Noble House by James Clavell
He had laughed. “Have you any doubt? I take him over, lock, stock and box at the races.”
“Ah, you really want that, don’t you?”
“Oh yes. Oh yes, that represents victory. He and his forebears have kept me and mine out. Of course I want that.”
I wonder if I could make a deal with Ian, she had thought absently. Wonder if I could get the tai-pan to allow Quillan a box, his own box, and help make him a steward. Crazy for these two to be like bulls in a china shop—there’s more than enough room for both. Ian owes me a favor if Murtagh delivers.
Her heart fluttered and she wondered what had happened with Murtagh and the bank, and if the answer was yes, what Quillan would do.
And where is Linc? Is he with Orlanda, in her arms, dreaming the afternoon away?
She curled up again on the stern and closed her eyes. The salt air and the throb of the engines and the motion through the sea put her to sleep. Her sleep was dreamless, womblike, and in a few minutes she awoke refreshed. Gornt was sitting opposite her now, watching her. They were alone again, the Cantonese captain at the wheel.
“You have a nice sleeping face,” he said.
“Thank you.” She moved and rested on one elbow. “You’re a strange man. Part devil, part prince, compassionate one minute, ruthless the next. That was a wonderful thing you did for Peter.”
He just smiled and waited, his eyes strangely and pleasantly challenging.
“Linc’s … I think Linc’s smitten with Orlanda,” she said without thinking and saw a shadow go over him.
“Oh?”
“Yes.” She waited but he said nothing, just watched her. Pushed by the silence, she added involuntarily, “I think she’s smitten with him.” Again a long silence. “Quillan, is that part of a plan?”
He laughed softly and she felt his dominance. “Ah, Ciranoush, you’re the strange one. I don—”
“Will you call me Casey? Please? Ciranoush is not right.”
“But I don’t like Casey. May I use Kamalian?”
“Casey.”
“What about Ciranoush today, Casey tomorrow, Kamalian for Tuesday dinner? That’s when we close the deal. Eh?”
Her guards came up without thinking. “That’s up to Linc.”
“You’re not tai-pan of Par-Con?”
“No. No, I’ll never be that.”
He laughed. Then he said, “Then let’s make it Ciranoush today, Casey tomorrow and the hell with Tuesday?”
“All right!” she said, warmed by him.
“Good. Now as to Orlanda and Linc,” he said, his voice gentle. “That’s up to them and I never discuss the affairs of others with others, even a lady. Never. That’s not playing the game. If you’re asking if I’ve some devious plot, using her against Linc or you and Par-Con, that’s ridiculous.” Again he smiled. “I’ve always noticed that ladies manipulate men, not the other way around.”
“Dreamer!”
“One question deserves another: Are you and Linc lovers?”
“No. Not in the conventional sense, but yes I love him.”
“Ah, then are you going to marry?”
“Perhaps.” Again she shifted and she saw his eyes move over her. Her hands pulled the blanket closer around her, her heart beating nicely, very conscious of him as she knew he was conscious of her. “But I don’t discuss my affairs with another man,” she said with a smile. “That’s not playing the game either.”
Gornt reached out and touched her lightly. “I agree, Ciranoush.”
The Sea Witch came out of the breakwater into the harbor waves, Kowloon ahead. She sat up and turned to watch the Island and the Peak, most of it cloud covered. “It’s so beautiful.”
“The south coast of Hong Kong’s grand around Shek-O, Repulse Bay. I’ve a place at Shek-O. Would you like to see the boat now?”
“Yes, yes I’d like that.”
He took her forward first. The cabins were neat, no sign of having been used. Each had shower stalls and a toilet. A small general cabin served them all. “We’re rather popular with ladies at the moment because they can shower to their hearts’ content. The water shortage does have advantages.”
“I’ll bet,” she said, carried along by his joviality.
Aft, separate from the rest of the boat, was the master cabin. Big double bed. Neat, tidy and inviting.
