Dragons in Shallow Waters

by Kane, Clare

  The world beyond Britain’s frosty seas delivered my desired metamorphosis. Under the blaze of a foreign sun, the feeble materials of which I had been made dissolved and restructured; hardened grew my limbs, darkened became my flesh, while my mind was wrenched uncomfortably open. I witnessed men of every creed, observed their unity of desires, their need to eat and sleep and find a woman forgiving of their frail prides and deficient means, and I watched them, men of every shade, surprise and betray me in equal measure. I saw an Englishman kill for pleasure and a Indian do just the same, I choked with gratitude as a son of Manchester lifted a bottle of water to my parched lips, and almost wept as a boy from Kandahar placed a scrap of naan upon my desperate palm. I suppose then I consider myself a globalist, accepting mankind as it is, recognizing that each nation holds its place in the world, believing that the men of every country deserve the same consideration and esteem as those from the place we call home, and, quite frankly, that men of all nations are often as bad as each other. Yet just because a man may not swell with pride for his country does not mean he might not cringe with shame at its wrongdoings. And so it is with heavy heart that I must report the following events, when the guardians of civilization proved themselves, in mind and in flesh, little different from the barbarous Boxers.

  The following day started with familiar ennui. Living under siege, one begins to question which is more deadly: the enemy or the boredom. I looked through the window to the street below; uselessly soldiers and refugees milled, men spoke without end, and I felt the walls of the Legation Quarter press closer around me. Downstairs Hilde served coffee, remarking on my fatigued appearance.

  “I took some more supplies to Su’s palace at dawn,” she said. “Miss Ward is there again today.”

  “Is she?” I let the coffee warm my throat, allowed its bitter taste to jolt my nerves awake. Immediately my concern for Nina returned, vicarious shame taking residence once more in the pit of my heart.

  Edward walked through from the kitchen, nodded to me.

  “Rather strange request I’ve had this morning,” he said. “Mr Moore from the Trade Ministry asking for a room. He and his wife are with the Bloomfields, can’t imagine why they might need a room here.” Edward had a talent for busying himself, and immediately he set about ordering glasses and bottles behind the bar as he spoke, his feet gliding undisturbed around the small refugee children who played together on the floor. “He said something about safety, but it was all forgotten rather quickly when I explained that we were at full occupancy.” He stopped, cleared his throat. “I did say you might accommodate them in your room in case of emergency. I hope you don’t mind; only Hilde and I have no space anywhere else.”

  “Naturally. I suppose Moore did have rather a scare when he witnessed the death of that Japanese.”

  “I suppose.” Edward looked towards me hesitantly. “Yes,” he said, swallowing words unsaid. “I suppose so.”

  Wearily I completed my circuit of the Legation Quarter and its diplomats, soldiers and gossips in search of information, and returned to my room in the afternoon with no further clarity. The authorities were unforthcoming with their European counterparts, and no contact had been made by our savior Seymour, lost somewhere upon the great China plains with his troops. Patience, each contact counseled me, while the strain in their voices, the tremor in their hands, the red corners of their eyes, betrayed that their own measures of forbearance were close to exhausted.

  Restive, I decided to stop by the Su palace as the afternoon heat started to descend from its most unbearable peak, and there I saw Nina reading to a group of scrawny schoolgirls. Her voice lifted and fell to the cadences of a book of Chinese fairytales, the worn cover and thumbed pages of which suggested the converts had likely heard all the stories several times over. Still they showed a polite interest in this retelling of the familiar, and I allowed myself to enjoy the feeling of the warmth of the sun on my back as I watched Nina read to them in the courtyard.

  “She is herself again.” Silently Phoebe Franklin had approached me, and I started when she spoke.

  “My apologies, Mrs Franklin, I did not see you. I had become rather caught up in the stories myself.”

  “They adore her,” Phoebe said softly. “She is younger than I, of course, but it is more than that. They are orphans, the girls, and they see that, like them, Nina hovers between two worlds. They are as Chinese as bamboo, every last one of them, but their minds and their pencils have been sharpened by American missionaries.”

