Wary, she shifted in her seat. Albemarle snatched back his hand as if burnt. He cleared his throat. “Now enough of this cloak and dagger stuff, what I want to know is how is the planning going for the king’s birthday party? It’s important to fly the flag.”
Stymied,Leah discussed the arrangements for the gala.The party should be crawling with spies. She dismissed Albemarle’s strange little advance. The man was lonely; he missed his wife. Spencer had no gossip about Albemarle’s love life. He lived like a monk. The touch was avuncular, nothing more.
IN a hand-tailored lounge suit with wide-legged pants; a tuxedo jacket, fashioned from the heavy black silk mandarins wore; and a crêpe de chine blouse, Leah waited in the receiving line with the rest of wealthy and important Macau, the men in evening clothes and the women, their hair fashionably crimped or rolled, in flowing satin gowns or the occasional cheongsam.
She was a sensation. It was always best to hide in the open.
Spencer was livid. “There are rules,” he huffed.
“Don’t you like it?” asked Leah sweetly.
Spencer walked away without replying.
A young Portuguese man asked her to dance. She had to be cautious. Everyone knew everyone in these elite circles. The longstanding Macanese Japanese business community had spies throughout Macau. They paid well for useful intelligence or helped favourites with trade contacts in the defeated territories. People turned a blind eye. Business first.
In Asia, the Portuguese were true middlemen. Middlemen had connections everywhere. After several months of tense negotiations between Portugal and Japan, those who had settled in Hong Kong had come flocking back to Macau in a special armada. There had been a formal pilgrimage to Guia Hill and the Chapel of Our Lady of Guia to give thanks for their deliverance from Japanese rule and internment.Leah watched the Bishop of Macau lead the procession. The sense of relief and joy was palpable. It hung in the air long after the returning Portuguese squeezed into the homes of relatives or were given shelter and a bed in church schools and monasteries. But for Leah, it was tinged with sadness: No one she knew could leave Hong Kong so easily.
The young Portuguese man twirled her around the large ballroom with its rosettes, green curtains and shining parquet floor.Over his shoulder, she watched a group of important Portuguese businessmen smoking and drinking while their wives sat on gold-painted chairs gossiping and, occasionally, training a watchful eye on their men. Leah thanked her partner for the dance and wandered over to the clutch of businessmen. They were polite and flirtatious, and perfectly correct. Casually,Leah talked war news. The battle of Midway was discussed and the war in China. In China, no one was quite certain what city had fallen this week to the Japanese.
“I keep thinking,” said Leah, “I ought to be doing more to help.”
One of the man suggested a benefit concert for refugees. Leah agreed to sell tickets, appalled at her stupidity.Useless talk to people in groups, no one wanted to stick his neck out and she would be marked as a volunteer for other charities, decorating a card table handing out raffle tickets.
A Chinese ear must be better. She spotted Mr. Kwong, owner of the largest firecracker company, the Celestial Brand, and known by everyone as Firecracker Kwong. Mr. Kwong ignored her implications, observing instead that she had finished her drink. Hurriedly, he went to the bar to fetch another. It was clear he did not intend to discuss anything in a public place, even if he wrote letters of indignation to the Chinese papers about the moral turpitude of the Japanese.
She drifted to the seated married women in their lace dresses, chatting contentedly in Portuguese behind their antique fans.A middled-aged woman with thick eyebrows and dyed black hair studied Leah, trying to place her.Was she someone’s daughter who left for Portugal as a little girl and returned all grown up? Or a new young wife a lonely Portugese boy had married abroad, who was unhappy in small close knit Macau and played at dressing up? Diplomatically, Leah nodded at the woman and sipped a gin. The woman smiled. Together, they regarded the sedately dancing couples: a Portuguese lady with a Chinese man in a mandarin gown, an old man dancing with his elegant Eurasian daughter in a rose satin dress, the shared smiles between the Portuguese and Chinese. It was what Leah liked most about Macau. Unlike Hong Kong, there were no boundaries amongst people.
