Noble House

by James Clavell

Ah how happy I am to be a woman, she thought, and remembered with sadness now the old days when they were happy together, she and Quillan, she nineteen, already his mistress for two years and no longer shy or afraid—of the pillow or him or of herself—how sometimes they would go on his yacht for a midnight cruise, just the two of them and he would lecture her. “You’re a woman and Hong Kong yan so if you want to have a good life and pretty things, to be cherished and loved and pillowed and safe in this world be female.”

  “How, my darling?”

  “Think only of my satisfaction and pleasure. Give me passion when I need it, quiet when I need it, privacy when I need it, and happiness and discretion all the time. Cook as a gourmet, know great wine, be discreet always, protect my face always and never nag.”

  “But Quillan, you make it sound all so one-sided.”

  “Yes. It is, of course it is. In return I do my part with equal passion. But that’s what I want from you, nothing less. You wanted to be my mistress. I put it to you before we began and you agreed.”

  “I know I did and I love being your mistress but … but sometimes I’m worried about the future.”

  “Ah, my pet, you have nothing to worry about. You know our rules were set in advance. We will renew our arrangement yearly, providing you want to until you’re twenty-four, and then, if you choose to leave me I will give you the flat, money enough for reasonable needs and a handsome dowry for a suitable husband. We agreed and your parents approved….”

  Yes they did. Orlanda remembered how her mother and father had enthusiastically approved the liaison—had even suggested it to her when she had just come back from school in America when they told her that Quillan had asked if he might approach her, saying that he had fallen in love with her. “He’s a good man,” her father had said, “and he’s promised to provide well for you, if you agree. It’s your choice, Orlanda. We think we would recommend it.”

  “But Father, I won’t be eighteen until next month, and besides I want to go back to the States to live. I’m sure I can get a Green Card to remain there.”

  “Yes, you can go, child,” her mother had said, “but you will be poor. We can give you nothing, no help. What job will you get? Who will support you? This way in a little while you can go with an income, with property here to support you.”

  “But he’s so old. He’s …”

  “A man doesn’t wear age like a woman,” both had told her. “He’s strong and respected and he’s been good to us for years. He’s promised to cherish you and the financial arrangements are generous, however long you stay with him.”

  “But I don’t love him.”

  “You talk nonsense in eight directions! Without the protection of the lips the teeth grow cold!” her mother had said angrily. “This opportunity you are being offered is like the hair of the phoenix and the heart of the dragon! What do you have to do in return? Just be a woman and honor and obey a good man for a few years—renewable yearly—and even after that there’s no end to the years if you choose and are faithful and clever. Who knows? His wife is an invalid and wasting. If you satisfy him and cherish him enough why wouldn’t he marry you?”

  “Marry a Eurasian? Quillan Gornt?” she had burst out.

  “Why not? You’re not just Eurasian, you’re Portuguese. He has British sons and daughters already, heya? Times are changing, even here in Hong Kong. If you do your best, who knows? Bear him a son, in a year or two, with his permission, and who knows? Gods are gods and if they want they can make thunder from a clear sky. Don’t be stupid! Love? What is that word to you?”

  Orlanda Ramos was staring down at the city now, not seeing it. How stupid and naive I was then, she thought. Naive and very stupid. But now I know better. Quillan taught me very well.

  She glanced up at Linc Bartlett, moving just her eyes, not wanting to disturb him.

  Yes, I’m trained very well, she told herself. I’m trained to be the best wife any man could ever have, that Bartlett will ever have. No mistakes this time. Oh no, no mistakes. Quillan will guide me. He will help remove Casey. I will be Mrs. Linc Bartlett. All gods and all devils bear witness; that is what must happen….

  Soon he took his eyes off the city, having thought through what she had said. She was watching him, wearing a little smile that he could not read. “What is it?”

  “I was thinking how lucky I was to meet you.”

  “Do you always compliment a man?”

  “No, just the ones who please me—and they’re as rare as the hair of the phoenix or the heart of a dragon. Pâté?”

  “Thanks.” He accepted it. “You’re not eating?”

