The Russian Concubine

by Kate Furnivall

  ‘China is honoured.’

  ‘That’s a matter of opinion.’

  ‘I’m sure it is the opinion of the beautiful Li Mei.’

  Theo wanted to believe him.

  ‘I would ask a question, please?’ Chang said.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Are problems of mixing a European and a Chinese very great? In your world, I mean.’

  ‘Ah!’ Theo ran a hand over the minute hand-stitching on the Chinese gown he was wearing. He felt a sharp tug of sympathy for the young man. ‘To be brutally honest, yes. The problems are bloody huge.’

  Chang shut his eyes.

  Theo patted his shoulder. ‘It’s damned hard.’

  53

  This time the cold was like a shell around her. She pecked at it, picked at it, scraped her nail along it, but it wouldn’t crack. Her mind couldn’t understand why. It struggled. Grew weary. The organs of her body were shutting down, she could feel them inside her, one by one, going to sleep. Abandoning her. The cold. They hated it. It was only when she became aware of a sudden warmth between her legs that she woke up.

  Her eyes opened. To total blackness. She tried to churn her thoughts into action, but all they wanted was sleep. Where had all this blackness come from?

  Things came to her in bits and pieces. A pain in her leg. Her head sore and her cheek on something hard. Icy skin. Her knees up under her chin. Gradually it dawned on her that she was lying on her side curled up in a tight ball. Her hand risked stretching out into the darkness but it couldn’t reach far because there were cold metal walls all around her. Her heart thundered in her ears.

  Where was she?

  She tried to sit up. It took three attempts. And when she’d done it, she felt worse. Not because of the pain in her leg that felt as if someone had kicked it. Nor because her head started to spin inside a crazy kaleidoscope, lights flashing behind her eyes, reds and blues and fierce brain-searing yellows. No, it was because she touched the ceiling one inch above her head and knew where she was. She was in a box. A metal box.

  They put me in a metal crate.

  Three months, perhaps more.

  Chang An Lo’s words.

  Her stomach spasmed with fear and she vomited, sour acid in her throat. It sprayed over her knees, and the sticky warmth of it recalled to her sluggish mind the earlier warmth between her legs. Her fingers explored along the metal base under her. It was wet. She had peed.

  Her mind went white. She started to scream.

  She was fighting her way through cobwebs. They stuck to her eyeballs, and a spider with a red speckled body and yellow pincers ran up inside her nostril.

  She opened her eyes. And immediately wished herself back in the spider nightmare again. This was worse. This was real. Her body struggled into a crouching position and her hands inched along the four walls to discover the dimensions of her miniature cell. Long enough to sit up but not to straighten her legs, wide enough to touch both walls with her elbows at the same time. An inch of headroom when she was seated in a hunched sort of position. She then examined her own body. Her knees. They smelled. She remembered the vomit. The stink of stale urine scored the membranes of her nostrils, a lump on the back of her head, and high on her left thigh another one the size of a saucer. But no broken skin. No broken bones. No missing fingers.

  It could be worse.

  How? How in God’s name could this devil’s rat hole possibly be worse? How?

  She could be dead. Think of that.

  The cold didn’t increase. It didn’t improve but it didn’t get worse. That was something. She worried about the constant shivering. It was using up so much energy, draining her reserves. She was exhausted already. Or was that the fear?

  Her mind kept blanking out.

  She’d be in the middle of trying to work out how long she might have been a captive in the dark, when her mind would suddenly slip away from her. Blank out totally. That terrified her almost as much as the box. Brain damage? From the blow to the head. Please, no, not that. Or was it sheer terror? Her mind escaping.

  To find a tiny scrap of warmth she wrapped her arms around her knees and huddled tight, stroking her shins for comfort.

  Breathe. In. Hold for the count of ten. Out. Slow and smooth. In. Hold. Count. Out.

  Control. Keep control. Concentrate.

