The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure

by Adam Williams

  ‘Oh, summoned, were you?’ said Su Liping, in a parody of an affected voice. ‘How very grand. Summoned, is it?’ She bowed in a mocking kowtow.

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ Fan Yimei heard a rough voice from inside the room, and the figure of a man loomed behind Su Liping. She staggered aside to let him pass. He was also naked, a squat, bearded monstrosity, with a barrel chest. Fan Yimei had never in her life seen so much hair on a human body. With a shock, she recognised him. He was the bandit who had wielded an axe in Major Lin’s pavilion in the morning.

  ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘You’re that stuck-up bitch who was with the Mandarin. You’re pretty, though,’ he added, surveying her carefully.

  ‘Oh, you can’t touch her,’ giggled Su Liping. ‘She’s off-limits. She belongs to Major Lin. His personal property,’ she said, in the same affected voice she had used earlier.

  ‘Is she now?’ growled Iron Man. ‘We’ll see about that. Come here,’ he ordered.

  Fan Yimei hesitated, wondering if she could ignore him and flee down the steps that beckoned behind her.

  ‘With deepest respects, Xiansheng,’ she said, in an appeasing tone, ‘what Su Liping says is correct. I am under exclusive contract to Major Lin.’

  ‘Don’t Xiansheng me,’ snarled Iron Man. ‘I’m no Xiansheng. And I don’t give a bugger for any contracts. I told you to come here.’

  Fan Yimei realised that she had little choice but to obey. With as much grace as she could muster, smiling her most ingratiating smile, she moved towards him. She was startled when her arms were gripped by his two hairy paws. ‘Contracts,’ he snorted, and pulled her robe off her shoulders. As she felt him grasp her breasts, she was relieved that the pouch still nestled above her waistband and had not fallen on the floor. ‘Nice little melons,’ he was saying. ‘Bigger than yours,’ he addressed a pouting Su Liping.

  ‘So you’re Major Lin’s girl,’ he said, examining her. ‘He won’t be around much longer, nor the precious Mandarin, though they don’t know it yet. You’re mine now, girl, for tonight or for however long it takes me to tire of you. Go on. Get into the bedroom.’

  ‘Oh, Iron Man,’ whined Su Liping. ‘What about me?’

  ‘You can bugger off,’ he snapped. ‘Or stay and watch. I don’t care.’

  Sullen-faced, Su Liping followed them into the room. She slumped onto a stool and tipped the wine pitcher to her throat.

  ‘Don’t hog that, you greedy slut,’ Iron Man shouted. ‘Give it to me.’ He snatched the pitcher from Su Liping’s trembling hands, and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘You,’ he pointed at Fan Yimei. ‘Strip.’ He took a long gulp from the pitcher.

  Fan Yimei trembled in apparent uncertainty, averting her eyes bashfully and covering her breasts with her hands. Professionally, she had already sized up this unwelcome client. She had determined that coy modesty would be the right approach. For all his crudeness, she thought that what attracted Iron Man to her was her refinement. Clearly, he restented Major Lin, and by roughly taking his concubine he was asserting some sort of vengeance on the more privileged classes of society, and the pleasures that until now had been denied him. If she appeared too eager, he would not only be disappointed, he also might suspect a trick. She knew enough of this man’s reputation not to underestimate him.

  ‘Shy, are you?’ laughed Iron Man. ‘Why don’t you take some fortification, then? You’ll need it for what I’m about to do to you, my little lady. Here, catch.’ Lightly he threw the heavy pitcher towards her. She caught it easily, but exaggerated the weight and pretended to stagger with the strain of holding such a heavy container.

  ‘Quite the little willow, aren’t we?’ sneered Iron Man.

  ‘Please, Xiansheng, I don’t drink,’ she said, in a beseeching tone.

  ‘You’ll do what I tell you,’ he shouted.

  Fan Yimei made a pretence of trying to lift the pitcher. ‘It’s so heavy,’ she whimpered. ‘Can I—can I pour it into a cup?’

  Iron Man roared with laughter. ‘Go on, then. Pour it into a cup. Give us the tea ceremony while you’re about it.’

