The Russian Concubine

by Kate Furnivall

  I must dream.

  I dream.

  I must

  The words messed up her thoughts and took on colours of their own on the white ruled paper, so that dream seemed sometimes red and sometimes purple, swirling over the page. But not remained black as a mineshaft and she left it out all the way down the rows, making a deep drop for it, until right at the end when Mr Theo was holding out his hand for the paper. Quickly she scribbled in the missing nots. His mouth twitched with amusement, which only made the buzzing louder in her head, so she refused to look at him and stared instead at the ink stain the pen had made on her left forefinger. As black as Chang’s heart.

  After school she threw off her uniform and her hat, pulled on an old dress - not the one with the bloodstains, she couldn’t bear to touch that one - and went in search of food for Sun Yat-sen. The park was the place. Any weeds that drew breath in the street were instantly torn up by hungry scavengers, but she’d found a rough bank in Victoria Park, where dandelions had taken over and remained untouched because no Chinese were allowed inside the railings. Sun Yat-sen loved the raggedy leaves and would hop in a flurry of white onto her lap while she fed them to him one by one. She worried about his food more than her own.

  When she had filled her crumpled brown paper bag with leaves and grass, she headed over to the vegetable market in the Strand in the hope of picking up a few scraps under the stalls. The day was hot and humid, the pavement scorching the soles of her feet through her thin sandals, so she kept to the shade wherever she could and watched other girls twirling their dainty parasols or disappearing into La Fontaine Café for ice cream or to the Buckingham Tearoom for cool sherbets and cucumber sandwiches without crusts.

  Lydia turned her head away. Averted her eyes and her thoughts. Things were not good at home at the moment. Not good at all. Valentina had not left the attic all week, not since the aborted concert, and seemed to be living on nothing but vodka and cigarettes. The musky smell of Antoine’s hair oil hung in the room but he was never there when Lydia came home, just the cushions in a mess on the floor and her mother in various stages of despair.

  ‘Darling,’ she’d murmured the day before, ‘it is time I joined Frau Helga’s, if she’ll have me.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that, Mama. Frau Helga’s is a brothel.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s full of prostitutes.’

  ‘I tell you, little one, if no one will pay me for running my fingers over piano keys anymore, then I must earn money by putting my fingers to work elsewhere. That’s all they’re fit for now.’ She had held up her fingers, curled over like broken fans, for her daughter to inspect.

  ‘Mama, if you put them to work scrubbing the floor and hanging up your clothes, at least this place wouldn’t be such a pigsty.’

  ‘Poof!’ Valentina had dragged both hands through her wild hair and flounced back to bed, leaving Lydia reading in a chair by the window.

  Sun Yat-sen was asleep bonelessly on her shoulder, his nose whispering his dreams into her ear. The book was one from the library, Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, and it was the third time she’d read it. Its abject misery brought her comfort. The room was a mess around her but she ignored it. She had arrived home from school yesterday to find Valentina’s clothes hurled across the floor and left there to be walked over. Signs of another row with Antoine. But this time Lydia refused to pick them up and carefully walked around them instead. It was like walking around dead bodies. And no food in the house. The few things she’d bought to eat with the watch money were long gone.

  Lydia knew she should take her new dress up to Mr Liu’s, the beautiful concert frock with the low apricot satin sash. But she didn’t. Each day she told herself she’d do it tomorrow, for certain tomorrow, but the dress continued to hang on a hook on the wall while each day she grew thinner.

  The Strand was emptying by the time Lydia arrived. The leaden heat had driven people off the street, but the vegetable market in the big noisy hall at the far end was busier than she’d expected this late in the day. The Strand was the main shopping area in the International Settlement, dominated by the gothic frontage of Churston Department Store where ladies bought their undergarments and gentlemen their humidors and Lydia could browse when it rained.

