Airton looked at her impassively. She had been sitting in a composed position but now she began to shake and her pressed knuckles were as white as the counterpane she clutched in her trembling fingers. ‘Please, Doctor, don’t torment me. Give me my dose. Just one phial.’ Her eyes gleamed with sudden hope. ‘Or my pipe. Give me back my pipe with the paste. The one you took from my drawer. That’s mine. Mine, Doctor. Please give it back to me. You can’t take away what’s mine. Mrs Airton,’ the imploring eyes turned towards the figure by the door, ‘please ask your husband to give me some morphine. Or my pipe. Please.’
‘I think you should be getting back into your bed,’ said Nellie.
‘Listen, I saw my father this morning, as you wanted me to.’ Helen Frances’s words were tumbling out one after each other, and a bead of sweat was running down her forehead. ‘I let him come in and I lay there, and pretended I had flu. I lied to him as you told me to. I did my part. Now you’ve got to do yours and give me the morphine you promised me. And then I’ll go. And you won’t have to see me again. That’s what we agreed,’ she screamed suddenly. ‘That’s what we agreed.’
Airton tried to reach for her hands but she wrenched them away, and rolled over the bed so she was standing on the other side, breathing heavily, her fists clenched. ‘I’ll tell my father the truth,’ she hissed. ‘That you’re keeping me here against my will. That you started me on the drug. I’ll tell him—I’ll tell him—’
With a rush she pushed Nellie aside and reached for the door handle. Nellie put her arms around her body pinioning her. Airton grabbed her kicking legs. Sister Caterina, who had been waiting outside the door, came in, and briskly assisted Nellie. With surprising ease the three carried the fighting, scratching, biting girl and laid her on the bed. As the women held her down, Dr Airton, breathing heavily after the exertion, reached in his pocket for some cut lengths of rope and, with some difficulty, caught her flailing arms, one after the other, and tied her hands to the bed rail. Later, pulling off her boots, he did the same for her kicking feet. Helen Frances lay spreadeagled on her back. All of them, including Helen Frances herself, were exhausted after the struggle, and for a while the only sounds in the room were sobs and panting.
There was a tear running down Caterina’s apple cheeks, but Dr Airton’s and Nellie’s faces were grim set. Helen Frances, her white face peering through a tangle of fox-coloured hair, gazing up at her captors with wide, amazed eyes, resembled a hurt animal.
The doctor’s voice was stony: ‘No, my dear, you won’t be getting any more morphine from me. That’s not what I promised you last night. I promised to make you well, and that’s what I’m going to do.’
Nellie saw the horror dawn on the girl’s face and felt her own cheeks twitch as she struggled to keep her composure. She had to look away, but she heard the small voice rising piteously from the bed: ‘But that’s not fair. It’s not fair. You don’t keep the opium away from your Chinese patients. Not totally. I’ve seen you, and you’ve explained to me. You give them reducing dosages. I need the drug too, Doctor. You know I do. You can’t … you can’t … deprive me.’ Helen Frances’s head began to shake. ‘You can’t do this to me,’ she cried.
‘Listen, Helen Frances. You must be brave. You won’t be on your own. Either I, or Mrs Airton or Sister Caterina will be with you all the time. It’s true I give the Chinese addicts reducing dosages but most of them have been opium-smokers for many years. If I tried to break them of their habit abruptly they would probably not survive—but you’re young, you’re strong, with a habit of only a few months’ duration, and I think I can cure you completely of your craving. Anyway, I’m going to risk it, for your sake, for the sake of your father and Tom and, most importantly of all, because you’re carrying a baby inside you. And I think, deep down, you want me to help you. To save you from yourself. To save your baby.
‘You can scream and struggle and yell as much as you like, but that won’t change anything. I’m sorry, but for the next few days you will remain strapped to the bed. In a while Sister Caterina will help you remove those day clothes and make you comfortable in a nightdress. There’ll be water for you, and food if you want it. I’m going to make you take some soup whether you want it or not.’
Helen Frances’s eyes, like two glittering stones, remained fixed on Dr Airton as he spoke. Her expression was one of shock and dismay.