  It had been much easier than she had imagined. She whispered a silent prayer to Guanyin for this stroke of luck. Carefully she placed the pitcher on the carpet behind the table so it was temporarily invisible to Iron Man Wang and Su Liping. She took a bowl from the chest, and leaned over the pitcher, tilting it to pour. As she did so she emptied into it the contents of the pouch. She stood up, lifting the bowl to her mouth, and sipped gingerly, making a sour expression as she felt the fiery liquid on her tongue. With her foot she kicked the now empty pouch out of sight under the table. Iron Man laughed to see the discomfort on her face. ‘Come on, empty the bowl,’ he urged. Fan Yimei did so, making sure she coughed afterwards, inducing the tears that ran down her cheeks. She felt a moment’s gratitude to Mother Liu for all the artifices she had so painstakingly taught her over the years.

  ‘Please. No more,’ she whispered, reeling slightly. She hoped her cheeks were burning a bright red.

  ‘All right, give me back the pitcher. You want to see how to drink? This is how you drink,’ he said, and gurgled half a pitcher’s worth down in an extended gulp. ‘That’s better,’ he said, smacking his lips. ‘Now do what I told you to do. Strip.’

  She had had worse clients. Patiently she made the desired sounds as the animal grunted over her. Out of the corner of her eyes she had the satisfaction of seeing Su Liping bad-temperedly picking up the pitcher, and retiring with it to her stool, drinking distractedly, occasionally directing peevish glances at the girl who had superseded her in the Boxer leader’s affections. Fan Yimei lay under Iron Man Wang, moaning with assumed pleasure, and coolly calculated how long it would take for the sleeping draught to work. She was not overly concerned. There was still more than an hour before Major Lin was likely to appear.

  Iron Man Wang shuddered, and rolled on to his back. ‘I’ve had better,’ he yawned. ‘Get me the wine.’ Fan Yimei was pleased to see that Su Liping was already asleep, her head back and her mouth open, snoring softly. She carried the pitcher to Iron Man, remembering to pretend that she was straining under its weight, although the container was now three-quarters empty. ‘The little bitch,’ he murmured, lifting it to his mouth. ‘She’s a worse tippler than some of my men. Let me rest a bit and then I’ll do the two of you together. Twin Phoenixes Dancing? Isn’t that what you call it?’ He sat back on the bed, yawning.

  Knowing that it would soothe him—and therefore help him to sleep more quickly, Fan Yimei overcame her disgust, and leaned over his loins, almost suffocating in his thick hairs, but moving her mouth as she had been trained. He grunted with pleasure. ‘Ye-es,’ he breathed. ‘I like that. Ye-es.’ She stopped when she heard him snore. She waited, then lightly smacked his cheek. There was no response.

  Pausing only to swill out her mouth with cold tea from the pot on the table, she dressed quickly. She noticed Iron Man’s huge axe leaning against the wall. She glanced at the sleeping figure. It would be so easy, she thought. She had already killed two men that day, and this was the Mandarin’s enemy, as well as being the most serious threat to their own safety. She could save Shishan. No, she decided, there would be others to take his place. The world was full of monsters such as this, and the death of one would only bring the elevation of another, Besides, it was not in her nature to do such a thing. She could hardly believe she had fired the shots that had killed Ren Ren and Monkey. A part of her told her that if anybody deserved to die it was animals like them—and she had only done it to save the others—but she was deeply revolted with herself, and almost paralysed with remorse, and it took every effort of her will to keep going. But she could not let down the others, the children, the poor ravaged English girl, and Ma Na Si, whom she loved but who loved another. She thought of the Buddhist lore she had learned at her father’s side. She was bound on the Wheel of Rebirth. What terrible lives she must have lived in her past incarnations that she was fated to suffer so much in this o
ne. Her whole life had been one long-drawn-out expiation, but she feared that, for all her efforts, she was only gathering on her soul more sins she would have to expiate in future lives. She leaned her head against the door. Merciful Guanyin, she prayed, give me the strength to continue. She sighed. Iron Man and Su Liping snored in their different octaves behind her. She lifted the latch and stepped into the corridor.

  The house was quiet now. She reached the stairs without incident, descending to the lower floor where the banqueting rooms were. The revellers had departed, the lights were extinguished. She stepped hesitantly into the darkness, feeling her way through the gloom towards the last ladder of stairs that led to the ground floor. She felt for the wall to guide herself, and gasped when she touched a human face. ‘Jiejie, it’s me, Mali.’

  She heard the whisper through her shock. Her first unconscious reaction was one of anger at the fright Mary had caused her, but she calmed herself. ‘Good girl,’ she said encouragingly. ‘Go quietly to Mother Liu’s floor and wait for me there. I won’t be long.’

