Empire of the Sun - J. G. Ballard [99]
Watched by the Japanese soldiers on the road above them, many of the men walked down to the water’s edge. They filled their mess-tins and stood drinking together in the shallows. Jim was wary of the water, remembering the black creeks at Nantao, and the thousands of gallons he had boiled for Basie. Was there a crew of corpses in the armoured junk? Inside the iron turret, now washed by the green waters of the canal, perhaps lay the captain of this puppet Chinese naval vessel, Jim could almost see the dead blood running out into the canal, slaking the thirst of these British prisoners, on its way to nourish the roots of the rice crops raised for another generation of Chinese turncoats.
Jim opened his wooden case and took out his mess-tin. He walked down the bank between the resting women and their exhausted children. Squatting on the narrow beach, he carefully filled his mess-tin with the surface water, hoping that the algae might sustain him. He drank the tepid fluid, watching the dissolving patterns of his golf shoes in the fine sand.
Filling the mess-tin, Jim climbed the bank to his case. On his right was the wife of a Shell engineer in D Block. She lay weakly in the long grass, whose blades had already sprung through the rents in her cotton frock. Her husband sat beside her, dipping his fingers into his mess-tin and moistening her large, carious teeth with the green water.
Lying on Jim’s left was Mrs Philips. It irked Jim that she had seen him drinking on the bank and decided to rest beside him. No doubt she had some little chore in mind, and would nag him about his Latin prep. Although he had left Lunghua, Jim felt imprisoned by the camp. Everyone he had ever helped was still clinging to him. He almost expected to see Basie emerge from the turret of the armoured junk and call out: ‘Jobs, Jim…’
But Mrs Philips did not look as if she was about to set him a task. The walk from Lunghua had exhausted her. She lay in the bright grass with her wicker suitcase, all that survived of the decades she had spent in the Chinese hinterland. Her face was now the palest mother-of-pearl, as if she had been drowned and then lifted from the water on to this quiet bank. Her eyes were fixed on a remote point in the sky. Jim touched her cheeks, wondering if she was dead.
‘Mrs Philips – I’ve brought you some water.’
She smiled at him and sipped the water, her small fists clinging to the handles of her suitcase like a pair of white mice. ‘Thank you, Jim. Are you very hungry?’
‘I was this morning.’ Jim tried to think of a joke that would cheer Mrs Philips. ‘It’s air I’m short of after all that walking, not food.’
‘Yes, Jim…’ Mrs Philips opened her case. She felt inside and produced a small potato. ‘There you are. Remember to pray for us all.’
‘Oh, I will!’ Jim bit into the potato before she had a chance to change her mind. ‘I’ll pay you back when we get to Nantao. All our rations are there.’
‘You’ve already paid me back, Jim. Many times.’ Mrs Philips resumed her pinpoint scrutiny of the sky. ‘Could you eat the potato?’
‘It was really good.’ As Jim finished the potato he noticed the old woman’s eyes move fractionally. ‘Mrs Philips, are you looking for God?’
‘Yes, Jim.’
‘Say…’ Jim was impressed. He was keen to repay Mrs Philips’ generosity, if only with a modest discussion of theology. He followed the angle of the old woman’s gaze. ‘Do you mean God is right above us?’
‘Of course, Jim.’
‘Above the 31st Parallel? Mrs Philips, wouldn’t God be above the magnetic pole? You ought to look at the ground, under Shanghai…’ Intoxicated by the fermenting potato, Jim giggled at the thought of the deity trapped in the bowels of the earth below Shanghai, perhaps in the basement of the Sincere Company department store.
Mrs Philips held his hand, trying to comfort him. Still staring at the sky, she decided: ‘Nantao – then they’re taking us up-country…’
‘No…our rations…’ Jim turned towards the Japanese guards. The three trucks had crossed the bridge, and he could see