by Sean Stewart
Meng-tzu said, “There are three things which are unfilial, and to have no posterity is the greatest of them.” Water Spider had betrayed more than himself in failing to find a wife and start a family. He, who was so correct and so upright, had failed his father. He had performed the most vicious sort of blasphemy, using the very precepts of K’ung fu-tzu and the other scholars as a weapon against his father. What had the Shrouded One in scarlet said? You cannot even remember what your father is trying to forget. He has been a poet, and a warrior. But you?
In his pocket the Lady’s ring warmed to his touch. He felt no salvation from it.
He wondered if the Snows would break his fingers.
Oh, the shame that would be his should he betray Li Mei and his father! The humiliation he would have to live with if, through his revelations, the plans to defeat the Snows were to collapse! What would he do when—
—No. No use. However hard he tried to focus on the shame of giving up his secrets, his imagination eluded him, returning to his body. Imagining the Snows brutalizing him. Imagining the pain they could bring to his fragile fingers. His lips. His eyes.
Water Spider’s face was clammy with cold sweat. Careful, careful. Deep breaths. Deep breaths…Very nearly fainted there.
Perhaps the thing to do would be to confess immediately. Tell the Southsiders enough truth to seem credible, but withhold certain key things. Distort them. He would need to have something to give them, a little piece of truth. They were going to learn a certain amount anyway. What honor would there be in accepting pointless pain or disfigurement?
Water Spider half-smiled. No, the anticipation of pain was definitely not good for his character.
Do not think about what is to come. There is only this moment, this time. Do not anticipate.
Men’s fates are already set.
There is no need asking of diviners.
It was impossible to torture a man in so refined a setting, he thought. But when the interrogator arrived, Water Spider was moved to another room.
It was quite different from Betty Hsiang’s elegant office. Small and cold. Bare shelves. Concrete floor with a drain in the middle. Even though this room was in Government House, Water Spider had never seen it. A converted pantry, probably.
Brawny Southside militiamen strapped him to a table. The interrogator, a major, stood behind them watching. “I am very sorry about this,” he said.
Water Spider yelled as one of the Snows put a blindfold around his eyes. This was worse than anything he had imagined. He had imagined threats, yes. Beating. Broken fingers. But not this. Not strapped blind to a table in a cold little room. He stilled himself. “You cannot do this to me. I am a Minister of the Government.”
“Not anymore. We have spoken to Huang Ti on this matter. He understands our need for immediate, accurate information.”
“He said to torture me?”
“I have no intention of torturing you. I would rather not use force. If I have absolutely no other way to get the information I need, then I will consider it. But that will be your decision.”
“You do not think I will believe this, Major? These are the oldest words of the torturer: this is your choice. Your fault.”
“My name is David.” Two clicks then, like the clasps of a briefcase opening. Tiny sounds of glass and metal as the interrogator picked something up. “I’m going to give you a needle now. This will hurt a bit, but only a little. It will help us talk more freely. There will be no permanent effects.”
“If you rape my mind, this is permanent. If I tell you things against my will, the words will not jump back into my mouth when we are done.” One of the guards rolled up Water Spider’s left sleeve and tightened a pressure cuff around his arm. “You have no answer for this, David? Why are you not speaking?”
“Because you’re right,” Major Oliver said.
The needle hurt. Water Spider hissed at the pressure of strange fluid pushing into his blood. A thin cold current whipped down the length of his arm and then went whirling through the rest of his body, limbs and belly and brain and lungs.
“Now we wait for that to start relaxing you.” David Oliver paused. “Here is the truth. I am going to ask you some questions. About your subordinate Li Mei, for instance—Ah: you were waiting for that one, weren’t you? Let me tell you how I feel about my job. I hate this part of it. It disgusts me to do this. But I do it because someone must. There are lives at stake—many more than just yours or mine. We will not leave your city until we have recovered Emily. Right or wrong, this is the truth. Li Mei is part of that puzzle. The longer it takes us to find her, the longer we will be here, and the greater the chances are that men will die. There have already been fights between your people and mine. Two fatalities. Are your feelings of personal honor really more important than the well-being of your people? Mine are not. That is why I am here. I do not wish to cause you any pain but I will if I have to. Too many lives are at stake. Can you see that?”
