House of Trembling Leaves, The

by Lees, Julian

  ‘‘I not following …’’

  ‘‘No, you wouldn’t, darling.’’ He laughed his hyena laugh. ‘‘You’re what my mother would call un pesce fuor d’acqua, a fish out of water. A bit like me really … we’re both on the periphery of conventional society. Outcasts almost.’’

  ‘‘I like being outcast,’’ she replied. ‘‘I am different to everyone here. I am Tibetan. I am a servant and not a student. And soon I will be a single mother.’’

  Not afraid of the direct question, Pietro asked, ‘‘Tell me, so the father of your child, he sells pickled onions?’’

  ‘‘No, lah. I only say that to get your attention.’’

  ‘‘Spill the beans then.’’ He lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘‘Is it Adie? Oh, please tell me it’s Adie. I need a bit of juicy gossip.’’

  She hesitated. ‘‘I do not want to talk about the father.’’

  ‘‘Scheming Eros! Thou art such a tease! Love at our age can be so fickle. By the way, did I mention I met this pretty second year Botanist from Caius? He’s got a fantastic body, slim at the hips, broad at the top. Problem is I keep staring at this V of curly black hair tufting from beneath his throat. It’s so distracting, sausage, I really should ask him to shave …’’

  ‘‘You cuckoo-clocks crazy.’’

  The tomato and meat sauce bubbled in a pot as the spaghetti noodles steamed on a plate. ‘‘How did Loo-seat react to the baby news?’’

  ‘‘Very supporting, lah. At first she not notice my throwing up because she’s so busy studying. Even now she doesn’t notice my tummy, but I can feel it getting bigger.’’

  ‘‘You never had much of a waist, dahling.’’

  ‘‘Aiyoo! Your mouth so rude, lah. Next time I see you I knock you on the head with a chestnut pan!’’

  Pietro twisted off a knot of herbs. ‘‘Smell this. Recognize it?’’

  Sum Sum cupped his hand in hers and took in the aroma. ‘‘No, but it’s damn-powerful wonderful. What is it?’’

  ‘‘Rosemary. You won’t find it in Malaya. I grow it on my windowsill. I give some to Illingworth in exchange for certain favours.’’

  Sum Sum gave him a look.

  ‘‘Don’t ask.’’

  Sum Sum ogled the pot of sauce. ‘‘Can I take rosemary back with me tonight?’’

  ‘‘First you steal my recipe, then you raid dear Illingworth’s glamorous kitchen of all its ingredients …’’ He placed the back of his hand on his forehead. ‘‘Oh, the price of culinary genius.’’

  ‘‘I bet I can cook something like this in no time, no?’’

  He shot her a look. ‘‘Let me assure you, dear sausage, that any fool can make a sauce, but to make it right you’’ – he touched his nose – ‘‘you need Pietro magic.’’

  ‘‘How you learn to cook?’’

  ‘‘I started at eight years old. I trailed my mother whenever she was in the kitchen. Her hands were always covered in parsley or batter. When she let me wear her pink apron I was hooked!’’

  That night Sum Sum prepared dinner for Lu See and Mrs Slackford. With the smell of marinating meat in the air, she lit some candles and set the table with Mrs Slackford’s finest silver.

  ‘‘What have we here?’’ the landlady asked, surprised to see something on her plate prepared by Sum Sum. She balanced a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles on the end of her nose.

  ‘‘This? This called spaghetti alla Portugal Place.’’

  ‘‘It sure don’t resemble jugged hare or suet pudding,’’ said Mrs Slackford with sarcasm so thick you could spread it like marmite. ‘‘Won’t see this being served in the Blue Boar.’’ She dipped her fork in and tried it. ‘‘It’s tasty.’’

  ‘‘Of course it tasty, lah.’’

  ‘‘Well, Oi am very impressed. Yew are a dark horse. Oi expect yew’ll cook up a storm for yer husband when he’s back from his tour of duty. Lu See told me he’s in the Gurkha Rifles. Oi bet he’s ever so pleased yer expecting a baby.’’

  Sum Sum pressed her lips together politely. She glanced at Lu See who was looking pensive. ‘‘You okay?’’ she asked.

  Lu See made a face and shrugged.

  ‘‘Aiyoo, what wrong, lah?’’

  ‘‘It’s the organ. I’ve written several letters to Conrad P. Hughes and received no reply. All I’m asking for is a progress report.’’

  ‘‘Maybe he busy.’’

