The Face of the Seal

by Jennifer Cumiskey

  But when night came, I was again kneeling in front of Jun to wash his feet and stooping between his legs as he leafed through his pillow book with rapture. His groan of satisfaction was quickly followed by piggish snores. I was a utilitarian device, like the chopsticks he used to eat when he was hungry and the clothes he put on when he was cold. Just there to satisfy his needs. The shame was hollowing me out. Soon, only a mere shell of myself would remain.

  The longest month of my life was finally gone. Jun and his father were leaving for a trip to the North to check on the silkworm farms and wool factories. The war was in temporary truce because the Qing Emperor was considering meeting the trade demands of the British and French governments. Jun’s father had warned us that because the Emperor was showing weakness more of the foreign witches and wizards may work up the nerve to wander into small towns, to poison the local people with their religion. “You women should not leave the house and I’ve ordered the servants to report to the viceroy if they see those devils in town.” Mr. Yu had left his order. I wondered if he knew about Jacques.

  I began to worry if Mr. Yu was right, that what Jacques was doing here in a small village could be violating the law of the Qing Dynasty. The day after Jun and his father left, I snuck out before daybreak and headed to Jacques’s house.

  Outside, darkness had morphed the lush landscape into ghostly shapes. I could barely see ahead of me and kept tripping and falling on the bumpy dirt road. Yet I kept walking, tripping, forward . . .

  A dot of light, like a lone star, flickered on the dark horizon. I stumbled closer, the light dazzling like a shining diamond. I trudged toward it. Soon a smear of dawn stained the brim of the lead sky. I could see the blurred outline of the house and a single candle framed by a square paper lattice window.

  Jacques was shocked to open the door and see me standing in the semi-darkness. But he steadied himself quickly and studied me with a quiet smile on his face, just like when he saw me the first time standing in that cluster of bushes on the side of his house. For a long moment, the things I wanted to say and ask jumbled in my head and I couldn’t get them out. Jacques led me to the back of the house, a small room with a cot on one side and a low wooden table on the other. A copper teakettle was boiling on a clay stove in the corner near the back door.

  Jacques made me sit down on the dirt floor by the table. He sat down on the other side, facing me, a pot of fragrant tea in front of us. “Now, what’s on your mind? You know it’s not safe for you to come here alone at this hour.”

  “Are you violating the law? Because my father-in-law said you’re not supposed to preach in towns and villages, only in big cities like the port of Canton. They can arrest you and put you in jail for this,” I blurted out my worries.

  “Is that what you’re afraid of? So you came here to warn me? No need to worry. The port of Canton is not that far away, we’re still in Canton, aren’t we? Besides, how could anyone say I am breaking the law if all I am doing is spreading God’s word and His Love?” Jacques’s eyes glistened in the candlelight, his loose, long hair draping over his gleaming white linen shirt. He looked just like he did in my dreams.

  “But . . .” I tried to argue with him, tell him that his lack of concern for anti-foreign sentiment harbored by people like my father-in-law was naïve, dangerous. But Jacques picked up the teacup in front of him and gestured for me to do the same. “Let’s drink some tea and get to know each other better.”

  From that day on, whenever Jun and his father were out of town, Jacques and I would see each other at his place, usually during the small hours of the morning, and before dawn I’d have slipped back into the Yu compound.

  Jacques was thirty-eight. He came from a farming family in the Normandy region of France. He’d been a happy farmer and still yearned for that simple life. God’s calling upon him came rather late, at the age of twenty-one. Against his parents’ wishes, he left home for Paris where he was ordained a few years later. After the first Opium War ended in 1842, the treaty between Great Britain and the Qing Dynasty granted Christian missionaries the right to seek out congregations and to preach in China’s major port cities. Jacques had taken residence and preached in every one of the five port cities in China since 1843.

  “Why did you come here to live in a deserted shack like this?” I asked him.

  “Because there are more people here who have never known God. I can help them find Him.”

