Black Tiger (30 page)

‘The commercial acumen and practicality of Asian women are widely admired,’ I offered cautiously. I had the sense that my every utterance, my every gesture, was being delicately placed in the balance. Fatuous commonplaces would discredit me.

Sunii nodded. ‘We Asian women have a powerful hoarding instinct. Saving for the future. Sadly, this is a necessity. Asian men are immature. In country districts, land is still left to daughters, money to sons. Women bear the responsibility, leaving men free to seek pleasure. You see, our society, unlike yours, does not require a man and wife to go everywhere yoked together like animals. Thus we come to develop different interests, different circles of friends. But there is no resentment. We women enjoy the unseen power of manoeuvring behind the scenes, dealing in land and gems and marriageable children, while our menfolk enjoy themselves. The bargain is mutually satisfying.’

‘You paint a traditional picture of Asian society. Has nothing changed in modern times?’

‘Not in the essentials!’ She smiled, closing her eyes tightly, nostrils flaring at some private joke. ‘Marriageable children, grandchildren, precious ones and precious stones…it does not do to underestimate us, Dr Raven!’

‘A wise man never underestimates any woman, Asian or otherwise, madame,’ I returned.

But she refused to banter. ‘In Thailand, women work harder than men because they can envisage causality and consequences. Thai men believe only in karma and coincidence. Women not only worked the rice fields; historically, they went to war. You may have seen the frieze painted by Madame Drinkwater in my Rachanee Hotel?’

I saw my opportunity to impress her.

‘Indeed,’ I said. ‘It depicts Queen Sri Suriyothi, who risked her life on a war elephant to save her husband, in the great battle of 1563. It is splendid.’

She smiled, acknowledging my tribute. ‘We Asian businesswomen are like the Chinese girl sword-fighters: we cross swords with the warriors of high finance without sacrificing our femininity. Yet once we marry, Dr Raven, we revert to the legal position of minors. Deprived of the right to enjoy and dispose of our own property, unable to obtain a divorce on the grounds of the man’s adultery.’ She spoke with a kind of controlled outrage, her voice rising in pitch. ‘Financial disenfranchisement would be far worse than adultery! Indeed, adultery is commonplace—fourteen per cent of college graduates are the offspring of practising polygamists, did you know that? Polygamy is not necessarily a bad thing, so long as the second wife remembers her inferior status, and the first wife is content to supervise the health and upbringing of all the children, including those her husband sires by second or third wives.’ Her eyes opened wide and searched my face. ‘Children are important. Grandchildren are important.’

She smiled, the ingenuous, optimistic smile of a young girl on the threshold of life. I knew that so long as I resisted the Western barbarism of the direct question, her approach would remain tangential and oblique. If I quizzed her outright, she would discount me as a savage and I would be dismissed.

‘My granddaughter, Chee Laan,’ she said, dropping the name syllable by syllable. ‘She is a person of great value—young, hungry for life, eager to experience it all at once. She needs time. But in the end she will make wise decisions. She is first of all Chinese. Chinese, and a member of this family. She will come to realise this. It is to be hoped that life, and those who care for Chee Laan, will give her space to grow into her inheritance…’

She allowed her words to penetrate. Then she continued in a bright, social tone, the change so abrupt it took my breath away.

‘You have honoured our city for some time, Dr Raven. Perhaps you are lonely for your own people? Is there someone you would like to have join you in Bangkok for a holiday? She could enjoy the shopping, the sightseeing. I should be delighted for her to stay at the Rachanee, as my guest, because you have befriended my granddaughter, have been to her as a wise uncle. I have many friends in the airlines.’

My inner eye conjured up the familiar image—once burnished by years of longing, and now curiously dulled—of Nancy’s carved Sioux-squaw countenance, her splendid impatient scowl, the coltish grace of her long-limbed, well-loved body. And then I remembered our bitter parting, and all that had led up to that new coolness; I recalled Nancy’s glib dismissal of her boss’s invitations and his doglike devotion, and it occurred to me suddenly that complacency and self-absorption had made me blind. Gradually that once-cherished image receded; I thought now of Chee Laan Lee’s secret smile, her magnolia skin, her glossy head tilting like a purple-black poppy on a too-slender stem.