  ‘‘Too busy to acknowledge a customer who has left him with half her money?’’

  ‘‘How long since yew last heard from him?’’ asked Mrs Slackford.

  ‘‘Several weeks.’’

  ‘‘Cor blast me!’’ Mrs Slackford laughed.

  Lu See felt the skin stiffen on her arms. Now that she thought about it, there was something very odd about Conrad P. Hughes and his insistence on a fifty percent deposit. Just how much did she know about his reputation and reliability?

  ‘‘I’ll go and see him personally next Saturday,’’ said Lu See, gulping down a forkful of spaghetti. ‘‘Don’t worry, I’ll get to the bottom of this and give him a piece of my mind.’’

  The following Saturday, with Lu See in London, Pietro and Sum Sum hired a flat-bottomed punt and spent a leisurely hour on the Cam.

  Pietro, wearing a straw boater with a flower tucked in its band, handed Sum Sum the long pole and reclined across the pillows he’d brought from his room. Dressed in cream linen, he looked as though he was straight out of an E. M. Forster novel. ‘‘Beautiful day, sausage, it must remind you of Malaya.’’

  ‘‘Small bit, lah.’’

  ‘‘You’re talking into the wrong ear, sausage! My left ear not my right.’’

  ‘‘Ai-yoo! Wear ear-trumpet, lah!’’

  Theatrically, Pietro rolled his eyes. ‘‘No need to shout. Tell me, what language do you all speak at home?’’

  ‘‘Back in Juru? Aiyo, a jumble-mix of everything.’’ She stood three-quarters of the way toward the stern and pushed the pole through the water, shifting her balance from foot to foot. The slap of water against the side of the boat was comforting.

  ‘‘Like a bouillabaisse.’’

  Sum Sum wrinkled her nose. A whispering vulgar scent was drifting across the water. It took her a moment to realize what it was. The smell of camphor. She looked about her urgently. Not far away an old lady was feeding bread to the ducks. Mothballs, she said to herself, relieved. Old lady smells of mothballs

  ‘‘Bouillabaisse,’’ Pietro added helpfully, ‘‘is a type of soup with all sorts of fish thrown in.’’

  Sum Sum smiled and prodded her toe at a passing mallard. ‘‘I suppose so, yes, like soup. Malay people speak Bahasa. The Chinese speak Cantonese and Hokkien.’’ She ducked her head as they went under a bridge. Her voice echoed as she spoke. ‘‘And the Indians speak Tamil.’’

  ‘‘A tropical Tower of Babel.’’

  ‘‘But almost everybody speaks mix-match of kitchen English.’’

  Pietro trailed his fingers in the water. ‘‘Sounds chaotic to me.’’

  ‘‘Aiyooo! No, lah.’’ She gripped the pole under her arm and made a bowl out of one hand. ‘‘Say this cup of tea is Malaya.’’ She pretended to spoon something into the cup. ‘‘Add one sugar you have Chinese, second sugar Indian, third is Malay people. All put into cup of tea, mix it up, then everything blended.’’

  They stopped and watched the ducks drift on the lazy current. A magical dappled tranquility descended. Later, as Pietro read the newspaper, he jabbed her in the ribs. ‘‘Listen to these headlines. ‘Civil war in Spain looming!’ Oh what tommyrot, that Franco’s such an ugly, louche man, let’s see what’s next – ‘Edward VIII and American divorcee Wallis Simpson vacationing in Biarritz on a yacht!’ – naughty Eddie’s playing hide the popsicle again, terrible way for the King of England to behave, and, oh, brah-haa look here, you’ll like this one – ‘Tibet willing to accept Chinese sovereignty? Yes, according to Wu Chung-hsin.’

  ‘‘That man is a liar! Tibeta
ns will never give up their independence.’’

  ‘‘Who’s this Wu fellow? Any relation to Adie?’’

  ‘‘Chinese director of Tibetan Affairs. I’d like to shove a pair of chopsticks up his fat nose.’’

  ‘‘But reading the article, he sounds like he has such charm, dahling!’’ Pietro teased.

  ‘‘Charm? This man, lah, he has same charm as open air shithouse in downtown Penang.’’

  Pietro laughed, which in turn brought a smile to Sum Sum’s face.

  When their hour was up they moored the punt by the Anchor pub and hopped on to dry land. Pietro took Sum Sum by the arm and together they capered and pranced like children playing hopscotch back to his rooms in Christ’s. ‘‘Feeling peckish, dear sausage?’’