  “I’m saving for dinner. I have to watch my diet, I’m not like you.”

  “I work out daily. Tennis when I can, golf. You?”

  “I play a little tennis, I’m a good walker but I’m still taking golf lessons.” Yes, she thought, I try very hard to be the best at everything I do and I’m the best for you, Linc Bartlett, in the whole wide world. Her tennis was very good and golf quite good because Quillan had insisted she be adept at both—because he enjoyed them. “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  “You said Chinese food. Is that what you really want?”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me. Whatever you want.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. Why, what would you like?”

  “Come in a moment.”

  He followed her. She opened the dining room door. The table was set exquisitely for two. Flowers, and a bottle of Verdicchio on ice. “Linc, I haven’t cooked for anyone for such a long time,” she said in her breathless rush that he found so pleasing. “But I wanted to cook for you. If you’d like it, I have an Italian dinner all set to go. Fresh pasta aglio e olio—garlic and oil—veal piccata, a green salad, zabaglione, espresso, and brandy. How does that sound? It will only take me twenty minutes and you can read the paper while you wait. Then afterwards we can leave everything for when the amah comes back and go dancing or drive. What do you say?”

  “Italian’s my favorite food, Orlanda!” he told her enthusiastically. Then a vagrant memory surfaced, and for a moment he wondered whom he had told about Italian being his favorite. Was it Casey—or was it Orlanda this morning?

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  8:32 P.M.:

  Brian Kwok jerked out of sleep. One moment he was in a nightmare, the next awake but somehow still in the deep dark pit of sleep, his heart pounding, his mind disordered and no change between sleep and awake. Panic swamped him. Then he realized he was naked and still in the same warm darkness of the cell and remembered who he was and where he was.

  They must have drugged me, he thought. His mouth was parched, his head ached, and he lay back on the mattress that was slimy to his touch and tried to collect himself. Vaguely he remembered being in Armstrong’s office and before that with Crosse discussing the 16/2 but after that not much, just waking in this darkness, groping for the walls to get his bearings, feeling them close by, biting back the terror of knowing he was betrayed and defenseless in the bowels of Central Police HQ within a box with no windows and a door somewhere. Then, exhaustedly sleeping and waking and angry voices—or did I dream that—and then sleeping again … no, eating first, didn’t I eat first … yes, slop they called dinner and cold tea … Come on, think! It’s important to think and to remember … Yes, I remember, it was bedraggled stew and cold tea then, later, breakfast. Eggs. Was it eggs first or the stew first and … yes the lights came on for a moment each time I ate, just enough time to eat … no, the lights went off and each time I finished in darkness, I remember finishing in darkness and hating to eat in darkness and then I peed in the pail in darkness, got back onto the mattress and lay down again.

  How long have I been here? Must count the days.

  Wearily he swung his legs off the cot and stumbled to a wall, his limbs aching to match his head. Got to exercise, he thought, got to help work the drugs out of my system and get my head clear and ready f
or the interrogation. Must get my mind ready for when they go at me, really begin—when they think I’ve softened up—then they’ll keep me awake until they break me.

  No, they won’t break me. I’m strong and prepared and I know some of the pitfalls.

  Who gave me away?

  The effort to solve that was too much for him so he mustered his strength and did a few weak knee bends. Then he heard muffled footsteps approaching. Hastily he groped back for the cot and lay down, pretending sleep, his heart hurting in his chest as he held down his terror.

  The footsteps stopped. A sudden bolt clanged back and a trapdoor opened. A shaft of light came into the cell and a half-seen hand put down a metal plate and a metal cup.

  “Eat your breakfast and hurry up,” the voice said in Cantonese. “You’re due for more interrogation shortly.”

  “Listen, I want…” Brian Kwok called out but the trapdoor had already clanged back and he was alone in the darkness with the echo of his own words.

  Keep calm, he ordered himself. Calm yourself and think.

