by R. L. Davis
In the yard outside the main office of the compound, Rudd came face-to-face with Colonel Atkins. “Colonel, you look like you caught the worst of it here. Thank God you survived.” He saluted to receive a salute in return.
“We survived because of you, Major Carter. Let me congratulate you on a job—”
“Thank you, Colonel,” he interrupted, “but remember, we don’t exist. We have never been here. We have only this week arrived to help with the recovery. I’m sure you understand. It will be a pleasure working with you to restore order in Peking.”
The colonel extended his hand for a handshake, “Welcome, Major.” With a smile and in a softer tone, he added, “Well done, Major. Well done.”
When the allied forces entered Peking, the Empress Dowager and her court went into exile to Xi’an until 1902.
After the allies occupied the city, they looted everything they could get their hands on. Rudd and his men were ordered to stay on for a few weeks to help re-establish order and aid in the recovery. Billeted in a more central location of the city than before, things went smoothly for a few days.
After having been out of touch for a while, Günter finally reported in.
“Where’ve you been the last couple of days?” Rudd wanted to know. “I haven’t seen you around.”
“With my girlfriends,” Günter answered slyly. “I have a lot of girlfriends. Girls who need to be taken care of. You know how I like the girls.”
Rudd frowned. “I understand, Günter, you like the girls,” he said coldly, “but I’d appreciate it if you would check in every day, all right?”
“Of course, Major, of course,” Günter replied smugly.
Rudd’s men acted as undercover police, moving about the city day and night keeping an eye on the activities of the allied soldiers. The looting quieted down after a while, but still continued.
His group worked in cooperation with the British military police assigned to the city. On one of his visits to the British compound, Rudd encountered a Captain Hopkins, who told him of a recent find in the streets of Peking.
“Major Carter, since you’re working so closely with us, I thought you should know that in the last week, the bodies of two young girls, ages nine or ten were found. They were nude, had been raped, and their undeveloped female organs had been cut out of them and laid across their chests. Whoever the monster is that did this deed took the time to apply lipstick and rouge to their little faces.”
“How very grotesque, Captain,” Rudd said as he grimaced and shook his head. “It sounds like the work of an insane person. Tell me, how many days after the first body was discovered was the second body found?”
“Five days, sir. Whoever did this seems to know what he was doing. The organs were removed with surgical precision, like a scalpel had been used. It appears that Peking has its own version of the Ripper.”
“Except, this Ripper likes his females very young,” Rudd added.
“It seems that way, sir.”
“Do you have any leads, Captain? Anything at all?”
“No, sir. Nothing at all.”
“Thank you for making me aware of this situation, Captain. Please keep me informed if anything new develops.”
Coming into the British compound five days later, Rudd encountered Captain Hopkins again. “There’s been another murder, sir,” the man said. “A nine-year-old girl, brutalized in the same way as the first two.”
“And I suppose there were no clues left behind,” Rudd said, shaking his head and registering a look of disgust. “We have a maniac running amuck out there. How in the world are you going to find him in a city this size, Hopkins?”
Major Hopkins hesitated for a moment. “We don’t think he’s Chinese, sir.”
Rudd’s eyes narrowed. “Really? Why not, Captain?”
“Because there are no killings of this sort on record in Peking.”
“What you’re saying is, before the allies put twenty thousand men in here.”
“That’s right, Major.”
“Oh, well, this will be simple. Won’t it, Captain?” he said, sarcastically. “We’ve just narrowed it down to twenty thousand men who won’t be leaving for some months.”
Chapter Twelve
September, 1900, Hong Kong
Two days later, Rudd and his men received orders to return to Hong Kong. Within a week they were aboard a ship in the China Sea bound for their home port. After three days at sea, late in the afternoon, they slipped into the harbor at Hong Kong and tied up at the pier. As they were disembarking, a somber Sui Yen met Rudd at the bottom of the gangplank.
