An Inch of Ashes (CHUNG KUO SERIES)

by David Wingrove

  Chian-ye swallowed and looked down, abashed. ‘Sao Mu,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Yes, Sao Mu... Or so it is for another three-quarters of an hour. Now go, Chian-ye, and do your duty. I’ll have these details for you by the morning, I promise you.’

  When Chian-ye was gone he locked the door, then came back to the terminal.

  Ben Shepherd... Now, what would Shih Novacek be doing wanting to know about the Shepherd boy? One thing was certain – it wasn’t a harmless enquiry. For no one, Han or Hung Mao, threw a million yuan away on such a small thing. Unless it wasn’t small.

  He turned, looking across at the tiny chip of the report where it lay on his desk, then turned back, his decision made. The report could wait. This was much more important. Whatever it was.

  Chapter 55

  CATHERINE

  ‘Would you mind if I sat with you?’

  He looked up at her, smiling, seeming to see her, to create her, for the very first time. She felt unnerved by that gaze. Its intensity was unexpected, unnatural. And yet he was smiling.

  ‘With me?’

  She was suddenly uncertain. There was only one chair at his table. The waiters had removed the others, isolating him. So that no one would approach him.

  She felt herself colouring. Her neck and her cheeks felt hot, and, after that first, startling contact, her eyes avoided his.

  ‘Well?’ he said, leaning back, his fingers resting lightly on the casing of the comset on the table in front of him.

  He seemed unreachable, and yet he was smiling.

  ‘I... I wanted...’ Her eyes reached out, making contact with his. So unfathomably deep they were. They held hers, drawing her out from herself. ‘... to sit with you.’

  But she was suddenly afraid; her body tensed against him.

  ‘Sit where?’ His hand lifted, the fingers opening in a gesture of emptiness. The smile grew broader. Then he relented. ‘All right. Get a chair.’

  She brought a chair and set it down across from him.

  ‘No. Closer.’ He indicated the space beside him. ‘I can’t talk across tables.’

  She nodded, setting the chair down where he indicated.

  ‘Better.’

  He was still watching her. His eyes had not left her face from the moment she had first spoken to him.

  Again she felt a flash of fear, pure fear, pass through her. He was like no one she had ever met. So... She shook her head, the merest suggestion of movement, and felt a shiver run along her spine. No, she had never felt like this before – so... helpless.

  ‘What do you do?’

  Not ‘Who are you?’ Nothing as formal as an introduction. Instead, this. Direct and unabashed. What do you do? Peeling away all surfaces.

  For the first time she smiled at him. ‘I... paint.’

  He nodded, his lips pinched together momentarily. Then he reached out and took her hands in his own, studying them, turning them over in his own.

  So firm and warm and fine, those hands. Her own lay caged in his, her fingers thinner, paler than those that held them.

  ‘Good hands,’ he said, but did not relinquish them. ‘Now, tell me what you wanted to talk to me about.’

  About hands, perhaps. Or a million other things. But the warmth, the simple warmth of his hands curled about her own, had robbed her of her voice.

  He looked down again, following her eyes. ‘What is it, Catherine?’

  She looked up sharply, searching his face, wondering how he knew her name.

  He watched her a moment longer, then gave a soft laugh. ‘There’s little you don’t pick up, sitting here. Voices carry.’

  ‘And you hear it all? Remember it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  His eyes were less fierce now, less predatory in their gaze, yet it still seemed as if he was staring at her; as if his wide-eyed look was drug-induced. But it no longer frightened her; no longer picked her up and held her there, suspended, soul-naked and vulnerable before it.

  Her fear of him subsided. The warmth of his hands...

  ‘What do you paint?’

  Until a moment ago it had seemed important. All-important. But now? She tilted her head, looking past him, aware of the shape of his head, the way he sat there, so easy, so comfortable in his body. Again, so unexpected.

  He laughed. Fine, open laughter. Enjoying the moment. She had not thought him capable of such laughter.

