The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure

by Adam Williams

  With horror Herr Fischer realised that his hands were still in the pugilist’s position. He dropped them hurriedly to his sides. He bowed deeply. His throat was dry. Where was his interpreter, Charlie? ‘Your Ineffable, Honourable Excellency,’ he croaked, ‘on behalf of the Peking–Mukden Railway Company, welcome to the Shishan depot.’ But when he rose from his bow he saw to his mortification that the Mandarin had ignored him, had walked by him as if he did not exist, and was pumping the hateful Manners by the hand. The two were exchanging compliments in Chinese like old friends. Then the Mandarin noticed Airton and there was another intimate ritual of recognition, much laughing and exuberant patting on the back by the Mandarin. Herr Fischer began to feel like a stranger at his own ceremony.

  After an age he saw the doctor gesturing the Mandarin in his own direction. The latter turned and nodded at him with a pleasant smile. At last, thought Herr Fischer, as he began to bow again, the ceremony would proceed in an orderly fashion. But when he looked up, he saw that the Mandarin was off again, this time to pet Airton’s two children, who evidently interested him much more than Herr Fischer. There was ruffling of hair and pinching of cheeks, and a delighted snort of pleasure when Jenny made a greeting in recognisable Chinese.

  The Mandarin exuded bonhomie. He received the curtseys of the ladies with pleasure and examined the nuns with sardonic amusement. He himself bowed elegantly to Mrs Airton, a mark of respect to his old debating companion, the daifu. He abstractedly passed his hand to be shaken in turn by Delamere and Cabot, and paused for a long moment in front of Helen Frances, unabashedly looking her up and down. Then he made a remark to Henry Manners, which caused the latter to bark with laughter, the doctor to smile and a red flush suddenly to burn on Tom Cabot’s cheek. Helen Frances, meanwhile, the ignorant subject under discussion, looked from side to side in bewilderment. The Mandarin laughed loudly, took the embarrassed Tom by one hand and briefly squeezed his biceps with the other. Then he pulled Helen Frances gently towards her fiancé, linked their arms together, stood back like a sculptor admiring his work, and made another remark to Manners, which elicited more polite laughter all round.

  ‘What did he say? What did he say?’ whispered Fischer to Charlie, who had finally appeared by his side after seating the other Chinese dignitaries, who included Jin Lao and Major Lin.

  ‘What he said was rather crude, I’m afraid,’ replied Charlie, primly. ‘I say, don’t you think he’s behaving rather informally?’

  ‘Will you just translate what he said, please?’ He did not mean to snap but he was at the limit of his patience.

  ‘What he said was,’ Charlie’s voice dropped to a whisper, ‘that Mr Cabot is built like a warhorse and no wonder Miss Delamere has chosen to marry him, and if Mr Manners wants a wife, then he’d better go into training, because however clever a rider he is all a woman wants is a powerful mount that she can control. Then there was more saucy stuff about mares and stallions. I told you he was crude.’

  ‘This is intolerable,’ muttered Fischer. ‘We are planning a ceremony to mark a historical occasion and they are having a—a cocktail party. The engine will be here at any minute.’

  He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, and started to mop the perspiration from his brow. Suddenly the Mandarin was in front of him, grinning broadly. He had linked himself lightly arm in arm with the doctor and Henry Manners, and Herr Fischer had the incongruous vision of a blowsy society hostess drawing together two guests to meet a third. He hurriedly stuffed his handkerchief back into his pocket, clicked his heels and bowed for a third time. ‘Welcome, Your Worship, I mean Your Excellency, to our depot,’ he started, then paused in astonishment because someone was shouting in his ear. It was Charlie translating energetically.

  The Mandarin surveyed him. The hooded slits of his eyes narrowed. ‘So this is the great engineer,’ he smiled, ‘whose achievement we have come to celebrate. Ha, I thought at first that it was a mighty warrior who wanted to fight me,’ and with a flurry of his hands he parodied the two-fisted position in which he had caught Herr Fischer when he first arrived. ‘Ha-ha,’ he cried. ‘Is this how you practise your western martial arts?’ And he lightly tapped a horrified Herr Fischer on the chest, with such surprising force for so gentle a movement that the engineer rocked off balance. Immediately Herr Fischer felt a strong arm around his shoulders steadying him, and then his back was being heartily thumped and, with a roar of laughter, the Mandarin led him by the hand to the front-row seat marked with a red cushion. ‘Oh, worthy Engineer Xiansheng, sit down with me and tell me all about these marvels of modern science you are bringing us.’

