Flash House

by Aimee E. Liu

  “Akbar?” A flicker of confusion softened her face.

  “I’ve just come from Srinagar,” he said. And for the next half hour he related Akbar’s so-called facts. That Aidan had been captured, then hospitalized in the Soviet Union. That the mine which had killed Alice had most likely been intended for the same Communist rebels that captured—or rescued—Aidan. He omitted only Akbar’s personal remarks about Alice James.

  “He didn’t know what happened to Aidan after his recovery. But it makes sense the Chinese would ask for him back. It also makes sense that Aidan would play along with them for the sake of his own survival.”

  “You’re defending him,” she said. “Why?”

  “Because whatever he may be, he’s not a defector.”

  “Last summer you could hardly wait to declare him dead.”

  “I believed he was dead. I was wrong.”

  She got up and paced the length of the room before turning on him. “I don’t know what to believe. Ever since Ben dropped this on me, I’ve been going back and forth like a seesaw. I can’t even bring myself to tell Simon his father’s alive!”

  “Maybe that’s just as well,” he said quietly. “For now.”

  He took a closer look at the photograph. In one hand Aidan held his glass in a toast. In the other he held a small book, face out, the Chinese characters scrolled down its cover. Fully visible to the camera.

  “What am I supposed to do?” she asked.

  He turned the clipping face down on his knee. “Have you been to the Chinese?”

  “Why would I?”

  “If you wanted to get a message to him…”

  She returned to the bed and sat down, her back rigid. “If Ben’s right, Aidan’s had every opportunity to contact me, but he chooses not to.”

  “There could be any number of reasons why he hasn’t.”

  “If I divorced him for abandonment I wouldn’t need to contact him. They’d probably let me take Kamla back to the States then. I’d still be disgraced, but pitied instead of reviled.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “I should.”

  “But you don’t,” he said.

  “I keep thinking of that story you told me about George Hayward and Robert Shaw. How some people don’t deserve to be rescued.”

  “And others can’t help but try to save them anyway.” He got up and placed the clipping on the desk, then came to sit beside her. “There’s a fine line, sometimes, that separates heroes from fools. I was being selfish—and cruel—when I told you that story.”

  “What if you were right?”

  “Joanna. Aidan’s too smart ever to be a fool.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily make him a hero.”

  “Do you know what he was really doing in China during the war?” He knew she didn’t. “He planted false stories in the local press, making the resistance against the Japanese seem greater than it really was. He concocted deviant rumors to undermine the authority of certain generals. He created diversions and invented imaginary informants to save the lives of the real ones. He was brilliant, Jo, tactically brilliant. And fearless. It’s a mistake to pass judgment on a man like that.”

  “I thought you wanted me to give up on him. Wasn’t that why you went away?”

  “It was.” He stared at a crack in the floor. The morning was closing in around them, the steady slur of cycle traffic already yielding to the horns of tongas, the wails of street vendors. He could feel and smell Joanna’s presence beside him, even though they weren’t touching. “Do you remember in Kashgar,” he asked, “Mrs. Desai mentioned a man from the State Department? Name of Douglas Freeman.”

  “Yes.” She sounded surprised, though her face told him nothing.

  “I’ve turned up some information about him, as well. After the takeover, he was arrested and imprisoned in Alma-Ata, the same town where Aidan was in hospital.”

  She was listening intently now. “You don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

  “It’s only a hunch, but no. I don’t. I think he might have played a hand in Aidan’s strategy.” He paused. “There’s information we need from Washington, Jo. I’ve been called back to Sydney, anyway. I’ll go on to the States from there.”

  He took her hand. Her fingers were cold. “We could go together.”

  She looked up at him. “Lawrence.” He didn’t answer. “We’d have to leave Kamla here. I couldn’t do that to her.”

  “No. I suppose not.”

  “When will you go?”

  “After Christmas.”

  She nodded.

  “Will you trust me, then?” he asked.

  She squeezed his hand. “Do I have a choice?”