“Rudd, I’m afraid I have bad news for you.” He hesitated and then continued, “Ming Li is gone.”
Stunned, he asked, “What do you mean ‘Ming Li is gone’? Where is she?”
“She just disappeared, dropped out of sight.”
“I—I don’t understand,” Rudd stammered.
Sui Yen handed him a sealed envelope. “I think you should read this before I say anything else.”
Rudd turned the envelope over and over with his fingers without opening it. “What is this? What’s going on?” He raised his voice. “Tell me, Sui Yen. Where is Ming Li? What’s happened to her?”
His friend reached over and patted him on the shoulder. “Rudd, please open that envelope and read the note inside and then we can talk.”
He tore it open and read,
Dearest Rudd, My Love, My Life,
I want you to know that the last seven years have been the happiest years of my life, because of you. You have fulfilled me in every way possible. Know that every conscious moment of the rest of my life, you will be on my mind and in my heart. Because you mean so much to me, at this point in our lives, I have to let you go. I beg of you, please forgive me.
I love you,
Ming Li
After reading Ming Li’s farewell note, he slowly crushed it in his left hand. As his eyes welled with tears, he yelled, “What does she mean? At this point in our lives, I have to let you go. What does that mean, Sui Yen?”
Sui Yen reached down, picked up his friend’s duffle bag, and slung it over his shoulder. “Let’s find a place to have a drink and we’ll talk. I think I can shed a lot of light on this for you.”
Walking to a quiet deserted bar, they took a seat and ordered drinks.
“I know there is a lot you don’t understand, so let me talk for awhile,” Sui Yen said.
Rudd nodded.
“First of all, before I start, you should know that Ming Li has told me that in her entire life she has never loved another man but you. I don’t think that she will ever take another into her heart again. No one knows what makes people feel and do the things they do, but you brought something out in her that she had never felt. In my last conversation with Ming Li, she told me she was devastated over having to leave you.”
“Why does she have to leave me?” Rudd asked.
Sui Yen smiled kindly. “Be patient, I’ll get to that. We have to go back to when you first arrived in Hong Kong in ninety-three. The bank put me in charge of taking care of you, you know, introducing you to your new environment. It was my job to make sure you got off on the right foot in Hong Kong. You wanted to learn Chinese, so I found Ming Li. You both fell in love. It all seemed so simple and orderly—and let’s not forget lucky. It was lucky that this creature I found to be your Chinese teacher, mentor and live-in lover, just happened to be one of the most beautiful women in China.”
Rudd slammed his glass down on the bar. “I don’t get what you’re driving at, Sui Yen. What are you trying to tell me?”
“It was my job to make sure you were settled in comfortably. You were, weren’t you? The bank paid for everything, the new apartment, the Chinese lessons, and Ming Li, your mistress.”
“What do you mean, the bank paid for my mistress?”
“I was ordered by the bank to hire Ming Li to be your Chinese tutor with the thought that after you took a few lessons with her you’d p
robably want her for a live-in. Who wouldn’t?”
Rudd’s eyes narrowed with anger. “Are you trying to tell me that my cousin was paying Ming Li to be with me?” he yelled.
“Yes. But for all of these years, he’s been taking orders from the bank in London, from your father.”
“My father? You’re saying that my father ordered you to find Ming Li for me?” He shook his head in protest to what he was hearing.
“Yes,” Sui Yen answered patiently. “When Ming Li was very young, she was married to a wealthy Hong Kong merchant who was quite elderly. He took her to London where they lived for five years until his death. Mr. Chan, Ming Li’s husband, had her educated by tutors while in London, and because of her beauty, charm and intelligence, she soon became the toast of London society, which was very good for Mr. Chan’s business. But because of Mr. Chan’s advanced age, he couldn’t take care of her physical needs. He encouraged her to continue a relationship begun on the voyage to London from China with Lord Carter, who was traveling incognito under an assumed name.”
