The Concubine's Secret Part 10

Chang chuckled. 'They say it is good for you.' He had a moment's flash of a cup at his lips. The unpleasant fatty taste of milk in his mouth. A gentle fanqui fanqui voice telling him, 'Drink.' For her, he drank. voice telling him, 'Drink.' For her, he drank.

'It is better,' he told the older man, 'when Mao travels with his wife. Better for the towns he stays in.'

'Why better? She was an expense to us each day she was here, demanding the best of everything.'

'Even so, it is better.' He stared at a young woman sweeping the doorstep of the rope seller's shop on the opposite side of the road. Her hair was long and braided prettily. 'It is better for the town's girls,' he said.

'I'd heard rumours,' Hu Tai-wai scowled, his thick eyebrows swooping together in a black line. 'I kept Si-qi locked in the house.'

'A wise decision.'

'So.' Hu Tai-wai jabbed his needle into a sc.r.a.p of leather that was tied round his wrist and left it there. 'Tell me, whelp of the wind, why has the Chinese Communist Party sent one of their best code breakers to the lazy town of Zhandu?'

'No one knows I am here.'

'Ah.'

'I have come to speak with you in private.'

'About what?'

'The Russians.'

Hu Tai-wai gave him a slow, amused smile. 'Then you are a fool. You're too late, my young friend. The years when I was an adviser and negotiator with the Russians, the bearded ones, are long gone. You know I gave it up. Now I am just a poor country cobbler.' His black eyes glittered, the lines around his mouth contented in the suns.h.i.+ne. 'I value my life and my family too much. With Mao, as with Josef Stalin, that other power-crazed vozhd vozhd, you never know when he will tire of you. You blink and the next thing you know your head is raised on the point of a stick.'

'But you've been to Soviet Russia.'

'Many times.'

'I fear we all dance to the tune of roubles now. So tell me about them, Hu Tai-wai. Tell me what I must prepare for.'

Hu Tai-wai's house was modest. Nothing like the elegant home Chang recalled that he used to possess in Canton, with its numerous courtyards and an abundance of jade and ancient carved furniture that had once belonged to his father and his father's father. Here everything was plain, st.u.r.dy and adequate for a shoemaker's family. Only in the hallway a shrine to his ancestors boasted of what once had been. Pearls and gold adorned the paintings of his parents and his grandparents. Silver platters offered up carefully cooked slices of veal and dolphin along with colourful fruits and sweetmeats. On a marble stand an engraved gla.s.s goblet, so fine it was barely there, contained thick ruby wine.

Chang experienced a tug of envy when he set eyes on the shrine, and a spill of guilt flowed that he had created nothing similar for his own dead family. He dipped his hand into an onyx dish of azalea petals and sprinkled them over a bowl of pomegranates and mangoes, murmuring words that bound him to his father's spirit. He lit an incense burner and watched the fragrant smoke coil up in a thin wisp of faith.

Communism decried faith. Just like it decried the individual. It was designed to train the human mind to produce a new and improved version of man. That was the future task of Communism and that was the battle that Chang was committed to. He loved China with all his soul and was convinced that Communism was the only way forward for his country. He believed its ideals could bring peace and equality to an unjust society in which fathers were forced to decide which child to sell in order to feed the others. At the same time glossy fat overlords bathed in goats' milk and burdened their tenants with land rents that crippled their backs and shortened their lives.

Chang gazed at the flame in the burner. His black eyes swallowed its fragile flicker and he felt the familiar lick of rage in his gut flare alongside it. It was a fire he fought to control, but time and again it blazed unchecked, beyond his reach. Scorching him.

'Chang An Lo, you bring light to our humble home and joy to my unworthy heart.'

Chang bowed low to Yi-ling, wife of the shoemaker. 'It is an honour and a pleasure to see you again. I have travelled far and your home is as always a bed of rose petals for my weary bones.'

He bowed again to emphasise his regard for her. He was always tongue-tied and awkward in her presence, uncertain of how to express his grat.i.tude to this woman. She was broad-hipped and broad-cheeked, with a high forehead, but it was the warmth in her eyes that made her beautiful. He would not presume to guess her age, but she was old enough to be his mother and kind enough to have taken him into her home during that desperate time when his parents were beheaded in Peking.

Yet it was Yi-ling's husband, Hu Tai-wai, who widened his world. He was the one who had introduced the young Chang, son of a court adviser to the Empress of China, to the ideals and aims of Karl Marx and Communism; the very reverse of all he had previously been exposed to. But Chang had not stayed long, unwilling to endanger their lives by a.s.sociation with him. So he had moved on and that had become the recurring pattern of his life, but a part of his heart had always remained in this woman's pocket.