Her heart was sounding loud in her ears now, and when he casually closed the cabin door and put his hand on her waist she did not back off. He came closer. She had never kissed a man with a beard before. Gornt’s body was hard against hers and it felt good to her, her breath picking up tempo, his lips firm and cigar tasting. Most of her whispered: Go, let go, and most of her said, No, don’t, and all of her felt sensual in his arms, too good.
What about Linc?
The question barreled into her mind like never before and all at once her mind cleared and, carried along by his sensuality, she knew for the first time with absolute clarity that it was Linc she wanted, not Par-Con or power if that had to be the choice. Yes, it’s Linc, just Linc, and tonight I’ll cancel our deal. Tonight I’ll offer to cancel.
“Now’s not the time,” she whispered, her voice throaty.
“What?”
“No, not now. We can’t, sorry.” She reached up and kissed him lightly on the lips, talking through the kisses, “Not now, my dear, sorry, but we can’t, not now. Tuesday, perhaps Tuesday …”
He held her away from him and she saw his dark eyes searching her. She held her gaze as long as she could, then buried her head against his chest and held him tenderly, still enjoying the closeness, sure that she was safe now, and that he was convinced. That was a close one, she thought weakly, her knees feeling strange, all of her pulsating. I was almost gone then and that wouldn’t have been good, good for me or Linc or him.
It would have been good for him, she thought strangely.
Her heart was pounding as she rested against him, waiting, recouping, confident in a moment—with warmth and gentleness and the promise of next week—he would say, “Let’s go back on deck.”
Then all at once she felt his arms tighten around her and before she knew what was happening she was on the bed, his kisses strong and his hands wandering. She began to fight back but he caught her hands expertly and stretched her out with his great strength and lay across her, his loins pinioning her, making her helpless. At leisure he kissed her and his passion and her heat mingled with her fury and fear and want. As much as she struggled, she could not move.
The heat grew. In a moment he shifted his grip. Instantly she swept to the attack, wanting more though now she was preparing to fight seriously. Again his grip on her hands tightened. She felt herself swamped, wanting to be overpowered, not wanting it, his passion strong, loins hard, the bed soft. And then, as abruptly as he had begun, he released her and rolled away with a laugh.
“Let’s have a drink!” he said without rancor.
She was gasping for breath. “You bastard!”
“I’m not actually. I’m very legitimate.” Gornt propped himself on an elbow, his eyes crinkling. “But you, Ciranoush, you’re a liar.”
“Go to hell!”
His voice was calm and genially taunting. “I will, soon enough. Far be it for me to ask a lady to prove such a thing.”
She threw herself at him, her nails hacking for his face, furious that he was so controlled when she was not. Easily he caught her hands and held her. “Gently gently catchee monkeeee,” he said even more genially. “Calm down, Ciranoush. Remember, we’re both over twenty-one, I’ve already seen you almost naked, and if I really wanted to rape you I’m afraid it wouldn’t be much of a contest. You could scream bloody murder and my crew wouldn’t hear a thing.”
“You’re a goddamn lou—”
“Stop!” Gornt kept his smile but she stopped, sensing danger. “The tumble was not to frighten, just to amuse,” he said gently. “A prank, nothing more. Truly.” He released her and she scrambled off the bed, her breathing still heavy.
r /> Angrily she walked over to the mirror and pushed her hair back into place, then saw him in the mirror, still lying casually on the bed watching her, and she whirled, “You’re a black-eyed bastard!”
Gornt let out a bellow of laughter, infectious, belly-shaking, and, all at once, seeing the foolishness of it all, she began to laugh too. In a moment they were both aching with laughter, he spread out on the bed and Casey leaning against the sea chest.
On deck, as good friends, they drank some champagne that was already opened in a silver bucket, the silent, obsequious steward serving them, then going away.
At the dock in Kowloon, she kissed him again. “Thanks for a lovely time. Tuesday, if not before!” She went ashore and waved the ship goodbye a long time, then hurried home.
