Shanghai

Read Shanghai Online

Authors: David Rotenberg

BOOK: Shanghai
5.69Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

PENGUIN CANADA

SHANGHAI

 

DAVID ROTENBERG
is the author of five mystery novels set in Shanghai with a TV series currently in development. He has directed plays on Broadway and around the world, and is the artistic director of the internationally famous Professional Actors Lab. David lives in Toronto with his wife, Susan Santiago. They have two children, Joey and Beth. Further information can be found at www.davidrotenberg.com.

ALSO BY DAVID ROTENBERG

The Shanghai Murders

The Lake Ching Murders

The Hua Shan Hospital Murders

The Hamlet Murders

The Golden Mountain Murders

Shanghai
DAVID ROTENBERG
The Ivory Compact

PENGUIN CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,
Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York,
New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road,
Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre,
Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632,
New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,
Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in a Viking Canada hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada),
a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 2008
Published in this edition, 2009

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (OPM)

Copyright © David Rotenberg, 2008

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved
above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced
into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without
the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above
publisher of this book.

Publisher's note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously,
and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales
is entirely coincidental.

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication data
available upon request to the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-14-305228-9

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the
condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold,
hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and
without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the
subsequent purchaser.

Visit the Penguin Group (Canada) website at
www.penguin.ca

Special and corporate bulk purchase rates available;
please see
www.penguin.ca/corporatesales
or call 1-800-810-3104,
ext. 477 or 474

We have just enough religion to make us hate,
but not enough to make us love, one another.

 

—J
ONATHAN
S
WIFT
, 1667–1745

Contents

 
 
 
Book One—From the Holy Mountain
 
Part One
 
Chapter One
The Ivory Compact
Chapter Two
Approaching the Yangtze
Chapter Three
The Vrassoons
Chapter Four
Maxi
Chapter Five
The Master Carver
Chapter Six
Near the Bend in the River
Chapter Seven
White Birds on Water
Chapter Eight
Shanghai
Chapter Nine
A Vrassoon at Bedlam
Chapter Ten
Hunger
Chapter Eleven
At the Grand Canal
Chapter Twelve
From the Journals of Richard Hordoon
Chapter Thirteen
Treaty Moves
Chapter Fourteen
Nanking
Chapter Fifteen
The White Birds Land
Chapter Sixteen
A Calcutta Death, a Life at the Works
 
Part Two
 
Chapter Seventeen
The Body Guard, His Brother, and His Nephew
Chapter Eighteen
The Selling of Shanghai
Chapter Nineteen
Trouble in the Opium Trade
Chapter Twenty
A First Foray
Chapter Twenty-One
A Second Foray
Chapter Twenty-Two
Arrival of the Patriarch
Chapter Twenty-Three
Extraterritoriality
Chapter Twenty-Four
And Change Comes
Chapter Twenty-Five
The French
Chapter Twenty-Six
Opium Dreams and Nightmares
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Rise of the Prophet
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Meetings
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Settlement and the Taipingers
Chapter Thirty
Neutrality and Prosperity
Chapter Thirty-One
Death and Birth in the Bamboo
 
Part Three
 
Chapter Thirty-Two
The History Teller
Chapter Thirty-Three
Into the Countryside
Chapter Thirty-Four
Journey to the West
Chapter Thirty-Five
Deal with a Devil; Deal with an Angel
Chapter Thirty-Six
Shanghai Prospers
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Final Journey
Chapter Thirty-Eight
A Prophecy
 
