The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure (2 page)

It was a day without a dusk, for the paling sun had been extinguished at its zenith. The darkness of an unnatural noon merged imperceptibly with the greater darkness of a starless night. The inhabitants of Peking, cowering in the heat of their airless homes, huddled against the shrieks and groans of the marauding wind outside; this was a night in which evil stalked abroad.

There were no parties in the Legation Quarter that evening. No chandeliers blazed in the ballrooms. Landaus and barouches were locked in the stables with the horses. Windows were battened down. Luckless marines on sentry duty wrapped up their faces and sought protection from the sand as best they could. The ministers and their ladies settled for an early night.

On summer evenings the British Legation usually presented a fairyland of lanterns in its courtyards. Lady MacDonald, chatelaine of a palace that had once belonged to Manchu nobility, liked to indulge her taste for chinoiserie. She affected not to hear the comments of the few real Orientalists in the Legation, who objected that her Mikado-esque decorations in a Chinese building were somewhat gilding the lily (or ‘painting legs on a snake', as the Chinese would have it). As the premier hostess in Peking, she knew exactly what appealed to the representatives of the powers who came to her parties: it was more important to present China as it ought to be rather than the squalid reality that stank of the drains and canals outside her walls. So, if Gilbert and Sullivan could improve on three millennia of civilisation, she was all for it.

Tonight, however, all the gaudy decorations had been removed, and the Chinese pavilions and ornamental archways, with their pillars and curling roofs, lay as unprotected in the sandstorm as any other dwelling in the city. Violent spectres of wind licked over the verandas and rattled the boards that had been placed over the imported glass windows. The ginkgo trees shook their branches like demented spirits, their fan-shaped leaves flailing against the hurtling sand. The old buildings slumped against the onslaught, dark grey shadows against a darker sky. It was as if they had reverted to the decrepit state of abandonment that had existed before the English had come to renovate them. The temple-like roofs silhouetted against the howling night recalled those deserted shrines in Chinese literature popularly haunted by ghosts and devils. Lady MacDonald's garden had become a wasteland of random violence, in which the uneasy apparitions of previous occupants might well have wandered, as well as those creatures of Chinese folklore—fox spirits, snake gods, hungry ghosts—and other unmentionable creations of superstition that traditionally emerged on nights such as this.

Not that Sir Claude and Lady MacDonald noticed or cared. They were sleeping soundly in their beds under their mosquito nets in the Main Residence, formerly the Ancestral Hall.

Only one official was awake and sensitive to the perils of the night. His light burned faintly through an upper-storey window of one of the less imposing edifices on the edge of the compound, formerly a storehouse where the dukes in the past had kept their treasure. It was the room of the interpreter, a young Englishman who had only recently been appointed to the Legation. Stripped to his shirt, he was hunched over a small desk on which an oil lamp flickered. The light revealed bare wooden walls, a hospital bed and shelves loaded with books, most of them in Chinese. He was writing a despatch, out of Chancellery, out of office hours, in the middle of a stormy night—it could hardly be official Legation business; in any case, his furtive manner was enough to indicate that secrets were involved. He was sweating, his thin face pinched by tiredness, and his red-rimmed eyes widened at every noise. Occasionally he would pause, put down his pen, go to the door and peer into the dark corridors outside his room. Then he would return to his manuscript, from time to time dipping his pen into a pot of ink. He wrote hurriedly but in a neat script.

Your lordship is aware of the activities of the Germans in Shantung. We are advised that they have already established a functioning colonial government in the concession which they seized last year in Chiao-chou. There continues to be concern regarding the overbearing conduct of their missionaries whose ‘defence' of Christian communities has as often as not been supported by German troops; reparations imposed for alleged attacks on Christian property have been rapacious. This is potentially dangerous in a province with a history of rebellion and banditry, which is also the home of many of the martial-arts sects and secret societies, which colourfully thrive in poor areas such as these.

There was a crash from the floor below. He paused, staring at the door. The crash was repeated. ‘Shutters. Wind. That's all it is,' he muttered to himself, and resumed writing.

