"The Hill is always crowded with ang-mohs," I said.

He looked puzzled.

"Red Hairs," I explained. The phrase was used to describe the Europeans, many of whom were avoiding the worst of the hot season in Georgetown by coming up to The Hill. Endo-san laughed.

We turned left at a stone fountain set in a circle of flowering plants and entered the gates to Istana Kechil, the Small Palace. I took out the key and opened the front door. There was no one inside. My father came to shoot snipe, birds from Siberia which chose to winter here, and he never allowed anyone to use the house, even when we were not staying there. It had been a long time since we last visited.

The house was musty and cold with the silence of desertion. We opened the windows and doors and went out into the garden, where the bougainvillaea and hibiscus trees were in full bloom, moving in the wind.

Endo-san climbed onto the low wall of granite blocks that bounded our property to prevent people from falling into the ravine below. It was turning out to be a clear day and all of Georgetown lay spread out beneath us. We could even see across the channel to the mountains of Kedah. Turned into shades of blue by the distance, they lay beneath a layer of clouds. Surrounding the mountains were flatlands, cut up into quilted squares of rice fields. Narrow threads of white stitched the smooth surface of the sea: ferries carrying cargo to the mainland; steamships heading for Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, India, and the world beyond; navy boats patrolling for pirates from Sumatra and the Straits of Sunda.

He set up his tripod and began to take photographs: east, west, all directions, shifting his camera with precision, as though he had marked out a grid on the ground. The camera clicked and clicked, like a gecko in mating season.

I remembered the photographs in his house and wondered why he was never shown in them. Was it because he had always been traveling on his own? "Let me take some pictures for you, so you can be in them as well," I offered.

He declined. "My face would only spoil the pictures."

From experience, I knew the night would be cold on The Hill, so we had come prepared. We walked to the Bellevue Hotel for dinner in our black dinner jackets. The headwaiter seated us on the verandah, giving us a view of the lights of the town below, which flowed inland like a tide of white phosphorescence from the water's edge at Weld Quay. The seas enclosing Penang were unseen in the darkness, and only granules of light indicated where the boats were.

Endo-san said with an appreciative tone, "Thank you, for bringing me up here. That sight is worth the climb, is it not?"

"Yes it is, Endo-san," I said, knowing somehow that this would be a night I would always remember.

He narrowed his eyes when he studied the vines in the trellises above us. Something among them made a slight movement. "Are those snakes I see, curled around the vines?"

"Pit vipers," I said. "One of the hotel's claims to fame. There's no need to worry-no one's ever been bitten here. You can hardly see them, they're so well camouflaged."

"But you know they are lying in wait just above, ready to fall on you."

"I ignore them, as does everyone eating here."

"The great human capacity for choosing not to see," he said.

"It makes life easier," I said.

The waiter placed a stove and a pot on our table. On a large plate were some eggs, lettuces, chicken, fish balls, and noodles. As the pot boiled we started to throw everything on the plate into the pot.

"What is this called?" he asked. "Looks like our shabu shabu."

"Steam Boat. Perfect for a night like this."

"When is your family returning from London?" he asked, as he placed a cooked egg on my dish.

"Near the end of the year." I burned my tongue as I bit into the egg.

"Tell me about them."

I thought for a while. One takes one's family so much for granted, I never really thought about describing mine to anyone. I took a sip of tea to cool my tongue and said, "My father's forty-nine years old. He has gray-almost white-hair, but a lot of women think he's very good-looking. He keeps fit by swimming and sailing. He works extremely hard. He used to spend more time with us, but after my mother died . . . That's what Isabel tells me. I was too young then ..." I shrugged, unsure how to explain my father's detachment from his children after my mother's death.

"Yes, I met him, when I signed the lease for the island."

"I have two brothers. Edward's twenty-six and William is twenty-three. They're very much like my father, I think. Edward read law-like my father, he's a qualified barrister but he's chosen to work in the family business. William left university last year and my father wants him to work for the family as well."