‘You are too kind.’ I cleared my throat and met the politely enquiring eyes of Chee Laan’s grandmother. ‘I have no one special to me.’ I wondered,
Who am I fooling—myself? Certainly not this ageless stick-insect wrapped in crimson silk!

Sunii sighed politely. ‘I am sorry. I had thought perhaps your honourable mother…’

That was certainly not what she had meant, and we both knew it. But I played along, replying innocently: ‘I’m afraid my mother is no longer with us.’ That part, at least, was true. My regret was genuine. No need to tug my features into the semblance of sorrow.

‘Ah. By this, I think you mean she is dead.’ I studied my hands without replying. ‘Dr Raven, please allow me to make you an insignificant present.’ She clapped her hands. The old woman servant reappeared, as if on prearranged cue. She was carrying, officiously, a small casket. She handed it over. Sunii Lee opened it carefully and took out a small book, bound in black silk with gold-edged pages, and a jewelled box. She handed the book to me.

‘The Summer Wives of Mount Lu.’
Sunii smiled. ‘It is a traditional Chinese story.’ She handed me the box. ‘Open it, please.’ Cushioned on green silk lay a piece of jade carved in the lucky bamboo shape, set in massy gold. Even to my inexpert eye, its antiquity and value were apparent.

‘One day, Dr Raven, when you find a special person, you may like to give her this. You will say it was the gift of an old Chinese woman who was your friend.’ She looked at me, and repeated, with slight emphasis, glancing away. ‘Your friend, Dr Raven.’

At least I had learnt sufficient not to wax offensively effusive in my thanks. Excessive protestations of gratitude would reveal a niggardly desire to evade recognition of my moral obligation to reciprocate with a gift of equal value, in cash or kind.

As though reading my thoughts, Sunii said: ‘Please do not think of making gifts to me in return. I am at an age where I must begin to extricate myself from worldly possessions. All I desire is the well-being of my family. You understand me?’

She looked at me again. She was no longer smiling. Her eyes, wide open now, glistened like the nacreous flecks in her carved ebony table.

I understood all right. My acceptance of the precious bauble implied that I would henceforth desist from any pursuit of Chee Laan Lee, First Granddaughter.

But, I reflected guiltily, matters were not that simple. I was already involved in more trouble than I needed. I had been hit on the head, almost murdered, witnessed an old comrade’s violent death; I had spent years in pointless pursuit of Nancy, and, having caught up with her, was no longer sure that it was Nancy I wanted; and I had allowed myself to become bewitched by a young girl from a very different culture, and, unforgivably, to indicate to her my fascination. Beneath my modest academic air I was a villain, a feckless adrenaline-junkie, with a low boredom threshold and a feeble grasp of reality. I am sure, as Madame Lee studied me, that she had reached much the same conclusion.

‘I cannot accept a gift of such value, Madame Lee.’

Her eyes were steady. ‘I think you would not insult me, Dr Raven? Take the trinket. Friendship is without price.’

Chee Laan and I were alone. It was the day after my meeting with Sunii Lee. My hosts were attending an official function. Apart from the servants, I had the large house to myself. The housekeeper had shown Chee Laan into my suite. A slight breeze, welcome in the roasting heat, wafted up from the garden through the open balcony doors. I was showing her the book her grandmother had pressed on me. The servant, hiding her curiosity, had brought us tea. For the first time, Chee Laan and I were at ease with one another. Speculation and uncertainty had been replaced by wonder. This time we had not just witnessed a double murder. But the situation remained far from simple.

I flicked through the pages of the book. ‘Why did your grandmother give me this—
The Summer Wives of Mount Lu
?’

Chee Laan twitched her eyebrows. ‘I should have thought it was obvious, Raven. The story is well known.’

‘So remind me!’ I lounged back in the carved teak chair, hands behind my head, watching her. I could never tire of watching her. I was like a child under the spell of a new, exotic doll—except this doll had a mind like a laser, I reflected uneasily. I told myself fiercely that I had no right to be here, that everything about this situation was wrong, but still, in spite of myself, I listened to her, and watched with fascination the movement of muscle and sinew beneath the pale skin, the innocent mockery in the dark eyes.

