Jade Woman l-12

by Jonathan Gash

  “Right,” I agreed. I saw five more lepers on rollers on the way to the Star Ferry, none of them mine.

  10

  « ^ »

  MY big day. Being a pushover’s the hardest thing on earth. It’s also a very uncertain state. Having always been one, I’ve learned that when in doubt, debt, or danger, acquiesce as best you can. Give in, no questions asked. My bathhouse experience taught me that in Hong Kong I was out of my league. Henceforth my compliance would be total. I agreed with everything Steerforth said, even laughed at his jokes. I was delighted when he said we would lunch with two lady friends. Our talk became animated.

  “Bathhouses?” he answered me. “Yes, quite an institution. Better here than Singapore and Taiwan.”

  “Is there no difficulty getting staff?” I asked, an innocent.

  “Money,” he replied.

  The ferry took us over the harbor to Hong Kong Island. Only a few furlongs, but fascinating. I owned up to that I’d thought “Hong Kong” was one discreet geographical blob, not a mass of islands and a peninsula. “Beautiful islands,” Steerforth joked, me laughing obediently, “and ugly Kowloon.”

  As our ferry glided out between the junks and lighters, the depredations became obvious. Behind us, Kowloon Peninsula was crammed with buildings that seemed to struggle, teetering for toespace. The hills behind the level harborside were scalped like boiled eggs at breakfast, for gray-white skyscrapers and apartment buildings. It was a burgeoning building site, a prolific demented patch where mankind had subjugated the environment. Ahead, though, was prettiness of color and form. Green hills, skyscrapers in shapely clusters, smaller enclaves of white buildings dotting all the way up the mountains. In the distance, green wooded islands on an opal sea. Scenery under glass.

  “To the right, Lovejoy, the Pearl River and China.”

  A flock of junks with russet insect-wing sails stood out on the vague horizon. Steerforth was amused by my interest.

  “Fishing junks?” His grin puzzled me.

  “Some.” That reply took a long hesitation.

  He approved of my reticence and indicated different buildings as we came into the wharf. I rather thought he overdid this, lecturing as if I were an idiot. We went left by the grandly dated Post Office. Restored to health, my interest was back.

  “Diamond shops?” I was asking every few inches. “Gold shops?” I’d never heard of either, not as simple little shops of the sort we were passing. Some were minute, dinky little places hardly one doorway wide. Others were giant stores with stunning visual lightscaped windows.

  “Hong Kong has shops for everything, Lovejoy. Pretty quiet so early. This,” he announced demonstratively, “is Big Horse Road, HK’s Rotten Row of olden days.”

  Every inch of space was used. As the road narrowed, signs receded upwards and changed to the vertical. Businesses simply soared from ground level and hung out vaster, more fascinatingly illuminated shingles than competitors. We were still in a traffic tangle, but now the road curved. Shops crowded the pavements and became homelier. Vegetables, spices, grocery produce in boxes or hanging from shop lintels, meats adangle—as always, my ultimate ghastliness—and here and there among the crowds the alarming spectacle of an armed Sikh, shotgun aslant, casually sitting at a bank entrance. And markets everywhere. To the right, cramped streets sloped down to the harbor. To the left, as we meandered along the tramlines through sudden dense markets of hawkers’ barrows, the streets turned abruptly into flights of steps careering upwards into a bluish mist of domestic smoke, clouds of washing on poles, and climbing. Hong Kong had the knack of building where others wouldn’t dare.

  Affluence isn’t affluence at all. Hong Kong is the benchmark; everybody else’s affluence is mere tat. Until you’ve experienced that perfume-washed air as polarized glass doors embrace you into a luxury hotel’s plush interior, you’ve only had a dud replica of the real thing.

  Steerforth said it was a hotel, but it fooled me. Palace, yes. But hotel? With serial chandeliers bigger than my entire cottage? With costly marble floors, and gold—that’s g-o-l-d, not merely gilded—fittings in the washbasins, and demure almond-eyed hostesses in ultra-costly hand-tailoreds, and genuine silk hangings and original expressionist paintings hanging in Reception, and the hotel’s logo in diamonds on the wall and backwards… it reeled my cortex. I was the cheapest item there, and this costly world knew it. I’d have hit Des Voeux Road with my shoulder had it not been for Steerforth.

