The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure (46 page)

‘No, man, it's my own children.'

‘Your own children have run away? This is indeed upsetting.'

‘You are a peacock, sir. I demand that you take me to your master. My children were attacked by Boxers. Do you understand? Boxers. I know where the band is heading. If we hurry we can stop them.'

‘How intensely dramatic! Children attacked by Boxers, well I never—martial artists, did you say? That seems a trifle strange. The morning exercisers who practise
t'ai chi
and
qi gong
in this town are not in the habit of attacking children, certainly not foreign ones. Did your children provoke them in any way?'

‘Jin Lao, you are either being deliberately obtuse or you are mocking me. You know very well whom I mean by the Boxers. Now, will you or will you not take me to the Mandarin?'

‘Let me first enquire: your children are badly injured? Maimed? Or was this attack of a sexual nature?'

‘I cannot believe what I am hearing. No, Jin Lao, it was not a sexual attack. And thankfully—providentially—neither are my children seriously injured, though my son, George, is very bruised and frightened.'

‘Bruised? I am sorry to hear it,' said Jin Lao. ‘Can you describe the man who gave your son these bruises?'

‘Well, the one who did it was a boy, actually. About George's own age. Or so I gather. I wasn't there. My servant told me the boy had Boxer skills. There was a band of them. Now, please, Jin Lao, we have wasted enough time. I need to talk to the Mandarin.'

‘I deeply regret, Daifu, but I cannot take you to him.'

‘Why not, man? I told you. There are Boxers out there getting away.'

‘The Mandarin is resting,' said Jin Lao, ‘and I cannot disturb him with a story substantiated only on the hearsay of a servant about a brawl between two little boys. You have admitted there were no serious injuries. The odd bruise is hardly a matter for the
yamen
court.'

‘Oh, you snake of a man,' whistled the doctor. ‘Is it cumshaw you're wanting? I should have known. Here, take this money and let me in.'

Jin Lao's parchment face did not alter its expression. ‘Put your money away, Daifu. I understand that you are overwrought. Otherwise you would not think to bribe an official of the
yamen
.'

‘But the Mandarin—'

‘Is resting. When he wakes I will report what you have told me, and if he wishes to pursue the case I have no doubt that he will summon you. I suggest that for now you return to your home.'

‘I am not going until I see the Mandarin. No one has ever prevented me from entering here before.'

‘Before, Daifu, you came at the da ren's invitation, and the da ren's pleasure. May I remind you that I, too, am an official of the
yamen
. I have taken your petition. I will inform the da ren, and he may or may not respond to you, but if he does it will be at his own convenience. There is nothing more that you can do here today. I suggest that you go home.'

And Jin Lao barked an order. The two
yamen
runners resumed their aggressive stance in front of the gates. Jin Lao, with a curt bow towards the doctor, stooped through the door, which closed behind him. One of the runners raised his eyebrows ironically at the doctor as it slammed.

‘Snigger as much as you like. I'm not going,' muttered Airton, shaking the sand off his hat. ‘You'll see. There'll be hell to pay when the Mandarin finds out.'

So he had waited. And waited. The evening sun glinted on the rooftops of Shishan. A cuckoo called from the wood on the hill. The gates remained closed. Towards dusk an old woman appeared carrying a teapot in a basket. She poured and the elder of the two runners, a waggish man with a well-worn face and stumpy teeth, offered the doctor his bowl. Airton refused huffily. The man shrugged, reached within the folds of his robe and extracted an earthenware bottle. He unstopped it, lifted it to his nose and mimed delight at the smell, then smiling broadly, he offered the liquor to the doctor. Airton turned away, his ears burning. He waited for the laughter to come, but it didn't. The
yamen
runner took a sip from the bottle himself, offered it to his companion, then replaced it in his robe. The vigil continued. A chill wind blew. The
yamen
runners busied themselves with lighting then raising the lanterns above the gate. Airton pulled his jacket tighter round his body. The friendly guard blew on his hands, then pointed at the moon, which had risen palely in the sky; then he mimed a yawn and a head lying on a pillow. He peered at the doctor quizzically. Airton looked despairingly at the closed door. The
yamen
runner shook his head sadly. After a moment Airton nodded once, twice, then turned and made his way slowly down the hill.

