James clavell

Gornt had argued with the proprietor over the menu, settling with what fish they could agree on. Both were experts and Gornt a valued customer. Later they had sat down at a table on the patio. It was cool and they drank beer, happy together, the three of them. All knew that at least during dinner there was a truce and no need for guards.

In moments the first dish had arrived—mounds of succulent quick-fried shrimps, sea-sweet and as delicious as any in the world. Then tiny octopus with garlic and ginger and chilli and all the condiments of the East. Then some chicken wings deep fried which they ate with sea salt, then the great fish steamed with soy and slivers of fresh green onions and ginger and laid on a platter, the cheek, the delicacy of the fish, given to Bartlett as the honoured guest.

"Jesus, when I saw this dump, sorry, this place, I figured you were putting me on."

"Ah, my dear fellow," Gornt said, "you have to know the Chinese. They aren't concerned with the surroundings, just the food. They'd be vary suspicious of any eating place that wasted money on decoration or tablecloths or candles. They want to see what they eat—hence the harsh light. Chinese are at their best eating. They're like Italians. They love to laugh and eat and drink and belch...."

They all drank beer. "That goes best with Chinese food though Chinese tea's better—it's more digestive and breaks down all the oil."

"Why the smile, Linc?" Orlanda asked. She was sitting between them.

"No reason. It's just that you really know how to eat here. Say, what's this?"

She peered at the dish of fried rice mixed with various kinds of fish. "Squid."

"What?"

The others laughed and Gornt said, "The Chinese say if its back faces heaven it's edible. Shall we go?"

Thoughtfully Bartlett sipped his brandy. Orlanda was across from him and they were lounging in the deck chairs on the aft deck. Suddenly he wished that this was his boat and they were alone. Her eyes were on him. Without being asked, she moved closer and put her hand on the back of his neck, kneading the muscles gently and expertly.

"That feels great," he said, wanting her.

"Ah," she replied, very pleased, "I'm very good at massage, Linc. I took lessons from a Japanese. Do you have a regular massage?"

"No."

"You should. It's very important for your body, very important to keep every muscle tuned. You tune your aircraft, don't you? So why not your body? Tomorrow I'll arrange it for you." Her nails dug into his neck mischievously. "She's a woman, but not to be touched, heya!"

"I was teasing, silly," she told him at once, brightly, taking away the sudden tension easily. "This woman's blind. In olden days in China and even today in Taiwan, blind people are given a monopoly on the art and business of massage, their fingers being their eyes. Oh yes. Of course there are lots of quacks and charlatans who pretend to have knowledge but don't, not really. In Hong Kong you soon know who's real and who isn't. This is a very tiny village." She leaned forward and brushed her lips against his neck. "That's because you're beautiful."

He laughed. "I'm supposed to say that." He put his arm around her, bewitched, and gave her a little hug, very conscious of the captain at the helm ten feet away.

"Would you like to go forward and see the rest of the ship?" she asked.

He stared at her. "You a mind reader too?"

She laughed, her lovely face a mirror of joy. "Isn't it the girl's part to notice if her... if her date's happy or sad or wanting to be alone or whatever? I was taught to use my eyes and senses, Linc. Certainly I try to read your mind but if I'm wrong you must tell me so that I can get better. But if I'm correct... doesn't that make it grander for you?" And so much easier to ensnare you beyond escape. To control you on a line you can so easily break if you wish, my art being to make the too thin line like a steel mesh.

Oh but that was not easy to learn! Quillan was a cruel teacher, oh so cruel. Much of my education was done in anger, Quillan cursing me, "For chrissake can't you ever learn to use your bloody eyes? It should have been crystal clear when I came here that I was feeling rotten and had a rotten day! Why the hell didn't you get me a drink at once, touch me gently at once and then keep your bloody mouth shut for ten minutes while I recoup—just tender and understanding for ten bloody minutes and then I'd be fine again!"

