by Cath Ferla
And that was it.
Except for the girls.
There were six of them. Tall, slender, Asian and mostly naked. They wore high heels and little else. One girl complemented silver shoes with a silver ring piercing her nipple. The ring had a tassel attached to the end and it twinkled as she turned. Another girl matched red stilettos with a pink plastic belt secured loosely around her hips while a third wore only a dog collar. The collared girl walked freely between the couches, but Sophie noticed a chain swinging from the leather at her neck. She searched the faces of the women. Blank canvasses stained cherry red at the lips. Is this what had become of Han Hong?
‘Come on, sit down. You’re the only girl in here,’ Tae Hun said. ‘Besides them.’
He sat in a chair parked close to the door, another chair opposite, a small table in front. Sophie took a seat. She looked up at the door. Above it she saw the green letters of the exit sign. Something so banal and ordinary reassured her. Perhaps this wasn’t a creepy house of horrors. This was a sex club, an illegal one, but nothing more. Maybe it was better to serve sex straight up on a platter, like this, than to hide it in the marketing mechanisms of mainstream pop music or reality TV. She allowed herself to relax.
‘Who is that guy – Cho?’
Tae Hun lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. ‘He’s the doorman.’
‘You guys were talking about me.’
‘I told him you were my girl.’
Sophie leaned forwards in her seat. ‘And what did Cho say to that?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Tell me.’
He shifted uncomfortably. ‘He wanted to know if Aussie girls are a good fuck.’
Sophie looked away.
‘You forced me to say,’ Tae Hun said. ‘And anyway, we’re here.’ He took his packet of cigarettes from his pocket and lit another for himself. ‘Are you okay?’
Sophie leaned back into the chair. ‘It’s strange,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘This. I mean it’s ultimately just a strip club with naked girls serving drunk men more drinks.’ She looked around. You’d never know they were in somebody’s backyard. They could have been in any seedy bar in the country. ‘I mean, I don’t understand the need for this. How is this any different from a legal club?’
Tae Hun exhaled smoke from his nostrils. ‘There’s more to it,’ he said.
And then Sophie heard a cry. She jerked her head in the direction of the sound. The woman in the dog collar stood chained to a hook on the wall at the back of the room. A middle-aged man in a suit held her hair in one hand and her throat with the other.
Sophie shuddered. She turned back to Tae Hun. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I guess the difference is, in a place like this, there aren’t any rules.’ Tae Hun stared at the table and flipped the cigarette packet nervously between his hands. He looked up at Sophie, a mix of fear and embarrassment etched on his face. ‘I did try to warn you.’
Zhou lowered the basket of chillis onto the wooden bench at the bottom of the stairs. Several other similarly laden wicker baskets sat nearby. Behind the wall the restaurant buzzed with the sounds of late-night diners hoeing in to steaming bowls of Sichuan chilli chicken, double-fried pork and hot boiled dumplings. The restaurant smells of sesame oil and Sichuan pepper filtered in to mingle with the storeroom’s dry, garlicky air.
He wiped his hands on his whites and surveyed the storage space. The storeroom housed barrels of cooking oil, bottles of rice wine, jars of soybean paste, packets of Sichuan pepper, dried chilli, star anise and cinnamon – all the trappings of a typical Sichuan restaurant. But what had once been an ordered storeroom had recently become a jumble. Zhou couldn’t move an inch without stepping on a bundle of something. The visible segments of linoleum flooring were covered in a layer of dust and oil and chilli flakes. Even the ceiling rafters seemed to groan from the weight of hanging garlic nets. It wouldn’t be long until he’d be begging favours from the Uyghurs next door.
