Madrigal

by John Gardner

  ‘Yes.’ Straight. ‘Me too.’

  ‘I finish midnight. Ha’-past midnight perhaps. You pick me up at club? Truly I have many delights’.

  ‘No.’ Rivet firm. ‘You come here to me.’

  ‘Your hotel?’ Uncertainty behind the query.

  ‘You don’t mind, Mu-lan? Please.’

  ‘No. No. It’s just—oh, ver’ silly. Hotels embarrass me. You in big hotel?’

  ‘Bristol Kempinski.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Darling, don’t worry. It’s so big no one will notice. Just walk in as though you own the place. Looking like you do, as fabulous as you do, nobody’s going to ask questions. Straight up to Room 504. Fifth floor.’

  The big decision, the cross-roads, left, right, or straight on, being fought out in the Ritz Kursal phone booth. Unbearable pause with a sliding tributary of sweat moving slow motion from Boysie’s hairline down his right cheek.

  ‘I do anything for you, Boysie. I—I—’ Forcing words unfamiliar to her. At last they came out, calm and clear. ‘I need you.’

  ‘You’ll come?’

  ‘I come. After midnight.’

  ‘Soon. Make it soon.’

  ‘As soon as I get away from club.’ Realisation filtering. ‘Boysie, you called me “darling.”’

  ‘It’s natural.’

  ‘You good for me. I promise I be your woman. Your woman only.’

  A tickle of hesitation itched into the back of Boysie’s sex-fuddled mind. Lumbered. A clinger. He waited a moment, shrugged his shoulders, mentally breathing. ‘That’s show business. Relationships are show business. So it’s Chinese this time, and beautiful.’ A picture of Elizabeth paused vividly, but momentarily, in his thoughts before commitment. ‘After midnight then.’

  ‘Good. I be there, Boysie.’

  ‘See you, darling.’

  ‘Must go. Now must go.’ Again the restraint. ‘After midnight, Boysie—Boysie darling.’ The phone clicked off with the eternal finality of death. Slowly Boysie replaced the receiver, hand hard on the instrument, leaning forward, head down.

  ‘Yer don’t ’arf land yerself in it, chum, don’tcher?’ Griffin sat back in the armchair, superior eyes fixed on the back of Boysie’s neck. ‘Always get copped, don’tcher? Birds. Always land yer in the tom. Yer just arsk for it, Mr. Oakes.’

  ‘Fermez your flipping geiteau trou.’

  For the first time Griffin detected a note of true violence in Boysie’s voice. ‘That’s me boy,’ he said with a certain amount of pleasure.

  They ordered coffee, which eventually arrived with all the Germanic trimmings, and sat around talking spasmodically—Griffin doing most of the word-making. Prattling on, reminiscing about his favourite subjects: the old days as an undertaker and the more palmy times after taking over the construction work of death.

  At eleven-thirty Boysie got up. ‘Going back to my room now then, Mr. Griffin. Get tidied up for my guest.’

  ‘Mind if I get a breath o’ fresh air ’fore I start me vigil?’ Griffin was all smiles.

  ‘I’m paying you big dough to have you close.’ Boysie put out by Griffin’s reluctance to stay with the job.

  ‘Lock yer door and don’t let anyone in. ’Cept the bir—young lady, of course. Back in twenty minutes. Just want a breather. Walk around the block and ’ave a look at the sights.’

  Boysie gave a symbolic shrug.‘Make sure it’s only twenty minutes.’

  ‘Faithfully, I gives yer me word.’ Griffin raised two fingers in a V to his forelock. ‘Cubs’ honour.’ He approached the door. ‘Eh, they don’t ’arf go in for this ban-the-bomb stuff ’ere, don’t they?’

  ‘Ban the bomb?’ Boysie turned, sharply puzzled.

  ‘Yeah, sign’s a bit twisted up but must ’ave cost a packet, revolvin’ on topper that big building.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Impatient.

  ‘That bloody great ban-the-bomb sign twirling on topper that place near the bombed-out church down the bottom of the Kurfürsten-whatname. Thing they always use in them spy pichers.’

  ‘Ban the Bomb.’ Razor sarcasm. ‘That’s the blooming Mercedes-Benz building. The Merc symbol is the whirlygig. Ban the bomb.’ Contemptuous.

