The Russian Concubine

by Kate Furnivall

  There was a long silence. Outside a dog’s howl split the darkness.

  ‘I accept.’ Chang withdrew the knife.

  Instantly a guard leaped forward and sliced the thongs that bound Po Chu. He struggled to his feet, his body stiff and shaking with shame. The faeces slithered down his legs. He looked ready to sink his teeth into Chang.

  ‘Po Chu,’ Feng snarled. ‘I have given my word.’

  Po Chu did not move. He remained only inches from Chang, breathing hatred into his face.

  Chang shut him out. His usefulness was over. His father would have let him die rather than swallow his own words. But Chang could not have asked for the girl’s life in payment for Yuesheng’s body because it would have dishonoured Yuesheng’s spirit. To be bargained for a fanqui. That brought shame. But the printing press was vital to China’s future and was something that Yuesheng had died for. It was a fitting price.

  ‘And the girl?’ the tall Englishman asked.

  Feng looked over at him, saw his concern, and gave a small cruel smile. ‘Ah, you see, Tiyo Willbee, I have ordered her bowels to be twisted around her neck until she can no longer breathe and then her breasts to be cut off.’

  The Englishman closed his eyes.

  Chang doubted that it was true. Ordered her death, yes. But the manner in which she should die, no. The leader of the Black Snakes would leave such things to the inventiveness of his followers. He had spoken the words only to spit venom at his English guest. Chang wondered why.

  ‘Feng Tu Hong, I thank you for the honourable exchange we have made,’ Chang said with formal politeness. ‘A life for a life. Now I offer you something more important than a life.’

  Feng had been striding toward the door, eager to rid himself of the sight and smell of his son. He halted.

  ‘What,’ he demanded, ‘is more important than life?’

  ‘Information. From General Chiang Kai-shek himself.’

  ‘Ai-aiee! For a toothless cub, you speak boldly.’

  ‘I speak truly. I have information of value to you.’

  ‘And I have men who know how to drag it from you with tortures you have never even dreamed of. So why should I bargain for it?’ He turned away.

  The Englishman stepped forward. ‘Show some sense, Feng. Exacting information by such methods takes time.’ He gestured idly at Chang, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke in the air. ‘In this case, I suspect quite a lot of time. And maybe this is urgent. Where’s the harm in striking a deal?’ He laughed, soft and low. ‘After all, it’s what we did, you and I, and look where it’s got us.’

  Feng frowned, impatience catching up with him. ‘So. What is this new bargain you offer?’

  ‘I will give you secret information. From Chiang Kai-shek’s office in Peking. In return you give me the flame-haired Russian.’

  Feng laughed, a rich, strong sound that loosened his tight jaws and made the others in the room breathe easier. ‘You will have this chit? Whatever the cost?’

  ‘No. I will have her. For this cost.’

  ‘Very well. Agreed.’

  ‘Word has come from Chiang Kai-shek before he returns to his capital in Nanking. Elite troops are coming to Junchow. They are approaching as I speak. To destroy all Communists, spike their heads on the town’s walls, and dig out corruption in the government of Junchow. As honoured chairman of our Chinese Council, it seems to me this information is of value to you in advance of their arrival.’ He gave a low bow and heard Po Chu groan.

  Feng remained still and silent for a long moment. His face had grown pale, in fierce contrast to his scarlet robe, and his broad hands clenched and unclenched. Suddenly he strode across the room.

  ‘The girl is yours,’ he called without turning. ‘Take her for yourself. But don’t expect any good to come of it. To mix barbarians with our civilised people is always a first step to death.’ A servant on his knees held open the door, and the leader of the Black Snakes was gone.

  Chang gave the Englishman a nod. An acknowledgment of his help. Neither spoke. Po Chu spat on the floor with an incoherent curse, then disappeared into the night, so Chang left the room and made his way out into the courtyard once more. It was when he was crossing the shadows of the second courtyard that he saw a black uniformed guard trudging through the drizzle with drooping shoulders and a burden in each hand. In one was the severed head of the chow chow dog, its black tongue hanging out like a scorched snake. In the other was the head of the guard with the hungry face, his filmy eyes no longer alert. The price of failure in the household of Feng Tu Hong was high.