Spectacles Wu was also hurrying home. He was tired and anxious and filled with dread. The way up through the maze of dwellings and hovels in the resettlement area high above Aberdeen was difficult, slippery and dangerous, mud and mess everywhere, and he was breathing hard from the climb. The runoff in the concrete storm drain had overflowed its banks many times in many places, the flood shoving structures aside and spreading more havoc. Smoke hung over many of the wrecked dwellings, some still smoldering from the fires that had spread so quickly when the slides began. He skirted the deep slide where Fifth Niece had almost perished the day before yesterday, a hundred or more hovels wrecked by new slides in the same area.
The candy shop had vanished and the old woman with it. “Where is she?” he asked.
The scavenger shrugged and continued to sift through wreckage, seeking good wood or good cardboard or corrugated iron.
“How is it above?” he asked.
“As below,” the man said in halting Cantonese. “Some good, some bad. Joss.”
Wu thanked him. He was barefoot, carrying his shoes to protect them and now he left the storm drain and forced his way over some of the debris wreckage to find the path that meandered upward. From where he was he could not see his area though it seemed there were no slides there. Armstrong had allowed him to come home to check when the radio news had again reported bad slides in this part of the resettlement area. “But be back as quickly as you can. Another interrogation’s scheduled for seven o’clock.”
“Oh yes, I’ll be back,” he muttered out loud.
The sessions had been very tiring but for him good, with much praise from Armstrong and the chief of SI, his place in SI assured now, transfer and training to begin next week. He had had little sleep, partially because the session hours bore no relationship to day or night, and partially because of his wish to succeed. The client was shifting from English to Ning-tok dialect to Cantonese and back again and it had been hard to follow all the ramblings. It was only when his fingers had touched the wonderful, rare roll of bills in his pocket, his winnings at the races, that a lightness had taken hold and carried him through the difficult hours. Again he touched them to reassure himself, blessing his joss, as he climbed the narrow pathway, the path at times a rickety bridge over small ravines, climbing steadily. People passed by, going down, and others were following going up, the noise of hammers and rebuilding, reroofing all over the mountainside.
His area was a hundred yards ahead now, around this corner, and he turned it and stopped. His area was no more, just a deep scar in the earth, the piled-up avalanche of mud and debris two hundred feet below. No dwellings where there had been hundreds.
Numbly he climbed, skirting the treacherous slide, and went to the nearest hovel, banging on the door. An old woman opened it suspiciously.
“Excuse me, Honored Lady, I’m Wu Cho-tam’s son from Ning-tok …”
The woman, One Tooth Yang, stared at him blankly, then started speaking but Wu did not understand her language so he thanked her and went off, remembering that this was one of the areas settled by the Yang, some of the northern foreigners who came from Shanghai.
Closer to the top of the slide he stopped and knocked on another door.
“Excuse me, Honored Sir, but what happened? I’m Wu Cho-tam’s son from Ning-tok and my family were there.” He pointed at the scar.
“It happened in the night, Honorable Wu,” the man told him, speaking a Cantonese dialect he could understand. “It was like the sound of the old Canton express train and then a rumbling from the earth, then screams then some fires came. It happened the same last year over there. Ah yes, the fires began quickly but the rains doused them. Dew rieh loh moh but the night was very bad.” The neighbor was an old man with no teeth and his mouth split into a grimace. “Bless all gods you weren’t sleeping there, heya?” He shut the door.
Wu looked back at the scar, then picked his way down the hill. At length he found one of the elders of his area who was also from Ning-tok.
“Ah, Spectacles Wu, Policeman Wu! Several of your family are there.” His gnarled old finger pointed above. “There, in the house of your cousin, Wu Wam-pak.”
“How many were lost, Honorable Sir?”
“Fornicate all mud slides how do I know? Am I keeper of the mountainside? There are dozens missing.”
Spectacles Wu thanked him. When he found the hut, Ninth Uncle was there, Grandmother, Sixth Uncle’s wife and their four children, Third Uncle’s wife and baby. Fifth Uncle had a broken arm, now in a crude splint.
“And the rest of us?” he asked. Seven were missing.
“In the earth,” grandmother said. “Here’s tea, Spectacles Wu.”
“Thank you, Honored Grandmother. And Grandfather?”