Three weeks later, hunched by the fire in the clearing, he lived again the shame of that walk back to his house. Everyone he passed seemed to mock him. A group of women giggled; he hurried on by. Another threw a bucket of slops across the street behind him and he quickened his pace. He threaded his way through the busy high street with his head bowed. He seemed to hear catcalls of jeering laughter from every alleyway.

He preferred not to recall the desolate return to the hospital, Nellie's recriminations, the nuns' tears, and the pathetic sight of his children in their cots—George's battered face and, worse, the rigid, wide-eyed silence of his daughter. He felt a strangling impotence: her terrified stare was an accusation of him both as father and physician. He had sat by her throughout the night, watched her into fitful sleep, held her tightly when she burned and screamed in her nightmares, and only with the dawn had he relaxed. That was when she awoke and recognised him and began to sob in his arms. ‘Promise me, Papa, you'll never let the Boxers come again. Promise me. Promise me,' she had begged him, and he had promised again and again before she allowed herself to fall into a normal sleep.

The light of morning and a reviving cup of tea had put him in a calmer mood, and he was able to reflect that perhaps he had not been snubbed by the Mandarin, after all. More likely the vengeful Jin Lao had never passed on his message. He determined to write, therefore, directly to the Mandarin. He doubted whether even Jin Lao would dare to obstruct a letter. The Mandarin would certainly call for him when he heard what had happened. Zhang Erhao was duly packed off to the
yamen
with an envelope under the doctor's most impressive seal. He also sent messages to Herr Fischer and Henry Manners at the railway camp asking if they had experienced any incidents involving Boxers. Herr Fischer himself arrived at the hospital in the afternoon, all concern. The Honourable Manners was absent as usual, he reported, probably enjoying himself in the town, but speaking for himself he had seen or heard of nothing untoward and neither had Charlie. Was Airton sure that it had been Boxers and not some other band of armed vagrants? Again they interrogated Ah Lee, who against Airton's instructions had already left the sick ward and was back at work in the kitchen—but the cook, while giving a histrionic account of what had developed in his telling to be an epic battle, was not able to provide a convincing proof that it had really been the ‘Harmonious Fists'. The doctor and Herr Fischer decided that certainty must await the Mandarin's own investigations. In the meanwhile they should take precautions to protect their properties. They agreed to remain in daily contact. Fischer rode back to his camp and the doctor settled down to wait for the Mandarin's summons, resuming as best he could his duties in the surgery—but no summons came.

Nor did it the next day, or the day after. Instead, on the morning of the third day after the accident, one of Major Lin's officers had arrived, with four armed and mounted soldiers, a sedan chair, and orders that the doctor was required to attend the
yamen
court forthwith. He protested that he had not completed his morning surgery. Nor was he dressed for an official audience with the Mandarin. The young lieutenant had politely, but firmly, made it clear that this was no invitation to take tea. The criminal court was in session and the doctor had been requested to give evidence. He would be obliged if the doctor would enter the sedan chair that had been provided for him. He might observe for himself that a suitable escort had been prepared for his safety.

‘Is this in answer to my letter?' The doctor had pushed aside the curtains of the sedan to ask. ‘Is this to do with the attack on my children?'

The officer riding beside him had not even turned his head.

When they reached the
yamen,
the soldiers, dismounted but still holding their rifles, formed two in front, two behind him, like a court-martial detail. The lieutenant, his sword drawn and sloped against his shoulder, led them through the gate.

‘Here, am I under arrest?' the doctor called. ‘Why the guard?'

Instead of going straight through the main courtyard to the Mandarin's apartments, the lieutenant led them through a small door leading to a bricked-in corridor lined with benches, which opened into a smaller courtyard, to which the doctor had never been before. Soldiers with spears guarded a gate beyond. The courtyard itself was full of men and women squatting on the ground or leaning against the walls. They came from all classes—the doctor recognised the brown silk gowns of merchants and the blue cotton pyjamas of peasants. They had the blank expressions of people waiting all night at a railway station for a train long overdue. Dull eyes surveyed him incuriously. Then he noticed that in one corner a man was crouching on his heels weighted down by a
cangue
. In another, three iron cages hung from a pole. With horror, the doctor identified ragged arms and legs inside and bodies contorted into positions where they could neither stand nor lie nor sit. In the shadow of the left-hand wall his eyes made out manacle rings and chains. The lieutenant halted his detail. ‘We wait here,' he said.

