The Concubine's Daughter

by null

  Smith took a long pull at his drink, the ice clinking in his glass as he set it down, glancing at Toby to see if he should continue.

  “It is said he destroyed a statue of Kuan-Yun, goddess of mercy, when he found your mother …” The American doctor hesitated. “They say that he searched for you in every way he could, through the corridors of colonial power and the underbelly of the triad. He got help from neither.” Again, Shanghai Smith reached across to cover Sing’s hand. “The only certainty is that he turned his back on Hong Kong and those who had turned their backs on his terrible grief. He swore never to return, and he never did.” He twisted his glass, tracing beads of condensation down the glass. “But Indie can tell you more of these things than I can.”

  Sing bowed her head to him. “I am very grateful for your help. Can you direct me to this man?”

  “The last I heard of Indie Da Silva, he was said to be living among the Tanka boat people in Silvermine Bay on Lantau Island. He had gambled every cent in his pocket and run out of credit in the bars on both sides of the harbor.”

  “Lantau is an hour or so by launch,” said Toby. “I know the sampan village in Silvermine Bay. If he is there, we will find him.”

  He looked at Sing, who could feel his concern for her as surely as his touch, then turned to Shanghai Smith. “How can we repay you, sir?”

  The doctor held up his empty glass. “My dear fellow, you have repaid me with such delightful company. Another of these and we’ll consider it quits.” He stood as they made to leave. “If you find Indie, come back and tell me what you learn about him and my old friend Ben.”

  Toby obtained the use of a Maritime Services launch, which cut cleanly through the dark green water at a steady fifteen knots. The morning was almost windless, the occasional cat’s-paw of light winds ruffling the surface. They had left at 6:00 A.M., the perfect, bright orange orb of the sun hardly lifted from the China Sea. Toby had given the coxswain an unexpected day off duty, and sat at the wheel with Sing beside him. Ruby had accepted Lily’s invitation to stay at the Happy Butterfly; she said she wished to enjoy her newfound freedom, but Sing recognized her friend’s tact in sending her and Toby on the journey alone.

  The huge mass of Lantau Island, its highest peak still shrouded in mist, loomed a little larger with each moment. Junks near and far drifted beneath batwing sails. To Sing it was one of the most important mornings of her life.

  With Toby beside her, the sunlight in his hair lighting his face with its glow, she again felt the thrill of his closeness. He wore white shorts and a white shirt, its sleeves rolled up to reveal sunburned forearms. She found herself fascinated by the light gold hair that glistened from the back of his hands to his elbows. She reached out and touched it lightly, causing him to turn and smile at her.

  “The hairy barbarian.” He laughed, lifting his leg to show the same vigorous growth on his shins. “I’m afraid chaps like me are covered in it.” He grinned easily.

  She shook her head, returning his smile. Toby eased the throttle, slowing the constant throb of the powerful motors, coasting through the moored and anchored village of the boat people. For Sing there was a fleeting sense of coming home; the wooden hulls, fishnets hoisted up to dry, the unmistakable tang of salted fish, voices calling across the water. They were like the foreshores of the lake, it filled her with a moment’s longing for a time and place she would never know again.

  Most of the Tanka barely looked up from cleaning nets, splicing ropes, and squatting over their rice bowls, though a few watched them pass with idle suspicion. “I doubt they have seen too many government boats, but they are used to foreigners commuting on the ferry. This is a favorite spot for fine seafood at half the price of Hong Kong.”

  “I have learned to speak the language of the boat people,” sing said eagerly. “If he is here, he should not be hard to find.” She looked up at the master of the largest junk, the long pennants of his clan unfurled at the masthead proclaiming him an elder of his people. When she greeted him respectfully in his native dialect, he gave her a gap-toothed grin, answering in a loud, cheerful voice accustomed to bawling orders above the wind. They had an animated conversation for several minutes.

  At last, with all words of respect, greetings, directions, and farewells complete, Toby pushed off in the direction the junk master had indicated. Sing said, “The man we seek is known to them as ‘Eagle Beak,’ because of the size and shape of his nose. He is to be found around the point.”

