Rainbow Bridge (38 page)

‘Shoo!’

The secretary left them. Ax and the General sat down.

Wang smiled with the air of someone welcoming an initiate into an exclusive brotherhood, the trial by ordeal, the ritual hazing forgotten. ‘You look “blown away”, Mr Preston.’

‘I’m overwhelmed.’

‘She’s astonishing, isn’t she. We should talk about Cumbria, and we will.’ He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. ‘But first there are things you should know, that I don’t think she will have told you, about Elder Sister’s life story.’

‘I’d be very interested and grateful, if you feel it’s appropriate.’

‘Of course. You won’t know much about how our leadership emerged, so I’ll begin at the beginning. At the time of the Tiananmen Square events of June 1989—’

Ax wondered if he was going to be shown an airbrush photo of Elder Sister at the pro-democracy rally: a beautiful child, dancing in the path of the tanks.

‘There were five soldiers who had become friends, although serving in different branches of the armed forces. They shared ideals, and an uneasiness about Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. They felt that “democracy” was an empty concept, “material wealth” a trivial goal. They despaired of the naïvete of the young protestors, but they were insulted by the way the military crackdown was handled. They rejected political dissidence—’

Wise choice, thought Ax. China in the nineties, not good ground for dissidents of any shade of opinion.

‘—and instead became the nucleus of a group bent on developing the role of the PLA in the free markets. Their dream was a Chinese approach to modernism, using the strengths of old China: Mao and Confucius. The leader of the five was called Ling Bao, you won’t have heard the name. He was handsome, well-connected, an adroit technocrat and a ruthless operator. He had married a young soldier from a humble military background, Li Xifeng: who had been talent-spotted and transferred, rather against her personal wishes, to a Political Works Troupe,
kongjun gewu tuan
; the song and dance troupe. She was a star dancer, but she studied military strategy, and the Classics, every spare moment. Her dream was to serve China as a first class officer in active service. She was deep in the confidence of the group, much trusted and loved. Ling Bao was more and more inclined to personal aggrandisement. Having used the 9
^th
Disarmament to purge his rivals, he was close to launching a military coup when he was killed in a firearm accident, along with several others.’

‘Okay.’

‘No,’ said Wang, dropping out of approved history mode. ‘You know nothing of Ling Bao’s coup because it didn’t happen. What did happen was not “okay”, but it was necessary. I was part of it, though not one of the five at that time. I remember a choking Beijing night, one of the last summers of the old capital, a horror atmosphere that made me think of my grandfather’s career in the sixties. Things are done in darkness. You look around the next day, and you resolve to make sure it wasn’t for nothing. That night, Li Xifeng, enthroned in our hearts, became our leader in fact. There was no coup. We became China, without violence, leaving the officials in place. Colonel Li Xifeng, whose promotion had been blocked by her husband, swiftly attained the rank of Five Star General. And she has led us to glory. Those of us who were with her from that beginning are her partners, we are the Five Generals. Two of us are here in England with her, Hu and I.’

By acclamation of the Praetorian Guard. Ax wondered if he’d ever hear the sordid details, he thought he’d never be nearer to the truth: the passionate devotion she commanded, the huge emotional charge diffusing outwards. The masses love her, because men like Wang have followed her to hell and she redeemed them, she made it worth the fall—

‘In a sense, Elder Sister sees herself as your disciple, Ax. She regards you as a close friend: which makes it appropriate for me to tell you—’

Wang took up a battered folder, handling it like a sacred relic: chose an item from its contents, and passed it across the desk. No grisly statistics this time. The face of the woman he’d just met leapt out from a laminated sheet of newsprint: a young dancer with a radiant smile, caught in pirouette, long fake flaxen locks flying.

‘That is Li Xifeng, as the principal dancer in a production of “The White-Haired Girl”, in 1987. It’s a revolutionary tale based on a legend of a white-haired female immortal; very popular in China. Here she is again, at around the same time.’ The bright face subdued, circled, in the back row of a stage full of suits and uniforms; he recognised Deng Xiaoping at the podium. ‘She was then in her twenties. Earlier records are hard to trace, but here is a school photo, this is 1970.’ Black and white, girls and boys in uniform a handsome walled garden. This time the face was too tiny and blurred to be recognisable, but all the children had armbands, and each of them was holding up the same small book. He was astonished, though he’d known there must be something like this—

‘Elder Sister is a contemporary of your
grandfather
?’

