Shanghai (9 page)

“Starvation?” Vrassoon asked.

“Probably.”

The Patriarch tapped his fingers against the leather-upholstered side of the carriage. The rain was coming down in sheets.
So there would be hunger. Much hunger.
He thought about that, then about prayer and faith and the willingness to believe. He thought about the mad girl who had shared his bed, whose daughter was now in her fifth year with the farm family in Hereford. The wind shifted and the rain came at the carriage on a slant. He reached out and pulled the window back into place. The wind shifted again and the rain suddenly beat on the roof of the carriage so loudly that it was hard to hear anyone speak. Eliazar Vrassoon nodded.
There will be hunger and starvation—and the world will change,
he thought.
So be it.
Then he turned to the others in the carriage and said loudly, “Do you think it will ever stop raining?”

The men were actually stunned by the question. Was the Patriarch of the Vrassoon family chatting about the weather? Did he expect them to respond?

Before any of them could speak, Eliazar Vrassoon answered his own question. “Everything stops eventually, gentlemen, and something new arises. It has been and will be forever thus.”

There was a palpable sense of relief in the carriage as it raced past the rain-soaked beggars and drunkards of East London on its way to the centre of the Vrassoon company's seat of power, its offices on the Mall.

On the Yangtze River December 1841

Richard moved silently away from Gough and Pottinger. He knew a great deal more about hunger than they did. He passed by the deck watch unchallenged. As the expedition's translator, he had a temporary commission as a sub-lieutenant and pretty much free rein of the ship, so long as he stayed away from the crew quarters.

Richard stood at the port rail mid-deck and watched the fires on the shore as the great ship headed upriver. He turned his face to the wind and breathed deeply. Then he thought of the people on either side of the great river who might well soon be hungry. Some of whom might, in fact, shortly begin the lengthy process of starving to death.

“
Starving's nothing special,
boychick.
It's just not eating.
”

Richard wasn't surprised to hear his dead father's voice. Lately, as he neared the completion of his plan, his deceased father's words, spoken in his unique mix of old-fashioned formal Farsi and Yiddish, often popped into his head. Although he had not seen his father for almost twenty years, he remembered exactly when his father had said those words to him.

“They're trying to starve us into leaving, Papa.”

“That they are.”

“Why?”

“Because they don't want us here,
boychick.
”

“You mean the dung-eating new caliph doesn't want us in Baghdad any more? Because he claims some stupid book said we are monkeys?”

“Dogs and monkeys, actually, Richard. Important to remember that. Not just monkeys, but dogs and monkeys. In fact, the progeny of dogs and monkeys,” his father said. The deep cut on his forehead opened slightly when he laughed. The man could find humour in anything.

“We should just rip off the old idiot's beard and shove it down his stupid throat.”

“This from a fourteen-year-old? A fourteen-year-old wants violence? Violence! It is my decision to leave Baghdad. Mine. It's a good time.”

“A good time? A good time to leave our home?”

“Richard!”

Richard stared for a moment at the fool of a man in front of him, but he chose not to speak. His father might be willing to leave their ancestral home like a beaten mule, but Richard and Maxi were not so inclined. Even as children they had been unafraid. The Baghdadi boys'
stones and taunts had never frightened him, and for Maxi they were just an excuse to attack.

There had been fires in the Jewish quarter two Friday nights before—naturally, on a Friday night. The Hordoons had escaped harm because they didn't live in ostentation like the Vrassoons and the Kadooris. The rich had been the first to feel the new caliph's wrath—or rather the rage of the countless Baghdadi poor, ignorant, and gullible. But last Monday while Richard was at school, his father's small leather tanning stall in the bazaar had been set afire—with the old man in it. Luckily Maxi had been nearby. He'd dragged their father to safety and then stood his ground as three grown men tried to loot the stall. Maxi was small in stature, but he was a giant in a brawl. Every ounce of him was muscle and sinew, and he loved a fight. When he balled his surprisingly small fists his eyes would go glassy hard, and the smile that the Moslem boys had learned to fear curled his lips. He could take more punishment than any man Richard had ever met, and he was only twelve years old—and extremely pale white, white-skinned and red-haired like their Russian mother. When Richard finally found them, his father had the large gash across his forehead and Maxi was covered in blood—other men's blood. Maxi smiled, his large white teeth showing through his parted, swollen lips. He pointed to the ground, to the three grown men moaning in the dirt—one with an arm bone showing sickly white through his swarthy skin, another with an eye missing, and the third with a reddened crotch that did not bode well for his contribution to future generations.

