The Red Queen (38 page)

‘Last night, you left a pair of your glasses here. I have kept them safely for you. They are on the bedside table, where you left them. You must remember to take them, this time, because tomorrow morning I go home with all my problems to my wife in Barcelona. You must take all your possessions with you, tonight.’

She promises him that she will check carefully before she leaves. She will leave no incriminating evidence.

She has no idea what will happen, on this last evening. His mood and his manner are strange. She does not know him well enough to guess what they might signify. What does he want of her? Had he been serious in his request for her advice? For her ‘wise and beautiful’ advice? Or does he want a third night in bed with her? Or both? She finds that she does not mind much what he wants. It is enough that he wants to be with her, for whatever reason. She finds his company extraordinarily delightful, and she would like to be with him for ever, during this last night.

He nurses her hand for a few moments, then kisses it before he relinquishes it.

‘I have a gift for you,’ he says. ‘It is a small gift, but I did purchase it for you myself. I would not like you to think that it was given to me in China, and that I am passing it on to you in a second-hand manner. I purchased it expressly for you here this afternoon. It is a proper gift for a scholar to give a scholar. I will give it to you now, and you must put it in a safe place so that you do not forget it.’

The gift is standing on top of the fax machine on the executive desk by the curtained window. He goes to get it for her, and he presents it to her. It is about eight inches high, and it is square, and it is elaborately wrapped in many layers. Does he want her to open it now? He does. She has always hated opening presents in front of their donors, but he is so calm and confident about his gift that she embarks upon its unveiling with an almost equal confidence. She detaches the envelope containing a card with her name upon it, lays it to one side, unties the first bow of string, removes the outer bag of stiff brown paper, then makes her way through various differently and subtly coloured and textured layers of what he assures her is handmade mulberry paper. Finally, she comes to the object itself. It is a little lacquered cabinet, with many tiny drawers. Its every surface is covered with a different pattern in different colours. It is exquisitely made. Is it a priceless antique? She hopes and fears that it is. ‘Open the drawers,’ he urges her, and she opens them, one after the other. The drawers are also lined with coloured paper, each in a different and intricate pattern, and they are full of tiny scholarly implements – coloured pencils, brushes, charcoals, miniature scrolls of paper tied with ribbon, a magnifying eyeglass, a paper knife, a little ruler, a bookmark made of embroidered silk. It is a diminutive treasure house. She is delighted with it.

‘It is the most beautiful present I have ever received in my entire life!’ she says, sincerely. She knows that she has said this before, to others, on several occasions, but this time, each time, she has been sincere.

He is pleased with her pleasure. But he tells her that she must also admire the card that he bought to go with it.

She opens the large dark red envelope, which she had discarded in the excitement of opening the many wrappings. Her name is written upon it in large letters and in golden ink. Inside is a card showing a reproduction of an eighteenth-century Korean paper screen, with a still life displaying just such a little box of drawers as she now possesses. The box is accompanied by other boxes, by a vase of peonies and an inkwell and a bowl of fruit and a peacock feather. But what charms them both the most is the depiction of a pair of tortoiseshell-framed glasses which lies open, in the middle of the composition, upon an open book of
han’gŭl
script. ‘You see?’ says Jan. Babs sees. She puts her own glasses back on again to inspect them more closely.

‘How can I thank you?’ she says.

‘I am so glad you like it,’ he says. ‘The name of this kind of composition in this painting is called
chae’kori
. It means ‘screens-with-books’. It is a characteristic motif of the Chosŏn period. You see, I, too, have learned something about this country. Not as much as you, but a little. The gift box is my casket of lacquer. As you know, I am fond of the casket theme. This casket does not have many secrets in it, but what it holds, it is all for you. You may look more carefully, when you are home in England.’

In the card, he has written: ‘For Athena the wise and beautiful, in gratitude.’ She finds this an acceptable message, though she is not quite sure in what way he considers that she has deserved or is about to deserve his gratitude. As she studies it, she senses that he is about to initiate a new phase of the encounter. And she is right. His homage duly paid and his tribute accepted, he now wishes to return to the subject of his crazy wife.