  “Do you have family back home?”

  “My parents and my brother.”

  “I mean your own family, a wife and children.”

  “No, I can’t get married.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I took a vow to dedicate my whole life to God and Christ.”

  “You mean you’ve never been with a woman?”

  “I’ve never been with a woman since I became a priest.”

  “You don’t like women?”

  “Of course I do. I love all men and women and I love God.”

  For all the time I was with Jacques, that was our one and only conversation regarding God.

  Yet Jacques was the man who opened the door to a world where I was no longer an anesthetized captive. Every fiber in me was awakened, alive and burning. I wanted to feel, to sense, to desire, to love and to be loved. The long nights in my chamber were less lonely when I fantasized I was with Jacques, strolling the streets of Paris while thousands of gas lamps illuminated the city, or galloping on horseback along the sandy beaches of Normandy, or simply milking the beautiful white cows on Jacques’s family farm.

  I’d told Jacques all about me, almost all about me.

  My childhood in Manchuria, a happier time, the unhappy life I’d been living since my father bartered me to secure his business interests, the curse of being a barren wife. But I had stopped short of revealing the crushing pain and humiliation I’d been enduring. It was easier to hide the periodic bruises on my body. I covered them under layers of long garments, even during the hottest months. But the trauma that ran deeper than the bruises was inside me, a scar that was ripped open whenever Jun was home for a stretch of time. And night after night I was reduced to a subhuman. Jun was right, I was an inferior woman, dirty, marred by shame.

  Would Jacques look at me the same way if my shameful burden were laid bare in front of his eyes? Would his gaze remain warm and clear, like spring water, healing the bruises on my skin and washing away the shame in my soul, so I felt pure, even if it was just for a little while? Would his glittering eyes again meet mine, his raw desire naked in his intense stare?

  No, I couldn’t let him know. I was lost in the desert, running toward what I knew was a mirage, but it was my only hope and my only reason to stay alive. The stolen moments with Jacques, though scarce, were nourishment for my withered spirit and soul. Without them, I knew I’d soon shrivel up and die.

  At four o’clock one September morning, about three months after I met Jacques for the first time, I tiptoed out of the Yu residence onto the dirt road. I hadn’t seen Jacques for weeks. I was anxious to get to his house before the first rays of dawn because farmers traveled on the same road to the rice patties and orchards on the outskirts of the village. If any one of them saw me—the lady of the respected Yu family—wandering in the field at such ungodly hours, vicious rumors would soon spread like wildfire.

  As I groped forward in the pitch darkness, I tripped over something and fell forward on my face. Something pierced my kaftan shirt, cutting into my chest beneath my collar bone. The pain was so sharp I was sure I blacked out, though I didn’t know for how long. When I opened my eyes all I could see was blackness, but slivers of grey had streaked the dark sky not too far ahead. I’d almost reached Jacques’s house. As I struggled to stand up, a ripping sound pierced the quiet. The front of my kaftan was still caught in exposed shrub roots. It tore diagonally across my chest as I tried to raise myself. I fumbled inside my torn shirt. Fortunately, my undergarment was still intact, but it was wet and sticky where I was wo
unded.

  I considered my options. Dawn was breaking and someone might spot me. What was a young, married woman doing in a torn, bloodstained shirt with a bleeding hole in her chest, wandering through the field so early in the morning? The risk was too high to turn back. Jacques’s house was a short distance away; it was safer to go to him.

  Jacques opened the door, carrying a single candle. My appearance must have been quite frightening. In a split second, shock snuffed out the glowing excitement in his eyes. “What happened to you?” He pulled me inside by my arm.

  “Nothing serious, I tripped over a tree stump.” I tried to sound calm.

  Without another word Jacques placed the candle on a nearby bench. He picked me up and carried me to his room in the back. I was nestled in his arms, head against his chest. I could hear his heart thumping, strong, steady. It was the first time he’d ever touched me. Shock waves of arousal ran through me like lightening. The wound in my chest, the tear in my kaftan, they didn’t seem to be there anymore.

