Everything Under the Sky (53 page)

I worriedly knocked on the door, unsure what to expect on the other side, but it was the same fat, gray-haired Paddy Tichborne who opened it. After he'd stared disconcertedly at me for a few seconds, a bright gleam lit up his eyes and an enormous smile came over his face.

“Mme De Poulain!” he nearly shouted.

“Mr. Tichborne! It's so good to see you!”

It was true. Hard to believe, but true: I was happy, very happy to see him again. Then I noticed his crutches, and my eyes traveled down to his right leg, which was gone below the knee. His pant leg was pinned back.

“Come in. Please, come in,” he invited, struggling to move out of the way on his crutches.

It was a sorry-looking hovel, consisting of only one room. On one side was a dirty, unmade bed; on the other, a tiny kitchen stacked with unwashed dishes; in the middle were a couple of chairs and an armchair around a rickety table covered, of course, in empty whiskey bottles. At the back, next to a small bookshelf, was a door that likely led to the communal patio and washrooms. It smelled terrible, and not just because the house was filthy: It had been some time since Paddy had seen soap or water either. He was unshaven, generally slovenly, and unkempt.

“How are you, Mme De Poulain? And how are the others? Lao Jiang? Your niece? The Chinese boy?”

I laughed as we slowly walked toward the seats and didn't make a fuss when I had to sit on one of the greasy, stained chairs.

“Ah, Mr. Tichborne, I have a very long story to tell you.”

“Did you reach the First Emperor's mausoleum?” he asked anxiously, falling like dead weight into the poor armchair, which creaked dangerously.

“I see you're impatient, Mr. Tichborne, and I do understand—”

“Call me Paddy, please. It's so good to see you!”

“Then call me Elvira and we'll be equal.”

“Would you like a drink of …” He paused, glancing around the miserable, dirty little room. “I'm afraid I don't have anything to offer you, madame … Elvira. I don't have anything to offer you, Elvira.”

“Don't worry, Paddy. I'm fine.”

“Do you mind if I pour myself a little whiskey?” he asked, filling a dirty glass on the table.

“No, not at all. Please, go ahead,” I replied, though he was already taking a long drink, nearly emptying the entire glass. “But tell me, why did you leave the Shanghai Club?”

He avoided my eyes. “They threw me out.”

“They threw you out?” I asked, feigning surprise.

“When I lost my leg, you remember, I wasn't able to work as a journalist or for the Royal Geographic Society any longer.”

“But losing a leg is no reason to fire you,” I objected. “You could still write, you could get around Shanghai by rickshaw, you could—”

“No, no, Elvira,” he interrupted. “They didn't fire me because I lost a leg; they fired me because I started drinking too much when I got out of hospital and wasn't able to fulfill my obligations. And as you can see …” he said, refilling his glass to the rim and taking another long drink. “As you can see, I still drink too much. Now then, tell me, where is Lao Jiang? Why didn't he come with you?”

The most difficult part of our meeting had arrived.

“Lao Jiang's dead, Paddy.”

His face fell. “What?” he burst out, completely stunned.

“Let me tell you the whole story, starting from when you were wounded in Nanking.”

I explained that luckily a detachment of Kuomintang soldiers was passing through Zhonghua Men at the exact time we were being attacked by the Green Gang. They saved our lives that day and took him to their barracks, providing him with medical attention.

“Yes, I know,” he commented. “I was feverish and don't remember all the details, but there was something about an argument with a Kuomintang officer. I wanted to be transferred to a hospital in Shanghai when they said my leg would have to be amputated.”

“Exactly. The Kuomintang took charge because you were a foreigner and a journalist. As soon as we told them, they offered to take care of everything.”

There was the first part of the new story. Not bad. As he drank glass after glass of whiskey, I told Paddy about our trip by sampan to Hankow, our time in Wudang, how we got the third piece of the
jiance,
more attacks by the Green Gang, our trek through the mountains to the mausoleum at Mount Li, how we managed to get in, thanks to Master Red Jade and his Dragon's Nest, and everything else. I spoke for a long while, giving him all sorts of details—thinking about the book he might write one day—but deliberately omitted all political details. I never mentioned the Kuomintang again, nor did I tell him about the young Communist militiamen or Lao Jiang's revelation in the room with the First Emperor's coffin. Instead I told him that the five of us left together and that when we were on the third level, going up the ten thousand bridges, one of the old walkways came loose and Lao Jiang fell over three hundred feet. There was nothing we could do; on the contrary, we had to run for lives because the gigantic pillars had started to come down, smashing into one another, causing a quake that shook the entire funeral complex. I described my trick with the mirrors on the level with the methane gas as well as our run-in with the Green Gang as we were leaving the throne room. I explained how they tried to stop us but then, seeing how the whole mausoleum was collapsing, they escaped with us and galloped away as soon as we were outside, leaving us there.

“All they wanted was the First Emperor's tomb,” Paddy muttered, slurring his words. The death of his old friend Lao Jiang, the antiquarian from Nanking Road, was obviously very painful.