  ‘You’re a regular chatterbox, aren’t you? So eloquent...’

  He lifted his head as he uttered the last word, giving it a clipped, sophisticated sound that was designed to make her laugh.

  She laughed, enjoying his gentle mockery.

  ‘You had a reason for approaching me, I’m sure. But now you merely sit there, mute, glorious... and quite beautiful.’

  His voice had softened. His eyes were half-lidded now, like dark, occluded suns.

  He turned her hands within his own and held them, his fingers laid upon her wrists, tracing the blood’s quickening pulse.

  She looked up, surprised, then looked down at his left hand again, feeling the ridge there. A clear, defined line of skin, circling the wrist.

  ‘Your hand...?’

  ‘Is a hand,’ he said, lifting it to her face so that she could see it better. ‘An accident. When I was a child.’

  ‘Oh...’ Her fingers traced the line of flesh, a shiver passing through her. It was a fine, strong hand. She closed her hand on his, her fingers laced into his fingers, and looked at him.

  ‘Can I paint you?’

  His eyes widened, seeming to search her own for meanings. Then he smiled at her; the smile like a flower unfolding slowly to the sun. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’d like that.’

  It was not the best she had ever done, but it was good, the composition sound, the seated figure lifelike. She looked from the canvas to the reality, sat there on her bed, and smiled.

  ‘I’ve finished.’

  He looked up distractedly. ‘Finished?’

  She laughed. ‘The portrait, Ben. I’ve finished it.’

  ‘Ah...’ He stood up, stretching, then looked across at her again. ‘That was quick.’

  ‘Hardly quick. You’ve been sitting for me the best part of three hours.’

  ‘Three hours?’ He laughed strangely. ‘I’m sorry. I was miles away.’

  ‘Miles?’

  He smiled. ‘It’s nothing. Just an old word, that’s all...’

  She moved aside, letting him stand before the canvas, anxious to know what he thought of it. For a moment she looked at it anew, trying to see it for the first time, as he was seeing it. Then she looked back at him.

  He was frowning.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, feeling a pulse start in her throat.

  He put one hand out vaguely, indicating the canvas. ‘Where am I?’

  She gave a small laugh. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This...’ He lifted the picture from its mechanical easel and threw it down. ‘It’s shit, Catherine. Lifeless shit!’

  She stood there a moment, too shocked to say anything, unable to believe that he could act so badly, so... boorishly. She glared at him, furious at what he’d done, then bent down and picked the painting up. Where he had thrown it down the frame had snapped, damaging the bottom of the picture. It would be impossible to repair.

  She clutched the painting to her, her deep sense of hurt fuelling the anger she felt towards him.

  ‘Get out!’ she screamed at him. ‘Go on, get out of here, right now!’

  He turned away, seemingly unaffected by her outburst, then leaned over the bed, picking up the folder he had brought with him. She watched him, expecting him to leave, to go without a further word, but he turned back, facing her, offering the folder.

  ‘Here,’ he said, meeting her eyes calmly. ‘This is what I mean. This is the kind of thing you should be doing, not that crap you mistake for art.’

  She gave a laugh of astonishment. He was unbelievable.

  ‘You arrogant bastar
d.’

  She felt like slapping his face. Like smashing the canvas over his smug, self-complacent head.

  ‘Take it,’ he said, suddenly more forceful, his voice assuming an air of command. Then, strangely, he relented, his voice softening. ‘Just look. That’s all. And afterwards, if you can’t see what I mean, I’ll go. It’s just that I thought you were different from the rest. I thought...’

  He shrugged, then looked down at the folder again. It was a simple art folder – the kind you carried holo flats in – its jet-black cover unmarked.

  She hesitated, her eyes searching his face, looking for some further insult, but if anything he seemed subdued, disappointed in her. She frowned, then set the painting down.

  ‘Here,’ she said, taking the folder from him angrily. ‘You’ve got nerve, I’ll give you that.’

