Shanghai (31 page)

Maxi smiled back. He'd heard such offers since he was a child. This one he'd accept—and it would change his life.

A day later Maxi acknowledged the stares of the women in the streets of Chinkiang. He was happy with his purchases of fine silk robes for his nephews, Milo and Silas, and pleased that his business dealings had gone well. He was well fed and pleasantly tipsy from the strong beer brewed in the German enclave at Qintao,
and the night was redolent with the promise of a cool fall after a long hot summer.

He walked along the west wall of the Old City, the farthest from the Grand Canal. Torches stuck in wall niches periodically broke the darkness. He was happy to be away from the intrigues and infighting of the Foreign Settlement in Shanghai.

He looked up at the catwalk high up on the city wall and blinked himself out of his reverie. Where were the guards? City walls were always patrolled by guards. He hurried around a squalid building that obscured his view, then down an alley to get a glimpse of the farthest section of the wall. It was empty of protectors too. He pressed himself against the alley wall and calmed his breathing. Then he heard them. The telltale clicks of feet on ladders—many feet. Then they appeared, dressed in black from head to foot with dark cloths around their faces. Their weapons must have been dulled with lard because they didn't glint in the bright moonlight. They formed up and waited in complete silence. Then a slender, taller man joined them and raised a hand high into the night air. The moonlight glinted off the large silver cross he held. The men in black all knelt in prayer, then rose … and unearthed holy hell upon the unsuspecting citizenry of Chinkiang.

Although taken by surprise, the Manchus had two full regiments within the city walls and a third outside the east gate down by the Grand Canal. Maxi retreated to a rooftop and watched—watched in rapt fascination as the very first major battle of the Taiping Rebellion unfolded before him like something that had awaited his coming all these many years.

Four days later Maxi allowed the fine hair of the horse's mane to move smoothly through his grooming
comb. He breathed in the earthy smell of the animal, then put his head against the horse's neck and allowed the animal's warmth to calm him.

“You're awfully quiet this evening,” Richard said.

“Thinking. Just thinking.”

“Of what are you thinking?”

“What I saw in Chinkiang.”

“Let it go, Maxi. The Manchus put the rebels back in their place. The revolt is over.”

Maxi took a coarse brush and began to work on the horse's flank. “It's not, brother mine. The Manchus had three full regiments yet they just barely won. The Taipingers fought like madmen—like men possessed. They fought for something. They fought from their hearts.”

“What? Are you suggesting that the God freaks can beat the Manchu Emperor?”

“Not that they can, but that they will. I saw one of their soldiers throw himself in front of a Manchu gingall at a roadblock. The man gave up his life so the others could overwhelm the battery and escape.”

“So, he was following—”

“No, brother mine, he wasn't following orders. That's the point. He gave up his life voluntarily without being ordered. Listen to me! And he wasn't the only Taipinger willing to die for their cause. That's why they're going to win. They're going to win because they believe in something. Even from that rooftop I could feel it. They're going to win because their beliefs give their lives meaning.”

Richard watched Maxi turn and leave the stable. In all his years with his brother, he doubted he'd ever heard him string so many words together.

Later that night Jiang approached Maxi as he watched the actors rehearse parts of the second act of
Journey to the West
.

“You seem sad,” she said.

“I'll miss this,” he said.

“This? Not the girls, just the plays?”

“Just the plays. Your daughter is an artist. She touches the hearts of simple men like me.”

Jiang was about to protest that he was far from simple, then she stopped herself. The monkey king character had just made an entrance, to the accompaniment of horns and cymbals, and Maxi jumped to his feet to cheer, just as any child might.

The night was late when Maxi crept down the alleyway that was the unofficial back entrance to the American section of the Foreign Settlement. Maxi had used a section of the Warrens to be sure that he wasn't followed, then exited the underground tunnels through the back courtyard of a tailor's shop before heading down the alley. As he moved through the darkness he remembered another night excursion, this time with his brother at his side as they left their parting gift to old Baghdad.

