by Chloe Gong
“No, of course not,” Kathleen said quickly. Slowly, she sat up straight, then gestured to Juliette’s hands. Juliette looked down. There was a smear of blood that she hadn’t managed to clean in the soft space between her thumb and index finger. “I guess I was expecting you to just wave a gun around or something. I didn’t think you would actually threaten her.”
Kathleen had always been the pacifist. In the letters that she and Rosalind had sent to America while Juliette was away—always tucked within the same envelope—Juliette could immediately tell the difference between the sisters. There was the matter of handwriting, of course. Rosalind’s big loopy letters when she wrote in English or French and her wide, spread-out Chinese characters, as if each stroke were trying to run away from the others. Kathleen, on the other hand, always wrote like she was running out of space. She squished her letters and strokes until they overlapped, sometimes carving up the previous character with the brunt of the next. But beneath that, even if they had typed their letters out on a typewriter, Juliette could tell. Rosalind wrote on the state of affairs as anyone in this city would. She was bright and witty from years of education in classical literature. The sweetness of her words would drip onto the page as she bemoaned Juliette’s absence and told her she would have been beside herself if she had seen Mr. Ping last week when his suit pants ripped down the middle. It wasn’t that Kathleen wasn’t as well read—Kathleen merely looked inward. She would never write a summary on the latest blood feud casualty and then offer a wise idiom on the cyclical nature of violence. She would lay out a step-by-step procedure on stopping further brutality so they could live in peace, then wonder why nobody in the Scarlet Gang seemed to be capable of doing so.
Juliette had always had an answer. She only never had the heart to tell Kathleen.
It was because they didn’t want to.
“Madame deals with the riffraff day in, day out.” Juliette set her chin in her hand. “Do you think she would be scared at the mere sight of a gun?”
Kathleen sighed irritably, smoothing down her hair. “Nevertheless, Juliette, it’s not like—”
“You have been present at some of my father’s business meetings, no?” Juliette interrupted. “I heard Māma say Jiùjiu brought you and Rosalind along for some time a few years ago, before you lost the stomach for it.”
“It was only Rosalind who lost the stomach,” Kathleen countered evenly, “but yes, our father did take us along for some negotiations.”
“Negotiations,” Juliette mocked, leaning back in the seat. Her voice came out in a sneer, but the derision wasn’t directed at Kathleen. It was directed at the way the Scarlet Gang warped their own language, as if everybody did not already know the truth. They should begin calling it what it really was: extortion, blackmail.
Having arrived at their destination, the car slowed to an idle outside the mansion gates, its engine rumbling. The gates surrounding the house were new, replaced right after Juliette left. They were an utter nuisance for the men stationed out front whenever relatives arrived every five minutes hoping to enter, and now the two on duty hurried to pull the heavy metal spires open before Juliette could yell at them for being slow.
But that was the price for safety in the face of ever-present danger.
“You remember, don’t you?” Juliette asked. “My father’s tactics?” She had seen plenty during those short few months of her first return. Even before that, when Juliette was only a child, some of her earliest memories were of raising her arms to be picked up and smelling blood emanating off her father when he did so.
The Scarlet Gang did not tolerate weakness.
“Yes,” Kathleen said.
“So if he can do it,” Juliette continued, “why shouldn’t I?”
Kathleen had nothing to say to that. She merely sighed a little sigh and flopped her hands to either side of herself in defeat.
The car came to a complete stop. A maid was already waiting to open the door, and though Juliette took the helping hand out, it was only a matter of courtesy; in her beaded dress, it was easy for her to scoot out of the car and step down from its high elevation. Kathleen, meanwhile, needed a few seconds to make a dignified exit, the confines of her qipao slowing her progress. By the time Kathleen’s shoes crunched down on the driveway, Juliette was already heading toward the front door, angling her head toward the sunlight to warm her cold face.
It would all fall into place. She needn’t worry. She had a name. First thing tomorrow, she would show up at this Zhang Gutai’s place of work and confront him. One way or another, Juliette would stop this madness nonsense before her people suffered for it.
Then a shriek shot through the gardens. “Ali, what’s wrong with you?”
Juliette whirled around, reacting fast to the panic echoing through the gardens. Her heart stuttered in horror.
It’s too late.
The madness had come knocking on her doorstep.
“No, no, no,” Juliette hissed, rushing toward the flower beds. There, Ali had been on her way back into the house, a laundry basket filled with clothing propped on her hip. Only now the basket was lying on the roses, bundles of folded clothing crushing them without mercy.
And Ali was tearing at her own throat.
“Get her onto the floor,” Juliette yelled at the nearby gardener, the one who had gotten Juliette’s attention in the first place with his shriek. “Kathleen, get help!”
Juliette took one of Ali’s shoulders. The gardener took the other. Together they tried their hardest to force the maid down, but by the time Ali’s head thudded against the soft soil of the rose beds, her fingers were already knuckle-deep into the muscle and tendon running through her neck. There was a horrible wet, tearing sound—a sensation of dampness as blood spurted outward—and then Juliette could see bone, could see clearly every ridge of ivory white spliced neatly through the pink-red of Ali’s neck.
