Shanghai (43 page)

“How barbaric!”

“Not paying for contracted services is barbaric.”

“Why, I've never in all my life …”

“Cut it out or I'll leave you here with him and his very sharp, pointy knife.”

After a moment the Third Earl of Cheselwich said, “Please don't.”

Milo looked at the pathetic man. Probably closer to forty than thirty, pear-shaped and with a sickly pinky-white skin. The man's handcrafted leather shoes had clearly not been polished in some time, and his expensive linen shirt hung limp on his frame, as if it had been left out in the rain. Milo looked carefully but saw none of the telltale signs of cholera. If this clown was sick he
wasn't coming anywhere near the Hordoon household, no matter what level of nobility he came from.

“So what did you do with the boy?” Milo asked as nonchalantly as he could manage.

To Milo's surprise the older man leaned over and whispered into his ear a litany of sexual acts and positions of some considerable length and variety.

When the surprisingly long recitation finished, Milo took a step away and said, “And how long did all this take?”

“Just under fifteen minutes, I expect.”

“Really, under fifteen minutes for all of that?”

“I would appreciate your confidence in these matters, as one gentleman to another.”

Milo stuck out his hand. “Milo Hordoon.”

The Third Earl of Cheselwich took the proffered hand limply in his and mumbled his name and title. Milo asked for it a second time, and this time it was delivered with a bit more enthusiasm.

“So what can I do for you, your Earlship?”

“Your Lordship … and I seem to be in a slight financial predicament.”

“Ah, you'd like me to pay the boy for his no doubt expert ministrations.”

“If that were possible I would be forever in your debt.”

Milo peeled off a series of bills and handed them to the boy as he said to the Third Earl of Cheselwich, “Yes, you will be in my debt.”

—

Richard looked at the almost nude body of the Third Earl of Cheselwich as he collected the cards from the table and said, “I thought you were a gambler, sir.”

“I was … I've been trying to … could I have some of my clothing back? It's chilly.” “No, I'm sorry, but you lost your clothing to me in this fine game of whist.”

“But I have nothing …”

“You have those three letters.”

“But sir, they are introductions from family friends.”

“Powerful friends?”

“I guess they are powerful, yes.”

Richard got up and went to his desk drawer and removed the doctored picture of the eldest Vrassoon son with the bleeding girl. He caught sight of Milo out of the corner of his eye. The boy nodded. Richard sat and threw the photograph on the tabletop. “Recognize him?”

“He's that Jew!”

“Careful. I asked you if you recognized him.”

“I do … what's he doing with—”

“I can arrange it that you have an income of seven hundred pounds sterling per annum from this day forward until you finally pass away. Would that interest you?”

“Well, yes, it would, but what …?”

“Would you have to do?” Richard pushed the picture into his hands. “Deliver that and several copies of it to your family's powerful friends. And your financial future is assured.”

* * *

THE BRITISH HOUSE OF LORDS might not have been the most exclusive club in the world, but it certainly pretended it was. And like all would-be important institutions, it could be stirred to defend its supposedly
untarnished reputation with the same avidity that a lioness shows in defending her favourite cub from attack. But action was not the métier of the House of Lords. Slow, considered discussion and then assignment to committee were the normal patterns of this august body. Never starting a session before ten-thirty in the morning and seldom sitting past teatime, the House of Lords was a luxurious, courteous debating society for the indolently privileged. But when Richard's photograph of the eldest son of one of its members circulated in their private clubs and drinking dens, a strange thing began to happen. Outrage stirred these old souls to the most unusual of things in the House of Lords—action.

Naturally, taking action was easier when the offending member was not really one of their own. “These Vrassoons are Hebrews, aren't they?” A Hebrew was never really a part of British nobility. A Jew was not one of them. A kike should watch his
p
's and
q
's—and those of his eldest son. The fact that many owed money to the Vrassoons simply added a certain zest to their enterprise.

