The Forbidden Kingdom (5 page)

P
EDRO VELHO WAS
bigger and calmer than his fellow-countrymen. He had been born north of the River Minho and was one of the few to set sail from Porto. His appearance seemed to have served as a model for the warning posted above one of the gates of Canton:
None may enter here who has a red face, blue eyes, blond hair and a beard
. Velho, the great merchant, had these characteristics in a very pronounced form. Yet he of all people was one of the few to have passed through this gate, the only one to have seen the great Guangxi, the first to have recognized Marco Polo in the temple of six hundred great spirits, in one of the huge bronze statues. The other Portuguese wanted to make up in courage and cruelty for what they lacked in number, but if they were perhaps superior in bravery, they were far inferior to their adversaries in cruelty. Velho was the only one who really understood that force of arms and heroics did not impress the Heavenly Ones, but rather filled them with contempt. He knew the only weapon: gifts, given in such a way that accepting them seemed like a favour.
He used this weapon in masterly fashion; he never gave too much, never too little, sensing how much honour was due to the governor, how much to a mandarin, a priest, a spy. As a result Velho controlled a large part of the silk and tea imports and the whole of the food supply and had become the richest and most powerful man in Macao. But his power and wealth were based solely on his
relations
with the Chinese. His compatriots hated him: his fellow guild members out of envy, the officers because he wanted to sideline them, and the clergy because he scoffed at the rivalry between the orders and with his lavish gifts to charity put the lustre of church charity in the shade and made its paltriness look ridiculous. He had long been barred from all offices, before being reluctantly admitted. Finally he had to become a senator. They could no longer do without him now that food supplies to the colony were becoming more problematic, the Chinese again and again closed the warehouses and only Velho’s influence could make them open.

Now he was sitting at the corner window of his study, a roomy chamber with six windows facing the sea. This enabled him to see both the harbour and the Ilha Verde on the far side, the highest cathedral, São Paulo from one corner window, and the Monte citadel from the other. This gave him a constantly changing view as he moved easily about the large room in his flowered silk robe, a gift
from the same governor of Guangdong who had once threatened to lay waste to Macao. He was sneered at for this housecoat. All the Portuguese kept their
uncomfortable
and heavy clothes; Velho shrouded his heavy bulk in the loose silk material, worked harder and paid no attention to the mockery. In this garb he received everyone who came to his consultation meeting, from the most lowly Chinese merchant to the
Ouvidor
, to ask his advice on how to appease some enraged mandarin. Then Velho would sit back at his table, throw his arms in the air, so that the wide sleeves fell back and revealed his fleshiness. Then he waxed eloquent and indicated in what way the favour of the angry one could be
regained
. The Procurador was irritated beyond measure by his practices, which were considered humiliating for royal power.

Once, when Velho had given a princely dowry to a poor coloured girl, the Procurador came to criticize his liberality to yellow-skinned Chinese and lack of
commitment
to the homeland.

“If you had put your wealth at the army’s disposal, Macao would long since have been independent, free of these humiliating measures, your trade would be free, since we might have occupied Guangdong, and more.” The eyes of the old soldier sparkled. “Didn’t Alexander conquer a worldwide empire with a small army?”

Velho laughed and placed his hand on a map. He pointed to a dot in the Heavenly Kingdom and
somewhere
far away a small patch.

“That is us.”

Then, passing his hand over almost the whole of Asia, he said:

“And this is them. Three centuries ago Genghis Khan came to conquer the whole of Europe. It was
defenceless
, but he disdained to take it. He was right. A few castles of renegade knights and a few squabbling towns, are those the spoils of war? And now you want to take the greatest empire on earth with a few banners? And I’m supposed to give you my hard-earned money for the purpose? No.”

Campos had departed in fury and wanted to indict him. But he could not formulate an indictment without making himself look ridiculous, so none was issued.