  4

  To an outsider, it would have appeared much like those first weeks after our return from Sinkiang. Once again, each evening Lawrence joined us for dinner, then stayed on afterward talking with Mem. They would sit in the living room poring over papers and maps, drinking and talking and making notes long after they sent Simon and me up to bed. Sometimes we tiptoed back down to watch and listen from the bottom of the stairs. The nights now were cold, the cicadas quiet, and the breeze through the open window would stir Mem’s hair. She and Lawrence had put away the chess set and used the game table for their studies. The lamplight fell in a pyramid, sparking against the small hairs on the backs of their hands and forearms as they talked. This talk, as before, was of China, Ambassador Minton, Mem’s husband. But now when Mem spoke her husband’s name—Aidan—it was as if he had just stepped from the room and would return any moment. Lawrence’s hands moved restlessly over the stacks of papers, and for all the hours they spent together, he and Mem did not touch. They avoided each other’s eyes.

  I thought of the imaginary thread that had bound Mem and Lawrence and me together through the hardest, sweetest days of our trek, and as clearly as I sensed this thread finally had broken, I knew it was Mr. Shaw’s fault.

  “What’s wrong, Kammy?” Lawrence asked one afternoon when he picked us up at school and I came out ahead of Simon. “You act as if you don’t like me anymore.”

  I shrugged. I shook my head. I looked away at the children streaming around us on bicycles or piling into the backs of black Ambassadors. They pretended to ignore us.

  Lawrence gave me his crooked smile. “No, you don’t act that way, or no, you don’t like me?”

  “No,” I said frowning. “I like you.”

  He stuck out his right hand. “Friends, then?”

  Watching his palm, I placed mine against it. We shook hands formally, the way he did with the people he interviewed. I wanted him to reel me in, to wrap me in a breath-stopping hug and promise to keep me safe.

  But just then Simon came running, and with a bound clutched Lawrence around the neck. They whirled, Lawrence making a great show of being strangled, of his desperation to throw Simon off. “Uncle! Uncle!” he cried. “You win!”

  Simon saw no difference. Now that Lawrence was back their cricket games in the driveway could resume. Their Saturday matinees at the cinema. He introduced him proudly to his new school friends, and when they asked who exactly Lawrence was, Simon told them “He’s my other dad.”

  I worried that he would be disappointed. Simon usually fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, so he didn’t realize how little really was the same. I thought I was doing him a favor when I kept him at the top of the stairs one night later than usual. Mem’s and Lawrence’s muffled voices moved out into the entryway and the front door opened and closed. I drew Simon back into our room as Mem’s steps climbed the stairs alone.

  “Remember when he used to stay the night?” I said.

  “Why doesn’t he anymore?”

  “She won’t let him.”

  “Why not?” he said, his voice indignant.

  “I don’t know,” I answered truthfully.

  There was a long silence. Then Simon said, “You don’t know that. Maybe he’s just busy.”

  I took a deep breath an
d relented. “Yes,” I said. “You’re probably right.”

  The day before Christmas we wreathed a stunted pine tree in garlands of dried marigolds. Lawrence had brought a box of silver stars, which Simon and I fastened to the branches. Mem played a song about snow and fire on the gramophone, and Simon announced he was cold, so he and Lawrence went into the kitchen to make something warm to drink. Mem and I finished decorating the tree, then she stood behind me with her cheek against my hair, admiring our handiwork.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly into my ear. “I’m sorry none of this has turned out as it should. I wish…I wish I knew how to do better.”

  I should have turned to her. She was asking me for comfort. But that was not how it sounded to me. No. To me the hush of her voice was like the fall of darkness. I could not move. Then Simon and Lawrence burst back into the room holding steaming cups of Horlicks. Mem’s hands dropped away and Lawrence stepped forward. I smiled. I do not know why. My heart hurt, yet I smiled.