"But Quillan," she had whimpered through her tears, frightened by his rage, "you came in so angrily you upset me and th—"

"I've told you fifty times not to be upset just because I'm bloody upset! It's your job to take the tension out of me! Use your bloody eyes and ears and sixth sense! All I need's ten minutes and I'm docile again and putty. For chrissake, don't I watch over you all the time? Don't I use my bloody eyes and try to defuse you? Every month at the same time you're always edgy, eh? Don't I take care to be as calm as possible then and keep you calmed? Eh?"

"Yes but d—"

"To hell with but! By God, now I'm in a worse temper than when I came in! It's your bloody fault because you're stupid, unwomanly, and you of all people should know better!"

Orlanda remembered how he had slammed out of the apartment and she had burst into tears, the birthday dinner she had cooked ruined and the evening wrecked. Later, he had come back, calm now, and had taken her into his arms and held her tenderly as she wept, sorry for the row that she agreed was unnecessary and her fault. "Listen, Orlanda," he had said so gently. "I'm not the only man you'll have to control in this life, not the only one on whom you'll depend—it's a basic fact that women depend on some man, however rotten and evil and difficult. It's so easy for a woman to be in control. Oh so easy if you use your eyes, understand that men are children and, from time to time—most of the time—stupid, petulant and awful. But they supply the money and it's hard to do that, very hard. It's very hard to keep supplying the money day after day whoever you are. Moh ching moh meng... no money no life. In return the woman's got to supply the harmony—the man can't, not all the time. But the woman can always cheer her man if she wants to, can always take the poison out of him. Always. Just by being calm and loving and tender and understanding for such a short time. I'll teach you the game of life. You'll have a Ph. D. in survival, as a woman, but you've got to work..."

Oh how I worked, Orlanda thought grimly, remembering all her tears. But now I know. Now I can do instinctively what I forced myself to learn. "Come on, let me show you the forward part of the ship." She got up, conscious of the captain's eyes, and led the way confidently.

As they walked she slipped her arm momentarily in Linc's, then took the railing of the gangway and went below. The stateroom was big, with comfortable chaises and sofas and deep chairs fixed to the deck. The cocktail cabinet was well stocked. "The galley's forward in the fo'c'sle with the crew quarters," she said. "They're cramped but good for Hong Kong." A small corridor led forward. Four cabins, two with a double bunk, two with bunks one over the other. Neat and shipshape and inviting. "Aft's Quillan's master stateroom and the master suite. It's luxurious." She smiled thoughtfully. "He enjoys the best."

"Yes," Bartlett said. He kissed her and she responded, fully responded. His desire made her limp and liquid and she let herself go into his desire, matching his passion, certain that he would stop and that she would not have to stop him.

The game had been planned that way.

She felt his strength. At once her loins pressed closer, moving slightly. His hands roved her and hers responded. It was glorious in his arms, better than she had ever known with Quillan who was always teacher, always in control, always unsharable. They were on the bunk when Bartlett backed off. Her body cried out for his, but still she exulted.

"Let's go back on deck," she heard him say, his voice throaty.

Gornt crossed the fine stateroom and went into the master suite and locked the door behind him. The girl was sweetly asleep in the huge bed under the light blanket. He stood at the foot of the bed, enjoying the sight of her before he touched her. She came out of sleep slowly. "Ayeeyah, I slept so well, Honoured Sir. Your bed is so inviting," she said in Shanghainese with a smile and a yawn and stretched gloriously as a kitten would stretch. "Did you eat well?"

"Excellently," he replied in the same language. "Was yours equally fine?"

"Oh yes, delicious!" she said politely. "Boat Steward Cho brought the same dishes you had. I particularly liked the octopus with black bean and garlic sauce." She sat up in the bed and leaned against the silk pillows, quite naked. "Should I get dressed and come on deck now?"

"No, Little Kitten, not yet." Gornt sat on the bed and reached out and touched her breasts and felt a little shiver run through her. Her Chinese hostess name was Beauty of the Snow and he had hired her for the evening from the Happy Hostess Night Club. He had considered bringing Mona Leung, his present girl friend instead, but she would be far too independent to remain below happily and only come on deck at his whim.