Remembering, Richard smiled and nodded.

“Why are you nodding? What are you agreeing with,
boychick?
”

“Nothing—everything.”

“Good. Agreeing is good,” his father said, and grinned.

Richard took a deep breath, then asked, “So when have you decided that we leave Baghdad?”

“Tonight—late—after moonset.”

So they were going on foot. No trains ran that late. “Where?”

“Where what,
boychick?
”

“Where are we going, Papa?”

“South.”

South! Not west to Europe but south! He felt his muscles cramp with anger. Then he thought of Maxi—the wild one—and he knew how they'd spend their last night in old Baghdad.

* * *

THE TWO-STOREY COURTYARD was centred on an ancient well. The gate in front was made of sturdy metal bars with sharpened tips, but they posed no problem for the Hordoon boys.

Once over the gate they pressed their backs against the wall, in the deep shadow cast by the full moon. Richard sensed rather than saw Maxi at his side, then sensed him gone. Richard reached into the darkness for his brother, but he wasn't there. Minutes passed. Sounds of family life from the rooms across the way and the scent of highly spiced chickpeas found their way to his hiding place. Then Maxi was back, as silently as he had left.

“Teacher's home, brother mine.”

“You know …?”

“Where he sleeps with his new boy.” Maxi pointed toward an ancient stone arch.

“How do—?”

“Are we here to ask questions or say goodbye to this Jew-hating sodomite?”

“Let's go.”

They crept along the compound wall. A dog barked, then fell silent. A few women came to the well carrying stoneware and a large clay pot. The boys went through the arch, turned a corner, and ran down a corridor into another interior courtyard. Across the way was a set of time-worn stone stairs. The boys took a step forward and froze. Something had moved in the courtyard. They both stood completely still. Then a peacock darted out from the shadows.

It took Richard a moment to identify the danger, but Maxi pounced on the animal and grabbed it by its neck. A breathy burp came from the bird rather than the usual piercing cries that would have alerted the whole compound. For a moment Maxi stood in the very centre of the courtyard, in full moonlight, holding the large, squirming creature by the neck. Then he flashed his smile and whipped the bird around his head twice. The bird's neck made a slight popping sound, then its body went limp. Maxi plucked two large tail feathers and threw the limp carcass high over the wall.

Then, he headed toward the stairs.

At the top of the steps a narrow hallway faced the boys. Down the hall they saw a heavy door barring their way into what Richard assumed was a bedroom. This was obviously a private part of the compound, and it was ghostly quiet. No cooking here, no cleaning—just a man's place—and a boy's.

Maxi kicked open the heavy door.

The boy was face down, spread-eagled on the bed, his arms and legs tethered by leather thongs to the bed's
four posts. Teacher, who always referred to Maxi as the “retarded pig” whenever he called upon him in class, squatted over the terrified boy, whose pants were down around his ankles.

Teacher spun round and squinted toward the door. His thick glasses were on the night table. Maxi jumped forward and, grabbing the man by the hair, threw him to the ground while Richard stuffed yards of the bed sheets into the man's mouth to ensure his silence. Maxi sauntered over to the night table while Richard tied Teacher's hands behind his back. He took the thick glasses and returned to Teacher. Leaning down, he put the glasses on the man's face, “Want you to see us, Teacher. See what the Hordoon brothers are doing to you.”

Richard cut the boy loose. “Leave without a sound,” he whispered. The boy nodded, grabbed his clothes, and ran from the room.