It was cold. Water Spider found he was shivering.
“Minister?”
“Your words seem wise to me.” Water Spider wished he could see. He wished he could touch the Lady’s ring inside his pocket. “But it is easy to find good reasons to betray. Simple to find reasons to run from pain. The mind is easily confused by fear. In times like this, I think, a man must listen to his heart, not his head.”
“Do you not feel for your people?”
“Major, you have closed my eyes. How can I see such a ghost idea? I can see my father, though. I can see Li Mei.” The drug was beginning to work on him, whatever it was. A laugh slipped out of him. There was a long silence. Pressure grew on Water Spider to fill it. “My father was a very great poet. Did you know that?” The words spilled out of Water Spider’s mouth. How surprising. “Would you like to hear one of his poems? It is called In Time of War.”
“I would like that very much.”
“It is more subtle in Chinese but I will tell it in English. But the Chinese is better. You will see it is very appropriate.
Through crossing streets the spilled men pool and stream, shouting
Under the mountain. There, mouths closed, the fallen snows lie, unspeaking.
“Snows, you see? Snows. Yet this was written long ago, during the Dream. A prophecy. I do not wish to speak to you!” Water Spider bit his lip until it bled, to stop any more words from coming out. I am a spilled man. I am a spilled man.
“What else can you tell me about your father?”
Water Spider smiled and shook his head. Very carefully he said, “I think you must torture me. If my honor must be broken, Major, at least I will take yours with me.”
“You are a brave man,” David Oliver said. His fingers closed around Water Spider’s wrist, checking his pulse. His fingers were warm, so warm against Water Spider’s cold, cold skin. He wept at the touch. Surely his life was lies and illusion and the touch of human skin was the only truth to be found in the lonely middle world. It’s a trick. It’s a trick. “You will get a fight you did not expect, Major!”
“I don’t doubt it,” David Oliver said softly.
It took him less than an hour to learn everything Water Spider had to tell.
Li Mei had never been on a houseboat before. She was not enjoying it. She did not like the way the floor rocked queasily beneath her feet. She did not like the tiny dark room with its slanting walls. She did not like the stink of brine and tar and old shellfish, made worse by the smell of opium and the incense that hung around her and Jen in ropes. Instead of heading back across Hastings Street toward the Garden or the Athletic Club, Floating Ant had led them north, through the wastelands and down to the harbor, where this dilapidated boat lay moaning quietly against the pier. “A little dark hole to hide in while I make certain inquiries,” he had said.
And so they waited in the cramped, old sea-smelling darkness.
Li Mei’s mind felt dull and confused. She wished they hadn’t gone through the opium den. That had been another
one of Floating Ant’s ideas. He wasn’t sure how good the Southsiders’ chemical trackers were, but at the very least they could bring in dogs. The owner of the houseboat they were hiding in had cast off and let the wheezing diesel motor drag them a mile up the inlet, close to Coronation Park. Here Floating Ant disembarked to collect more information, leaving Li Mei to the tender care of Jen, who was not much fun. Although the tiny cabin was not nearly large enough to prowl in, Jen prowled in it.
Hours passed.
The stars were still out but the black sky was beginning to pale when Floating Ant finally returned. “Disaster! Terrible luck! I have not been able to find my friends who could hide you in the Garden or the Athletic Club. Worse than this, the Snows have taken my son!”
Jen cursed.
“I am so sorry,” Li Mei said. “But do not despair. They have no reason to harm him. They will question him, of course. But I would be very surprised if anything worse were to happen.” Of course, what reason had there been for Winter to kill her mother? Li Mei forced a lightness into her voice. “And there is at least a small pearl of luck hidden within this oyster. Water Spider will tell what he knows to the interrogators. If we had managed to get to the Garden tonight, we might have found the soldiers at our doorstep in the morning.”