  ‘‘Small bit, lah.’’

  ‘‘I was going to take you to luncheon at a little place in Huntington, but the gorgon behind the bar took a dislike to me last time I went. Let’s pop into the college kitchen. Illingworth and I will whip something up in no time.’’

  ‘‘You remind me of my younger brudder. His name is Hesha. I used to play a game with him when he was nine years old. We pull five ingredients out my mother’s market basket and he had to prepare a meal in the time that it took A-Ma to finish her small pouch of snuff. Hesha always win.’’

  ‘‘Where’s he now?’’

  ‘‘Hesha still in Tibet. He seventeen years old now. He say he wants to go over to Nepal and join Gurkha Army and fight for the British.’’

  Sum Sum stopped dead in her tracks. There it was again, the same sly breath of camphor. She caught in on the breeze. But where had it come from? She couldn’t trace it.

  She grabbed Pietro’s elbow. ‘‘Can you smell it?’’

  ‘‘Smell what?’’

  She sniffed the air. ‘‘Liniment, camphor.’’ The fine little hairs on the back of her neck lifted.

  She kept her eyes doggedly fixed on the road behind.

  Pietro turned to see what she was looking at.

  For a second she thought she saw a figure in the shade. When she looked again the shadow was gone. She shook her head in frustration. Her mind was playing tricks on her. ‘‘No, it’s nothing, sorry.’’

  They entered the gates of Christ’s and headed into the court toward the Buttery where they sat in comfortable leather armchairs.

  ‘‘Are you feeling unwell, sausage?’’

  ‘‘I’m fine, Pietro. Not worry.’’

  Sum Sum took a deep breath and felt her shoulders relax.

  Only my imagination.

  She repeated the words in her head several times. The eight syllables echoed softly inside her brain, sounding like waves lapping the shore.

  ‘‘Perhaps what you need is a spot of refreshment,’’ said Pietro. With a delicate tinkle-tinkle he rang a silver hand bell and a college servant appeared.

  ‘‘Two lime drinkees, Hargreaves, and a plate of your thrilling biscuits please.’’ He waited for Hargreaves to leave the room. ‘‘Did you see the look on his face? Not sure he likes me bringing you here. Hargreaves is like everyone else in college. They frown at me for what I am. Only Illingworth understands. But we outsiders have to stick together, right?’’

  Sum Sum said nothing. Instead, she ran her eyes along the walls, admiring the elegant walnut panelling.

  A few minutes later, as he sipped his lime cordial, Pietro said, ‘‘You must miss them.’’

  ‘‘Who?’’

  ‘‘Your family in Tibet.’’

  ‘‘Yes. Yes I do. I am thinking maybe I will go back to Tibet one day. I have to speak to Lu See about this.’’

  Pietro shook his head. ‘‘I would never leave my family.’’

  ‘‘Well you are here in Cambridge, which means you left your mother, no?’’

  ‘‘My parents died when I was twelve.’’

  Silence.

  Pietro set his delicate jaw.

  ‘‘This is the point in the conversation when you should look mortified and apologize profusely.’’

  ‘‘I’m … I’m sorry, Pietro.’’

  He leaned across and took her hand. ‘‘You weren’t to know, sausage. It’s all so terribly macabre. Why do you think I stay here in Cambridge when term’s broken up during the Long Vac? No, I go back to Italy once a year, at Christmas to see my surviving relatives. The Italians say that leaving your family is a little like dying.’’ He lifted a finger to his chin as if remembering something important. ‘‘Speaking of dying and going to heaven, dear Samson, you simply must try this recipe of mine. Let’s go have a poke in Illingworth’s larder, shall we?’’

  From Illingworth’s pantry cupboard he retrieved a bar of Rowntree chocolate, a can of sweet condensed milk and a fistful of fresh rosemary from the windowsill. He placed them on the kitchen counter. ‘‘Now this culinary triumvirate will serve you well for the rest of your life, sausage. Prepare to be dazzled!’’

  Clad in aprons, they mixed sugar with flour and tossed in an egg. ‘‘This will make the shortbread,’’ he said. Then they combined a cup of condensed milk with some golden syrup and whisked in the rosemary, melting it with a dollop of butter until it turned to toffee, after which they spread it onto the shortbread and left it to set. ‘‘Finally break the chocolate into a bowl and heat it over a pan of boiling water. Now let it cool and pour it over the shortbread. And abracadabra, my boyfriend’s an actor: rosemary and chocolate frollino.’’

