously at the grime that covered a porthole mount. ‘If you want to work so hard try going out there – with that kid watching you all the time.’
‘Frank, we’ve got my lungs, you agreed that.’ Basie inhaled a little smoke from his Craven A, soothing these delicate organs. ‘Besides, the boy didn’t even notice you. He had other things on his mind, boy’s things that you’ve forgotten, Frank, but I can still remember.’ He made a warm place for Jim on the bed. ‘Come over here, son. What did they call you, before the war started?’
‘Jamie…’
Frank threw down his rag. ‘All this scrap isn’t going to buy us a sampan to Chungking! We’d need the Queen Mary out there.’ He treated Jim to a dark glare. ‘And we don’t have enough rice