He has not bought his wife a doll’s study, or a paper screen, or a jade duck, or an amethyst pendant, but he has, as he now tells Babs, put a deposit on a Chinese baby. This has caused him, as he now reveals, a deep disquiet. He cannot believe that he has committed such a gross, such a reckless, such an inappropriate act. How can he have become a trader in human flesh? What shall he do? Shall he forfeit his deposit, or cancel his transaction? ‘I have entered into the territory of dangerous exchanges,’ he says, ‘on which so much has been written. Both by your friends, and by mine. I have offered money for what money cannot and should not buy. This is not a hypothesis in a book. I have done it in the real world. I do not know what to do. I do not know what I have done.’

He is on his feet now, and is pacing up and down, in a manner that reminds her of her father, who was given to pacing the drawing room overlooking the orchard in Orpington when contemplating hard choices or sick patients. Maybe she loves Jan because he resembles her father. Her father is a scrupulous and well-mannered medical man, a family doctor of the old school.

She tells Jan that, if he is uneasy, he need do nothing. He has made no commitment, surely? Surely it takes many months to arrange for such an adoption? Surely there are many legal obstacles to be raised, in both countries? If he does nothing, the arrangement will surely lapse? He’ll have lost a thousand dollars, but that won’t matter much, will it?

‘There is already paperwork,’ he says. ‘And maybe not so much time.’

‘May I see the paperwork?’ she asks, ignoring for the moment the second half of his statement. She knows that he wants her to see the paperwork. He had introduced her, two nights ago, to the photographs, and now he wants her to see the paperwork.

He repeats the formula of their first evening.

‘If you do not mind,’ he says, ‘I think we could talk about this better in bed. It would be easier to talk in bed. Also, I am very tired. I have had a long and tiring day, and tomorrow I have an early start and a long flight. Would you mind lying beside me in bed, just this once more? It is already too late to have an early night, but we could lie comfortably together.’

Of course she does not mind. Perhaps he is telling her that he is proposing bed rest, rather than sexual intercourse? If so, she does not mind that either. She does not mind what he suggests, provided that it does not exclude her. Maybe a night without sexual intercourse suggests a greater intimacy than the sexual act itself could offer?

So, once more, she finds herself sitting by his side, under the crisp king-sized sheets, in her Pagoda Hotel bathrobe, propped up against a heap of pillows, with a dossier of papers spread upon her knees, and a tumbler of J&B by her side. He is drinking a glass of water, but he has urged her to accept the hospitality of his whisky. ‘I am a tired old man,’ he says, ‘but you are young, and I can tell that you have an excellent constitution. It would please me if you would drink on my behalf a glass of hotel whisky.’

Some of the papers are in English, and some are in Chinese. It is true that he appears to have paid a deposit on a baby, for here is a receipt for a registration fee of $1,000. Clipped to the corner of one of the documents is a small passport-sized photograph of a little girl with large eyes and black hair. Babs Halliwell stares at her.

‘Is this the child?’ she asks. It is now all a little too real for comfort. ‘Did you actually see her? Is this an actual child?’

‘Yes,’ says Jan. ‘I saw her. And that is her name. Her name is Chen Jianyi. She is about eighteen months old. Her date of birth is notional, but they tell me she will soon be two years old. She was discovered in a bus station. She had been brought from the countryside, they tell me. She had been abandoned, at the bus station. In a plastic bag.’

‘I think you feel committed to this child,’ says Babs, in her role as wise woman. ‘But you know that there is no real commitment. There are so many other things to consider. As you know. Such an adoption is not to be undertaken lightly.’

He sighs, very heavily.

‘There is a commitment,’ he says, after a long pause. ‘There is a commitment to my wife. And now there is also a commitment to this child.’

‘But you do not know this child,’ says Babs. ‘You saw her once, at a distance, in an orphanage. She was one of many. That is not a commitment.’