“He went to the Void before the slide. He went to the Void in the night, before the slide.”
“Joss. And Fifth Niece.”
“Gone. Vanished, somewhere.”
“Could she still be alive?”
“Perhaps. Sixth Uncle’s searching for her now, below, and the others, even though she’s a useless mouth. But what about my sons, and their sons, and theirs?”
“Joss,” Wu said sadly, not cursing the gods or blessing them. Gods make mistakes. “We will light joss sticks for them that they may be reborn safely, if there is rebirth. Joss.” He sat down on a broken crate. “Ninth Uncle, our factory, was the factory damaged?”
“No, thank all gods.” The man was numbed. He had lost his wife and three children, somehow scrambling out of the sea of mud that had swallowed them all. “The factory is undamaged.”
“Good.” All the papers and research materials for Freedom Fighter were there—along with the old typewriter and ancient Gestetner copying machine. “Very good. Now, Fifth Uncle, tomorrow you will buy a plastic-making machine. From now on we’ll make our own flowers. Sixth Uncle will help you and we will begin again.”
The man spat disgustedly, “How can we pay, eh? How can we start? How can we …” He stopped and stared. They all gasped. Spectacles Wu had brought out the roll of bills. “Ayeeyah, Honored Younger Brother, I can see that at long last you have seen the wisdom of joining the Snake!”
“How wise!” the others chorused proudly. “All gods bless Younger Brother!”
The young man said nothing. He knew they would not believe him if he said otherwise, so he let them believe. “Tomorrow begin looking for a good secondhand machine. You can pay only $900,” he told the older man, knowing that 1,500 was available if necessary. Then he went outside and arranged with their cousin, the owner of this hut, to lease them a corner until they could rebuild, haggling over the price until it was correct. Satisfied that he had done what he could for the Wu clan, he left them and plodded downhill back to headquarters, his heart weeping, his whole soul wanting to shriek at the gods for their unfairness, or carelessness, for taking so many of them away, taking Fifth Niece who but a day or so ago was given back her life in another slide.
Don’t be a fool, he ordered himself. Joss is joss. You have wealth in your pocket, a vast future with SI, Freedom Fighter to manufacture, and the time of dying is up to the gods.
Poor little Fifth Niece. So pretty, so sweet.
“Gods a
re gods,” he muttered wearily, echoing the last words he remembered her ever saying, then put her out of his mind.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
6:30 P.M.:
Ah Tat hobbled up the wide staircase in the Great House, her old joints creaking, muttering to herself, and went along the Long Gallery, hating the gallery and the faces that seemed ever to be watching her. Too many ghosts here, she thought with superstitious dread, knowing too many of the faces in life, growing up in this house, born in this house eighty-five years ago. Uncivilized to hold their spirits in thrall by hanging their likenesses on the wall. Better to act civilized and cast them into memory where spirits belong.
As always when she saw the Hag’s knife stuck through the heart of her father’s portrait a shudder went through her. Dew neh loh moh, she thought, now there was a wild one, her with the unquenchable demon in her Jade Gate, ever secretly bemoaning the loss of the tai-pan, her husband’s father, bemoaning her fate that she had married the weakling son and not the father, never to be bedded by the father, her Jade Gate unquenchable because of that.
Ayeeyah, and all the strangers that climbed these stairs over the years to enter her bed, barbarians of all nations, of all ages, shapes and sizes, to be cast aside like so much chaff once their essence had been taken and used up, the fire never touched.
Ah Tat shuddered again. All gods bear witness! The Jade Gate and the One-Eyed Monk are truly yin and yang, truly everlasting, truly godlike, both insatiable however much one consumes the other. Thank all gods my parents allowed me to take the vow of chastity, to devote my life to bringing up children, never to be split by a Steaming Stalk, never to be the same ever after. Thank all gods all women do not need men to elevate them to be one with the gods. Thank all gods some women wisely prefer women to cuddle and touch and kiss and enjoy. The Hag had had women too, many, when she was old, finding in their youth-filled arms pleasure but never satisfaction, not like me. Curious she would pillow with a civilized girl but not a civilized man who would surely have put out her fire, one way or another, with pillow tools or without. All gods bear witness, how many times did I tell her? Me the only one she would talk to about such things!
