The Year of the Woman

by Jonathan Gash

  “I could make fortunes if only somebody would help me to reach out!”

  “I knew you were a kindred spirit, Linda darling. You feel it too?”

  There! she thought with triumph. He’d confessed to exactly the same feeling of togetherness. It was destiny.

  “I knew it, Santiago.”

  “It’s a pity your husband can’t see your talent, Linda darling! Can your scheme accept a partner, Linda darling?”

  She raised her head from the pillow to see him better.

  “I love a lady who has the courage of her convictions.”

  “You’d do that? For me?”

  “I don’t know how to say this, Linda darling,” he said, averting his eyes. “But I’ve never felt like this before. You so attractive, and I’m just an idler who spends his inheritance on racecourses and idle living.”

  “Inheritance?” she said quickly.

  “It’s from land and farms in South America. I came here years ago and fell in love with the place. I learned Cantonese, private teachers of course, from Bonham Road.”

  That explained his idiomatic Cantonese. It had been one of her worries.

  “I come six months of every year; the motor racing in Macao, the gambling. Nothing serious, a few hundred thousand here, a little there.”

  She swallowed at the sum. No wonder he was so casual at Happy Valley. As they’d shared a drink before they started to make love, he’d mentioned some cruise line his family owned.

  “Doesn’t your husband know the pleasure he might get from having a flutter?” And Santiago laughed with his perfect white teeth.

  “He knows nothing.”

  “I love women,” he sighed, admiring her. “Especially now I’ve found the one I want to be with.”

  “Do you mean it?” she asked in wonder.

  He looked his amazement. “Of course! Look, Linda darling. I’ve made all the overtures. I begged you to meet me here, didn’t I? I don’t see any harm in it, Linda darling,” he added seriously. “Do you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I was drawn to you the instant I saw you. Isn’t he a gambler, a lan-do-gwai? Gambling’s what investment people do, Linda darling.”

  There it was again, that faint frisson of worry at the unrelenting term of endearment. She shook the thought off, though it was unsettling. She would have to get used to worship.

  “You would think so,” she said, sullen with resentment, past grievances creeping in. She felt she could talk to Santiago, whereas she couldn’t even confide in her friend Betty. One word to her and this would be all over Hong Kong in an instant.

  “Maybe he has a gambling scheme of his own, Linda darling.”

  His hand had strayed, oh so casually, down her abdomen. She was still moist, but her thighs parted.

  “How unlikely that is, Santiago!” she cried.

  That name was a mouthful, with its unfamiliar slide in the middle. She supposed it was possibly Portuguese, Great Britain and that country having been friends for four centuries and always bonded across the Pearl River, Hong Kong and Macao being so close.

  “Wouldn’t he help you? It seems strange not to use a priceless woman to her maximum potential.”

  “You’re so different, Santiago,” she murmured. His hand was working, slowly but with a steady beat that drew her along, made her stir in synchrony.

  “Don’t tell me your scheme! Keep it to yourself, Linda darling.”

  His voice sank to a low huskiness. His eyes closed, his tongue flicking from side to side.

  “I shan’t,” she said, breathless. “Unless you want to come in with me, Santiago.”

  “My love,” he said in that lascivious gravelly voice she was coming to know. “My lovely darling Linda.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He simply threw her up so she suddenly found herself sprawling on all fours, his arms round her so tightly she could hardly breathe. His teeth sank into her shoulder with such force she cried out.

  “I’m going to do what I want,” he told her through clenched teeth. She felt blood flow down her shoulder and saw blood drip down from her breast. “We are one now, Linda darling.”

  “Darling!”

  “Linda darling, it’s your right, your privilege to win for a change.”

  “Yes!” she cried.

  “Can you feel this?”

  She knew what was coming, tried to open herself by thrusting back against him to lessen the ache of the first thrust in but only partly succeeded. He rode her back, feet raking on her calves as he reared on her, clasping and leaping.