He had chosen Beauty of the Snow very carefully. Her beauty was extraordinary, in face and body and the texture of her skin. She was eighteen, and had been in Hong Kong barely a month. A friend in Taiwan had told him about her rarity and said that she was about to join the Happy Hostess Night Club from the sister club in Taiwan. Two weeks ago he had gone there and made an arrangement that had proved profitable to both of them. Tonight when Orlanda had told him she was dining with Bartlett and he had invited them aboard, at once he had called the Happy Hostess and bought Beauty of the Snow out of the club for the night and hurried her aboard. "I'm playing a game on a friend tonight," he had told her. "I want you to stay here in this cabin, in this place, until I bring you on deck. It may be an hour or two but you are to stay here, quiet as a mouse, until I fetch you."

"Ayeeyah, in this floating palace, I am prepared to stay a week without charge. Just my food and more of the champagne... though pillowing would be extra. May I sleep in the bed if I wish?"

"Certainly, but please shower first."

"A shower? Bless all gods! Hot and cold water? That will be paradise—this water shortage is very unhygienic."

Gornt had brought her tonight to taunt Orlanda if he decided he wanted to taunt her. Beauty of the Snow was much younger, prettier, and he knew that the sight of her wearing one of the elegant robes that once Orlanda had worn would send her into a spasm. All through dinner, he had chortled to himself, wondering when he should produce her for maximum effect: to excite Bartlett and to remind Orlanda that she was already old by Hong Kong standards, and that without his active help she would never get Bartlett, not the way she wanted.

Do I want her married to Bartlett? he asked himself, bemused.

No. And yet, if Orlanda were Bartlett's wife he would always be in my power because she is and ever will be. So far she hasn't forgotten that. So far she's been obedient and filial. And frightened.

He laughed. Oh revenge will be sweet when I lower the boom on you, my dear. As I will, one day. Oh yes, my dear, I haven't forgotten the snickers of all those smug bastards—Pug, Plumm, Havergill or Ian bloody Dunross—when they heard that you couldn't wait to leap into bed with a stud half my age.

Should I tell you now that you're my mui jai?

When Orlanda was thirteen her Shanghainese mother had come to see him. "Times are very hard, Lord, our debts to the company are huge and your patience and kindness overwhelm us."

"Times are bad for everyone," he had told her.

"Unfortunately, since last week, my husband's department no longer exists. At the end of the month he is to leave, after seventeen years of service, and we cannot pay our debts to you."

"Eduardo Ramos is a good man and will easily find a new and better position."

"Yin ksiao shih ta," she had said: We lose much because of a small thing.

"Joss," he had said, hoping the trap was sprung and all the seeds he had sown would, at long last, bear fruit.

"Joss," she had agreed. "But there is Orlanda."

"What about Orlanda?"

"Perhaps she could be a mui jai." A mui jai was a daughter given by a debtor to a creditor forever, in settlement for debts that could not otherwise be paid—to be brought up as the creditor wished, or used or given away as the creditor wished. It was an ancient Chinese custom, and quite legal.

Gornt remembered the glow he had felt. The negotiations had taken several weeks. Gornt agreed to cancel Ramos's debts—the debts that Gornt had so carefully encouraged, agreed to reinstate Ramos, giving the man a modest guaranteed pension and help in setting up in Portugal, and to pay for Orlanda's schooling in America. In return the Ramoses guaranteed to provide Orlanda to him, virgin and suitably enamoured, on or before her eighteenth birthday. There would be no refusal. "This, by all the gods, will be a perpetual secret between us. I think, too, it would be equally better to keep it secret from her, Lord, forever. But we know and she will know where her rice bowl lies."

Gornt beamed. The good years were worth all the patience and planning and the little money involved. Everyone gained, he told himself, and there is enjoyment yet to come.

Yes, he thought and concentrated on Beauty of the Snow. "Life is very good," he said, fondling her.

"I am happy you're happy, Honoured Sir. I am happy too. Your shower was a gift of the gods. I washed my hair, everything." She smiled. "If you don't want me to play the prank yet on your friends, would you care to pillow?"

"Yes," he said, delighted as always by the forthrightness of a Chinese pillow partner. His father had explained it early: "You give them money, they give you their youth, the Clouds and the Rain and entertain you.