“Ah, you really want that, don’t you?”
“Oh yes. Oh yes, that represents victory. He and his forebears have kept me and mine out. Of course I want that.”
I wonder if I could make a deal with Ian, she had thought absently. Wonder if I could get the tai-pan to allow Quillan a box, his own box, and help make him a steward. Crazy for these two to be like bulls in a china shop—there’s more than enough room for both. Ian owes me a favor if Murtagh delivers.
Her heart fluttered and she wondered what had happened with Murtagh and the bank, and if the answer was yes, what Quillan would do.
And where is Linc? Is he with Orlanda, in her arms, dreaming the afternoon away?
She curled up again on the stern and closed her eyes. The salt air and the throb of the engines and the motion through the sea put her to sleep. Her sleep was dreamless, womblike, and in a few minutes she awoke refreshed. Gornt was sitting opposite her now, watching her. They were alone again, the Cantonese captain at the wheel.
“You have a nice sleeping face,” he said.
“Thank you.” She moved and rested on one elbow. “You’re a strange man. Part devil, part prince, compassionate one minute, ruthless the next. That was a wonderful thing you did for Peter.”
He just smiled and waited, his eyes strangely and pleasantly challenging.
“Linc’s … I think Linc’s smitten with Orlanda,” she said without thinking and saw a shadow go over him.
“Oh?”
“Yes.” She waited but he said nothing, just watched her. Pushed by the silence, she added involuntarily, “I think she’s smitten with him.” Again a long silence. “Quillan, is that part of a plan?”
He laughed softly and she felt his dominance. “Ah, Ciranoush, you’re the strange one. I don—”
“Will you call me Casey? Please? Ciranoush is not right.”
“But I don’t like Casey. May I use Kamalian?”
“Casey.”
“What about Ciranoush today, Casey tomorrow, Kamalian for Tuesday dinner? That’s when we close the deal. Eh?”
Her guards came up without thinking. “That’s up to Linc.”
“You’re not tai-pan of Par-Con?”
“No. No, I’ll never be that.”
He laughed. Then he said, “Then let’s make it Ciranoush today, Casey tomorrow and the hell with Tuesday?”
“All right!” she said, warmed by him.
“Good. Now as to Orlanda and Linc,” he said, his voice gentle. “That’s up to them and I never discuss the affairs of others with others, even a lady. Never. That’s not playing the game. If you’re asking if I’ve some devious plot, using her against Linc or you and Par-Con, that’s ridiculous.” Again he smiled. “I’ve always noticed that ladies manipulate men, not the other way around.”
“Dreamer!”
“One question deserves another: Are you and Linc lovers?”
“No. Not in the conventional sense, but yes I love him.”
“Ah, then are you going to marry?”
“Perhaps.” Again she shifted and she saw his eyes move over her. Her hands pulled the blanket closer around her, her heart beating nicely, very conscious of him as she knew he was conscious of her. “But I don’t discuss my affairs with another man,” she said with a smile. “That’s not playing the game either.”
Gornt reached out and touched her lightly. “I agree, Ciranoush.”
The Sea Witch came out of the breakwater into the harbor waves, Kowloon ahead. She sat up and turned to watch the Island and the Peak, most of it cloud covered. “It’s so beautiful.”
“The south coast of Hong Kong’s grand around Shek-O, Repulse Bay. I’ve a place at Shek-O. Would you like to see the boat now?”
“Yes, yes I’d like that.”
He took her forward first. The cabins were neat, no sign of having been used. Each had shower stalls and a toilet. A small general cabin served them all. “We’re rather popular with ladies at the moment because they can shower to their hearts’ content. The water shortage does have advantages.”
“I’ll bet,” she said, carried along by his joviality.
Aft, separate from the rest of the boat, was the master cabin. Big double bed. Neat, tidy and inviting.
