“Do you need help?” I said.
“I don’t think there is much you can do, Master Oliver,” said Mr. Scant. “You ought to rest.”
“I don’t feel like resting.”
“Then perhaps some quiet time.”
Mr. Scant hadn’t looked at me since he came in. He was wringing out the washcloth and delicately applying it to his brother’s face. I didn’t want to irritate him. “I know, I’ll take Victor to have a bath.”
“Probably a good idea, for all our sakes,” Mr. Scant said absently.
“Can I give him some of my clothes? The ones he’s wearing are all torn and they’re too big for him anyway. Mine will probably fit at least as well.”
“Master Oliver, I am merely your father’s valet. It is not my place to tell you to whom you may and may not give your belongings. Though I would caution that your mother would sorely miss any of your Sunday clothes, were you to make gifts of them.”
I nodded and led Victor away to my room. His stomach rumbled as we walked, so I gave him a lump of sugar from the sugar pot. That seemed to lift his spirits.
At home, one of the maids, Meg or Penny, would always run the bath for me. So I enjoyed watching as Paris’s famous modern water systems slowly filled our hotel bathtub. The water let off a welcoming steam. I added some chamomile and put the soap and eau de toilette on the flattest part of the bathtub. “Good-bye, washcloth,” I said, putting that alongside them.
When the tub was full, I turned to Victor and gestured toward the bath before stepping out of the bathroom. While Victor was bathing, I could pick out clothes he could wear. I thought I ought to send a telegram to Dr. Mikolaitis and tell him what had happened too.
A moment later, the bathroom door opened and Victor appeared, looking perplexed.
“What is it?” I said, then remembered myself and asked it again in French.
I wasn’t sure about Victor’s reply, but I thought he asked why I closed the door on him.
“You can have a bath,” I said. “Bath time. Erm . . . baignes? Tu baignes?”
Victor laughed and went to sit by the dresser.
“Come on, now, you need a bath,” I said.
“No, please, thank you,” he replied.
I stopped. “You can speak English?”
“English,” said Victor. “Yes, no, plis, senk you, ’allo, g’bye. English!”
“I . . . Well, that’s a good start,” I said. “Now, bath.”
“Bath.”
“Let’s go. Bath.”
I led him to the bathroom again and pointed to the hot, welcoming water.
“Master Olivier,” said Victor.
“Oliver,” I said. “Not ‘Olivier.’ Oliver.”
“Olivia?”
“Oliver.”
“Master Olivia!” Victor looked very proud of himself.
“You can call me Ollie.” I pointed to my face. “Ollie.”
“Ollie!”
Sorting that out didn’t get us any closer to making him bathe. The more I gestured to the bath, the more he shook his head and laughed.
“How do I put this? You’re a bit . . . noisome. Malodorous?” When there was no light of comprehension in the boy’s eyes, I had to resort to a very obvious gesture. Waving a hand in front of my nose, I intoned, “I’m afraid you really smell bad.”
I had been so concerned with getting the boy to understand that I hadn’t considered his feelings. His little face fell and he hung his head. Then he swallowed and mumbled, “D’accord.” I understand.
I left him in private to get into the bath, busying myself with the telegram to Dr. Mikolaitis. I considered sending one to Father, but thought it would be better to get Mr. Scant’s opinion first.
Once I had sorted out the clothes I would be the least upset about losing, I thought I had better check on the boy. He wasn’t used to baths, and I was a little worried he would drown, so I knocked on the door and took the pile of clothes inside.
There was a little set of metal shelves on which I could put the clothes, but as I did so, I saw Victor and frowned. He was sitting in the bath, but his face and hair were entirely dry, still caked in dirt.
“What are you doing?” I said. “Why aren’t you washing your face?” I mimed splashing my face with water. Victor, who had obviously been expecting this moment, rattled off a stream of French I couldn’t follow at all. His arms, different colors above and below where they’d soaked in the water, made a series of gestures, ending with him holding out the washcloth and soap to me expectantly.