‘Thereabouts. In China we have a treatment for ageing, I believe it cleanses the cells of free radicals, reverses the shortening of telomeres, some such combination.’ Wang shrugged. ‘I don’t know the scientific formula. It’s called “Acala”, it restores youth, and extends life perhaps indefinitely. The Standing Committee has decided that immortality is to be awarded rarely, discreetly, in special cases. So far Elder Sister is the only person who has been singled out for the august burden.’

‘I see.’

‘I’m telling you this not to forestall your curiosity, although that’s a factor, but because it will help you to understand her. The Sphere needs stability. We need her to be with us for a long, long time, but it isn’t anything she sought.’

Ax nodded. The White-Haired Girl’s fresh, joyous smile shone up at him. ‘Elder Sister told me she has a grown-up son, back in Xi’an. Is he a soldier too?’

‘Ke’ai has done well in his career.’

And that’s the crown prince dismissed.

‘There’s one other thing,’ said Wang, after a pause, ‘that you should know, and never mention. Ling Bao was a typical bad lot, among the spoilt males of his day. He was a tall, handsome, “charismatic” bully, afraid of Xifeng’s obvious superiority. He was pathologically unfaithful, and he beat her. It left bitter scars.’

‘Ah.’

‘I see you understand me. Mr Pender should continue to keep a low profile. In fact it’s best if both your partners keep a low profile.’

No explanation for why Fiorinda should stay in the background, and none was necessary. That’s absolutely fine, thought Ax. That suits us very well.

The two men sat in silence.

‘You know, in China we have a gender imbalance.’

‘It gets talked about.’

‘I can imagine. Leave aside the prurient speculation, it’s true that it has changed us. We have had an epidemic of ladyboys, brought up starved of femininity, desperate to become women; and how can I put this? Chinese women, on the other hand, are strong in a reliable, forthright, practical way. One knows that these are desirable qualities, but a born woman of
feminine
power is a very precious treasure.’

‘You use the word power as if you mean beauty.’

‘Her power is beauty,’ said Wang, intensely. ‘It is the greatest beauty. Mr Preston, make no mistake. Elder Sister is
not
a figurehead.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

He left Wang and waited in the grand solar for his driver; glad of the respite. He’d been delivered to Elder Sister’s quarters and then to Rivermead Palace in a car with shaded windows. Now he stared through the noble expanse of glass, blind with storm, and could see nothing. No loss: he didn’t want to know what had been done out there. Once upon a time there was a general called Ling Bao, you won’t have heard the name… A man who would be king, written out of history; if he ever existed. So many veils, you know you’ll never reach the end of them, you’re scrabbling at the hems of infinity, it all spins away from you. I must get out of this shit, he thought. I will seriously lose my mind… Someone approached with a heavy tread from the direction of Wang’s office: a woman, round-faced, sixtyish, don’t-care hair, wearing the olive-green uniform with insouciant, middle-aged frumpiness.

Good God, maybe this is the real Elder Sister, stripped bare—

The woman sat down with a thump. She held a large, gift-wrapped parcel. ‘Mr Preston? Elder Sister asked me to give you these, for the baby.’

She spoke
putonghua
, augh, thought I was off duty: he struggled for the simplest phrases. ‘Oh, thank you, ah, thank Elder Sister. How very kind.’

Thank God he’d remembered to bring a present. It’s vital to observe the social niceties and damned difficult to keep them in mind, when from your perspective it’s a tea-party in a shark tank. ‘Elder Sister wanted me to ask you,’ continued the frumpy woman (she reminded him of Ingrid, Fiorinda’s dresser in the glory days. Ingrid had been no frump, but he felt the same watchdog disapproval for all male hangers-on).

Me, stage-door Johnnie.

‘After your trip to “Cumbria”, when you visit
Madame
again—’

‘Yes?’

‘Could it be the straight half of Mr Preston?’

‘Oh… Okay, I think that could be arranged.’

She dumped the parcel with sublime rudeness and tromped off. Ax was considerably startled, but he had to admit he was not surprised.

Fiorinda laid out the loot, on the bank under the camellia hedge. The weather was warm and sunny, which made a pleasant fucking change. The Chinese baby clothes were entrancing, especially the hats. She arranged outfits, the little green-lined scarlet jacket with the yellow trousers, and the stripy hat…

‘She’s really old.’