  Today she hurried past it and into the market, in search of a stall closing down for the day, one where broken cabbage leaves or a bruised durian were being thrown into a pig bin as the floor was swept clean. But each time she spotted one, a litter of Chinese street urchins was there before her, squabbling and scrapping over the castoffs like kittens in a sack. After half an hour of patient scouting, she snatched up a corncob that a careless elbow had knocked to the floor and made a quick exit. She bundled the cob inside the paper bag along with the leaves and grass and had just stepped off the kerb to cross the road behind a swaying donkey cart when a hand snaked out and yanked the bag from her grasp.

  ‘Give that back,’ she shouted and grabbed for the scruff of the thief’s neck.

  But the Chinese boy ducked under her arm and was off. His jet-black hair stood up like a scrubbing brush as he wove through the traffic, and though he could be no more than seven or eight years old he nipped in and out with the speed of a weasel. Diving, ducking, twisting. Lydia raced after him, barged around a corner, knocking into a juggler and sending his hoops flying, never taking her eyes off the scrubbing-brush head. Her lungs were pounding but she pushed harder, her legs stretching out in strides twice as long as the weasel’s. She was not going to let Sun Yat-sen go hungry tonight.

  Abruptly the boy skidded to a halt. Twenty feet ahead, he turned and faced her. He was small, skin filthy, legs like twigs and an abscess under one eye, but he was very sure of himself. He held up the paper bag for a second, staring at her with his black unblinking eyes, and then opened his fingers and dropped the bag on the ground before backing off a dozen paces.

  Only then did Lydia stop and look around. The street was quiet but not empty. A small maroon car with a dented fender was parked halfway down on her side, while two Englishmen were fiddling with a motorbike’s engine across the road. One was telling the other in a loud voice a joke about a mother-in-law and a parrot. This was an English street. It had net curtains. Not an alleyway in old Junchow. This was safe. So why did she feel unease claw its way into her mind? She approached slowly.

  ‘You filthy thieving devil,’ she yelled at him.

  No answer.

  Eyes fixed on him, she bent quickly, scooped up the bag from the ground, and held it tight to her chest, feeling the knobbly vegetable with her finger. But before she could work out what was going on, a hand came from behind, clamped over her mouth, and strong arms bundled her into the back of the small car with the dented fender. It all happened in the blink of an eye. But her own eye couldn’t blink. A knife blade was pushed against the top of the socket of her right eye and a harsh voice snarled something in Chinese.

  She couldn’t open her mouth because of the hand. Her blood was thundering in her ears and her heart knocking holes in her ribs, but she kicked out a foot and connected with a shin-bone.

  ‘Be still.’

  This voice was smoother. Spoke English. His face was smoother too. There were two men, Chinese roughnecks, one broad-faced and reeking of garlic, the other with hard eyes and small smooth features. He was the one holding the knife and twitching its blade on her eyelid.

  ‘You lose eye. No trouble.’ He spoke softly and she could hear the two Englishmen laughing at their stupid joke across the road.

  ‘Understand?’

  She blinked her left eye.

  The other man removed his stinking hand from her mouth.

  ‘What do you want?’ she breathed. ‘I have no money.’

  ‘Not money.’ The smooth one shook his head. ‘Where Chang An Lo?’

  Lydia felt sweat slide down her back.

  ‘I don’t know any Chang An Lo.’

  The knife point snicked open her skin. She felt her eyelid
sting.

  ‘Where he?’

  ‘I don’t know. But don’t cut me again. This is the truth. He’s gone. I don’t know where.’

  ‘You lie.’

  ‘No. It’s true.’ She held up a finger. ‘Cut it off and you’ll still get the same answer. I don’t know where he is.’

  The two faces hesitated and glanced at each other. It was then she saw the coiled black snake tattooed on the side of each neck. The last time she’d seen a snake it was in the alleyway in the old town and that one was black.

  ‘I can guess, though,’ she added and spat in his face.

  The rough face spat back at her and the smooth face leaned closer.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In jail.’

  An angry frown. ‘Why jail?’

  ‘He stole something. From the Ulysses Club. They’ve caught him and chucked him in a cell. They’ll probably send him to prison in Tientsin, that’s what the English usually do anyway. You won’t see him again for a long time.’