  One of the girls inched closer to Nina as she read, and lifted a pair of slender fingers to touch a loose tendril of Nina’s hair. She twisted it around her knuckle, puzzling at its wavy texture, coiling it and letting it go like a spring. Nina laughed at this innocent touch, paused her reading. The girls all laughed together, with the exception of one small, narrow-shouldered child who maintained a careful distance from the rest. Her raw-boned arms were wrapped tightly around her knees, her eyes fixed upon the ceiling rafters.

  “That girl seems very quiet,” I remarked to Phoebe.

  “Lijun,” she said. “A terrible story. Entire family murdered before her young eyes. None of us can understand how she managed to escape herself.” Phoebe’s face, previously open and tranquil, clouded as she spoke. “We must do all we can to protect the girls. I have insisted that they are never to leave the palace, not even to take a breath of fresh air or to see the latest news posted at the bulletin board in the British Legation. They are country girls used to wandering freely, and they do not understand the risks they face, even here in the Legation Quarter.”

  “That sounds eminently sensible,” I said.

  “For their safety and their virtue,” Phoebe agreed.

  Phoebe left me, and I watched Nina for two or three minutes more, willing her to look up from her flock and see me, but unwilling myself to break the spell. How sprightly she looked, how sparklingly at ease amongst the young girls, her cheeks flushed once more with vigorous color, Mandarin flowing effortlessly as she spoke. Gone was the habitual pinched expression she wore in the company of Fairchild’s guests, extinguished were the uncertainty and vacillation that moderated her tone and dulled her movements in that home of strangers. And so I departed, cheered by Nina’s aspect, but unable still to shake the dread of her fate that settled unbidden upon me, unyielding as a cloak around my shoulders.

  I returned to the Fairchild household for supper that evening, where I noted Nina’s absence with interest. In her place sat Beatrice Moore, who had been invited by Lillian to stay for supper. Perhaps even more curious than Nina’s simple non-appearance, was the fact that not a single other guest remarked upon it. Fairchild was a picture of enervation as we ate; a volley of bullets produced a ceaseless racket outside.

  “They have started early tonight,” La Contessa observed. Her gaze did not meet mine, and I noted her husband’s close presence by her side. Occasionally Pietro Mancini, not a habitually demonstrative man, allowed his fingers to graze his wife’s arm, and she awarded him small smiles, neat as gifts tied with ribbons.

  “I don’t hear it anymore,” Lillian said, roughly dragging her knife across the tough meat on her plate. “Oh, I give up! Our cutlery and our teeth were not designed for this fare.”

  “Miss Price,” Mr Fairchild said. “I am afraid it is the best we could do. The staff is trying with the very few resources they have at their disposal.”

  “Thank you for allowing me to stay for dinner,” Beatrice Moore said. “I feel most guilty enjoying your provisions, but Miss Price and I had so very much to talk about this afternoon that I barely registered the time and I am certain the servants will already have cleared the plates at the Bloomfields’. When this conflict finally comes to an end, Mr Fairchild, my husband and I shall be delighted to treat you to a relative feast.”

  “Thank you,” Oscar said. “It is nothing, the least I might do.”

  “M
rs Moore,” I said. “I hear that your husband has requested a room at the Grand. I wish to confirm Mr Samuels’ offer that in any case of urgency I will most happily accommodate both you and Mr Moore in my own humble room.”

  My intention was to test, naturally; Edward had in knowing silence conveyed to me some inexplicability in Benjamin Moore’s desire for a room at the Grand. Yet I had not expected my question to provoke such an obvious reaction in the man’s wife. A woman as seasoned in social mores as the implacable Beatrice Moore might be expected to take unexpected news in her stride, to conceal her surprise in practiced smiles and tidy diversions. But Beatrice reached immediately for her wine glass, grasping inelegantly at its stem, allowing its wide base to collide with the edge of her plate in the hurry to raise it to her lips. The overgenerous sip she took of its contents left her mouth moist and slick.