  He said nothing. He was watching her now, expectantly, those dark eyes of his seeming to catch and hold every last atom of her being, their gaze disconcerting her.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed, the folder in her lap, looking up at him through half-lidded eyes.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘Open it and see.’

  For a long time she was silent, her head down, her fingers tracing the shapes and forms that stared up at her from the sheaf of papers that had been inside the folder. Then she looked up at him, wide-eyed, all anger gone from her.

  ‘Who painted these?’

  He sat down beside her, taking the folder and flicking through to the first of the reproductions.

  ‘This here is by Caravaggio. His Supper At Emmaus, painted more than six hundred years ago. And this... this is Vermeer, painted almost sixty years later. He called it The Artist’s Studio. And this is by Rembrandt, his Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer, painted ten years earlier. And this is Laocoon by El Greco...’

  She put her hand on his, stopping him from turning the print over, staring at the stretched white forms that lay there on the page.

  ‘I’ve... I’ve never seen anything like these. They’re...’

  She shivered, then looked up at him, suddenly afraid.

  ‘Why have I never seen them? I mean, they’re beautiful. They’re real somehow...’

  She stopped, suddenly embarrassed, realizing now what he had meant. She had painted him in the traditional way – the only way she knew – but he had known something better.

  ‘What does it mean?’ she asked, her fingers tracing the pale, elongated forms. ‘Who are they?’

  He gave a small laugh, then shook his head. ‘The old man lying down in the centre, he’s Laocoon. He was the priest who warned the Trojans not to allow the wooden horse into Troy.’

  She gave a little shake of her head, then laughed. ‘Troy? Where was Troy? And what do you mean by wooden horse...?’

  He laughed, once again that openness, that strange naturalness of his surfacing unexpectedly. ‘It was an ancient tale. About a war that happened three thousand years ago between two small nation-states. A war that was fought over a woman.’

  ‘A woman?’

  ‘Yes...’ He looked away, a faint smile on his lips.

  ‘How strange. To fight a war over a woman.’ She turned the page. ‘And this?’

  Ben was silent for a time, simply staring at the painting, then he looked up at her again. ‘What do you make of it?’

  She gave a little shrug. ‘I don’t know. It’s different from the others. They’re all so... so dark and intense and brooding. But this... there’s such serenity there, such knowledge in those eyes.’

  ‘Yes...’ He laughed softly, surprised by her. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it? The painter was a man called Modigliani, and it was painted some three hundred years after those others. It’s called Last Love. The girl was his lover, a woman called Jeanne Hebuterne. When he died she threw herself from a fifth-floor window.’

  She looked up at him sharply, then looked back down at the painting. ‘Poor woman. I ...’ She hesitated, then turned, facing him. ‘But why, Ben? Why haven’t I heard of any of these painters? Why don’t they teach them in college?’

  He looked back at her. ‘Because they don’t exist. Not officially.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He paused, then shook his head. ‘No. It’s dangerous. I shouldn’t have shown you. Even to know about these...’

  He made to close the folder but she stopped him, flicking through the remaining paintings until she came to one near the end.

  ‘This,’ she said. ‘Why have I never seen this before?’

  Ben hesitated, staring at the print she was holding out to him. He had no need to look at it, it was imprinted so firmly in his memory, but he looked at it anyway, trying to see it fresh – free of its context – as she was seeing it.

  ‘That’s Da Vinci,’ he said softly. ‘Leonardo Da Vinci. It’s called The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and John the Baptist and it was painted exactly seven hundred and eight years ago.’

  She was silent a moment, studying the print, then she looked up at him again, her eyes pained now, demanding.

  ‘Yes, Ben, but why? And what do you mean, they don’t exist? These paintings exist, don’t they? And the men who painted them – they existed, didn’t they? Or is this all some kind of joke?’