And here he was, parting again.

He had not made this circuitous trip in several months, but now he wanted to say goodbye to Rachel.

“You're leaving,” she said. “I can see it in your eyes.”

Maxi hung his head for a moment, then nodded.

“Why?” Her hands flew to her mouth to stop her sobs.

He gently pulled her hands down from her beautiful lips and kissed her on her forehead. “Because I need to find a place to call home before I die. Because this place is not of me. Because I yearn for something that is mine
and has meaning. Real meaning. Like you find in your Bible.”

“But I …”

“I know you have your doubts about that book, but you basically believe in what it teaches, don't you?”

Now it was her turn to hang her head. After a long sigh, she said, “I do.”

“That's good, Rachel. That's good. But I don't have anything like that in my life, and I need it. Everyone needs it.” He put a finger under her chin and raised her face to his. “You understand that. I know you do.”

“When …?”

“Tonight.”

There were tears and clutching and desperate lovemaking as they tried to remember each other's warmth. Then lips and godspeeds and parting with understanding, but no sweetness.

An hour later Maxi spotted his man Anderson with his travelling gear, gave the man the key to his private living quarters, wished him luck, and headed down the deserted streets to the west gate of the city. There he was halted by guards. He smiled at them and reached for his purse but was stopped by a familiar voice from the darkness.

“You'll have to fight to leave here.”

“If necessary, brother mine. I've clubbed the daylights out of you before, and I'll do it again if need be.”

“You're all geared up. Where are you heading?”

“You promised me, promised in India, that if things didn't work out you'd let me go back.”

“To the opium farmers?”

“Not necessarily to them, but to something simple. You promised not to stand in my way. But here you are.
Things haven't worked out for me. I want something simpler, and I know where I can find that.”

“With the Taipingers.”

Maxi nodded and hoisted his pack on his back.

“Nothing I can say …”

“To stop me? No. Not a thing.”

“As it must be?”

“As it must be, brother mine.”

* * *

“HE WENT WHERE?” Silas demanded.

“He's gone now, son.”

Milo put a hand on Silas's shoulder in warning.

“Things change in the world, boys. You change. I change. Your Uncle Maxi changed, and now he does-n't live here any more. Don't ask me where he is because I can't tell you without endangering him.” He thought suddenly of the old Indian's warning: “Brother will kill brother!” Richard allowed the voice to fade away, then said to the boys, “And I won't endanger my brother. Is that clear?”

Patterson came in with a stack of waybills. Richard took them, then said, “Milo, come with me, I could use a hand.”

Father and favourite son left the room.

Patterson looked at Silas. “Crying? Of course not. The young heathen doesn't know how to cry, does he? Just snivel. Oh, you're good at snivelling, you are. Well stop it! Your uncle is nothing more than a monkey-lover.”

* * *

LATE THAT NIGHT Richard summoned Anderson and Patterson to his private study. The two men waited while Richard paced. Finally Richard stopped and turned to Anderson. “How goes our building?”

“Fine. We've almost filled your properties with those four-storey buildings your brother designed.”

“Good. Patterson, I want an accounting of everything in our warehouses.”

“Certainly, but—”

“Then sell it. Sell it all. Every last mango chest of opium, every bolt of silk, every porcelain cup, every leaf of tea. All of it, and I really don't care how much you get for it.”

“And do what with the money?”

“Buy land. Cheap land anywhere in the Settlement, land for Anderson to build a hundred more of Maxi's four-storey buildings. And then a hundred more after that.”

* * *

SIX WEEKS LATER, just before dawn, there was a knocking on the door of the House of Paris. An unusual time for a client, even in Shanghai. Suzanne's serving girl answered the door and didn't know what to do with the missionary woman standing on the top step.

“May I see the mistress of the house?”

It took a bit of translating, but after a few misunderstandings Rachel was led to the inner office of Suzanne Colombe, who poured coffee for the two of them.