She recited with the sweet, slightly precious didacticism of a trained nanny humouring a wilful child. ‘The retired scholar Liu Tzu-Ching enjoys the solitude, the beauty of nature and his studies in his summer residence of Mount Lu. One day, ambling about contemplating lilies and peonies, in the traditional manner of Chinese sages, he sees wonderful butterflies—red, vermilion, and soft yellow. Every day they come, and every day the scholar admires them.

‘One evening, when he’s waiting for the moonrise, there’s a knock at the door. Outside stand beautiful young women dressed in the butterfly colours—red, vermilion, soft yellow. They tell him they are so delighted by his admiration they will take turns to spend the summer nights with him. The scholar enjoys a blissful summer. But the summer wives always evade his questions. They refuse to say who they are. After the summer Liu leaves the mountain and his butterfly brides with an aching heart.

‘One day he visits the nearby temple of Kang Wang. While studying clay and painted images of goddesses, he recognizes the lovely young girls, dressed in gossamer robes of red, vermilion, and soft yellow. Liu’s heart fills with dread. He is guilty of having loved goddesses, which is forbidden. He realises he is in great danger of the vengeance of the gods. Despite his longing for his summer brides, he never returns to Mount Lu.’

‘So I’m being warned off.’ I had not told Chee Laan about her grandmother’s gift of precious jade, which I had also allowed Sunii to force upon me. I felt squeamish about letting her see the token of her grandmother’s estimate of her value.

‘My grandmother is merely being protective. We need to worry much more about other things, Raven.’

‘For instance, how Lieutenant Fleischer ended up at the bottom of a khlong? You still believe Salikaa had a hand in it?’

She nodded.

‘Salikaa has done spectacularly well for herself. Why risk losing that?’

‘Because Salikaa never forgets an insult. She is extremely vengeful. That is because of her upbringing. But she was my friend, and I do not have many friends.’

‘I am not surprised, if your grandmother warns them off,’ I blurted impulsively.

‘My grandmother is not here now.’ She moved to the bed, cupped my face in both her hands, and kissed me until I thought my hammering heart would burst through my ribs.

The tea grew cold. It was not until later that we resumed our conversation. It’s odd how the mind short-circuits and returns to its last preoccupation before interruption.

‘Van Hooten’s wife tells me Salikaa’s been invited to join the royal family at the summer palace,’ I said. ‘Prince Premsakul has invited me to stay at his summer residence on the royal estate at Hua Hin. So I’ll be there, too. At court.’

Chee Laan moved away from me and grimaced. ‘Lucky you’re not Chinese, then,’ she said.

‘Your grandmother would prefer I were.’

‘Merely to be Chinese would not be enough. Not any old Chinese. You’d have to be a scion of the Five Families. A good-good person.’

I laughed. ‘Not much chance of that, then!’ I took her in my arms, unable to resist any longer.

Salikaa leapt on life at court like a panther on its kill. She threw herself into every activity. In the small outdoor pavilion at the summer palace, she was ostensibly teaching the court ladies to dance the tango. In the blazing tropical garden around the pavilion, the crickets and the royal cockatoo seemed to shrill more raucously, as though excited by the competition with the sultry strains of the tango oozing from the amplifiers. Salikaa danced with her eyes closed, intoxicated by her own body and the rhythm of the music from the portable record player. She prowled, whipping her sinuous hips in time to the music, every fluid movement a sensual invitation. The royal ballet mistress and the princess’s ladies stood around, dourly surveying this latest, most scandalously flamboyant addition to the court circle. Their faces wore the obligatory simper, but their posture, stiff with affront, expressed their profound disapproval.

‘Why must we learn this vulgar dance?’ one prettily plump lady whispered peevishly. Her tight silk blouse already had damp patches under the arms.

‘You know we always learn a new dance for Their Highnesses’ wedding anniversary,’ her companion whispered back. She, too, was panting slightly from her exertions.

‘Yes. Of course. But why
this
horrible, disgusting Western dance? So undignified! We are not the scum of low bars in Pat Pong red light district, where those fat GIs go—we are not red light ladies, but Princesses of the Blood!’

Behind them, the summer palace of Klai Kangwon, Sans Souci, dipped pink stone toes in a sparkling turquoise sea. On the glittering horizon the sails of the Prince Regent’s dinghy and those of his companions skimmed like swallows. From the adjacent military compound rose bellowed exhortations and the thud of a football. Off-duty guards and frogmen were disporting themselves on the green between the wooden chalets that housed the summer court.