Now, tonight, Velho was to be installed as a member of the Senate. No one came to congratulate him. Respected in public life, but shunned socially, he remained indoors in solitude. A pair of freed Malay slaves and a girl
presented
to him by the mandarin made up his silent family. He surrounded himself with bronze statues, porcelain and lacquered screens, which were considered ugly by whites at that time. He dealt with his memories like a father with his large family: they came to keep him
company in the evenings and made him laugh or stare gloomily ahead. This one often returned:

Long ago an aged apostle had spent his last days with him. The man had worked for twelve years in Shansi and brought about countless conversions, including among the higher class, and even among writers. Finally he had tried to attack the last bulwark of paganism: ancestor worship. He soon realized their growing resentment of him, even among his best friends. At the same time an order had arrived from Beijing that no other order besides the Jesuits would in future be allowed within the borders of the country. One evening, as he was passing a temple, he was seized, tied up, thrown into a junk, transferred to a Spanish vessel at sea and deposited
half-dead
in Macao. There were not yet any Dominicans in the town at that time, as the Jesuits believed that their zealotry would be the undoing of their mission. He had had a letter of recommendation from Schaal to Velho, but had lost it. Velho did, it is true, take pity on him, but had endless conversations with him, in late evening and early morning. Still, he was always able to conceal his exhaustion. Once they spoke about death, and Velho announced that he would like to know his death in advance.

“I’d prepare myself, settle my affairs, divide my fortune and apart from that base my thoughts on the best safe
conducts for the other country, the
Bhagavad Gita
and the
Analects
of Confucius.”

The old missionary, looking at him sadly, punished him for straying from the true path.

“You shall know your death in advance. When the wine you drink tastes as bitter as gall and as sour as vinegar your end will be nigh. And then there will be only one consolation for you: the Gospel. All the rest is vain, heathen speculation.”

Velho was about to demonstrate the splendour of the Indian doctrine of salvation, when he heard
coughing
. He looked round: the commander of the fort was standing at the door to the chamber. Velho had heard nothing, but the man said he had been announced and started talking about a delivery of food to the garrison. Velho dealt with the matter and the monk withdrew. That night he reflected fearfully on the fulfilment of his wish; he determined to ask for a revocation the
following
morning, but the monk had died that same night, long since worn out by the torture and deprivation, and perhaps also by the nocturnal conversations, in which he had to take a firm stand and defend his faith against the wide-ranging attacks of Velho, whose weapons were quotations from the whole of Oriental philosophy.

For a while Velho renounced the pleasures of wine, but then had it tasted before he drank and was soon
drinking again as he always had, sometimes with a vague uneasiness at the first draught, but finally convinced that just as water could not really be turned into wine, the wine on his lips could not turn to vinegar.

R
ONQUILHO COULD NOT
wait for evening. From the ramparts of the citadel he kept looking through his telescope at the house. Just as dusk was starting to fall he saw the Procurador leave home; he waited for a further half-hour and then set out. In the Rua do Bom Jesus he tied up his horse in a deserted garden and continued on foot.

The back gate was open. He went from the mild evening light into the chilly twilight; the densely planted and rather overgrown garden was full of shadows, and between the wall and the trees it was completely dark. After searching for a while he found the narrow path that led to the back of the house; it was silent and deserted, and most windows were closed, except for the three of Dona Pilar’s room on the third floor.

Ronquilho saw that there was a ladder standing against the tree, as if the fruit had been picked that afternoon. Tonight the supreme fruit would be picked, he thought, as he climbed the ladder leaning against the olive tree, glad that things were being made so easy for his heavy
frame. He reached the branch opposite the balcony. There stood Pilar; he could not move a muscle, or she would see him. He waited like that, sitting on the branch, his foot on the top rung of the ladder. And Pilar simply remained on the balcony, staring into the evening sky. His limbs began to hurt and stiffen from the enforced period of sitting, pressed against the dark branch, and the longer he saw Pilar standing there, the more
unattainable
she appeared to him. He almost rejected his abduction plan. It had seemed so easy: putting Pilar, half resisting, half helpless with surprise in his arms, into a litter, taking her on board the
lorcha
of his friend Ramirez, raising anchor and in a gondola voyage across the bay claiming what he longed for by entreaty or by force. Or better: entering the room, standing by her bed and simply, as if it had long since been decided, taking her in his arms and not allowing her to come to her senses until the irrevocable had happened. But how was he to enter so softly and naturally? His limbs were becoming stiffer, his blood had cooled and in his heavy, damp clothing he felt more like a pathetic bandit than a triumphant lover.