"As all fathers do," Endo-san said.

"Edward-well, I'm not close to Edward. He's cold, and we seldom talk. Isabel is twenty-one, and I think she is stronger than my two brothers in many ways. At least she always gets her way. She wasn't very pleased with me when I told her I would prefer to stay at home than go with them to London."

"And you, where do you fit in?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "The half-Chinese, youngest child in an English family? I don't think I fit in anywhere at all."

Endo-san remained silent, and suddenly I found myself saying all the things I was never able to say to my father. "What makes it worse is that I go to the same school my brothers attended. Many of my teachers used to teach them and everyone knows who my brothers are. But instead of making me feel closer to them, it has only widened the differences between us."

"You are not what everyone expected," Endo-san said softly. "And young people are often oblivious to the hurt they can cause."

"Yes," I replied, feeling relieved that he had not belittled my circumstances, but had in fact understood them so thoroughly.

I wrapped my hands around a cup of tea to keep warm. There was only a small crowd tonight, mostly senior British Army officers in their uniforms and with their wives. I recognized some of them. Their voices were loud, happy, and carefree. I pointed them out to Endo-san, and he studied them, almost as if placing them in his mind. A six-piece band started to play and a few of the men led their women onto the dance floor.

"A popular place with the army," he remarked.

"Oh yes. They maintain a small garrison here. Like a lookout point. It makes sense because from here they can see the whole island and the surrounding seas."

"All the way to India," he said.

"Yes, all the way there. Perhaps even all the way to Japan."

He laughed. "Then I shall come up here more often."

We woke up early and greeted the sun as it rose over the rim of the sea. We left the house and climbed down a track to the edge of the cliff, where we sat on a cold, narrow ledge, and began zazen. In the vegetable farms below us I heard the roosters crowing. Mongrel dogs barked and wooden gates slammed. Mist wreathed the valleys in thick patches, like frost on moss-covered boulders.

I gripped the edge and felt faint from fear. It was only six inches wide and there was a sixty-foot drop to the tops of the trees below. In my mind the drop lengthened to abysmal depths and I wanted to open my eyes. I imagined the ledge giving way, heard it crumble as the stones broke beneath our weight. To the west, clouds sailed in with the rain and I thought the wind would blow us off. I held on harder and wished the exercise were over and complete. My eyes could not help but drop down to the pointed tops of the trees, spears waiting eagerly in a pit.

"Let go," he said. "You will not fall."

"What if I do?"

"I will catch you."

I glanced up to find him looking at me, not a smile on his mouth, just a nod, and then he closed his eyes again. I thought about his words, words uttered softly, without any faltering, words that would mark a change in my life.

At that moment, I knew I would trust him completely, whatever the consequences to me. I closed my eyes and loosened my fingers and the euphoria of release rushed through me. The sun came out from the clouds and joined us like an old acquaintance. Soon my eyelids burned red beneath as the light filled the world. I no longer felt I was on the cold hard ledge but as if I were floating high above the land, close to the heat of the sun, whose light I could see inside my head, illuminating an expanse that seemed wider than the universe.

After a light breakfast, we went out onto the lawn. We bowed and he kicked me, aiming for my kidneys. I was not fast enough-I was staring at his eyes, at his hands, still thinking of the ledge and his words to me. The pain flared like red ink splashed on paper and I dropped to my knees. I saw his other leg start to move and knew it would go for my head. I rolled along my back and came up standing. The kick missed me and for that split-second he was mine. I lifted his leg, using its upward swing, and kicked the inside of his shin. He grunted and I pushed him off balance, onto the grass. He rolled up onto his feet and sent another kick to my side. I jammed it by moving into it, stopping it from extending fully, but I went right into his fist. It slammed into my cheek and I saw white. I fell backward, and blacked out for long seconds.