  Gently, Jacques laid me down on his cot. He left and came back with the candles from the praying table. The room was now much brighter. He helped me out of my kaftan shirt and examined my chest. The blood had begun to congeal around the small tear in my undergarment. With a pair of scissors Jacques cut out the bloodstained cloth around the wound and cleaned it with a cloth soaked in an herbal solution. The wound looked worse than it really was. It was a flesh wound, not deep enough to cause internal damage. Jacques had torn one of his clean linen robes to make gauze to dress the wound. To wind the gauze in place properly, I’d have to get rid of my tight-fitting undergarment completely, I’d be naked from waist above. Jacques seemed to sense my concern. He suggested he cut off only a part of the undergarment, the shoulder and one sleeve.

  I nodded, completely forgetting what I’d been trying so hard to conceal.

  As the cloth was peeled back from the side of my chest, several ugly purple and black bruises were exposed. Jun had tattooed them there in the thick of his sexual frustration as he clenched his teeth into my breast, his fingers clawing into my arms and thighs.

  “What’s this?” Jacques grimaced. His eyes bore into mine, his voice urging me to tell the truth.

  Shame, agony, and pain swept over me. I put my arms around my knees and buried my head in my lap, sobbing uncontrollably. Jacques didn’t stop me, he waited quietly until my convulsions eased. Tenderly, he swept back the mess of hair that curtained my shoulders and arms. I straightened to look at him. But he didn’t meet my gaze. Silently, one at a time, he undid the buttons on my undergarment. The cloth came off, my upper body was completely naked yet I was not embarrassed and felt no shame. His fingers flitted over every one of the exposed bruises on my body, as if he was wiping off smudges of dirt. Then he wrapped the gauze around my shoulder, under my arm, across my chest, until he was satisfied the wound was dressed adequately.

  “I’ll see if I can find a shirt you can put on,” Jacques said as he stood. But I clasped the sleeve of his shirt. I didn’t want him to leave even for a second. A storm was rising inside me. I rose on my knees, wriggled out of my skirt and underpants.

  My shoulder spasmed with pain but I felt lustful, lustful like a jungle cat. Sex had suddenly come to me naturally. I pulled him close to me, my trembling fingers clawed at his shirt, busting the seams, ripping apart the knotted buttons. A look of guilt flashed across Jacques’s face but it was gone so fast it was almost unnoticeable. Then he was staring at me. I could feel the heat of his gaze and that raw naked desire in his eyes.

  Our love-making was greedy and ravenous. We’d both been lost in the desert, a mirage to each other at the brink of death. But no longer. We were now each other’s spring fountain. We drank each other in, we devoured each other, rippled around each other.

  “Sarnai!” He cried out my name with rapture, throbbing deep inside me as my body and soul shuddered with total abandon.

  We fell into deep slumber in each other’s arms. When I woke up, Jacques was still asleep. He looked so peaceful, just an ordinary man without a trace of guilt. As my fingers traced every inch of his long, sinewy body, every inch of his pale olive skin, I felt no shame, no pain. I felt pure.

  Then I noticed the stone, the size of a large quail egg. I had seen it threaded on a black string around his neck when I ripped his robe off. In the flickering candlelight the color was carmine, it beamed at me when I touched it . . .

  So, it’s true, the stone was Jacques’s. He gave it to Sarnai. Gerel leafed through the rest of the pages, there were still quite a few pages to go. She’d been so wrapped up in the story that dusk had snuck up on her, words were turning blurry.

  She reached to switch on the lamp on the side table, but nothing came on, only a splutter of sparks. The bulb had burned out. With a sigh she rose and went to the kitchen, rummaged in a drawer where she kept spares. Only one left. She scribbled on the notepad on the counter, reminding herself to get bulbs the next time she went to the market.