  Abruptly the cell flooded with light. The light hurt his eyes. When he had adjusted he saw that the light came from fixtures in the ceiling high above, and he remembered seeing them before. The walls were dark, almost black, and seemed to be pressing inward on him. Don’t worry about them, he thought. You’ve seen the dark cells before and though you’ve never been part of an in-depth interrogation you know the principles and some of the tricks.

  A surge of nausea came into his mouth at the thought of the ordeal ahead.

  The door was hardly discernible and the trapdoor equally hidden. He could feel eyes though he could see no spyholes. On the plate were two fried eggs and a thick piece of rough bread. The bread was a little toasted. The eggs were cold and greasy and unappetizing. In the cup was cold tea. There were no utensils.

  He drank the tea thirstily, trying to make it last, but it was finished before he knew it and the small amount had not quenched his thirst. Dew neh loh moh what I wouldn’t give for a toothbrush and a bottle of beer an—

  The lights went out as suddenly as they had come on. It took him much time to adjust again to the darkness. Be calm, it’s just darkness and light, light and darkness. It’s just to confuse and disorient. Be calm. Take each day as it comes, each interrogation as it comes.

  His terror returned. He knew he was not really prepared, not experienced enough, though he had had some survival training against capture, what to do if the enemy captured you, the PRC Communist enemy. But the PRC’s not the enemy. The real enemy are the British and Canadians who’ve pretended to be friend and teacher, they’re the real enemy.

  Don’t think about that, don’t try to convince yourself, just try to convince them.

  I have to hold fast. Have to pretend it’s a mistake for as long as I can and then, then I tell the story I’ve woven over the years and confuse them. That’s duty.

  His thirst was overpowering. And his hunger.

  Brian Kwok wanted to hurl the empty cup against the wall and the plate against the wall and shout and call for help but that would be a mistake. He knew he must have great control and keep every particle of strength he could muster to fight back.

  Use your head. Use your training. Put theory into practice. Think about the survival course last year in England. Now what do I do?

  He remembered that part of the survival theory was that you must eat and drink and sleep whenever you can for you never know when they will cut off food and drink and sleep from you. And to use your eyes and nose and touch and intelligence to keep track of time in the dark and remember that your captors will always make a mistake sometime, and if you can catch the mistake you can relate to time, and if you can relate to time then you can keep in balance and then you can twist them and not divulge that which must not be divulged—exact names and real contacts. Pit your mind against them was the rule. Keep active, force yourself to observe.

  Have they made any mistakes? Have these devil barbarian British slipped yet? Only once, he thought excitedly. The eggs! The stupid British and their eggs for breakfast!

  Feeling better now and wide awake, he eased off the cot and groped his way to the metal plate and put the cup down gently beside it. The eggs were cold and the grease congealed but he chewed them and finished the bread and felt a little better for the food. Eating with his fingers in darkness was strange and uncomfortable especially with nothing to wipe his fingers on except his own nakedness.

  A shudder went through him. He felt abandoned and unclean. His bladder was uncomfortable and he felt his way to the pail that was attached to the wall. The pail stank.

  With an index finger he deftly measured the level in the pail. It was partially full. He emptied himself into it and measured the new level. His mind calculated the difference. If they haven’t added to it to confuse me, I’ve peed three or four times. Twice a day? Or four times a day?

  He rubbed his soiled finger against his chest and that made him feel dirtier but it was important to use everything and anything to keep balanced and time related. He lay down again. Out of touch with light or dark or day or night was nauseating. A wave of sickness came from his stomach but he dominated it and forced himself to remember the Brian Kwok who they, the enemy, thought was Brian Kar-shun Kwok and not the other man, the almost forgotten man whose parentage was Wu, his generation name Pah and his adult name Chu-toy.

  He remembered Ning-tok and his father and mother and being sent to school to Hong Kong on his sixth birthday, wanting to learn and to grow up to become a patriot like his parents and the uncle he had seen flogged to death in his village square for being a patriot. He had learned from his Hong Kong relations that patriot and Communist were the same and not enemies of the State. That the Kuomintang overlords were just as evil as the foreign devils who had forced the unequal treaties on China, and the only true patriot was he who followed the teachings of Mao Tse-tung. Being sworn into the first of many secret Brotherhoods, working to be the best for the cause of China and Mao which was the cause of China, learning from secret teachers, knowing he was part of the new great wave of revolution that would take back control of China from foreign devils and their lackeys, and sweep them into the sea forever.

