8
IT WAS EARLY evening when Leah returned from work, dead tired. She stopped in the tiny courtyard, its flagstones forced up by the roots of the banyan tree, and fished around in her handbag for the key.With Albemarle’s help, she had found the flat; he knew someone who knew someone. She was extremely grateful because, as Albemarle had predicted, the population of Macau had swollen four-fold with the flood of refugees escaping from Hong Kong and China. Now, five months later, sleepy Macau was unrecognisable. Every square inch of housing was taken.Old women squatted underneath city shop verandas and begged. Hungry children roamed the streets with their hands out and their bellies distended. Snatchers scouted the streets ready to grab wallets, suitcases, anything of value that could be sold or traded for food.
Her fingers ached from typing and always were smudged with ink from changing ribbons. The consulate had been transformed into a social services centre. It was easy to be dispassionate about other people’s problems. Albemarle praised her efficiency; Talbot tolerated her presence.
She unlocked her door. Flat was too grand a name for the elongated room with a battered inlaid mother-of-pearl screen, blocking off the kitchen from the bedroom. The kitchen contained a basin and a decrepit stove surrounded by ancient blue and white Portuguese tiles. The tiles held the wall together. There was also an old fashioned bathroom with a claw foot tub and rusty water. She kept the bathroom window propped open to combat the creeping mould. It was too small for even child thieves. The main room contained a single wrought iron bedstead painted white with a lumpy mattress, a battered table, and a rickety chair. She liked the screen, despite its missing sections of inlay.The women were gracious and wore long flowing robes. At night she held conversations with them. They never answered, only looked wise and thoughtful.
Stripping to her petticoat, she arranged her body around the lumps in the mattress. She tossed, unable to sleep. Hunger. She hadn’t stopped working for lunch and hadn’t bothered to buy anything off the stalls because deciding what to eat took too much energy. Now she was ravenous. She must go out and find food.
She slipped on her crushed dress and slung her handbag over her shoulder. The streets were crowded with people passing, by hawkers with miserable offerings shouting their merits. On the pavement, a man was hunkered down mending broken shoes by the light cast from a shop window and touting for business. Leah caught a glimpse of a slender Chinese man in a suit a few feet in front of her down Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro. He was moving fast, looking neither to the left or the right, manoeuvring through the crowd as if it should part for him. But what caught her attention and caused her to stop was the pungent scent of the clove cigarette he was puffing. Dizzy, she simply stopped moving; people detoured around her. It couldn’t be. Her mind was playing tricks. She was in Macau, not C83 Manchukuo or Hong Kong. Chang must be in Free China, plotting someone else’s downfall,murder, destruction. She had paid the price for double-crossing him; or rather, her darling amah, An-li, had. Only, here in Macau he could pull strings and not fear being shot by the Japanese. She scanned the surging throng, and caught sight of the man again, farther ahead.No.The man was too short. Breathing easier, she began to move.
A skinny cigarette-smoker in shorts and a threadbare sin-glet bumped into her.
“Watch where—”
She was cut off as a sinewy arm darted from behind and throttled her. The man in front flashed a knife and cut the strap to her handbag. He took off running. The other man flung her aside and raced off in the opposite direction.
Recovering fast,Leah called in Cantonese, “Thief, snatcher,” and ran toward the cobble-stoned alley. A man in a white suit tackled the thief. The men tumbled to the ground. The thief kicked viciously at his attacker and managed to roll free. He ran off, leaving the other man sprawled on the ground, hugging her purse and gasping for breath.
Leah rushed to her saviour’s aid. “Are you all right?”
Triumphant, the man held her broken handbag aloft. “Got it.” He had a gash on his forehead and limped as he walked toward her.
“Mr. Ito!”
“Miss Kolbe!”
“I can’t thank you enough.”
Ignoring her thanks, Ito attempted to clean his filthy suit. There were two buttons missing from his jacket, the sleeves were streaked with dirt, and the outline of the robber’s sandal footprint was clearly visible on his trouser leg.
“You’re bleeding.”