‘Listen,’ said Airton, ‘I think you should know while you’re still rational and can understand me what will happen to you when your body is deprived of this drug. Please pay attention. There is no disguising the hideousness of what you are about to undergo, but knowing may help you.’
As he said this he glanced up at Nellie as if to seek support. Gently she rested a hand on his shoulder. When Dr Airton spoke again, it was matter-of-factly, but he could not completely hide his emotion. ‘In a short while, after only a few hours, the first effects will be visible. You will find yourself yawning uncontrollably, you will weep, you will perspire. You will have a runny nose. Finally you will sleep. It will be a restless, fitful kind of sleep and you will have terrible nightmares. And when you wake you will wish that the nightmares were real because they will be more pleasant than the waking reality. Your whole body will be aching. You won’t be able to lie still. Your pupils will contract. You will have severe leg pains. And then you will begin to vomit. Uncontrollably. And I’m afraid that you will also experience severe diarrhoea. You’ll be in a state half waking, half unconscious, wanting oblivion but unable to slumber. If you’re aware of yourself at that time you will be disgusted with yourself. I’m sorry—but it doesn’t get better. You’ll experience fever, high blood pressure, you’ll be delirious—but don’t worry, I’ll be there, carefully monitoring you and seeing you come to no harm. It will seem to be a nightmare without end. Some patients attempt to kill themselves. That’s why I’m tying you to the bed—but believe me, my dear girl, it will come to an end. In two or three days you will reach the peak of your suffering, and then slowly, slowly, you will return to normal again, I promise you this, by everything I know. And one day—pray God—you will wake, and you will be yourself again, and you will have lost that craving. It may take as little as ten days. It may take longer. But that day will come.’
He sighed, avoiding Helen Frances’s eyes, which bored into his with hatred. ‘There, Helen Frances, I’ve told you the worst. I’ve spared you nothing. I’ve told you because when you are experiencing this hell and torment, there will be a small part of you that will understand what is happening and why. Cling to that part of yourself, because it will bring you through. Now I’m going to leave you while the ladies undress you. I’ll be back soon.’
Hurriedly he left the room.
To Helen Frances, lying helplessly on her back, the concerned faces of Nellie and Sister Caterina hanging above her own, the fingers gently unbuttoning her clothes, the cool hands stroking her perspiring brow were like the embrace of demons dragging her soul towards hell. For a while she lay rigid under their ministrations, then she spat in Nellie’s face; her eyes blazed, her lips stretched back over her gums, revealing her gnashing teeth and, in her impotence and despair, she howled, as a she-fox caught in a trap moans at the uncaring sky.
* * *
As soon as he had received the intelligence from Zhang Erhao, the foreign doctor’s chief servant, that one of the witch women, the nuns, had left alone for a remote village that morning, Ren Ren had gathered his men together, rousing some from their dalliance with the girls and others from half-finished meals.
He was still smarting with irritation after his interview with his mother that morning. He did not like to be mocked but there was always irony in his mother’s tone, even though she was too clever to put it directly into words that he could challenge, which suggested that she thought he was a fool. He, a full Blood Brother of the Black Stick Society and now a captain of a company in the Harmonious Fists, trusted by Iron Man Wang himself and all the other leaders! Well, he would p
rove to her that he was not a fool. She had asked him a favour. She had asked him to bring a foreign woman to the brothel. He would show her how quickly he could achieve that task. It wouldn’t be the fox-spirit bitch but who would appreciate the difference? One bit of white meat was like another, equally rancid as far as he was concerned. If his mother wanted to show off to the old Mandarin and Jin Lao—that was what he assumed this was all about—then she could do so with the nun.
He had already determined to get rid of the whining boy. A day or two with the witch woman in the hut—which he would enjoy—and she could take over the boy’s quarters. Who would know? He didn’t care if the other foreigners missed her. The day was coming soon enough when they would all be getting their reckoning. And by leading a raid on a Christian village he would be earning high marks with Iron Man Wang and the Harmonious Fists. So who was a fool then?
