Empire of the Sun - J. G. Ballard [46]
Jim noticed how different Basie was from his father in this respect. At home, if he did anything wrong, the consequences seemed to overlay everything for days. With Basie they vanished instantly. For the first time in his life Jim felt free to do what he wanted. All sorts of wayward ideas moved through his mind, fuelled by hunger and the excitement of stealing from the old prisoners. As he rested between his errands in front of the empty cinema screen he thought of the American aircraft he had seen in the clouds above Shanghai. He could almost summon them into his vision, a silver fleet on the far side of the sky. Jim saw them most when he was hungry, and he hoped that Private Blake, who must always have been hungry, had also seen them.
15
On their Way to the Camps
On the day of the Englishwoman’s death a fresh consignment of prisoners arrived at the detention centre. Jim was hovering in the doorway of the women’s store-room, as Mrs Blackburn and the daughter of the old Dutchman tried to comfort the two sons. The mother lay on the stone floor in her drenched frock, like a drowned corpse raised from the river. The brothers kept turning towards her, as if expecting her to give them some last instruction. Jim felt sad for the boys, Paul and David, though he hardly knew them. They seemed much younger than Jim, but in fact both were more than a year older.
Jim had his eyes on the mother’s mess-tin and tennis shoes. Most of the Allied prisoners had far better shoes than the Japanese soldiers, and he had noticed that the bodies leaving the detention centre had bare feet. But as he sidled into the room there was a shrill whistle from the courtyard, and a series of barked shouts. Sergeant Uchida was working himself up to the pitch of anger that he needed to attain in order to issue the simplest instructions. Masks over their faces, the Japanese soldiers began to herd from the store-rooms everyone who could walk. A truck had stopped outside the cinema, and its prisoners stood unsteadily in the road.
All designs on the dead woman’s tennis shoes vanished from Jim’s head. At last he would be leaving for the camps in the countryside around Shanghai. Pushing past the two boys, Jim dived between the guards and raced up the steps. He lined up beside his fellow prisoners – Mr Partridge with his wife’s suitcase, as if about to take his memories of her on a long journey, Paul and David, the Dutch woman and her father, and several of the old missionaries. Basie stood behind them, his white cheeks hidden behind the collar of his seaman’s jacket, so self-effacing as to be almost invisible. He had erased himself from the small world of the detention centre, which he had manipulated for a few weeks, and would re-emerge like some marine parasite from its shell once he reached the more succulent terrain of the prison camps.
The new arrivals appeared, two Annamese women and a group of older Britishers and Belgians, the sick and elderly carried on stretchers by the Chinese orderlies. Counting their yellow eyes, Jim knew that there would soon be extra mess-tins.
His cotton mask over his face, Sergeant Uchida began to select prisoners for transport to the camps. He shook his head at Mr Partridge and kicked the suitcase in an exasperated way. He pointed to the Dutch woman and her father, Paul and David, and two elderly missionary couples.
Jim licked his fingers and wiped the soot from his cheeks. The sergeant motioned Basie