  Two minutes later they tried it. Sum Sum had never tasted anything so delicious in her life.

  ‘‘Now I bet your Hesha would struggle to come up with something better than that.’’

  Sum Sum had to concede. She scribbled down the recipe in a brand new blue exercise book. When she put her pen down Pietro asked her what she wrote. She wiped her hands on her apron and squared her shoulders proudly. ‘‘One day, maybe ten or twenty years from now, I open a damn-powerful restaurant.’’

  ‘‘Where?’’

  ‘‘Perhaps in Malaya. The Malays and Chinese love noodles. Maybe even in Tibet.’’

  Pietro struck his palm on his milk-bottle white forehead. ‘‘A Tibetan girl cooking pasta in a jungle trattoria? Whatever next, Mussolini addressing the nation in a tutu?’’

  When the London taxi dropped Lu See at the store front near the Angel tube station she saw immediately that something wasn’t right. The black Vitrolite fascia, hung above the main entrance with the legend Conrad P. Hughes – Pipe Organ Specialists in crimson raised letters, was gone. Furthermore, the windows and main entrance were boarded up tight. She entered the grocer’s next door and asked the frowning, lined face of an old man what happened. ‘‘They moved,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Moved where?’’

  He gave her the address of a warehouse near the river.

  The same taxi took her through a series of wretched streets, past large unkempt depots without rails or fences. At the said address she stood in front of an abandoned warehouse. Nearby chimney smoke rose in slow suspended scrawls. There was a smell of old fish.

  Lu See stood and stared at the ‘In Receivership’ sign. She clenched and unclenched her fists several times. A sense of emptiness and gullibility and failure spread up her arms and legs.

  At least there was no one around to see her cry.

  12

  Lu See covered her face with a web of fingers.

  The reality of the matter was almost too painful to be digested. Conrad P. Hughes, aware he was on the brink of insolvency, must have taken her money and absconded. Earlier, she’d filed a report at the Islington police station, but the duty sergeant said there wasn’t much he could do, especially if Mr Hughes had fled the country. It was the first time she’d ever been in an English police station, or any police station for that matter. ‘‘Where would he have gone?’’ she asked the duty sergeant. ‘‘Perhaps to one of the lesser colonies,’’ he replied. ‘‘Tanganyika’s quite popular these days.’’

  Lu See pulled her fingers from her eyes. ‘‘What th
e hell am I going to do now?’’ she exclaimed.

  Adrian and Sum Sum shrugged their shoulders. They were in the Pickerel on Magdalene Street. The low-ceilinged pub still carried the smell of old beer and pipe tobacco.

  Lu See stabbed a fork into her square of Stilton.

  ‘‘I thought you said you’d never touch a Stilton Ploughman’s again,’’ said Adrian.

  ‘‘I’m punishing myself.’’

  Adrian sipped from his pint of Adnams. ‘‘You’ll just have to write to Second-aunty Doris and get her to send more money.’’

  Her face filled with colour. ‘‘I can’t do that.’’

  ‘‘Why, meh?’’ asked Sum Sum. ‘‘Too proud to say to her you make a mistake?’’

  Lu See covered her eyes and sighed. ‘‘Don’t try to get inside my head.’’

  ‘‘True, lah. Nothing in there anyway.’’

  Lu See turned to Adrian. ‘‘How much do you have in the bank?’’

  ‘‘Not much. Ever since my father discovered I was a communist he’s been keeping the purse strings tight. My allowance barely covers my food and lodging.’’

  ‘‘What am I going to do? If I can’t pay for the pipe organ then Second-aunty Doris will refuse to support me. Girton, all my hard work, all my dreams … I’ll have to go home with my tail between my legs …’’ She left the words trailing.

  ‘‘Look, I tell you what, goosey, I’ll sell my car. It’s a bit of a wreck but I’m sure it’ll get us something.’’

  ‘‘And I can start selling rosemary shortbreads on street,’’ said Sum Sum. ‘‘Pietro has tip-top recipe.’’

  Lu See forced a laugh. ‘‘Well, I hope it won’t come to that.’’

  ‘‘So what will you do?’’ asked Adrian.

  ‘‘I’ll arrange to head up to Yorkshire and meet with another organ maker. Brinkley & Fosler was one of the other names on the list I made. I’ll plead my case, and see if I can get a ready-made console at a knock-down price.’’

  ‘‘And if you can’t?’’

  ‘‘Then I suppose pumpkin-head and I might just as well take the next boat back to Malaya.’’