  She smiled at Toby’s expression. “I know it seems a lot of talk for so simple a question, but it is the way of the Tanka to discuss small things before giving an answer. It is not polite to show impatience.”

  The launch rounded an outcrop of jagged rock and headed into a small inlet. “He says that Eagle Beak is a strange one of many secrets. They think he is a ghost, neither Chinese nor gwai-lo, and that his junk is a phantom ship from the past. But he is kind to their children and makes no trouble.”

  Sing could not suppress a giggle. “He also says Eagle Beak lives here because he has too many women, too many children, and too many bar bills on the Golden Hill.”

  A lone vessel was anchored off a curve of sandy beach littered with driftwood. “Good God!” Toby exclaimed. “It’s a bloody lorcha, designed by the Portuguese to chase pirates. They stopped building them thirty years ago. Your junk captain was right; it is like a ghost from the past.”

  As the launch drew closer, Sing saw that eyes had been painted on the bows of the lorcha in the way of all junks on the lookout for sea-monsters. Above them, in faded letters, she read the name: CHINA SKY. MACAO.

  The man looking down was different and solitary-looking as the craft that was obviously his home. Some sparse items of washing flapped from a line stretched between the masts, the unexpected smell of brewed coffee drifted from the stern, and a large tortoiseshell cat stretched itself upon the hatch. Tall and upright despite his years, Indie Da Silva stood at the rail stripped to the waist, his brown skin scarred and pitted as old timber. Faded tattoos roamed the long, wiry arms folded across his chest. The lorcha’s freeboard put him a good five feet above the white bleached deck of the launch. A mane of tangled hair the color of gunmetal fell below his shoulders, hard to distinguish from an uncombed beard that reached his chest. Thick rings of gold pierced the lobes of both ears.

  To Sing he seemed almost a giant from another world. She remembered the words of the Fish: “Gossip among the fish-cleaners says he was once a pirate in the Caribbean Sea. Perhaps he was, but he was a father to Di-Fo-Lo and respectful to your mother.”

  Sing knew that the man looking down at them might be the only person who could tell her the truths she had to hear. She called up to him, “I am the daughter of Ben Devereaux and Li-Xia. If you are the one who was once his partner and his dearest friend, then I beg to speak with you. I offer these things as proof of my words.”

  She held out the photograph and the golden guinea from around her neck. “These were given me by the Tanka woman he called the Fish, who took me from my mother’s arms to safety and watched over me as her own. I have traveled from the province of Hunan to the Golden Hill to find him, if he lives, or where he lies if he is gone.”

  Indie Da Silva made no move to reach for the photograph, looking down for a long moment before replying, “A scrap of paper with a likeness on it is easy to come by; so is a gold guinea.” He took the launch’s heaving line, making it fast to a cleat. The cat uncurled itself, padding tigerlike along the deck, observing them with round yellow eyes.

  “But no person would be fool enough to find me to tell such a lie. Only a Devereaux would have come this far.” He threw his head back and laughed so loud, the cormorants left the shallows to circle the crescent of sand. He sent a rope ladder over the side of the lorcha.

  “Come aboard, Ben Devereaux’s daughter and whoever you’ve got with you.”

  Fingers strong and hard as iron closed around her hand as he helped her over the gunwale and onto the de
ck. “This is a good friend, Toby Hyde-Wilkins,” Sing told him quickly. “Without him I could not have found you.“

  Indie nodded, shaking Toby’s hand. “Well then, I’ll take your word for it.” He motioned them both to follow him. “You’ve got this far, you might as well come below and see if it was worth the passage.”

  The saloon of China Sky was lined with the rich sheen of Burma teak. A mess table of the same mellow wood was slung on brass gimbals, a polished copper lamp hanging above it. Indie quickly sent a scattering of eating utensils into the sink of the adjoining galley space. “I don’t get many visitors,” he said, emerging with a battered coffeepot, three chipped enamel mugs, and a board bearing a chunk of bread and a lump of white cheese.