Zhou reached out and tested the weight of the shelves on the left side of the room. They were stacked high with bottles of soy and vinegar. He moved around to the end of the heavy wooden shelving structure and tentatively rocked it from side to side. When that didn’t yield results, he turned around and placed his buttocks on the flat side surface. He pushed hard, straining to hear sounds of movement. But there was nothing. Zhou stepped back, counted the bottles lining the shelves and calculated it would take a morning to unload. On the wall beside the far edge of the shelving structure, the hinges of an unframed door were visible. The doorway led to the storeroom of the adjoining Uyghur restaurant. The two restaurants had once belonged to the same family before being sold off as separate businesses some fifteen years ago. Zhou knew the space on the other side of that door hosted a storeroom the same size as his or larger. He figured it might again be time to put pressure on the neighbours, open that door for business.
Zhou felt the tingling sensation of his mobile phone vibrating against his leg. He fished the phone out of his pocket and answered without bothering to check the caller ID. There was only one person who liked to call him this time of night.
‘Wei?’
‘We’ve got a spicy one over here.’ The voice had a smothered quality, buried as it was beneath the chaos of electronic beats. But Zhou had heard enough to forget about his storage issues. The teacher hadn’t heeded his warning.
It was time to pay a visit out west.
The girl in the purple G-string returned with their drinks. She cupped each glass in a curled, slim-fingered hand and Sophie noticed that her long fingernails were painted orange. As the girl placed the drinks on the table, Sophie reached over and stroked her wrist. The girl flinched and eyeballed Sophie, her jaw set in resignation.
‘You want? Then you pay,’ she spat. Her bright lips slashed open like a brilliant red wound. Sophie pulled a fifty-dollar note out of her pocket and placed it on the table. The woman flicked a glance at it and pierced Sophie with her defiant stare.
‘I’m looking for someone named Han Hong,’ Sophie said, the words tumbling out in a rush.
The girl grimaced. ‘You want to talk,’ she said, ‘you slap my face.’
Sophie sat back in the chair. ‘What?’
‘I can’t talk to you unless you do it.’
They watched each other, eyes locked. Sophie saw sadness and fear, an unfitting confidence and a challenge in this woman’s eyes. She wondered what was visible in hers.
The woman raised a pointed chin and tilted her cheek towards the ceiling.
But Sophie couldn’t mark that taut white skin. Had the woman been a monster, the revulsion would have been the same.
‘I can’t hurt you,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m looking for Han Hong.’
The woman rocked back on her heels, raised a slim wrist and pressed a painted fingernail to her lips. She smiled. ‘Sorry. I can’t help you. We don’t go by our real names.’
‘But she could be here?’
The woman shrugged. ‘Lots of girls work here,’ she said. ‘We do it for the money and we don’t need rescuing.’
‘So you’re working here of your own free will?’
The woman nodded. ‘Otherwise I couldn’t have what I want,’ she said. She stood up and walked back into the middle of the room.
Sophie watched her go. When she turned back to Tae Hun, he was gone.
The glass warmed in her hand as she waited for him. She checked her watch. Quarter past two. While the green glow of the exit sign above the door still worked to settle Sophie’s nerves, Tae Hun’s absence worried her. What was this, some kind of trap?
The weight of a hand on her shoulder. ‘Where did you go?’ she asked.
Zhou took a seat in the chair previously occupied by Tae Hun. His dirty whites replaced by a pair of skinny jeans and a black leather jacket, he looked every bit the movie star. He stretched one long leg over the other and lit a cigarette from the silver zippo in his hand. He inhal
ed deeply and exhaled smoke from two wide nostrils.
Sophie sank deeper into her chair. The disgust and despair of the night receded from her senses as she realised this moment could mark the beginning of her end. She wondered what would happen if she were to pull herself up and make for the door. But her legs felt gelatinous; she didn’t know if they would carry her weight.
‘I told you to stay away.’ The words shot out of his mouth and into Sophie’s heart.
Her world slowed. It felt as if this were happening to someone else and in slow, underwater motion. She melted backwards, folding herself into the upholstery. Her hands found their way south, around her thighs and under the protective layers of her buttocks. She became aware of sticky leather softening into the crevices of her palms and mixing with the sweat there, shortening her life lines. The blood that pulsed through her veins to her brain felt heavy and slow and thick.
