Free The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee Page A

over her, her shoulders are as cold and limp as water. In the morning, she remembers nothing, and mocks him for his concern.
     
    In the following weeks, the war encroaches—wives and children, the ones who had ignored the previous evacuation, leave on ships bound for Australia, Singapore. Trudy is obliged to make an appearance at the hospitals to prove she is a nurse. She undergoes training, declares herself hopeless, and switches to supplies instead. She finds the stockpiling of goods too funny. “If I had to eat the food they’re storing, I’d shoot myself,” she says. “It’s all veggie tins and bully beef and awful things like that.”
    The colony is filled with suddenly lonesome men without wives who gather at the Gripps, the Parisian Grill, clamor to be invited to dinner parties at the homes of those few whose wives remain. They form a club, the Bachelors’ Club (“Why do the British so love to form clubs and societies? ” Trudy asks. “No, wait, don’t say, it’s too grim”) and petition the governor to have their wives returned. Others, more intrepid, turn up suddenly with adopted Chinese “daughters” or “wards,” and they dine with them and drink champagne and get silly and flirtatious and then disappear into the night. Will finds it amusing, Trudy less so. “Wait until I get my hands on them,” she cries while Will amuses himself with teasing her about which Chinese hostess would soon get her claws into him.
    “You’re like a leper, darling,” she counters. “You British men are going out of fashion. I might have to find myself a Japanese or German beau now.”
    Will remembers this time well, how it was all so funny, how the war was so far away, yet talked about every day, how no one really thought about what might really happen.

September 1952
    CLAIRE WAS WAITING for the bus after Locket’s piano lesson when Will Truesdale drove up in the car.
    “Would you like a lift?” he asked. “I’m just off work.”
    “Thank you, but I couldn’t put you out,” she said.
    “Not at all,” he said. “The Chens don’t mind if I take the car home for the night. Most employers want their cars left at home and the chauffeur to take public transport home, so it’s very convenient for me.”
    Claire hesitated, then got into the car. It smelled of cigarettes and polished leather.
    “It’s very kind of you.”
    “Did you have a good time at the Arbogasts’ the other day?” he asked.
    “It was a very nice party,” she said. She had learned not to be so effusive, that it marked her as unsophisticated.
    “Reggie’s a good sort,” he said. “It was nice to meet you there too. There are too many of those women who add to the din without adding anything else. You shouldn’t lose that quality, that quality of seeing everything new, for what it is. All the women here . . .” he trailed off.
    He drove well, she thought, steady on the steering wheel, his movements calm and unhurried.
    “You’re not wearing the perfume you had on the other day,” he said.
    “No,” she said, wary. “That’s for special occasions.”
    “I was surprised that you had it on. Not many English people wear it. It’s more the fashionable Chinese women. They like its heaviness. Englishwomen like something lighter, more flowery.”
    “Oh, I wasn’t aware.” Claire’s hand went unconsciously to her neck, where she usually dabbed it on.
    “But it’s lovely that you wear it,” he said.
    “You seem to know a lot about women’s scents.”
    “I don’t.” He glanced over at her, his eyes dark. “I used to know someone who wore it.”
    They rode in silence until they arrived at her building.
    “You teach the girl,” he said as she was reaching for the door, his voice suddenly urgent.
    “Yes, Locket,” she said, taken aback.
    “Is she a good student? ” he asked. “Diligent? ”
    “It’s hard to say,” she said. “Her parents don’t give her much of a reason to do anything so she doesn’t. Very