“Well, we must stay here for now,” Floating Ant said. “We should be safe for a day or two at least.”
Suddenly Li Mei wished very much there was enough light in the little cabin to see the old man’s face. “Jen has been finding this hole unbearably cramped,” she said. “Do you think it would be safe for him to go out, now that you are here? Perhaps he could keep watch.”
“Mm. I don’t see why not. If you like, Jen. Patrol the dock.”
“Anything for an hour or two outside this hellhole,” Jen grunted, slipping out.
Li Mei waited until he had disappeared through the hatchway. “You knew,” she said to Floating Ant.
“Ha?”
“You knew the Snows would find your apartment. It was only a matter of time.” Her mind was working clearly now. “I was right, there is no way to leave the Garden, is there? But the Snows can’t know that. Sooner or later, Water Spider will tell them I am there, or in the Dragon’s temple.”
“And there they will go,” Floating Ant said quietly. “With their guns and orders.”
“Oh, you cunning, cunning old man. You will make the Snows fight Chinatown itself. You will let them throw their guns against the Lady and the Dragon.”
“That war was already underway,” Floating Ant said. “It was we who betrayed the Snows. One of the Double Monkey’s puppets, a certain merchant I will not name, made a deal with the Downtown barbarians and sold them the rocket that killed Winter’s men.”
“I wondered, when I heard,” Li Mei whispered. “But why?”
“Huang Ti was using the Snows as incorruptible tax collectors. It upset the balance of power for the Mandarins to have soldiers of their own. They were supposed to be a bureaucracy, nothing more. They inconvenienced people,” Floating Ant said. “And of course the presence of a foreign army on Chinatown’s soil was nothing but a goad to the Dragon.”
“This merchant must have tipped the Dragon’s men to watch for the Snows’ destruction.”
“I do not know this,” Floating Ant said. “But if I had sold the barbarians the means to wipe out the Southsiders, I would make sure that Chinatown’s borders were not defenseless, lest the barbarians become overenthusiastic about pursuing their advantage.”
“Johnny Ma should be fired for this,” Li Mei said fiercely. “He should have known what was going to happen.”
Floating Ant looked at her. “What makes you think he didn’t?”
“But—But why…? He voted in favor of bringing in the Southsiders, didn’t he? He did. I remember Mother talking about it. But if the Snows had not been killed, Winter never would have called my mother to his offices last night. She would still, would still—”
Gently Floating Ant laid a hand upon Li Mei’s shoulder. She shook it off and drew something the size and shape of a pocket watch from inside her jacket. She pressed a spring and the lid popped open, revealing a tiny mirror. Li Mei went to the spluttering kerosene lamp and studied her thin face by its light.
“Johnny is a subtle man,” Floating Ant said. “Perhaps he is one of those who feels that Chinatown needed an immediate threat to unite. Perhaps the Snows were cutting into his bribes. Perhaps he laid a bet on the outcome of the invasion. Open Palm Johnny is not a man whose motives are easy to fathom.”
“It’s part of the portfolio,” Li Mei said.
“That sounds like a quote.”
“One of his favorite sayings.” Li Mei snapped the little mirror shut and tucked it back in her jacket pocket. “You are not easy to fathom either. I understand your plan, I suppose. You want the Snows to provoke the Powers of Chinatown as openly as possible. You want to let the Powers break them, instead of us poor mortals. But why did you let them take your son? Was there no other way?”
The houseboat beams creaked and shifted, the small constant complaints of its unquiet sleep. Floating Ant’s voice was no more than a whisper.
“Skillfulness in moving an opponent about comes through
Positioning the opponent is compelled to follow,
And gifts the opponent is compelled to take.
“Sometimes I hate these wise old men,” Floating Ant said. “Sun Tzu, K’ung fu-tzu, Chuang Tzu and the rest of them. They see too clearly for compassion. Perhaps there was a better gift to give our enemies. I could not see it. And this strategy is so clear. So elegant…Once before I had the choice to sacrifice a son. I did not.” Floating Ant’s old voice was calm. “Now I can tell you that both cups are bitter at the bottom.”