  He sloshed scalding coffee into the mugs and gestured for them to be seated on the bench that ran the length of the table, then turned his attention to Sing. “There’s a whole lot at stake for the daughter of Ben Devereaux. I’ve got no way of knowing for certain who you are. As I say, you could have come upon the picture any number of ways—the gold coin too.”

  He watched Sing closely over the steaming rim of the mug, his face forming its easy grin. “But there’s no way in all seven of God’s great seas you could beg, borrow, or steal his eyes.” He thumped the table at his own words, leaning over to cup her face in his huge hands and give her a kiss on the nose.

  Indie sat back, lowering his voice as he reached back to another time, another world. “You could tell the weather by your dad’s eyes … see a storm coming and know ahead of time when to shorten sail or ride it out.” He smiled. “But when the skies were clear, you never saw a brighter light or a calmer sea. I see the same deep waters and God-given light when I look into yours.”

  The cat appeared suddenly at his side, leaping lightly onto the table, its golden eyes wide. Indie ran a caring hand down the length of its back, scratching the scruff of its neck, causing it to arch, its tail erect with ecstatic expectation. “She’s damn near as old as I am and she’s careful about talking to strangers.” His words were affectionate.” Looks like she’s about ready to give you a chance, which is something she doesn’t do easy.”

  With the unblinking eyes of the cat fixed upon her, Sing sought the right words for this moment. “I have dreamed about finding my father for a long time. But all I know is what the Fish told me of his life before I was born …”

  She would have said more, but Indie Da Silva held up his hand. “I’ll tell you what I think you must be told… . Then, if it isn’t enough, I’ll answer any questions that I can. That way we’ll not be wasting each other’s time.

  “First thing for you to know is Ben and Li-Xia were properly married under God’s great sky, which is as good as any church there is. I know because I married them according to the law of marriage at sea by a master mariner … so you’re no bastard and don’t let anyone say you are.”

  He reached for a flat, half-empty bottle in a rack by his side. “The last time I saw Ben was more years back than I care to tally. He was at the helm of Golden Sky with a cargo of guns and ammunition, and a crew of reprobates we scratched up from Aggie Gate’s mission.”

  Sing’s heart beat faster as she watched him, hungry for every word. “There wasn’t a clipper afloat on the China coast that could come close to Golden Sky with the wind behind her, and no master worthy of the name could handle a ship the way Ben Devereaux could handle his.” He paused for a second, his mind elsewhere. “But no sailing vessel can outrun a Japanese gunboat with a full head of steam. They blew us out of the water.”

  Indie stopped, twisting the cork from the rum bottle, adding a generous glug to the remains of his coffee. “Truth of it is, I never saw him again, dead or alive. I woke up in a Japanese prison camp and stayed there till they got tired of waiting for what was left of me to die. As soon as I had the strength, I took the only thing left of the Double Dragon Company, and that was China Sky.” He grinned. “Nobody wanted her, see? They had her tied up at the wrecker’s yard. I just jumped aboard and sailed away.”

  Indie paused to gesture at the saloon of seasoned wood and polished brass so lovingly preserved. “Your father built this lorcha from a derelict hulk he dragged from the Macao typhoon shelter. It took him two years and the work of ten strong men to restore her. She was his first command, and together we built twenty more, each one finer and faster than the one before. A Sky Class ship could leave even an opium clipper wallowing in her wake. We lost them all in the Pearl River blockade … all except China Sky.”

  Sing’s eyes were bright with tears as she reached across the table to offer her hand to him. He continued, “This boat was carved from your old man’s heart. It’s all I have left of him, except for this.” As if by magic, a heavy silver coin appeared between his fingers. He flipped it spinning in the air, catching it neatly, holding it up between thumb and forefinger for her inspection. “The famous Double Dragon dollar … There was a time when this was safer currency than any coin of any realm … valued more than Mexican silver or Spanish doubloons.”