  Winning that scholarship! At twelve!

  Oh how proud his secret teachers had been. Then going to barbarian lands, now perfect in their language and safe against their evil thoughts and ways, going to London, the capital of the greatest empire the world has ever seen, knowing it was going to be humbled and laid waste someday, but then in 1937, still in its last flowering.

  Two years there. Hating the English school and the English boys … Chinkee Chinkee Chinaman sitting on his tail … but hiding it and hiding his tears, his new Brotherhood teachers helping him, guiding him, putting questions and answers into context, showing him the wonder of dialectic, of being part of the true real unquestioned revolution. Never questioning, never a need to question.

  Then the German war and being evacuated with all the other school boys and girls to safety in Canada, all that wonderful time in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the Pacific shore, all that immensity, mountains and sea and a thriving Chinatown with good Ning-tok cooking—and a new branch of the world Brotherhood and more teachers, always someone wise to talk to, always someone ready to explain and advise … not accepted by his schoolmates but still beating them scholastically, in the gym with gloves and at their sports, being a prefect, playing cricket well and tennis well—part of his training. “Excel, Chu-toy, my son, excel and be patient for the glory of the Party, for the glory of Mao Tse-tung who is China,” the last words his father had said to him, secret words engraved since he was six—and repeated on his deathbed.

  Joining the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been part of the plan. It was easy to excel in the RCMP, assigned to Chinatown and the wharves and the byways, speaking English and Mandarin and Cantonese—his Ning-tok dialect buried deep—easy to become a fine policeman in that sprawling beautifu
l city port. Soon he became unique, Vancouver’s Chinese expert, trusted, excelling and implacably against the crimes that the triad gangsters of Chinatown fed off—opium, morphine, heroin, prostitution and the ever-constant illegal gambling.

  His work had been commended by his superiors and by Brotherhood leaders alike—they equally against gang rule and drug traffic and crime, assisting him to arrest and uncover, their only secret interest the inner workings of the RCMP, how the RCMP hire and fire and promote and collate and investigate and watch, and who controls what, where and how. Sent from Vancouver to Ottawa for six months, loaned by a grateful chief of police to assist in an undercover investigation of a Chinese drug ring there, making new important Canadian contacts and Brotherhood contacts, learning more and more and breaking the ring and getting promotion. Easy to control crime and get promotion if you work and if you have secret friends by the hundreds, with secret eyes everywhere.

  Then the war ending and applying for a transfer for the Hong Kong Police—the final part of the plan.

  But not wanting to go, not wanting to leave, loving Canada, and loving her. Jeannette. Jeannette deBois. She was nineteen, French-Canadian from Montreal, speaking French and English, her parents French-Canadians of many generations and them liking him and not disapproving, not against him because he was the Chinois, as they jokingly called him. He was twenty-one then, already known as commandant material with a great career ahead of him, marriage ahead, a year or so ahead …

  Brian Kwok shifted on the mattress in misery. His skin felt clammy and the dark was pressing down. He closed his leaden eyelids and let his mind roam back to her and that time, that bad time in his life. He remembered how he had argued with the Brotherhood, the leader, saying he could serve better in Canada than in Hong Kong where he would be only one of many. Here in Canada he was unique. In a few years he would be in Vancouver’s police hierarchy.

  But all his arguments had failed. Sadly he knew that they were right. He knew that if he had stayed, eventually he would have gone over to the other side, would have broken with the Party. There were too many unanswered questions now, thanks to reading RMCQ. reports on the Soviets, the KGB, the gulags, too many friends, Canadian and Nationalist, now. Hong Kong and China were remote, his past remote. Jeannette was here, loving her and their life, his souped-up car and prestige among his peers, seeing them as equals, no longer barbarians.