  He had a small leather case. He gave it to me as we entered the foyer, and murmured,

  “Be subservient at all times, okay?”

  “Er, what exactly—?”

  In we swept, Steerforth abruptly squeaky-voiced and querulous, demanding information from the smiling beauties and commanding me to get the lift. Swiftly I got the idea: Clearly I must act the hired help, to boost his status in this pricey arena. I’ve served my apprenticeship in groveling, so bowed and scraped and let him go first and all that. He’d rescued me, after all. And we were entering a ballroom—

  —with antiques.

  I heard myself give out a yelp that made the nearest strollers turn sharply but I couldn’t help it. Even in this wealthy coolth my breath stopped. Steerforth made an angry gesture, come on and stop mucking about. With difficulty I obeyed. We progressed slowly round the layout. I was in heaven. The antiques were sumptuous.

  “Lovejoy.” Steerforth said loudly, prodding me. “Take notes.”

  “Eh?” The last time I’d taken notes I’d been nine. “Er, right, sir,” I gave back, but uneasily. He was a nut. Nobody in their senses says this sort of thing on viewing day, because it’s chucking money away. I accepted a pen and pad from a page boy and pretended to scribble. Steerforth, the nerk, breezed ahead, ostentatiously pausing to admire his reflection in the wall mirrors every so often. I clocked the room.

  Furniture abounded, mostly European—Dutch, English. Ceramics flourished, Chinese and some Japanese.

  Some Nabeshima porcelains were perfect, real prizes with their brilliant slices of color and miniature decoration. Clockwork mechanisms seemed big in Hong Kong, and Persian carpets were a feature. Marveling at where the hell they’d obtained the lot from, and goggling at a score of Victorian and pre-Victorian paintings, I was in a transport of delight.

  The forty or fifty viewers were beautiful people. By this I mean they were pointedly exhibiting their wealth. About half were Caucasians, half Asian, Americans and Chinese predominating. Uniformed minions stood about. Closed-circuit cameras doing slow scans from the exit lintels. Ah well, theft never crossed my mind.

  “Lovejoy.” Steerforth had paused beside an ornate rosewood bureau, Indonesian about 1905 or so. He whispered, “Look for something nobody’d spot for price. Know what I mean?”

  “No, sir,” I whispered back, thinking, I don’t believe this. We were in the most beautifully lit, most carefully guarded, mass of exquisite antiques I’d seen for ages, and here we were like Bill Sikes and Fagin hatching plots.

  “You know what I mean,” he said angrily. “Spot the real antiques. You did it in the fucking market.”

  “Practically everything’s honest,” I whispered. Shoddy manservant or not, I was becoming narked. “And most of these viewers are in the know.” I’d already tagged one portly gentleman from a wealthy New York syndicate. I’d once seen him blithely overbid a quarter of a million for a tiny James I miniature portrait by a pretty ropy if unknown artist.

  “They are?” He was thunderstruck and drew away to eye me. I knew what he was thinking: Is Lovejoy having me on, for his own neffie purposes?

  “Of course.” I was impatient. “Just look at them. Everybody already has catalogs coded up. They’re pros. They’ll have reps, barkers, scouts in every major capital on earth.

  They’re international rings, syndicates, decks, shedders, rollers. They could buy and sell both of us without caring if we’re tax-deductible.”

  He wilted, and I mean really sagged, the jaw-drop and everything. I wa
s suddenly sorry for him. I knew how he felt. I’d been there a thousand times. It’s worse every trip.

  “Then what’s the good, Lovejoy?” he said, utterly broken. “I was hoping for percentage.”

  “Oh, that’s all right.” I was relieved. “For a second I thought you were barmy.”

  “What do you mean?” Poor chap. I smiled. Out there he was Hong Kong’s king survivor.

  In here he was helpless. With me it was the reverse. In the hot streets I’d had a grim time lasting a bare two days. In here I was the natural.

  I spoke kindly. “Tell me frankly what we’re up to, Steerforth, and I promise to do my damnedest. Honest to God.”

