The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure

by Adam Williams

  She felt his arm tighten round her waist, steadying her. Mother Liu simpered up at her, an arch expression in her cunning eyes. ‘What’s she saying?’ Helen Frances whispered.

  ‘She’s congratulating you on your good fortune,’ said Henry. ‘Apparently the Mandarin has a reputation as a mighty lover.’

  ‘Lucky me,’ said Helen Frances.

  ‘You asked,’ he said quietly.

  Mother Liu gestured and the slim figure of Fan Yimei, who had been waiting a few paces behind her, moved elegantly to Helen Frances’s side. There was something familiar about this graceful girl in the blue and red silk gown—the stillness of her carriage, the serenity of her features. Helen Frances remembered the mysterious, sad-eyed creature whom she had glimpsed in the pavilion opposite them in those happier days when a more innocent version of herself had come trysting here with Henry.

  ‘This is Fan Yimei,’ Henry was translating. ‘She’ll help you with your bath.’

  ‘You know her, don’t you?’ said Helen Frances. There was something in the way he was looking at her—and how the girl kept her eyes fixed on the wooden floor.

  ‘Oh, Helen Frances, let’s just get it over with,’ said Henry, letting her go.

  She kissed his cheek. Fan Yimei was waiting quietly. Helen Frances, head erect and shoulders back, followed her down the hall.

  Henry watched her go. Mother Liu observed him sardonically. ‘Proud, superior Ma Na Si. Noble, virtuous Ma Na Si, who conspired against me and stole the foreign boy away. You and that bitch Fan Yimei thought you could change fate. Did you see the boy die in the square yesterday? Did you change fate after all? And now I see you pimping that woman of yours, as if you were Mother Liu herself selling another chicken. Are you changing Fate still, Ma Na Si? Or are you yourself not just a little like Mother Liu—that poor old woman—doing what she has to do to survive?’

  ‘I can do without your philosophy,’ growled Henry.

  Mother Liu laughed. ‘I’m no philosopher, Ma Na Si. All I do is sell clouds and rain. As you are doing. I hope that you have secured a fair price from the da ren for his hour with your chicken. Are you sure that you will get your reward? You’d be surprised how many of my customers think they can dip their jade spoon into the bowl and leave without paying. Don’t take it to heart, Ma Na Si. Just a friendly tip from someone in the same trade. This is such an uncertain world.’

  She threw this last sally over her shoulder as she hobbled back along the corridor to her room, her shoulder shaking with laughter.

  * * *

  Helen Frances lay drowsily on a mat while Fan Yimei rubbed sweet-smelling oil on her back and limbs. Her body was still tingling from the bath. She had been embarrassed at first to strip in front of Fan Yimei, and even more so when the Chinese girl had taken off her own robe and joined her in the wooden tub. Her white, freckled body seemed coarse when compared to Fan Yimei’s smooth, olive skin, and she did not know where to look or put her hands—but Fan Yimei had been sensitive to her discomfort. Her sad eyes had contemplated the English woman calmly, gesturing to her to lie back and relax. She had waited patiently as the heat of the water had had its soothing effect, easing Helen Frances’s tension and suffusing her body with a warm, languorous glow. Fan Yimei allowed her to soak, and dream. Then, gently, she had taken her hands, indicating that she should stand. Like a nurse bathing a child, she had ladled hot water over her skin and gently soaped her from head to toe. Helen Frances was by now lost in the sensual experience and did as she was told, luxuriating as more hot water was poured over her and she was soaped again. This time Fan Yimei scraped off the suds with a wooden spatula, and Helen Frances felt a painful yet pleasurable tingle where the wood grazed her skin. Taking her hand Fan Yimei helped her out of the tub. She experienced a shock as Fan Yimei upended a bucket of cold water over her head, but afterwards she realised that she had never in her life felt so fresh or clean. Fan Yimei gave her a towel and gestured her to a stool. With another towel Fan Yimei dried her hair, leaving it as a turban on her head; then she took her hand and led her through a side door into the adjoining bedroom. Here, lying on a mat, she was oiled and massaged, the slight girl at one point walking on her back, expertly stretching the vertebrae with her tiny, lotus feet; Helen Frances felt the stumps in their wet bandages gently pressuring beneath her skin like a child’s knuckles pushing through a sponge. She had been disgusted by the idea of bound feet in the past, but now she only wondered how Fan Yimei could keep her balance on such thin points. She accepted the strangeness, because in a deep part of her she had already surrendered to these new, pleasurable sensations. She knew that this was an elaborate ritual to ready her for the Mandarin’s pleasure, that Beauty was being prepared for the Beast, but she no longer cared. She felt Fan Yimei’s soft hands spreading the oil on her shoulders, and heard herself sigh with content.

