The Brothel Creeper: Stories of Sexual and Spiritual Tension (19 page)

She greeted my approach with a jumbo smile of triumph. At once I was alerted to an unspecified danger. Even my revenge attack was part of her scheme. I turned to regard a pair of trolleys bearing down on me at converging angles. There was no time to avoid them. Steered by hunched geriatrics with hearing aids, they rolled onward with the implacability of a twin-pack glacier. Suddenly inspired, I dropped my trousers and severed my penis with a single stroke of the knife, hurling it onto a ziggurat of cheese-and-onion quiches, where it came to rest upright like a radio mast with a glans beacon.

My desperate ploy worked. The trolleys collided before reaching me, breaking the backs of their drivers and leaving them to flop among the spilled cat biscuits, until their death throes powered them into a duck and beef sand-sea which reflected the glare of the fluorescent lighting like a vermilion beach. I glanced up, but Mrs Hamilton had disappeared. I hobbled back to Laura, handed her the serrated knife and urged her to eviscerate her own privates. She responded to my shrill tone with arched eyebrows but took the blade and poked under her gingham uniform until a waterfall of gore bearing two swollen lips flooded the floor, indicating a successful act of auto-mutilation.

When we recovered, I explained my demand. “It’s Mrs Hamilton. She’s been arranging all these accidents. I was nearly run over just now, but managed to save myself by lopping my member. It removed a vital variable from the loins of her equation.”

Laura gaped at me wordlessly, so I led her gently down the aisles of my theory. Mrs Hamilton had found a way to control Safebury’s entire clientele, probably by setting a paradigm with her own shopping habits. Each packet of sesame seeds, carton of milk or bag of crisps she removed from the shelves determined the actions of her peers. By controlling the availability of certain items in different locations and making constant adjustments to these myriad variables she was able to circulate victims down predetermined paths to an overpriced apocalypse. Our genitals were a modulus in this web, turning our negative feelings about shopping into a positive drive of passion. Castration disrupted the sequence, like an asparagus spear thrust into a calculus textbook. Without sexual organs, the melodies of mayhem were silent.

Our sexuality was already dominated by a consumer environment. When Laura and I came to choose prosthetic replacements for our genitals, we had little hesitation. We never directly encountered Mrs Hamilton after this, though we glimpsed her often, flitting from aisle to aisle with a troubled expression. Her operation had been thrown out of phase. Instead of the multiple pile-up in Condiments which she hoped would encompass the entire population of Safebury’s, like an aneurysm of the sun, she came to a more modest end in Frozen Foods. In the college library, with thumbs as anaesthetised as fish fingers, I searched through the other dissertations, discovering that after failing psychology, Mrs Hamilton had enrolled on a mathematics course. This combination of emotional and analytic symbolism proved a fatal mix, allowing her to plot a graph of human nature against sex and edibles.

Now we are free, Laura and I feel we have inherited her vision. The highlights are almost gone. Soon we will cavort among the Camembert and Brie. Laura will tear off my trousers to reveal a Visa card stitched in place of my lingam; I will hoist up her uniform to reveal an appropriate groove. Then I will slide it through her sensor until we both expire. Meanwhile, the trolleys move in an unceasing flow along the aisles. The shoppers waltz around the displays of promotional goods, carrying their aseptic lusts from the secret recesses of the supermarket to the plastic bosoms of a million checkout girls.

The danger of the road is not in the distance,

Ten yards is far enough to break a wheel.

The peril of love is not in loving too often,

A single evening can leave its wound in the soul.

Meng Chiao.

White is the colour of death in China, and also in parts of Cardiff. Not that the inhabitants of the latter are truly aware of this. The docks of the Welsh capital have been adjusted — grassland cleared; churches torn up and replanted along the edge of the marina; historic cranes likewise, with fashionable cranes; pubs shut — but cultural effects survive their habitats. Even if they leave with their owners, they return like cats to the locations where they dwelt, in the present case to yachts and malls. Many immigrants had moved before the first new building was erected, but they forgot to blindfold their beliefs on the voyage to the suburbs. One at a time the fears slipped back.

That’s what I like to think anyway. Uncle Xia told me all about the tenacity of superstitions on our very first meeting, in a post office on Albany Road. I had rarely spoken to a Chinese, except when ordering from a waiter, and the attention was flattering. His first divulgence: he was a gambler and drinker. I judged him to be about fifty years old and when he claimed to be nearer eighty only his hands convinced me of the truth. He showed me a wallet containing a single
mah jong
tile — it depicted a vase of flowers; plum blossoms, he said. Then he invited me to guess who it once belonged to. I trawled my memory for the name of an emperor, and finally mispronounced Shihuangdi.

He chuckled. “The game is much more recent than that. I doubt it is two centuries old. You refer to the Qin dynasty, over two millennia ago. No, I took it from Chairman Mao.”