* * *
 
Book Two—A Man with a Book
 
Chapter One
Silas Hordoon
Chapter Two
Arise the Assassin
Chapter Three
Shanghai, City at the Bend in the River
Chapter Four
Gangster Tu
Chapter Five
The Chosen Three
Chapter Six
Tu's Attack
Chapter Seven
And in Far-Off America
Chapter Eight
Stowaway
Chapter Nine
The Second Portal
Chapter Ten
A Game of Raft
Chapter Eleven
The Revolutionary
Chapter Twelve
The Go Player's Secret
Chapter Thirteen
Three Graves, Three Memories
Chapter Fourteen
Silas's Inheritance
Chapter Fifteen
The Progress of Charles Soon
Chapter Sixteen
Jiang's Choice
Chapter Seventeen
The Dowager Empress and the Hundred Days of Reform
Chapter Eighteen
Mai Bao, Jiang's Middle Daughter
Chapter Nineteen
Newspapers and Whores—A Marriage Made in Heaven
Chapter Twenty
Silas and Charles
Chapter Twenty-One
Leaf Contests
Chapter Twenty-Two
Richard's Journal Jiang:
Chapter Twenty-Three
A Whore's Cemetery
Chapter Twenty-Four
Silas Finds a New Wife
Chapter Twenty-Five
A Meeting of Minds
Chapter Twenty-Six
Yin Bao Meets a Feminist
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Yin Bao Gets a Husband
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A Carver's Son
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Assassin and His Wife
Chapter Thirty
Tu and the Tusk
Chapter Thirty-One
A Deal for the Tusk
Chapter Thirty-Two
A War Council
Chapter Thirty-Three
Loa Wei Fen's Warning
Chapter Thirty-Four
Attack on the Warrens
Chapter Thirty-Five
Victors and Vanquished Mai Bao and Her: Revolutionary
Chapter Thirty-Six
Victors and Vanquished: Charles Soong and His Writer
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Time Passes
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Silas and Automobiles
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The Tusk Degrades
Chapter Forty
Typhoon
Chapter Forty-One
Change—Death of a Dowager
Chapter Forty-Two
Change—Death of a Courtesan
Chapter Forty-Three
A Gift from Silas
Chapter Forty-Four
A Diversion
Chapter Forty-Five
A Long, Curved Object
Chapter Forty-Six
The Racing Cars Arrive
Chapter Forty-Seven
The Blessed Virgin
Chapter Forty-Eight
A Laughing Buddha
Chapter Forty-Nine
Rolling a Racing Car
Chapter Fifty
Race Day
Chapter Fifty-One
Getting the Tusk
Chapter Fifty-Two
The Race
Chapter Fifty-Three
Silas Onboard
Chapter Fifty-Four
Richards Journal: The Bible
Chapter Fifty-Five
An Ancestral Home for a Sacred Relic
Chapter Fifty-Six
Return of the Pilgrim
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Interlude—And Time Passes
 
* * *
 
Book Three—The End of the Garden
 
Chapter One
The Final Dream of Silas Hordoon
Chapter Two
The Funeral of a White Chinaman
Chapter Three
Japanese Plans
Chapter Four
On and Beneath the Marco Polo Bridge
Chapter Five
Beijing
Chapter Six
Jiang Passes the Mantle
Chapter Seven
The Confucian
Chapter Eight
Missives
Chapter Nine
The Ecstasy of Charles Soong's Daughters
Chapter Ten
Attack on Shanghai
Chapter Eleven
The Naked Man
Chapter Twelve
The History Teller
Chapter Thirteen
The Chosen Three Decide
Chapter Fourteen
Getting to Nanking
Chapter Fifteen
The Fall of Nanking and the Rise of the Dragon
Chapter Sixteen
Shanghai Under Occupation
Chapter Seventeen
World War
Chapter Eighteen
A Flash of Light
Chapter Nineteen
The History Teller Rewrites
Chapter Twenty
Surrender and After
Chapter Twenty-One
Confucian Power
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mao
Chapter Twenty-Three
Journey to What Was Ours
Chapter Twenty-Four
A Journey to the Future
Epilogue
The Age of Dry Water
 
Historical Note
Acknowledgments

Other books

Fiction River: Moonscapes by Fiction River
The Burning Shore by Ed Offley
Butterface by Gwen Hayes
Passing Through the Flame by Norman Spinrad
City of Secrets by Elisabeth Kidd