With Monkey and the others he galloped on their stolen horses out of the town to the ruined temple hidden among the woods close to the river. This was where his company of Boxers, a hundred strong, were training in the martial arts. He knew that there were similar encampments in hidden spots all around Shishan. One day soon they would all receive the orders to descend in a body into town and then blood would flow. For the moment strict secrecy was being kept. Ren Ren approved of this. He had been a runner in the Black Sticks long enough to know the need to keep knowledge in small, unconnected cells. That way power could be concentrated for those to whom the cells reported. The grand master was now Iron Man Wang and it was he who controlled the whole web, like a fat spider chewing a juicy fly. One day that spider would be Ren Ren—one day! But for the moment it paid him to be loyal. For now he enjoyed being a Boxer, with power and magic at his command. Sometimes he even convinced himself that he believed it all.
It took the usual hours of delay and confusion to get his company ready for action, so it was already late afternoon when they set out on the road to Bashu. There was a nervous moment when, ahead of them, they saw Major Lin and his militia. There was no time for them to hide, but it did not matter. He presumed that Major Lin had his orders not to interfere with them. He and his troop rode past the column, eyes ahead, as if the host of Boxers had not been there. In one way Ren Ren liked that. He could fantasise that they were a host of invisible phantoms heading into the night to wreak their righteous revenge. On the other hand, he would also have liked it if Major Lin had returned the salute that he had proudly given him as he passed—one soldier recognising another—but Major Lin had ignored him. Arrogant turtle’s egg! Well, he would get his comeuppance one day. Ren Ren would make sure of that.
The night march was tiring, and cold; the three hours during which they rested before dawn were uncomfortable and Ren Ren found it difficult to sleep. He was bad-tempered and morose during the first stages of the march the next morning and cuffed Monkey when he started on one of his interminable jokes. He cheered up when the morning mist lifted and they found themselves at the top of the hill looking down on Bashu.
He gathered his lieutenants and passed on his orders. Half of the company was to circle the village, staying among the trees, but ready to catch anyone who tried to break out of the trap. Once they were deployed the rest were to follow him into the hamlet. He allowed two hours for his men to get into position, and whiled away the time playing dice with Monkey and his friends. Meanwhile, he ordered one of the Boxers up a tree to report what was happening in the village. Just before noon the boy called down that a crowd was gathering in the square and shortly afterwards he announced that there seemed to be some sort of meeting taking place between the elders. Yes, there was a woman among them who might be a foreigner.
‘Good,’ said Ren Ren, gathering his winnings. ‘They’re all in one place. That’ll make it very easy for us. Let’s get going.’
* * *
Sister Elena felt frustrated and inadequate. The meeting had lasted an hour already. Headman Yang, a black-browed bully of a man whom she had never liked, and the other representatives of the village had been hostile from the beginning. It grieved her. She had thought she knew these people so well. There was Lao Dai, the muleteer-cum-innkeeper in whose house she had frequently stayed. Next to him was Wang Haotian, Pastor John’s uncle, who had often invited her to apple-picking picnics with his nieces in his orchard on the hill. At the end of the table sat amiable, foolish Zheng Fujia, Little Butterfly’s father, who had fussed outside the bedroom all night when she had gone to deliver his grandson. Even these men, as familiar to her as family, whom yesterday she would have counted as friends, looked coldly across the table with flickering hatred in their eyes.
She wished that the sun, burning down on the open table in the square, was not so oppressive. It gave her a headache. In Italy they would have been sitting under vine leaves, but here there was no shade. She had to concentrate hard to follow the rough dialect, especially when the meeting degenerated into an open exchange of abuse between Headman Yang and his cousin, the loud-mouthed Miller Zhang, who had forced his way into the debate, despite Pastor John’s urgings to him to stay away, flanked by his two villainous-looking sons. Miller Zhang was a Christian, but everyone knew that he had only taken the vows to give him an edge in the land battles he was always having with his cousin.
