by Dawn Farnham
Zhen smiled at Lian. She bowed to him.
‘Yes, Father,’ she said. ‘I am with child.’
He frowned. Something in the way she said it was chilling. He dismissed it. She did not love Ah Soon so perhaps she did not love this child now. But she would, surely. Ah Soon had gone back to the opium dens. Perhaps that was it. Again, he felt a silent regret for his daughter. The bed she shared with Ah Soon would be cold, for opium robbed a man of his manhood.
‘Miss Charlotte departs today, Father.’
He looked up at her and she held his gaze. He had written to her, two letters. He had tried to explain, without actually explaining, what he could not explain. She had not replied. He had accepted her departure because he didn’t know how to prevent it. Over here, on this side of the river, he was all-powerful. But over there in the European town, with her, he had no power at all.
Lian watched him. He seemed not to care a thing about the leaving of the woman he had so faithfully loved for three years. Can people change so thoroughly? Can love just fade? She felt a tremor of fear and put her hand to her belly. Would Alex’s love just fade? He sailed on the tide with Amber by his side and she must bear the unbearable until she saw him again.
He remained silent and she knew he would make no answer. Something in his demeanour gave her pause and she, too, said nothing more.
This was one of his pleasures, the preparation of tea, and she enjoyed watching him. Today he had taken out the brown pottery teapot with the monkey lid, which he never used. Since she had become a woman, she had looked more carefully at her father. He was a man of immense good looks, taller than any other Chinese man in the town, stronger, more powerful. But more than his physical appearance, which was considerable, he had a stature which she had not seen before. He commanded respect. And he had, she now recognised, a largesse of mind. It allowed him to encompass the possibility of her own schooling, of loving a foreign woman, of loving a half-blood child.
It was a ritual, the tea, and he carefully poured the boiling water on the leaves, wafting the aroma over them. He was present here, in this kitchen, but his mind was away, in a time long ago with this same teapot and she was sitting near him, pregnant with her second child, swollen and tired. He had made her this tea with this teapot.
He stared at it and put a finger to the lid. Then they had climbed the stairs and made love, careful of the child which lay inside her. It had been a moment of grace. To give her pleasure in such a circumstance, knowing she would leave on the next tide and they might never see each other again. He felt the intensity of this memory and sat down.
Lian sipped the tea. The atmosphere in the kitchen had thickened as if the air had absorbed some matter she could not understand.
33
It was a brutal sight. The room was splashed red and the body continued to ooze blood into the pool which lay around it. The knife which had been plunged into the man at least a dozen times was still in his chest. The body was covered in nicks and cuts too, especially around the upper thighs. Every cupboard and drawer stood open, clothes strewn everywhere.
Inspector Graves stood in the midst of the chaos. The man on the floor was stark naked and bound by his hands to the leg of the upturned chair. Graves blinked and went down on one knee. The man appeared to have a string attached to his scrotum. He got up and threw a look of disgust at the corpse.
The peon at the door was the one who had summoned him from Telok Ayer Station to the house on Hong Kong Street. He was still unfamiliar with this part of the Chinese town. Graves’s Malay was poor despite being in Penang for a year.
‘Who is this?’ he said.
‘House of Sang Qian.’
‘What do you know of him?’
The peon said something he did not catch. He was on such shaky ground, linguistically speaking, and this was such a brutal crime that he ushered the peon out of the room and shut the door. ‘Stay and guard this door. No-one goes in.’
The peon stared at him. Graves positioned the man in front of the door and put out his hand. ‘Stay.’
He went down the stairs. All the servants in the house had gathered in the hall, gazing upwards. He pushed through and went out into the street. The peon had told him that screams had been heard from this house, a servant had rushed out and told him someone was being murdered. The peon did not tell his superior that he had been rudely interrupted in the middle of a lucrative negotiation with the gambling house which would ensure his cooperation and silence.