  As Chang’s attention was distracted for a split second by this bloody sight, the full weight of a gun slammed into the side of his head and he slid into the blackness of hell.

  27

  September, and hot. Still hot.

  A brass fan whirred on the ceiling. All it did was take bites out of the leaden air and chew it up a bit. Lydia was sick of standing here with her arms stretched out while Madame Camellia stuck pins in her. She was sick of the satisfied private smile on her mother’s face as she draped herself in the client’s chair and watched. Most of all she was sick of the silence from Chang. It roared in her ears and made her long for news of him.

  No word for a month. A whole desperate month of not knowing.

  He must have taken heed of her warning. Left Junchow. That had to be the reason for his silence. Had to be. Which meant he was at least safe. She clung to that thought, warmed her hands on it, and murmured again and again as she lay wide-eyed in bed at night, ‘He’s safe, he’s safe, he’s safe.’ If she said it often enough, she could make it true. Couldn’t she?

  He was tucked away now in one of the Red Army training camps; she pictured him there, taking potshots at targets and marching up and down, polishing his boots and his buckles, doing scary things on the end of ropes. Isn’t that what soldiers did in camps? So he was safe. Surely. Please let him be safe. Please, let all his strange gods protect him. He was one of their own, wasn’t he? They’d care for him. But she took deep breaths to quiet her racing heart, because she didn’t trust them, neither his gods nor hers.

  ‘Darling, do stop fidgeting. How can Madame Camellia work properly when you won’t keep still?’

  Lydia scowled at her mother. Valentina was looking extremely cool and elegant in an exquisite cream linen suit made by Madame Camellia, Junchow’s most coveted dressmaker. Her salon copied the very latest Paris fashions and had a long waiting list of clients, so it was an honour to be allowed to cut in line, all because of Alfred, who had pulled a few strings. Valentina’s heart was set on having the very best for her wedding.

  ‘Doesn’t she look adorable in it, Madame Camellia?’

  The Chinese owner of the salon glanced up at Lydia’s face and studied it for a while in silence. Lydia was standing on a small round padded platform in the middle of the room while Madame Camellia touched and tugged and twitched the soft green silk, which was as pale as her songbird’s throat. A bird sat in a pavilion cage in the corner of the room and sang with a constant burst of trills and spiralling notes that grated on Lydia’s taut nerves.

  ‘She looks lovely,’ Madame Camellia said with a sweet smile. ‘The eau de nil colour with her hair is just perfect.’

  ‘You see, Lydia, I told you you’d adore it.’

  Lydia said nothing. Stared at the jade pins in the dressmaker’s hair.

  ‘Mrs Ivanova, some swatches of the new tweeds from Tientsin arrived this morning. In readiness for winter. I thought you might like one for your honeymoon costume. Would you care to view them?’ It was spoken as if conferring a special privilege.

  ‘Yes, I’d be delighted.’

  Madame Camellia nodded to her young assistant, and Valentina was escorted out of the room. The walls were pale and soothing with rose-pink drapes, but splashes of colour were provided by a bowl of orchids and the bird’s golden cage.

  ‘Miss Lydia.’ She spoke softly. ‘Would you like to tell me what it is about the dress tha
t displeases you?’

  The dress? As if she cared about the dress. She dragged her thoughts back into the room and looked down at the satin-smooth hair that was coiled up on top of the dressmaker’s head. A delicate camellia, made of the finest white silk, nestled in its ebony folds. She looked like a little black-crested bird, bright and quick, her tiny figure encased in a tight turquoise cheongsam with a side slit to show off one slender leg, but Valentina had mentioned that at night Madame dressed in stylish Western fashions while she did the rounds of the nightclubs on the arm of her latest American lover. She had made herself into a wealthy woman and could pick and choose.

  She looked at Lydia with intelligent eyes.

  ‘Tell me how you’d like it to be.’

  ‘It’s my bridesmaid dress. Mama is the person deciding on it.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But what style would you prefer?’

  ‘I’d like it more . . . well, more . . .’ She thought of Chang’s bright eyes. What would make them shine?

  ‘More what?’