“My god, my father knew Ming Li?” he interrupted. “Are you telling me that she was my father’s mistress in London?” he asked, eyes widening.
“Yes, she was your father’s mistress for five years. She knew him as Arthur Smythe, the name he used when traveling incognito. When Mr. Chan died, typical of old wealthy Chinese men who marry young women and have no children by them, he left her very little, not enough to come home. Your father, who was quite fond of her, paid her passage back to Hong Kong.”
Rudd held up his hand as if to ward off the truth. “How do you know all of this about Ming Li and my father, Sui Yen?”
“Through two sources: Ming Li and your cousin Roger.”
“Why would my father confide so much private information about his personal life to Roger Carter?”
“Roger and your father were quite close when they were young men. Much closer than your father ever was to his brother, your uncle William. Roger and your father have always been like brothers. That is why Roger was made Vice-President of the Carter Bank in Hong Kong.”
“And the reason I was sent to Hong Kong to be under his supervision.” Disbelief rang in Rudd’s strained voice.
Sui Yen ordered two more drinks. “I can’t impress on you enough how much I think you mean to Ming Li,” he continued. “She was acting as an employee of the bank only up until the moment she met you. She told me many times that she became obsessed with being with you the moment you met. I think your happiness and the fulfillment of your desires are all that has ever mattered to her.”
The alcohol had begun to numb Rudd’s senses. The initial shock was beginning to wane, but he still had a knot in the pit of his stomach at the thought of never seeing Ming Li again. “It was perfect with her, so why did she leave?”
“Rudd, it seemed to me that she loved you in a way that few women are capable. I think she would do anything to keep you from suffering.”
“But I wasn’t suffering, I was very happy.” His eyes welled up. “She was perfect for me in every way.” He buried his head in his hands.
“I know. Let me continue. Do you remember the events of the week before you left for Peking?” Sui Yen asked.
Rudd looked up. “Of course I do. I resigned from the bank and made preparations to leave.”
“That’s right. You came out of Roger’s office and told me that you had resigned. It put me in quite a spin, because if you would have known what was in Ming Li’s contract, you never would have resigned. That’s why we never told you.”
“Told me what? What contract?”
“Your father wrote a proposal in the form of a letter to Ming Li that I carried to her. This was before you met her. The proposal was that she would live with you, as your mistress, teach you Chinese and about Chinese culture. In short, she would create such a positive environment for you that you would stay in Hong Kong and work at the bank for the rest of your life. For doing this, her family, which is comprised of four much younger brothers and sisters and two children she gave birth to as a teenager, would be educated and employed by the bank. She would be taken care of for the rest of her days. Of course, to receive all these benefits, you had to stay at the bank. If you left, she was required to leave you in order for her contract to be honored.”
“But I make enough to take care of her,” Rudd said.
“Not enough to take care of and educate her entire family and place them in jobs.”
They sat silently, sipping on their drinks. Rudd began to weep quietly as the hopelessness of his situation sank in. “I’ll go see Roger tomorrow and retract my resignation. I’ll do anything to keep from losing Ming Li.” Then he pleaded, “Tell me where she is. I need to talk to her. She needs to know that we can fix this mess and still be together.”
“She’s not here anymore. She left Hong Kong. I have no idea where she’s gone. I think she knows how much you love her and that you would do anything to keep the two of you together. Ming Li told me that she realizes you would go back to the bank, but she also knows that at the bank your spirit would shrivel, that you would never realize your true destiny. I believe she sees leaving as her greatest act of love.”
Sui Yen ordered another round of drinks, then another, and another. After awhile, he stepped into the street and hired a rickshaw. Carrying Rudd unconscious, he loaded him into the rickshaw and took him to The Emperor Hotel. Rudd stayed drunk for two days with Sui Yen by his side.
