The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure (16 page)

She found that nowadays she would often think of her father, especially when she was alone in the pavilion. For years she had tried to bury any memory of a previous life. Mother Liu, prevented by her agreement with Major Lin from making her serve other clients, was still ingenious in finding Fan Yimei humiliating tasks to do in the daytime when Lin was away—much of the day was spent carrying the honey buckets from the latrines to bury in the pit, or sweeping the leaves, or cleaning in the kitchens—but this could not occupy all of her time, and the hours by herself in the shady pavilion, playing the
chin
and looking out of the window on to the willow garden, had become stolen moments of nostalgia. She vividly recalled the sunny afternoons when her father had patiently taught her the same musical instrument, laughing kindly when she made a mistake or proudly accompanying her on a flute when she had mastered a tune. When she was older she had played for him in his study as he stood by his table, brush in hand, painting exquisite pictures of little birds or flowers. He had always treated her like the son he did not have. She hardly remembered her mother but he had never married or taken a concubine after she died. He had taught her to read when she was six, and loved quoting the classics aloud to her, or guiding her hand through the first uneasy strokes of calligraphy. She knew that they were poor and lived off begrudging allowances from her wealthy uncles, but she had not realised how much the latter despised the gentle scholar who had failed the imperial examinations, and had never shown any aptitude for the family business. Childhood was a happy time for her in his company. He was always singing. Most mornings when she was little he would take her to the temple garden to fly kites. She remembered how he used to run down the flowered paths, the big dragonfly kite bouncing on the ground behind him. She remembered him sitting by her bed reading her stories. She remembered the humour in his eyes.

When the plague came to Shishan, they had been oblivious in their own little world. He had made light of the fever and the lump under his arm, but it had grown and one day he was delirious in his bed and did not recognise her. She had heard of the foreign doctor who had come to the town and had a reputation for miracle cures. She had been told the strange story that he received payment only in rats, so she spent a desperate morning hunting for rodents in the wainscots and under the floors. Eventually she had thought of going to the rubbish tip and there she found the corpse of a big black rat, covered in fleas. She had overcome her fear and wrapped it in a handkerchief, then run through the town looking for the doctor. It was evening by the time she found him. It was the first time she had ever seen an ocean devil. With his short stature and funny whiskers he reminded her of a wizened mouse, but his tired eyes were gentle and his smile was kindly. She had unwrapped her gift, and he had laughed. He had allowed her to lead him by the hand to her father's house. Her father was moaning on his bed, his body running with sweat. Gently the doctor had rubbed him down with a cloth dipped in hot water. After a while a strange foreign woman had arrived. She was dressed in a black robe with a white cowl, but her face was merry with red cheeks like apples although, like the doctor, her eyes were shaded with exhaustion. The doctor had left then, but the woman sat next to her father through the night, washing his body at hourly intervals, occasionally kneeling on the ground with her hands in front of her face. Fan Yimei presumed she was calling on the foreign spirits to help her. The doctor returned with the dawn but by then her father was still. The doctor had examined him briefly then turned to her sadly and embraced her in his arms. She had sobbed on his shoulder. ‘But I brought you the rat,' she had cried. ‘I brought you the rat.' He had stroked her hair. ‘I know you did. I know. I know,' he had repeated, rhythmically stroking her hair. She had looked into his eyes and seen an infinite sadness.

The doctor asked a neighbour to fetch her uncle. He explained patiently that he had to leave her. There were many sick in the town, but the woman, Caterina, would stay with her until her uncle came for her. She hardly remembered the details of the next two days. She remembered the white robes that she and all of her uncles had worn as they followed the municipal death cart to the outside of the city gates. There were no private funerals in those terrible times. She remembered the wailing, the smoke and the stink of the lime. She had been taken straight from the burial pit to the Palace of Heavenly Pleasure. Mother Liu had been kind to her, giving her sweets as her uncle negotiated her price. That night Ren Ren had come to her room. She was four days off her sixteenth birthday.