  ‘I—I do not know what to say. I have a speech prepared,’ said Herr Fischer, looking anxiously at the notes he had left on the rostrum.

  ‘Excellent, excellent,’ said the Mandarin, settling in his chair. ‘The occasion is worthy of a speech.’ He yawned, and looked around as if he was missing something. ‘Some refreshments would do nicely,’ he murmured. ‘Give me something strange and western. I have come into your world today, and I am eager to try everything new. Daifu, what is that drink you are always telling me is superior to our wines?’

  ‘I was probably recommending whisky, Da Ren.’ Airton leaned forward, smiling. ‘The elixir of life, at least as far as we Scotsmen are concerned. But Herr Fischer maintains that he can do better even than that with his own German schnapps. Is that not right, my dear fellow?’

  ‘But, Dr Airton, the schnapps is for the toast. It is for after the ceremony. It is not yet time. For early refreshments I have only tea biscuits and lemonade prepared. Oh, yes, and Garibaldis…’

  ‘Heaven spare us,’ sighed Manners, and rolled his eyes in theatrical despair. The look was caught by Helen Frances, whose shoulders immediately shook with the giggles, though she tried desperately to disguise them as a coughing fit. Tom, seated stiffly with his arms folded, glanced at her severely. ‘For Heaven’s sake, HF,’ he whispered. ‘It’s embarrassing enough as it is.’

  ‘I—I’m sorry,’ she gulped, tears on her cheeks, her bosom heaving. ‘I—I can’t seem…’ At which point Manners winked at her, and her paroxysms started all over again. Tom glared at him with momentary hatred.

  By this time, the Mandarin was looking dubiously at a Garibaldi biscuit, which he held between the thumb and middle finger of one hand, while in the other he balanced a glass of lemonade. ‘These black fillings,’ the Mandarin was asking. ‘They are … a sort of insect, perhaps?’

  ‘Oh, no, Da Ren, certainly not. They are fruit. Raisins. Dried grapes,’ said the doctor quickly.

  Manners could not resist an interpolation. ‘But the manufacturers do try to make them look like squashed flies, Da Ren. It’s part of their appeal.’

  More muffled giggles from the vicinity of Helen Frances’s chair, echoed by a peal from where the children were sitting.

  ‘How very interesting,’ said the Mandarin, taking a bite. ‘Delicious.’

  It was a thoroughly demoralised Herr Fischer who made his way to the rostrum. He looked at his watch. It was already a minute to noon; they were way behind schedule. He hoped heartily that Bowers would be late or he wouldn’t have enough time to finish his speech. He peered nervously over his spectacles at his audience, the chattering crowd, the coolies lined up by the rails, the dignitaries behind him. The Mandarin looked comfortably settled. He was peering at the plate of tea biscuits. Behind him an elderly official with a long white beard was fastidiously removing every raisin from the Garibaldi biscuits.

  ‘Your Ineffable High Excellency,’ he shouted, above the noise of the crowd, ‘my lords, ladies and gentleman, this is a historic day.’

  Charlie was staring at him. ‘Go on, translate,’ Fischer hissed. ‘What’s the matter, man?’

  ‘Are you sure you mean “ineffable”, Herr Fischer? Is that really appropriate? The Mandarin’s not the Emperor … All right, all right, I’ll translate it,’ Charlie said, when he saw his boss’s expression and raised hand. It came out as
‘O divine and mysterious Da Ren, noblemen and peasants…’

  ‘“Divine and mysterious”?’ said the Mandarin. ‘I’ve never been called that before. How charming.’ He turned to Airton. ‘You don’t think of me as divine and mysterious, do you, Daifu?’

  ‘Mysterious, perhaps, Da Ren, but not divine. I think you know my views on that score.’

  The Mandarin leaned back comfortably in his chair. He liked nothing better than a philosophical debate with his friend the doctor, and he was already bored by the high-sounding phrases that were pouring out of Herr Fischer on the rostrum. In fact, none of the Chinese officials was bothering to listen to Herr Fischer’s oration, and imperceptibly his voice and Charlie’s rose higher and higher to be heard above the chatter behind them.