‘It’s the drug in your drink that’s making you feel like this,’ Zhou said, relaxed and cool. He smiled with something like reassurance. ‘Some girls love it. Numbs the pain a bit. Don’t worry, it will wear off.’
A surge of panic fought to make itself known on the surface of Sophie’s consciousness but the drug in her system succeeded in holding it down. She was aware of a struggle somewhere deep within her, a need to express her fear, to scream, to pull herself out of this chair and crash out the door into the night. But more powerful was this thickening feeling, the warmth, a slight queasiness, a heavy weight in her muscles, a strong urge to close her eyes and sleep.
‘I know you’re tired, Sophie, but you need to listen.’ Zhou was talking to her. His lips were moving and forming words that floated through the space between them, not quite settling in Sophie’s ears.
‘Hey.’ A stinging slap to her cheek. She saw Zhou’s black eyes hovering dangerously close to her own. She became aware of his breath tickling the small hairs on her upper lip. ‘You pay attention,’ he said, pointing a thin finger. He shook the tension from his hand and lit another cigarette. ‘I don’t know what you’re doing here, but you need to stop now. This is not your business.’
Sophie fought to make sense of the words coming to her in warped and echoing tones. She fought the heavy pull of her eyelids and the nausea surfing her stomach in increasingly buoyant waves. She would try to answer. She needed to tell him what she wanted.
‘I’m looking for a girl,’ she mumbled.
‘Aren’t we all,’ said Zhou.
‘Her name’s Han Hong.’
Through the haze, Sophie saw Zhou’s eyes roll and his mouth break into a grin. He leaned forwards and waved his finger in front of Sophie’s face.
‘You think I’m going to talk to you about any of these girls,’ he mocked. ‘I told you. This is none of your business.’
Sophie wondered how he would react if she vomited. Here. Now. Onto that finger and into his face.
‘I don’t care about your business,’ she managed. ‘I just want to find Han Hong.’
‘Why?’ he said with a smirk. ‘You want to fuck her or something?’
The words repeated themselves in Sophie’s head, the blunt devastation of their meaning softened only by the chemicals in her blood.
Zhou regarded Sophie with a smile sprayed flat to his face.
‘I knew a Han Hong,’ he said finally. ‘And she went back to China.’ He stubbed his cigarette out on the table leg. ‘Too bad for you.’ He propelled himself out of his chair and scooped Sophie under the armpits. ‘It’s time to go.’
‘I’m waiting for a friend,’ she slurred as Zhou dragged her to the door.
‘I think you mean your friend is waiting for you,’ he said.
With the opening of the door came an icy blast of night air. It stung Sophie’s face with its sharpness.
And then she was against the outside wall of the bunker, her face meeting the wall with a bash. Zhou spun her around. His hand was at her neck and the metallic ice of the night air was replaced with the cool of a knife, its smooth blade resting flat against her cheek. Zhou’s breath was on her lips. The scraping of metal across the surface of her skin. Stale cigarette smoke. A distant moan. A faint pounding in her head. Garlic. These were what Sophie would remember this moment by.
‘You are pretty.’ Zhou’s voice was a whisper. ‘I gut pretty things for a living. And do you know what I do with them?’
The blade pressed into Sophie’s cheek and she felt a burning sensation as her nerves prepared for her flesh to part. Zhou squeezed her neck with his left hand and scraped his knife along her skin with the other. His eyes bore into Sophie’s, a slight curl to his lip.
‘I turn pretty things into delicacies,’ he said. And then the pressure on Sophie’s skin released and Zhou shoved the knife into the back pocket of his jeans. He released his grip enough for her to gasp at the air in a great moan and pull it hungrily down into her lungs.
‘It would be wonderful to see you bleed,’ Zhou said. ‘If you ever come back here, I guarantee that will happen. I will open you up and turn you out. I’ll make you look like a beautiful kidney flower.’