  We retired from that opulent ballroom and went to sit on a velvet splendor where a pianist trilled perfect trills and fountains splashed. Steerforth ordered orange juice for me, a triple whiskey for himself. I’d already said my piece, so nodded for him to launch out. He waited until a couple of English floral hats strolled past, obviously heading for tea with the Governor, then cleared his throat round a quick gulp.

  “There’s a ship, Lovejoy. A convention of antiquers is in, spending on antiques like there’s no tomorrow. The biggest syndicate is called Brookers Gelman.”

  Aha, I thought, but did not say.

  “Hong Kong lives on money, Lovejoy. One main trick is information. About anything.

  Deals, contracts, visiting buyers. Legal or otherwise, HK doesn’t give a damn. As long as the money clock goes round.”

  “What info? And for whom?”

  “Info about any especially good antique buy. Or a fake that’d fool experts. I sell info.”

  He wasn’t looking at me. Honesty was having a rough time in Steerforth’s soul. “Sell…

  in a sort of way.”

  So the details were shaky. What else was new? “Fine,” I said to encourage. A group of Japanese moved garrulously into the viewing room. “To seller or buyer?”

  “Buyers.” Plural. Another aha.

  Now I knew what to look for. “Right. In we go. Oh, one thing,” I said apologetically as we made a move. “Shtum, eh? Say nothing. Antiques is a difficult-enough game as it is without blabbing to the universe.”

  “Can we do it, Lovejoy?” I could see he’d lost heart.

  “Can?” I was quite touched. “No question, mate. Easy. We only want a brilliant fake, or a genuine antique so unusual that nobody’ll quite believe it’s not a fake. Right?”

  “Er, well…”

  Some hours are golden. They stay with you like a past love. This is why if you’ve ever loved—and I don’t mean just had a fond moment—you can never be alone ever after.

  Oh, she may wed another, be living round the corner with a wrestling champ, have vanished beyond your ken. But you are part of each other for ever and ever. Antiques share in that creative love, so confer the same character on your soul. This is why that single hour was miraculous to me. It gave me back life in a way that no grub or money ever could. All right, so I was a mere down-at-heel interloper—I’d been that before. But I floated into that paradise with joy, keeping my feet on the ground for the sake of appearances.

  After a period of ecstasyblissrapture—there being no word in any language —my world was in order. “I’ve narrowed us down to four items,” I told Steerforth.

  A surprise to me was the amount of Russian antiques (Why? Russia’s been stuck to China for millennia.) I explained, Steerforth nodding anxious attention.

  “Item eighty-one. That kokoshnik hat. You see it?” Kokoshniks vary in different regions, but this was a beauty. Merchants’ wives wore them, tubed up on the head. It was unusual, though encrusted with pearls as normal, because it was undercouched with gold thread. Its perfection shook me as I touched it. A straight piece of old Russia, yes, but so very intricately done it denoted exalted rank. Odd. Steerforth needed another whiskey to take it all in. With a little less brain he’d have made an antique dealer.

  “Just a minute, Lovejoy, er—”

  “Look, James.” Exasperated serf as I was, I spoke patiently. “Russian nobility didn’t wear your trad garb. A Russian princess wouldn’t be seen dead in an ordinary kokoshnik. That was for Mrs. Babushka and upstart kulaks. Only European haute couture would do for lineage ladies. This kokoshnik is almost unbelievably crafted.

  Never mind the real pearls and honest gold; its maker had miraculous skill. It shrieks eighteenth century.” I waited for an outburst of astonishment. Zilch.

  “Yes?” he said, waiting.

  Some folk just can’t. I sighed, drove the nail home. “Your average Russian granny didn’t nip down to the court goldsmith for a nifty hat, James. Nor did they ape their betters. But the royals sometimes—”

  “Hey!” he exclaimed at last, thank God. “I’ve got it! What if a high-born had it made, say, for a fancy dress! I mean, like our nobles dressing up as peasants, masked balls and that!”

  He was so thrilled at having invented the wheel, I let him rabbit on a few seconds while I marveled at mankind’s inability to see the obvious. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t thought that, but sometimes I’m really thick without trying. I cleared my throat to get on. If I dragged this nerk on all fours, we’d finish in some time warp.