  The next morning we exchanged gifts of cards and books and balls and hand-stamped writing paper that Simon and I had made in school. Mem gave me an ivory brush and comb, and Lawrence gave me a silver hand mirror. Simon’s present from Lawrence was a cap pistol, and from Mem a box of magic tricks.

  Mem and Lawrence exchanged their gifts last. Mem’s to Lawrence was a small brown leather valise with lots of inside pockets and a crocodile handle. “You’re a writer,” Mem said. “Writers carry briefcases.”

  “Is that a rule?” he asked, smiling.

  “It should be if it isn’t.” She ran her hand over the shiny leather. “This one is big enough for at least some of those books you insist on dragging all over the world.”

  Simon poked me with his cap pistol and grinned.

  “Open yours,” I said to Mem. Her gift had come in a box I recognized from the Taj Dress Shoppe on Lady Hardinge Road. Last year Lawrence had given her a beautiful pink cashmere sweater from this store.

  This year’s box produced a new pale blue pocketbook with a brass clasp and shoulder strap. “It’s lovely,” she said, looking at Lawrence.

  “Thank you.”

  “May I see?” I asked. Lawrence started to put up his hand, but Mem didn’t notice. She passed me the purse and I immediately undid the clasp. I loved the snapping sound of Mem’s purses, and the silk linings the good ones had. But there was something else inside this pocketbook. It stared up at me like a green tongue inside the gaping blue mouth. A check made out to Mem in the amount of 10,000 rupees.

  I let out a gasp. It was not actual bills, of course, but even so, I had never seen such a sum. I happened to know that Nagu earned just thirty rupees in a month, so this was really a great deal of money. It occurred to me then that we perhaps depended on Lawrence in more ways than I was aware of.

  I looked up. He was watching me closely, his eyes warning me to say nothing. At his nod I closed the purse and handed it back to Mem. Simon had distracted her. She had not heard my gasp. I understood that Lawrence would rather she discover his true gift in her own time.

  That afternoon we went to the Plaza Cinema to see a film called Lost Horizon, about a group of firenghi who discover a perfect world called Shangri-la after their airplane crashes high in the mountains. On the way home, Simon asked if his father, too, might be living in Shangri-la.

  No one answered him, so he persisted. Hadn’t his father crashed in the mountains just like the people in the movie? And if he was in a place like that, could anyone blame him for not wanting to leave? Maybe his dad didn’t need to be rescued. Maybe we should all go to Shangri-la.

  He kept it up the whole way home, insisting that Shangri-la was a real place and not noticing as the silence grew louder and sharper. I could almost hear Mem grinding her teeth.

  Finally she turned in her seat and said, “Simon, that’s enough.” But Simon for some reason just kept talking, on and on, and no one said anything more to him, but Mem nearly ran the car into a cow as she turned onto Ratendone Road, and as soon as we got out Lawrence took hold of Simon by the shoulders and gave him a shake. “I have something to tell you, and I need you to stop.”

  I knew instantly that whatever he had to tell us was not good news. Simon did, too.

  We filed silently into the living room and sat down. Without so much as a glance at Mem, Lawrence told us he was going away again. He was leaving India in the morning. To meet his publisher in Australia, finish off his book. He would be back in a few months, but he could not tell us exactly when.

  Months. Australia. He was going away again. I watched the color change in Simon’s face. His skin turned milky white except for his freckles, which stood out like a spattering of brown ink across his nose. Suddenly he looked at me and began to cry. I realized I had made a grave mistake in telling him more than he could possibly fathom.

  Mem reached to hold him, but he jumped up from the sofa and punched her in the neck. “He hates you!” he screamed. “It’s all your fault!”

  Then he ran upstairs, slamming the door to our room, leaving Mem with her hand folded over her throat, her right shoulder up to her ear, an expression on her face as if he had sliced her with a knife.

  Lawrence went after Simon. Mem got up and poured herself some whiskey. She stood with her back to me, staring out into the garden. I heard the murmur of Lawrence’s voice above our heads, not a sound from Simon.

