The Worm in Every Heart
“you know . . . life.
—Tom Stoppard, after J.G. Ballard.
ONE DAY IN 1941, not long after the fall of Shanghai, my amah (our live-in Chinese maid of all work, who often doubled as my nurse) left me sleeping alone in the abandoned hulk of what had once been my family’s home, went out, and never came back . . . a turn of events which didn’t actually surprise me all that much, since my parents had done something rather similar only a few brief weeks before. I woke up without light or food, s...urrounded by useless luxury—the discarded detritus of Empire and family alike. And fifteen more days of boredom and starvation were to pass before I saw another living soul.
I was ten years old.
After the war was over, I learned that my parents had managed to bribe their way as far as the harbor, where they became separated in the crush while trying to board a ship back “Home.” My mother died of dysentery in a camp outside of Hangkow; the ship went down halfway to Hong Kong, taking my father with it.MoreLess
—Tom Stoppard, after J.G. Ballard.
ONE DAY IN 1941, not long after the fall of Shanghai, my amah (our live-in Chinese maid of all work, who often doubled as my nurse) left me sleeping alone in the abandoned hulk of what had once been my family’s home, went out, and never came back . . . a turn of events which didn’t actually surprise me all that much, since my parents had done something rather similar only a few brief weeks before. I woke up without light or food, s...urrounded by useless luxury—the discarded detritus of Empire and family alike. And fifteen more days of boredom and starvation were to pass before I saw another living soul.
I was ten years old.
After the war was over, I learned that my parents had managed to bribe their way as far as the harbor, where they became separated in the crush while trying to board a ship back “Home.” My mother died of dysentery in a camp outside of Hangkow; the ship went down halfway to Hong Kong, taking my father with it.MoreLess
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