  Fan Yimei helped her into a loose robe of thin green silk, and combed her hair so that it hung in a fiery red cascade down her back. Helen Frances watched in the little mirror as the Chinese girl applied white powder and rouge to her cheeks, vermilion to her lips, blue shade to her eyelids. She could hardly contain her surprise and wonder as the features of the convent girl transformed into those of a courtesan before her eyes. She had never imagined that she could be so beautiful. She stared at the stranger she had become. Gently Fan Yimei opened the front of her robe and she felt a tickling sensation as the girl applied rouge to her nipples. From a drawer Fan Yimei brought out a necklace of amber beads and hung it so that it fell into the cleft of her breasts. Helen Frances fingered them and felt the cool stone. The strange painted image in the mirror that was her and not her smiled, then started. In the grave reflection of Fan Yimei behind her she saw tears welling in the corners of the girl’s soft eyes. Helen Frances turned on her stool and looked up at her. Hesitantly she grasped her hand. ‘I’ll be all right,’ she said in English, then in her faltering Chinese: ‘Wo—hen hao.’

  ‘Shi, nin hen hao, hen mei. Nanguai Ma Na Si zhemma ai nin.’ Fan Yimei spoke softly, but Helen Frances could not understand her. Did mei mean beautiful? And was Ma Na Si Manners? And surely ai was love?

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered.

  ‘Shi, nin bu dong.’ Fan Yimei leaned forward. Impulsively she kissed Helen Frances on the forehead. ‘Zheige xinku shijie—ni ye kelian. Lai!’ she added. ‘Come!’ Helen Frances understood the last instruction, and she would have understood anyway, for Fan Yimei was pointing at the bed. It was time.

  * * *

  ‘What the devil did he mean, he’s glad I’ve kept to my bargain?’ the doctor exploded, when the Mandarin had left his room. ‘What choice did I have? Does he expect my gratitude for not murdering my family? What bargain is this, Manners? Is there something you haven’t told us?’

  Manners sat uncomfortably on the chair, looking at the carpet. Nellie held the children on the bed and kept her silence. The doctor, dishevelled and unshaven, was pacing the little room. He had not slept since the massacre of the previous afternoon. To his family’s concern he had lain frozen on the floor in a rigid attitude of prayer, refusing food or drink or any comfort that Nellie and the children had tried to give him. He had only roused himself when the Mandarin, with Henry, had entered his room; but he had not responded to the hearty greeting and he had avoided the bearlike embrace and turned away his head when the Mandarin had spoken to him. ‘You can tell this man—this monster—that I don’t converse with murderers,’ he had said shrilly to Henry in English. Henry had not translated, but the Mandarin had appeared to understand.

  ‘Yes, he is sad for the fate of his fellows,’ the Mandarin had nodded, ‘and, of course, for now he blames me. There will be time in the future for us to talk when he has considered these things. The fact that he has agreed to my bargain—which affords me double satisfaction by the way: first, for the transient pleasure it is about to afford me, second, for the longer-lasting virtue that it has preserved my friend from a terrible death—makes me th
ink that, at bottom, he is a practical man. Like you and I, Ma Na Si. Yes, he will come round to me in time, and we will be friends again.

  ‘For now I have merely come to thank my dear friend for conceding so gracefully on the philosophical challenge with which I have presented to him. He has in this instance gracefully accepted defeat, like a chess master acknowledging a superior gambit. I am rewarded by the preservation of his own life—which I had unjustly feared he might have thrown away on a point of useless principle—and, of course, for the preservation of the fox-headed lady. That was a more difficult play, perhaps, and one on which I thought I might lose the game—but your good sense prevailed, Daifu. Thank you. That is more important to me than my physical reward.’

  ‘You’ll kindly tell this man that I don’t understand a word he’s talking about and that he’s not welcome here, whether he thinks he’s saved our lives or not,’ said the doctor angrily, again in English.

  ‘I think he has saved our lives, Edward,’ said Nellie quietly. ‘Monster that he is, we are still in his power. Might it not be wiser to show him some respect?’

  ‘Not after the horrors of yesterday, woman. I will no longer compromise with evil. Manners, I say again, he is not welcome here.’