Her heart was sounding loud in her ears now, and when he casually closed the cabin door and put his hand on her waist she did not back off. He came closer. She had never kissed a man with a beard before. Gornt’s body was hard against hers and it felt good to her, her breath picking up tempo, his lips firm and cigar tasting. Most of her whispered: Go, let go, and most of her said, No, don’t, and all of her felt sensual in his arms, too good.
What about Linc?
The question barreled into her mind like never before and all at once her mind cleared and, carried along by his sensuality, she knew for the first time with absolute clarity that it was Linc she wanted, not Par-Con or power if that had to be the choice. Yes, it’s Linc, just Linc, and tonight I’ll cancel our deal. Tonight I’ll offer to cancel.
“Now’s not the time,” she whispered, her voice throaty.
“What?”
“No, not now. We can’t, sorry.” She reached up and kissed him lightly on the lips, talking through the kisses, “Not now, my dear, sorry, but we can’t, not now. Tuesday, perhaps Tuesday …”
He held her away from him and she saw his dark eyes searching her. She held her gaze as long as she could, then buried her head against his chest and held him tenderly, still enjoying the closeness, sure that she was safe now, and that he was convinced. That was a close one, she thought weakly, her knees feeling strange, all of her pulsating. I was almost gone then and that wouldn’t have been good, good for me or Linc or him.
It would have been good for him, she thought strangely.
Her heart was pounding as she rested against him, waiting, recouping, confident in a moment—with warmth and gentleness and the promise of next week—he would say, “Let’s go back on deck.”
Then all at once she felt his arms tighten around her and before she knew what was happening she was on the bed, his kisses strong and his hands wandering. She began to fight back but he caught her hands expertly and stretched her out with his great strength and lay across her, his loins pinioning her, making her helpless. At leisure he kissed her and his passion and her heat mingled with her fury and fear and want. As much as she struggled, she could not move.
The heat grew. In a moment he shifted his grip. Instantly she swept to the attack, wanting more though now she was preparing to fight seriously. Again his grip on her hands tightened. She felt herself swamped, wanting to be overpowered, not wanting it, his passion strong, loins hard, the bed soft. And then, as abruptly as he had begun, he released her and rolled away with a laugh.
“Let’s have a drink!” he said without rancor.
She was gasping for breath. “You bastard!”
“I’m not actually. I’m very legitimate.” Gornt propped himself on an elbow, his eyes crinkling. “But you, Ciranoush, you’re a liar.”
“Go to hell!”
His voice was calm and genially taunting. “I will, soon enough. Far be it for me to ask a lady to prove such a thing.”
She threw herself at him, her nails hacking for his face, furious that he was so controlled when she was not. Easily he caught her hands and held her. “Gently gently catchee monkeeee,” he said even more genially. “Calm down, Ciranoush. Remember, we’re both over twenty-one, I’ve already seen you almost naked, and if I really wanted to rape you I’m afraid it wouldn’t be much of a contest. You could scream bloody murder and my crew wouldn’t hear a thing.”
“You’re a goddamn lou—”
“Stop!” Gornt kept his smile but she stopped, sensing danger. “The tumble was not to frighten, just to amuse,” he said gently. “A prank, nothing more. Truly.” He released her and she scrambled off the bed, her breathing still heavy.
Gornt let out a bellow of laughter, infectious, belly-shaking, and, all at once, seeing the foolishness of it all, she began to laugh too. In a moment they were both aching with laughter, he spread out on the bed and Casey leaning against the sea chest.
On deck, as good friends, they drank some champagne that was already opened in a silver bucket, the silent, obsequious steward serving them, then going away.
At the dock in Kowloon, she kissed him again. “Thanks for a lovely time. Tuesday, if not before!” She went ashore and waved the ship goodbye a long time, then hurried home.
Spectacles Wu was also hurrying home. He was tired and anxious and filled with dread. The way up through the maze of dwellings and hovels in the resettlement area high above Aberdeen was difficult, slippery and dangerous, mud and mess everywhere, and he was breathing hard from the climb. The runoff in the concrete storm drain had overflowed its banks many times in many places, the flood shoving structures aside and spreading more havoc. Smoke hung over many of the wrecked dwellings, some still smoldering from the fires that had spread so quickly when the slides began. He skirted the deep slide where Fifth Niece had almost perished the day before yesterday, a hundred or more hovels wrecked by new slides in the same area.