Fan Yimei sighed and leaned on the windowsill, looking out at the willows. Lin's heavy breathing rose and fell behind her. The garden was white in the moonlight. She wished she could play the
chin,
but she dared not wake him. So instead she hummed the tunes silently in her head. She had learned popular airs for her clients, and Major Lin liked the stirring songs connected with war and conquest. When she was by herself, however, she preferred to play the haunting, melancholy poems of the Lady Li Ching'chao, the Song dynasty poetess whose life had been as lonely as her own.

I let the incense grow cold

In the burner. My brocade

Bed covers are tumbled as

The waves of the sea. Idle

Since I got up, I neglect

My hair. My toilet table

Is unopened. I leave the

Curtains down until the sun shines

Over the curtain rings.

This separation prostrates me.

The distance terrifies me.

I long to talk to him once more.

Down the years there will be only

Silence between us forever now.

I am emaciated, but

Not with sickness, not with wine,

Not with autumn.

It is all over now for ever,

I sing over and over

The song, ‘Goodbye For Ever.'

I keep forgetting the words.

My mind is far off in Wu Ling.

My body is a prisoner

In this room above the misty

River, the jade green river,

That is the only companion

Of my endless days. I stare

Down the river, far off, into

The distance. I stare far away.

My eyes find only my own sorrow.

She saw two figures move slowly through the garden. Mother Liu hobbling in front followed by a tall man, his features hidden by a black cloak. Some important customer satiated in the misery of one of her colleagues. She knew that she was disliked by the other girls. Most of them were jealous of her. All except Shen Ping. Plain, talkative Shen Ping who loved and was loved by a barbarian, a barbarian who was kind to her. She knew that tonight the lover would be asking for her release. She hoped passionately that Mother Liu would accept the price. There had been precedents. Shen Ping had come to her in the afternoon, her eyes gleaming with excitement. Fan Yimei had congratulated her, her heart heavy that she would lose her friend, but glad at the same time for Shen Ping's good fortune. They had wept briefly on each other's shoulders, Shen Ping tears of happiness, Fan Yimei happiness tinged with the regret of parting. Then Shen Ping had run off, fearing that she might be seen.

A cloud briefly obscured the moon. Fan Yimei yawned. She was tired. Tired.

She heard a whimpering sound and then she saw the figure of Ren Ren stride into the courtyard, pulling something behind him. It was Shen Ping. He dragged her by the hair, and she stumbled after him, sobbing with pain and fear. Fan Yimei froze. There was only one place he could be taking her at this time of night. Soon there would be the screams, but too far away for the guests to hear.

Fan Yimei stood silently by the window, a white figure in the moonlight. Her mind was numb again, her feelings buried. After an hour she turned slowly back to the bed, and laid herself softly down beside Major Lin. The moon came out of the clouds and she looked up blankly at the corpse hanging over her head.

*   *   *

Frank Delamere spent most of the night with a bottle of whisky, and woke in his armchair as sunlight was pouring through the windows and Ma Ayi, his maid, was dusting his rooms. Not surprisingly he had a hangover. His tongue was furry, his mouth and throat were dry and he had a stabbing pain in his temples. It took him a moment to adjust even to half consciousness. Then he focused on the clock on the windowsill and groaned. He was late for his appointment with Mr Ding, the textile dyer from Tsitsihar. He could not imagine anyone whom he wished to see less, not this morning, and he certainly did not feel up to giving a lecture on the manufacturing processes of soap crystals, but Frank had never failed yet in his duty to his company. His friend and partner Lu Jincai was convinced that Mr Ding was going to be the key to a big new expansion of his own alkali and Frank's washing-soda-crystals business into northwest Manchuria, as far up as Hailar, he promised, so there was no way out of it. For the honour of Babbit and Brenner, Frank left his vague awareness of a broken heart among the dirty ashtrays and empty bottles surrounding his chair and, like a rumpled, sleepwalking walrus, stumbled to the door, somehow managing to mutter a few polite words to a censorious Ma Ayi on the way out.