  The Mandarin had been watching this exchange shrewdly. ‘There is no need for you to translate, Ma Na Si. It seems that on this occasion it is the woman who is showing more sense than the man. But that is not strange. Women, for all their frailty, understand necessity better than us men. I see that the doctor is still blessed, or cursed, by his complicated ideals. That is good. There is meat for more debate in the future. For now, I will thank him for honouring the most sensible bargain he has made. Stay here with him, Ma Na Si. You know where I will be. Of course, my thanks go very much to you as well. You have been exquisitely accommodating, as a go-between.’

  He had left, and the room seemed smaller in his absence, though the tension remained.

  Henry lifted his head and looked the doctor in the eyes. ‘I don’t know what he means by a bargain,’ he lied, ‘beyond the choice you rightly made of leaving the mission to save your family. And Helen Frances,’ he added bitterly.

  * * *

  The Mandarin strode down the corridor. He was feeling in the best of spirits. He would have liked to stretch out his arms and chuckle aloud, but he saw Mother Liu and Ren Ren waiting at the end of the corridor. For their benefit he glared superciliously, preserving a dignity he did not feel.

  ‘She is ready and waiting, Da Ren,’ Mother Liu cooed. ‘A pretty, pretty creature, to be sure. Oh, Da Ren, it is, of course, right that you should be the first to enjoy her exotic charms, yet I can’t help but think, afterwards, what a grace she would be to our establishment. So interesting for our regular customers. If she could be properly trained. Chamberlain Jin and I have spoken many times…’

  ‘I am aware of your discussions with Chamberlain Jin,’ said the Mandarin shortly.

  ‘Then could you only consider? After all, what is one foreigner more or less? And when you have finished with her…? I would pay a high price,’ she said coaxingly.

  ‘Out of the money I have already given you?’

  ‘You know what a dangerous position we are in, agreeing to keep these foreigners. Ren Ren and me you can trust—with our lives—to keep silent. Loyalty for us is not a matter of money. But if anybody else were to hear of this…’

  ‘I will give you my answer tomorrow. In principle I agree. You charge a high price for your silence, woman.’

  ‘Oh, Da Ren, your generosity is a legend.’

  ‘No, it is your greed that is legendary, Mother Liu. Now, shall we stay chatting in this draughty corridor? Or may I enter? And by the way, if I hear the merest movement of that peephole of yours while I am inside then it’ll be I who will inform Iron Man Wang that it is you who are harbouring foreigners upstairs. Two can play at blackmail, my dear Mother Liu.’

  ‘Oh, Da Ren, as if I would even dream of spying on you…’

  Chuckling at her discomfort the Mandarin pushed open the door and went inside. The curtains on the bed were drawn. Standing on the carpet in a submissive attitude was Fan Yimei. He smiled with pleasure to see her. He was struck again by her beauty. She reminded him of Jinghua when he was a young man. He could even recognise in her downcast eyes the look of unstated disapproval that he had known so well in his old friend. ‘How is your rival, my dear?’ he asked.

  ‘She is ready for you, Da Ren.’ She made a delicate gesture at the curtained bed.

  ‘And are you pleased that I am taking her away from your lover? Do you think that Ma Na Si will want her in the same way after I have used her?’

  ‘I think Ma Na Si loves her, Da Ren, as she does him.’ She looked him fully in the face. ‘It is not my place to be pleased or not but—I do not think my father would approve of what you are doing.’

  ‘Ha!’ laughed the Mandarin. ‘You are like him. Too good for this world and yourself! But not afraid to say so, it seems. Well, well. It appears that my friend the daifu has allies even in the bedchamber.’

  ‘I do not understand you, Da Ren. I had not meant to be insolent. Please forgive me.’

  He cupped her chin in his hand and looked at her kindly. ‘If you were not the daughter of my friend,’ he said regretfully, ‘and if I were a younger man … Come,’ he said, ‘away with you. Off you go. My assignation is with the fox lady, and what will happen between the two of us is a matter only for her and me, but Yimei…’ She paused by the door. ‘I have never forgotten your father. Believe me, he would be proud of you today. Now go.’

  She left.

  The Mandarin sighed, and stretched. Through the thin pink curtains he could see red sheets moulded over the shape of a woman’s body. He could make out a head on a pillow resting in a flame of auburn hair. He listened and could hear the whispering sound of her breath. He wondered what she would be feeling, knowing that he was there, waiting for the curtain to be pulled aside. Was she afraid? Was she excited? He felt the familiar stirrings in his loins.

