The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure (81 page)

Major Lin bowed curtly, a sour expression on his face. ‘You remind me as ever of the gratitude I owe you, Da Ren.'

‘You deserve it, and more. Now, did you tell that wicked woman that Fan Yimei was to move to the private quarters with the foreigners? She understands our need to have someone we can implicitly trust to report on their activities.'

‘I told her, Da Ren, but she said she wanted more money.'

‘She always wants money, Major. That is why we can rely on her.' He yawned. ‘I really shouldn't have taken that opium. It makes me lethargic. I suppose I must complete my business with the foreigners now. Is the woman ready to take us?'

‘She and her son.'

‘The Boxer captain? What an honour. It is remarkable how easily the most unlikely people can be bought. I find it amusing that our foreign devils are being protected by the Harmonious Fists. Fan Yimei, thank you for your hospitality. You will no doubt wish to pack some things before we move you to other quarters.'

*   *   *

They were still standing in the gallery when the Mandarin, Major Lin, Fan Yimei and Ren Ren reached the top of the stairs. The Mandarin was draped in a dark cloak and hood presumably to prevent recognition should there be a chance encounter with any of Iron Man's followers on the lower floors, but both Henry and Helen Frances knew him immediately by his confident, rolling stride. He paused when he saw them, acknowledging their presence with a slight incline of his cowled head. Mother Liu was waiting for him at the door of her room. She bowed unctuously, requesting that he enter and refresh himself with a cup of tea. He nodded curtly, and went inside, followed by the others. The door closed and the gallery was still again.

Helen Frances could feel Henry's hand closing over hers, willing her to be strong. Now that the moment had come, however, she did not feel particularly scared, although she was aware that she was breathing faster, and there was an empty feeling in her stomach, and—this shocked her—a tingling sensation, of anticipation, in her loins. She realised that she had not only accepted what would happen to her but, in a perverse way, was excited by the prospect. She had a sudden memory of the Mandarin as he had been on the day of the bear hunt, resplendent in his armour, hot and bloody and triumphant after his kill, virile and strong, a man of power. She had never really thought of him as a man before. He had been an alien presence, with hooded, cruel eyes, and flat Mongoloid features, a storybook villain, like Aladdin's wicked uncle in the pantomime, and he was old, with a curled, grey queue, and, like all Chinese, he smelt of musty pork—but now she wondered what it would be like to be enclosed in his arms. Oh, she had come a long way from her convent school. That wicked curiosity of hers, which had always been her undoing. Guiltily she clutched at Henry, burying her head in his chest, pressing herself against him.

‘It'll be all right,' he said uselessly, a slight choke in his voice that she had not heard before.

‘I love you,' she pleaded. ‘I love you,' as if by saying the words she could extinguish the betrayal she contemplated in her mind.

Mother Liu, followed by Fan Yimei, was making her way slowly down the corridor towards them.

Henry translated for Helen Frances. They had prepared a hot bath for her. She should go with them now. They would bathe her and dress her. Before long the Mandarin would come to her room.

She felt his arm tighten round her waist, steadying her. Mother Liu simpered up at her, an arch expression in her cunning eyes. ‘What's she saying?' Helen Frances whispered.

‘She's congratulating you on your good fortune,' said Henry. ‘Apparently the Mandarin has a reputation as a mighty lover.'

‘Lucky me,' said Helen Frances.

‘You asked,' he said quietly.

Mother Liu gestured and the slim figure of Fan Yimei, who had been waiting a few paces behind her, moved elegantly to Helen Frances's side. There was something familiar about this graceful girl in the blue and red silk gown—the stillness of her carriage, the serenity of her features. Helen Frances remembered the mysterious, sad-eyed creature whom she had glimpsed in the pavilion opposite them in those happier days when a more innocent version of herself had come trysting here with Henry.

‘This is Fan Yimei,' Henry was translating. ‘She'll help you with your bath.'

‘You know her, don't you?' said Helen Frances. There was something in the way he was looking at her—and how the girl kept her eyes fixed on the wooden floor.

‘Oh, Helen Frances, let's just get it over with,' said Henry, letting her go.

She kissed his cheek. Fan Yimei was waiting quietly. Helen Frances, head erect and shoulders back, followed her down the hall.

