The Demi-Monde: Summer (8 page)

After enduring the abuse of his pedicab driver – the absence of a tip obviously rankled – Vanka hauled his damp arse across the waterlogged and overgrown front garden, up the hotel’s steps, through the scarred wooden door and along the short dark corridor that, he hoped, led to reception. It did, and there, under the uncertain light cast by the oil lamp hanging tenuously from the ceiling by a length of dust-ensnared chain, sat a fat woman reading a very well-thumbed copy of a book. For a long moment the woman didn’t look up or in any way acknowledge Vanka’s presence, seemingly engrossed in the story she was enjoying.

Vanka coughed.

Reluctantly the woman lifted her head and gave Vanka a smile. He rather wished she hadn’t. Dentistry in the JAD had obviously fallen further behind than the town’s road repair programme. The few teeth the woman had left – supplemented by two gold incisors – were crooked, stained and signalled her breath was as mouldy as the rest of her.

‘
Shalom
,’ said the woman, accompanying her greeting with a leering smile.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Vanka as he mimed incomprehension, ‘I don’t speak nuJu.’ A lie, of course, but while he spoke all of the languages of the Demi-Monde fluently, he guessed that his alter ego, Jim Tyler, a NoirVillian, wouldn’t be familiar with nuJu.

The woman winked at Vanka, which he found very disconcerting, until she winked at him again and Vanka decided she was the victim of a rather disturbing nervous tic. He hoped she was, anyway.

‘Azoy? Tough shit. Zo … vot can I do for you?’

‘My name’s Jim Tyler,’ he answered. ‘I understand that a booking has been made in my name.’

The woman nodded, stood up, then turned to bend down over her register. Arse in the air, she shuffled through a ragtag pile of paper until she pulled out the sheet she was looking for. ‘Jah. I’ve put you in Room Twenty-Three … it’s our best room … our
very
best room.’ The woman looked at Vanka as though evaluating him. ‘It’s ten Guineas a night … payable a veek in advance.’

Stunned by the outrageous price, Vanka dug into his bag and extracted the purse of coins that Josie had supplied him with. The woman eyed the money in a predatory way. ‘You vant any extra?’ she asked.

‘Extra?’ answered Vanka cautiously.

‘Yah, I’m thinking a
gezinteh
like you might vant something that ain’t on the menu.’ Another wink. ‘Pawn, Dizzi dust … or, maybe, a sheMan?’

Vanka shook his head. He was about to take offence at the offer of a boy but then remembered that he was playing the role of a NoirVillian.

‘No.’

‘A girl?’ The woman was nothing if not a trier.

‘No, nothing.’

The woman shrugged and went back to the study of her book. Vanka looked around the grimy hallway, saw the sign ‘Rooms’ and moved towards the staircase, his rain-wrecked boots squelching a wet trail that marked his passing.

‘A
brokh!
’ he heard the woman exclaim behind him. ‘I vould lose my head if it vos loose. Tell me, Mr Jim Tyler, how long vill you be staying?’

‘All Summer,’ answered Vanka, and the depressing realisation was that that might actually be the case.

It was a confirmation of how badly the Coven needed Trixie that not only had they appointed her head of their armed forces, but Imperial Non Mao ZeDong had also agreed – damned reluctantly, it had to be said – that she could meet with Wysochi. The NoN had blustered and prevaricated, complaining that it was not seemly for an officerFemme of her rank to display
feelings for an unneutered nonFemme, but Trixie had insisted and, as Mao had come to appreciate, Trixie was a difficult girl to refuse.

And with regard to Wysochi she was
very
determined: she had to know that the man she loved was alive and well. That was why she was sitting, a couple of hours shy of dawn, in a damp and draughty room in the down-at-heel barracks that the remnants of the Warsaw Free Army had been calling home since the beginning of Spring. But none of these discomforts could detract from the happiness she felt seeing Wysochi again. Of all the people in the Demi-Monde he was the only one she trusted … the only one she loved.