Graves looked up at the building. Quite a mean little place, squashed between two taller shophouses which he knew were brothels. Actually the whole street was brothels, taverns and illegal gambling houses. Ragged coolies begged, others slumped in the verandahs half dead. A dog gave a yelp as it was kicked. The place was a sinkhole. All the dregs of Asia poured in here. Added to the thousands of sailors that it burst with when ships came in, it was, in his opinion, unpoliceable and he wished fervently that he was back in Penang.
The language barrier was just insuperable. Until they had Chinese policemen there was nothing to be done and the Commissioner would not have Chinese policemen because they were all the foot soldiers of the triads. He needed the Chinese interpreter from the main police house over the river.
‘Mr. Graves,’ a cultured voice said behind him, and he turned.
It was that towkay, the one who spoke good English. He breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Mr. Zhen, it is good to see you.’
Zhen bowed then looked up at the house of his friend. He knew something had happened here. As the peon took off for the police station, the samsengs had rushed to him.
‘This is the house of my friend, Sang Qian.’
Graves adopted a serious demeanour but he was surprised. This man was friends with a fellow who had a string round his scrotum. Really the place and all the people were unredeemable. And he had heard that this fellow had an English woman as his mistress. Filthy. He allowed none of these thoughts to enter his voice.
‘I am very sorry. Your friend is dead.’
Zhen went forward and into the hall. He raced to the first floor and was met by the terrified face of the Malay peon. He pushed him aside. Behind him he could hear Graves rushing up.
He opened the door and drew a great breath. Tears sprang to his eyes as he looked down on the poor, terrible sight of Qian, his life-long friend, lying in his blood. He went forward and snatched the knife out of his chest and threw it aside. He sank to the floor, pulled Qian to him, cradling him in his arms, his chest heaving and let out a groan of anguish.
Graves arrived at the door. ‘You can’t do that.’
Zhen ignored him. Graves, despite his disgust, made the quick realisation that this man was an important merchant and needed careful handling. The commissioner had made it clear that the officers were to understand very clearly who the elite natives of the colony were and treat them accordingly.
‘Sir,’ he said more gently. ‘This is a crime scene.’
Zhen pulled a sheet from the bed and covered Qian’s nakedness. He lay his friend’s head gently on the floor and rose, his tunic covered in blood. He brought his emotions under control.
‘Mr. Graves, I know who has done this and I will bring this man to justice.’
‘Who is it?’
‘I will make a statement to Mr. Macleod. The Chinese interpreter can interview the servants and the street. There will be no doubt.’
Zhen went out and addressed the servants. ‘Cooperate with the policeman who will come. Was this Hafiz?’
They all nodded. Yes, they shouted. He ran away with a sack of belongings. He went towards the seafront.
Zhen turned to Graves. ‘It is Hafiz, Qian’s friend.’
Graves raised an eyebrow. Friend indeed.
‘He has gone to the seafront at Telok Ayer.’
Graves shut the door of the room. ‘Guard,’ he said to the peon.
‘The body,’ Zhen said.
‘Must stay here for the mome
nt. You have destroyed the veracity of the crime scene but I will endeavour to describe it as I saw it.’
‘Look,’ Zhen said. ‘You stay here. I will send my men to get Hafiz.’
Graves frowned. Locals were not supposed to … He gave up on that thought. Here such thinking was quite impossible. This man had his own security force. All the Chinese did and he might as well use it.
‘Very well. Thank you.’
Zhen bowed and went out onto the street. A samseng had sought Wang and he ran forward, seeing the blood. His face expressed his horror and Zhen sighed. ‘No. Not me. Go at once and get that Hafiz, the peacock has killed Qian. Telok Ayer. Probably a boat.’
Wang bowed.
‘Don’t fail and don’t kill him. I want him hanged by the British.’
Wang saluted, his heart filled with the joy of this task for his Lord. Zhen watched him go. The grief for Qian began to overwhelm him he and felt his face would crumple and his strength fail. He stood, unmoving, head bowed, waiting for this moment to pass.