Henry watched her go. Mother Liu observed him sardonically. ‘Proud, superior Ma Na Si. Noble, virtuous Ma Na Si, who conspired against me and stole the foreign boy away. You and that bitch Fan Yimei thought you could change fate. Did you see the boy die in the square yesterday? Did you change fate after all? And now I see you pimping that woman of yours, as if you were Mother Liu herself selling another chicken. Are you changing Fate still, Ma Na Si? Or are you yourself not just a little like Mother Liu—that poor old woman—doing what she has to do to survive?'

‘I can do without your philosophy,' growled Henry.

Mother Liu laughed. ‘I'm no philosopher, Ma Na Si. All I do is sell clouds and rain. As you are doing. I hope that you have secured a fair price from the da ren for his hour with your chicken. Are you sure that you will get your reward? You'd be surprised how many of my customers think they can dip their jade spoon into the bowl and leave without paying. Don't take it to heart, Ma Na Si. Just a friendly tip from someone in the same trade. This is such an uncertain world.'

She threw this last sally over her shoulder as she hobbled back along the corridor to her room, her shoulder shaking with laughter.

*   *   *

Helen Frances lay drowsily on a mat while Fan Yimei rubbed sweet-smelling oil on her back and limbs. Her body was still tingling from the bath. She had been embarrassed at first to strip in front of Fan Yimei, and even more so when the Chinese girl had taken off her own robe and joined her in the wooden tub. Her white, freckled body seemed coarse when compared to Fan Yimei's smooth, olive skin, and she did not know where to look or put her hands—but Fan Yimei had been sensitive to her discomfort. Her sad eyes had contemplated the English woman calmly, gesturing to her to lie back and relax. She had waited patiently as the heat of the water had had its soothing effect, easing Helen Frances's tension and suffusing her body with a warm, languorous glow. Fan Yimei allowed her to soak, and dream. Then, gently, she had taken her hands, indicating that she should stand. Like a nurse bathing a child, she had ladled hot water over her skin and gently soaped her from head to toe. Helen Frances was by now lost in the sensual experience and did as she was told, luxuriating as more hot water was poured over her and she was soaped again. This time Fan Yimei scraped off the suds with a wooden spatula, and Helen Frances felt a painful yet pleasurable tingle where the wood grazed her skin. Taking her hand Fan Yimei helped her out of the tub. She experienced a shock as Fan Yimei upended a bucket of cold water over her head, but afterwards she realised that she had never in her life felt so fresh or clean. Fan Yimei gave her a towel and gestured her to a stool. With another towel Fan Yimei dried her hair, leaving it as a turban on her head; then she took her hand and led her through a side door into the adjoining bedroom. Here, lying on a mat, she was oiled and massaged, the slight girl at one point walking on her back, expertly stretching the vertebrae with her tiny, lotus feet; Helen Frances felt the stumps in their wet bandages gently pressuring beneath her skin like a child's knuckles pushing through a sponge. She had been disgusted by the idea of bound feet in the past, but now she only wondered how Fan Yimei could keep her balance on such thin points. She accepted the strangeness, because in a deep part of her she had already surrendered to these new, pleasurable sensations. She knew that this was an elaborate ritual to ready her for the Mandarin's pleasure, that Beauty was being prepared for the Beast, but she no longer cared. She felt Fan Yimei's soft hands spreading the oil on her shoulders, and heard herself sigh with content.

Fan Yimei helped her into a loose robe of thin green silk, and combed her hair so that it hung in a fiery red cascade down her back. Helen Frances watched in the little mirror as the Chinese girl applied white powder and rouge to her cheeks, vermilion to her lips, blue shade to her eyelids. She could hardly contain her surprise and wonder as the features of the convent girl transformed into those of a courtesan before her eyes. She had never imagined that she could be so beautiful. She stared at the stranger she had become. Gently Fan Yimei opened the front of her robe and she felt a tickling sensation as the girl applied rouge to her nipples. From a drawer Fan Yimei brought out a necklace of amber beads and hung it so that it fell into the cleft of her breasts. Helen Frances fingered them and felt the cool stone. The strange painted image in the mirror that was her and not her smiled, then started. In the grave reflection of Fan Yimei behind her she saw tears welling in the corners of the girl's soft eyes. Helen Frances turned on her stool and looked up at her. Hesitantly she grasped her hand. ‘I'll be all right,' she said in English, then in her faltering Chinese:
‘Wo—hen hao.'