  This was her man for ever. They were one. Her life and her dreams were about to be fulfilled.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The dapper man was at the 5B bus stop. Tai-Tai Li had woken her, KwayFay bleary and resentful. Her superb priceless watch said six-ten a.m. Less noise for Sunday, but a man waited in a black cheh so hurry, hurry.

  KwayFay was there in ten minutes after a skimpy wash and wearing her walk-to-work clothes with her office clothes in her plastic bag, the computer weighing her down.

  “Jo-san, Little Sister.”

  She saw him extinguish his cigarette and slip something into his mouth. Mint, or those chlorophyll tablets.

  “Good morning,” she said back. Without explanation he drove her to the Central Harbour Services pier, the one she hated because she’d been caught there once, hiding under a barrow stall after stealing a paw-paw. She was seven and made frantic bleats, squealing she’d give the security man four-fold luck for his next Mahjong bet if he let her go. He’d released her. She never knew if he’d made any bet.

  The driver booked her a ticket to Lamma Island. Twenty-three Hong Kong dollars, Deluxe Class. The ferry was a triple decker. Weekdays, the fare was only half that, and only HK$ 6.50 Ordinary Class on ferries with fewer decks, but today was Sunday. She hissed at the scandalous price. He gave her the ticket and a manila envelope. Duty pay, no red-envelope gift.

  “Get off at Yung Shue Wan, Little Sister. Forty minutes.”

  “What is in Lamma Island?”

  “Ferry sails at half-past seven. Have breakfast. Joy-geen.”

  “Good bye,” she said back, and embarked.

  Even this early the ferry was fairly crowded. Her driver stayed on the pier observing the departure. He lit a cigarette as soon as the harbour waters churned. Did he never get bored? Was that what being calm meant?

  The vessel docked on time.

  Lamma Island, quite a size, had only a few thousand people. An enormous cement factory, a vast power station with twin chimneys you could see from Hong Kong and Lantau, still it was far less noisy than Hong Kong proper. The two villages were rural, Hong Kong people came here for seafood and walks. The crowd drifted along the one main street of Yung Shue Wan. An elderly woman wearing all black and plastic sandals approached. Her teeth had all but gone. She beckoned. KwayFay followed, turning right, away from the little public library and passing the post office.

  It was little more than two hundred paces to the roadside temple. There, the old woman signed for KwayFay to sit, and entered a shack beside the Tin Hau Temple. Tin Hau was everybody’s favourite, the world’s most worshipped goddess, Queen of Heaven, and rightly so. KwayFay declined to wait, went inside to burn eight joss sticks, setting them upright in the brass earth-filled pot. Only then did she sit outside in the shade of the makeshift umbrella.

  Soon a number of girls came in motor cars, from the direction of the only other village on Lamma. Sok Kwu Wan could be walked in an hour over the hilly centre of the wooded island, but people tended to be anxious on account of the prison there. It was harmless. KwayFay knew no prisoner would attempt escape from it until the end of the following year.

  The seven girls who alighted were exquisitely dressed. KwayFay knew they were financed by societies she dared not wonder about. A suave, elegant chaperone accompanied them. KwayFay saw the girls enter the temple and observe the rituals, most of them careless and offhand.
They emerged. One seemed not quite Cantonese – Singaporean? Malaysian? – and one was definitely Eurasian, though idiomatic in English and Cantonese. It was pleasant to see and hear them. KwayFay realised her envy when the girls burst out laughing at something one of them said. Sisters, how she wanted a family.

  One girl asked the lady how long they would wait.

  “One hour.” She seemed to be their supervisor. Were they girls from some high-nose boarding school in the Colony?

  One spoke in Japanese, then Mandarin Chinese. The others laughed. Two spoke in English, the other replying in what, Italian or German? More laughs. One girl, a lovely sylphic creature, said something inaudible and trotted inside the temple. She stood posturing before the two plain wooden tables serving as altars. Carrying poles were lashed to the sides of the tables. Women would carry the altars before the portable shrine on Tin Hau’s feast day. The brass burner, with KwayFay’s incense sticks still smouldering, stood on one among plates of fruit, sweets and toffees. Tin Hau’s portable shrine – a simple wooden sedan chair structure with its pointed roof surmounted by a red silk ball – was behind the altars. It was a poor temple, but still belonged to the Queen of Heaven.