He went into the Heaven’s Gate brothel, up the stairs to Min’s room. He shut himself inside and lay on her bed and gave vent to his grief. Was there nothing but pain? The deaths of Lily and Qian, the loss of Xia Lou. He had not allowed himself to mourn her parting and now he could no longer hold this inside himself. He sobbed quietly.
Min came in and shut the door quickly. She went to him and took him in her arms. He clung to her. Min’s tears flowed and she gripped him.
With Qian gone she wanted to give up this life. Two more girls had taken opium and killed themselves. She had cared for one very much. Tiny Xiao Li reminded her of her own sister. The sister she had last seen when she had been sold away from her family at fourteen and never seen again.
Xiao Li herself had been only seven years old when she had been sold as a bondservant by her father, a man with too many daughters and an addiction to gambling. She had gone to the woman who gathered these young children and trained them for future lives; some to be concubines of old men, some to be prostitutes, some maids to rich wives, some turned into nuns to worship at the ancestral tablets of wealthy childless women. Either way, they could all end up, on a whim, in the brothel, sold on because of displeasure or jealousy.
Xiao Li, not deemed good-looking enough to turn into a concubine, had been sold as the young maid in a rich man’s house in Canton. She grew up there in conditions of great hardship, treated meanly and cruelly by all the women and all the children of the house. When she turned twelve, she was raped by one of the sons. It was a story so commonplace as to invite hardly a thought. She was beaten for tempting him. She continued to be raped by this man until she fell pregnant at thirteen, at which point she was sold to one of the most degrading brothels in Canton. The child was taken from her and she never saw it again. To escape this life she ran away and lived by stealing for a while. With another girl she went to Hong Kong and they both agreed to come to Singapore where, they were told, maids were in short supply.
Xiao Li was split up from her friend who was sent away to another place and arrived in Singapore where she was put in a brothel, five years ago. Min had met her then and they had formed a bond. Now there was talk of moving her, selling her on again because, at nineteen, she was still worth a good price. Down though, down to the coolie brothel in Cochin China. Min had desperately tried to dissuade Qian from this course of action but he had become deaf to all considerations other than money. So Xiao Li had taken all the opium pills she could get and swallowed them one by one.
She felt the tension go from Zhen’s body and he rose, out of her arms and went to the bowl of water and splashed his face, washing away Qian’s blood and his tears.
‘I want to quit this life,’ she said. ‘Will you release me?’
Zhen looked at her in the mirror, took up a towel and wiped his face and hands.
‘What will you do?’
‘I have enough money for a small house in Kampong Glam. There is a man there, an Arab man. He’s a carpenter who makes beautiful furniture. He’s a widower and he wants to marry me.’
Zhen stared at Min and shook his head. ‘Well, well, you are the dark horse. When did this happen?’
‘A year or so ago. He knows what I do. He doesn’t care. I will take up Islam. It feels clean and I need to have a clean life.’
Zhen went to the window and looked down at the street. The police interpreter was talking to the servants on the step of the house. He was Malay but spoke good Chinese. He was unique in the town and was worked off his feet for he had duties in the magistrate’s court and the gaol. Graves was nowhere to be seen. Qian was lying, covered in blood, in that house.
‘I’ll manage the brothels until after the funeral. Until Ah Soon can take charge. You can leave then.’
She came and took his queue in her hands, stroking it. She put it over her shoulder and her head on his back and ran her arms round his waist, holding him.
‘I miss her.’
She hugged him tight.
34
Charlotte looked at Amber. She was as eager-faced as she herself had been as a young girl arriving with Tigran. A face filled with excitement but anxiety too at what lay ahead.