Then chaos. She glimpsed the face of Chang talking to the Portuguese Minister of Finance, Pedro Lobo, a dapper little man who had his little hand in everything. She uttered a small oh of distress and swayed, collapsing into a chair, rubbing the cold glass of gin against her throbbing temple.
“Sick?” inquired the Portuguese woman.
The woman and her friends thought she was pregnant, not frightened. She took a sip of gin and fought to regain composure. The women clucked consoling phrases of Portuguese. She forced herself to look again and be sure. It was Chang, still tall and thin, but more polished than she had ever seen him in a dinner jacket, immaculate white shirt and knife-sharp pleated trousers. He oozed respectability. What secrets did he know about Macau and the double-dealing that lay just beneath the surface of Macau’s complicated geography and neutrality?
Their eyes met.There was a blink of recognition in his pebble eyes.Chang’s glance returned to Lobo.Lobo must have said something amusing, because she saw Chang laugh, or rather his mouth laughed, but his face resisted. The men shook hands and Lobo left to join young handsome Governor Teixeira and his wife.
Chang weaved amongst the crowd toward the bar. He stopped to exchange pleasantries with Albemarle and Spencer, who hovered, alert to the consul’s duty to make the rounds. Spencer whispered something into Albemarle’s ear. Swiftly and with seasoned professional courtesy, Albemarle left Chang to concentrate on other guests. Unperturbed, Chang continued his journey to the bar.
Chang was her man. He had direct links to the Kuomintang; or, if it were more to his advantage, he would convey her intelligence to the Communist Mao and his General Chou En-Lai who commanded the Eighth Army and the New Fourth Front. In any case, he would not waste her information. But if she were truthful, if she had a gun she would not hesitate to shoot him dead. She drained the gin and said goodbye to the kind women who sat on the sidelines.
Waiting for his drink at the bar, Leah watched Chang take out one of his sweet-scented clove cigarettes, tap it on his gold case and light it with a handsome gold lighter. As she moved closer, a tongue of clove smoke lapped toward her. She gave a small cough of disgust.
“All right?” asked Albemarle, exchanging her empty glass for a full one as a waiter passed.
“Fine,” she said and sipped her drink.
“Having a good time?”
“I’m so pleased it’s going well,” she replied. “Such a relief.”
“I knew you would pull it off,” he said like a proud father.
Indifferently, she asked, “Who’s that tall Chinese fellow?”
“Ah,” said Albemarle, “that is our esteemed Free China representative, Mr. Chang. He’s the keeper of the Sun Yat-sen flame.”
“Really?” Her voice squeaked up an octave.
Albemarle dropped the discreet façade to speak in a confidential whisper. “That’s his official title. He’s got his finger in lots of pies. Gambling, smuggling . . .” His voice trailed off.
“He’s coming over,” said Leah.
“Be sure to count your fingers and toes afterwards.” Then he turned and said aloud, “Mr. Chang, I’d like you to meet Miss Leah Kolbe, the newest and most welcomed addition to my staff. She got out of Hong Kong in the nick of time.”
“How wise of you, Miss Kolbe. May I welcome you to Macau.”
Leah gave a pretty smile. “Thank you.”
“Miss Kolbe organised the party and the band.”
“Beautiful and talented,” replied Chang.
As if on cue, the small Filipino swing quartet began to play again.
“Duty calls,” said Albemarle as Spencer motioned him toward the Minister of Finance.
You
nger couples regrouped and took up the challenge of the band’s quick foxtrot. Leah led Chang towards the non-English speaking Portuguese ladies. She stood near them, as if their presence would protect her.
“Don’t you go spreading lies about me. I could tell your consul things,” he cautioned.
If the devil existed, he would be this thin dry man in a hand-tailored dinner suit. She began to walk away.
He caught her by the arm, “Out with it,” he demanded.
She told him. Not about Ito, but about the destroyed railhead and the shipment of steel. She ended with, “It must be bombed.”
“I must know your source,” he insisted. “I can’t have bombers sent off on a whim.”
“I can’t say. Believe me, if I knew any other person in this room or Macau who could do it, I wouldn’t be dealing with you.”
