Read Online Certainty by Madeleine Thien - Free Book Online Page B

steps watching them leave.
    Matthew closes his eyes. His father falls backward. His legs dangle loosely from the soldiers’ arms.
    Much later, a caravan of vehicles passes by on the road outside. The walls shake, and small ripples start to form in the water, expanding out, moving against his body. Matthew climbs out of the tub, dries his body with a sarong, and sits on his bed. He is waiting for his mother; she is getting ready for Sunday mass in a time before the war. She has a pearl necklace that rests in a cushioned box. When she puts it on, she turns first one way and then another, admiring the play of light along its length. In St. Michael’s Church, she sits on the bench beside him, and he leans his face against her body, the fabric of her dress shifting against his cheek.
    Ani says, The boy buried his treasure in a hidden place. In this place, all the trees were silver, and fruit fell from the trees and lined the ground. For months and months, the boy cared for his secret. He nourished the soil and watered the dirt. One day, the first leaves appeared. The stems grew strong and the leaves became bountiful.
    This is the treasure that allows the boy to return to the other side. For when he opens the leaves, pieces of gold fall into his hands. He has been trapped here for many, many years. As many years as it takes for a boy to grow into an old man.
    He falls asleep to the sound of more trucks on the road, and he returns to the bridge his mother carried him over, the basket that rocked him back and forth, the sound of rushing water taking hold of him. This memory floods his vision. He opens his mouth and finds he can breathe it in, finds that the water miraculously pours out of his body, out of his skin.
    Sometime in the middle of the night, he wakes hearing the door opening. His mother is there beside him, her hand smoothing his hair, smoothing the sarong that covers his body. She says that she has been down to the harbour. She has seen the Australian soldiers arrive in Sandakan. He looks up at her face, so beautiful to him, and he does not know if she is crying out of joy or sadness. She tells him that she has searched all night for his father. “I wasn’t here,” she says, her voice catching, tearing. She repeats the words, trying again. He tries to speak but no sounds come. She cups her hand against his head, as if to hold his thoughts, as if to stop them from sliding loose, and eventually sleep takes over once more.
    He wakes expecting to see his father. Matthew opens his eyes, already picturing a day like every other: the radio in the room, the wire reaching up, his father concentrating on the sound. Instead, the room is still. He realizes that he has slept far longer than usual; the sun has risen, and he can see the light filtering in through the slats of the hut.
    On the far side of the room, his mother is brushing her hair. It falls past her shoulders, down her back, and she gathers it up in her hands, slowly twisting it into a complicated knot. Her arms are too thin, too fragile. She is not yet aware of him. She faces the wall, as if imagining a mirror there, and brushes the stray hairs back from her face.
    His mother turns and crosses the room. He tries to tell her that the one they love is not dead, that he is only hidden away, safe. Her eyes are dark and swollen. When she puts her fingertips to his cheek, her hands are trembling. She tells him that all the Japanese have gone away, they have given up Sandakan. Under cover of night, they abandoned the town and then disappeared. “Rest now,” she says, putting her lips to his hair, holding on to him. Without realizing it, she repeats his father’s words. “Everything will turn out for the best.”
    Because he cannot bear to see her sadness, he closes his eyes, tries to find sleep again.
    He lies still, the sarong covering his body. His heart is beating fast, and his mouth tastes of a bitter, metallic dust. When the war is truly over, he imagines that the