Black Tiger (14 page)

Before Pim could reply her brother stepped between the two young women, frowning, wearing an air of abstraction. ‘We should hurry, Pim. Father is growing impatient. Excuse us!’ he
wai
’ed Chee Laan hastily, then, taking his sister’s elbow, he steered her firmly toward the exit. Pim tried to look back and wave but her brother was moving too fast. A chauffeur in the uniform of the Prime Minister’s Office sprang out and saluted. Chee Laan smiled, tight-lipped. The public snub stung.

Ah Lee waddled toward the exit as though nothing had happened.

Behind the Prime Minister’s Mercedes stood another, newer, cream-coloured Mercedes, just as highly polished. Ah Lee compared the two vehicles with evident satisfaction. ‘New car Honourable Old Lady,’ she announced, as the chauffeur jumped out. Ah Lee sniffed. ‘Same-same worthless no-good driving boy, anyhow, ne’er mind.’

Chee Laan settled herself into the red-leather upholstery of the back seat. ‘How is Father’s mother?’ she asked.

Ah Lee grunted. ‘Honourable Old Lady very old. Very old woman.’ Through the car window she watched impassively as the Prime Minister’s Mercedes pulled away from the curb.

‘Great is the face of Honourable Old Lady!’ chanted the chauffeur, seeking their eyes in the driving mirror.

Ah Lee lurched forward and boxed his ears. ‘Drive car, rat!’

Bulletproof windows and the air conditioner’s hum could not blot out the fumes, odours, and cries of the street. A battered red Ford shot out in front of them. A foreign devil-woman was driving, waving her hands, honking loudly. A big
farang
with a long nose and a smaller black one clung to its window frames.

Ah Lee snorted. ‘Hurry, hurry, all time hurry. Low people.’ It was a veiled rebuke to the arrogant Thai prince who had publicly insulted her Little Miss. Not much escaped Ah Lee. The Lee Mercedes hurried without the appearance of vulgar haste, rocked smoothly across the humpbacked bridges over the khlongs. At last the congestion slackened. In the residential quarter there was suddenly more space, more sky. The chauffeur turned into the narrow
soi
between ditches lined with long
hai
grass. Ignoring Ah Lee’s muttered disapproval, Chee Laan leaned forward, peering about her eagerly. Hedges and walls blazed with scarlet hibiscus and swathes of bougainvillea—puce, mauve, snowy white.

Beside a high forbidding wall, three and a half metres of featureless pink stone, the Mercedes halted. Chee Laan could not see the top of the wall, but she remembered it well, deadly with broken bottle glass and bristling with rolls of barbed wire. The Lee family valued its privacy. The defences of the Lee compound, which contained four mansions, had been increased in her absence. The garden gate, with its six-foot-high dancing wrought-iron
dephanon
angels, had been backed with steel plates. At one corner she glimpsed brown hands wrestling with slobbering black and tan jaws, blood-red gums, foam-flecked crocodile teeth.

Ah Lee sniffed. ‘Do-Ber-Man. Honourable Old Lady she say no-good people too much. Do-Ber-Man come. Do-Ber-Man bite all people, good, no good, all same-same for Do-Ber-Man, never mind. Bite cookee. Bite Muna old garden-boy.’

‘I hope it didn’t bite you, Ah Lee?’ Chee Laan asked, amused.

The old woman cackled evilly, shaking her head. ‘Ah Lee, too much tough old woman!’ She folded her hands primly and rocked back and forth on the edge of the red leather seat in secret delight. Chee Laan knew very well that the guard dog had recognised the indomitableness of Ah Lee’s character.

Presently, the raging animal was brought under control and dragged off by the frantic efforts of the unseen garden boy. From the stone sentry box, which sheltered him from sun and rain, Old Muna saluted the car, searching its dark windows with blank, short-sighted eyes, grinning his toothless grimace.

‘Muna, too much old man,’ pronounced Ah Lee.

They swept through the gates and into the circular drive before the main house.

On the steps of the largest house, Chee Laan’s father’s mother, Sunii Lee, had emerged to greet them. ‘Honourable Old Lady!’ stammered the young chauffeur, awed. It was indeed a supreme honour. A Western grandmother might have waved or wept; but Sunii was Chinese.