  Boysie followed Griffin’s instructions and locked the door of 504 on return, checked that the telephone was off the hook, looked under the bed and in the wardrobe, then tested the window catches. Shave, shower, and liberal application of Brut (sales slogan—After Shave, After Shower, After Everything). ‘Before everything,’ he murmured, between humming snatches of ‘Mack the Knife.’ ‘Be prepared,’ he said loudly, looking into the mirror—the mental process set off by Griffin’s previous Cub salute. Grey silk pyjamas with red piping by Budd, slippers on and a shuffle through to the bedroom, picking up the short black quilted smoking jacket. As he started to swing it on, Boysie caught a glimpse of himself in the wardrobe mirror; quick thought that the grey streaks had become more prominent on the sides of his hair. Boysie grinned, slid his arms into the jacket sleeves, then took the risk of using the phone to order a couple of Moet ’59 magnums. After leaving the telephone off the hook again, he carefully inspected the murderous-looking P38, making sure it was loaded with safety catch on, and slipped the weapon within easy reach under the bed. He stretched out full length and checked the time. Ten minutes past midnight. At twenty past the champagne arrived, and at two minutes after the half hour (he was lying with eyes cemented to the Navitimer) came a low tapping on the door. Boysie moved like a leopard, slowed as he reached the door, pausing to compose himself.

  ‘Who is it?’ Lips close to the keyhole.

  ‘Me. Mu-lan. Boysie?’ The unmistakable accent.

  She looked even more desirable than his memory recalled. The shining pitch of hair, light striking off the olive complexion of her oval face, figure unbelievable under the tight green and gold cheongsham. At the club Boysie had only briefly noticed her eyes. Under the pencil-slim arches of eyebrow the almond pupils seemed deeper than he remembered. Now they held him with utter adoration, deep, boring through his own eyes, making contact with the brain neutrons. The signals came through at maximum strength, flashing messages old as time to all nerve centres and organs. Mu-lan moved quietly into the room and shut the door behind her.

  ‘Oh, Boysie, it is so good, so good to see you ’gain.’

  It was all she said before her arms twined like luscious baby boa constrictors round his neck. Her mouth closed on Boysie’s in the kiss of eternal life with variations, bodies so close they seemed to be dissolving into each other. The kiss lasted a full two minutes, then a break, but still holding close, smooth skin of cheek upon cheek, Mu-lan’s heavy breathing in Boysie’s ear, bellies and things moving, writhing, trying to intermingle. At last they broke away. Boysie held her shoulders, stepping away and looking at her, gulping the form, face, and eyes in massive brainfuls. The eyes, the almond eyes, plunging into his soul. (Was it Rupert Brooke? He was not talking about eyes, but what was the line? ‘Granchester?’ The village schoolroom smelling of chalk and flora collected on nature rambles. A twelve-year-old Boysie standing up and reciting the previous night’s homework. Brooke’s ‘Granchester.’ A line somewhere? The line? Mu-lan’s eyes above the mouth slightly parted in a gasp of sensuality. But the eyes. Brooke? Coming. Coming. Not about eyes. Not even almond eyes. Green. Water. Yes. Beside the river make for you—that’s it—A tunnel of green gloom, and sleep/Deeply above; and green and deep/The stream mysteriously glides beneath,/ Green as a dream and deep as death. Change it, and there were Mu-lan’s eyes. Almond as a dream and deep as death. Sorry, Rupie baby, but they were Mu-lan’s eyes you were writing about, not just if there was still honey for tea, and the church clock standing at two-fifty.)

  ‘Oh, Boysie. It is so good to be with you. So, so good.’ She broke his train of consciousness—which was heading on to a branch line anyway.

  ‘You don’t know how good it is to see you, little Chinese Mu-lan Tchen.’ As he said it, Boysie menta
lly noted that he must relock the door.

  ‘I be your woman? Yes?’

  ‘My woman.’ Affirmative.

  ‘What the English boys call them? Like me? Birds. I be your bird, Boysie.’

  Boysie smiled, unforced; for a change he was not putting on the big act, the massive seductive sophist. ‘Okay. My Chinese bird. My Chinese pigeon.’

  ‘Baak gup.’

  ‘Back up?’

  Tinkle of stereo laughter. ‘Baak gup. Chinese for pigeon.’

  ‘Okay, Mu-lan. Baak gup. Drink?’

  ‘Must we, my so good Boysie?’

  ‘Champagne.’

  ‘Oh well.’ Mu-lan’s bell of joy again.