  Meanwhile the Mandarin was addressing Airton’s implicit challenge. ‘Indeed I do know your views,’ he said silkily. ‘You worship the tyrannical Jesus Christ with His fearsomely absolute views on what is right and wrong. Tremble and obey. Tremble and obey. Is it not so?’

  ‘Not so, Da Ren. My God is one of infinite mercy and love.’

  ‘So you say, but I have read your Ten Commandments. Worship only Me. Don’t steal. Don’t kill. Don’t sleep with anybody else’s woman … Tell me, Daifu, do you think your Jesus enjoyed His life on our earth? Ma Na Si Xiansheng,’ he turned to Henry, ‘the daifu and I are old. You are young and therefore wise. What do you think of these Christian commandments? The virtuous daifu believes that it is wrong to covet another man’s wife. Of course, in my magisterial capacity, so do I. But I was young once. Ma Na Si, tell an old man, is it evil to love another man’s woman?’

  His amiable smile seemed to embrace the whole foreign party. The doctor watched him carefully. Did he imagine it or had the hooded eyes lingered fractionally on Helen Frances and Tom? And immediately after that, did they flicker again to rest momentarily on the stiff figure of Major Lin? He could not be sure, but he knew the Mandarin of old and he sensed that he was up to something. Could there have been some undertone of meaning, or challenge, or signal, that the Mandarin was communicating to young Manners as they looked each other in the eye? He couldn’t for the life of him think what it was. Unless … but no, he had already discounted Nellie’s suspicions as unfounded prejudice. There was no love lost between the two women; they had never got on since Helen Frances spurned Nellie’s offer to work in the hospital, and the relationship had become no better when Helen Frances had been a guest in their house during Frank and Tom’s long absence in the north. Nellie was usually a shrewd judge of character but in this instance she seemed to have been swayed by sentiment, and was behaving no better than a gossip. On his part he had never seen anything at all reproachable in Miss Delamere’s behaviour, let alone any signs of an improper relationship with Manners. She was a delightful, well-brought-up young lady. He firmly believed that the friendship between Mr Manners and Helen Frances was merely that. A friendship. One only had to look at Tom and Helen Frances together to see how much in love they were. Tom and Manners themselves were friends. Anyway, as he privately knew, young Manners’s appetites lay elsewhere. Had he not seen him once of an evening leaving the alley that led to that abomination of an establishment Frank Delamere frequented? The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure, or whatever degrading name they called it. It was not for him to judge Manners. Young men would be young men, and he had never considered him to be any better than he ought to be. But of one thing he could be sure: if Manners was seeking amusement among courtesans then there was no way he could at the same time be paying court to his friend’s fiancée. Nobody could be so depraved. So what was the Mandarin insinuating? If he was insinuating anything at all. How would he know about Manners and Helen Frances anyway? And what did the glance at Major Lin betoken? Silly old fool, he told himself. You’ll be chasing your own shadow next. Meanwhile Manners had summoned his laziest smile. ‘I’m only a simple soldier, Da Ren, and not used to pondering such high philosophical issues.’

  ‘Ha-ha. High philosophical issues! Is that what you call adultery? Come, come, Ma Na Si, I am raising only hypothetical questions. While the good engineer here bores the crowd with his history lessons and his paean to machinery, how better than to spend the time in gentle debate? Tell me, how do you answer?’

  ‘As I said, Da Ren, I’m only a soldier, and my morality, if I have any—I’ve never really thought about it—probably comes from the Army Regulations.’

  ‘Indeed? And what do they tell you?’

  Manners’s smile widened. ‘Well, sir, they tell me never to pass up any opportunity to secure a tactical advantage in the field. And I believe it was Napoleon who once said that there is nothing which succeeds like audacity.’

  ‘Ha! Audacity? Listen to him, Daifu. This is a young man who knows exactly what he wants and how to get it. Of course he won’t reveal how to doddering old pedants like you and me, who are only good for sitting by the warm fire and discussing religion. The young are so self-interested, don’t you find? And cruel.