  Sing felt a depth of gratitude for this man who an hour ago had been no more than a name that cost a drink or two. She wanted to tell him so, give him something in return. “Was there nothing more for you? You were my father’s partner… .” He was clearly ill at ease with sentiment, cutting her short before she could say more.

  “We started out like father and son … we grew to be partners, but we saw the world in different ways. I taught him all he knew of the river trade, but he never shared my bearings on how to set a course in life. I spent what was mine the way I wanted, while he saved his and built for the future.” Again, he tossed the silver coin high and caught it. “Where did it get him?

  “Anyway, he didn’t do everything right. He made some big mistakes, but big mistakes go with big ambitions.” The deep-set seams around Indie’s eyes crinkled at some long-forgotten thought. “He gambled too much, drank too much … but it was his fortune at stake and his body at risk.” Indie took a swig from the mug, looking Sing in the eye. “The only thing your old man didn’t do was womanize. Seems he had a notion that there was only one woman for him—the right one or none at all. I think he found her in Li-Xia.”

  Indie Da Silva seemed suddenly uncomfortable, as though he had said too much. He continued more quietly. “When your mother was taken from him, it changed everything. He searched like a man demented—which, when I think about it, he probably was. He had built his world around her and the child she carried … to him, you were the future.” Indie rolled the coin from knuckle to knuckle with practiced ease. “I can’t tell you exactly how Li-Xia was taken; too many stories have been told by too many people, and I was in Macao with a hole in my gut and a fire to put out. I know your father tried everything to find you. When there was nothing left for him in Hong Kong, he just closed everything down and went to Shanghai.

  “He left the Macao shipyard to me, but the Double Dragon was finished. We never said so or put it in writing, but we knew it was over.” There was a sadness in Indie’s eyes that made Sing want to comfort him. “I heard that Ben went about his Shanghai business in a way that should have seen him dead a dozen times over. So far as I know, the risks he took paid off and he was richer than ever … until he ran out of luck. It took a Japanese deck gun to get Ben and Golden Sky.”

  The coin transferred from one fist to another, its momentum hardly changed. “I played some high stakes for a year or two, but never really needed anything more than a deck beneath my feet and a good spread of canvas above me. There was a time when these would give you anything worth the taking. Those days are long gone, and Ben and I went with them, except for the trip from Soochow Creek to Formosa … the big voyage. He sent for me and I joined him. I think we both knew it could be our last trip together, and I guess he hoped it would be.”

  Indie Da Silva fell quiet for a moment, then went on in a softened tone that reached out to her with infinite care. “They say Chinese women don’t know love the way a g
wai-lo looks at it, but your mother loved Ben Devereaux as truly as any man could hope for. And he loved her the best way a man can … he saw past her good looks and showed her respect. She didn’t need anyone to teach her about pride; she already had a following sea on that. I don’t know the Chinese word for dignity, but she had a fair wind on that too. The same goes for courage … she was brave as any man alive and said less about it.”

  He spun the coin one last time and handed it to her. “I wish you well in your search for him. The Japanese kept no records … what they couldn’t use, they burned. Take this coin; it may bring you luck. If you find Ben, show it to him and he’ll know I gave it to you. I’d help you if I could, but I washed up on this beach ten years ago and don’t expect to leave it alive.” He grinned ruefully. “I have an understanding with the boat people … when I’m gone, they’ll tow me out to sea and put a torch to China Sky. The Tanka are people of their word.”

  He stood up in a way that said the talk was over. “But I think you know that from the old woman he called the Fish. Ben put a lot of faith in her, and I think what hope he had went with her when she took you. It’s a good thing she lived to see you grown; Ben would be happy about that.”

  He cast off the launch’s bowline, watching as Toby put the throttle in reverse to pull slowly away from China Sky.

  “One more thing you should know,” he called after them. “There was a witness to that wedding … a teacher. She taught Li-Xia how to be a lady. Her name, I think, was Bramble … Winifred Bramble. Englishwoman …”