She knew though that she had to conceal her feelings: Mao – spiteful, vindictive bastard that he was – was sitting at her side watching for behaviour that ‘did not accord with HerEtical teachings’, having warned her that given the merest excuse, he would terminate the meeting. So every question and every answer had to be couched carefully to avoid provoking his displeasure.

Despite Mao’s baleful presence, it was still marvellous to see Wysochi again. Standing there in front of the table she and Mao were seated at, he looked very much as she remembered him from their last meeting a Season ago: big, bold and disrespectful. His face was, perhaps, a little fuller – Coven food, she decided, must agree with him – and he did look remarkably clean. Wysochi had obviously taken a liking to the steam baths the Chinks were so fond of and he looked almost respectable without his habitual frosting of mud and cordite.

Almost
.

Clean, she could see every one of the scars he had picked up during the fighting in Warsaw. They made him look like a pirate. ‘You’re looking well, Major Wysochi,’ she began.

‘You too, Colonel,’ replied Wysochi and he gave her a wink.

For a moment Trixie struggled with the urge to leap up and hug the man, but with Mao in attendance this was impossible. Mao would probably swoon if she did: demonstrations of affection between men and women – between Femmes and nonFemmes – were taboo in the Coven.

‘It’s GeneralFemme now, Major. Following the death of Jeanne Dark I’ve been appointed head of the Covenite army.’

Wysochi whistled. ‘Congratulations. GeneralFemme, eh? I’ve gotta say I never thought the powers that be in the Coven would have the intelligence to do something so sensible.’

Mao sucked his teeth to show that he judged Wysochi’s observation to be borderline unacceptable.

‘I like the shaved head too. Very fetching.’

Trixie ran a hand over her shaven pate and gave a wry smile. ‘I was obliged, Major, to have my head shaved in order to conform to HerEtical protocol. Covenite women who have embraced MoreBienism have taken to having this done to show that they have cut all ties with nonFemmes and have no use for sexual objectification. And as the new Commander of the Covenite Army, it was felt necessary that I should dress in accordance with the most rigorous of HerEtical teachings.’

‘Hence the overalls?’

Trixie looked down at the plain denim boiler suit she was wearing; only the gold pips on the epaulettes denoted her new status and rank. ‘Correct. These are
jiangs
. Every Femme in the Coven wears them.’

‘And very nice they must look too,’ Wysochi deadpanned.

The conversation faltered for a moment and suddenly Trixie felt very tired and dispirited. She’d had hardly a moment’s sleep since she’d been released from prison just thirty-six hours before, her time taken up by a whirl of inspections, parades and briefings.

And all that time festering at the back of her mind was the
suspicion that Empress Wu would eventually betray her and renege on her promise to free the WFA. That was the other reason why she’d insisted on seeing Wysochi, to confirm for herself that he and the rest of the Varsovian fighters were still alive. But the pleasure of meeting Wysochi couldn’t rid her of the belief that once her usefulness to Wu was at an end, she and the WFA would be disposed of. She would just have to get her betrayal in first, though for the moment she would bide her time by playing the dutiful and loyal GeneralFemme.

‘How have you and the rest of the WFA been treated?’ she asked as lightly as she could.

‘Oh, we’re all fine. We’re well fed and allowed to exercise. There’s been a little moaning amongst the men about their not being able to see their womenfolk, but other than that all of us are just the same.’

The key phrase of Wysochi’s was ‘all of us are just the same’ which signalled that none of the male Varsovian fighters had been gelded; this, at least, was good news. Trixie turned to Mao: ‘Why have my fighters been separated? The WFA makes no distinction between men and women, both fight and die as equals.’

The NoN’s face remained totally expressionless. She hated Mao’s inscrutability. She liked to see emotion in people; without emotion they were nothing more than automata. This was, she decided, a good metaphor: the NoNs – the eunuchs – of the Coven
were
automata. They spoke like robots, they acted like robots and they even
looked
like robots.

Just as Mao did. There was something disturbingly doll-like about the NoN; he was a little too plump, his skin too smooth and rosy, his pigtail too perfectly coiffed and his black and silver robes too clean and flawlessly pressed for him to be anything other than artificial. But artificial or not, the arrogant bastard had the ear of Empress Wu so he had to be watched.