More alarming are the activities of the Russians in the Northeast. Much of Manchuria is already a Russian protectorate in substance if not in name. It was evident what were their intentions as far back as 1896 when they pressured the former Foreign Minister, Li Hung-chang, to sign a so-called ‘defensive alliance' granting Russia the right to extend the Trans Siberian Railway eastwards across Heilungchiang. Their seizure last year of the Liaotung Peninsula was followed by demands for concessions to construct a north–south railway from Harbin to Port Arthur. Despite our protestations these were granted. It is true that since Li Hung-chang's disgrace and subsequently the conservative coup d'etat last summer a more reactionary government has shown less inclination to accede to foreign demands, but this does not alter the fact that Russian railway building is going on apace. There is already a substantial network in northern Manchuria, and once the system is linked to the sea it will be difficult to withstand Russia's economic (and de facto military) advance. The prospect of annexation becomes a practical concern.

Until recently our only recourse has been to organize financial support for the Chinese-owned Peking–Mukden Railway. The main line to Mukden is moving towards completion. The suggestion to construct a northern spur from Jinzhou to Shishan or even beyond to the Liao River, has also been greeted with favour by the board. There are sound commercial reasons for doing so: it will facilitate the transport of soybeans from the western regions of these provinces to the southern ports. There are also unspoken strategic considerations: if this can be the beginning of a line which runs parallel to the Russians' railway, it will neutralize to some degree their military advantage. We had some concern that the Honorary Chairman of this company, who happens to be the same Li Hung-chang who granted concessions to the Russians, might offer objections to this scheme, but ironically he also was supportive. Perhaps he has learned the error of his ways. Railway building in itself, however, will not be the answer to our problem. Progress so far has been slow, for all the efforts of the British and German engineers in charge of construction. It is time to …

A heavy bead of sweat fell from his forehead onto the manuscript, spidering the wet ink. Carefully he placed blotting paper over the page. He leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. He was tired, extremely tired … Just a moment's sleep would … He jerked awake and lurched to his feet. His hand reached along one of the shelves, retrieved a half-empty bottle of brandy, which he put to his lips. There was a thump. It seemed to come from the landing. He froze. Then he went to the door. This time he stood there for a full five minutes before returning to his despatch.

It is time to consider alternative strategies. I am aware of your lordship's reluctance to commit further money or resources into a region that is not perceived to be directly an English sphere of interest. You asked me to sound out Japanese intentions, and I am pleased to report that their suspicion of Russian activities has been intensifying. There is a ‘forward' party within the Imperial Army that is even now advocating aggressive steps to counter the Russians in Manchuria. Our agent with the Imperial High Command in Hokkaido—your lordship knows to whom I refer—reports that mock assaults on Port Arthur have been a regular feature of their army and navy field exercises, and he tells me that officers in the mess quite openly toast that day in the future when the Rising Sun will fly over the port of Dairen. Many believe that there will be war between the two powers within a few years, and that the victor will annex the Manchurian provinces in their entirety. In such a case it would be in our interest that the victor should be Japan and not Russia.

It was a scratch at the door that startled him, followed by a sound he could not identify: a wail that seemed to rise above the banging of the storm outside and the broken shutter downstairs. It was a thin, human sound, which could have been a moan or a cry of ecstasy. The young man reached up wildly, knocking back his chair, and grabbed, for want of anything better, a cricket bat. This he brandished above his head in striking position as he pulled open the door. ‘Who's there?' he called. His voice came out in a squeak. ‘Who's there?' he repeated, in a more manly tone. Dark, empty corridors stretched in either direction. The small light from the candle flickered on the polished wood. ‘Come on out, if you're there,' he called. ‘I'm not afraid.' He called again, this time in Chinese:
‘Ni shi shei? Ni shi shei? Chulaiba! Wo bu pa.'
There was no reply, only the banging of the shutters downstairs. ‘I'm
not
afraid,' he whispered. ‘I'm not.' He giggled light-headedly: ‘Come on, then,' he called again. ‘Come out, you secret, black and midnight hags. Do you really think an Englishman's afraid of a fox fairy?' His bat dropped to his side, and with the other hand he rubbed his forehead. ‘You're mad,' he whispered. ‘Mad. Quite, quite mad. God, what I would give for some sleep…' He shut the door quietly and moved back to his desk, but it was some time and another glass of brandy before he picked up his pen again.