  The girl swayed, dancing in the simple temple up to the crude shrine. She plumped herself down in the sedan chair with a shriek of laughter. Two of the girls withdrew in alarm, and one turning her face away in distress. The others laughed, applauding.

  KwayFay gasped at the sacrilege. It was the grossest form of blasphemy. Tin Hau was the Queen of Heaven, no less, the great goddess who ruled storms and the oceans, everything from disasters at sea to the great dai-fungs, the great wind storms feared by all fisherfolk. If any goddess was Hong Kong’s own greatest deity, Tin Hau was she: protectress of all who sailed, who controlled the very wrath of heaven itself. The girl had committed an unpardonable act of desecration, as had the others who had found her shameful act humorous. Only the three who expressed sadness were safe.

  She wept silently from shame that she had not stopped them. The girls dispersed, talking and casually sitting on the wall in the shade of a giant bauhinia. They paid her no attention, except to make remarks about the shoddy girl behind their hands.

  Without drawing attention to herself, KwayFay went round to the rear of the little makeshift temple and clapped her hands softly. The old woman appeared, eyes bright with vigilance.

  “Have you rice-birds, Tai-Tai?”

  “Yes. Two?”

  “Please.” She paid far more than was usual, two hundred Hong Kong dollars, for the two caged creatures. She touched the cage a moment, then handed them back. They would be released during the next service. This might go some way to repair the insult to the Queen of Heaven. She went back to waiting, not knowing what she had been sent here for. She was thirsty from the heat.

  After an hour, the elderly woman who had been waiting all the while summoned the girls to leave. They assembled. Two cars appeared and parked on the road.

  “Which three go first, Little Sister?” the elderly woman asked KwayFay outright. To the chorus of protest from the beauties, she said, “No, no! Quiet, all of you! Little Sister decides! You all want to be first into the car’s air-conditioning!”

  Without hesitation KwayFay indicated the three girls who had shown sadness at the others’ antics in the temple. The remaining four pouted. The chaperone gestured to the selected three to head down the narrow path. The elderly lady stood until the car doors slammed, then turned to the four who stood waiting.

  “You four can go,” she said quietly. “Should you get jobs, pay half your salaries for ever to Hong Kong temples. Speak of what you have learned, you will live less than a single day.”

  She walked off and got into the second vehicle. The two cars drove away. A group of tourist walkers came plodding from the direction of Sok Kwu Wan. One played a mouth organ. One tourist whistled at the sight of the four lovely girls.

  “Did she mean it?” one girl asked the others.

  They talked together, looking sideways at KwayFay. One began to cry, dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief.

  They came to ask KwayFay. “It is true?” and “Who are you?”

  “I do not know what you mean.” She felt flustered. This was none of her business. The old woman from the temple appeared from the shack and beckoned. KwayFay followed her down to the road without speaking. At the Tai Hing, a restaurant on the waterfront, the old woman pointed, grinning, and said, “Sik fan. Eat rice, Little Sister.” She turned to retrace her steps.

  Tourists were now strolling along the harbour front, examining gift stalls and bar menus. The prices seemed scandalous to KwayFay. She was no tourist! A youth emerged and beckoned her inside.

  “No price, Little Sister,” he assured her. “No price. Your ferry sails at one-thirty.”

  He showed her to a table. On the white cloth lay her return ticket, Deluxe Class on the triple decker ferry, Sunday price.

  She could see the four abandoned girls standing forlorn at the temple of Tin Hau. As the old lady reached them, they crowded round demanding information. She ignored them, and went inside.

  Old Man heard the result of KwayFay’s choice in his house at the Peak with its perilously high view of Hong Kong’s harbour. Ah Min was not often invited, but this occasion was exceptional.

  “Did she give a reason?”

  “No, First Born.” Ah Min prayed he would not be criticised. If so, he would blame the chaperone; the woman supervisor should think of these things. Otherwise he himself would be to blame, an impossibility, ne?

