A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar

by Suzanne Joinson

  As Father grew weaker she talked of capturing the transformation of his body from flesh into spirit and then Mother even agreed to a dealer visiting from London. In he came, with his cases, an elderly German gentleman, placing his various photographic models across the dining-room table as if precious jewels, emitting a long-drawn-out whistle-wheeze each time he exhaled. His assistant, I remember, was a squat piggish man called Jones (I don’t recall the name of the dealer) who winked at me as he polished lenses and pointed to each model as the elderly man talked through the various components of the folding vest cameras. The Leica was a limited edition, a prototype, extremely technically advanced; needless to say the most expensive. Lizzie pretended to be interested in the inferior models, but she had already seen it, already wanted it. Aunt Cicely was mortified, and not just at having a German in the house, but Mother was too faded and shrunk with exhaustion at that stage to argue so agreed, with a wave of her small pale hand, to the purchase of the most expensive model on the table that had the advantage of being used with or without a tripod – the perfect thing for a traveller.

  I remember watching this new zealous Lizzie fluttering about Father’s bed, examining the quality of the light, impervious to his pain.

  ‘Where did she catch it?’ Mother asked the room at large in Southsea. Ours is a family of gentle Anglicans with a strong Fabian streak of educationalist reform; Mother is a believer in suffrage for women and progress in general.

  ‘An Anglican is one thing,’ I remember her saying, ‘but an evangelist is another.’

  The day Father died the afternoon light was thin, as if worn down in anticipation of his departure. Or perhaps it was a trick to be played on Lizzie’s photography. Aunt Cicely cried unprettily into her handkerchief but Mother had more restraint, simply holding his hand and rubbing at his gold wedding ring with her finger. I stood at the door as quietly as I could, leaning my head against the oak panel. Lizzie fretted with the aperture on the camera at the end of the bed and the shutter click-clacked as her finger repeatedly pushed at the button. Father was barely there. He hadn’t spoken for a fortnight, he certainly hadn’t recognised us for perhaps a month; for weeks he sang to the stars and the nurse gave him laudanum. What made me the angriest was that it was just like Lizzie to steal that moment from him and make it her own.

  Millicent called out to me as I moved away with Ai-Lien. She had obviously asked me a question. She repeated it.

  ‘You do not like the desert, Eva?’ She was staring at me and I blushed.

  ‘I know it’s obvious to say,’ I said, ‘but the immensity of it can be –’

  ‘Yes,’ Millicent said, patronising and dismissive now, ‘it has that effect.’

  ‘I think Lizzie feels it too, I don’t think we expected the desert to quite –’

  ‘Oh, I think Lizzie understands the fertile nature of the work we can achieve in a Mission here. She herself has mentioned the signs to me. These wretched Moslem women huddled in their back-rooms for one.’ She said it loudly, fearless of being overheard. Ai-Lien’s cry grew louder, a plea to an unknown god; these cries pushed through me and were impossible to ignore.

  ‘Are you sure this is where we should stay?’

  ‘It is here that our desert pathway to God must be laid.’ Millicent sat upright, her voice pompous. ‘It is our responsibility, Evangeline, to find and root out the hidden wells of ignorance and superstition. This house will suit us, I am sure. We will set up our Mission here. There is just one problem.’

  Millicent glanced at Mohammed who, along with his male companions, was smoking a long-necked pipe.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s believed to be haunted by djinns.’ Millicent smiled her smile reserved for the mention of idols, idolatry and witchcraft.

  ‘Djinns?’ The baby – Ai-Lien – abandoned herself to her crying, her small head growing hot. I shifted her on to my chest; it was like embracing a cat that simply wants to die.

  ‘Yes. Mah believes it is haunted by a troublesome spirit who gives a twisted face to everyone who lives in it. But he said that as we are Christians we are not afraid of evil spirits, so we might consider it.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Apparently the landlord and his sister have crooked faces. I reminded him that God is stronger than their spirits, more powerful than their numerous idols.’

  ‘I shouldn’t like to wake up with a crooked face.’

  Millicent smiled at me, as if she had reached out and taken something I had offered her.

  ‘Oh, I think the chances of that are very remote.’