She poured tea for him now into small, handle-less cups. 'The G.o.ds have kept you safe. I thank them for that and will take a gift to the temple.'

'They have been kind to you too. I have never seen Hu Tai-wai so fat and relaxed. He sits out front there at his work, as contented as a cat in the sun.'

She smiled. 'I wish I could say the same for you, Chang An Lo.'

'Do I look so bad?'

'Yes. Like something a dog has spat out.'

'Then I'll take a bath, if I may.'

'You're welcome. But that's not what I meant. I was looking only in your eyes, and what I see there tears at my heart.'

Chang lowered his gaze, sipped his tea and for a moment silence settled in the small, humid room, where the air moved sluggishly and reluctantly each time they spoke. Eventually Chang raised his eyes and they both knew that part of their conversation was over.

'How is Si-qi?' he asked.

'My daughter is well.' Yi-ling's face lit up, as if the sun had rolled over it. Her eyes met his, intent and hopeful, and instantly he realised what plans blossomed behind them. Si-qi was sixteen, of marriageable age.

'Go,' she said and flicked a delicate hand to urge him on his way. 'Go and speak to her. She's in the courtyard.'

He stood and bowed with respect. She snorted gleefully.

'Before I go, Yi-ling, I would like to give you a gift.'

Her thin straight eyebrows rose and she brushed at her black skirt uncomfortably. 'That is not necessary, Chang An Lo.'

'I think it is.'

He opened his leather saddlebag and removed something bundled up in an old s.h.i.+rt. He held it out to her. She rose to her feet and accepted it, but when she felt its weight, her smile grew full of curiosity and she unwrapped the gift.

'Chang An Lo,' she whispered. Her breath shuddered.

In her hand lay a gun.

'Yi-ling, I know that your husband refuses to own a firearm any more because he says he is finished with violence. But I fear violence has not yet finished with him, nor with China, so I want you to have -'

Her eyes darted to the door, but Hu Tai-wai was still outside with his leather and needles. Deftly she rewrapped the pistol and slid it into the embroidery workbox beside her chair.

He stepped nearer to her. 'This is just between us,' he said. 'For you.'

She nodded and for the first time in his life she leaned close, smelling of sandalwood, and kissed his cheek. An intense little brush of her dry lips.

'And for Si-qi,' she breathed.

Si-qi was tall, with long skinny legs and one wooden foot. But it was hard even to notice her foot because her face drew men's eyes the way a pot of honey draws bears. Whereas her mother's face was broad, hers was slender and delicate with skin pale as fresh cream and eyes that were soft and patient. She was wearing a pale blue dress and was seated on a bench under a fig tree, her dark head bent over sheets of paper.

At the sight of Chang she started to cry.

He bowed a greeting to her. 'No tears, my beautiful Si-qi, look what I have brought you.' He laughed and took out a book from his saddlebag. 'It's to improve your English.'

Each time he'd visited Hu Tai-wai during the years spent in Canton, he had laboured diligently on teaching Si-qi to speak English. Without a strong foot, lost as a baby to a snakebite, her choice of work would be limited and neither he nor her father wanted her to be dependent on a husband. So their plan was that she would become an interpreter. She was quick; her mind retentive, eager to learn. Though sometimes he wondered if she was doing it for herself . . . or for him.

'Xie xie,' she said shyly. 'Thank you. The Jungle Book The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.' Her eyes shone with pleasure and he wished he'd brought her more than one book. by Rudyard Kipling.' Her eyes shone with pleasure and he wished he'd brought her more than one book.

'It's about a boy who is brought up in the jungle by wolves.'

She slid a glance at him under her long black lashes. 'Is that what you feel happened to you? Brought up in our household by Communist wolves?' She laughed and something about the sound of it shortened his breath.

'If your parents' house was a jungle, then you were always the golden flower that enchanted us all with your perfume.'

She laughed again, delighted, swaying her long hair in a luxurious ripple of velvet, and opened the book. He sat down beside her and together they began to read, word by word, page by page, and all the time he was aware of the nearness of her, the softness of her, and what a perfect wife she would make for him.

Only once did she turn to him and enquire in a whisper, 'Have you news of my brother, Biao?'

'No. None.'

Her eyes clouded with disappointment and she returned to the book.

A flicker of movement inside his mind. That was all. As though Kaa, the snake, had slid off the pages, silent and stealthy. Chang raised his head, listening.

'What is it?' Si-qi asked softly.