  They finished one magnum of the Moet, talking, verbally making love. There was joy, sentimentality, nostalgia, fear for the future, and the divine feeling of being ‘a little lower than the angels.’ Boysie had no qualms about Elizabeth. Now she seemed cold, unreal, far away and never been when you put her against this throbbing live girl. Mu-lan finished the dregs in her last glass of champagne and stretched a hand towards Boysie’s thigh. The fingers stroked like a warm beach breeze, zephyrised. ‘You ge’ into bed, Boysie. I clean up, then come to you. Show what kin’ o’ woman I be to you.’

  Boysie reached out for her, but Mu-lan had moved away with a fast swerve from the bed. The laugh again. ‘I show you what Chinese woman can do for man.’

  In spite of himself, Boysie was burning hot, trembling. Was this it? How many had he had? Fourscore and ten? Christ, double that; treble it and think of the number you first thought of. If he sat for a day making a list he would never get them all down. Boysie took off the jacket and hoisted himself between the sheets. Some he could remember, would never forget. The first—you always remember the first. Sixteen years old, a haystack, pain and tears. Iris he would not forget, nor Chicory Triplehouse. Others he would rather not even think about. Water running from behind the bathroom door. The water stopped. Silence. The long wait and then the door opening.

  She had unpinned her hair so that it hung, a black waterfall, down to the velvet shoulders. Boysie could hear his heart and feel the quiver run from ears to thighs. Mu-lan’s figure was even more perfect than he had imagined when he last saw her at the club. She walked slowly towards the bed, upright and without the overlay of conscious sex which was part of her strip trade onstage.

  ‘Am I right for you?’ Husky. The tone did not deny the truth that she really did need him. ‘They tell me men like their girls partly dressed.’ She wore only a milk-white brassiere and tight plain briefs, nylon and transparent.

  ‘Quickly.’ All Boysie could force from his throat.

  She climbed into the bed her left hand deftly pressing the table-lamp switch. Darkness and two bodies close. The brassiere off, briefs slowly pulled down, while Mu-lan’s fingers, moving with the delicate touch of apple blossom drawn over flesh, undid buttons and tugged gently at the pyjama cord. ‘Let me, Boysie. Lie still. I give you all a man could want.’

  Fingers slid between twin pairs of thighs, lips and tongues spun and twisted, stroked and hardened. Boysie felt as though a tightly wound spring, low between his legs, had been released. Now they were the same person. Two into one. One being vibrating, hard, panting, murmuring, the creak of the bed, the whispered words, and the moaning shudder.

  Three times it happened, and Boysie, the experienced, the know-all-about-it Boysie, the sexual expert, became conscious of the terrifying truth that until this moment he had known nothing at all. After the third time they just lay whispering, wrapped, arms and legs twisted in a fantastic human sculpture. And so into the tranquil, satisfied, dreamless sleep, cushioned by exhausted joy.

  *

  The shriek slashed through Boysie’s dark unconsciousness. Horror, sudden, like a cut-throat razor slicing across the carotid artery. Again and again. Boysie came out of the drifting pleasure of sleep with a lightning flash to full consciousness. Mechanically he turned towards Mu-lan. The beautiful almond eyes were wise with fear, looking beyond him with mouth half open to emit the next scream. Everything happened quickly. Boysie swivelled in the bed, his hand moving down for the P38. As he turned he caught an impression of a figure; hand, fingers together, thumb extended, bearing down on Mu-lan’s mouth to stifle the oncoming scream. From somewhere else another hand grasped Boysie’s wrist. He was off balance but still managed to pull down with force, then up quickly, throwing his wrist away from the leverage and the clamped fingers. The action worked. The grip was released and a short body fell heavily against the bed. Boysie sprang on to the floor—a crouched position, flexed to take off against the attacker. His eyes did a fast circle of the room. The answer came back negative. To fight back meant complete defeat.

  There were four of them, all small, with Eastern faces, almost certainly Chinese. One held Mu-lan, struggling, against her pillow. Boysie’s man was making a quick recovery from the bed; another leaned against the door, arms folded. The fourth was about five paces from the bed to Boysie’s right; he held a heavy automatic with its dangerous circular eye centrally positioned on Boysie’s forehead.

  Boysie’s original assailant was back on his feet. He also had a gun out. Nausea rose unpleasantly from Boysie’s esophagus; the old shakes setting in. The familiar trouble. Christ. He clenched his teeth, mind fumbling for the next move. But the brain would not function on an aggressive line. Typically, Boysie looked from one automatic pistol to the other. Identical. Probably the Chinese version of the Russian Tokarev 51. Bloody hell, what does it matter? What to do? Thoughts were side-tracking, branching off into inconsequentialities.