‘The child looked at me,’ says Jan van Jost.

This is an extraordinary thing for a man to say. It silences Babs. She does not want to say anything foolish. It is very important not to be foolish now.

‘She looked at me,’ repeats Jan van Jost. ‘She looked at me, and she held my gaze. Look at me, Barbara.’

Her ridiculous and unfashionable name rolls strangely and solemnly from his lips. She looks at him. Their eyes interlock. He looks into her brain. He takes her head in his hands, and gazes into her. She is the first to break contact and to look away.

‘You see,’ he says. ‘It is not easy.’

‘No,’ she says, ‘it is not easy.’

‘So, I think that perhaps I should take this large risk,’ he says. ‘For the child’s sake, for Viveca’s sake, for my own sake. It was a brave child, the way it looked at me. Its eyes were like a well of ink. Like an unwritten book. Like the blank page of an unwritten book. You think I am mad, perhaps. And maybe I am. What do you say?’

‘I don’t know why you are asking me,’ she says. She is alarmed by the strange intensity of his manner. She, who is accustomed to dissimulating her own intensity, has more than met her match.

‘I am asking you,’ he says, ‘because you know about uncertainty and fatality.’

‘But I don’t!’ she cries. ‘I know nothing! That was only a lecture. A string of not very new ideas. A passport to this conference. Two weeks abroad. It meant nothing. Well, very little. In life, I made all the wrong choices. You must not ask me for advice on such serious matters. It is unfair.’

He sees that he has distressed her, and at once he retreats. He takes both her hands in his, and rubs them between his own. His hands are cold, despite the humming steady even temperature of the air-conditioned bedroom.

‘Of course it is unfair. I apologize. I do not truly ask you to play the oracle. It is a ridiculous conundrum, this conundrum of the baby and the crazy wife. There is no right answer to it. But I needed to talk. I needed to speak. And it was you that I selected as my confidante. It was because you were kind, and because you were there. You have been very kind to me. I apologize for my intrusion.’

‘No need, no need,’ she says. ‘It is an honour.’

She starts to put the papers back in the folder, tidily. He watches her.

‘You must do what you think is right,’ she says, as she lowers the folder to the floor.

She is suddenly feeling extremely exhausted. She, too, has had a long day, at the end of a long week. This strange conversation has been unaccountably and incalculably stressful and distressing. She feels as though she has been submitted to a lengthy oral examination, which she may well have failed. She feels as though she has herself been asked to shoulder the burden of an unknown child from a foreign land. Which, of course, is not what is on the cards at all. She lies back against the high white hotel pillows, and shuts her eyes. She must not stay long, as he has said that he has to get up early to catch a plane to Frankfurt and then a connecting flight to Barcelona, and she has a breakfast appointment in the coffee shop with Dr Oo. He gathers her gently towards him, and settles her head upon his shoulder, and folds his arms around her. He seems to want to hold on to her. This is very reassuring. The skin of his body is smooth and dry, and he smells pleasantly and expensively of aftershave. Armani, Gucci, Dior – one of those smart, modern male perfumes.

Why should he not adopt a Chinese baby as a diversion for his wife, if that is what he wants? He is a rich man, and rich men have succumbed to far worse foibles than this. It is a generous impulse on his part. She is glad that he does not seem to be disappointed with her or angry with her. His arms are friendly and loving to her. It would not be a good idea to fall asleep, she tells herself, as she begins to drift peacefully away. As soon as he has fallen asleep, she tells herself, she will collect her treasures and creep out, and return to her single twin bed two floors below, and leave him sleeping, and the next morning it will all be as though it had never been.

She is woken suddenly, she knows not how much later, by an unexpected and frightening sound. One moment she is asleep and dreaming, and the next moment she is listening to Jan van Jost fighting for his life. He is having some kind of attack. He is breathing hoarsely and loudly, and he is struggling, and his torso is rearing up from the bed in a spasm of sudden and brief agony.