The Russian Concubine

54

A strange man.

Chang could not understand the schoolmaster. He had none of the wisdom that a learned scholar should possess. Sometimes he wore Western clothes, sometimes Chinese. Sometimes he spoke Mandarin, sometimes English. He ate Chinese food and bedded a Chinese woman, but Chang had seen him drinking in the Ulysses Club with his fanqui friend. He had books of Han-Shan’s poetry on his shelves, yet he possessed an Englishman’s foolishness over a foul-tempered cat. He swayed in any direction. Not even he knew which way he might go, hanging on the end of a thread.

That made him dangerous.

And the Foreign Mud. The opium. That too turned the schoolmaster into a spinning blade.

His dreams about her grew wilder, stronger. He was with her in a cave up in the mountains and wolves howled unceasingly. Blizzards ripped through the cave one after the other. Always noise and storm and roaring wind, but through it all they lay in each other’s arms, the flame of her hair melting the snow and burning up the darkness. His hands were whole again when he drew her clothes from her body but there was a circular scar on her breast, the mark of a knife, and when he took her face between his hands to kiss her beloved lips, it turned into a white rabbit’s with pink eyes. There was a wire tight round its neck.

‘Chang An Lo.’

It was Li Mei.

‘Drink this.’

He drank. ‘She hasn’t come?’

‘No.’ She laid a cool fragrant cloth on his forehead and bathed the sweat from his face and neck. ‘Patience. Tomorrow she will come. The fire-head loves you.’

He closed his eyes and held on to the image of Lydia’s laughing mouth and the excitement in her eyes when she described her plan to become a Communist freedom fighter. It threaded life into his chest, so that his heart drummed fit to wake the gods. He loved her. He wanted her at his side when he fought. She lay at the centre of his being; she was in his breath and part of every thought. His skin was her skin. Love was too small a word. He reached for her with his mind but all he found was darkness. Coldness.

A thought whipped through him.

‘Li Mei.’

‘Yes?’

‘Ask the schoolmaster please to come here.’

Lydia found the holes. Six of them. In one corner at the top. Her little finger could just squeeze through. It came as a surprise to find something resting on top of the holes outside, something soft and thin. Some kind of fabric.

The awful kick of hope in her stomach made her feel sick again. She tried to squash it. Stamp on it. But it wouldn’t go away. If she could remove the material, light might trickle into her black cell. Light. She craved it. Even more than she craved water. Without intending to, she found herself waving a hand in front of her face at intervals, but each time nothing had changed. She couldn’t make out even the faintest shadow of movement.

Was she blind? Had the blow to her head destroyed her sight?

She choked on that thought and started to wriggle her little finger in one of the holes, digging up into the material and shifting it a fraction to one side. A fraction was all. A quarter of an inch if she was lucky, sometimes nothing. It was going to take a long time. She crouched there, finger aching, arm propped up by her knee, and tried not to hope.

Why did they want her?

What was she here for?

Who?

Black Snakes? Po Chu? Kuomintang?

When would they come for her?

What did they plan to do to her?

Ask questions?

How?

With knives? With crowbars? Branding irons?

Or whips?

Rape?

Chang An Lo, my love, give me strength.

The fabric was sliding. Suddenly the weight of it took over and she could feel it slipping smoothly over the tip of her finger. And then it was gone. Nothing changed. No light. No greyness. No hint of a world out there. Disappointment crashed down on her and she burst into tears.

No. Not that. Not tears. No waste of precious fluid. No self-pity.

She made herself stop, but her shoulders kept heaving. It frightened her that a few miserable air holes mattered so much to her. They were trivial. What about the big things yet to come? The bad things. Really bad. To survive she had to get herself under control. She pushed her face into the corner with the air holes and breathed deeply. The air was fresher. Not much.

She licked the metal around the holes. It tasted foul but it was damp with condensation. Moisture. No more than a few smears of it, yet it set her brain functioning again. For the first time it occurred to her to think about rescue. What a fool. Of course she’d be missed when she didn’t return home from school. Well, not immediately maybe, because they’d assume she’d gone over to Polly’s house when she didn’t show up, but eventually. By nightfall.