Suddenly she looked up, and he tucked his head in, but Pilar, with a last look at the evening sky, went into the room. This was the moment. He slid laboriously along the branch he had chosen over the balcony; as
the tip was already bending he was just able to grasp the railings of the balustrade, but could not make his way upwards without a din. When he reached the balcony the room was dark, and he could make out only a
bouquet
of white flowers on the table. He wriggled his way inside and immediately fell full length on the carpet in a pool of water and fragments of the vases over which he had tripped.

He got up hurriedly, but heard a key turn in the lock and a short laugh. He leapt back to the balcony, but the big branch had broken off. No way out! Desperate and suddenly dog-tired, he threw himself on the bed, but immediately got up again: to lie there alone was a disgrace that caused the blood to rush to his face. He still felt Pilar’s presence everywhere, in the robes that hung around him, in the mirror where she had looked at herself so much, in the flowers on the table.

He banged his fist on the table. Yet another vase smashed on the carpet; the confusion in the room was an indictment of him; he tied silk blankets, dresses, sheets together, did not estimate the distance but lowered himself down and found himself hanging by two sleeves over twenty feet above the ground. He let go, landed with a thump, and was able to hobble away groaning with an injured ankle to where his horse was tethered. There he hoisted himself into the saddle, realizing that
she would be far away by now, and had perhaps sought sanctuary in the Dominican monastery. But she wasn’t as safe or invisible there as she thought. He knew of the Procurador’s hatred of the Dominicans, since that very morning he had witnessed the fury of Campos at the impudent Belchior. They would clean out that wasps’ nest, smoke it out if necessary. He rode back to the citadel at a jog, and had to be carried up the steps; he ordered wine and bread and told them to leave him alone, and then bandaged his ankle himself. The pain became more intense. He sat there thinking, more and more convinced that Pilar had fled to the monastery. He drank lots of wine. If they were able to banish the Dominicans, the monastery would be pulled down. Tao Hsao, the viceroy of Canton, still kept threatening to starve the colony out, the traditional, endlessly applied method, if the seminaries and the monasteries, which he saw as disguised forts, were not demolished. Why should they not do that right away? He imagined how the outer walls would be demolished, then the main building, and how Pilar would appear, surrounded by nuns. He imagined how he would grab her; he held her tight, but it was the jug of wine; he sank back, and the wine flowed over his boots onto the floor.

C
AMPOS CREPT CAUTIOUSLY
upstairs and stopped outside the door. He listened; not a sound. He debated with himself for a moment whether to enter, but when he went in, he would appear to be complicit. All he could see through the keyhole was a fallen vase in the faint moonlight. He went back downstairs, stared into a grey garden and saw the snapped-off branch. So Ronquilho had got in, he could set his mind at rest: their alliance had been sealed, and together they would subdue the merchants. Who had founded this city, a merchant or a priest? No, a soldier. Campos again thought of his favourite story: the triumph of Alexander. But in those days the merchants were fighting men and the Jesuits hadn’t yet been invented. So both groups must be wiped out, at all costs and using any means, as both of them, in their own way, taught. Then, once they were rid of them, a reign of terror along the Chinese coast, an advance with a force of ten thousand, straight to Beijing. It was as if he could hear what Farria had said on his deathbed: “Don’t admit any priests, or merchants,
otherwise Macao will soon be burnt, like Lian Po, or slowly consumed by strife. Farmers and soldiers, no one else. A royal monopoly of trade. Portugal is too far away, they are too slow in sending reinforcements. Then you can found a kingdom of your own.”

These words, like all the adventures of the old pioneer, had become one with Campos’s being; sometimes he felt Farria living on in him, but mostly, oppressed by the usual slow progress of events, he mocked himself for what he called his heroic fantasies.