  After she had got out to the courtyard, she relaxed. She moved quickly down the path into the next courtyard. The willows were rustling in the slight breeze. She paused to look into Major Lin’s pavilion, her home for the last two years. The windows were dark. Major Lin was not there. She passed into the last courtyard, along the avenue of lanterns, over the ornamental bridge, until she could see the shape of the gatehouse. The night-watchman’s light was shining faintly. Plucking up her courage, she tapped on his window. ‘Lao Chen,’ she called, in as firm a voice as she could muster. ‘Lao Chen.’

  ‘Who is it?’ came a sleepy reply. A coarse, heavy-browed face peered out at her, and smiled when its owner recognised her. ‘Fan Jiejie,’ he greeted her. ‘What are you doing here at this time of night?’

  ‘I’ve come with a message from Mother Liu,’ she said. ‘You’re to expect visitors. Secret ones. Some time after midnight.’

  ‘Not another midnight call,’ he said wearily. ‘I suppose I’m to make myself scarce like the last time?’

  She had not been expecting this, but she immediately saw the opportunity. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘You can go home early. I’m to stay here by the gate to let them in.’

  ‘All these secret goings-on,’ he muttered. ‘This could be the lodge for a Brotherhood, the way things have been happening here lately. What’s it all about, then? Let me see, only two—no, three nights ago, it was the same thing. But then it was Mother Liu herself who came down and relieved me.’ His brows furrowed with suspicion. ‘Here, why’s she sent you and not come herself to tell me? Or sent her son?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that, Lao Chen. They’re both closeted in the house discussing something with that bandit, Iron Man Wang. I don’t know what it’s about—but she asked me to show you this.’ From her sash she untied a string of jade beads, which earlier she had removed from Mother Liu’s room. She had expected that she would have to show some evidence to prove her story.

  ‘All right, I recognise them. Iron Man Wang, is it? Well, it must be serious. Don’t think I want to know what’s going on, after all. Give me a moment to get my things. Can’t imagine what my wife will say when I wake her up two nights in one week.’

  He grumbled off, and she sat down to wait on his straw bed. The hours went by.

  With sinking heart, she began to fear that Ma Na Si might have been wrong, and Major Lin was not coming after all. She could not imagine what they would do.

  * * *

  Henry was pacing the gallery when Airton stepped out of his room. ‘It’s half past two,’ he said coldly.

  ‘Is it?’ replied Henry, in the same tone.

  ‘I don’t think your Major Lin is coming,’ said the doctor.

  Henry continued to pace.

  ‘Well, what are we going to do? What’s your plan?’ Airton pushed him.

  ‘We’ll give it until three.’ Henry sighed.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘We’ll leave on our own.’

  ‘I see. So we just walk out of here. Children. Women. One of them extremely sick—that’s thanks to you by the way. We walk out past Iron Man Wang and his men, and then what? Assuming we get there, do we overpower the guards at the city gates?’

  ‘We go through the back-streets to the Millwards’ compound. That should be deserted now. We hide there and somehow get a message to the yamen. Maybe we send Fan Yimei. Sorry, Doctor, that’s the best plan I can think of.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Airton.

  ‘Would you rather we stayed here?’

  ‘I’m aware that is not an option, again thanks to you and your bargain with the Mandarin. Or should I say my bargain with the Mandarin? Well, it’s all gone very, very wrong, hasn’t it?’

  ‘The best-laid plans…’ murmured Henry.

  ‘Aye, “of mice and men”. You disgust me, Manners, you and your cynical manipulation of our lives.’

  ‘I’ll remind you that we still have our lives,’ said Henry softly. ‘Don’t give up now, Doctor.’

  Airton turned abruptly and reentered his room. ‘Nellie, dear, you’d better pack,’ he addressed his wife, loudly enough for Henry to hear. ‘Mr Manners has a plan.’

  Henry continued to pace.

  * * *

  She was intending to leave when she heard the thump on the gate. Nervously, she lifted the spyhole. She saw horses and gleaming leather in the lantern light. Her heart thumped with relief.