He shook his head, attentive to every sound. The sky was leaking colours on to the roofs, reds and yellows and secretive misty purples. The day was changing, preparing for evening, insects thickening the air, strange harrowing sounds rising like ghost-spirits from the jungle.

Was that what he'd heard? That s.h.i.+ft in the day?

Si-qi touched his hand, warm and weightless on his skin. 'What is the . . . ?'

But Chang was on his feet, saddlebag over his shoulder, and moving fast to the far end of the courtyard where a black wooden door would open on to a back alleyway. He turned the handle. It was locked. As he took two steps backwards, giving himself the impetus to spring to the ridge tiles on top of the wall, the door to the house burst open. Hu Tai-wai and Yi-ling were marched into the courtyard by a troop of five soldiers. The red band of Mao's army was emblazoned on their sleeves.

'Chang An Lo,' their leader said firmly, but with unmistakable respect. 'I apologise for disturbing you, but you are summoned to Guitan.'

'Summoned by whom?'

'By our Great Leader, Mao Tse Tung.'

11.

The door banged open. A blast of icy air tore through the tavern. It carved chunks into the solid pall of smoke that hovered like death over the heads of the drinkers. Alexei glanced up from the playing cards in his hand. So. Popkov had at last turned up. The big Cossack was brus.h.i.+ng snow from his s.h.a.ggy beard but his movements were unsteady; he was swaying on his feet, his single eye already bloodshot as a pig's heart.

You stupid f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d. We were meant to be watching each other's backs tonight. What good are you to me in that state?

Alexei returned his attention to the game in hand. His mind was struggling to concentrate. This was his fourth session of cards in as many bars, each one buried in a back alley that stank of cats' p.i.s.s and despair. The bare wooden tables were stained with beer, the floor etched with vodka and waxed with tears. These places were strictly all male. Not a smooth cheek or a shapely leg in sight. Just a huddle of men determined to drown their day's cares and the screech of their women's voices in the glorious oblivion of a gla.s.s.

'Get on with it, will you? Haven't got all night, you know.'

Alexei ignored his opponent's grousing. He'd selected this man deliberately out of all the ones who were shuffling cards at the tables. He chose him because he was fat. Fat means food, plenty of it. The card player must be stuffing himself on a diet of kickbacks and bribes, a feast of fistfuls of roubles. Clearly the man was an informer. A whisperer. He sold information.

A chair crashed to the floor nearby and out of the corner of his eye Alexei caught sight of Popkov weaving a path towards him.

'Where the h.e.l.l have you been?' Alexei snapped without looking up from his cards.

Popkov shuffled his ungainly frame around the table and stood behind Alexei's chair. He laughed out loud as he spotted Alexei's hand and the alcohol on his breath spilled over the other man's shoulder.

'Better give up while you're losing,' he mumbled in Alexei's ear, then chortled at his own joke.

The fat man opposite joined in the merriment. 'Your friend is right.' He held up his own cards in a fan and waved them to and fro, as if waving Alexei's chances goodbye.

'Game's not over yet,' Alexei responded with irritation.

He was about to toss another few roubles on to the pile when he received a nudge in his side that was so violent his fingers jerked open and he let go of his hand. The cards slid across the dirty table top and four of them fell to the floor, three face up.

'What the h.e.l.l . . . ?' Alexei reached for the cards. But it was too late. The fat man had moved fast despite his paunch and had already scooped them up.

'A seven, nine and ten, that's no winning hand,' the man grinned and dipped his heavy moustache into his gla.s.s of beer. 'Now give up, like your fine friend says.' His eyes shone grey and greedy.

Alexei threw up his hands in surrender, letting his opponent sweep away the roubles and pocket them. He looked up at Popkov. 'You crazy drunken idiot. You've b.l.o.o.d.y lost me . . .' But then he saw the look in Popkov's eyes. 'Very well. Game's over.' Alexei rose from his chair and gave a mock salute to his card partner. 'It's not my night, it seems.'

But the fat man wasn't listening. He was already trying to ensnare another player from the group huddled round the bar. Alexei reluctantly obeyed Popkov's hand on his shoulder and allowed himself to be propelled towards the back of the room where there was a spare table. They both sat down. Alexei thought about the lost roubles and sighed, but he lit himself a cigarette, inhaled deeply and looked across at Popkov.

'You're not as drunk as you appear, are you?'

Popkov's face broke into a sly smile. 'I never am. You should know that by now.'

'So what's the great hurry that you have to break up my game?'

'I think the game I've been playing may be worth far more to you.'