the treetops, a few rays of light penetrating through the branches and glaring into his eyes.
He awoke with a start in the blinding sun to find his bleeding wrists bound tightly against the rusty chain-link fence. A group of officers walked by, and he noticed one uniformed man staring at him intently. Did he look familiar somehow? The man went up to the commanding officer and pointed directly at him. Curse to the gods. This was it. He looked at them, trying to muster up as much hate as he could in his expression. He wanted to die defiant, with pride. The man said calmly, in a British-accented English, “There’s been a mistake. That one over there in the middle is just a poor idiot servant. I recognize him from my friend’s farm, where he rears the pigs.” One of the Japanese soldiers translated to the commanding officer, who sneered in disgust before barking out a few curt orders. He was cut loose, and brought to kneel in front of the soldiers. Through his bleary eyes, he suddenly recognized the man who had pointed him out. It was Dr. Young, who had taught one of his surgical classes when he was a medical trainee. “See, this is not a man of importance. He’s not even worth your bullets. Let him go back to the farm where he can feed the dirty pigs,” Dr. Young said, before walking off with the other soldiers. More arguing between the soldiers ensued, and before he knew what was happening, he found himself on a transport truck bound for the work farms in Geylang. Months later, he would run into Dr. Young at a meeting in the secret room hidden behind a shop house on Telok Ayer Street. He began thanking him profusely for saving his life, but Dr. Young brushed him off quickly. “Nonsense—you would have done the same for me. Besides, I couldn’t let them kill yet another doctor. There are too few of us left,” he said plainly.
As Dr. Gu walked slowly back into his house, he felt a sudden pang of regret. He wished he hadn’t said so much about the Youngs. Wye Mun, as usual, had steered him toward the stories about money, and he had missed the chance to tell them the real story, about a man whose greatness had nothing to do with wealth or power.
* * *
* A delicacy from Ipoh, Malaysia—rice noodles served in a clear soup with prawns, shredded chicken, and fried shallots.
17
Rachel
SINGAPORE
“I’ve been trying to reach you for days! Where have you been? Did you get all the messages I left at the hotel?” Kerry asked her daughter in rapid-fire Mandarin.
“Mom, I’m sorry—I was away all weekend and only just got back,” Rachel replied, raising her voice as she always did whenever she was talking to anyone long distance, even though she could hear her mother perfectly well.
“Where did you go?”
“I went to a remote island in the Indian Ocean for a bachelorette party.”
“Huh? You went to India?” her mother asked, still confused.
“No, not India. It’s an ISLAND in the INDIAN OCEAN, off the coast of Indonesia. It’s an hour plane ride from Singapore.”
“You took a plane trip just for two days? Hiyah, what a waste of money!”
“Well, I wasn’t paying, and besides, I flew on a private plane.”
“You flew on a private plane? Whose plane?”
“The bride’s.”
“Wah! So lucky, ah. Is the bride very rich?”
“Mom, these people …” Rachel began, before discreetly lowering her voice. “Both the bride and the groom come from very wealthy families.”
“Really? What about Nick’s family? Are they rich too?” Kerry asked.
How did she know this would be the next question out of her mom’s mouth?
Rachel glanced toward the bathroom. Nick was still in the shower, but she decided to step out of the room anyway. She walked into the garden toward the quiet, shadier side of the pool. “Yes, Mom, Nick comes from a wealthy family,” Rachel said, sitting down on one of the lounge chairs by the pool.
“You know, this is something I suspected all along. He’s so well brought up. I can tell just by looking at how he behaves during dinner. Such lovely manners, and he always offers me the best part of the meat, like the fish cheek or the juiciest piece of duck.”
“Well, it doesn’t really matter, Mom, because it seems like everyone here is rich. I think I’m still in a bit of a culture shock, or maybe it’s cash shock. The way