  As anticipated, Major Lin was there with some of his men, but he was also accompanied by a white-haired old man. She recognised him immediately. All the girls feared him. They knew of his perverted tastes and were not fooled by the smiling eyes in his deceptively saintlike face. This was the Mandarin’s chamberlain, whom she had seen many times in the brothel. He was also, she realised with a sinking feeling, a long-standing friend of Mother Liu. Immediately she began to revise in her mind the story she had to tell. There could be no hiding the fact that Mother Liu was a captive upstairs—but that might be explained, she thought, if she told them that the foreigners had become suspicious of her and had acted foolishly out of excessive caution. It would be fatal, she realised, if this man were to discover the extent of what had happened, especially that Ren Ren had been killed. Chamberlain Jin might refuse to obey whatever instructions the Mandarin had given him.

  He and Major Lin were initially suspicious when they saw that it was she and not Mother Liu who greeted them at the gate. They interrogated her closely, but accepted her story. Chamberlain Lin was amused, in fact, by her version of Mother Liu’s humiliation. ‘Bound and gagged?’ He laughed, maliciously. ‘And tied to a bed? Oh, I look forward to seeing this.’

  She led the chamberlain, Major Lin and two of his men down the pathway through the still courtyards. All of the men, even the soldiers, were wearing cotton shoes, but the wood creaked as they climbed the dark stairs. Major Lin was holding his sword, and the soldiers their bayonets. If any of Iron Man’s men had the ill-fortune to encounter them on their progress through the house, they intended their dispatch to be quiet. Warily, they crept along the lighted passage on the third floor, but there was no sound from any of the rooms except a few rumbling snores.

  Fan Yimei lifted the hanging that hid the last flight to Mother Liu’s private quarters, and they filed upwards.

  They found the foreign party apparently already marshalled to leave. Gathered in the gallery, Nellie and Mary were supporting a drooping Helen Frances, who appeared half asleep, the doctor was in the act of picking up his medical bag and a small portmanteau, and Henry was taking the lantern off the wall.

  ‘Thank God. Thank God,’ exclaimed the doctor, when he saw Fan Yimei, followed in quick succession by Chamberlain Jin, and a soldier. The others were still on the stairs. ‘They’ve come after all. We’re saved.’

  Then Major Lin stepped into the lamplight.

  The nodding Helen Frances lifted her head at that moment and saw him. He was smiling. A crooked, wol
fish smile. Her eyes widened with terror, her body shook uncontrollably, and she made little moaning sounds. Frantically, she tried to twist out of Nellie and Mary’s grasp, but she had no power over her legs. She slumped to her knees, body shuddering, back arching.

  ‘Edward, do something,’ cried Nellie. ‘I can’t control her. She’s having a fit.’

  Hurriedly Airton groped in his medical bag for a syringe. George and Jenny, frozen where they were standing, stared in amazement. Henry, his face ugly with rage, made a rush towards the major, controlling himself only at the last minute. His eyes blazing with hatred, his fists clenched, he stood stock still in front of his enemy, who contemplated him calmly, his lips still curled in the cruel, lopsided smile.

  ‘What an interesting effect you have on these foreigners, Major Lin,’ was the chamberlain’s languid observation. ‘I would have expected them to be pleased to see you in their circumstances. But it appears to be rather the contrary. What could you have done to make them dislike you so?’

  Major Lin had noticed Mary. He pointed a gloved finger. ‘Who’s she?’ he barked.

  Dr Airton looked up worriedly from where he was kneeling beside Helen Frances. She was sobbing on the floor, supported by Nellie. It would take a little while for the morphine to have an effect. ‘Major, this young girl is a friend,’ he said carefully. ‘She’s a victim of kidnapping who is now under my protection. I intend that we take her with us.’

  ‘That is impossible,’ said Major Lin curtly. ‘She is not covered by my orders.’

  Dr Airton rose to his full height. ‘I insist,’ he said, in the firmest voice he could muster. The effect was rather muted by the frantic appeal in his eyes, and his quivering lips.

  Major Lin ignored him. He turned to give an order to one of his soldiers.

  ‘None of us will leave without her,’ said Airton shrilly. ‘I insist she comes, Major Lin.’

  Major Lin turned his sardonic expression back on him. ‘You are in no position to insist on anything,’ he said scornfully.

  ‘Oh, Major, why wrangle?’ said Chamberlain Jin. ‘What’s one more or less? This is wasting valuable time, but before I go I must pay my respects to Mother Liu. Indeed, I have been looking forward to that ever since your young lady told me about her embarrassing predicament.’