Frank had rented one courtyard of a small guesthouse, which had its own restaurant and laundry, and most of the facilities a bachelor needed. The staff had become accustomed to his habits so a mug of scalding coffee was waiting for him and a groom had been sent to get his horse from the stables. As the hot, sweet liquid suffused his body (it had taken Frank months of patient teaching to get them to make his coffee just right) his mind adjusted itself back to a semblance of normality. And as his thoughts cleared, the memory of his humiliating interview with Mother Liu came vividly back to him; he was overwhelmed by a sense of sadness and regret. The feeling stayed with him as he mounted his horse wearily and made his way through the side streets to the main avenue and out through the city gate. The appointment had been fixed at Babbit and Brenner's godown near the proposed railhead so Mr Ding would have an opportunity to see the crystal-making processes in operation. It was a longish ride through farmland, but Frank was oblivious to the beauties of the rural scene around him, the threshing of the millet and the reddening leaves of the maple trees lining the road. He was locked in gloomy self-recriminations.

He really had convinced himself that she loved him. That was the tragedy. What a fool. What a crazed, blind fool. He knew that what he had been proposing was undignified. There was always something seedy about a middle-aged man setting up house with a young girl, a reformed prostitute at that. Well, obviously not so reformed, he thought bitterly. Of course, the whole thing would have been extremely difficult to finesse anyway, with his daughter arriving in the next month. He had identified a suitable house he could buy for Shen Ping, and his intention had been to live apart from her until he could get Helen Frances used to the idea. Exactly how he was going to achieve that he hadn't even thought. And now he wouldn't have to. Perhaps it was for the best. What a dreamer he had been. He had fantasised that Helen Frances and Shen Ping, who were nearly the same age, would become the best of friends. He had imagined them all going out on picnics together. Picnics, for Heaven's sake!

How had she managed to pull the wool so skilfully over his eyes? Of course he should have known. What had he told Mother Liu? That he wasn't born yesterday? That was a joke. He was a babe in arms. Lu Jincai and the others must despise him as a blithering idiot. Maybe not Lu Jincai. He had been sympathetic all along. A real friend. But how humiliating! How pathetic and humiliating! What had Mother Liu said? ‘There's always dissimulation in the art of love.' He had lapped up dissimulation in buckets. But he should have known. He should have known. Jin Shangui had as good as spelled it out to him before he first went to the Palace of Heavenly Pleasure. He remembered the conversation vividly to this very day.

They had been sitting in Jin's countinghouse drinking tea. Jin had leaned forward, his eyes twinkling behind his spectacles, a big smile on his chubby face. ‘This is a very high class establishment,' he had told him. ‘It's not just a common whorehouse, you know, not like one of those places I'm told you have in Europe. You have to woo the girls. They won't sleep with you the first time, nor the second, nor even the third or fourth. It's a game, you see. They flatter you. You flatter them. You take them gifts. You have to court them.'

‘But what's the point of that?' Frank had asked. ‘It's a brothel, isn't it?'

‘Of course it's a brothel. But where's the pleasure in just buying a piece of meat? These are flower girls. They're talented performers. Fairy spirits. They can sing, dance, play music, recite poetry.'

‘A load of Chinese poetry. That really does sound thrilling.'

‘You can listen to the music, then. Think about it, De Falang. If all you want to do is dip your jade stalk in the orchid boat I can take you to one of the places at the back of the temple any time. But what the flower girls give you is the illusion of love. And, like the best of love, it's hard won. So after your wooing has been successful, and the girl finally agrees to submit to you and allows you to taste the flower, imagine the height of the pleasure, the ecstasy. It's the long wait and the expectation that makes the final outcome like paradise. After that you're a couple, and she is reserved for you every time you come. Like man and wife.'

‘I don't want to go there and get married,' said Frank.