The candy shop had vanished and the old woman with it. “Where is she?” he asked.
The scavenger shrugged and continued to sift through wreckage, seeking good wood or good cardboard or corrugated iron.
“How is it above?” he asked.
“As below,” the man said in halting Cantonese. “Some good, some bad. Joss.”
Wu thanked him. He was barefoot, carrying his shoes to protect them and now he left the storm drain and forced his way over some of the debris wreckage to find the path that meandered upward. From where he was he could not see his area though it seemed there were no slides there. Armstrong had allowed him to come home to check when the radio news had again reported bad slides in this part of the resettlement area. “But be back as quickly as you can. Another interrogation’s scheduled for seven o’clock.”
“Oh yes, I’ll be back,” he muttered out loud.
The sessions had been very tiring but for him good, with much praise from Armstrong and the chief of SI, his place in SI assured now, transfer and training to begin next week. He had had little sleep, partially because the session hours bore no relationship to day or night, and partially because of his wish to succeed. The client was shifting from English to Ning-tok dialect to Cantonese and back again and it had been hard to follow all the ramblings. It was only when his fingers had touched the wonderful, rare roll of bills in his pocket, his winnings at the races, that a lightness had taken hold and carried him through the difficult hours. Again he touched them to reassure himself, blessing his joss, as he climbed the narrow pathway, the path at times a rickety bridge over small ravines, climbing steadily. People passed by, going down, and others were following going up, the noise of hammers and rebuilding, reroofing all over the mountainside.
His area was a hundred yards ahead now, around this corner, and he turned it and stopped. His area was no more, just a deep scar in the earth, the piled-up avalanche of mud and debris two hundred feet below. No dwellings where there had been hundreds.
Numbly he climbed, skirting the treacherous slide, and went to the nearest hovel, banging on the door. An old woman opened it suspiciously.
“Excuse me, Honored Lady, I’m Wu Cho-tam’s son from Ning-tok …”
The woman, One Tooth Yang, stared at him blankly, then started speaking but Wu did not understand her language so he thanked her and went off, remembering that this was one of the areas settled by the Yang, some of the northern foreigners who came from Shanghai.
Closer to the top of the slide he stopped and knocked on another door.
“Excuse me, Honored Sir, but what happened? I’m Wu Cho-tam’s son from Ning-tok and my family were there.” He pointed at the scar.
“It happened in the night, Honorable Wu,” the man told him, speaking a Cantonese dialect he could understand. “It was like the sound of the old Canton express train and then a rumbling from the earth, then screams then some fires came. It happened the same last year over there. Ah yes, the fires began quickly but the rains doused them. Dew rieh loh moh but the night was very bad.” The neighbor was an old man with no teeth and his mouth split into a grimace. “Bless all gods you weren’t sleeping there, heya?” He shut the door.
Wu looked back at the scar, then picked his way down the hill. At length he found one of the elders of his area who was also from Ning-tok.
“Ah, Spectacles Wu, Policeman Wu! Several of your family are there.” His gnarled old finger pointed above. “There, in the house of your cousin, Wu Wam-pak.”
“How many were lost, Honorable Sir?”
“Fornicate all mud slides how do I know? Am I keeper of the mountainside? There are dozens missing.”
Spectacles Wu thanked him. When he found the hut, Ninth Uncle was there, Grandmother, Sixth Uncle’s wife and their four children, Third Uncle’s wife and baby. Fifth Uncle had a broken arm, now in a crude splint.
“And the rest of us?” he asked. Seven were missing.
“In the earth,” grandmother said. “Here’s tea, Spectacles Wu.”
“Thank you, Honored Grandmother. And Grandfather?”
“He went to the Void before the slide. He went to the Void in the night, before the slide.”
“Joss. And Fifth Niece.”
