Part 36 (1/2)

It was over before it began. The men vanished. A splash of blood started to freeze on the cobbles. Liev slipped the knife back into his belt and, without releasing her wrist, plodded on down through the crowded hutong hutong as if nothing had happened. as if nothing had happened.

'What,' Lydia demanded in English, 'was that about? Did you really have to use that knife?'

He halted, stared at her with his one good eye, shrugged, and moved on.

She tried again. In Russian this time.

'O chyon vi rugalyis?'

'He wanted to buy you.'

'Buy me?'

'Da.'

She said no more. Knew she was shaking. d.a.m.n the b.l.o.o.d.y bear. She hated him to know she was frightened. She tried to s.n.a.t.c.h her wrist away, but it was like trying to pull a rivet out of one of the metal s.h.i.+ps with your bare fingers. It just didn't happen.

'I didn't know you speak Mandarin,' she said.

'He offered good money,' he said and uttered a deep growling sound that it took her a moment to recognise as a laugh.

'd.a.m.n you,' she said in English.

The growl went on and on.

'In here,' she said to shut him up.

It was a kabak. kabak. A bar. A bar.

She knew it was a mistake the moment she was inside. Twenty pairs of eyes turned. Stared at them as if a snake had crawled through the door. The air hung solid and lifeless under the low ceiling and was full of odours Lydia did not recognise. A stove in one corner coughed out heat and fumes.

She stared back at the men. Her eyes roamed their faces and their clothes, all grey as ash, and the crazed enamel tables where they sat hunched over some colourless rotgut liquid. The grimy bamboo counter had a chained monkey at one end and the man behind it had no ears. He wore a soiled rag around the top of his head and held another in his hand. He was wiping a gla.s.s with it. Without taking his eyes off Liev Popkov for one second, he reached under the counter and brought up a rifle. He thumbed back the hammer with the ease of long practice and pointed the business end straight at Lydia's chest. She felt her ribs contract. The rifle looked ancient, probably a relic from the Boxer Rebellion. But that didn't mean it didn't shoot straight.

n.o.body spoke.

Liev nodded. Moving slowly he pulled her behind him and backed out of the bar.

'He wasn't there,' she said outside. She was relieved to see her breath coiling in icy vapour from her mouth, in and out, her ribs still working.

Liev nodded again. 'There are many bars.'

They went into ten bars that evening. Scattered over different areas of the harbour. No more rifles were pushed in their faces, but no smiles either. Eyes regarded them with the same loathing and mouths muttered curses and spat hatred on the floor.

Word was spreading. About the giant bear who broke men's faces and the flame-haired girl. When they entered a bar and stood inside the door for no more than two minutes, heads raised because they'd heard of this strange pair who haunted the dockland. Lydia could see it on their faces, as clearly as she could see the desire to slit their fanqui fanqui throats. Each time she peered through the gloom of some narrow stinking room and heard the silence slide over the tables as drinkers turned to stare, she did not expect to find the one face she sought, the one with the intense and thoughtful eyes that had always observed her so closely and the nose that flared when he was amused though his mouth was slow to smile. She didn't expect to see it. But still she hoped. throats. Each time she peered through the gloom of some narrow stinking room and heard the silence slide over the tables as drinkers turned to stare, she did not expect to find the one face she sought, the one with the intense and thoughtful eyes that had always observed her so closely and the nose that flared when he was amused though his mouth was slow to smile. She didn't expect to see it. But still she hoped.

In one of the bars a short barrel of a man with oiled hair came and placed himself nervously in front of them. He said something in Chinese.

Liev Popkov fixed his eye on the questioner but grunted to Lydia in Russian. 'He says, who are you looking for?'

'Tell him the name is not for his ears. Tell him to say to all his . . . ,' she hunted for the Russian word, ' . . . pyanitsam pyanitsam . . . customers that the girl with red hair was in his bar. She searches for someone.' . . . customers that the girl with red hair was in his bar. She searches for someone.'

Liev frowned at her.

'Tell him,' she said.

He told him.

Outside in the street once more, the big man took root, indifferent to the snow flurries that were burrowing into his black beard, and put a hand on her shoulder. It felt like a truck had landed on it.

'Why don't you tell his name?'

'Because it is too dangerous for him, slishkom opasno. slishkom opasno.'

'A Communist?'

'A person.'

'How will you find him if you will not say his name?'

'I am here. People talk. He will hear.'

'And he will know it is you?'

'Yes. He'll know.'

Lydia lay in bed fully clothed. s.h.i.+vering. She couldn't get the dockland ice out of her bones. They felt as if they were cracking open, and even though she tucked her fingers under her armpits the chill air still managed to spike needles through them. Her old eiderdown was wrapped around her, tight as a coc.o.o.n, with every sc.r.a.p of clothing she possessed draped on top, but still she was cold. The old black stove spluttered. Not that it was short of kerosene. Not now they had Alfred. But the meagre heat coaxed from it was no threat to the breath of the Chinese winter that climbed in through the window each night.

The door to the attic banged open.

'Blin! Sorry, darling, I didn't mean to wake you.' Sorry, darling, I didn't mean to wake you.'

Lydia heard the church clock strike two.

'I wasn't asleep.'

'I'll just light a candle. Go to sleep now.'

Valentina had gone out with Alfred to a party. She'd been drinking. Lydia could tell by her footsteps. There was the flick of a lighter, a faint glow in the darkness, the noise of a chair dragged across the floor, then silence. Lydia knew what her mother was doing. Sitting in front of the stove. Smoking. She could smell it. And drinking. She knew it. Though Valentina could open a bottle and pour a gla.s.s of vodka without a single sound. Still, she knew it.

'Mama, I saw something bad today.'

'How bad?'

'I saw a dead baby. Naked. It was lying in a gutter and a rat was biting off its lips.'

'Ach! Don't, sweetheart. Don't let such things into your head. This G.o.d-cursed country is too full of them.'