They watched the elite having a good time. Now, tension pervaded the ballroom: the men were a shade too hearty and their laughter anxious; the women’s eyes glittered unnaturally and many seemed to want to hide beneath a thick layer of makeup and rouge; a small brown-haired girl chain smoked incessantly; and a red-face Scotsman sat morosely in the corner with five empty whisky glasses neatly aligned, humming a sad tune about a dead beautiful girl.
Chang lit another clove cigarette.“You don’t like these, do you?
“I don’t smoke.”
He gave a ghost of smile as he blew a curl of smoke. “I will use this intelligence and see what happens,” he concluded, halfway between a promise and threat.
She walked away, towards the welcoming circle of Portuguese businessmen and found her young dance partner. “I like this song,” she said. “Would you?” The young man beamed and led her triumphantly back to the dance floor.
Albemarle watched Leah dance under the chandelier, its light picking up the sheen of her black silk lounge suit, the glow of her face. She moved so well. She lit up a room. She was luminescent. Was she in danger? He had sent a coded cable to Whitehall about Leah.They had yet to respond. He was overcome with fear for her. He could not protect her.Guilt gnawed at him that he would be putting her in danger and could not help.
His own foray into the underground was feeble. It was composed of Portuguese and Eurasians still able to do business in Japanese controlled China.They passed him third-hand accounts about troop size, armaments and battle plans. By the time he sent the news to his superiors, it was stale. If anything, he was helping the Japanese cause because his intelligence was so out of date. He had one operative. Operative, what a joke. He was an oily Russian with the unlikely English name of Boris Harris. Harris volunteered that his father had been an engineer advising on the Trans Siberia Railway, met his Russian mother in the polyglot port city of Vladivostok and never returned to England. Albemarle checked his story because Harris seemed to be such a phoney and his passport had been reissued in Vladivostok. To his dismay, the news came back that Harris was indeed British. Albemarle had given Harris introductions to Macau mon-eymen. Since then, Harris intermittently provided intelligence C99 that the Foreign Office had found useful. Harris was often in China. Thank God, he hadn’t come tonight. He embarrassed him, ogled the ladies and made obnoxious, unfunny remarks. Harris was rich.How Harris got to be rich was unfathomable. Albemarle had made it his business not to find out.
Chang was different. Smoother, and without a doubt one hundred and ten per cent corrupt. Half the time the Nationalists were more intent on preventing the Communists armies from proclaiming victories than on winning any of their own. Thank God, Chang hadn’t stayed long talking to Leah. He was being a nervous Nellie and overprotective. The girl had too much sense to be taken in by such a ruthless man.
What an introspective old man he was becoming, mad and lonely. It was his own fault. He had encouraged Mildred to leave even before the war.The fiction of wanting to return to England to be with the children had been an easy excuse. In truth, he and Mildred should never have married. He sighed deeply as Leah and her partner finished dancing and came to rest near him.
“My turn,” said Albemarle gaily and danced Leah around the floor in a bouncy two-step that left him breathless and excited.
9
LEAH STARED AT a letter addressed to George Bentley in care of the consulate. From war-torn China, Bentley had made it to Macau. He was vague on the details—he claimed his business associates helped him. He declared he was destitute, his Hong Kong funds embargoed by the Japanese, and therefore he was entitled to the full allowance European British citizens received.When she explained how much he would get a fortnight he shouted he was not a damn coolie who lived on rice and asking who the hell was she. Ignoring his outburst, she replied calmly that it was generous given that Eurasian subjects received a quarter less and former Chinese residents of Hong Kong, even with families, only received half. Bentley thumped the desk and demanded to see the consul. Luckily, Albemarle was out. Bentley left in a huff, warning, “Mark my words, girlie, I intend to take this further.”
By rights, she should simply re-address Bentley’s letter, but the flap of the envelope was raised. She edged the blunt side of the letter opener along the gummy bit. The letter was from Bentley’s comprador, explaining how he had arranged at Bentley’s request a large transfer of funds through the Bank of Lisboa. The pig of a man was positively wealthy! Indignant, Leah went to Albemarle with the file.