“Gone. Vanished, somewhere.”
“Could she still be alive?”
“Perhaps. Sixth Uncle’s searching for her now, below, and the others, even though she’s a useless mouth. But what about my sons, and their sons, and theirs?”
“Joss,” Wu said sadly, not cursing the gods or blessing them. Gods make mistakes. “We will light joss sticks for them that they may be reborn safely, if there is rebirth. Joss.” He sat down on a broken crate. “Ninth Uncle, our factory, was the factory damaged?”
“No, thank all gods.” The man was numbed. He had lost his wife and three children, somehow scrambling out of the sea of mud that had swallowed them all. “The factory is undamaged.”
“Good.” All the papers and research materials for Freedom Fighter were there—along with the old typewriter and ancient Gestetner copying machine. “Very good. Now, Fifth Uncle, tomorrow you will buy a plastic-making machine. From now on we’ll make our own flowers. Sixth Uncle will help you and we will begin again.”
The man spat disgustedly, “How can we pay, eh? How can we start? How can we …” He stopped and stared. They all gasped. Spectacles Wu had brought out the roll of bills. “Ayeeyah, Honored Younger Brother, I can see that at long last you have seen the wisdom of joining the Snake!”
“How wise!” the others chorused proudly. “All gods bless Younger Brother!”
The young man said nothing. He knew they would not believe him if he said otherwise, so he let them believe. “Tomorrow begin looking for a good secondhand machine. You can pay only $900,” he told the older man, knowing that 1,500 was available if necessary. Then he went outside and arranged with their cousin, the owner of this hut, to lease them a corner until they could rebuild, haggling over the price until it was correct. Satisfied that he had done what he could for the Wu clan, he left them and plodded downhill back to headquarters, his heart weeping, his whole soul wanting to shriek at the gods for their unfairness, or carelessness, for taking so many of them away, taking Fifth Niece who but a day or so ago was given back her life in another slide.
Don’t be a fool, he ordered himself. Joss is joss. You have wealth in your pocket, a vast future with SI, Freedom Fighter to manufacture, and the time of dying is up to the gods.
Poor little Fifth Niece. So pretty, so sweet.
“Gods a
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
6:30 P.M.:
Ah Tat hobbled up the wide staircase in the Great House, her old joints creaking, muttering to herself, and went along the Long Gallery, hating the gallery and the faces that seemed ever to be watching her. Too many ghosts here, she thought with superstitious dread, knowing too many of the faces in life, growing up in this house, born in this house eighty-five years ago. Uncivilized to hold their spirits in thrall by hanging their likenesses on the wall. Better to act civilized and cast them into memory where spirits belong.
As always when she saw the Hag’s knife stuck through the heart of her father’s portrait a shudder went through her. Dew neh loh moh, she thought, now there was a wild one, her with the unquenchable demon in her Jade Gate, ever secretly bemoaning the loss of the tai-pan, her husband’s father, bemoaning her fate that she had married the weakling son and not the father, never to be bedded by the father, her Jade Gate unquenchable because of that.
Ayeeyah, and all the strangers that climbed these stairs over the years to enter her bed, barbarians of all nations, of all ages, shapes and sizes, to be cast aside like so much chaff once their essence had been taken and used up, the fire never touched.
Ah Tat shuddered again. All gods bear witness! The Jade Gate and the One-Eyed Monk are truly yin and yang, truly everlasting, truly godlike, both insatiable however much one consumes the other. Thank all gods my parents allowed me to take the vow of chastity, to devote my life to bringing up children, never to be split by a Steaming Stalk, never to be the same ever after. Thank all gods all women do not need men to elevate them to be one with the gods. Thank all gods some women wisely prefer women to cuddle and touch and kiss and enjoy. The Hag had had women too, many, when she was old, finding in their youth-filled arms pleasure but never satisfaction, not like me. Curious she would pillow with a civilized girl but not a civilized man who would surely have put out her fire, one way or another, with pillow tools or without. All gods bear witness, how many times did I tell her? Me the only one she would talk to about such things!