The Japanese Lover by Rani Manicka (Hodder & Stoughton)

Rani Manicka is a Malaysian writer of Indian descent. The Japanese Lover is her third novel which was first published in 2009. It is once again set in Malaysia but begins on the island of Ceylon, present-day Sri Lanka. 

The story opens with a young writer visiting Marimuthu Mami at her home in Kuala Lumpur. Marimuthu Mami is currently ninety-two years old. The visiting author is interested in hearing Marimuthu’s life story. What the writer is most interested in was Marimuthu Mami’s experience during the Japanese Occupation of Malaya. 

But Marimuthu Mami doesn’t want to remember the past. “Speak about the past, here in her daughter’s home? After she had finally mastered the art of forgetting things”. Her children would be surprised to know how much she does remember,  “how deeply rooted it was in her chest. She remembered all of it, every precious detail. They thought the past was dead because she never talked about it.” 

And so begins the epic story of Marimuthu Mami. She was born in a small town in North Ceylon in 1916. Her mother had already given birth to five sons. She was the family’s first daughter. A priest was present when she was born and as soon as she was out of her mother’s womb, he noted the exact time and cast her horoscope. He told the father “The child is destined to marry a man of truly immense wealth. But the marriage will be a disaster”. 

She was named Parvathi and at the tender age of sixteen, her marriage to a wealthy forty-two-year-old widow living in Malaya was arranged. Before leaving for her new home and new life, Parvathi went to a temple to pray with her mother. What her mother didn’t know was that Parvathi “had not been praying for a good husband and family but for the greatest love in the world, for one who would unthinkingly put his hand into fire for her. 

When Parvathi met her soon-to-be husband, he was very displeased. Her father had sent the man a picture of a different girl. Kasu Marimuthu, her husband’s name, said he would be sending Parvathi back to her father the following day. 

The next day, Kasu Marimuthu is asked a favor by one of his servants. A large woman named Maya. She says to him “I understand that you are unable to show the shape of your heart to your wife, but it is not right to leave the shape of your foot on hers.” 

Maya is not just a servant, she is a healer, a shaman. Someone who seems to have more power and understanding of the world than any rich tycoon or temple priest. Her words have the effect on Kasu Marimuthu that he does not send Parvathi home and lets her stay for a few more days. Days turn into months, months turn into years, and he has children with Parvathi. Maya also becomes Parvathi’s biggest influence and confidante. Maya seems to be a fountain of wisdom but never condescends to anyone. 

It isn’t until more than half-way through the book where the Japanese invade Malaya and Hattori-san comes into Parvathi’s life. By this time, her husband had passed away due to an illness. The Japanese have requisitioned her house and In order to save her daughter forms sexual slavery, Parvathi willingly becomes Hattori-san’s comfort woman, a woman used to satisfy the sexual desires of the Imperial Japanese Army. The more time Parvathi spends with Hattori-san, the love she prayed for seems to be within her grasp. 

Unlike Manicka’s first novel, The Rice Mother, the atrocities committed by the Japanese army are overlooked and Maya is overused as a proponent for New Age ideology. However, these are minor negative points in this story about love, passion, deceit, and acceptance. ~Ernie Hoyt