“You can wash yourself,” I said. “You’re old enough. Well, Meg and Penny probably helped me at your age, but they aren’t here, so this is a good chance for you to learn.”
Victor responded in English. “No no no no.”
“You do it,” I said firmly.
Victor looked crestfallen and flopped over the edge of the bath, letting washcloth and soap slip from his hands. “How can someone with nobody to spoil him be so spoilt?” I said.
Grateful Victor couldn’t understand that, I went over to pick up the things he’d dropped. The various scented soaps and lotions I had added to the bath had formed a thick foam that protected Victor’s modesty, which was good, because from what I gathered from playground rhymes, the French were markedly less concerned about such matters. For my own part, I was English to the core and a happy member of the large majority of boys who would never shower at school, even after games, and would wait until I got home. That, in my opinion, was simply the English way.
But Victor was not English, and rather than take the washcloth when proffered, he gave an eager nod and turned his back expectantly. “Oh, very well,” I murmured, dipped the cloth into the filthy water, and began to wash the grime from the little boy’s back.
He chirruped at me in French as I scrubbed. Getting the boy’s skin clean became something of a game to me, and as washcloth and foam alike became progressively murkier, the pinkish hue of the boy’s skin was revealed. I scrubbed at his face and neck as he shut his eyes tight. He refused to put his head under the water, so I used the small tin bucket left in the bathroom for the purpose of wetting his hair.
As the water straightened Victor’s tangle of locks, it became clear how long his hair really was. If not for it floating in the browny-gray water, the strands would have been long enough to hang halfway down his back. I rubbed the bar of soap in my hands until I got a lather and then used that to run through the boy’s hair, though there was no taming the tangles without a comb.
“The rest you can do yourself,” I said, to which the boy nodded as if he understood, though I wasn’t sure that was the case. Still, he made no objections as I withdrew, singing happily to himself. Wrinkling my nose a little, I picked up his pile of rags as I departed, and when I was back in the main room, I threw it all into the little corner hearth. It wasn’t lit, but we could watch the pile go up in flames when we made a fire this evening.
Still not wanting to stray too far from Victor, I decided I would have to make myself some tea. The problem was I had no idea where Mr. Scant procured the boiling water. As I searched, I heard a loud cry from the bathroom and then the door slamming against the wall. For a moment, I feared Victor had come running out of the bath with no clothes on, but he had at least pulled on my old black shorts, which almost reached his knees. He cast about the room with his big, round eyes.
“What is it? Er . . . qu’est-ce que . . . ?” I began, but the boy pointed at the fireplace and gave a yelp of outrage before running over to dig through the pile of rags.
“Those are dirty!” I said. “If it’s your hat, that’s still on the stand outside. I haven’t—”
That was as far as I could get before Victor pulled out the undershirt he had been wearing. While less ragged than his jacket or trousers, it was still much too large for him and in no fit state to wear.
“I gave you a shirt,” I said. “It’s in there with the rest.”
The roar of bullets from the Hot
chkiss gun that we’d heard earlier paled beside the sudden deluge of angry French that came from Victor’s mouth. He held up the shirt angrily, then gestured at the fireplace, hopping up and down in outrage, his wet feet slapping against the floorboards. I caught the occasional word here and there, especially Julien, from which I surmised the shirt was precious to him because it had been given to him by his brother.
“Julien?” I said. “Julien’s shirt? Alright. Alright. Je comprends. Désolé. Alright! Just dry your hair. Your hair! With the towel! No, you can do it. You can do it alone! Fine. Fine. I’ll help.”
As I wrapped the boy’s head in the towel and set about trying to get it all dry, I wondered aloud how he had ever managed to fend for himself. I supposed there were others out there on the streets who would look after him in their fashion, like in Mr. Dickens’s story that Mother loved so much. Giving the filthy shirt a liberal dose of scented water and helping Victor into my waistcoat and jacket, I was impressed by how he had transformed. He resembled a slightly ferocious cherub.
Eager to show off the transformation, I went to show Mr. Scant. “Mr. Scant, look how neat Victor looks now!” I said. “He refused to change his shirt, though, so sorry if it . . .”