"You are improving. But you are still looking at my hands, my feet, and my eyes," he said. He pulled me up and examined my eyes and my cheeks, his fingers stroking my face. "Nothing serious," he said.

"How can I not look at them?"

"You must get rid of your fear. Your eyes dart from my hands to my legs because you are afraid, unsure of yourself. Let go of your worry about getting hit and it will not happen."

I shook my head to clear the fog and to understand what he said.

"Get up. We shall do it again."

I sighed, stood up and went into a fighting stance again.

By the time the lesson ended the storm clouds had come in low, scraping the tops of the range of hills like a dragon's underbelly moving over rocks. We stood by the wall to watch them.

"I always like your clouds here," Endo-san said. "They fly so low."

"On days like these, when the clouds are thick, heaven seems closer, and I almost feel I can touch it."

He looked at me, hearing the wistful tone of my words. "You can touch heaven any time you wish. Let me show you."

He called it tenchi-nage, the heaven-earth throw. He gripped both my arms forcefully and asked me to separate them, to raise one arm into the sky, as though to reach into the heart of heaven itself. I lowered my other hand as if to connect with the center of the earth. I felt the weakening of his attack immediately. His strength was divided, torn between the earth and the sky. I entered into his sphere of balance and threw him off his feet easily.

"Now you will always remember me as the man who taught you to touch heaven," he said.

He was looking for a house for the consulate, for the staff to use on their leave. I brought him to a mock-Tudor house that had been built on the northern face of the hill. It had an all-round view from the Indian Ocean to the misty distances of the Malay Peninsula. "It's always been let out to holiday-makers," I said. "The owner's an American silk merchant from Bangkok."

He studied it and took a few photographs. "We shall see if it suits the consul's preferences. But I am certain Hiroshi-san will not find fault with it. Does it have a telephone?"

"Yes. It's one of the few houses up here that has a telephone line."

He folded his tripod and packed his camera, and we started walking back to Istana Kechil. The path wound past the gates and entrances to other homes, all owned by the British. We were at the very top, for even here a hierarchical system was imposed-the local Chinese and Malay people could only own properties on the lower levels, all looking up to the big ang-moh lau-Mansions of the Red Hair. A question occurred to me as we walked.

"Why does Japan have a consular office in Penang?" I asked.

"It has a few such offices in Malaya. There is one in Kuala Lumpur and one in Singapore. We have some trade with this part of the world. As I have told you, after so many centuries of seclusion, Japan now wants to a play a part in the destiny of the world."

On the way down in the funicular, which moved so silently I felt we were on a leaf floating down the hill, he asked, "Have you been to Kuala Lumpur?"

"I have. Now and then my father takes us there for a weekend. We have an office there. Most of the trading companies made Kuala Lumpur their headquarters, but he refused to move ours there."

"Well, I agree with him. Your island is much nicer than Kuala Lumpur. I intend to make a short visit there in a few days' time. Again, I need someone familiar with it. Would you like to join me?"

I did not hesitate at all. "I'd like that very much," I replied.

Chapter Six.

Uncle Lim, our family chauffeur, came out from the garage when I returned. He looked at me, narrowing his already small eyes. "You've been spending time with that Japanese devil. Better not let your father know."

We spoke in Hokkien, the dialect brought over from the Hokkien province of southern China. The majority of the Chinese immigrants in Penang had been born there before sailing to Malaya in search of work.

"Yes, Uncle Lim," I replied-we always addressed our older servants in respectful terms. "But he'll only find out if you tell."

"I need to send the car to the workshop. I don't know how long the repairs will take. I won't be able to drive you around for some time."

I shook my head. "It doesn't matter. I'm going to Kuala Lumpur with Endo-san next week."

"That man cannot be trusted," he said.

"You dislike all Japanese, Uncle Lim."

"I have good reason to. Day-by-day they're advancing deeper into China. Now they've started bombing the towns." He shook his head. "I've asked my daughter to join me here. She should be arriving in Penang in a month's time."