  ‘Did I ever tell you,’ he continued, ‘the maxim of the ancestor of some of our greatest emperors, Temujin, the Khan of Khans, who, it is said, conquered the whole world with his armies? He was a soldier, Ma Na Si, like you, and—yes—like our Major Lin. Do you know what he said?’ The hooded eyes closed as the Mandarin quoted in a dreamy voice: ‘There is no greater pleasure than to overthrow an enemy by guile, to slay him, to enslave his children and burn his crops, and to take his wives and daughters to your bed.’

  ‘That sentiment is monstrous, and barbaric. It’s evil,’ said the doctor.

  ‘Yes, it is. It contradicts nearly all of your Ten Commandments. But it does have a ring of honesty about it, does it not, Ma Na Si? A soldier’s creed? In fact, it is as absolute and implacable in its way as the strictures of right and wrong that you yourself obey in your own religion. Only the values are reversed. How I would like to witness a conversation between my Temujin and your Jesus Christ. That would be a diverting exchange, would it not?’

  ‘Da Ren, I cannot have you joking about such matters. There is a limit.’

  ‘But I am not joking, Daifu. You and I, we represent two opposites. You the idealist, I the pragmatist. Or so it seems. But are we so far apart? Will it be that one day you, my friend, will play the pragmatist? And will I play the idealist? Who knows? Who knows what Fate has in store for us in these changing and troubled times? What will be your test? And what will be mine? Will we each be true to what we believe? Or shall we find ourselves in the relative position of young Ma Na Si here, securing tactical advantages in the field?

  ‘But listen, what is that thumping noise which is drowning the speech of the engineer? And what is that screeching whistle? Is this finally the sound of civilisation that we have been waiting for? Is this the progress you have been promising us, Daifu? You will excuse me if I observe that civilisation in this instance seems to be taking on rather violent, physical dimensions.’

  All eyes were on the railway track and the rapidly approaching cloud of smoke. The air pounded with the sound of steam and the rattle of cars over rails. A groan of astonishment welled from the crowd, which undulated like a black speckled serpent as each person tried to stand on tiptoe to get a better view. Even those on the platform—the majority of whom had certainly seen a train before—rose as if hypnotised by the thundering mass of polished black and red metal hurtling towards them. The smokestack and the boiler were now clearly visible. The whistle howled like wolves in a forest; the siren screeched like a gale on a snow-face. Grey smoke belched from the stack, and blue steam billowed on either side like waves parted by a schooner in full race. Herr Fischer, who had abandoned his speech—he had ruefully realised halfway through that nobody had been listening to him anyway—made out the grinning whiskered features of Engineer Bowers who was gleefully tugging at the cord. His Chinese stokers, leaning from the cab, were grinning in their excitement. Herr Fischer realised that Bowers planned to bring his engine into the depot at full s
team, for maximum spectacle, confident that the brakes would bring the whole juggernaut to a stop before they hit the buffers. And now, like the Flying Dutchman driven to harbour by a storm, the train had reached the gates of the camp.

  ‘Bravo, Fischer! Bravo!’ he heard the doctor shout beside him.

  ‘Magnificent,’ he heard Delamere cry.

  He snatched a quick glance at his Chinese guests. The Mandarin was seated impassively, as was the military officer. The chamberlain, however, was cowering back in his chair evidently afraid. The crowd, too, was showing signs of nervousness; there was some jostling to and fro, but the line of railway coolies kept them away from the track and out of harm’s way. Everything would be all right, he told himself.

  He heard the jarring scream of the brakes, and saw that Bowers had calculated it perfectly. With a rattle and groan of metal the engine shuddered in its tracks. He could see fireworks of sparks cascade from the rigid wheels. The engine still seemed to be hurtling forward at great speed but Fischer knew that it would be at rest in a hundred yards. He felt disposed to cheer.

  Then he saw a man standing in the tracks.

  The crowd spotted him at the same moment. There was an eerie exhalation, something between a shout and a collective gasp. Bowers saw him too; he did everything he could, throwing the reversing lever and opening the throttle. Spouts of steam jetted from either side of the engine, but the train could not decrease its speed more rapidly than it was doing already. Those nearest the tracks were trying to edge backwards while the ones at the back were pressing forward to see what was happening. With horror Herr Fischer saw that in the ensuing mêlée some were being trampled underfoot. Their screams mingled sickeningly with the general cry of alarm from all sides. Helen Frances recognised the man as soon as she saw him and a chill ran down her spine. Her father spluttered, ‘Him again!’ and the blood ran out of Tom’s face.