Between Two Words - Ep 12 - Harold's Arrival Pt II
8:14 PM, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, April, 1963
“They will have you arrested for abduction.”
For a moment, the word seemed absurd.
Abduction.
As though Emily were an object carried away in the night rather than a woman who had crossed half the world already by her own choosing.
Yet even as the thought arrived, another followed immediately behind it.
Scandal.
Newspapers.
Questions.
Her name spoken publicly.
I felt myself straighten instinctively again despite the sudden tightness in my chest.
The letter remained in my hand beneath the fabric of my coat.
Rainwater slipped steadily from the edge of the roof beside us, gathering somewhere below in an uneven rhythm against the stone.
“I see,” I said.
The words arrived automatically.
“Then perhaps I might wait.”
Ah Fong’s expression did not change.
“No.”
The street behind me had begun to wake slowly around the rain. Somewhere further down, metal shutters rolled upward with a harsh scraping sound. A tram bell rang faintly in the distance.
I straightened slightly.
“I apologise,” I said. “I fear I may not have explained myself properly. I came to ask for Miss Emily’s hand in marriage.”
Even now, saying the sentence aloud felt strangely formal. Practised too many times somewhere between London and Hong Kong.
Ah Fong’s eyes lowered briefly.
Not from shame.
Something closer to sadness.
“Mister Harold,” she said quietly, “Miss Emily has already left Hong Kong.”
The sentence settled heavily despite how softly it was spoken.
Left.
Not leaving.
Not preparing.
Gone already.
For the first time since landing, I realised I no longer knew where to place my hands.
The letter remained half-withdrawn from my coat pocket.
Though I could not yet make myself let go of it.
“I don’t understand,” I heard myself say.
And it was true.
Not fully.
Ah Fong glanced once toward the closed door behind her before stepping closer still, her voice dropping lower.
“If her parents see you here…” she said carefully, “they will believe you helped her escape.”
I stared at her.
The rain continued steadily around us both.
“They will call the police,” she said. “And they will say you abducted their daughter.”
“What would you advise me to do?” I asked.
Ah Fong studied me for a long moment.
Neither of us spoke.
Then she glanced briefly toward the house.
“You must leave now, Mister Harold.”
I waited.
Perhaps expecting something more.
An explanation.
An address.
A direction.
None came.
“You are not safe here,” she said quietly.
The words were not unkind.
Only final.
A moment later she stepped back toward the door.
I opened my mouth to speak again.
To ask where Emily had gone.
To ask when.
To ask whether she had left willingly or frightened or alone.
But something in Ah Fong’s expression stopped me.
Not secrecy.
Protection.
Then she was gone.
The door closed softly behind her
For several moments I remained where I was beneath the shelter of the walkway.
And for the first time since arriving in Hong Kong, I realised I no longer had any clear idea what the correct thing was.
The rain followed me down toward the harbour.
Not heavy enough to empty the streets entirely. Just enough to blur them slightly at the edges.
Shopkeepers stood beneath awnings smoking quietly while water gathered along the tram tracks in thin silver lines. Somewhere across the road, a woman hurried beneath a dark umbrella carrying groceries pressed tightly against her chest.
Life continuing.
Entirely unaware that mine no longer seemed to fit together in quite the same order it had forty minutes earlier.
I stopped beneath the shelter outside a closed tea house along Queen’s Road and removed the letter once more from inside my coat.
The folds had begun to weaken now.
The paper no longer sitting flat, no matter how carefully I pressed it.
I am writing to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.
The sentence looked older suddenly than it had on the aircraft.
Not incorrect.
Just belonging to a version of the world that had already moved ahead without me.
Rain tapped steadily against the awning overhead.
After a moment, I folded the letter once more.
Carefully.
Then slipped it deeper inside my coat pocket and fastened the button over it.
For now, there seemed little else to do.
I stepped back into the rain and began walking.
ㅤ
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The last letter from Emily is here.
More pieces from Dorie Snow/雪多丽 (White Rabbit Musings)
Other prose and poems from me.
Nothing truly leaves — it just changes how it stays.
All artwork courtesy of NDjin Gallery
Ohh my heart.
I would cross oceans for you… yes Harold truly meant he would! Emily is lost somewhere in Taiwan and Harold just got handed a pretty devastating blow. Where is Emily? When will they reunite? What should he do?