  May 7th

  This morning a strange incident: Suheir, Mohammed’s third wife, a sulking, brooding woman of about thirty years old who hasn’t spoken to any of us directly, and wears dark, covered abayas, suddenly ran towards Ai-Lien just as the wet-nurse had finished feeding her and attempted to pull her out of the old woman’s arms. Rami was carrying a vat of vinegar through the courtyard when this happened. She put the vat down and began to shout at Suheir, who then collapsed on to the floor, sobbing, and pushing her hands out in front of her. I ran over and took Ai-Lien who began to cry.

  Rami shouted at Suheir who continued wailing. She crawled across the courtyard floor towards me, pointing at Ai-Lien, and actually began to rasp at my feet with her hands. Then, in front of us all, Rami struck Suheir across the face with her hand, and along with one of the daughters, pulled her away. Millicent later discovered that Suheir has been unable to bear her own child with Mohammed. I haven’t seen Suheir since, I don’t know what they’ve done with her.

  I hold Ai-Lien very close. Strange, vulnerable creature. I wish I could feed her milk myself. The repetition is wearing: Rami helps me to bathe her – she has taught me how to spread warm oil on her, how to rub Ai-Lien’s skin all over with it and squeeze her limbs until she is lulled into sleep – then all too soon she is awake. I feed her, clean her, wipe her, dab-dab with water, rub and sway her to sleep. It runs in a loop, through the day and night and the tiredness I am feeling is very different from that of travelling fatigue, it’s a rocked-in sleepless hypnotism of the bones. We speak through mime, like children, and it works well enough.

  Lizzie is suffering. Millicent is ignoring her. For the first time, since leaving Victoria Station, Millicent’s eyes are focused elsewhere. She is like a queen, the way she conveys her attention and withdraws it. Now Millicent sits with Khadega, speaking in Russian.

  May 8th

  At last – an outing for my bicycle. Preparations are under way for our move to the Pavilion House and a visit to the souq was permitted. We took the Roadster to carry our supplies and what a caravan we made: myself, two Chinese guards, Millicent, Lizzie and one of Mohammed’s men whose task it was to guide and protect us. Khadega wanted to come but Mohammed forbade it. Ai-Lien was left safely in the house with Rami.

  The streets are wide and dusty at first but quickly become narrower. Birdcages hang in many of the doorways, with red and yellow chaffinches inside singing for their lives. There are birds stripped of their feathers and rammed on to spikes for roasting, and swarms of starlings living in crevices in the rooftops, and leather-skinned men selling falcons on the streets. Lizzie and I tried to minimise attention by covering our hair with light brown veils given to us by Rami, but despite using pins to secure them, neither of us could stop the veils from slipping about our heads. Our ‘disguise’ is therefore useless.

  ‘Smell it, the rancid stench of these wasteful lost souls,’ Millicent shouted out as we passed men hacking into mutton carcasses. To Millicent, the inhabitants of these foul bazaar alleyways are stinking in their own skin and a disgraceful waste. It is our role to save and clean them. I looked away from them, these clusters of men squatting outside dark entrances to copperware shops with moulded basins and cut pieces of metal under their feet. They did not say anything to us, but stopped their work to watch as we passed, their eyes on the wheels of the bicycle as I pushed it.

  We timed our arrival with t
he lessening of the afternoon heat and as we moved deeper into the maze, the bazaar came to life. The Chinese guards weren’t particularly concerned about watching us and agreed with Mohammed’s man that they would remain at a tea stall until we returned. Our sullen guide then led us into the sand-coloured alleyways, walking quickly so that it was a terror for us to keep up with his pace. Mutton carcasses hung in a row along most of one street. I watched a boy dip chunks of the meat into a bowl of yellow paste and then poke the pieces of flesh on to a kebab spike, just as Rami did in the inn. Beside him was a vast clay oven with a giant lid which greedily devoured a constant flow of wood and dung into its flames.

  As we wound along the streets Millicent gesticulated and pointed at the dark-eyed men watching us from doorways.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘they are ripe for our taming!’ A gaggle of small boys had accumulated behind us and ran around our ankles, tugging at our clothes.