‘
Shi, nin hen hao, hen mei. Nanguai
Ma Na Si
zhemma ai nin
.' Fan Yimei spoke softly, but Helen Frances could not understand her. Did
mei
mean beautiful? And was Ma Na Si Manners? And surely
ai
was love?

‘I don't understand,' she whispered.

‘Shi, nin bu dong.'
Fan Yimei leaned forward. Impulsively she kissed Helen Frances on the forehead.
‘Zheige xinku shijie—ni ye kelian. Lai!'
she added. ‘Come!' Helen Frances understood the last instruction, and she would have understood anyway, for Fan Yimei was pointing at the bed. It was time.

*   *   *

‘What the devil did he mean, he's glad I've kept to my bargain?' the doctor exploded, when the Mandarin had left his room. ‘What choice did I have? Does he expect my gratitude for not murdering my family? What bargain is this, Manners? Is there something you haven't told us?'

Manners sat uncomfortably on the chair, looking at the carpet. Nellie held the children on the bed and kept her silence. The doctor, dishevelled and unshaven, was pacing the little room. He had not slept since the massacre of the previous afternoon. To his family's concern he had lain frozen on the floor in a rigid attitude of prayer, refusing food or drink or any comfort that Nellie and the children had tried to give him. He had only roused himself when the Mandarin, with Henry, had entered his room; but he had not responded to the hearty greeting and he had avoided the bearlike embrace and turned away his head when the Mandarin had spoken to him. ‘You can tell this man—this monster—that I don't converse with murderers,' he had said shrilly to Henry in English. Henry had not translated, but the Mandarin had appeared to understand.

‘Yes, he is sad for the fate of his fellows,' the Mandarin had nodded, ‘and, of course, for now he blames me. There will be time in the future for us to talk when he has considered these things. The fact that he has agreed to my bargain—which affords me double satisfaction by the way: first, for the transient pleasure it is about to afford me, second, for the longer-lasting virtue that it has preserved my friend from a terrible death—makes me think that, at bottom, he is a practical man. Like you and I, Ma Na Si. Yes, he will come round to me in time, and we will be friends again.

‘For now I have merely come to thank my dear friend for conceding so gracefully on the philosophical challenge with which I have presented to him. He has in this instance gracefully accepted defeat, like a chess master acknowledging a superior gambit. I am rewarded by the preservation of his own life—which I had unjustly feared he might have thrown away on a point of useless principle—and, of course, for the preservation of the fox-headed lady. That was a more difficult play, perhaps, and one on which I thought I might lose the game—but your good sense prevailed, Daifu. Thank you. That is more important to me than my physical reward.'

‘You'll kindly tell this man that I don't understand a word he's talking about and that he's not welcome here, whether he thinks he's saved our lives or not,' said the doctor angrily, again in English.

‘I think he has saved our lives, Edward,' said Nellie quietly. ‘Monster that he is, we are still in his power. Might it not be wiser to show him some respect?'

‘Not after the horrors of yesterday, woman. I will no longer compromise with evil. Manners, I say again, he is not welcome here.'

The Mandarin had been watching this exchange shrewdly. ‘There is no need for you to translate, Ma Na Si. It seems that on this occasion it is the woman who is showing more sense than the man. But that is not strange. Women, for all their frailty, understand necessity better than us men. I see that the doctor is still blessed, or cursed, by his complicated ideals. That is good. There is meat for more debate in the future. For now, I will thank him for honouring the most sensible bargain he has made. Stay here with him, Ma Na Si. You know where I will be. Of course, my thanks go very much to you as well. You have been exquisitely accommodating, as a go-between.'

He had left, and the room seemed smaller in his absence, though the tension remained.

Henry lifted his head and looked the doctor in the eyes. ‘I don't know what he means by a bargain,' he lied, ‘beyond the choice you rightly made of leaving the mission to save your family. And Helen Frances,' he added bitterly.