Ali’s eyes turned glassy. Her hands slackened, the chunks of torn flesh sliding from her loosened grasp and dropping to the ground.
Juliette wanted to throw up. The blood pouring from Ali’s throat ran and ran, seeping into the soil until the earth was stained dark, until the stain grew large enough to stop merely a few feet away from the former site of the old servants’ house, where Nurse, too, had met her end.
This is why, Juliette thought numbly. This is why we shall not love more than we need to. Death will come for everyone in the end—
A terrified scream shot out from the main house.
Kathleen.
Juliette bolted to her feet. “Kathleen!” she roared. “Kathleen, where are you?”
“Juliette, come!”
Juliette slammed through the front door and sprinted through the living room, drawing concerned gasps from the few confused aunts who had risen from their gossiping on the couches. In a frenzy, she skidded into the kitchen to find Kathleen standing by the long counter, her body frozen in horror, hands pressed to her mouth and muffling her words in an effort not to scream.
A cook was writhing on the floor, blood already trickling down his forearms. Three feet away, under the doorway into the main hallway, another maid was in the process of collapsing, leaning against the jamb and striking herself to resist the madness.
“Step back—”
The maid collapsed. The first arc of blood from her throat flew wide, staining the intricate carvings of the doorway and painting the beige walls into an abstraction. Faintly, Juliette wondered if they would ever be able to get such a stain out, or if it would remain in this house forever. Even when painted over or scrubbed viciously from the jamb, its presence would remain, stinking up the room with the Scarlets’ failure to protect their own.
The maid stilled. It seemed that was what finally jolted Kathleen into acting, because she surged forward then with a strangled gasp, her long hair swinging and shaking into her face in her haste.
This madness—it could be contagious.
“Stop!” Juliette shrieked.
&n
bsp; Kathleen froze in her steps. The only sound that could be heard in the sudden silence was Juliette’s heavy breathing.
She turned back, facing the two aunts who had cautiously crept into the kitchen. They covered their mouths in horror, but Juliette didn’t give them time to be horrified.
“Send for some of the men out front to clean this up,” she said. “Tell them to wear gloves.”
Eleven
Juliette slammed the trunk of the car shut, clicking its latch so vigorously that the vehicle shuddered up and down on its tires.
“Ready,” she called to the driver. “Go forth.”
Through the rearview mirror, the driver gave a grim nod. The car started to pull away from the gravel driveway, rumbling in the direction of the front gate and toward the nearest hospital. The dead bodies in the trunk would be out of Juliette’s hands then. She hoped the hospital appreciated how delicately the Scarlets had wrapped the corpses in thick bedsheets.
“Miss Cai.”
Juliette turned, finding a messenger coming her way. “Yes?”
The messenger gestured back at the house. “Your parents have come downstairs. They ask what is occurring.”
“Oh, now they come down,” Juliette muttered under her breath. Not when there was screaming in the hallways. Not when Juliette was yelling obscenities so the gangsters would hurry up with the spare bedsheets and the maids would fetch water so the servants could attempt to scrub out the stains on the floorboards.
They were going to need to hire some heavy-duty cleaners.
“I’ll go speak to my parents.” Juliette sighed. She strolled past the messenger, shoulders heavy with anticipation. Her parents might have been taking a meeting upstairs, but dozens of relatives had witnessed the terrible deaths, and talk in this house spread fast.
But when Juliette came back into the living room, she had to do a double take, seeing what seemed to be the entirety of her family.
“Are we having a party I wasn’t invited to?” Juliette jeered, halting to a stop at the threshold. There were still bloodstains in the kitchen, and her relatives were all gathered here en masse? Did they want to get infected and die?
Lord Cai stood, cutting off whichever relative had been speaking within the gathering.
“Juliette,” he said, inclining his chin up the staircase. There was something in his hands. A few slips of creamy white paper. Expensive paper. “Come.”
It was as clear a dismissal as any for the rest of the household. While everybody else dispersed, however, Tyler remained on the couch, his hands placed behind his head like he had all the time in the world. He cocked his head at Juliette’s death glare, feigning obliviousness.
Juliette bit down on her tongue. She scuttled up the stairs after her father.
“What are we to do with the bloodstains?” she asked as they filtered into his office. Her mother was already there, seated on the other side of her father’s desk and browsing through reports.
“We will have someone come to clean it,” Lady Cai replied, looking up and flicking a phantom speck of dust off the sleeve of her qipao. “I am more concerned with why people were tearing their throats out in this house in the first place—”
“It’s the madness,” Juliette interrupted. “It’s here, and it could be a viral contagion. We need to ask the other maids who were in contact with the victims to remain in their rooms for a few days.”
Her father sat down in his own big chair and crossed his hands over his stomach. Her mother tilted her head quizzically.
“And how do you know it is a contagion?” Lord Cai asked. Though Juliette froze at the question, belatedly realizing she had relayed a detail from Roma, her father did not sound suspicious. He had only asked the question plainly, as he did in any everyday conversation. She told herself to calm down. If her father were suspicious, he was the type to make the fact simple and clear.