Between northern Manchuria and Harbin there still exists a large territory where Chinese government—albeit weak—prevails. We know that the Russians are trying by whatever means they can to win influence for themselves among local officials and army commanders, and sometimes even among powerful bandits. We suspect that weapons from the eastern Siberian supply depot at Lake Baikal are finding their way into the hands of local officials (for cash). It would be in Japan's interest to take over this ‘trade in influence'. I believe that we are in a position discreetly to assist.

I have examined where best we might focus our efforts, and I favour Shishan. Your lordship will note when you glance at the map that it is strategically positioned in the border area between the Russian and Chinese centres of railway-building activity. Nestled in a bowl of hills, it is one of the few readily defensible areas in the otherwise flat plain. I am told that a well-armed force in the Black Hills could hold off an army, which is probably why, historically, Shishan was a garrison town and a safe stopover point for caravans.

He described Shishan briefly, its population, its market economy. He added a biography (as far as he knew it) of the Mandarin. He described the foreigners living in the city: the railway engineers at the camp, the chemical merchant from Babbit and Brenner, and the eccentric medical missionary, Dr Airton, in whom he had such high hopes. Was he right to place such confidence? He recalled the strange dinner that the head of Chancellery had given Airton on one of his trips to Peking. Sir Claude made it a matter of principle never to dine with missionaries so the chore had been delegated and he had been asked along to make up numbers. He had been surprised by how much he liked the man. The common sense and dry humour. The strange obsession with penny dreadfuls and cowboy stories. An unmissionarylike missionary. Should he recommend him? Well, for the moment there was nobody else. He took the plunge: ‘Airton's friendship with the Mandarin, with whom he meets regularly to discuss philosophy and politics, could be the introduction we need.'

And then he was finished, or nearly so. He could hardly keep his eyes from closing. At least the noise outside was abating a little and there had been no more strange sounds from the corridor. What on earth had he been thinking? Fox fairies! He had been warned of the danger before he left London. ‘For all their apparent cultivation,' he had been told, ‘these are primitive types like anybody else we have to deal with in the empire. They've lots of weird and generally nasty beliefs behind their pretty tea ceremonies. You are to investigate the cults and the black societies along with your political work because we think they're dangerous, but you're not to go native, do you hear?' And there had been much laughter over the port while he had smiled politely, thinking he knew better than his masters because of his doctorate in Oriental languages.

I hope that your lordship will agree with what I have proposed. I am becoming more and more convinced that the Mandarin of Shishan could become the power broker of this region and our agent to stave off Russian influence. He has many qualities to recommend him: a distinguished military past, a record as a strong, independent administrator; he is ruthless and cruel, and very corrupt. And he is ambitious. He has made attempts recently to train his small garrison in modern methods of warfare. With your lordship's approval, and with the assistance of the Imperial Japanese Army and their guns, I believe that we may easily bolster his position. In which case we may discover that in His Excellency the Mandarin Liu Daguang we have the makings of our very own warlord …

His head dropped onto his arms and soon he was asleep. Before he lost consciousness he had an image of flowing robes, soft hair and beautiful brown eyes, red lips opening, sharp little teeth, the slow sinuous curl of a tail, and claws, fangs …

But a ray of sunshine was already reddening the wooden walls. The sandstorm had died with the dawn. Lady MacDonald's courtyards recovered their tranquillity. The creatures of the night—if they had ever existed—returned to the realm of the imagination from which they had been conjured. The interpreter stirred in his sleep, and the long letter—which in its way was equally fantastical, a conjuring of schemes and conspiracies from that other imagined world of the Great Game and Realpolitik—dropped, page by page, to the floor.