The Gift of Rain Read Online Free PDF Page A

Endo-san’s katana refused to settle, and it was with an effort that I pushed them away and went to work.
     
     
When lunchtime came around my mind was already straying and I felt ready to leave my office for the day. I informed Mrs. Loh, my secretary of many years, and she looked at me as though I had been stricken with a sudden illness.
     
     
“Are you all right?” she asked.
     
     
“I’m fine, Adele.”
     
     
“You don’t look fine to me.”
     
     
“How do I look then?”
     
     
“Something is worrying you. You’re thinking of the war again,” she said.
     
     
After close on five decades with me she knew me well. “You guessed correctly, Adele,” I sighed. “I was thinking of the war.
     
     
Only the old people remember now. And thank God their memories are so unreliable.”
     
     
“You did a lot of good. And that, people will always remember. The older folk will tell their children and grandchildren. I would have starved to death if it hadn’t been for you.”
     
     
“You also know a lot of people died because of me.”
     
     
She could not find a ready reply and I walked out, leaving her to her memories.
     
     
I headed out into the sunshine. On the steps of the entrance I paused, watching the funnels of ships sticking out over the rooftops of the buildings. Weld Quay was within walking distance. The godowns would be busy at this time: stevedores unloading cargo—gunnysacks of grains and spices and boxes of fruit—carrying them on their naked shiny backs, as coolies had done two hundred years ago; workers repairing ships, their welding tools flashing sparks of white light, bright as exploding stars.
     
     
Every now and then a ship sounded its whistle, a sound so comforting to me whenever I was in my office, for it had never changed in the past fifty years. The briny scent of the sea at low tide, mixed with the smell of the mudflats steaming in the sun, wafted through the air. Crows and gulls hung in the sky like a child’s mobile toy over a crib. Sunlight bounced off the buildings—the Standard Chartered Bank, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, India House. A constant flow of vehicles went around the clock tower donated by a local millionaire to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, adding to the noise. I have never seen the light of Penang replicated anywhere else in the world—bright, bringing everything into razor-sharp focus, yet at the same time warm and forgiving, making you want to melt into the walls it shines on, into the leaves it gives life to. It is the kind of light that illuminates not only what the eyes see, but also what the heart feels.
     
     
This is my home. Even though half of me is English I have never hungered for England. England is a foreign land, cold and gloomy. And the weather is worse. I have lived on this island all my life, and I know I want to die here too.
     
     
I started walking, moving through the lunchtime crowds: young clerks laughing with their lovers; office workers talking loudly with one another; students carrying large bags, pushing each other in mock fights; street peddlers ringing bells and shouting their wares. A number of people recognized me and gave me a slight, if uncertain smile, which I returned. I was almost an institution myself.
     
     
    * * *
I decided not to go home yet. I crossed Farquhar Street and entered the cool shaded grounds of St. George’s Church. The wind rustled the old angsana trees and made the shadows on the grass waver. I sat on the moss-covered steps of the little domed pavilion in the church grounds as the sounds of the traffic faded away. Birds called, and a jealous crow swooped in and broke up their singing. For a while I was at peace. If I closed my eyes I could have been anywhere on earth, at any time too. Perhaps Avalon, before Arthur was born. That had been one of my favorite stories when I was a child, one of the few English myths I liked, which had seemed almost Oriental in its magic and