The tile seemed valueless. “You stole it?”

“Of course not. Included among my winnings after a night’s session. Nothing to look at, I admit, yet…” He tapped his nose conspiratorially but did not lower his voice. “I’m heavily in debt. Normally I let people like you approach me first. Hard times, poor manners. Say if you require carnal sensation. Something peculiar.”

My knuckles paled on the tyres of the wheelchair. “You are offering me a prostitute? I have a wife.”

“There are tricks you simply don’t know about.”

All the old clichés tumbled in my mind. Scented chamber, opium pipe and carved jade dragon in a recess. Maybe sparrows on the roof. And with bound feet, voluminous sleeves, painted cheeks, a concubine straight out of a Sax Rohmer story. She would be timid, silent, utterly submissive. I might ease the fear in her eyes with a tender word, though she would not understand what I was saying. Or would I be brutal? Tearing the silk off shoulders, messing hair dark and cool as winter rain, punishment for the aloofness of her sisters, small girls who never catch my eye, dolls with glazed skin, unsmiling. Not that any colour or length of female had made visual contact since my accident.

Uncle Xia noted my expression and nodded.

“There is a beast which lives underground, in the caves of Sichuan. Nobody can describe it, because it has never been seen. In the darkness, it begs miners to lead it to the surface.”

“What is the purpose of this legend?”

“There are thousands of animals like this in the remotest provinces of China. Parts of their bodies can be pounded and turned into medicine. What western doctors can’t do…”

As the queue for the counter moved on, Uncle Xia took control of my chair, steering me a notch closer to my Disability Allowance. I regarded the cheque in my grip, the deeply intagliated signature visible proof of my adverse psychological state, the months of frustration. I was willing to clutch at any straw, or bamboo shoot, to reclaim what I had lost. Man to husk: the residue of a decortication, where soul had flown elsewhere, leaving me behind, churned into emptiness by the spokes of a Harley. The asphalt in my head still influenced my dreams, crumbs rising and falling between skull and outer layer of brain. He saw it in my posture, sat too far forward, as if ready to walk.

“I’ve saved a little. But I want a guarantee.”

“No pressure. Come for a browse. That’s how I conduct business. You shall see for yourself. My card.”

He held up an oblong object, turning it before my gaze and dropping it in my shirt pocket. Another tile: the season of winter, a yellow lady in a window. A distressed face. On the reverse: an address. I smiled but he walked away, too deliberately.

Everybody called him Uncle, even men older than he, or so I learned when I was introduced to the other guardians of our misplaced Orient. Drawing out my savings, I ordered a taxi down Bute Street. I’m not as ridiculous as I sound — my savings amount to very little. The driver assumed I was one of the drones who toil in the financial hives of Newport Road, maybe because only they have swallowed the waterfront development package: the bulk of the overpriced apartments are still unsold. Ordinary fools don’t care to sleep in former grain silos. He took me the long way round, sure I wouldn’t notice, or protest, which I didn’t; my mood was too good. And the tour was enjoyable in itself.

Here among the glass museums and postmodern temples to consumerism, all late and over budget, a few islets of the original town still stood. He dropped me off on Mountstuart Square, where the faded grandeur of old banks and shipping agencies blotted out the nonsense. He did not help me out of the car, but I can stand for short periods, and only the piercing noise of my artificial joints contracting turns me away from locking the wheelchair in an attic and taking to crutches. I tipped him lavishly, to make myself a little angry: a benign humour might disadvantage me in any bargain with Uncle Xia. I wanted the best I could get for my cash. Sugar and whip; whatever was necessary.

Cardiff docks have been settled by many races over the generations. It’s still a good place for Italian beer, Somali chew, Irish blague. But our Chinatown is a chopstick’s throw inland, up the river embankment and stretching from the central bus station along Tudor Street, petering out before the more aptly titled district of Canton. So I was prepared for a joke as I followed Uncle’s directions and propelled myself toward a tall building that resembled a disused chandler’s. There were two blue doors set into the baroque facade. I was pleasantly surprised to note a gentle ramp leading up to the left one, and behind it a widened lift to trundle me in comfort to the third floor.

The lift disgorged me into a bizarre arena, a lobby rich with gods, devils and dragons, all red porcelain, mounted on pedestals. Nobody came to greet me, so I passed into another room. This was furnished even more exotically, with prints of tidal waves and stunted trees, swords hanging from walls, paper screens. And in the centre of the chamber, a low table surrounded by four stools, each occupied. Tiles clicked, coins and notes were counted, dice cascaded. I cleared my throat and Uncle Xia raised an annoyed eyebrow, then glanced up.

His frown vanished. “Ah, Raymond. So glad you made it. You are only a minute early. No problem. Tea?”