He slept badly, woke early and waited for Ronquilho, bragging and triumphant, or Pilar, pale and tearful, to appear, but no one came. At six o’clock he crept upstairs again, peered through the keyhole and again saw nothing but overturned furniture. She had put up a fight, had his daughter! They mustn’t think that a woman of his line would surrender like a meek
sacrificial
lamb. But his impatience became too much for him. He opened the door with his own key: he saw even greater devastation, but an empty bed. Across the window sill ran a colourful strip; he went closer, carefully hauled in the tied blankets and dresses and untied them. But the traces of the heavy weight they had borne could not be erased: everything was twisted and torn. Furiously he kicked everything into a wall cupboard and sent a messenger to the fort. He had
had to abduct her, very well, but why in such a crazy way? The stairs creaked, the front door slammed, but surely Ronquilho could be confident that he had
removed
the servants, or had the romances of chivalry turned his head too?

The messenger returned, mission unaccomplished: the
capitão
was not available to see anyone. So had he taken her with him to the fort? That was too
shameless
! Everyone would know how the marriage had been brought about; it did not befit their status! Campos hurried to the fort. It was still early and there was no one in the streets. He would be able to return home with Pilar before the town woke up, as if coming from an early mass.

Ronquilho was lying on the sofa, with a thick bandage round his leg, and received Campos with an angry laugh.

“A failure, the bird has flown, and I was almost caught in the cage.”

“Run away? But why didn’t you wait for me to return home, and then we could have given chase at once?”

“Bear in mind that it’s only a five-minute walk from your house to the Dominican monastery.”

“The monastery? Do you think she’s there?”

“Have you forgotten that masquerade then? Believe me, at the moment Pilar is playing Veronica or Egyptian Mary. Who knows?”

“Then they must surrender her! Paternal authority is higher than the church’s.”

“That would be asking for trouble. The monastery is a recognized place of sanctuary. And hasn’t the father transferred his authority prematurely? Wouldn’t the authority of a father and lieutenant receive a blow harder than that branch received from my boot, from the revelation of this story? No, let’s clear out the whole nest at once, and raze it to the ground. Think of the benefits! We’ll be rid of that brood of Dominicans at last, we’ll embarrass the merchants and we ourselves will bask in the favour of the Chinese.”

“Why?”

“By finding a pretext for the destruction of the monastery.”

“What riddles are these?”

“Listen. The merchant Lou Yat has a son and a daughter who have become devout converts through the Dominicans. They confess, go to church and can already cross themselves, much to the fury of the
honourable
Lou Yat, who I believe is the deacon of the temple of A Mao. The whole Chinese district is abuzz with the apostasy of his children. Well, today is Tuesday. On Thursday morning he will be found at his counter with his throat cut, and the son and daughter will have disappeared. What will the Chinese authorities think,
what will they demand? What will the merchants’ guild not agree to? What will we not do only too gladly to satisfy the mandarins?”

“But won’t we actually find Lou Yat’s children in the monastery?” objected Campos.

“They will never be found. But there will be ex cavations in a monastery garden and children’s bodies will be discovered in an unrecognizable state of decom position and with their eyes gouged out.”

“But that’s going too far!” cried Campos. “That will deal a blow to everyone who calls himself Portuguese.”

“Not to us. Consider the consequences: the clergy driven out, the power of the merchants, who this time cannot hush up the matter with money,
curtailed
, and the strictly upright Procurador, the armed forces fighting against their own priests for the sake of justice, feared and honoured in every corner of China.”

“But who will carry out the murder of the Lou Yat family, so that we won’t be unmasked as the orchestrators?”

Ronquilho grinned.

“I have three men in my garrison, about whom I know enough to have them strung from the yardarms of all the seafaring powers. They’ll hold their tongues.”

“Won’t they betray us?”

“Never. I myself will run them through in the
confusion
of the assault on the monastery. The dead tell no tales.”

Campos gave in. He surveyed Ronquilho with respect and remembered in astonishment that only that
morning
he had called him brave but stupid.