Without a flicker of an expression Mao raised a hand adorned with excessively long fingernails – these apparently designed to show that he was engaged in intellectual rather than low-caste manual work – and with a disdainful flick of his wrist waved her question aside. ‘In the Coven the barbaric and obscene indulgence in heterosexual physical relationships is outlawed, except, that is, for the purposes of officially sanctioned procreation. Whilst in the less enlightened Sectors of the Demi-Monde nonFemmes are encouraged to force their disgusting desires on Femmes, here in the Coven this cannot be condoned. It is unthinkable that we should allow your WFA fighters to rut like animals: it would be an affront to HerEticalism.’

‘Apparently, attempts have been made to indoctrinate the WFA’s women fighters in the delights of Femme2Femme sex,’ interrupted Wysochi.

‘Not “indoctrinate”,’ corrected the NoN sharply, his sing-song voice with its strange Chink accent rising an octave to signal his annoyance. ‘They are merely being given the opportunity to understand the philosophy of HerEticalism and to enjoy the sublime pleasures and happiness flowing from the embracing of MoreBienism.’

‘LessBienism more like,’ grumped Wysochi.

A glare from the NoN. ‘That is a pejorative term that is not used in the Coven. If you wish this interview to continue, Preferred Male Wysochi, you will desist from using such foul and offensive language.’

Trixie moved quickly to change the subject. The last thing she wanted was for the meeting to be brought to a premature end by a fit of NoNish pique. ‘I asked Imperial Secretary Mao to arrange this meeting so that I could pick your mind, Major Wysochi. Heydrich has issued an ultimatum to the Coven stating that unless trading relations are “normalised” by noon today, a state of war will exist between the ForthRight and the
Coven. I am advised by Imperial Secretary Mao that the Coven will refuse these demands and therefore we must expect the ForthRight to commence its military operations in a little under eight hours. I anticipate that the invasion will be preceded by an artillery bombardment and once the Coven’s shore defences have been pummelled to powder the UnFunnies will attempt to force the Volga. So … before the Summer is very much older, there will be fighting in the streets of Rangoon. This being the case, I would like your advice regarding how best to make a disposition of my army.’

Wysochi frowned: having been kept in isolation for over three months, he was obviously having a little difficulty getting up to speed with current events. ‘Why do the UnFunnies want to invade the Coven? Last time I heard they had their hands full in the Quartier Chaud.’

‘They ran into trouble. Our friend Ella Thomas pulled another of her miracle stunts and gave the ForthRight Army the turnaround. There’s something of a stand-off going on down there.’

‘The Lady IMmanual’s up to her old tricks, eh? But that still doesn’t explain why the ForthRight has got it in for the Coven.’

‘There is a one-word answer to that question, Major: coal. The Coven is refusing to supply coal to the ForthRight until their army has withdrawn from the Quartier Chaud and, as the Coven is the only supplier of coal in the whole of the Demi-Monde, the ForthRight has got a little exercised about it.’

‘A provocative thing to have done.’

‘Not provocative, Preferred Male Wysochi,’ corrected Mao, ‘rather it was an act ordained by ABBA Herself. When the iChing was consulted during the Rite of 4Telling, it was ABBA who commanded that the Coven deny the ForthRight coal.’

Wysochi looked at Mao as though the NoN was unbalanced. ‘Then it’s a shame that ABBA isn’t here to do the fighting, because the ForthRight will be coming at you hot and heavy.
Way I understand it, the ForthRight has only got seven, maybe eight weeks of coal reserves, so they’ll want to take the Coven coal mines sooner rather than later, otherwise their steamers will go cold boilers. You’re in for a hot Summer, GeneralFemme. How many fighters do you have?’

‘Trained and combat-ready, about fifty thousand.’

‘Fifty thousand! That all? What happened to the Covenite Army?’

Mao answered the question. ‘At the order of Her Imperial Majesty Empress Wu, the army was purged of all antiFemme elements when the Coven was proclaimed a HerEtical Sector on the “Glorious Day of Liberation from the evil that is MALEvolence”.’