It might be the middle of the night already for all she knew. It certainly felt as though she’d been inside Box for a very long time because her body ached all over from the cramped positions her limbs were squashed into. So they could be searching. Right now. Out there with dogs and torches. For a moment she stopped shivering and lifted her head. Opened her eyes. No amount of listening or staring into blackness altered anything, but she felt she needed to be ready. For when they came.

Mama. Don’t be casual about this. This is important. It’s my life, Mama. Do something.

Do something.

Valentina’s hand slammed onto Chang An Lo’s cheek. ‘You dirty yellow piece of pig shit. Where is she?’

Theo stepped forward to intervene, but she slapped the young face again and again. Punctuated by demands.

‘What have you done with her?’

Slap.

‘Where have your stinking friends taken her?’

Slap.

‘Speak, you goddamned money-grubbing kidnapper. If she’s hurt I swear I’ll…’

She raised her hand to strike once more, but Theo seized her wrist and yanked her away from where Chang was standing in the middle of the room. ‘Enough, Mrs Parker. This is not helping.’

She swore ferociously in Russian and Theo expected a slap himself, but she shook herself free and glared at all three men in the room as if she would bite their balls off.

‘Find her,’ she shouted. She dragged her hands through her dishevelled hair in a gesture of despair, her face flushed with rage. ‘Communist, listen to me. You get out there and bring her back. Because if you don’t, I will turn the police on you and you’ll be hanged, so…’

‘Let him speak,’ Theo said curtly. ‘Alfred, for Christ’s sake, man, shut her up. The bloody woman is insane. Chang An Lo didn’t kidnap her. He hasn’t left this house and anyway, look at him.’ The Chinese was swaying on his feet. His face was grey except for the crimson imprint of Valentina’s hand on his cheek. ‘He’s about to drop.’

‘No,’ Chang insisted. ‘Mrs Parker is correct.’

‘What?’

‘I mean the search must start right now.’ His voice wasn’t quite steady, and Theo wasn’t sure if it was the fever and the shock of the attack by Valentina or because Lydia was missing. Either way, he looked bad.

‘Call the police,’ Alfred said firmly. He’d been standing by the door, silent up to now. ‘They’ll know how to handle it. They’re used to kidnappings. They’ll trace her and hunt down the culprits. If there are any, that is. Let’s not panic yet, my dear. She may just have wandered off on some pet project of her own without telling you. You know what she’s like.’

‘Gospodi! Don’t talk like an imbecile.’ She swung back to Chang. ‘Tell me, Communist, what has happened?’

‘I know nothing. But I suspect.’

‘Suspect what?’

‘That the Black Snakes have her.’

‘What the hell are they?’

‘It’s a secret tong,’ Theo explained. ‘But why would they want Lydia, Chang?’

Chang did not waste effort on a reply. He was pulling on his boots. ‘You are right, Mrs Parker. I will get out there.’

‘Steady, old fellow,’ Theo said quickly. ‘You’re in no fit state to go roaming the streets.’

Chang snatched his padded coat from the back of the door and spoke fiercely. ‘And what about the state Lydia is in?’

‘The police…,’ Alfred started.

‘If you call in police,’ Chang said, looking only at Valentina, ‘they will be slow and heavy tongued. They might get her killed. You will have to tell them I was here and the schoolmaster will go to prison. It is against your law to help a fugitive.’

Alfred stepped in. ‘Look, young man, that is not…’

Valentina sliced a dismissive hand through the air. ‘Mr Willoughby can rot in jail for the whole of eternity for all I care, as long as I get my daughter back. Find her, Communist.’

Theo did not take offence. Love was never rational. If it were, he wouldn’t be with Li Mei. And out on the street, Chang’s search methods would be more effective than those of the police, as long as he could stay on his feet.

‘But first the police will want to question him,’ Alfred pointed out quietly, ‘to learn what…’

‘You’re wasting time, Alfred.’ Theo rested an arm on his friend’s shoulder.

Chang opened the door.

‘Godspeed,’ Alfred murmured.

But Theo put more faith in the knife up Chang’s sleeve.