Alex was reluctant, she sensed it. This was not the marriage he had anticipated perhaps, if he thought about such things. He had been pleasant at mealtimes though he had eaten little. Amber had been seasick for the first two days and had kept to her cabin. She and Alex spent time with Captain Hall, whom she had misjudged. He had made her a handsome profit and been prompt in his duties. He told an excellent tale in that dry accent of his, and had a store of fabulous stories from the New Land, and the evenings were enjoyable. Charlotte had felt seasick and nauseous but had taken the ginger and fought it off. She knew it was the pregnancy. Her waist had thickened but not enough to show. In Batavia she knew she had a decision to make. There were women there who knew how to get rid of unwanted pregnancies.
When Amber had recovered enough to join them, Alex had been polite but distant. She had found him, sometimes, in the evening, leaning off the stern, gazing into the churning white water of the wake. She recognised the symptoms for she had done this exact same thing and felt this way. He was lovesick.
Did he love Lian? She had hardly heeded Zhen’s words in a dark rush of anger at him and the subsequent misery of his loss. She had read his letters which explained nothing, spoke of nothing which truly mattered. He had duties and obligations. He would be done with them soon and wanted to come back to her. He longed for her. He had even written down a poem which he said he had sent to her years ago. A poem by a long-dead Chinese poet.
A gale goes ruffling down the stream
The giants of the forest crack;
My thoughts are bitter – black as death –
For she, my summer, comes not back.
A hundred years like water glide,
Riches and rank are ashen cold,
Daily the dream of peace recedes:
By whom shall Sorrow be consoled?
The soldier, dauntless, draws his sword,
And there are tears and endless pain;
The winds arise, leaves flutter down,
And through the old thatch drips the rain.
It had touched her, wormed its way into her soul, as only he could do with these beautiful old Chinese poems. But she knew she could not go back to him. She wanted a different life. She knew that now. She no longer wished to be the English concubine. As for Alex and this love, that would fade. They had never even been together, there was little for him to dwell on, feed on, to nurture the memory of her. It would disappear.
The house revealed itself as the horses pulled round the bend. Charlotte’s smile faded. What was once snow white with glinting glass, a vast sweeping edifice with its fine Dutch gables. What had once been this, was now grey and streaked with green mould. Weeds sprouted from the roof and along the parapets. The gardens before the entrance were rank. The roof of the west wing seemed to have colla
psed. The coach drew to a halt and Charlotte climbed down, aghast at this wreckage. Amber and Alex followed her and they all stood and gazed at the ruin before their eyes.
Servants appeared in clothes as poor as the house. They began to unload the luggage and Charlotte walked towards the great door with its VOC crest, with the greatest trepidation at what she might find inside.
Then Takouhi appeared. She too, was a shock. She had aged. She leant on a stick and her once beautiful skin was wrinkled, her hair grey. All Charlotte could think of was neglect. How she had neglected them all.
She walked into Takouhi’s embrace. She felt thin and weak but her voice was strong.
‘Welcome, sister.’
‘Oh Takouhi, I’m so sorry to have stayed away so long.’
Takouhi took her hand and held out the other to the two young people waiting to one side. ‘Alex, Alex. Amber, so big, so big.’ She turned. ‘Come, come.’
Over the next days, Charlotte discovered that, though the house had been neglected in great part because Takouhi did not use most of it, the estate itself was profitable and well run. She took the old carriage and the little horse and took Alex over it pointing out its kampongs, its rice fields, its orchards, its herds of cows and goats. Brieswijk was self-sufficient in everything except cooking and lamp oil and produced a surplus, which was sold at market.
She took Alex to Tigran’s grave and told him something of this man he believed was his father, determined he would feel the greatness of the family he belonged to. Together with Amber they went to the old chapel, itself somewhat neglected. Alex’s mood seemed to improve. ‘I shall take care of it all, Mother, when I am its master.’
‘Yes, Alex. You will. I think to give you Buitenzorg also, for the tea plantations will pay for the repairs to the house. Tea is somewhat depressed at the moment but Captain Hall says that soon the railway will open up in America from the Pacific to the Atlantic and trade in that direction will boom. Not only tea, but pepper, wood, every product of the Indies can be carried directly to the United States of America’s west coast and be transported across the whole country in no time at all.’