In Asia it's a fair and honourable exchange. The more their youth, the more the laughter and gratification, the more you must pay. That's the bargain, but don't expect romance or real tears —that's not part of their commitment. Just temporary entertainment and pillowing. Don't abuse the fairness!"

Happily Gornt took off his clothes and lay beside her. She ran her hands over his chest, the hair dark, muscles sleek, and began. Soon she was making the small noises of passion, encouraging him. And though she had been told by the mama-san that this quai loh was different and there was no need to pretend, instinctively she was remembering the first rule of being a pillow partner to strangers: "Never let your body become involved with a customer for then you cannot perform with taste or daring. Never forget, when with a quai loh, you must always pretend to enjoy him greatly, always pretend to achieve the Clouds and the Rain, otherwise he'll consider that somehow it's an affront to his masculinity. Quai loh are uncivilised and will never understand that the yin cannot be bought and that your gift of coupling is for the customer's enjoyment solely."

When Gornt was finished and his heart had slowed, Beauty of the Snow got out of bed and went to the bathroom and showered again, singing happily. In euphoria he rested and put his hands under his head. Soon she came back with a towel. "Thank you," he said and dried himself and she slid in beside him once more.

"Oh I feel so clean and marvellous. Shall we pillow again?"

"Not now, Beauty of the Snow. Now you can rest and I will let my mind wander. You have settled the yang very favourably. I will inform the mama-san."

"Thank you," she said politely. "I would like you as my special customer."

He nodded, pleasured by her and her warmth and sensuousness. When would it be best for her to come on deck? he asked himself again, quite confident that Bartlett and Orlanda would be there now and not in bed as a civilised person would be. A chuckle went through him.

There was a porthole beside the bed and he could see the lights of Kowloon in the distance, Kowloon and the dockyard of Kowloon. The engines throbbed sweetly, and in a moment he got out of the bed and went to the cupboard. In it were some very expensive nightdresses and underthings and multicoloured robes and rich lounging housecoats that he had bought for Orlanda. It amused him to keep them for others to wear. "Make yourself very pretty and put this on." He gave her a yellow silk, floor-length chong-sam that had been one of Orlanda's favourites. "Wear nothing underneath."

"Yes, certainly. Oh, how beautiful it is!"

He began to dress. "If my prank works you may keep it, as a bonus," he said.

"Oh! Oh, then everything will be as you wish," she said fervently, her open avarice making him laugh.

"We're going to drop my passengers Hong Kong side first." He pointed out of the porthole. "You see that big freighter, the one tied up at the wharf with the Hammer and Sickle flag?"

"Ah yes, Lord. The ship of ill-omen? I see it now!"

"When we are broadside please come on deck."

"I understand. What should I say?"

"Nothing. Just smile sweetly at the man and the woman, then at me and come below again and wait for me here."

Beauty of the Snow laughed. "Is that all?"

"Yes, just be sweet and beautiful and smile—particularly at the woman."

"Ah! Am I to like her or hate her?" she asked at once.

"Neither," he said, impressed with her shrewdness, ecstatically aware that they would both loathe each other on sight.

In the privacy of his cabin aboard the Sovetsky Ivanov, Captain Gregor Suslev finished encoding the urgent message, then sipped some vodka, rechecking the cable. "Ivanov to Centre. Arthur reports the files may be counterfeit. His friend will supply me with copies tonight. Delighted to report Arthur's friend also intercepted the carrier information. Recommend he be given an immediate bonus. I have had extra copies sent by mail to Bangkok for the pouch, also London and Berlin for safety."

Satisfied, he put the code books back into the safe and locked it, then picked up the phone. "Send me the duty signalman. And the first officer." He unbolted the cabin door then went back and stared out the porthole at the carrier across the harbour, then saw the passing pleasure cruiser. He recognised the Sea Witch. Idly he picked up his binoculars and focused. He saw Gornt on the aft deck, a girl and another man with his back toward him sitting around a table. His high-powered lenses raked the ship and his envy soared. That bastard knows how to live, he thought. What a beauty! If only I could have one such as her on the Caspian, berthed at Baku!