Zhou pinched the skin on Sophie’s neck as his hand made its retreat. Her legs slid out. Her parka scratched a rough tune into the night as it skidded down the brick wall with her body. Collapsed among the dewy weeds, Sophie watched Zhou’s leather shoe rise out of the grass and swing backwards in a slow arc. It slammed, with a thud and a burning rush, into her chest.
鬼
Sophie didn’t know how much time had passed before she felt she could breathe properly. She’d heard Zhou move away from her some minutes after the brutal kick that had knocked the air out of her lungs and sent all her pain receptors shrieking in her chest. She’d heard the rush of club music escape from the shed as the door opened and she’d jumped with the slam of the door as it sealed again, cutting the outside world off from the horrors within.
Sophie pressed her palm to the ground and spread her fingers into the earth. Suction-cup fingers, an old yoga teacher had liked to call them. She used what strength she had left to push herself up from her foetal position so that she could sit and rest for a moment, her back to the wall. Around her, the empty yard stretched long and dark. The sensor light had extinguished itself, fooled by Sophie’s crumpled and unmoving body in the grass. Sophie guessed that upon her movement the yard would once again become illuminated. She wondered whether she would be pursued, whether the side gate would open; whether Tae Hun was still alive.
And it was this last thought that made Sophie creak to her feet and break into a run. She hurtled wildly through the film of yellow sensor light, around the corner of the house and down the concrete path to the gate. The black grille swung open like a flap. Sophie clambered through it and sped down to the footpath of the street beyond.
She emerged onto the street heaving. Her gasps broke the night like sobs. She bent to her knees and clasped them to catch her breath, then lifted a hand to her mouth and bit hard on her knuckles, diffusing the pain, quieting her rushing mind. Calmer, she lifted her head and looked straight at a darkened mound of a figure huddled deep in the overgrown grass of the nature strip. Tae Hun.
Sophie moved gently to him and pushed his shoulder with her palm. Tae Hun groaned and rolled onto his back, exposing his face to the night.
‘Tae Hun? What did they do to you?’
His left cheek had swollen to the size of a grapefruit and his left eye had disappeared into his head. Blood trickled from both sides of his mouth. His shirt had rustled itself above his waist and even in the dusty light from the moon, Sophie could see his torso was bruised black and red.
‘They bashed me for bringing you in,’ he said in a voice that came out like a rasp. ‘I think they wanted me dead.’
Sophie fell to her knees and reached her arm out to him. He rolled onto her knees and threw his arms around her legs with a heave.
‘I thought you were gone,’ he whispered. ‘I thought I lost you here.’
Lost you.
‘Come on, little brother,’ she whispered. ‘Walk with me and we’ll make it back down to Burwood Road.’ She threw her right arm around his waist and pulled his left arm up over her shoulder.
‘Sophie?’ Tae Hun said when they neared the glow of the main road.
‘Yeah?’
‘What do we do now?’
Sophie looked across at his weeping face. Dried blood had caked itself to his chin, eyes and cheeks, and the swollen left side of his face was a tie-dye pattern of pink. For the first time since Wendy’s suicide, the desire to pursue unanswered questions subsided.
I’m not my father’s daughter any more. I don’t want to disappear. Fuck this.
‘We take you home and clean you up,’ she said. ‘Then tomorrow we go to the police.’
女孩
Sophie’s expectations were low. She only knew that Tae Hun had lain beside her in her bed and moaned while he slept. This morning when they woke, his pillowcase was stained brown from his blood.
‘Leave it, Sophie,’ he’d said as she dressed the wound above his eye. ‘These people, they don’t answer to the police.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’ And she’d been surprised by the accusation in her voice.
Tae Hun had regarded her, scorn shining through his bruises.
He was right, she knew that. When had the police ever helped her? In Australia they’d failed to find her mother and in China they’d failed to find Da Wei. She doubted anyone in uniform would ever find out what had happened to Han Hong.
But this was too big for her to go alone. She’d tried, and Tae Hun could barely see as a result. She couldn’t risk placing him in danger again.
‘That man threatened my life and yours,’ she’d said, doing her best to sound convincing. ‘I am not going to sit on it.’