  ‘What are they saying?’

  Lizzie answered, ‘They are calling us “red monkey, red monkey face”.’

  A thin road led us past the impressive Id Kah Mosque with its gardens full of glorious yellow roses. We crossed the square in front of the mosque where a fruit market was in full fettle, its stalls precariously piled with yellow globe melons, and pyramids of onions and apricots. Donkey carts were laden with glittering-green water-melons. We entered an even narrower complex of roads, eventually arriving at the bakery quarter where ancient brick bread ovens glowered from walls and the sticky smell of sweet dough filled the air. Our guide took us to the stall that sold flour in sacks of varying sizes. The merchant was a large man, in contrast to most of the natives here, and white flour dust coated his untidy moustache. He looked nonplussed at the arrival of us European women.

  How unreal it felt, to be standing in the middle of the hustling bazaar as Millicent began negotiations. Lizzie nudged me and pointed into the crowd. A European man, dressed in clerical black robes, with a large, thick belt and a felt black hat, was pecking his way through the crowds, carrying a pile of papers under his arms. He cut a queer figure, with a rough-looking beard, and a moustache like an animal upon his face. When he saw us he stopped and looked shocked. He must not have known of our presence in the city because he hesitated before running towards us in a chicken-like flap, shedding papers and calling greetings in Italian. Millicent turned round and there was much clapping of hands and kissing of cheeks as Lizzie and I stood waiting, like children, until Millicent finally thought to introduce us to the city’s only other European resident, the Italian priest, Father Don Carlo D’Antoni.

  ‘Father lives in the centre of the old Mohammedan city,’ Millicent said, ‘where he is working on a significant translation work. I have heard of you Father, but I did not know whether you were alive, or here, or gone.’

  ‘Oh, as you can see, I live on,’ Father Don Carlo bowed and smiled at Millicent, and then at us.

  ‘Father dear, it is such a pleasure to meet you,’ Lizzie said. I nodded too. His narrow face examined us as we examined him and if one can get past his alarming moustache then one can see that his eyebrows are thick and much blacker than his beard which is patched here and there with grey. Underneath all of that hair it is just possible to glimpse that he has quite the dirtiest face imaginable, with grooves of dust well settled into its creases.

  ‘You must come to my house now,’ he said in heavily accented English. ‘It is humble, but there will be peace from these hands and these eyes.’ He shooed at children who were jumping at Lizzie and me, trying to reach our hair. In fluent-sounding Turki he negotiated with Mohammed’s man who unwillingly crept away. We followed the priest through the crowds, excited to have found a fellow European in this sea of natives.

  Father Don Carlo’s home is a single room above a knife souq where the tables are covered with blades, swords and small sharp knives with handles carved from bone. It is a simple bachelor room with a stove for cooking, a bed for sleeping, a bucket for his toilet, an upturned crate for a writing desk, and an altar made out of a stool covered with a rag of red cloth, topped with two candles, a rosary and a very filthy framed picture of the Madonna. There was no water, tea, nor refreshments, just several bottles of his self-brewed communion wine, and for want of something wet in our mouths Lizzie and I each accepted a dirty, slightly broken cup of wine. We were forced to sit on the floor as we sipped. Millicent and Don Carlo began to talk in fast fluent Latin and then French.

  ‘Look at them,’ Millicent said, switching abruptly to English, standing at Father Don Carlo’s papered window, ‘terrified souls.’ The priest nodded, smiling.

  ‘Father Don Carlo informs me that he has achieved many conversions. He is doing magnificent work for the Italian church.’ Millicent’s curled hair had mostly released itself from her usual tight bun and was illuminated in the light, as if illustrating her thoughts externally. The wine was rancid. I put mine to one side but the priest and Millicent drank cheerfully, and continued to do so. Before long, their conversation became a performance for us, as if they were long-acquainted dance partners, waltzing about the room as they spoke, waving arms, flipping through languages like fishes in a stream.

  ‘It is not easy, we have many enemies,’ the priest said. ‘Marshall Feng is rallying trouble. This region is always close to flames.’