  He shook his head, suddenly weary of it all. Was he to blame that these things had gone from the world? Was it his fault that the truth was kept from them? No. And yet he felt a dreadful burden of guilt, just knowing this. Or was it guilt? Wasn’t it something to do with the feeling he’d had ever since he’d come here, into the City? That feeling that only he was real? That awful feeling of distance from everything and everyone – as if, when he reached out to touch it all, it would dissolve, leaving him there in the midst of nothingness, falling back towards the earth.

  He heard the old man’s voice echo in his head. Ghosts? Why there’s nothing here but ghosts! and shivered.

  Was that why he had shown her these? To make some kind of connection? To reassure himself that he wasn’t the only living, breathing creature in this vast mirage – this house of cards?

  Maybe. But now he realized what he had done. He had committed her. Seduced her with these glimpses of another world. So what now? Should he back off and tell her to forget all that she’d seen, or should he take her one step further?

  He looked at her again, taking her hand, for that one brief moment balanced between the two courses that lay open to him. Then he smiled and squeezed her hand.

  ‘Have you ever read Wuthering Heights?’

  She hesitated, then nodded.

  ‘Good. Then I want you to read it again. But this time in the original version. As it was first written, three hundred and sixty years ago.’

  ‘But that’s...’ She laughed then looked down, disturbed by all of this. ‘What are you doing, Ben? Why are you showing me these things?’

  ‘To wake you up. To make you see all of this as I see it.’ He looked away from her, his eyes moving back to the broken painting on the easel.

  ‘I met someone yesterday. A Lu Nan Jen. You know, what they call an oven man. He painted, too. Not like you. He didn’t have your skill with a brush, your eye for classical composition. But he did have something you haven’t – something the whole of Han art hasn’t – and that’s vision. He could see clear through the forms of things. Through to the bone. He understood what made it all tick and set it down – clearly, powerfully. For himself. So that he could understand it all. When you came up to me in the Café Burgundy I had been sitting there thinking about him – thinking about what he’d done; how he’d spent his life trying to set down that vision, that dream of his. And I wondered suddenly what it would be like to wake that in someone. To make it blossom in the soul of someone who had the talent to set it down as it really ought to be set down. And then... there you were, and I thought...’

  She was watching him closely now, her head pushed forward, her lips parted in expectation.

  ‘You thought what?’


  He turned back, looking at her. ‘What are you doing this afternoon?’

  She sat back, disappointed. ‘Nothing. Why?’

  ‘Would you like to come with me somewhere? Somewhere you’ve never been before?’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘Where?’

  ‘Somewhere no one ever goes. Beneath here. Into the Clay.’

  Ben had hired a man to walk ten paces in front of them, his arc lamp held high, its fierce white light revealing the facades of old greystone buildings, their stark shapes edged in deepest shadow.

  Ben held a second, smaller lamp: a lightweight affair on a long, slender handle. Its light was gentler, casting a small, pearled pool of brightness about the walking couple.

  Catherine held his hand tightly, fascinated and afraid. She hadn’t known. She had thought it all destroyed. But here it was, preserved, deserted, left to the darkness; isolated from the savage wilderness surrounding it.

  As they walked, Ben’s voice filled the hollow darkness, speaking from memory, telling her the history of the place.

  ‘Unlike all previous architects, the man who designed City Earth made no accommodation for the old. The new was everything to him. Even that most simple of concessions – the destruction of the old – was, as far as possible, bypassed. The tallest buildings were destroyed, of course, but the rest was simply built over, as if they really had no further use for the past.’ He turned, looking back at her. ‘What we have now is not so much a new form of architecture as a new geological age. With City Earth we entered the Technozoic. All else was left behind us, in the Clay.’

  He paused, pointing across at a rounded dome the guide’s lamp had revealed. ‘Have you ever noticed how there are no domes in our City, even in the mansions of First Level? No. There are copies of Han architecture, of course, but of the old West there’s nothing. All that elegance of line has been replaced by harder shapes – hexagons, octagons, an interlacing of complex crystalline structures, as if the world had frozen over.’

  ‘But that...’ She pointed up at the curved roof of the dome. ‘That’s beautiful.’