  Back in the salon, she changed the bulb and added dry wood to the fire in the hearth. Wrapping a woolly shawl around herself, she settled by the fire and picked up the translated manuscript again.

  A soft but urgent knock came from the front door. Who could that be? Nobody but André knew she was there. Her closest neighbors were half a kilometer away and they seldom disturbed her. Cursing quietly to herself she slid into her slippers and shuffled to the front of the house. She looked out through the small square of glass on the arched door.

  Shit.

  Chapter 15

  Normandy, present day

  Gerel yanked the door open, she had no intention of hiding her annoyance. “Detective Ryan, let me guess, you’re about to apologize for barging in on me again.”

  “Actually, I was going to say ‘sorry to disturb you’ this time.” A wide smile rose on his face. He wore the same dark blue peacoat as the last time he’d barged into her studio in Paris, one hand clutching the same zipped notebook, and he had yet to make it to the barber shop. “I also wanted to say how magnificent the scenery is around here, the cliffs, the beach, the view from here.” He turned to look at the water in the distance. “You know, my grandfather fought at Normandy beach, he used to tell me stories about this area when I was a kid.”

  “What do you want from me, Detective?” Gerel shot him a hard look.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in, Mademoiselle Garnier?”

  Gerel rolled her eyes and stepped aside, pulling the shawl tighter around her shoulders. Calm down, Gerel, it’s just another fishing session on his part.

  “Wow, André was right, I can imagine the inspiration and creativity this place brings out of artists like you, or painters and writers, especially writers . . .” Ryan seemed to be genuinely excited, standing by the expansive window in the salon, marveling at the sweeping watery scene outside.

  Damn that André. “Why especially writers? Do you write, Detective?” Gerel asked, pausing at the entrance to the salon. Ryan had taken off his peacoat. He looked lanky, but she could visualize the lean muscles under his pullover sweater and jeans. He’s good looking, ruggedly good-looking, not as irritating as I’d thought.

  “I’m embarrassed to say that I used to dream of becoming a writer, like Oscar Wilde, the compatriot of my Irish ancestors.”

  “You mean the writer and poet who’s buried at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris?”

  “Yep, the one and only.”

  “But you became a detective. That’s quite a departure from being a writer. What happened?”

  “Life happened, not too many of us are able to choose exactly what we’d like to be. I realized I’d never be able to match the style and wit Mr. Wilde mastered naturally, but I did learn something from him. I learned how to observe human nature and behavior, a very necessary skill for a detective,” Ryan said, turning away from the window to face Gerel. In the pale light his eyes were a mix of soft blue and hazel.

  “My mother loved Oscar Wil
de, too. She used to take me to Père Lachaise and she’d kiss the tombstone and leave a red lipstick print on it, and I’d harass her until she put lipstick on me so I could put my print on the tombstone, too. Many admirers did,” Gerel said dreamily, as if forgetting she was talking to a cop investigating a transatlantic murder case.

  Ryan’s eyes glinted. “Well, Mr. Wilde once said ‘a kiss may ruin a human life.’ Imagine what dear Oscar would’ve thought about being kissed by two French ladies.”

  “My mother was American, half Irish—her father’s side.”

  “Oh, yeah, what’s her maiden name?”

  “Gardner. She passed away long time ago.”

  “Sorry to hear that, but that explains your perfect English. Who would have thought you and I had something in common. My father’s family was from Ireland, though my mother’s side is pure Italian.”

  Gerel nodded, a fleeting smile on her lips.

  They looked at each other, a moment of awkward silence hovering between them.

  “Well, enough talk about childhood dreams and literary ambitions, we both know I’m here for work. Shall we?” Ryan’s voice turned professional. He gestured to the sofas by the fireside, asking permission to sit down, yet commanding at the same time for Gerel to take her seat.

  They each took a sofa. Ryan unzipped his notebook and took out several pictures and placed them on the table between them. Gerel glanced at the pictures nervously, tugging on the shawl tassels draped around her shoulders. The temperature seemed to be freezing.