My voice trailed off, because Mr. Scant had turned to us with a finger to his lips. I realized that he was holding a small bottle of smelling salts under his brother’s nose. Uncle Reggie was looking at us blearily. He was awake.
“What’s all this then?” he croaked. “Oliver, my lad, and who’s this other fellow? There is another one, isn’t there? I’m not seeing things?”
“This is Victor,” I said. “He helped us find you.”
“Victor!” said Victor. “Victor, Ollie.”
Uncle Reggie gave a little smile. “How is it I don’t get to call you Ollie but he does?”
“Because he says ‘Oliver’ like ‘Olivia’!”
“Olivier!” Victor said helpfully.
Uncle Reggie started to laugh but then winced in pain and quickly settled down. “Ow. Ow. Ouchy bloody hell,” he rumbled, which I pretended not to hear.
“Try not to get excited,” said Mr. Scant. “Three of your ribs are broken.”
“Only three?” his brother asked.
“Three ribs. The rest of your body’s a good deal worse off.”
“They did me in good and proper, didn’t they?”
“So it would seem,” Mr. Scant said. “Now that everybody’s here, why not tell us what happened?”
I sat down on the chair that matched the hotel’s dressing table, and Victor sat at my feet. After thinking to himself for a little while, Uncle Reggie began: “Well, I suppose I should really start by saying I’m sorry I went off on my own, although as I’m sure Heck will remind us all, I’m a pigheaded sort and would do the same thing again even if I knew how it would turn out. Couldn’t abide the idea of faffing about in some museum, going after some ne’er-do-well, when I could be out looking for Ellie. I could just imagine, you know, ‘Oh, you just missed her, she was here an hour ago but then she got shoved into a carriage with a bag over her head.’ Do you see what I mean?”
“You should have told us,” said Mr. Scant.
“Well, I didn’t, and I don’t suppose you’d have changed your plans if I did. I left a note, though, didn’t I? I went to that big fancy école they sent poor Ellie to and asked around for her.”
“How did you know she wasn’t at the girls’ school?” I asked.
Uncle Reggie blinked at me. “There was a girls’ school? What, in a different place?”
“Completely different,” I said.
“Well, I didn’t know about that. I just went to the big school, and people remembered her there, so I knew it was the right place. I asked around, and this young fellow said he knew her. Well-bred sort, bit la-di-da, fox hunting on Papa’s estate, you know? I mean, there’s rich like your father rich, Ollie, industrial rich, and then there’s old money rich. You see my meaning? His valet probably has a valet. Ah, my neck is killing me . . .”
“Perhaps we should move on to the point of all this?” Mr. Scant said.
“Alright, so, this toffee-nosed youngster, he’s a nasty piece of work. Not nice. You can tell just from how he talks. He says Ellie’s meant for better things than I could ever understand and I ought to stay out of her life, only he says it in a way that he can smile and sound charming, like I’m fortunate to even hear him talking. I say I just want to write her a letter, and he says if she wanted to contact me, she’d let me know.”
“Who was he?” I asked.
“I can’t say for sure. But he adds, very casual, that I ought to stay away from this gallery over by the house where Descartes used to live, and off he sweeps. Exit stage left. So I ask around about where this gallery is, and it’s not so far away. And then I ask a student who’s sort of loafing around to pass on a message to you, and I go to have a butcher’s, as they say in London. And when I found the gallery, no sooner was I at the gates than a couple of great, I don’t know, Greco-Roman wrestlers, they looked like . . . they grabbed me and dragged me goodness knows where and flung me down some stairs.”
“Father will make sure you get the best doctors money can buy,” I said.
“As long as they have some good painkillers, that’s all I ask. Your Dr. Mickey Mikolaitis will do me just fine. Where is he, anyway?”
“He was shot,” said Mr. Scant. “But we’ll talk about that later.”
“Shot?”
“By the ne’er-do-well.”
“He’s only injured,” I interjected, feeling that was important information.
“Oh,” Uncle Reggie said. “Well, not as though I could have stopped it, really, was it? Was it?”