Chapter
Twenty-one
It was still early Saturday morning when Raining lost her grip on Ensign Lubov and felt the Forest like a river bear him away. A few minutes later she was home. She had slept one hour of the last twenty-six. Her voice was clipped and flat as she told her parents why Lark wasn’t with her, but her body betrayed her, pacing through the house, her hands jumping like small birds, jerky and nervous. Her mother offered a box of joints to help her sleep, but Raining did not want sleep. She did not want tears or food or drink or comfort. She wanted to paint.
She painted while she told her parents what had happened to Nick. Painting, she told them that Lark had been taken from her and that the Southsiders would not give her back. She told them about leading the Southsiders into the Forest, and how the Forest had taken them, one by one. Her mother made her tea and her father brought her salty fried potatoes and a plate of fish. She painted while she ate, wiping her fingers on her dress. When her parents finally left her and went to bed on Saturday night, she was painting still.
“Hello! Hello, little girl,” Nick had said to the baby in his arms as he paced gently around Raining’s maternity bed the day Lark was born. Lark was just a scowl in a blanket, peering up at him. Not even as long as his forearm. How tiny she was! Her whole head fit inside his cupped fingers.
“Sit down,” Raining said. “You’re making me dizzy.”
“Mm. Okay, okay, here we go,” he said, nodding to Lark as he folded himself ever so slowly into the big armchair. “Whatever Mommy wants, Mommy gets after this night’s work, hey?”
Lark continued to stare at him. Raining would never have imagined two-hour-old eyes could measure you so deeply.
“Tch tch tch—there we are, there we are. All sitting down. Now what?”
She could remember thinking, He doesn’t even know he’s smiling. “Okay,” she said. “Now you put her on your tummy.” He grinned, settling deeper into the chair, and did as he was told. “Ha! Bliss,” Raining said. “I’ve waited nine months for that.” The sight of her baby, lying swaddled on his big man’s chest, rose through her like wine and made her eyes fill. Never had she felt so keenly how sweet life was. How sweet and how fragile. “Oh, Nick. Is it
going to be okay?”
Nick lifted Lark up between his big hands. “What do you think?” he said to the baby. “Do you think it’s going to be okay?—Yes, Mom!” he answered in a high squeaky voice.
“Quit that! Nick!”
“Yes, Mom. It’s going to be fine, Mom.” Gently he laid the baby on Raining’s chest, the poor kid still as solemn as a priest in her blankets, slate-blue eyes regarding her, regarding her. The scent of her, the secret boiled milk smell of the lost world inside Raining’s womb. “Yes, Mom. Everything will be okay.” She felt the faintest, faintest warm touch of the baby’s breath on her cheek.
In his own voice Nick said, “I promise it.”
Now Lark had been taken from her and Nick had been left to die in the North Side’s terrible cold. So much for his promises.
She painted and hated her painting and felt only fury and despair and painted that. Technique is not enough, she told herself angrily. It is not enough to draw and plan, compose and construct, to arrange your subject and know your theory and choose your paints and bend your wrist just so in the execution of your comma strokes, because your feeble useless little-girl art can’t resurrect the dead. And if it can’t do that, what the hell is it good for?
Only fury can bring back the dead.
Paint with your hand, your hand! Not your eye, stupid. Feel the weight of every muscle. Feel the pull of blood. You paint too thin. What are you saving it for, hey little girl? Art is not about mercy. Compassion, yes. Mercy, never. Never anything but the truth. Use more paint, goddamn it! Layer it thick and smelling of oil and powdered bone, thick enough to touch, heavy against the brush, feel the way the bristles pull through the heavy paint, slow and painful as divorce.
She painted Nick who had been her husband, who had lived once, who loved her still. You wanted landscape? Well, here it is. Here is a man with the man gone from it. Here is a portrait with only landscape left. Landscape is not pretty. Paint cold dead forehead white and still as his hateful country. Paint the cold that cares not one damn for you or anything you love. Hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it; crush it in your fingers until welts show on your hands, until your finger bones snap, until your blood is rubies.