Eliazar Vrassoon had responded to a cryptic message received from his head man in London by sailing on the first clipper from Shanghai to Britain. He had been back just over a month when he found himself sitting in the deep leather Windsor chair and resisting putting his head in his hands. He'd been shown the photograph that evening. The man addressing him was a younger member of the House of Lords, from the standards and procedures committee or some such thing, but it was clear to Vrassoon that the man had the full support of the House. The photograph explained the sidelong glances he'd received since his return to London, and
why people left his club the moment he arrived. Even at Bedlam there seemed to be a peculiar distance.

“Have you shown this to …?”

“Some of us in the House of Lords have seen it.”

“How many?”

“More than enough!”

Vrassoon couldn't believe it. Members had seen, and no one had contacted him. Not one of these creatures whom he had bailed out of financial straits of their own making, not one of them had had the decency to at least warn him.

The image of the little girl on the farm blossomed in his mind and the thunderous reality that this was God's punishment for his sins fell on him. His hands flew up and then just stayed there. Around him he noticed other men peering in his direction. Men he had thought were his friends.

The man was speaking, but Vrassoon was having trouble focusing. Finally he heard a snippet, “We are considering asking the Queen to revoke your seat in the House of Lords.”

“Can you do that?” he said before he could stop himself. The smile that came to the little man's face was one that Eliazar Vrassoon—that all Jews—recognized. So it was about that, too. Finally he said, “What do these noble lords want?”

“Excuse me?”

“Has a sudden deafness taken you? You heard me. You came for something. What? These honourable members would like the world to believe that they are above bartering, but they are not! So, what do they want from me to keep this picture secret?”

After only the slightest pause the little man said, “They want you to renounce your monopoly on trade
from England to China, so that the companies with which they are associated can receive the same benefits that you and yours do.”

It stunned the Vrassoon Patriarch. Was that the reason? Why now? But he couldn't think about it. “And if I refuse to renounce what is mine?”

“The photograph will go to Her Majesty and then be given to the press. Many of whom would be only too glad to publish it.”

“They wouldn't dare.”

The young man stood. “Are you sure of that? Would you really be willing to risk the reputation of your entire family on the honourable intentions of our Fleet Street press? Are you willing to risk a pogrom in London?” He withdrew a formal document with a royal seal on the bottom and the imprimatur of Britain's House of Lords emblazoned across the top.

Eliazar Vrassoon scanned the document—“fully renounce”—“as of the signing of”—“all title to and assumption of”—words. Words that would bring him to heel, like a disobedient dog who was finally muzzled tight enough that he could be whipped.

“Sign it, Jew.”

The young man was enjoying himself.

The Vrassoon Patriarch looked at the document and forced his mind to race through the possibilities. Then took the proffered fountain pen from the young man and signed away the source of his greatest wealth in a single pen stroke.

—

Two hours later the eldest Vrassoon son stared down at the rail tracks beneath the bridge. He felt strangely calm.
Almost light-headed. He'd taken this very train several times to Paddington Station and from there … He decided not to think of where he went from Paddington.

The rain had finally stopped and there was an inkling that the sun might come out.
Come out and bless the day,
he thought. Then he heard the Paddington-bound commuter train in the distance. He looked at his watch.
Right on time
. The sound of the approaching train grew louder behind him. He climbed up to the railing of the bridge and balanced himself against a strut. He looked up.
I will know, presently,
he thought. The train whistle sounded shrilly as it charged toward his bridge. He thought, just before he jumped, that he heard a young girl call his name. But he may have been mistaken.

* * *

IN SHANGHAI, news of the Vrassoons' loss of their monopoly set off one of the biggest parties that even this town, very used to big parties, had ever seen. Jiang and Suzanne marked the occasion by cutting the rates on their wares, and the clear, cool evening was ideal for an all-night drunk. All of Shanghai participated. Those who had never been in the Foreign Settlement or the French Concession came with their whole families. Fortune tellers set up shop on every corner, and there were no constables to be seen. Store owners stacked bales of hay in front of their stores for protection from the inevitable window-breaking and looting, then joined the party. The whole city sang and staggered and drank and danced.

As the old clock in Richard's room clanged three bells, Lily knelt and lit the opium ball she'd prepared for him. It was the fourth Richard had inhaled that
evening. Outside there was the sound of revelry—the odd gunshot and the subsequent sound of sirens. Richard propped himself up on an elbow to inhale the sweet smoke and muttered to Lily, “Sirens outside, sirens inside, it's all one, Lily, it's all one.”