  ‘More revealing.’

  Madame Camellia did not laugh. Or say, What have you got to reveal? She nodded to herself and reached up to shift a piece of material here and unpick some stitches there.

  ‘Better?’

  Lydia gazed into the long mirror in front of her. The demure high neck her mother had chosen was transformed into a fluid scoop that showed soft white skin.

  ‘Much better. Thank you.’

  Madame Camellia started to adjust the sleeves, to shorten and tighten them.

  ‘Madame, you live in the Chinese old town, don’t you?’

  ‘Mmm.’ Her mouth was full of pins.

  ‘Are the soldiers still there?’

  Skilful fingers were tucking the pins round the armholes. ‘The stinking grey bellies, you mean?’

  ‘The ones with the yellow armbands. From Peking. The Kuomintang troops.’

  ‘Ai! They are devils.’

  ‘So they’re still in Junchow?’

  Madame Camellia dropped her charming smile, and abruptly her face looked its age. ‘They sweep through like a sandstorm, each day a different street. Tearing workers from their stools and scribes from their offices. They go anywhere a finger is pointed. Beheadings and executions at sunset, till our streets run red. They claim they are wiping out Communism and corruption, but it seems to me that many old scores are being settled.’

  Lydia’s mouth went dry. ‘Are any young people being killed?’

  Madame Camellia looked at the Russian girl more carefully. ‘Some. Students and their like. Communist ideals are fierce among the young.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Do you know one?’

  Lydia almost spoke his name, she was so desperate for news.

  ‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘I am concerned for them all.’

  ‘I see.’ The dressmaker gently touched her hand. ‘Many escape. There is always hope.’

  Lydia’s throat tightened, and she wanted to scratch out the eyes of his callous gods. She looked away and saw her reflection in the mirror.

  ‘Do you think, Madame, that I could have green beads over the dress?’

  They didn’t talk. Not about the wedding. Lydia was aware that preparations for it were being made. She heard mention of a date in January, but she didn’t ask and she wasn’t told. Letters started to arrive by each post in thick embossed envelopes but she passed no comment, and even when Valentina was out she made a point of not looking inside the lovely rosewood box where they were all tucked away. The box was an engagement present from Alfred. The box and the ring. A solitaire diamond. It radiated light even in their dingy room and Lydia couldn’t help thinking that Mr Liu would give ‘plenty dollar’ for a ring like that.

  The days grew cooler. Still no word from Chang. But black shadows no longer hung around her in the streets and a sudden movement on the edge of her sight lost its power to set her pulse pounding. It took her a while to be certain, and she was never quite sure how she knew. But she did. They were gone, the snakes. They had crawled back into their fetid holes. She didn’t know why this should be so but she was convinced it was something to do with Chang. Even from afar he protected her.

  Nothing else had changed in the attic. Lydia struggled to concentrate on her schoolwork in the evenings, chewing on the end of her pencil and casting sideways glances out the window, scanning the street for a quick light step, or sometimes staring at her mother on the sofa. At the bottle and the glass. They were always at Valentina’s side despite the absurd display of abstinence the day she cut her hair. Only the height of the liquid inside them varied. She would sit there with a music score on her lap and hum a Bach fugue softly to herself until she reached some point in her head that was unbearable, and then she’d hurl the pages across the room. For hours after that she’d stare blankly at the space in front of her, seeing things that her daughter could only guess at.

  Lydia tried talking, but the only solace Valentina sought at such times was in the bottle. Lydia was a fine judge of the moment when she could half lift her mother off the sofa and roll her into bed. Too soon and she became aggressive. Too late and she was unable to stay upright. Her slender body never seemed to grow heavier despite the food that now appeared regularly on the table. Neither Valentina nor Lydia ate much of it. Only Sun Yat-sen grew fatter and more contented.

  ‘Would you like a proper hutch for your rabbit?’ Alfred asked one Saturday when he’d come to take Valentina to the races. She had always loved horses.

  ‘Yes.’ Lydia had meant to say no.

  ‘Well, my dear, I’ll be delighted to buy one. Let’s go and choose it now while your mother,’ he smiled indulgently at Valentina, ‘does whatever it is your mother does.’

