Flash House

by Aimee E. Liu

  Even among themselves they did not discuss what had happened. Like the bullet in the pass and Joanna’s decision to leave Simon behind, like their failure to find any meaningful clues to Aidan’s fate, the drowned child became a point of danger that conversation and memory must circle from a distance. To obscure this danger, as they marched along, Lawrence made jokes and tried to teach them all cockney rhyming slang. “China plate means mate, see. After darks is sharks. Comic cuts is guts. Now, what do you think is a loaf of bread?”

  Kamla smiled in polite bewilderment and answered the questions Joanna asked to rescue her. She said she was recognizing more landmarks now. Yes, she and her uncle had passed through this gorge and beneath that same stone archway. No, this pass had seemed no more frightening then, only harder and colder, as it had been near winter when she came through before. But very soon now, she told them, the earth would turn to red and gold. The fields of stone would give way to meadows, then dust. The rivers would narrow to trickling streams. This time of year the heat would be like the Punjab…

  Joanna watched the girl’s face change as she remembered. The color of her eyes seemed to deepen. Her gaze fixed on the luminous streaks of cloud that hung above the lower ridges to the north, and Joanna tried but could not imagine what scenes were threading through Kamla’s mind. She was, as always, so poised, so contained, yet there was a new spark of hopefulness about her that not even the scowls of the caravan men could dispel. In a moment of complete stupidity, Joanna asked if Kamla was happy to be going back.

  “Yes,” the girl replied, as if reciting a line from a primer, “I am very happy.”

  What a cruel word, Joanna thought. And who am I to use it?

  4

  The desolation of rock and bones lent a surreal quality to the single figure picking his way across the scree at the base of the Sanju, the fifth and last major pass of the route. It was midday, the glare of sun off the cliff wall intensifying the usual headache of altitude, and the image of an approaching human seemed so improbable that Lawrence half believed he was hallucinating. In the four weeks since their run-in with those Chinese soldiers, they had not encountered another living person.

  He peered at the figure harder, shading his eyes with a hand. A man. Tall and thin. Alone, but for a single pack pony.

  Joanna came up beside him. “What do you think?” he said.

  She didn’t reply. Or move. But as they studied the man’s approach, the answer became obvious. His gait was as smooth and mechanical as if his legs were fitted with pistons. He seemed to cover the intervening distance—perhaps half a mile—in a matter of seconds, and was already nearing the front of the caravan.

  Kamla joined them. “It is the dak,” she announced. As if a mailman in this lunar wasteland were no more surprising than a ten-year-old girl. Tot nodded, and Joanna quickly turned away. But not before Lawrence saw her face.

  He lowered his voice. “We’ll find him, Jo.”

  From the side, he could see the strain in her throat as she swallowed. She moved forward without answering.

  The man was chatting with Muhammad when they reached him. He wore khaki, uniform boots, a visored hat with earflaps. A bulging shoulder sack hung across his chest, and his face shone a deep walnut brown. Above a dense black beard, his dark eyes shone out from a nest of weather-induced wrinkles. A short blue scar bisected his left brow.

  He was an Indian courier, had been detained by Chinese authorities in Sinkiang for the past four months. Now heading back to Kashmir, he hoped never to see China again. But no, he said, he’d experienced no trouble along this trail. They should get through so long as they had the necessary papers and funds to pay off the Chinese customs extortionists. The caravan leader grunted and signaled his men to move forward.

  Joanna handed the courier Aidan’s photo. “This is my husband. Have you seen him?”

  He examined the picture then looked at her curiously. “In Yarkand. Yes.”

  Yes. The single syllable shimmered, elastic and dubious as a soap bubble. “Are you sure?” Lawrence asked, for Joanna seemed unable to speak.

  “Most definitely. He is American, I think. And Chinese. His eyes, they are green?”

  Joanna nodded slowly. She was crushing the photograph in her right fist.

