But then, to Cheung’s horror, one of them opened his eyes. Blinked. Looked around. “What happened here?”

Another blinked awake. And then another.

Colonel Noma’s eyes slammed open.

Cheung gasped.

He ran out of the bar, down the stairs, toward the kitchen’s back door. He should not have stayed to witness. What had he been thinking? He should have fled to Chek Keng to hide out with Lee until more serious massacres rendered his own forgettable. The military police ran after him, caught him before he could even make it to the kitchen. They hauled him out the back door themselves. But instead of taking him to the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter, they pulled him across the road to where the hungry dogs clamoured. The side door of the Supreme Court opened. Two Kempeitai came out, escorting a third, ragged man. A young man. It couldn’t be—

“Tak-Tam?”

The Kempeitai were leading him away from the Supreme Court in the direction of freedom. “Father?”

“I thought you were dead.” The Kempeitai were leading Cheung toward the Supreme Court in the direction of torture.

“I’m alive. It hasn’t been the best time, but I’m still here.”

The Kempeitai escorting Cheung to the basement shook their heads at the ones escorting the young man to freedom. Pointed them back inside.

“Father?”

“Tak-Tam! I did a very stupid thing.”

“They’re letting me go. Noma was in a good mood.”

“Not anymore, pretty boy,” said the one of the policemen gripping Cheung’s arms. “Too bad. He could have told your other son that his child is his own.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know,” Tak-Tam said. “Noma used to come talk to me at night. He’d tell me everything because I was such a good listener. He told me his greatest shame. When he rapes he can’t finish. He fakes it every time for the sake of his men. Who know. And laugh. And fuel his rage. But the child can’t be his.”

“No!” Cheung cried.

The two military police dragged the young man back inside. “So much for the colonel’s special favour. You’ll have to keep his secrets now.” Cheung understood the Japanese word for “execute.”

His own escorts didn’t have to push him into the basement behind his son.

CHAPTER 50IN THE CHAPEL

October 14, 1942

If I could live my life again, I would have been there. Ting-Yan and I were in the rice fields when it happened, harvesting the last of the late season planting, up to our ankles in water, our backs stooped, our heads unwisely bare in the October sun. Courchene was with us too. He’d have preferred to have stayed in the village with Emily, but with both Tak-Tam and Old Lee gone, Auntie Siu-Wai was in pressing need of help.