For three more days, Sui Yen brought food to him, and on the fourth day he went down to the hotel bar and hired an attractive young woman to bring food to Rudd, but she wasn’t to act in a provocative way. She was to smile and say pleasant things to him. After two more days of the same treatment, a shave, bath, a clean change of clothes, Rudd was ready to go downstairs to the bar.
“I don’t want to see any goddamned women,” he told Sui Yen as he sat pouting at the bar, pretending not to notice the pretty females. Later he lightened up. When a particularly attractive woman looked his way, he smiled and nodded in her direction.
Sui Yen could see Rudd’s interest in females growing with each passing hour. “I’m glad to see you looking and acting like your old self,” he said. “What a dull place the world would be without these delightful creatures.”
After three more evenings, Rudd was ready to make the acquaintance of some quality young women.
Sui Yen’s position at the Carter Bank of Hong Kong involved public relations. On behalf of the bank, he had, on occasion, visited many of the more prominent businesses in town, and because he dealt with secretaries, he had the opportunity to meet many women. Of course, he kept in mind the more attractive ones he encountered, so that if he was organizing a social event, he had a roster of available women to invite as unaccompanied guests. This ensured a good turnout for the male business executives.
Sui Yen held a dinner party with Rudd as the guest of honor. However, Rudd had no idea that he was the guest of honor when he arrived at the hotel restaurant that evening. Seated with his friend, he was surprised when two women, one Asian and the other Caucasian, approached their table.
Sui Yen rose from his chair, greeted them and turned to Rudd. “I would like to introduce our lovely guests for tonight, Miss Leslie Townsend and Miss Zwi Zwi Chung.” Pleased, Rudd rose to his feet. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Leslie and Zwi Zwi. Won’t you please join us for dinner?” He pulled a chair back on his side of the table and without hesitation, Zwi Zwi sat next to him.
Sui Yen pulled the empty chair out on his side of the table for Leslie. She hesitated and locked eyes with Rudd then smiled sweetly, shrugging in disappointment before sitting down.
Rudd glanced at Zwi Zwi, an Asian beauty in her prime, and then across the table at Leslie. Even with her honey blonde hair, large wide-set blue eyes and seductive smile, he felt nothing. He shot a glance at Sui Yen, the magician, who seemed to have the power to pull people out of a hat at will as he needed them. They’re both be
auties, but tonight is not the night, my friend.
“Leslie, what brings you to Hong Kong?” asked Rudd in an attempt to make polite conversation.
“I work at the Canadian legation,” she answered with a slight Scottish brogue.
He smiled. “Where were you raised?”
“In Toronto,” she answered cheerfully.
Feelings for Elizabeth surfaced for a moment, but he suppressed them. Not wanting Zwi Zwi to feel left out, he turned his attention to her. “Where in China are you from?”
Apparently encouraged by his interest, she placed her hand on his thigh. “I was born and raised in Hong Kong, and I work with Leslie at the Canadian legation.” She squeezed gently.
Rudd made small talk with the two women for the next hour. Yawning, he said, “Please don’t think me rude, as I’ve really enjoyed your company this evening. But it’s been a long day. I hope we can do this again. I’ll keep in touch through Sui Yen. Thank you so much for joining us this evening. Please excuse me as I have an early appointment in the morning.” He slid his chair back, stood, and left the table.
Back in his room, he sat on a chair near the window, gazing down at the people hustling back and forth in the street below. It was a never-ending river of humanity, each person dealing with his or her separate reality as it unfolded before them daily. Would it ever be possible to live like that again, to live happily in a state of illusion, a dream world? I’m not part of this living process anymore. I was, with Ming Li. I lived happily in a state of illusion. I lived in a dream world created by forces outside my own consciousness, and I have been awakened by the reality of my own existence. Being free of my father’s control is really just allowing myself to be weaned off the Carter family teat and giving up the illusion of being covered by a magical security umbrella. Ming Li understood that and knew it was time for me to grow up. Somewhere out there in the future, I’ll have to find my own woman, based on my own merits.
At that moment, a knock came at the door.