He touched his forehead and dabbed at it with his pocket-handkerchief, frowning, distressed by Macau’s lawlessness. “There should be more police. This would never happen in Hong Kong.”
It was this man’s fault she was wandering the lawless streets of Macau. He was of them. “Refugees have no money. The price of rice has quadrupled.”
He picked up his ruined hat. “It doesn’t give them the right to steal. Are you all right, Miss Kolbe?”
Leah touched her neck. It hurt. Refusing to admit she was in pain, she watched Ito hunt for his missing buttons.
“Found them!
She stared.
“They’re hand carved and can’t be replaced,” he explained sheepishly.
“I don’t live far. I’ll clean your cut and sew on the buttons,” she offered. He had rescued her.He couldn’t help being Japanese. She was still a human being.
“Thank you. I feel so conspicuous walking around like this.”
Leah understood that he meant: It was beneath his dignity as a Japanese to be in an unfriendly crowd and look as if he had been attacked. It might give others ideas.
Indoors, Ito remained standing, amazed he had found Leah amid the squalor and chaos of Macau. He watched a cockroach crawl up Leah’s wall.True, he’d left his hotel room early to trawl the streets to discover if the combination of Chinese and Portuguese ancestry yielded beautiful women. Several passed his test, but he hadn’t had the time to pursue his study in depth.
Ignoring Ito’s fascination with the cockroach’s journey,Leah opened a drawer to retrieve a needle and thread. She slammed the drawer hard; the cockroach scuttled out of sight. She sat on the bed and sewed.
“You have beautiful hands,” he said. “Hong Kong has not changed much,” he ventured.
Leah stuck the needle hard into the cloth. “Ha!”
He gave a tight smile. “Well, maybe a little. But it is safe.”
“Safe for whom?”
“I like Western women. They speak their mind.We Japanese are never direct. But it makes for harmony.”
She bit off the thread and handed him his jacket. “Except for bombing, making war and killing people.”
He shrugged. “May I?” he asked, reaching for a rag, and dabbed at the stains on his trousers. “That’s politics. I’m a businessman and not at war with anyone,” he said head down, appraising the damage.
Leah debated hitting him over the head with the chair.How dare he think that the war was nothing to do with him? Look at his fine suit, his shitty hand-carved buttons. He was making a fortune out it.
He turned around with the cloth in his hand, confessing, “I’ve never lived in Japan. I was educated in Europe. In my own country, I’m considered a foreigner.”
Why was he telling this? For a romp on her mangy bed? “I think you’d better go,Mr. Ito. My fiancé is in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. I don’t think he would appreciate your distinction. I certainly don’t.”
For a moment he looked ineffably sad. “But you and I are not enemies.”
She glared.
“It is very peaceful in Macau, despite the crowds and the thieves,” he said putting on his damaged suit jacket. “It has a European quality—only the smells are different, and the sky. The light is not the same. It is often too hot, don’t you think so?”
“I’ve never been to Europe. I don’t think now is the time to go. Do you?”
He ran a hand through his dark hair and touched his cut. “I’ve acquired a very fine slip white figurine, a dancer. It’s seventh century,T’ang dynasty. H
er expression is like yours, mysterious. When I next come to Macau, I’ll bring you a photograph. It is very rare.”
“You’d better go.”
“I was on my way to a dinner meeting of Japanese businessmen. It is too late now. I will call in the morning to apologise and send gifts. Gold lighters, I think.They make very good gifts . . . Have you eaten?”
He wanted to stay. She didn’t have to do anything, only listen. It might pay off; he was nostalgic and unsettled.
“I was going to buy something off a stall.”
“I could get something and we could eat here. I don’t want to eat at a restaurant dressed like this.”
She nodded. He didn’t want to be seen in public with her. The Japanese only went to the best restaurants. Someone would be bound to see him and report him for eating with an English woman. There were spies everywhere.
“All right,” she decided. “But use my patacas. The stall holders don’t like Japanese military notes.”
Frowning, she saw she had scored several points. He knew that she meant the Chinese hated the Japanese and their money.