  Out in the marketplace Lydia chose the biggest and brashest rabbit hutch she could find. One with separate compartments and special zinc drinking and feeding bowls and funny little curling decorations on top like a pagoda. She knew Alfred was bribing her. He knew. And she knew.

  ‘Lydia, I’m confident we can make this work. Us, I mean. You and I as part of the same family. I’d like us to try.’

  Lydia bit her tongue. Today she had let him buy her and she felt dirty, her skin all gritty. Is that how Mama felt each day? Bought and dirty. Is that why she’s drinking so much when he’s not around, to flush away the grit? Lydia looked at his shiny spectacles and his polished cheeks and wondered if he had even a grain of an idea how much he was hurting them both. No, she decided, Alfred Parker’s eyes were blind behind their ugly thick lenses and his mind was a grey colourless box of self-righteousness. How could he possibly think she would ever want to be part of the same family?

  ‘Thank you for the hutch,’ she said coolly and walked up the stairs.

  The brown fish slipped through the cold clear current of the river, rippling its wide body smoothly over the gravel. This time, Lydia told herself. This time. She held her breath. Tense and still.

  Her spear sliced down through the water. And missed. The fish fled. She cursed it and waded back onto the narrow strip of sand at Lizard Creek, where she squatted down under the dazzling blue sky of autumn and waited for the flurry of panic in the river to subside. Just being here in this place brought her closer to Chang. She remembered the feel of his damaged foot in her hand, the weight of it on her palm, and the tension in his skin as she’d threaded the needle back and forth through its ragged edges. The intimate warmth of his blood on her fingers. Marking her. As she was marking him.

  When finally the stitching was over he’d sighed and she’d wondered if it was with relief or . . . and she knew this was stupid . . . because he missed the touch of her hands. She brushed her fingers over the empty sand now, seeking out any faint traces of his blood. In her head she could hear as clear as the sound of the river itself the strange little laugh he gave when she asked him to find a way into the Ulysses Club and retrieve the rubies. When she recalled it, she felt sick. How could she have thought of putting him in such danger?

  ‘Y
ou would turn me into a thief,’ he’d said sternly.

  ‘We can split the money between us.’

  ‘Can we split the prison sentence between us too?’

  ‘Don’t get caught and there’ll be no prison,’ she’d scoffed.

  But even then her cheeks had started to burn. She’d turned them to the breeze off the silvery surface of the river and wanted to tell him not to take the risk after all. Forget the necklace. But her tongue wouldn’t find the words. When she looked back at him his mouth was curved in a smile that somehow soothed the fretting of her soul. It was a strange feeling, one that was new to her. To be with someone and not have to hide things. He saw what was inside her and understood.

  Unlike Alfred Parker. He wanted her to be somebody she would never be and would never want to be, the perfect rose-pink English miss. His dull little soul was eager to snatch her mother away from her and give her a rabbit hutch in exchange. What kind of bargain was that?

  Oh Chang An Lo, I need you here. I need your clear eyes and your calm tongue.

  She rose to her feet, trying to move smoothly, and stared hard at the water. She had to catch a fish to present to Mrs Zarya, so she took from her pocket a penknife she’d pinched from a boy at school and proceeded to whittle the tip of her spear to an even sharper point, the way she’d seen Chang do. The stripped willow branch didn’t need it, but it made her feel better. To be cutting something.

  ‘My great heavens, moi vorobushek, where did that hideous thing come from?’ Mrs Zarya flapped her hands in a flurry of astonishment and eyed Lydia with sudden suspicion. ‘You not offering it instead of rent, are you? This month is now time.’

  Lydia shook her head. ‘No. It’s a gift. I caught it for you.’

  Mrs Zarya smiled broadly. ‘Clever little sparrow. Come.’

  Lydia was relieved that instead of waddling back into the living room with its oversized furniture and the accusing eye of General Zarya, her landlady led her farther down the corridor to a narrow kitchen. She had never been in it before. It was small and brown. Two chairs, a table, a stove, a sink, and a cabinet. Everything brown. But it smelled clean and soapy. In one corner stood a well-polished samovar with its little teapot keeping warm on top.