Not so much to pray for, he told himself, watching the Sea Witch pass, not after so much service, so profitable to the cause. Many commissars do—senior ones.

Again his glasses centred the group. Another girl came up from below, an Asian beauty, and then there was a polite knock on his door.

"Evening, Comrade Captain," the signalman said. He accepted the message and signed for it.

"Send it at once."

"Yes sir."

The first officer arrived. Vassili Boradinov was a tough, good-looking man in his thirties, captain, KGB, graduate of the espionage department of Vladivostok University with a master mariner's ticket. "Yes, Comrade Captain?"

Suslev handed him a decoded cable from the pile on his desk. It read: "First Officer Vassili Boradinov will assume Dimitri Metkin's duties as commissar of the Ivanov but Captain Suslev will be in complete command on all levels until alternate arrangements are made."

"Congratulations," he said.

Boradinov beamed. "Yes sir. Thank you. What do you want me to do?"

Suslev held up the key to the safe. "If I fail to contact you or return by midnight tomorrow, open the safe. Instructions are in the package marked 'Emergency One." They will tell you how to proceed. Next..." He handed him a sealed envelope. "This gives two phone numbers where I can be reached. Open it only in an emergency."

"Very well." Sweat beaded the younger man's face.

"No need to worry. You're perfectly capable of taking command."

"I hope that will not be necessary."

Gregor Suslev laughed. "So do I, my young friend. Please sit down." He poured two vodkas. "You deserve the promotion."

'Thank you." Boradinov hesitated. "What happened to Met-kin?"

"The first thing is he made a stupid and unnecessary mistake. Next, he was betrayed. Or he betrayed himself. Or the god-cursed SI tailed him and caught him. Or the CIA pegged him. Whatever happened, the poor fool should never have exceeded his authority and put himself into such danger. Stupid to risk himself, to say nothing of our whole security. Stupid!"

The first officer shifted nervously in his chair. "What's our plan?"

"To deny everything. And to do nothing for the moment. We're due to sail on Tuesday at midnight; we keep to that plan."

Boradinov looked out of the porthole at the carrier, his face tight. "Pity. That material could have jumped us forward a quantum."

"What material?" Suslev asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Didn't you know, sir? Before Dimitri left, the poor fellow whispered he'd heard that this time we were to get some incredible information—a copy of the guidance system and a copy of their armament manifest, including atomics—that's why he was going himself. It was too important to trust to an ordinary courier. I must tell you I volunteered to go in his place."

Suslev covered his shock that Metkin had confided in anyone. "Where did he hear that?"

The other man shrugged. "He didn't say. I presume the American sailor told him when Dimitri took the call at the phone box to arrange the drop." He wiped a bead of sweat away. "They'll break him, won't they?"

"Oh yes," Suslev said thinly, wanting his subordinate suitably indoctrinated. "They can break anyone. That's why we have to be prepared." He fingered the slight bulge of the poison capsule in the point of his lapel and Boradinov shuddered. "Better to have it quickly."

"Bastards! They must have been tipped to capture him before he did it. Terrible. They're all animals."

"Did... did Dimitri say anything else? Before he left?"

"No, just that he hoped we'd all get a few weeks' leave—he wanted to visit his family in his beloved Crimea."

Satisfied that he was covered, Suslev shrugged. "A great pity. I liked him very much."

"Yes. Such a shame when he was due to retire so soon. He was a good man even though he made such a mistake. What will they do to him?"

Suslev considered showing Boradinov one of the other decoded cables on his desk that said in part: "... Advise Arthur that, following his request for a Priority One on the traitor Metkin, an immediate intercept was ordered for Bombay." No need to give away that information, he thought. The less Boradinov knows the better. "He'll just vanish—until we catch a bigger fish of theirs to use as an exchange. The KGB looks after their own," he added piously, not believing it, knowing that the younger man did not believe it either, but the saying of it was obligatory and policy.

They'd have to exchange me, he thought, very satisfied. Yes, and very quickly. I know too many secrets. They're my only protection. If it wasn't for what I know they'd order a Priority One on me as fast as they did on Metkin. So would I if I was them. Would I have bit my lapel as that stupid turd should have done?