They ate their meal—Ito balancing on the wobbly chair and Leah on the bed—and danced around the topic of war. Ito proclaimed that the war seemed far away in Macau; Leah retorted C87 that Hong Kong was only forty-odd miles away. She grew increasingly impatient with his sly, calculating glances. Desire danced in his eyes. She finished the last of rice. “It’s late. I have to work tomorrow.”
He asked what she did and she lied. “I work as a translator for several Portuguese businessmen, wine merchants. It’s boring, but jobs are scarce.” She poured more Portuguese wine into his glass.
Ito rated his chances of getting her into bed as poor.Though he might have more luck the next time if she would only stop blaming him for the ugly, insect ridden flat, her lousy job, the poor food. At least, she’d stopped talking about her imprisoned fiancé. He came to Macau regularly. He could imagine spending time with her in the swayback bed. It would be something to look forward to. “I’m returning to Hong Kong, then to Han-kow in a few days. They need steel for new railroad ties. The rail line has been heavily bombed. Someone has given the Chinese new airplanes. Maybe the Americans.We didn’t expect the Chinese would be able to fly such complicated machines. They need thirty per cent more steel fast, twenty tons more. I have investors in Macau and will be able to buy more ships. I’ll be back here in a couple of weeks.May I see you?”
Apparently bored by his talk of war materiel, she yawned. Inwardly, she memorised every word and gloated she hadn’t had to ask one leading question. She rose to clear the table.
Ito cursed himself. He had rushed it. He didn’t want to pounce . . . yet. He prided himself on his intimate knowledge of Western women. The next move was to show he cared. He racked his wine-addled brain. “I could check on your fiancé, if it would help.”
Her face lit up with gratitude: “If you could—”
“Would you hate me if he were—”
“—Dead?” she supplied.
“I won’t lie,” he said, stubbornly. “Even if it suited me.”
“No,” she said softly. “Don’t lie. You can’t build anything on lies.”
He kissed her.
She knew he was going to, saw desire flash in his eyes as he pulled her to him. She kissed him back, feeling his smooth cheek and tasting his wine breath. A conspirator’s kiss. Then she moved out of his embrace to scribble Jonathan’s details on a piece of paper.
Ito left, promising to return soon.
Stunned, she collapsed onto the bed. She knew where and when he was going to deliver steel and that the Chinese had inflicted damage on Japanese troops near Hankow. Only, how was she going to make use of her knowledge? The question tortured her. She stared at the silent, elegant women on the inlaid screen, trying to reconcile duplicity with love and Jonathan. Sometime around two in the morning,she gave up.It was war.There weren’t any rules.
IN her hot tiny office, Leah doodled Chinese characters, racking her brain over whom to approach about her windfall of intelligence. Not Spencer Talbot. He was a terrible gossip, taking great pleasure in divulging which Portuguese officials or rich businessmen had mistresses or whose wife was addicted to gambling or opium. She was sure her west-facing office with its ridiculous small window was Spencer’s revenge for daring to become part of his domain. He was a strange man, precise to the point of being pedantic and coldly polite. His voice was without expression, flat and dry. It was impossible to know what he C89 was thinking, but he nursed his grudges. Certainly, Spencer resented her. He didn’t try to disguise it, shaking his head in wonder at her typographical errors and insinuating she was responsible for the chaos in the office brought about by the exodus of people from Hong Kong or occupied China. He was jealous of her rapport with Albemarle. He made nasty cracks about her female wiles. Sometimes, the only way she could get through the day without causing a scene was imagining Spencer as a skinny scrawny schoolboy, no good at games, who was teased and bullied.Once he revealed his nickname at school was Foxy. He had bright red hair then, he explained, and she tried to look sympathetic. Boys can be cruel, he said, and she knew her image of him was correct. She suspected if he had power, he would be a thug. He had no generosity or compassion. Or if he did, he saved it all for himself. Albemarle had alluded to an incident in Spencer’s past, a misunderstanding over money. Immediately, Leah thought fraud. He had the look of a forger; she had seen enough in the antiquities trade to identify the breed. That was why he had been shifted to Macau a long time ago. It was payback and revenge. Macau was an of end-of-the-line sort of place for a person like Spencer. He wasn’t going any place else.