Chee Laan noticed a new frailty in the slender, fine-boned figure; but though she might appear to be carved from one single piece of ivory, Sunii Lee’s iron will and ramrod dignity still radiated power. She wore a crimson silk tunic with a floating foulard of the same shining material over a narrow black skirt with slits at the calf. Chee Laan studied her fiercely, if not protectively. Dreading to see deterioration, she could see with satisfaction that there was no hint of grey on the neat dark head, no tremor in the delicate hands. Now Sunii was smiling, her rather long upper incisors pressing into the lower lip. A fine network of lines spread over her prominent cheekbones. The magnolia complexion was innocent of liver spots; the eyebrows still swept upward and outward like wings.

To grow old like you
, Chee Laan thought.
As strong as you, beautiful as you
. There was something profoundly depressing about such perfection.

‘Granddaughter. Have you eaten rice? Are you well?’ Despite a hint of tension, the voice was quick and soft as always; the hands were steady, the cool gaze of the almond eyes unwavering as ever. Then Chee Laan saw the trembling lips. This excess of emotion was profoundly shocking. Chee Laan forced herself to stare at the marble steps to conceal her own disgraceful tears of joy. The older woman reached out and touched her hand, tentatively, as if apologising for untoward intrusion. The touch of Sunii’s hand was cool, like a flower—’lily hands’, as Chinese poets called such hands. Chee Laan followed her through the tall gilded doors into the altar room. They paused briefly before the family deities, and then passed through the French salon, furnished with antiques imported from Paris, then through a succession of rooms, spacious, impersonal as museum exhibits, lined with antique cabinets of priceless porcelain, the walls hung with Chinese tapestries and scroll paintings, with old photographs and sketches of members of the Lee family. The Lees were Sunii’s family. No one could recall her husband’s name.

Of Chee Laan’s grandfather there was not one single portrait. For the first time, this struck her as odd. Before, she had just accepted that it was so.

The two women came at last to the inner courtyard.

Beneath the flame tree, a maid squatted on her haunches, peeling and carving fruit for the table. Sunii Lee stopped. She studied the flame tree.

‘My mother,’ she said with a kind of wonder, ‘she planted that tree. Now my mother is dead. Yet the tree lives on.’ She shook her head.

Chee Laan waited just long enough for respect. Then she said, just above a whisper:

‘How strange

That these white bones beside the river

Once were living men.’

She glanced at her grandmother’s face quickly enough to catch the brief flicker of pleasure.

‘My granddaughter has not forgotten her classical Chinese poetry.’ Sunii nodded. They walked in silence through the courtyard toward the kitchens, whose vast charcoal ovens had remained unchanged since the house was built. Now they entered the cool dark room at the heart of the house, and memory opened before Chee Laan like a tunnel. Her childhood lay at the end of its dark shaft.

The carved screen still stood in the corner. As a small child, driven by a precocious urge to know, to be able to categorise and dispose, it had been her hiding place—eavesdropping on her elders, hearing much that she did not understand, and more that she should not have heard.

In the darkness, the pale moon-glow of porcelain and the shimmer of mother-of-pearl made milky pools among the ornately carved wood.

‘Sit!’ Sunii motioned her to one of the high-backed dragon chairs, taking the other herself. ‘Drink tea!’ She clapped her hands. Ah Lee appeared immediately. She had hurried from the car to the kitchen. The delays before the deities and the flame tree had been calculated to save Ah Lee face, so she did not appear flustered or out of breath. Chee Laan noted with awe her grandmother’s meticulous, all-seeing eye.

Now, in her element, bossy and barefoot once more, the old servant woman bustled in with tea and mooncakes. Chee Laan set out her homecoming gifts on the table. Ah Lee lit a candle before the ancestor shrine.

‘See that we are not disturbed,’ Sunii said. The old
amah
shuffled off into the darkness.

‘Now, Chee Laan. What have you learned, after your year in Europe?’

Chee Laan spoke of the convent curriculum, of contacts made. She spoke pragmatically, curbing any gush of girlish anecdote. This was a serious auditing of accounts. Sunii Lee was assessing the return on her investment. And as she spoke, Chee Laan felt Europe receding, becoming unreal. Chee Laan explained that she had decided, once and for all, against a life dominated by religion, like her mother’s, and that she had learned self-discipline and how to endure hardship and insults.