Once the boy was gone Richard and Maxi lifted Teacher to his feet and frogmarched him to the squatter in the water closet.

The hole in the ground between the porcelain footholds was just large enough, after a bit of tile lifting and prying, to fit a grown man's head—Teacher's head. The boys hoisted squirming Teacher in the air and held him over the reeking hole. Maxi shoved the peacock's tail feathers between Teacher's toes. “Hold these,” he ordered.

Richard looked at Maxi. “How did you know where his room …?” But he didn't need an answer, he understood.

Maxi shrugged his shoulders and said, “He would have had either you or me. I let it be me.”

Richard nodded, then the Hordoon brothers turned Teacher upside down and shoved him head first into the
hole—and left. Perhaps his God would save him. Perhaps He wouldn't.

A few hours later the Hordoon family snuck out of the city that eight generations of their forefathers had called home. All they took with them was what they could carry on their backs.

Seventeen weeks of hard travelling later, they staggered into the squalor of Calcutta.

The day they arrived, Richard wrote the first entry in the journal that he would keep for the rest of his life. It read:
How do I explain Calcutta—a dream within a nightmare; a song without end; the glory of darkness and shade while the sun roasts the earth. Then the rain comes. And everywhere palaces—ancient dilapidated palaces slowly but inevitably falling into the river.

Richard thought about that first journal entry he had penned, when he was barely fifteen years old, as he crossed the foredeck of the
Cornwallis
and the White Birds on Water made their way up the mighty Yangtze River—and changed the course of Chinese history.

The Yangtze at the Grand Canal and Farther West

No nation had ever dared to enter the mighty Yangtze in such force as the British did in the last month of 1841. But although the British were virtually unopposed, the Yangtze itself proved a formidable enemy. The British had seventy-five vessels in their armada. Eleven were men-o'-war under sail, ranging in size from the enormous flagship
Cornwallis
to a small ten-gun brig. There were also four troopships, ten steamers, two survey schooners, and forty-eight transports.

The great river, although ten miles across at places, seldom had a navigable channel of any significant width, and Nanking was two hundred miles upriver. Shallow draft steamers went ahead and attempted to buoy the channel,
but it proved trickier than anyone had anticipated. Several ships ran aground and needed to wait for high tide to dislodge themselves. Quickly the armada broke into its component parts. Some of the bigger ships needed to be pulled by steamers. Eventually the armada found itself spread over a thirty-mile area, as much as six days of sailing apart from each other. The biggest problems were the flagship, the
Cornwallis,
and a disgusting old tub called the
Belleisle.

And, of course, Governor General Pottinger insisted that the flagship lead the way.

After the first sixty or seventy miles the banks of the Yangtze suddenly narrowed, sharp bends became common, and the current quickened. The ships found it hard going, and this far upriver the tide was negligible, so any ship that erred in its charting and went aground needed to offload its entire cargo—cannon included—before it could hope to refloat itself.

Not a single ship managed the voyage without grounding at least once; with some it was almost a daily occurrence.

Despite this, the British met little military resistance. The odd shore battery attack was feeble even for the Chinese. However, if mariners ventured ashore—especially if they were ill—they were immediately attacked by brigands or the locals, and these attacks often ended with British heads on the ends of sharpened pikes. So, although the British controlled the water, they were prisoners on their own ships.

Richard stared at the murky water of the great river. They were approaching Chinkiang, at the southern entrance to the First Emperor's Grand Canal, which connected Beijing with the Yangtze.
Surely the Chinese will
defend the waterway to the heart of their nation,
Richard thought.

As the walls of Chinkiang came into view, Richard stood back from the railing and tried to stretch the tension from his muscles. As he did
,
the railing upon which he had been leaning only a moment before splintered and the wall behind him flew into a thousand bits. The morning air filled with the high, whistling shriek of flying chain and scrap metal as ranks of gingalls fired from their shore batteries. Richard stood staring at the splintered railing until an officer screamed “Battle stations!” and the decks and rigging, as if by magic, filled with mariners.