  The Chinese whom Boysie had thrown spoke. ‘Mr. Oakes, your friend Mr. Warren wishes to see you. You are to come with us.’ Voice and face both dead as stiffs on marble slabs.

  Boysie did not reply. He looked from one man to the other in turn. All wore grey suits and similar raincoats. Each had the same expression. Callousness combined with deadly efficiency.

  The leader turned his head slightly towards the operator holding Mu-lan’s head on to the pillow. ‘La.’ Almost an aside, nodding towards the struggling figure. Mu-lan’s captor made an almost imperceptible chop with his right hand, landing behind the girl’s left ear. Mu-lan gave a minute grunt and went limp.

  Boysie straightened and began to move.

  ‘No, Mr. Oakes. Stop.’

  Boysie stopped. ‘If you’ve—’

  ‘Killed her? No. Unconscious for...?’ He looked questioningly towards the man who had struck Mu-lan. ‘To mo?’

  ‘One hour, comrade,’ his partner answered in English. ‘One hour,’ repeated the leader, irritated at being shown up.

  Boysie looked at each of the men in turn. Impossible to tell them apart. Saffron quadruplets.

  ‘Now you get dressed.’ Movement of the automatic pistol.

  Boysie, mind fluctuating again, thought the guy spoke English with frightening accuracy. Get dressed? What to do? Obedience. The only answer. Then wait for his chance. Concentration now back on its normal narrow-gauge track; the Chinese were either going to kill or abduct him. Whichever, it entailed getting him out of the hotel. Slipping them in the process? Maybe. Chance anyway.

  As he walked to the bathroom (picking up clothes on the way) with one of the intruders close behind, Boysie felt a surge of rage against Griffin. What the hell was he up to? Keeping an eye on him. Bodyguard. Boysie guard. That was the job. Well-paid job. Griffin was on to the Nelson touch. (‘The Admiral clapped his telescope to his blind eye and said, “I see no something signal.”’ Or words like that.)

  Boysie took his time dressing.

  ‘No need to shave,’ the Chinese said when Boysie picked up his razor.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to slice myself. Harry Caraway or whatever you call it.’

  ‘Hara-kiri is Japanese suicide custom. We Chinese.’ This one was not as perfect with the Anglo-Saxon as his chief.

  Boysie altered to the pompous frequency as he started to lather his face.
‘The British soldier is taught to shave daily in the field. I presume we are in the field—a bog rather than a meadow, I admit.’

  The stocky Chinese was not following Boysie’s ham humour but took no action as the shaving progressed. He looked on indifferently while Boysie donned clean underwear, light grey shirt, favourite Oleg Cassini tie, and the dark green worsted. To set the effect there were his most provocative cuff-links—the ones with two pairs of feet, one set pointing upwards wide apart, and the others close together, centred downwards.

  Mu-lan still lay unconscious, breathing deeply, when they returned to the bedroom. The four men’s faces were unchanged. No fraction of humour. Only the deadly mask quality. There was something minutely different about the room that took a minute to figure. The small writing table had been pulled centrally into the space between bed and window, with a stand chair placed in front. The table was set for one—a deep soup plate and spoon. There was extra baggage also, unnoticed before: a bulky leather briefcase.

  The commander of the party spoke. ‘Mr. Oakes, we have a long journey. You have not had breakfast?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you need some sustenance.’ Turning to the man still leaning against the door, ‘Pong.’

  The lounger straightened up.

  ‘Remiss of me, Mr. Oakes.’ The party boss sounded polite though the eyes remained enigmatic. ‘Very remiss of me. I have not introduced my colleagues. ‘This—’ hand towards the doorman—‘is Mr. Pong.’

  And I thought I had troubles with my initials, thought Boysie.

  The leader continued, indicating the interloping bathroom guard. ‘Mr. P’ao Shou. The other gentleman is Mr. Ch’ing Suan. I am Li Chi.’

  ‘Hi.’ Boysie holding back latent fear, raising his right hand in a fast circle of greeting. ‘And Mr. Warren wants to see me?’

  ‘Among others. General Kuan Hsi Shi, our director, wishes to talk to you also.’

  ‘Director?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of the Jen Chia? Your espionage network?’

  ‘Perceptive, Mr. Oakes. The Jen Chia.’ Nod.