“So if you're not here to convert me, why are you here?” Suzanne said in her accented but textbook-perfect English. Rachel hadn't touched her coffee. “Do you prefer tea?” Suzanne asked as she looked more closely at the
woman's slightly sweated complexion.
Could it be?
she wondered. Then she reached to a sideboard and pushed a large platter of morning meats across to her guest, and the woman blanched.
Ah
, Suzanne thought,
ah, so that is the problem
. Then she had a second thought.
Will Maxi Hordoon come back and marry this girl or not?

Shanghai Winter 1852, eighteen months after the start of the Taiping Rebellion

The stone thrown at his window drew Richard back from the edges of his opium dream.

Since Maxi had left he'd found that even with the serpent smoke alive in his veins he'd been unable to find rest. The deep rumble of danger kept churning in his guts. He had never been separated from his brother for more than a few weeks. Now Maxi had been gone for months—and Richard had no idea if he was ever going to come back. Maxi had instructed his man Anderson in all that he was working on for the House of Hordoon, so the business didn't miss a step. But Richard found
himself feeling that if he stood quickly from his bed he'd fall—as if his very equilibrium had been tampered with. Every time Richard entered a room he sensed that Maxi had just left it, that somehow Maxi was just around every corner—but he never was. Nor had there been any word from his brother.

Maxi was gone and Richard was alone, so when a second pebble struck the windowpane, he reached for his Belgian flintlock pistol and slowly peered out. There, to his surprise, was a woman, standing in the alley. When he pulled open the window the figure turned her face up to his. In the moonlight Rachel Oliphant was a luminous presence. A godly gift of beauty in this rough world.

When he opened the door she pulled her shawl tightly around her and came quickly into his drawing room.

“Rachel …”

“Don't look at me. At my shame.”

It was only then that Richard saw that she was pregnant. “Rachel.”

She turned to him, her face picking up the flickering light from the oil lamp. She pushed a tendril of hair from her forehead and her beauty filled the room. Her face creased in a humble smile as she said, “Are you well, Mr. Hordoon?”

“Yes,” Richard said slowly, “I am well. And you?”

She pulled aside her shawl to reveal the full extent of her belly and said, “Very well.”

“You look lovely …”

“I don't.”

“You do.”

Richard reached out a hand to her and she backed away. “Don't.”

“I'll marry you, if that is what you want.”

For a moment a quizzical look crossed her face, then she smiled. A laugh squeaked from her pursed lips and she shook her head, finally saying the single word, “No.”

“I will if—”

“Where is Maxi?” her voice pleaded, and for the first time Richard understood how Maxi had known to come and save him from the attack of the Oliphants, and why the Oliphants may have attacked him in the first place. “Where's your brother, Mr. Hordoon? I need to see Maxi.”

* * *

THE NIGHT was uncommonly cold, even for January. The wind howled in Jiang's face as she put a foot up onto the small plank that joined the junk bobbing on the filthy waters of the Suzu Creek to the small carrack that she had hired.

“What are you staring at, old man?” she demanded of the ancient creature who rowed the boat.

The man spat in the water and mumbled something about being paid.

“You'll be paid when you come and get me.”

Again the man mumbled; this time the country word for
harlot
slid into the cold air and hung there like something dark and ugly.

Jiang ignored the insult. She'd heard far worse. What she wanted from this man was his silence. “Do you have a daughter, old man?”

The man stared at her, then slowly nodded.

“I could use a new maid. Have her appear at—”

“I know where,” the old man grunted.

“Good. She'll make enough money to keep you and your wife comfortable in your … old age.” She had wanted to say “dotage” but decided against it.

“How long?”

“How long will she work for me?”

“No. How long are you here on this junk?”

She told him, and he helped her up the planking to the deck of the ship. She waited until the old man's carrack was lost in the darkness downriver before she headed below decks and found some relief from the piercing cold.