Albemarle was her best bet. He knew everybody and was discreet and, most importantly, went out of his way to help penniless Chinese refugees. Only today, Albemarle was uncharacteristically late. She heard Spencer say hello. The consul cut him off and asked him to come to his office.Then Albemarle stopped by her office and said, “I want you too.”
He stood, fuming, as Leah and Spencer took their seats. “I’ve come from the governor’s officer. The Japs are complaining I’m hurting Macau’s neutrality. I’ve spent all morning with the governor. Teixeira is worried this time. The Portuguese government in Lisbon has received a formal Japanese diplomatic note. They accuse me of spying.Me!”
“Disgraceful, sir,” said Spencer. “You’re a diplomat.”
“They can’t prove anything. It’s a bluff,” Leah declared.
“Sadly, I’ve given my word. The Japanese have threatened to block all shipments of rice to Macau and divert them to Hong Kong. It may be a trumped up charge, but I won’t be responsible for the Macanese starving.”
“If I might say so, sir. You are not responsible for the Macanese.”
“I’m going to forget you said that,Mr. Talbot,” said Albe-marle. “The point is, we are all being watched. Not by Consul Nagotchi, he would never sink so low. It’s the fault of Sawa, his new military attaché. I’ve been warned.”
Leah was tempted to ask by whom, but thought better of it.
“Sawa is the head of the Kempeitai, the Japanese secret military police. He’s a thickset man, with a moustache, dead eyes, and always in full dress uniform. Have you seen him on the streets?”
“I always cross to the other side of the street, if there is a Jap around,” said Spencer primly.
“Wise. Sawa is throwing a great deal of money around to get people to inform. Be careful, even gossip can be used to trick you.”
Leah was impressed with Albemarle’s tact. The consul had implied nothing, but had warned Spencer he knew about Spencer’s weakness for gossip. The servant Moy knocked on the door with morning tea and the conversation switched to the day’s business.
Leah slipped her tea slowly, determined to outwait Spencer, who left in frustration saying, “I have work to do.”
“You wanted something, Miss Kolbe?”
“I was asked to spy for Britain.”
> Albemarle’s teaspoon clattered to the floor. He bent down and eyed the spoon with something approaching misery, before coming back up for air and asking in a weak voice, “Tell me.”
Matter of factly,Leah told Albemarle about her recruitment, careful not to mention Eldersen by name. “He found my knowledge of Cantonese useful and thought I could find things out,” she said, not wanting to go into specifics yet. Albemarle looked pained, drained of colour and braced against the back of his chair, as if he wanted to disappear into it.
“You know Cantonese?” he sputtered.
Leah nodded. “I learnt it from my amah. Anyway, he asked if I could help gather information in Hong Kong because of certain contacts I had.”
“You did this?” asked an incredulous Albemarle.
“Well, no. The war intervened and I never had the opportunity.”
“Did your fiancé know about this?”
“No . . . It didn’t concern him.”
“I don’t think it’s right to recruit young women to spy. To put them in harm’s way.”
Already, Leah could see Albemarle removing her from the virtuous women category and re-filing her into another, dangerous one.What would he think of her relationship with Ito? Probably tie a bell around her and accuse her of being a leper. “If I were to find out information—”
“Too dangerous. Don’t think about it. The Japanese are animals.”
“Is there anyone else I could contact?”
“Certainly not. I don’t want to be responsible. It will compromise us. And you, Leah, could end up dead. Sawa plays for keeps.”
Leah nodded. She too heard rumours of untimely deaths, men and women who had ‘gambling problems’ or ‘money worries’ and were found dead in back alleys or washed ashore on the beaches of the nearby island of Taipa. The local police were stretched to the breaking point with the influx of refugees.They didn’t investigate ‘suicides.’ It was all part of Macau’s razor-edge neutrality.
“I’ll send a coded cable and ask if they want you to be involved, Leah. I disapprove, but if I’m ordered to and we can do it without anyone else knowing, well, there are a few contacts . . .” He reached across and patted her lightly on the knee. His hand remained resting on her knee.
Deep Night Page 8