I heard the anger in his voice, and stopped needling him. Uncle Lim had two wives, who had both left the Hokkien province to work in the silk factories owned by the British in Canton. Every two years he would request leave to return home. That was the one day when my father would drive him to the pier and help him load the bags and presents onto the liner. Despite my father's offer to pay for a cabin, Uncle Lim invariably booked a berth deep inside the ship. "The money can be used for better things," he would say, showing the thriftiness that the Hokkien people prided themselves in but which I often considered to border on miserliness.

"Is your family safe?" I found it hard to accept that Endo-san's people were capable of carrying out such attacks, but from the look on Uncle Lim's face I realized I was wrong.

He nodded, but said, "They're running, leaving for the south. I told them to come here, but they refused. I couldn't order them-that's the problem when women start working in factories, eh? But at least my daughter still listens to me."

"I'll ask one of the girls to prepare a room for her here," I said, knowing my father would have said the same. I wanted to say something more, but at that moment I felt as though I was being spun around in one of Endo-san's aikijutsu movements, not knowing where I stood. I could not abandon what I had begun with Endo-san, for my classes with him had become a way of life for me and the knowledge he was imparting to me was too precious to be surrendered. Endo-san was not responsible for what was happening in a land far away, I told myself. So I kept silent and thought that the offer of a room for Uncle Lim's daughter would be sufficient on my part.

Uncle Lim shook his head. "She'll stay with my cousin in Balik Pulau. They'll have a place for her."

I looked at him as he walked away. I knew he was only in his early fifties but I now saw that he was growing old. The other servants were afraid of his temper, but he had never shown it to any of us. My amah told me that when my mother first entered Istana as its new mistress she had often wandered into the kitchen, much to the disapproval of the servants there. It was their domain, and she had interrupted their way of running the place. What was more, she was a Chinese woman who had married a European. There had been much unhappiness until Uncle Lim requested my mother to leave the servants alone and stay out of the kitchen. Only he had been brave enough to do so.

Uncle Lim stopped and turned around. "Your eldest aunt rang today. She would like you to pay her a visit as soon as you return."

I made a face. Ever since my mother's death, Aunt Yu Mei had thought she had a duty to watch over me.

"What does she want?" I asked.

"It's almost the end of Cheng Beng, have you forgotten?" he chided me, referring to the Clear and Brilliant Festival, when families gather to tidy the graves of their parents and ancestors, and place offerings of food and paper money. "I haven't forgotten, although I had.

It was only just starting to occur to me what a strange place I had grown up in-a Malayan country ruled by the British, with strong Chinese, Indian, and Siamese influences. Within the island I could move from world to world merely by crossing a street. From Bangkok Lane I could walk to Burmah Road and Moulmein Road, down Armenian Street, then to the Indian areas of Chowrasta Market; from there I could enter the Malay quarters around Kapitan Kling Mosque, then to the Chinese sections of Kimberley Road, Chulia Lane, and Campbell Street. One could easily lose one's identity and acquire another just by going for a stroll.

Uncle Lim drove me to Aunt Yu Mei's home before taking the car to the workshop. I watched as he backed into the short driveway and drove off. He had been worried about his daughter and I felt sorry for him, but I knew his dislike of Endo-san, just because he was a Japanese, was wrong. If not, then he should have had nothing to do with my father either, for even I knew of the suffering the British trading houses had caused in China.

Aunt Yu Mei lived in Bangkok Lane, behind the Siamese Wat Chaiya Mangkalaram Temple, where my mother's ashes were kept. Bangkok Lane had two rows of townhouses, the shaded porches reaching almost to the road's edge. Many of the houses' wooden blinds were rolled up, looking like huge sausage rolls hanging beneath the eaves. The houses were all built close together and groups of children played in the road. Cats sunned themselves on the balustrades, twisting their tails and licking their paws. They stopped when I neared them and eyed me with suspicion.