  “That is most kind of you, Mr Scott,” she said, fixing her eyes, dispassionate and cool once more, upon me. I realized that my words had hit upon some truth fundamental and stark, but unknown, at least in its full dimensions, to Mrs Moore. Lillian Price, loyal to the end, did not allow her friend to flounder long.

  “Who is that, Mr Fairchild?” she asked, her eyes on a portrait that hung on the wall.

  Oscar turned in his seat, and faced the anonymous figure in the painting.

  “That is my wife’s father, Miss Price,” he said, without feeling.

  “Oh, I am sorry, I know he has been terribly ill. Although I suppose Violet was rather lucky in the end, to have left before all the trouble.”

  Conversation was more or less abandoned after that. I tried and failed to meet Nicholas’ eye, attempted to read the sentiment in the downturned corners of his mouth. He sat only on the other side of the table to me, yet I felt a barrier more formidable than the Tartar walls stood between us.

  I desired to spend another night with La Contessa, but was unsure how I might find an opportunity to propose such an idea to her. Fairchild presented me with one such chance when he invited the men to smoke; Mancini followed him, Nicholas excused himself and I was left alone with Lillian, Beatrice and Chiara. Lillian complained to a servant that a door did not lock properly, that the Boxers might be able to gain entry, and I took advantage of her remonstrance, which led to hysterical argumentation on Beatrice’s part, to suggest in low tones to La Contessa that she join me at the Grand later that night.

  “I must not,” she said. “The shooting has already started tonight. I dare not.”

  She reached for my hand under the table, fingertips fluttering over my knuckles. Still I felt chagrined, and took my leave soon after, walking through the streets with fast yet prudent steps, occasionally ducking behind a wall when the shots grew particularly loud or persistent. Bullets flew cleanly over the walls of the Legation Quarter, but the Boxers appeared to aim so high that not a single shot threatened injury. In fact, many of us maintained a theory throughout the siege that the Boxers and their supporters amongst the imperial troops continued this steady barrage of shots not with the aim of murdering us, but instead to set us permanently on edge, to unnerve us, to make sleep impossible, to rattle our spirits but preserve our bones.

  The light of a torch greeted me as I approached the Grand and I made out the figures of Phoebe Franklin and Nina. A Japanese soldier accompanied them, marching three steps ahead, holding a gun decorously, carefully, in his hands.

  “Colonel Shiba and his troops have done an admirable job to protect Prince Su’s mansion so far,” Phoebe was saying to Nina. “However, the Japanese alone cannot fight off the Boxers. The palace is quite vulnerable in terms of location, and sickness is already spreading. Death is certain for many there.”

  “That does not seem right,” Nina said quietly.

  “It is not,” Phoebe said firmly. “Miss Ward, shall you accompany me once again tomorrow?”

  “Nothing would make me happier,” Nina said.

  “Good night, Mrs Franklin, Miss Ward,” I called as they rounded the hotel.

  “Oh, Mr Scott, why are you hiding in the shadows?” Phoebe said, turning towards me, the burning light of her lamp illuminating every corner of my face.

  “I might be more partial to light if I thought the Boxers would not see me,” I said.

  “The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light,” Phoebe said briskly. She lowered her lamp and once again she and Nina became mere silhouettes to me.

  I entered the hotel just before Hilde and Edward barricaded the door for the night; each evening they blocked the entrance with a large mahogany table, a tall bookshelf and an assortment of books and other knick-knacks, calculating that any attempt to break through the threshold would cause so much disturbance that we would receive sufficient warning to mount a defense. Young male refugees slept in the hallway; by their sides was anything that might pass as a weapon: guns, knives, even a poker for the fire. They took this role most seriously, and many prayed for a Boxer attack that would allow them their vengeance against those who had driven them from their homes. So far, we had been spared.