Glumly, Albemarle explained, “We can’t do anything about it. We aren’t a court of law. You could ask him to provide his bankbook. He will refuse. That kind always does. He’s taken the best suite at the Hotel Rivera. I can make a note of it. It won’t make a difference. He’s entitled to the allowance based on the information he provided. You shouldn’t have opened his mail . . .”
“The letter was half out of the envelope, sir.”
“Really?”
“Practically.”
“Please sit, Leah. It’s about that other matter.”
Leah focused on the painting above the consul’s head. It was a reproduction of a Constable landscape, she thought. A meandering river flowed through a tranquil peaceful countryside devoid of people. She wished she were there, sitting on the riverbank with a picnic, Jonathan lounging on a blanket, enjoying the hushed day.
“They want you to go ahead with your contacts. You’re to establish your network. I can’t help.There are a great many English stranded in Portugal. Reprisals, you know, and the Japs might make good on the threat to embargo rice here.We’re all pawns,” he said, attempting to be philosophical about her assignment, as if it were as ordinary as Bentley’s file.
“But I’m so new,” she stammered. “I know hardly anyone.”
“They think you know someone.”
She blushed and felt suddenly at sea and very young.
“They wouldn’t tell me anything. I didn’t mean to pry, only I feel damned useless. It must be hard to be part of such a world.”
She could see it in his eyes. Albemarle no longer trusted her. She was a liar, dangerous, and probably a whore. “I didn’t volunteer,” she retorted. “I was recruited.”
“Blame the war.We all do.”
“Yes,” she sharply. “And I am no Mr. Bentley.” She got up to leave.
He rose to his feet as if he wanted to hold her back from stomping out the door. “It isn’t like that, Miss Kolbe . . ., Leah. I don’t want—” But he couldn’t bring himself to say, You can refuse. “I never thought you were,” he said lamely.
There wasn’t anything more to say. She said, “Thank you, sir,” and left.
Later in the afternoon, she arranged for a boy to hand deliver Bentley’s opened letter inside an official consular one. It was a very small victory. He would know that she knew and she bet the conniving Mr. Bentley wouldn’t give a damn.
Albemarle turned a blind eye to Leah selling tickets for fundraising events in aid of Free China to consular visitors. It was a good cover, mixing with a crowd that might lead to something. She had heard nothing from Chang.
&nbs
p; Tonight’s event was a seventeenth century operatic play, The Peony Pavilion, about a young girl who dies pining for a lover she met only in a dream. Years later, the dream lover stays in her town, finds her portrait and revives her. The audience discussed the current adaptation and commented loudly on how well each actor played his role. The actors were used to it.
Leah let her thoughts drift until she caught the whiff of cloves. At the head of the row was Chang. He mouthed, “I want to talk to you.” Then he focused on the play.
Here was the monster of her nightmares wanting to meet and she was driven to make him the linchpin of her feeble network. On stage, the couple sang their duet of everlasting love. Their devotion made Leah feel small and mean.There was this gaping hole in her life and she was filling it with Tokai and now Chang.How could life be so complicated? She considered bolting, but it was too late. People were clapping.
Outside on the Rua Camillo Pessanhra, young girls in silky dresses and high-heeled sandals laughed and flirted with young men with slicked-down hair, their mothers in modest cheongsams and their fathers in suits or the black traditional dress of Mandarins, beaming.Mr.Kwong of the Celestial Firecracker Company congratulated Leah on her ticket-selling ability.They had raised thousands of patacas.
“Miss Kolbe is dedicated to the cause,” said Chang.
Kwong didn’t take Chang’s bait, saying instead, “Miss Mo Hang Sheng’s performance was magnificent.A beautiful voice. It is one of the few good things about the war. So many wonderful performers have sought refuge in Macau.We are already planning the next benefit.” With that, he handed Leah a roll of new tickets to sell and excused himself.
Chang waited until Kwong was far away to tell her: They had bombed the rail line as it was being mended. Many Japanese had died. Japan would have to make more steel. Her intelligence was good.
Deep Night Page 9