At last, Sunii raised her hand. ‘It is well. Here in Bangkok, too, we move with the times. The Rachanee is to be expanded and refurbished…’ She paused, glancing at Chee Laan reprovingly. ‘Grimaces are unbecoming, Granddaughter. You must conquer this childish aversion. The Rachanee is a five-star hotel, recommended by the Chaîne des Rotisseries—one of the finest hotels in the Far East, the flagship of Lee Enterprises. I have moved my office there.’ She looked into Chee Laan’s face. Her tone became softer. ‘What odd tricks memory plays! You were a tiny child when that unfortunate business occurred. Odd that you should remember, after all these years!’

Odder still,
thought Chee Laan, smiling now,
if I should ever forget. Forget the girl who tried to help me, and was killed for it. Forget the sound she made. Forget my father’s face, bloated and staring, the hideous catoy at his side, the lies they all told. They all lied, the grown-ups, lied through their teeth; even you, adored and fearsome grandmother!

‘It is time for you to enter the family business.’ Sunii switched without warning to French, which she had mastered with the assistance of tutors sent by the Alliance Francaise. She had never set foot in France. ‘The Rachanee is much improved. The new pool has fountains and wave machines. At night the fountains change colour as the organ changes key. There is a water ballet to entertain diners in the sub-aquarian dining area. A pool with live sharks, the spice of danger.’ She laughed. ‘Our new penthouse floor is unique. My architect has recreated the hanging gardens of Babylon. We also have aviaries with rare birds. Conservationists have recommended them, threatened species are breeding—excellent international publicity! In the new ballroom, three thousand people will dance. Fashionable
farang
artists, Madame Laila Drinkwater and the Baron Siegfried du Bas, are supervising decór.’ She gave a small sigh of satisfaction.

‘What do you have in mind for me?’ Chee Laan asked.

Sunii paused in silent rebuke at this impatience. Then she said, ‘Raising the profile. Advertisement. Television reaches only the Thai population. Resident
farangs
and big firms, tour operators, PR folk—they like radio. Their own chat, their own noisy music. They have local English-language networks here now. I have purchased airtime. You will be a “disc jockey”.’

She switched to English and pronounced this exotic term with care and a tinge of pride, or perhaps, Chee Laan thought, disdain.

‘The announcer for the Rachanee must speak
farang.
Be loyal to the family. Become the voice, then the face, of Lee Enterprises to the English-speaking world.’ She switched to Thai. ‘The Rachanee represents a major investment. It has to succeed. A large part of this success will depend upon you, Chee Laan.’

Chee Laan bowed. Recognising with some relief that she had passed all initial tests, however narrowly, she reverted with pleasure to speaking Chinese, as though she had won the right to return home. ‘Honourable Father’s Mother, I shall do my best.’

Sunii smiled. ‘Social commitments do not grow easier for a business-woman alone, especially as the years pass. You will be my eyes and ears, you will go about in society, see and be seen where it matters.’

An objection would have been unthinkable. Chee Laan said mildly, ‘For me, life in Bangkok has been this house, ancestors, the wall hangings for summer and winter. Once the main gate is closed, the other world does not exist.’

Sunii nodded, not displeased. ‘It is good to honour the family. Yet outside contacts are vital. They are the lifeblood of business. To mix business and pleasure, as foreign devils do, is foolish. One’s business should become one’s pleasure. That is the Chinese way.’

She took a stiff white card from a side table and read, ‘The British Council Representative and Mrs J Drinkwater…request the pleasure…to meet Dr Nathaniel Raven. You will attend, Granddaughter. Every such occasion, you will represent us. Next week, you start your radio show. Granddaughter disc jockey!’

‘Unworthy,’ gasped Chee Laan. ‘I’ve never done anything like that before.’

Sunii Lee raised one eyebrow. ‘You forget your manners, Granddaughter. These outbursts are intolerable! I have arranged for you to have training from an experienced announcer. We shall draft the commercial texts together, in the beginning, but you will make your own choice of music from the station library, give the programmes a personal character, build up an audience. One more thing: you will not use your Chinese name. One’s Chinese name should be reserved for special occasions.’

‘In Europe, they—the
farangs
—called me Julie.’

‘Chu-lee. Infantile. Cute. Chu-lee. Yes. That will serve very well.’

‘Who is to be my instructor?’ Chee Laan asked.

‘Colonel Sya Dam. An experienced broadcaster.’

Chee Laan recalled what she had heard about Sya Dam, and frowned in the dark room. ‘What kind of man is he,
Tsu mu
? Do you know him?’