  A fierce exchange burst out between the two men, and then the rough one’s eyes grew wide with understanding and he screamed something at her, seized her arm, and hurled her out of the car onto the pavement. The back of her head cracked on the stone, but she barely felt it. The car drove off and the boy had vanished. Relief was so sweet, it flooded her mouth. She scrambled to her feet and was noticed for the first time by one of the Englishmen, who called out, ‘You all right, miss?’

  She nodded and hurried back down the street, the brown paper bag still in her hand.

  13

  Damn him, damn him, damn him.

  Damn Chang An Lo. She had saved his worthless skin for a second time. But what did she get out of it? A bump on the head and a sore eye. No necklace. No Erard grand.

  Once back on the Strand, Lydia was shocked to find she was shaking. She was hot, sticky, and annoyed. Her mouth tasted as if it were packed full of sand and she longed for a tall cool drink, one with ice and a slice of mango floating in it. She had had ice only once in her life and that was when Antoine bought her a raspberry juice in an ice cream parlour in the French part of town while waiting for her mother to choose a hat. She had sucked the frozen cubes until her tongue went numb.

  She pushed open the glass doors of Churston Department Store and flicked the weight of her hair off her neck for a moment. At least it would be cooler here. The giant brass fans on the ceiling were not ice, but they helped chill the skin. Inside, the counters were busy. At one, an American woman with hair bobbed short was buying Guerlain perfume; at another, a man was holding up a pair of jet earrings to his wife’s face and smiling. Probably his mistress, Lydia decided.

  Above their heads small wooden canisters whizzed across the room on wires, carrying cash and receipts to and from the little cage in the corner. That was where a woman with a face like a nanny goat and a hair growing out of the mole on her chin hoarded the money and wrote down in tiny writing the sums of each transaction. Normally Lydia liked to watch her busy hands, never still, but today she was not in the mood. In fact she wasn’t in the mood for any of this.

  Looking at the displays of snakeskin handbags and mother-of-pearl jewellery boxes just made her feel worse.

  She turned to leave. And almost stumbled over a man she recognised. It was the cream jacket and panama hat from the Chinese market last week, the watch man, the Englishman with the liking for porcelain. She swerved away, but not before seeing him slide his wallet into the side pocket of his jacket and head for the exit door. Under his arm was tucked a small purchase wrapped in white tissue paper.

  The decision was instant. She recalled how easy he’d been. How soft. Unguarded. Anyway, only a fool would carry his wallet so casually. By the time he reached the door, she was there. He held it open for her, touching his fingers to the brim of his hat in a courteous manner and she smiled her thanks as she brushed past him.

  In the street, in the heat, she took two steps. No more. A hand seized her wrist and didn’t let go.

  ‘Young lady, I want my wallet back.’ He didn’t shout but the rage in his voice flared in her face.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Don’t make things worse for yourself. My wallet. Now.’

  She fought to pull her wrist free, twisted and turned, but his grip was locked solid. This was only the third time since the death of her father that she’d been touched by a man’s hand. The first was in the alleyway and then a few minutes ago in the dented car, and now this. She was astonished at how strong they were. She stopped struggling.

  ‘My wallet.’

  She held up the brown paper bag in her free hand and he lifted his possession out of it, replacing it in his pocket, the inside one this time. But he didn’t release her wrist. She lowered her head. What else did he want from her?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she offered.

  ‘Sorry is not enough. You need to be taught a lesson, my girl. I’m taking you straight to the police station.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I warn you, if you make any trouble, I will summon a couple of the traffic police off the street to assist me. That won’t be very dignified for you, I assure you.’

  He marched off, dragging her beside him. A few heads turned, but no one was interested enough to interfere. Lydia’s thoughts panicked. She could go limp, sit down on the pavement. But where would that get her?

  Neither spoke. They strode on in silence.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘My name is Mr Parker.’

  ‘Mr Parker, I won’t do it again.’

  ‘Indeed you won’t. I intend to make sure of that.’

  ‘What will the police do to me?’

  ‘Throw you in prison. That’s what a thief deserves.’

  ‘Even though I’m only sixteen?’