  “—So I picked it because the big dealers might think it a fake and not bid. That means it’ll go for a tenth of true price. The second is—”

  “Great! Half a sec!” He was scribbling delightedly on a bit of hotel notepa-per. “Item eight-one. Genuine. Bid up to—”

  “Shhh.” A group of Chinese were strolling towards the bar and tourists were on the stairs. All were in earshot. I waited until it was safe. “There’s a fake pagan polychrome in the end cabinet which’ll fool most dealers. Lot one-five-oh.” I explained there are two main sorts of these north German brooches. Both are usually circular, but one type is light-years ahead of the other in beauty. And fakers always go for best, as we say in the trade.

  This brooch was definitely luxury class. Its base plate was gold. On this, small cells had been cleverly gold-worked up to receive flat-cut stones and glass, with minute filigree-wire panels ornamenting the interstices and rim. In a final flourish the faker had followed the ancient practice by laying a fragment of pattern-stamped silver foil to reflect light, giving an alluring zest to the brooch’s appearance. The stones were mostly garnets and colored glass, which was fine by me, because it had been fine by the ancient goldsmiths. A lovely, lovely fake. I could have eaten the damned thing.

  “The mundane type of brooch is stamped out of one piece of metal and you only get garnets, not often colored glass. The stones in these have a border ring of black niello.

  People say the Scythians started these cellular brooches, then the Black Sea Gothic lot did it, then the Hungarians…”

  Talk to the wall. He wasn’t listening, just scribbling eagerly. “Piece of old jewelry, reddish-gold, round.”

  No use. I’d tried. “Lot three-three-two,” I said curtly. “An English George the Third necessaire, fake. And a complete set of Jesuitware, lovely fakery, item four hundred.

  Okay?”

  “Got it!” he said, thrilled. “How do you spell necessaire?”

  To think I’d almost shown him the French clockwork automaton, how it actually smoked its hookah and drank its coffee; and the hideous but genuine Venetian-glass epergne which was sure to go for a fortune; and the blue-dash charger, tinglazed in England before 1800, which would set the tills ringing; and the mind-blowing meticulous Japanese porcelains in those absolute colors that have never been equaled—and it made me sick. All right, so he’d rescued me from being arrested. But that didn’t entitle him to take liberties by treating antiques as if they were just so much merchandise.

  “Right, Lovejoy! We’ve done a good job there, eh?”

  “If you say so,” I said, cold.

  We left the hotel, Steerforth sauntering slightly ahead and Lovejoy the manservant trogging meekly behind. Actually not as meekly as all that: more terrified and head poundin
g, because as the huge glass doors hissed to behind us I made the invariable mistake of the cold-climate man in the subtropics, reflexly turning to shut the automatic door by hand.

  And in the long wall mirror’s reflection I saw Sim. No good saying I didn’t, that it was all imagination, because I did and it wasn’t. He was standing by an open office doorway.

  The office was peopled and well-lit. And among them was the jade woman, Ling Ling. I stumbled after Steerforth, stupefied. The scene was for all the world in tableau like an oriental version of The Last Supper, a long table and the people arranged down its length and Ling Ling gazing. No smiles. No movement. They’d all been staring motionlessly towards the foyer entrance.

  So what? So there was only one person in the grand porch at that very moment and that was me. They were staring intently at me. That’s what’s what.

  11

  « ^ »

  THE Digga Dig restaurant’s interior was a sumptuous jungle of subdued lighting, velvet panels. Music played somewhere. One wall unbelievably was a slow waterfall, seeming a shower of diamonds. Obediently I sat as Steerforth bade. Elegant people floated in the gloaming. It was pure affluence, every alcove a luxury seduction.

  An odd incident stuck in my mind. We passed a frail gray lady alone at a table. She raised her eyes as we approached and asked for a light. It took nerve. Her voice was shaking, the cigarette wobbling.

  “Sorry, love. I don’t smoke. I’ll get you one—”

  A waiter sprang from nowhere with a lighter. To my surprise she shook her head and sat there, bowed, quivering, solitary. Even her face seemed gray, yet she couldn’t be forty. Sensing a fellow dud I would have said hello or something, but Steerforth hustled me on, whispering.