  The man forked two fingers through his beard. “He is looking for a car to take him to Kashgar, and I am telling him of a friend who possesses an old Russian lorry.”

  “Kashgar?” Lawrence asked. Kashgar was over one hundred miles to the north of Yarkand.

  The courier shrugged apologetically. “I think so.” There was a long silence, then he bobbed his head and started to turn his pony onward. But Joanna grabbed the man’s wrist.

  “Did he give you any letters to carry?”

  He cast his eyes down. She released him, looking stunned, and took a step backward.

  “I am sorry, madam.”

  This time her voice came out barely a whisper. “Was he traveling alone?”

  His head wiggled in an Indian nod. Maybe yes, maybe no. “I am not seeing anyone with him. But truly, I cannot say.”

  Lawrence sensed her marshaling her strength. Again the man started to leave.

  “Wait!” She ran to her pack pony, which Tot was holding a few feet away. From one of the side pouches she pulled out the letters she’d written to Simon, one every night since leaving him.

  “Will you take these to my son in Srinagar?” she asked the man.

  He smiled and accepted the bundle.

  “Inshallah,” he said. God willing.

  “So you have him,” Lawrence said as they watched the courier’s shrinking figure.

  She glanced over to Tot and Kamla, just out of earshot, playing kick the stone. The rest of the caravan was ascending the first narrow switchback up the pass.

  “You’re relieved,” he persisted.

  She put the heels of her hands against her eyes. “I don’t know what I am.”

  “Here.” He stepped behind her and pushed her hands away, rubbed her temples with his thumbs. He felt her lean against him. “You don’t have to decide anything for the moment. We’re well past the point of no return. No choice but to continue until we find a place to restock. Maybe by then we’ll run into someone else who’s seen him, give you more to go on.”

  She touched his hands, stopping him. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  She moved away. “What do you think he’s doing?”

  “He’s a correspondent, Jo. I imagine he’s chasing a story, don’t you?”

  “Not anymore—” Her voice faltered. “What story could he conceivably be tracking that would merit this level of risk and time—and evasiveness?”

  Aware that neither of them could speak Aidan’s name, though for very different reasons, he tipped his hat back and squinted at the Sanju’s gleaming face. She so badly wanted an answer, and he could not even tell her what he didn’t know. Instead he stepped forward, swept the hair off her face and planted a hard, whiskered kiss on her cheekbone.

  Then he strode up the trail after Kamla whistling “God Save the King.”

  5

  The next day they left the cold. It was as Kamla had predicted, a new landscape of copper and rust tones and sun-drenched blue sky. With the Sanju Pass behind them they moved steadily downhill through aniline green meadows bobbing with small, brown marmots, past foaming streams and knife-straight waterfalls. The descent poured oxygen back into their lungs and brains. They peeled off layers of sheepskin and wool and washed away four weeks of sweat and dirt in swirling glacial pools. Even the drivers seemed cheerier, singing now as they swatted the few surviving ponies to stagger faster down the slopes. Only the begum appeared unchanged. No amount of heat or color could cause her to show her face, and every time Joanna caught sight of her she flinched. She couldn’t shake the feeling now that this black apparition was a warning.

  The second morning into the heat they came upon a Kirghiz settlement—
three round felt dwellings clustered in an elbow of brick-colored earth. They had all shed their winter layers so recently that Joanna felt naked showing her bare head and hands as the herders circled around them. The few women in the camp showed their faces, but concealed their hair under tall white headdresses. Their children ran in brightly colored rags—except for one tyke clad in nothing but a pair of his father’s leather boots and a round felt cap. Four bearded men came forward, eyes hooded with obvious suspicion, but when they saw the two women and Kamla and were reassured that none in the caravan were Chinese soldiers, the atmosphere warmed. While the caravan drivers and the Muslim merchant bartered for what fruit and meat the nomads had to sell, an elderly chieftain welcomed the foreigners into his yurt.