  Without slackening his pace, he stared at her as a man would stare at a scorpion. She stared back.

  ‘Exactly a week ago I was robbed,’ he said stiffly. ‘Most likely some native beggar no older than you. He was probably poor and hungry. But that does not excuse thieving. Nothing does. It is against the Word of God and against the fabric of our society. If he’d asked, I’d have given. That’s charity. But not my watch. For heaven’s sake, not that.’

  ‘If I’d asked, Mr Parker, would you have given?’

  He looked at her and a flicker of confusion crossed his face. ‘No, I would not.’

  ‘But I am poor.’

  ‘You’re white. You should know better.’

  She said nothing more. She had to think. Keep her mind working. Then St Augustine’s Church loomed, grey and uninviting, on their right and an idea came to her, so tempting it sent adrenaline skidding to her fingertips.

  ‘Mr Parker.’

  He wouldn’t turn his head.

  ‘Mr Parker, I need to go in there.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Into the church.’

  This time he looked at her, startled. ‘Why?’

  ‘If I am to go to prison like you say, I need to seek God’s peace first.’

  He jerked to a halt. ‘Are you making fun of me, young lady? Do you take me for a fool?’

  ‘No, sir.’ She lowered her eyes demurely. ‘I know what I did was wrong and I need to ask for the Lord’s forgiveness. Please, it won’t take long, I promise.’ She saw him hesitate. ‘To cleanse my soul.’

  A silence followed. The noises in the street seemed to recede, as if only she and this man existed in the whole of China. She held her breath.

  He adjusted his spectacles on his nose. ‘Very well. I suppose I can’t deny you that. But don’t think you can escape in there.’

  He led her up the stone steps, his fingers still clamped around her wrist, and pushed open the heavy oak door.

  She froze.

  He stopped and studied her face impatiently. ‘What now?’

  She shook her head. She had never been inside a church before. What if God struck her dead?

  He seemed to sense her fear. ‘God will forgive you, child,
even if I cannot.’

  With fists clenched, she stepped inside. She was not prepared for the drop in temperature, nor the high vaulted ceiling that towered above her the way human beings tower over ants. It made her shiver. Parker nodded to himself, as if pleased with her reaction. The place smelled a bit like Mrs Zarya’s backyard, thick musty air in her nostrils, but its windows made her heart thump with excitement. The light and blaze of colours were so intense, the Virgin Mary’s gown more vivid than a peacock’s breast and Christ’s blood the exact shade of the ruby necklace Chang had stolen from her.

  ‘Sit down.’

  She sat. In a long pew near the back. She stared up at a man-sized figure of Christ above the altar and expected blood to bubble from its side at any moment. A few people were sitting quietly in other pews, heads bowed, lips moving in prayer, but mainly the church was full of emptiness and Lydia could see why people came here. To feed off the emptiness. It slowed her heartbeat and quieted the panic in her head. Here she could think.

  ‘Let us pray,’ Parker said and rested his head on his hands, bowing forward against the back of the bench in front.

  Lydia did the same.

  ‘Lord,’ Parker murmured, ‘pardon us all, sinners that we are. Especially forgive this young girl her transgression and bring her the peace that passeth understanding. Dear Lord, guide her with thy Almighty hand, by the grace of Jesus Christ our Saviour, Amen.’

  Lydia watched between her fingers as a wood louse crawled toward Parker’s shiny brogue shoe. There was a long silence and she considered making a run for it now that he’d released her hand. But she didn’t. He’d be quick to seize hold of her the moment she moved a muscle from the absurd prayer position, and anyway, she liked it here. The emptiness and the silence. When she closed her eyes she felt as if she were floating up in it. Looking down. Waving good-bye to the rats and the hunger below. Is this what angels feel like? Weightless and carefree and . . .

  She snapped open her eyes. So who on earth would look after her mother and Sun Yat-sen if she drifted away on a fluffy white cloud? God didn’t seem to have done much of a job with the millions of Chinese starving to death out there, so why should she think He would bother with Valentina and a scrawny white rabbit?