  Her thoughts felt like glass. The slightest touch and they shattered. Panic stalked her. Sprang out at her from the dark corners when she wasn’t looking.

  ‘Chang An Lo,’ she murmured, and was astonished at the reassurance the sound of her own voice gave her. ‘How did you keep yourself sane?’

  She’d worked out three things. One was that she’d only been inside Box - she thought of it as a creature that had swallowed her whole - for less than a day. Otherwise she’d have peed more than once, though admittedly she’d not had anything to drink. Don’t think of that. Her mouth was dust-dry and her throat parched. The screaming hadn’t helped. Stupid that. Wasting strength. Anyway. Nor had she done . . . her brain shied away from the prospect . . . done more serious toilet matters. So. Less than twenty-four hours then.

  The second thing she’d worked out was that she must be underground. In a cellar maybe. Or a secret dungeon. It was the temperature that made her decide that. It never varied. A constant cold, never warmer by day or icier at night. Not that she had any idea whether it was day or night inside Box. Just dark. And more dark. Cold. And more cold. No sounds either. If she’d been anywhere aboveground there would be sounds. Not this dead weight of silence.

  Third thing. There must be air holes. Must be. Or she’d be dead by now. Her fingers started the search.

  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 a
s 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.

  55

  Lydia waited. In the dark. Hunched inside her senses. She knew they’d come for her eventually, when they were sure she was weak and helpless, and then they’d start their amusement - that’s the word Chang An Lo had used for it. The thought turned her bones to water.

  The only defence she had was inside her head, and she started working on it. Preparing. For questions. For pain. For how far she could go.

  The nakedness. The cold. Even the absolute darkness inside Box. They had all seemed so important only hours ago, so crippling, but now she put them aside into a separate compartment in her head. She had gone beyond that.

  It was a matter of focus.

  She went over scenes. Inch by inch. Good scenes. Scenes with her mother when she was young. Bright shiny scenes of laughter. Of Russian tales at bedtime or of proudly playing the left hand of Dance of the Cygnets on the piano while her mother played the right. Swimming in the river on a hot summe
r’s day and diving for fish skeletons to take home. Snowball fights in the schoolyard with Polly.

  Why had Polly betrayed her? Lydia had begged her not to, had pleaded for her silence. And even if Polly believed she was helping Lydia by telling her father, what good was that to Lydia now? What use were good intentions inside a metal Box?

  She forced Polly’s name away. Good memories were what she needed now. Lizard Creek. The touch of Chang An Lo’s warm skin. The smell of his hair. His penis firm in her hand. Inside her. Good memories to build up good strength.

  She could survive this.

  She could.

  She would.

  The noise cracked like a gunshot. Her ears, so used to silence, misinterpreted the sound. It took an effort of mind to realise it was an iron bolt being drawn back. A door being unlocked. Shuffling footsteps on wood. Stairs? Someone descending toward her. She had prepared for this, run it already a thousand times in her head and taught herself to control the panic. Focus. Breathe.

  But her heart rate exploded. Terror swamped her.

  ‘Hello?’ she called out.

  A guttural stream of Chinese came in response and a thump on the side of Box, the sound of a palm hitting metal. She shut up. The best thing was the light. She focused on the tawny little trickles of twilight that filtered through the six holes and steadied herself by it. It was only faint. A candle? An oil lamp? But it was light. Life. She could make out her own knees, see a bruise on her leg, see her hand. Her eyes squinted after the utter darkness they had grown accustomed to but they wanted more. More light. More life.

  A scraping sound, something dragging across the floor. She sat still, listening. The squeak of metal, then a whoosh and suddenly water was coming through the holes. The shock was total. Quickly she pushed her face under it and opened her mouth. The joy of feeling moisture in her mouth took over and she gulped it down, greedy and stupid. Then the taste of it kicked in. It was foul. Rank with dirt. Full of grit. She retched on the floor. Her mouth was full of grease and acid bile. She rubbed at her tongue with her wrist.