  The large circular tent stank of sheep. They squatted around a low table while the chief’s young wife and two small daughters poured cups of black tea and set out slabs of flat bread and butter. Joanna could hardly see Lawrence’s face in the dingy half-light, and only Kamla understood enough of the Kirghiz language to translate, though this may have been just as well since she was the one they were most curious about.

  The chief, who shambled on footless stumps, grinned and nodded as Kamla (coached by Lawrence) described her kidnapping and journey to India. The old man asked if the kidnappers had been bandits and seemed disappointed when she said no. The bandits had taken his feet, he explained, then, absurdly, laughed. He warned more soberly of a Chinese garrison several hours on. The Chinese also were bandits, he said, but they had no sense of humor. Many Kirghiz taken prisoner by the Chinese had never returned.

  Joanna covered her cup with one hand, felt the steam form a skin over her palm. What was Aidan doing in this nightmare world? What were they? She set the cup aside and produced the photograph. The chief’s family passed it around, all talking at once. She couldn’t tell whether it was the simple miracle of photography or the particular likeness that excited them.

  And then Kamla spoke. “They say, your husband was here.” The chief dug a hand inside his waistband and brought forth a fistful of American dimes. The girl continued with painstaking slowness. “He is asking many questions.”

  “But questions about what?” Joanna pleaded.

  They conferred again. “About a memsahib.”

  For one blazing instant the tent was silent. Joanna found a pinpoint of light where a gap in the ceiling let in the sun. She could feel Lawrence’s eyes on her throat, imagined she could hear Kamla and Tot exchanging telepathic laughter. Then the chief and his wife resumed their bombardment. How could human beings live like this?

  When the jabbering stopped, Kamla translated into Hindi for Tot. Joanna forced her eyes down and around, skidding past Lawrence’s ominous stare.

  “Your husband is here maybe five days ago,” Tot said. “The young lady maybe twenty days. She has yellow hair. She will travel to the northern capital, Tihwa. The chief tells this to your husband, and your husband pay him money.”

  The stench of animal hides was making it impossible for Joanna to breathe. She got up, thanked the chief for his help, and stumbled out into the light. Half blind from the residual darkness, she groped her way down to the stand of alders where they’d tethered their ponies. She had no plan. Her mind was as blank as if the earth had opened beneath her feet, and she was falling, simply falling into wide open nothingness.

  Then Lawrence caught up with her. “You all right?”

  “I don’t think so.” She found her hand on one of the ponies’ halters. The beast grazed on, ignoring her, and she stepped back in confusion.

  “Joanna, there’s probably a letter waiting in Delhi that explains everything.”

  She glared at him. “Where I’d be sitting twiddling my thumbs if I knew what was good for me!”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You don’t need to.” She shook her head. “I feel like such a fool.”

  “Why?” He took hold of her shoulders. “You wouldn’t feel that way if we’d found him lying in one of those ravines. Whatever this is about, you’re not the one in the wrong.”

  She looked up the grassy slope to the yurts, where Kamla and Tot stood talking with the chief. The rest of the caravan was moving on. She wished the earth would open—and she could disappear.

  “Five days,” he said. “That’s pretty close.”

  “Do you suppose I can get what I need in Yarkand for the trek back?”

  He ignored her. “If we catch him, what’re you going to say?”

  “We can’t catch him. He doesn’t want—” She stopped herself. “He doesn’t need to be caught.” She started to shrug, then glanced down at his hands still resting on her shoulders.

  “What matters,” he said, gently letting go, “is what you want and need.”

  They were silent for a minute or two. She pictured Alice James as a defiant Veronica Lake. In the same way, she used to torture herself with images of Aidan’s Irish redhead as a renegade Maureen O’Hara. Two mistresses of seduction and adventure too stubborn to ask to be rescued. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to push the faces from her mind, but in their place rose the image of Kamla falling forward, flailing about in the icy water for that drowning baby. And Simon’s look of betrayal as she left him behind.

  “What difference does it make what I need!” she said.