Later that night the Shanghai
Star Standard
dropped its stack of morning papers on the corner of Nanking and Henan Lu. The crowds were still out and the drink was still flowing, so no one noticed the banner headline: “TAIPINGERS THREATEN TO ERADICATE OPIUM FROM THEIR TERRITORY.” The subhead read “TAIPINGERS CLOSE DOWN OPIUM DENS AND ARREST TRADERS.”

The City of Nanking and the City of Shanghai 1863–64

No one ever claimed that the Taipingers were sparing in their use of the rod, or that the Taiping Kingdom of Heaven, Nanking, was a place of peace and tranquility. But even the hardest of the hard hearts of the Taiping faithful were shocked by the display that awaited them when they reported for work on the cold morning of April 21, 1863. Despite the horror, they stood and gawked without saying a word, knowing that any show of sympathy or revulsion would be taken as an act of sedition against the state of the Heavenly King. So there was just a profound silence in the ancient city—a silence broken only by a periodic whimper of pain from
one of the seven hundred men who had been crucified upside down on wooden crosses and were now on public display in the central square of the city. The seven hundred men now awaited, with various degrees of patience, the balm of death that was still several days and nights away.

Hung from the feet of each of the inverted, crucified men was a placard proclaiming the victim's involvement with the
Fan Kuei
's Devil drug, opium.

None of the shocked spectators doubted that the men, now impaled through their feet and hands and dripping blood from their ears and eyes, were involved with the opium trade. In fact many of the onlookers began to make plans to escape Nanking and Taiping control, since they themselves were either storing, supplying, importing, or using the
Fan Kuei
's tar-like bringer of dreams.

But these crucifixions were only the beginning of the Taiping campaign against opium. These crucifixions were literally for local consumption. The ones that followed were unapologetic threats—threats to the entire
Fan Kuei
community.

* * *

HERCULES'S GOUT HAD RETURNED with a vengeance after his night of drinking.
Damn,
he thought,
a little pleasure, a tiny little pleasure, and He takes his revenge.
Hercules was in such pain that he almost missed the commotion on the Bund Promenade down below him. He carefully placed his gout-afflicted foot on the cold flagstones of the floor and made his way over to the large, leaded window that overlooked the Bend in the River. Pushing open the large pane, he was at first unsure what it was that he saw—then he recoiled in horror, and in so
doing slammed the gout nodule on his foot against the wall. But he was in too much shock to feel the pain.

—

Percy St. John Dent was returning from a night at the House of Paris when he first saw them, and before he knew it he had thrown up his entire extravagant dinner into the murky waters of the Huangpo River.

—

Jedediah Oliphant, head of the House of Zion, called to his assistants to get horses. They galloped past the American guards at the crossing point of the Suzu Creek and down to the Bund river-promenade, where a huge crowd had formed. Jedediah at first couldn't discern why he found this particular large crowd so disconcerting, then he figured it out. There were literally thousands of souls here, but there was total silence. There was never silence in Shanghai! Then he heard a moan from the river and looked at the six ships there—and froze.

—

Jiang had been the first to see them and had immediately sent for the Fisherman and the Confucian—and there they stood at the far end of the promenade at the Bend in the River and stared at the six ships, their tall masts denuded of sails, slowly swaying—like a stately matron at a lavish ball who had consumed one too many glasses of fine champagne and was somehow disoriented in her own home. But these ships were not matrons at a ball. They were warnings—graphic warnings etched in the blood
and the pain of the hundreds of men who hung, head down, nailed to the masts of the boats in mockery of the Crucifixion. Even from a distance their cries for help could be heard when the wind blew shoreward. Then the wind would shift, throwing their voices away from the shore toward the Pudong, and the onlookers would have the odd sensation that the pain had suddenly ceased and that the men were somehow just acrobats holding unusual positions on the tall masts. Then, just as unexpectedly, the wind would blow shoreward and the cries of pain would fill every ear.