‘What is this place?' The doctor had to make an effort to keep his voice firm. ‘Have you brought me to a prison?'

‘As I told you, this is the
yamen
court. Be patient, Doctor. Your case will soon be heard.'

‘My case?' said the doctor—but the lieutenant had sauntered over to the gate, in front of which sat a dark-spectacled official with a pen and parchment. Anxiously the doctor watched the two conversing. He felt a tugging at his trouser leg and looked down to see the exophthalmic eyes, open mouth and twisted shape of a beggar. One of the soldiers hit out with his rifle butt and the man crawled away. High-pitched laughter erupted from his right. A young, well-built, shaggy man manacled by his hands and feet to a pole was winking facetiously at him. Airton turned away.

‘I demand to know what is happening,' he said quietly, when the lieutenant returned. ‘Does Liu Da Ren know that I have been brought here like this? Like a common criminal?'

But the lieutenant ignored his question, merely beckoning him to follow him. ‘Your case is ready to be heard now,' he said. ‘Come.'

‘What case? Am I on trial? On what charge? This is madness. I am a foreigner, sir. I am not subject to Chinese courts.'

‘Come, Doctor, you are wasting time,' said the lieutenant.

The gates opened into a candle-lit hall. It took a moment for Airton to adjust to the gloom. At the end of the hall was a raised table covered by a red cloth. Behind the table sat the Mandarin, in splendid blue robes. A servant with the official yellow umbrella stood behind him. Next to him sat a younger man, also in blue robes, also under an umbrella, and he, too, wore the green button and peacock feather hat. While the Mandarin sat impassively and stiffly, no hint of expression on his wide face, the young man next to him lounged in his chair, covering his mouth with his fan to hide a yawn, his moist brown eyes lazily surveying the room. He looked very much at ease.

The doctor was confused. His mind ran rapidly over everything he knew about Chinese protocol. There was nobody of equal rank to the Mandarin in Shishan, that was for certain. Then who was this handsome fellow whose manner signified equal if not higher status than the Mandarin?

Beneath the table sat the scribes and court officials. With no surprise he recognised Jin Lao, who was studying a scroll.

There were three figures kowtowing on the ground in front of the magistrate's table, two adults and a small boy. The man on the left had his hands bound behind him. An armed
yamen
runner stood two paces away. There was something familiar about the man bound on the ground, the long thin neck and the sticklike limbs. With a start of anger and fear Airton recognised Ah Lee.

The lieutenant stepped forward, clasped hands above his head, knelt and bowed. ‘May the court behold the foreign doctor, Ai Dun,' he shouted.

‘The court beholds him,' said the Mandarin gruffly. ‘The officer may retire.'

Jin Lao raised his reedy voice. ‘It is customary for the accused to kowtow.'

‘The foreign doctor may be excused a kowtow,' said the Mandarin. ‘And you will not refer to him as the accused, Chamberlain. As you know he cannot be tried by this court. Foreigners are protected by treaty and the extraterritoriality laws, none of which have been repealed.' He turned to the man beside him. ‘As far as I know that is still the case, Prince, is it not?'

The young man smiled. ‘I am very much afraid that it is. What a shame. I would have enjoyed the sight of a hairy barbarian attempting to bow in a civilised manner.'

‘You may proceed, Chamberlain,' said the Mandarin.

Jin Lao began to read, in the stilted, falsetto voice that convention demanded of an indictment. The phrases were literary and opaque, and the doctor had to struggle to follow the sense, his mind lulled by the lilting rhythm and shrill crescendos of the delivery. He might have been listening to a virtuoso performer at the opera (he had always thought that Chinese formal proceedings modelled themselves on the opera), but Jin Lao was no theatrical king with flags and a beard and a painted face. The barbs and thrusts of his language were a spear pointing directly at the doctor, wielded by someone whom he now realised he could never again dismiss as a functionary but must treat as his deadly enemy. Airton felt the man's eyes on him, gloating, triumphant, reptilian. Long nails unrolled elegantly out of the chamberlain's robe in the direction of the cowering Ah Lee, pointing the power of the court in accusation like a magician's wand—but the snake eyes still flickered on the doctor, drawing him also into his spell. Airton could feel the perspiration growing on his hot forehead; at the same time he felt a chill of fear. Jin Lao was talking about his children. In a
yamen
court. This was deeply unreal. He felt that he had stumbled into a dream, or a nightmare.