  Lawrence took her hand. “C’mon, Jo. There’s no point wallowing in gloom.”

  Her next words stung the air, as shrill and irretrievable as a gunshot. “Is that what you thought when your son died?”

  Lawrence’s lips, cracked and blistered and nested in beard, parted briefly, then clamped shut. Before she could even extend her hand, he’d mounted his pony and was riding hard uphill. When he reached the top he swung Kamla like a Mongol’s captive into the saddle behind him.

  They did not speak again until the caravan arrived at the garrison, a bleak, windswept outpost of mud-walled huts where soldiers carrying fixed bayonets barked orders in Mandarin and exacted taxes—whole bales of hemp from the caravan and Chinese yuan from the Muslim pilgrims. The caravan leader had papers, but inspection looked like it could take hours, the soldiers repeatedly reminding them that the pass was officially closed. Even if she wanted to turn back, Joanna realized for the first time, there was no guarantee that she would be allowed to. For now, the soldiers motioned Lawrence to take her and Kamla and Tot to wait apart from the others.

  While Kamla and Tot hunted for grass blades they could use as whistles, Lawrence stretched out on a patch of scrub outside the fort’s stone barricade. Joanna knelt beside him. “Never mind,” he said, not looking at her.

  “I had no right.”

  “You had every right in the world. You hit the nail bang on, if you want to know the truth. I just can’t see any other way.” He seemed about to say more, but abruptly looked off toward a grove of blooming apple trees where the Muslim woman sat alone and silent, faceless as ever in her grief.

  “Kamla had a nightmare last night,” Joanna said. “I had to hold my hand over her mouth or she would have woken the entire camp. She shook so that I could feel her bones rattling, and after I released her I realized we both were drenched with sweat. Yet she never woke up through all of that.”

  “That baby’s drowning wasn’t her fault.”

  “Does that change how she feels about it?”

  “It should,” he said.

  “If wishes were horses…”

  His eyes narrowed and he considered her for several seconds. Then he said softly, “If wishes were horses they could trot us to the moon. Since they’re not, we’re on our own.”

  6

  Finally they were summoned to meet the garrison commander. Lawrence pushed himself up and offered Joanna his hand. As she took it he felt a light squeeze—whether of gratitude or apology he could not tell, but truce at the very least.

  He beckoned to Tot and Kamla, who had been chatting some yards off with one of the Chinese soldiers—a sad-faced conscript who looked not mu
ch older than fourteen. The lad shrugged as they left him, and Lawrence recognized too well that look of resignation. “We’d best adjust our story,” he warned. “Rescuing native orphans might impress the Kirghiz, but it’ll likely have the opposite effect on our Chinese hosts.”

  The four of them conferred briefly, and proceeded to the commander’s dirt-floored office. Guards armed with vintage U.S.-issue Colt revolvers flanked the single door. The wood furnishings were crude and utilitarian, the room’s only decorations a filthy mustard-colored felt carpet and a 1946 Standard Oil wall calendar picturing an ocean sunset. An elderly Kirghiz woman shuffled in bearing a tray of covered teacups, and the commander, who was short, chinless, and bizarrely dressed in tweed plus fours, signaled them to drink. They did so standing, as the commandant’s was the only seat.

  Eventually their host leaned back and asked their business in Sinkiang. With Tot translating, Lawrence produced their passports, Chinese “visas” and travel passes, even a letter of safe conduct from before Independence with Mountbatten’s vice-regal seal. Ignoring the discrepancy of names on the documents, which the commander evidently could not read, Lawrence referred to Joanna as his wife, Kamla their adopted daughter. He did not inquire about Aidan or the fabulous Miss James, but announced he was traveling to Kashgar as the newly appointed consul for Sinkiang—as if Australia had a consulate in Sinkiang. Inside the folded letter he had slipped fifty U.S. dollars, worth ten times that on the black market. Farther east, where Chinese were actively fleeing the civil war, U.S. currency was more valuable than gold.