“Word on the street,” Juliette replied. “It may only get worse from here on out.”
Lady Cai pinched the bridge of her nose. She shook her head, waving off the thought. “Three dead in this household still does not stand up against the thousands being swayed by the political tide.”
Juliette blinked. “But, Māma—”
“Don’t you wish to know why everybody was gathered around in such fascination downstairs?” Lord Cai cut in. He pushed the paper in his hands onto the desk, angling them so that Juliette could get a good look. The conversation had moved on then; the madness was truly only an offshoot of politics in their minds.
Fine, Juliette thought. If she was the only one with the right priorities, then she could solve this whole damn thing on her own.
Juliette picked up the smaller slip of paper, her own name immediately catching her attention.
Miss Cai, I would love to see you there. —Paul
“What is this?” Juliette demanded.
“An invitation,” Lady Cai explained, “to a masquerade party in the French Concession next week.”
Juliette leaned in to read the bigger piece of paper, tutting under her breath. She didn’t like the sound of this. Foreigners extending their hands in invitation could only mean demands and expectations.
“It is the French who are summoning us?” she asked.
“The function is a joint venture between the different foreign powers,” her father replied softly. In a mocking tone, he added, “The French, British, Americans, and everyone else—they wish to come together and celebrate the native powers of Shanghai,” reciting the text just as Juliette’s eyes scanned over it.
Our hospitality is extended to all under the protection of Lord Cai, it read. This party was inviting every member of the Scarlet Gang.
Lady Cai scoffed. “If the foreigners wanted to celebrate us, they could begin by remembering this is our country, not theirs.”
Juliette turned to look at her mother, curious. Distaste was fouling the lines in Lady Cai’s face, deepening the grooves that she spent each morning covering with a layer of fine powder.
“However,” Lord Cai continued, as if his wife hadn’t made a scathing remark, “it is the French who wish to meet with us. There’s another card lurking here somewhere.”
After a few seconds of confused searching, Juliette lifted the bigger sheet of paper and found the third and final card, the same size as the one from Paul. This one was for her father, from the Consul-General of France in Shanghai. There were only two lines of writing. He was requesting a meeting at the party to discuss the situation in Shanghai, whatever that meant.
“Well,” Juliette said, “does this mean trouble for us?”
“It may not be trouble.” Lord Cai shrugged. “We will have to see.”
Juliette narrowed her eyes. She didn’t like how her parents had drifted into a pregnant silence, one that was waiting for something… something…
“I certainly hope you’re not going to make me go to this masquerade,” Juliette guessed contemptuously.
“I am not going to make you go like some tyrant,” her father replied. “But I would strongly prefer it if you attended with me.”
“Bàba,” Juliette whined. “I did enough partying in New York to last nine lives. The French can say they want to discuss the state of affairs in Shanghai all they like, but we know they’re useless.”
“Juliette,” her mother scolded.
“What?” Juliette retorted, righteous.
“No, no, she is right,” Lord Cai said. “The French wish to meet only to discuss the Scarlet militia. They wish to hear how many people I have under my control and they wish to have my cooperation under the possibility of a Communist revolt. That is all true.”
Her father leaned forward then, pinpointing his gaze on her, and suddenly Juliette regretted whining, because she felt like a child being told off for protesting an early bedtime.
“But we still need allies. We need power, we need customers, and we need their support. And I need you to be my little translator when they mutter among themselves in F
rench, thinking I cannot understand them.”
Juliette made a disgruntled noise at the back of her throat. “Very well,” she said. She reached for the letter of invitation and shoved it in her pocket, wanting to examine it more in her own time. “I’ll go, mais ce n’est pas de bon gré!”
She strode for the door, dismissing herself. She was so close—one hand was already on the handle and her body was in midstride—when her mother called out, “Wait.”
Juliette halted.
“This… Paul,” Lady Cai said. “Why is he calling after you?”
Lady Cai had said his name like it was some magic spell used for summoning. As if it held some grand weight to it rather than it be one syllable of lackluster annoyance.
“He is Walter Dexter’s son,” Juliette replied, apathetic. “They are still trying to hire us as middlemen for their drug trade.”
Lady Cai mulled over that for a long moment. Then she said, “Is he handsome?”
“Ugh, please.” Juliette pushed forward. “He is using me, Māma. It is that simple. Please excuse me now. I have work to—what are you doing?”
That latter part was directed at Tyler, who had been lurking close enough to the door that Juliette had hit his shoulder when it opened.
“Calm down,” Tyler said. “I’m on my way to the washroom.”
They both knew that was a big, fat lie—as wide as Tyler’s monstrous smile and as long as his list of crimes.
Juliette closed her father’s office door after herself with a solid thud. She stared at her cousin, waiting, and he only stared back. His cheek was still bright with its cut, having not yet fully scabbed over.
“Do you have something you’d like to say to me, Tyler?” Juliette asked.
“Only one,” Tyler replied. His eyes flitted up, knowing her parents could still hear this conversation. “I’m very excited to attend this party. Le moment où tu n’es plus utile, je serai prêt à prendre ta place.”