  ‘Who is Marshall Feng?’ Lizzie asked as she picked up the empty wine cups and went to place them on the altar, seemed to think better of it, and set them back down on the floor.

  ‘A native Christian, converted as a child by American Protestants. Famous’, Millicent said, ‘for mass baptisms with a fire hose.’

  ‘Mohammedan feeling is growing stronger these days, as the General knows well. This is why he has banned the publication of Turki-language materials,’ the priest said. He was standing next to his crate which was covered with papers and books arranged in unreliable-looking piles. ‘Come.’

  We followed him out of his room along a tight, foul-smelling corridor to a staircase at the end of the ancient building which seemed to be half made from the pink adobe clay, half from rotten wood. We climbed the Jacob’s ladder and emerged like a miracle on to the roof of the building, from where we could see a spread of rooftops stretching out across the Old Town. It was like rising from hibernation, into the full pelt of the powerful sun. A shelter had been erected along the south edge of the roof terrace and underneath it were a number of cages made from poplar branches. The priest walked towards them, and we followed, keen to get out of the glare. The cages were filled with pigeons. They rustled and chucked and as the priest came close, their cooing grew deeper and louder.

  ‘The atmosphere is not unlike the build-up to the Boxer Rebellion,’ Father said, but almost more to his pigeons than to us.

  ‘What beautiful birds, Father.’ Lizzie knelt down and began to whisper softly into the cages. As children, Lizzie and I avidly studied our father’s Guide to Pigeons and Doves of the World and had taught each other the specific voices: the quiet but far-carrying kor-wuu of the cuckoo dove, the kroookkrrooooo coo-coo-coo of the mourning collared dove. Lizzie and I looked at each other and smiled.

  ‘Can you remember any of it, Lizzie?’

  ‘The Chinese spotted dove and its “mournful croo crook croo” is the only one I remember,’ she said. She whispered, ‘coo coo cococo’ into the cages and was rewarded with a hustle and a warbling response.

  ‘The diamond dove has a doodle-doo-doo,’ I remembered.

  ‘When I first came here,’ the priest said in English as he opened one of the cages and carefully brought out a delicate-necked grey pigeon which sat well-trained on his arm, ‘during the Boxer times, I kept hearing a sound in the sky, a beautiful strain, like a harp.’

  He stroked the wings and ran his fingers along the shimmering-grey neck. Millicent lit a cigarette. Spread below us was the vast, pink-dust Old Town. It looked like an insect mound, or a child’s city made from clay or earth.

  ‘I did not understand what this
melodious sound was,’ Father Don Carlo continued, ‘but after being here in Kashgar for perhaps a year, I realised that the sound came from the air and would fade away, like heavenly music.’ His hands gently continued to stroke the feathers of the sleepy pigeon on his arm.

  ‘I even began to wonder if it was a celestial crowd singing to me, but then I met a man who explained to me the unusual Kashgar tradition of breeding pigeons. They tie light reed-pipes to the longer tails of some of the bigger pigeons, so that when they fly, when they swoop suddenly up or down in the air, you can hear these strange tunes come from the sky.’

  ‘How lovely.’ Lizzie had walked to the edge of the roof which had no wall, but simply a drop. She held the Leica to her eye to take photographs of the toy-town below us. I felt it imperative that I understand the political situation, for the purposes of my Guide, but I was struggling. The bicycle was left at the back of the souq and I was also worrying about thieves.

  ‘So, this Marshall Feng, why does he cause you trouble, Father?’

  ‘He has been given official sanction for the Christian Church on the borderlands, but it is not a comfortable arrangement.’ Father Don Carlo’s face grew blotches of purple red as he spoke.

  ‘Why is that, Father?’

  ‘The natives here resent his ways and are suspicious of his motives, making the work of conversion even more difficult for me and no doubt for you, too, when your Mission is established.’

  ‘Who is suspicious of him, Father?’

  ‘Everyone. He takes a political approach you see,’ the priest spoke in a calm, soft voice, as if lulling the pigeon on his arm. ‘He is less concerned with souls than with halting the opium trade which has been by far the most fruitful export trade in this area.’

  Millicent scratched her cheek; she couldn’t have been less interested in the discussion.