She wished that Father Adolphus had been there. He would have found the wise words to bring the two sides to harmony. Or even Dr Airton, whose twinkling sense of humour might have alleviated the tension. She felt alone and depressed. Above all, inadequate.
Pastor John had tried hard to limit the agenda to the most pressing of the many grievances in the hope that some compromise might be found on the main issues, but the meeting had started with a long, bickering exchange of veiled insult and mutual recrimination, most of which passed over Elena’s head. Pastor John had remained largely silent at this stage. He wanted some of the anger to exhaust itself before he came in with what he hoped would be a conciliatory message that would lead to a positive resolution.
His opportunity had come after the Buddhist priest had spoken. The bonze had made some measured remarks about the temple tax, explaining how the Christians’ refusal to pay had reduced the temple’s ability in turn to contribute to many of the village projects, such as the new drainage scheme and the New Year Festival celebrations. He had not grudged the Christians’ right not to pay, as many villagers did. He merely noted that it raised problems for the temple finances.
Pastor John judged that this was a propitious moment to make his own speech. Adjusting his spectacles, and with a final glance at his notes, he addressed the elders courteously. It was, as he intended, a calm, reasoned speech, which at first seemed to strike a chord among his listeners. He had called upon their common ancestry, their pride in the village, their years working together through good harvests and bad, the fact that there should be no divisions among relations and friends. Could there not be mutual respect, he said, between those who happened to believe in one God and those who believed in many? Unfortunately of late, friction had grown up between Christians and non-Christians, but the reasons for the friction often had little to do with religion itself. If the issue was a tax one—the payment of dues to the temple, for example (and he thanked the Buddhist priest for his wise words)—let them discuss other ways in which the Christians could contribute to the good of the village. If there was still an issue between Headman Yang and Miller Zhang, let the wise heads of the village get together to find a resolution, as Father Adolphus had done in the past—
He had not been allowed to finish. The mention of the land dispute was a signal for the two cousins on either side of the table to abuse each other again, each accusatory remark of one matched by a more deliberate insult from the other. At one point it looked as if they would come to blows. Pastor John banged on the table, and attempted to restore order by calling on both sides to honour the memory of Father Adolphus.
This was a mistake. Headman Yang turned away from his cousin to face Pastor John. He scowled at
him, then turned his sneering face full on Sister Elena, and deliberately spat on the table in front of her. ‘That is what I think of your Father Adolphus,’ he said. ‘He was nothing more than an evil magician who used his arts to deceive honest people and bring advantage to you Devil-worshipping Christians. Now you are trying to bring his succubus, his witch, to do the same.’
The Christians on Elena’s side of the table rose in angry protest. Miller Zhang reached for the knife in his belt, but Pastor John banged the table, crying, ‘Order! Order!’
In the stillness that followed, Pastor John attempted to remonstrate: ‘How can you be so insulting, Headman? And so ungrateful for all the good things our friends have done for us over the years? I beg you, please apologise to our Elder Sister for your thoughtless remark. We in the village may have our differences, but Elder Sister is guiltless of anything but kindness to us.’
Headman Yang threw back his head and laughed. ‘Guiltless? Tell that to my cow, which this morning came down with a sickness—right after her arrival in our village. Or your mule, Lao Dai, the one that died when the other foreign witch came here two months ago. Guiltless? Our mothers live in fear for their children’s lives. What happens if the witch goes after one of them?’
‘My grandson had a fever this morning,’ said Zheng Fujia nervously. ‘His little head was burning when my daughter brought him back from the river—after she met this one,’ he said, pointing at Elena, ‘by the washing pool.’
Elena, her mouth open in shock, tried to formulate words to protest. Simultaneously she became aware of a noise all around her. She had been so concentrating on the debate at the table that she had hardly been aware of the crowd of bystanders, Christians and non-Christians, in their separate groups, who had been watching the proceedings. Now the air was filled with angry shouts. An old woman thrust a bony finger at her and screeched, ‘My little granddaughter cries for vengeance. You poisoned her, gave her medicines, and two weeks later she died!’ and another man was shouting something about a plague of ringworm in his sheep.
The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure Page 45