“You most likely wouldn’t have made any difference, no,” said his brother. “And now he’s probably in a better state than you are, so worry about yourself for now.”
“He’s in a hospital,” I said. “We should probably take you there too.”
“Before we proceed, was that all that happened?” said Mr. Scant. “They threw you downstairs and beat you up?”
“Oh, no, no, I was getting to the important part,” said Uncle Reggie. “After they roughed me up a bit, the posh boy from the university showed up again.”
“Did he have black hair, worn long, and a long coat?”
“Well, I don’t know about the coat, but yes, long-haired like a girl, that’s the one. One of those little half-wits who fancies himself a Romantic poet. If he didn’t have those meatheads, I’d have given him what for. Ow!”
“Don’t get yourself worked up. You’re in a very poor state,” Mr. Scant said, easing his brother back down onto the bed. “You said he was English. Did he say anything to you?”
“Yes,” said Uncle Reggie. “Yes, he did. Just before the big fella knocked my lights out, the brat looks down at me with this sneer all across his lips, and he says, ‘If you want to see your daughter so much, why don’t you join her in China?’ That’s what he said, ‘In China.’” Uncle Reggie looked at his brother with his eyes wide, just now processing the implications of his words. “I think Ellie’s in China.”
V
The Ferry and Afterward
had no doubt that we were the subject of much gossip on the ferry-ride home.
We must have looked a peculiar bunch, and no denying it. Tall, brooding Mr. Scant was on his guard, glowering at everyone he suspected might have been a foe. Then there was me, trying to smile apologetically at the sunburnt holidaymakers and well-fed gourmets who had just come face to face with one of Mr. Scant’s patented scowls.
And behind us were the two invalids, who the crew had provided with wooden recliners. The two of them had been positioned on the deck in a V-shaped fashion, so that their heads came together. Dr. Mikolaitis was smoking a cigarette while Uncle Reggie fanned himself, which also served to keep the tobacco smoke from blowing in his face. The day was much hotter than average for late March, and Uncle Reggie kept complaining he was
boiling in the heat, while Dr. Mikolaitis had procured a straw boater from somewhere or other. He wore the hat low over his eyes, so nothing of his face could be seen.
“Don’t fall asleep and burn yourself with your cigarette,” I said.
“I don’t think I could get much hotter even set alight,” grumbled Dr. Mikolaitis.
“Stop your complaining,” said Uncle Reggie. “Count yourself lucky. You only hurt in one place. I hurt all over.”
“You, sir, were dealt a few blows and received a few bruises,” Dr. Mikolaitis said. “I had a piece of metal pierce the full way through my body. The one who should count his lucky stars is you.”
“Don’t start squabbling again,” growled Mr. Scant.
“We’re not squabbling!” said Dr. Mikolaitis and Uncle Reggie in unison. I would have laughed, but it was true that their grumbling had gone too far by now. They had been bickering about whose injuries were worse since we retrieved Dr. Mikolaitis from the hospital. Of course, I didn’t complain, because after all, both of them had indeed been hurt grievously. Instead, I sighed.
“You were both so good at being stoic until you decided this had to be a competition,” I said. That seemed to give them pause. Dr. Mikolaitis put his hat back over his eyes, and Uncle Reggie redoubled his fanning efforts.
By then, the ferry had embarked, and we were on our way back to Britain. I looked back at the land we had just departed, the land of Voltaire and baguettes and guillotines. “I hope Victor will be okay,” I said aloud.
The boy had been subdued when we said our good-byes at the Panthéon. I had written him a letter of introduction that he could deliver to one of Father’s business associates in France, asking the man to find Victor a good place with people who would care for him, and I supplied him with more than enough francs to pay for the journey to the man’s office as well. I would have liked to have taken the boy myself, and he had cried so much when we told him we were leaving, but Mr. Scant said that France was Victor’s home and we could always write to his new patron if we found out anything about Julien. When the time came to part, as we checked out of the hotel, there was nothing written on the boy’s face but staunch determination.
The Shanghai Incident Page 5