“Do you have any of that smoky brew?”

“Lapsang Souchong? No, it’s all green here.”

He beckoned me nearer and I passed a broad window. In a gap between structures, the turgid waters of the marina smudged the horizon. Retired couples deluded themselves on the decks of boats. To my hosts, the white billowing sails may have suggested a floating cemetery. I turned away to face the less grim black lacquer.

“Never been inside a Chinese room before.”

His three companions laughed, not with malice but as a formality. A miniature Great Wall was being constructed with the tiles, lithe fingers more organised than the teams of workers who built the real thing. Uncle finished his side of the square first.

“These ornaments are Japanese. I purchase foreign art. Same way you pay for experience. Through the nose.”

Before I could respond, he added: “The word
exile
is too strong for my situation, but it’s wiser to operate here. We share the premises with a legitimate company and they don’t even know it. Our rooms slot through theirs, like a hidden compartment in a conjuror’s box. A silk smuggler’s trick from Yunnan. Very cunning.”

I bowed. “I don’t believe in magic.”

“No need to waste time, Raymond. We all know why you came. There is a product we possess which you must purchase. I see the lonely nights in your eyes. They don’t have to continue. My family has long experience in dealing with cases like yours. The wars of the Spring and Autumn Period, when Sung was besieged by Jin and Chu. That is how we learned our trade. Groin injuries; men left without limbs, lips, tongues. Not much to carry home to wife or concubine. Emasculation.”

“Keep talking. I have wads in my pocket.”

“The best lovemaking relies on its hazardous elements. Survivors of wars and motorbike accidents have overdosed on peril. They withdraw into a cosmos of self-congratulation, blessing their luck, convinced it makes sense to remain sane. They can’t drop back into danger. The improper and the regrettable — your cure lies there.”

“Nothing illegal. Don’t take me for a pervert.”

Uncle Xia winked, his puffy lid shutting his eye like a clam, upper and lower lashes locking together.

“Although horrible, it’s perfectly safe.”

The blood rose up my neck, straining against the tight collar of my shirt. I imagined all sorts of debauched scenes. I was never a traveller of consequence, but even on my tours of the dirtiest bars on continental Europe, invitations to cellars managed by Chinese were common. In Tirana and Bucharest, traditional western allies of Mao, nightclub owners spoke of women chained to pigs, chickens and razors, snakes and vinegar. And I recalled an earthly looker named Rhona trained in Gansu kitchens to peel off the layers
beneath
her clothes. Yet I couldn’t reconcile such images with Uncle Xia’s abrupt declaration of safety. How could a sexual act be risky and harmless simultaneously?

Or was this an aphoristic form of deceit?

Uncle Xia fiddled with his eye, unable to open it. Then he drew out a miniature knife from his sleeve — much less roomy than it should have been to play the Mandarin — and cut off the offending lashes. His three associates clucked excitedly as he cast them on the table, in the middle of the
mah jong
compound. One of them, a pockmarked youngster, produced an equally tiny brush and swept the hairs into a phial, which was stored in a secret compartment in a leg of the table. I now saw that this piece of furniture was entirely constructed from hidden cavities, visible only as a web of cracks on the varnish.

“Waste not, wink not, Raymond. Our approach to medicine is holistic and sly. Lashes are good for chilblains.”

“No more persuasion. I’m ready to try the cure.”

“It’s expensive. Jin-Ming here is my supplier. Observe the terrible wounds on his body. The subterranean beast I mentioned is called the Celestial Stag. An inappropriate name. It putrefies to a toxic liquid on contact with sunlight. But when men refuse to lead it to the surface, it maims them. Everything is in balance.”

I sneered at the anecdote. “What do you mean?”

“What it takes from a male, it returns with its antlers, cut off by brave fools and dissolved in peach wine.”

Uncle stroked the table and another concealed drawer sprang open. A lopsided bottle, blown from opaque glass, stained white, jumped into his grasp. Was there a warning inherent in the colour? The youngster mumbled a few words, which Uncle translated with obvious delight. “Jin-Ming says he reserved the dose for himself.”

“He’s a generous soul to part with it.”

“Not at all. I hold his mother in suspended animation in a washroom in Zhengzhou. A broken pipe drips water on her head. Her mind deepens as seasons pass. A mutual understanding.”

On impulse, I reached for my wallet and threw a handful of notes on the table. Following the example of the lashes, they fanned out right in the middle of the Great Wall. For the first time, Uncle Xia lost control of his emotions. He trembled and curled his lips, exposing a tooth that for a moment I judged to be a spare
mah jong
tile, loaded in a gum for a cheating bite. Jin-Ming smiled with his scars; beyond brave or fool when it came to disparaging expressions. The others tapped their nails on the teak, each finger sounding a different note of the pentatonic scale. Had I offended esoteric sensibilities?