The Concubine's Secret (13 page)

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 gratitude 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 association 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 gods 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 shirt. 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
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 shift 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.’

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 brushing snow from his shaggy beard but his movements were unsteady; he was swaying on his feet, his single eye already bloodshot as a pig’s heart.

You stupid fucking bastard. 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’ piss 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 glass.

‘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 hell 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 hell…?’ 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 glass 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 bloody 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.’

‘So?’

‘So I’ve been having a drink.’

‘Correction. Drinks.’

‘Of course. If it hadn’t been more than one, I would have learned nothing. Just listen to me, will you, for a change?’

Alexei sat back in his chair, avoiding the Cossack’s fumes. ‘All right. Go on. Where were you?’

‘I was in a brothel.’

‘Oh shit. Don’t tell me you’ve got the clap.’

‘Just shut up. I wasn’t there to touch any of the girls, I was on the look out for a guard from the camp. They’d be desperate, see? I reckoned the place would be crawling with them.’

Alexei took a drag on his cigarette to hide his surprise. The Cossack wasn’t as dumb as he looked.

‘And did you find one?’

‘You bet I did. Almost as big as me, he was, and none of the girls wanted him, you could tell.’ He lowered his voice and dropped to a disconcertingly confidential tone. ‘Sometimes these girls are too small, you see, for our-’

‘Enough,
spasibo.’

Popkov scratched at his eye patch and resumed his tale. ‘The man was staggering about the room, knocking into everything and everyone in sight. The madam was yelling, “Someone take this fucking guard back to his camp. Get him out of here!” So I did.’

Alexei offered the Cossack one of his cigarettes and lit it for him. It was a small gesture. ‘All right, so what then?’

‘He’s a big guy, like I said. Kept collapsing in the street, so I had to-’

‘Pick him up. Being such a gentlemanly character.’

‘Let me finish, will you?’ Popkov scowled at Alexei. ‘At least I didn’t sit around playing cards all night, losing good roubles to-’

‘The trouble with you, my friend, is that you don’t have a strategic mind.’

The single black eye glared at him through the smoke. ‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that the loss of a few roubles was necessary to discover…’ Alexei paused, making the big man wait, ‘that there are going to be heavy troop movements through Felanka in the next few weeks. That means trains. Frequent trains coming and going, a constant stream of new faces creating confusion.’ He leaned forward, elbows on the filthy table, gaze intent on Popkov. ‘If we can finish our business quickly, we can be out of here sooner than I expected. But,’ he hesitated, finding the next words hard, ‘I need you to watch out for Lydia.’

‘I always watch out for Lydia Ivanova.’

‘I think she might try to ride one of the trains back to Selyansk.’ The thought of his sister on one of those troop trains packed with soldiers, travelling on her own, turned his stomach.

The Cossack stabbed out his cigarette in a spill of beer. It hissed as he lumbered to his feet with a sudden urgency. ‘Let’s get moving.’

The night was starless, the cold air a slap in the face. Fresh snow lay soft underfoot. Alexei followed the Cossack down a narrow back street where there were no lights, just a dreary row of warehouses whose doors rattled like dead men’s bones in the buffeting of the wind. The smell of something burning caught at Alexei’s nostrils and grew stronger when Popkov took a turn into an open yard. Flames were leaping from inside a metal container drum which stood in front of a small stone store shed. Popkov headed straight for it.