  The next few days were characterized by the absence of La Contessa in my narrow life. Devotedly I returned to Fairchild’s residence every evening for dinner in the hopes that she might follow me later to the Grand. Yet she only grew more distant, avoiding me with dignified detachment and feline hauteur, weaving her form, exuberant and irresistible, in wide, careful circles around me. Pietro Mancini was forever present and seemed each day more attentive to his wife, whispering indulgently into her sweet, perfectly-formed ears, seating himself so close by her at the table that his shoulder brushed hers constantly. Tortured, I watched their supposed conjugal harmony, and left the house each night with an unpleasantly augmented feeling of isolation. Nicholas watched me stonily, Lillian Price engaged me with indifference, Oscar Fairchild approached me with cautious, fatigued amiability, and Phoebe and Nina remained steadfastly absent at Su’s palace.

  In fact, Nina quickly developed a routine at the old palace, where she taught lessons, served food, tended to fevers and collected clothes to deliver to the newly-established laundry, managed by none other than Russell Brazier, the Chief Secretary of the Inspectorate of the Imperial Maritime Customs. Nina usually remained at Su’s former mansion until well after dinner had been served at the Fairchild residence, and sometimes stayed with the schoolgirls until all had fallen asleep. Only once was I still present when she returned to Fairchild’s home. She had approached the dining table to bid her father good night. Stiff and unfamiliar, Nicholas had simply expressed his approval of Nina’s efforts at Prince Su’s palace and suggested, with wooden language and unnatural posture, that she may care to read a portion of his latest writing, to which she had readily assented. When I reminded her of this a few days later, Nina replied simply that he had yet to provide her with the manuscript.

  Despite this separation from her peers, Nina did not seem to experience loneliness during those long days at the palace. In my infrequent glimpses of her at work, it seemed to me that she rather enjoyed her role as teacher to the young girls; indeed it appeared that she found as much, if not more, pleasure in leading her attentive pupils in their studies as the students themselves took in her well-attended lessons. She taught from Chinese and English books, and even read Bible passages to the schoolgirls, though she no doubt would have preferred to recount the more familiar tales of the God of War or Buddhism’s Kuanyin. I knew, and Nina assuredly also realized, that she existed in a form of suspension, that her daily pilgrimage to the anonymous safety of the Su palace was not a true solution to the deep, wounding shame she would one day have to confront. Yet between her daily absence and the ever-present threat of the Boxers at the gates, I hoped that the foreigners might prove distracted enough to leave Nina in relative peace for now.

  Only once did I see a return to that unsettled person Nina had become
under Fairchild’s roof. One afternoon as she gave her lessons, Hugo Lovell came to the palace. It was at that more bearable hour of the afternoon when I liked to stop by to greet Nina and ask Phoebe Franklin if any more supplies were required from the Grand.

  “I heard Miss Ward was here,” Hugo said to me as he removed his hat.

  Standing with hands clasped and observing her with thoughtful eyes, he said no more. Hugo’s face, once earnest, had now grown gaunt and weary. Nina glanced up, and seeing Hugo, stumbled over the next words she read. Hugo waited silently until she had finished reading, nodded to me and then crossed the room towards her. The girls watched his every step; Nina dismissed her pupils.

  “Mr Lovell,” she said. “I am most surprised to see you here.”

  “Well, I am rather surprised myself to find you here. Miss Price said you came here every day.”

  “That’s right.”

  “It is very noble of you to help these people,” Hugo said. “I suppose I mustn’t keep you from your students. I am afraid I am hors du combat, you see, and I feel of so little use to anyone.”

  “Are you injured, Mr Lovell?”

  “Yes. A bullet caught my leg, left a gash that is quite unsightly, but nothing to be too concerned about, the doctors say. I have been left with something of a limp, however, and even though the Boxers cannot actually fly, they are still rather fast on their feet.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Nina said.

  “Yes. Well, at least I’ve had a luckier fate than our friend Mr Millington.”

  “Oh, it is too awful to think of Mr Millington,” Nina said.

  She stepped towards the decorated arch that led to the central courtyard, leading Hugo toward the exit. He left momentarily, and she called the girls back for their next lesson. Picking up the textbook she began reading again.

  “We have just finished that lesson, Miss Nina,” Lijun said accusatorially, and flustered, Nina skimmed the pages rapidly. I bowed my head, and left her with her students.