  He waited until the sensation subsided. He prided himself on his self-control. The pleasure of sex lay in the anticipation. The longer the delay, the greater the eventual reward. He began to hum. It was one of the songs of the Hunan Braves, one that Jinghua used to play, in very different surroundings. He had not thought of the tune for years. He stopped, sensing a movement in the sheets behind the curtains. Let her wait a little longer, he decided. He took up the air again.

  Slowly he pulled off his boots and then his robe, hanging it carefully on the frame in the corner. Underneath he was wearing white cotton pyjamas. He thought of removing these, then thought better of it. He would take this very slowly.

  Carefully he pulled back the curtains at the end of the bed. She was holding the sheets to her chin. The first thing he noticed was her pointed nose, so unlike the flatter Chinese noses. He wondered how foreigners kissed. Her face was covered in makeup. Fan Yimei must have painted her like that. She looked different from when he had seen her on past occasions, from his palanquin, at the railway ceremony, during the hunt in the hills. The paint gave her a sophistication he had not associated with her. She looked older, more experienced, not unattractive, but he had been expecting a young, frightened girl. She was watching him with her strange green eyes. Yes, there was anxiety there, but not exactly fear. Did he imagine it or was there pleading in her expression? Was this foreign girl like any other girl? Alone with a man, wanting to be approved? How brave she is, he thought. How did Ma Na Si persuade her? he wondered.

  He closed the curtains behind him, moving to the side of the bed to sit by her. Her green eyes followed his movements. She flinched as he reached under the bedclothes but relaxed when he only pulled out her hand, pressing it with his. He examined the long fingers and the strange mottled freckles on her arm. Like smallpox scars, he thought. Ugly, but interesting. He smiled at her, looking directly into her eyes. They were not green, really. A sort of hazel colour flecked w
ith grey. He was glad they were not blue eyes, such as some foreigners had—milky pale things that looked like the eyes of the blind. There was light and fire in these eyes, he thought, though for now they contemplated him nervously. Carefully, he reached his hand behind her head and ran his fingers through the thick, red hair—the fox fairy’s hair that had attracted him. He had expected it to be tough and fibrous, and was surprised by its softness, the way the strands slid through his fingers like silk. He smiled at her again, and this time he was rewarded by a slow quiver of her lips as she tried to respond. Brave girl, he thought, brave girl. Worthy of Ma Na Si.

  Gently he laid her arm back on the sheet. Her eyes widened with alarm as he stood over her. He carefully pulled away the sheets uncovering her all the way down to her feet. He untied the sash of her gown and lifted it over her shoulders, running the sleeves down her arms, so she lay naked to his gaze. She was a thin thing. He could make out all her ribs and there were blue veins visible on her chest. He was glad that the brown freckles and smears were restricted to her arms and legs and part of her shoulders. The rest of her skin was pale, white, wraithlike perhaps, but again, not unattractive. He admired the bluish hollows over her surprisingly round stomach and throat and thighs. She had quite full breasts too, larger than most Chinese girls. She was not as hairy as he had imagined; the fine filaments on her belly and thighs were like goose down, and the thick red bush that covered her groin … well, that was intriguing. He had wondered if the colour below would be the same as the flaming hues on her head, and now he knew. He felt the stirring again in his own loins. In fact, he realised, he was quite hard under his pyjamas. He wondered if she had noticed and what she thought. He looked at her face. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was partially open. He could see the tips of her teeth.

  He sat down beside her. He ran his fingers through her hair, resting his hand behind her head. With his other hand he gently stroked her body, moving his palm over her shoulders, down her thin upper arm, over the swell of her breast. He held the small pink button of her nipple, rising out of its pale puckered areola, between his two fingers. He closed his mouth over it, kneading it with his lips and tongue, feeling it harden. As he pulled away he was struck by her odour. She had a sour, milky smell, different from the smell of women he was used to. Again, it was intriguing. Not unpleasant. Arousing, even—but how foreign she was. Her eyes were open now, watching him, lids half closed. He wondered if he was exciting her. There was a dreamy look in her eyes that might have been desire—but he could not read this woman as he could read one of his own kind. Was she enjoying this? He continued his exploration, moving his hand across her ribs, over her round, protuberant belly, down her thighs, then back again, smoothing his palm over the red, wiry hairs, feeling for the familiar mound, the cinnabar grotto. His fingertips touched soft flesh and, yes, there was moistness there. She was responding to him. He wondered what it would be like to kiss her. Would that pointed nose press into his cheek? How strange she was. If only she did not have such large, ugly feet, he thought, she might be considered beautiful.