  “She definitely picked three, no hesitation?”

  “Definite, Tiger Sin-Sang. The remaining four asked KwayFay what was going on. She said she did not know.”

  “Good, good! Wise girl.” The old man thought on as Ah Min tried to guess the verdict. “How much have we spent on these four?”

  “Languages, education, training, finance, learning, in all two million three hundred thousand, not counting support paid to families. More than usual.”

  Old Man sighed.

  “Creating a Jade Woman used to cost only a hundred thousand. It still took years.”

  Ah Min remained silent. A Jade Woman, once chosen and trained, was the most valued of a Triad’s assets. She would be light years ahead of any Japanese geisha, priceless for visiting politicians, bankers, conventions who wanted perfection. A Jade Woman – the term was as ancient as China – could converse in any major language, arrange any cuisine, join any conversation however rarified, and be conversant with stock exchanges the world over. They were perfection, brilliant in mind and exquisite in body. It grieved him to discard such a massive investment, even if they had not failed the final test of KwayFay’s divination on Lamma Island. He filled up at the terrible image of money squandered.

  “Then,” Old Man concluded slowly, “they will serve as whores in Gao Lung. Don’t sell them to any lowly Triad. I won’t have that. Put them under one of our brothel Mamas. Not in the New Territories. Somewhere along Nathan Road’s east side. No drugs, nothing. Work them. Who recommended them?”

  “Two came from the Philippines, that agency in Manila. Two came from the harbour agent place in Singapore.”

  “End their services,” the old man said after deliberation.

  “End …?” Ah Min was unsure.

  “End. They have failed. Keep the agencies on, but the managers must end. Do it today.”

  “Yes, Tiger First Born. Dead today.”

  Ah Min took up his ledger and retired to make the necessary entries. A considerable loss such as this deserved more than just demoting four failed Jade Women to whores. His instincts were to have the girls finished there and then, but at least as street girls they would bring money in. It only showed the master’s cleverness. Money in, instead of money out! He would use his best gold pen for the ledger entries. It was his favourite, only used when large sums were involved.

  He made the sign for death against the two Philippino scouts, and the o
ne from Singapore. He sighed with pleasure.

  Chapter Fifteen

  HC stared at the file. He had drunk too much in celebration, and it was too soon for his meal. The amahs were talkative, which annoyed him. Today he would examine this treasure that would at once redeem his fortunes. More money than anyone would ever believe, in an old file plucked from thousands, in that storeroom he had guarded so faithfully at the Brilliant Miracle Success Investment Company.

  His moment of triumph.

  “Not now,” he called angrily.

  The amahs withdrew, whispering. He swelled with importance. His own talent would restore wealth, Linda’s adoration, and humiliate his relatives. They were all swine, almost as bad as Kunmingese and their inedible eat-anything meals. By their cuisine you will know them, he thought contentedly. He hugged himself.

  Soon he would bask in everybody’s adoration, and be in a position to make them grovel. Knowing Linda Tai-Tai ruled in this No-Name house, they had exploited him. From now on, his staff wouldn’t get the double pay necessary for saving face at New Year. Not they! He’d given it to them in the past, every single year, when he could ill afford it. Anything to keep face. Once he cashed in this marvellous boon, he would donate to the God of Wealth, if KwayFay said it was all right. If she said no, he wouldn’t, and blame her if bad luck came his way. But Vitamin M, as Hong Kong called money, carried all religions before it.

  He opened the file, feeling the tingle along his spine. He felt slightly tipsy. For a moment he didn’t understand what he was staring at.

  A traffic island. Traffic island?

  Photographed from the air, cars caught in stasis swirling round, driving on the left of the road. He discarded the black-and-white grainy photograph. It was old, with fingerprints that had milked the dark greys to blotches. This couldn’t be it. The treasure must be elsewhere, under the almost transparent flimsy papers.

  He felt in the pouch. The file had Admiralty strings, those old fashioned shoelace ties. Nowadays they’d be rusted staples. No such improprieties years ago. He smiled, contentedly brought out a folded parchment sheet of calligraphy.