  In a few minutes Lawrence returned alone. He put his arms around me and kissed my cheek. I breathed the spice smell of his shaving soap. I didn’t want to let go, but he unwound my arms and gently pushed me away.

  He and Mem looked at each other from their opposite sides of the room. He said he would write. She nodded. He said he had an idea, something that would help “about Simon.” She told him we would manage. He said, well, anyway, if he could swing it he would surprise us all. Mem seemed suddenly to notice me standing to one side. She motioned me closer, and when I came, she slid an arm across my chest, resting her hand on my shoulder and drawing me back against her. In this way, I stood between them when Lawrence kissed her goodbye. He leaned over me, pressed his lips to her cheek, touched my hair, and was gone.

  Mem and I ate dinner by ourselves that night. I stared into my book, she at her American newspaper. Simon refused to come downstairs.

  Later, as we lay in our beds, I tried to soothe him with whispered tales of heroism and love. I told him the stories my flash house sister Mira once taught me. How the great Babur had conquered India by matchlock and elephant, and Humayun, his son, fell to his death while answering the muezzin’s call to prayer. How Akbar made peace with the warring princes of Rajputana, and Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal as an expression of love for his wife, only to die imprisoned by their son, the cruel and bloodthirsty Aurangzeb. I laid out his dreams the way I remembered others once seeding my own, not with stories of purity and light, but of worlds in which fortune and desire collide, and truth is shaped as much by loss as it is by faith.

  I had told him the truth as I knew it. I could not take it back, nor could I extract the bitterness or disguise it as sweet. But I tried to reassure him he was not alone.

  I reached across the gap between our beds, and after a moment he stretched his hand in reply. The bed frames had been pushed apart, so our fingertips did not quite meet. I expected him to crawl in with me then, and I would not have turned him out. Instead he sighed. He began to cry. He pulled back into himself and told me to stay away.

  Chapter 12

  1

  ONE EVENING, ABOUT A WEEK AFTER Lawrence’s departure, his “surprise” turned up on Ratendone Road. Joanna did not at first recognize the gift, as it appeared in the form of an odd ferrety-looking young man dressed in British khaki shorts and an orange Madras shirt. His skin was molasses brown, his long black hair tied back with string, and the sharpness of his features reminded Joanna of the Los Angeles street hustlers that her mother had warned her to avoid when she was growing up. But he claimed Lawrence had sent him.

>   “Said to tell you I’m the new ayah.”

  She peered at him through the half-light of the entryway. “I beg your pardon?”

  He passed her a chit: This is Lazarus. He’s a good man and will lend you a hand with the kiddies.

  “I don’t understand. My children are old enough to look after themselves. Besides, ayahs are generally female.”

  “Bloody hell, for what he paid me I’d wear a damn sari, but it hardly seems necessary. Lawrence said your boy likes the cinema and slingshots and cricket. The girl likes her books. Said both of ’em like swimming when the heat comes, and you could use some help getting them to and from places. I’m a bloody good driver, mechanic as well, and I’ll keep an eye out, see they’re safe. I’m new to Delhi, but I’ve been around India long enough to know the score.” He spoke with a broad British accent that was like an audible grin.

  In truth, she was hardly likely to turn away help, in whatever form. Over the past days Simon’s protest had only escalated. Yesterday evening he ’d taken his BB gun out and shot a hole in the Austin’s rear windshield. Fortunately, the car was parked and empty, but Simon refused to say whether it had happened accidentally or on purpose. You couldn’t hold out a handful of sunshine to children, then suddenly snatch it back and expect them not to notice. Joanna wasn’t sure just how brightly Lazarus was capable of shining, but his smile was a start.

  “You say he’s already paid you?”

  “Right. Other sots might lie to you, take your money as well. But I consider Lawrence my friend, and I think he feels the same ’bout me. I’m watching out for his flat, if that tells you anything. You don’t even have to put me up.”

  “So this is a favor you’re doing him.”

  “Right. Just to help out while he’s gone. Here, how’s this? Consider me your man Friday, like in Robinson Crusoe.”