‘Yeah, pushing seventy or so, according to the evidence I was shown.’

‘But she looks like fifteen-going-on-thirty, is a dazzling dancer, and she has a big crush on Ax Preston. What a lucky boy you are.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘She’s not reckless or invulnerable, she’s just a frontline commander, who has a grown up son at home. She does not suspect Sage of being the Neurobomb, she treats him like dogdirt because her husband was a wife beater and a sex addict, and she’s heard about Sage being king of the one night stand and hitting Mary.’

‘You’ve got it.’

Ax was lying curled around the baby. He tickled her with a grass blade, she batted it and swiped for his face. Coz liked pulling noses, which was getting to be a hazard. She had sharp claws, and resented having them snipped. Min admired the fashion show, occasionally reaching out a covetous paw to pat a ribbon or a bright shiny button. He still had his collector’s instinct: he hid things.

‘And she takes a drug, which is not available to anyone else, that keeps her immortally young. Hm.’ Fiorinda sat back on her heels, contemplating an array of flat babies, invisible except for their charming clothes. ‘Remember we used to talk about the Neurobomb Cold War? Maybe this is it. We don’t know, they don’t know. We daren’t try to find out which of us has the Bomb, we dare not attack each other, so it’s stalemate. Mutually Assured Destruction.’

‘I wish I could have brought you better news.’

‘I didn’t think you were going to come back with our freedom in your pocket.’

She sighed. ‘And ooh, nearly forgot, this female emperor wants you for her male concubine. Hopefully a one-night-stand.’

Ouch. ‘The proposition was fairly direct,’ said Ax, cautiously.

He got an old-fashioned look, as the English say. ‘And you’re not averse to the idea, so don’t bullshit me. Well, I can see you better not say no.’

She left the fashion show and crouched over him and Coz, her body a shield, a roof over their heads. ‘Ax, Ax, have your night out, sweetheart: but
I know what I’m doing
is such famous last words. Are you sure you’re not jumping into a tiger pit? She’s had my father’s children killed. We don’t know what she is.’

There had in the past been an actual incident involving tigers in a pit, which Ax was never going to live down.

‘I’m not in that kind of danger.’

‘Eh. Eh.
Eh
.’

‘All right, all right, Miss Pushy. I am not stealing him, I am
sharing
him.’

‘She doesn’t know that word yet.’

Fiorinda lay down. Min climbed over Ax’s side and made space for himself beside the baby, purring firmly. Ax had discovered that that Min was hopelessly flawed, according to Bengal Cat Standards, as he had tufted ears. This gave him great satisfaction, not because he was scared of that mythical breeder (know the difference between paranoia and reality, thanks), but because it proved Pigtail was a wanker. ‘I wonder exactly what happened on their night of the long knives. Must’ve been rough: Wang has a burden of guilt, that’s for sure. Honourable professional soldiers hate to commit civilian atrocities, it screws them up.’

‘I wonder what kind of bloke the dastardly Ling Bao really was.’

‘The victors wield the airbrush.’

They thought of the darkness that had closed over vivid scenes in their own past. How swiftly the world forgets, and you feel an idiot for remembering who did what to whom, wow, a whole decade ago. ‘You didn’t tell her Elder Sister sounds like Big Brother, which recalls to our ancient culture a fable of evil Stalinist domination?’

‘Not me. Not one Lennonism passed my lips, not likely.’

‘Did you ask about Keith Utamore?’

Keith was a Japanese-ethnic Oz rock journalist, who’d been a friend to them in prison. Trapped in England by the invasion, he’d been arrested and ‘repatriated’ to Guangdong. ‘I asked. She said, let me get this right, “The Japanese are inveterate copycats. They have always wanted to be Chinese, now they are Chinese. What’s wrong with that?”’

‘You make her sound like a real charmer.’

‘She
is
, in fact, a real charmer.’

‘Hm.’

A chaffinch called,
pink, pink
. Fresh beech leaves shimmered overhead: Coz reached for them, and suddenly wailed. Baby wants to climb trees, baby wants to run and jump like Min. Soon, soon enough, baby. Don’t wish your life away.

‘Wouldn’t it be great to stay here all summer,’ sighed Fiorinda.