“Which brings us to the conclusion of this story,” I replied happily, trying to cheer him up. “The Green Gang is no longer after us. However, since they're aware of everything, if you or I were to go about Shanghai with this,” I said, taking the check I had filled out at the hotel before leaving that morning and setting it on the table in front of him, “they might want to make life difficult for us.”

Paddy reached out, picked up the check, unfolded it very slowly, and read the figure I had written on it. He turned deathly pale and started to sweat so profusely that he had to pull a filthy handkerchief from his pocket and wipe it, trembling, across his brow.

“That's … that's not … that's not possible,” he stammered.

“Oh, but it is. We sold everything we took from the mausoleum in Peking and divided the money into three equal parts: one for Wudang, one for you, and one for me.”

“What about the children?”

“The children will stay with me.”

“But I didn't run all the risks you did. I didn't even get to the mausoleum. I—”

“Would you be quiet, Paddy? You lost a leg saving our lives. We'll never be able to thank you enough, so not another word.”

He smiled widely and put the check in the pocket with his handkerchief.

“I'll have to go to the bank,” he murmured.

“You'll have to wash up first,” I recommended. “And listen to me, Paddy: Don't stay in China. We can't trust the Green Gang, and you're too well known in Shanghai. Get on a ship and go back to Ireland. You don't need to work anymore. Buy yourself a castle and write books. I'd like nothing more than to go to one of my favorite bookstores in Paris and buy a great novel about the First Emperor's treasures. The children and I could visit you, and you could come to our house and stay as long as you like.”

He furrowed his brow. He had stopped drinking; a full glass sat abandoned on the table.

“You'll have to get Biao's papers,” he commented worriedly, “if he has any. He won't be able to leave China without documentation.”

“I'm speaking with Father Castrillo, superior of the Augustinian mission, this afternoon,” I told him, “but it doesn't matter what he says. Biao has certain contacts and could get forged papers within a few hours. Money's not an issue.”

“How you've changed, Elvira!” he exclaimed, letting out a laugh. “You used to be so fussy, so prudish—” He suddenly realized how insulting that was and came to a full stop. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you.”

“You didn't, Paddy,” I said. That was a lie, of course, but the polite thing to say. “You're right. I have changed a great deal, more than you can imagine, and for the better. I'm happy. There's only one thing that worries me.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“No,” I replied sadly, “not unless you can change the world and make sure Biao isn't ostracized in Paris because he's Chinese.”

“Oh, that's going to be difficult!” he exclaimed, remaining pensive.

“I don't know what I'll do, but Biao has to study. He's incredibly intelligent. Any sort of specialty in the sciences would be perfect for him.”

“Do you know what just came to mind?” Paddy murmured. “The Lyon Incident.”

“Lyon Incident?”

“Yes, don't you remember? It happened a few years ago, toward the end of 1921. After the war in Europe, France called on its colonies in China to cover the labor shortage in its factories. A hundred and forty thousand coolies were sent. At the same time, the best students from Chinese universities were invited to continue their studies in France as a means of propaganda. The intention, they said, was to promote good relations between the two cultures. You don't want to know how the story ended.” He grunted, leaning back in his chair. “A few months after the first students arrived, the Sino-French Educational Association went bankrupt; there wasn't a single franc to pay their school or boarding fees. These young students, almost all of whom were from good families or particularly intelligent, like Biao, had to go to work in factories alongside the coolies just to survive. Others who were luckier found work as dishwashers, and the rest became beggars on the streets of Paris, Montargis, Fontainebleu, and Le Cresot. The Chinese ambassador in France, Tcheng Lou, washed his hands like Pontius Pilate and announced that he didn't intend to take responsibility for such wretches. You see, the French Communist Party had begun circulating Communist ideals among them when it found such a fertile field ready to be sown.”

I listened in horror, imagining Biao in such a situation. How would the boy be regarded in France? Like a Chinese coolie, a dishwasher, a factory worker, a Communist revolutionary?

“At the end of September 1921,” Paddy continued, “the students organized a demonstration in front of the Sino-French Institute of Lyon, located in Fort Saint-Irénée. Ambassador Tcheng made that statement about the Middle Kingdom washing its hands of such agitators, and so, after a harsh police attack in which dozens were hurt, some of the students were deported. Others were able to get their families to send money and buy a ticket home.”

“Are you trying to say it would be better to leave Biao in Shanghai?” I asked in distress.

“No, Elvira. I'm simply telling you what the boy will encounter in Europe, not only France. The European colonial mentality is a very high wall that Biao will have to climb. It doesn't matter how smart, good, or honest he is, or how rich. It doesn't matter. He's Chinese, a yellow with slanted eyes. He's different, inferior. People will stop and stare, point at him when he walks down the street anywhere in Europe.”

“You're too pessimistic, Paddy,” I retorted. “Yes, he'll be different, but they'll get used to him. There will come a time when the people closest to him—his classmates, his teachers, his friends—won't even notice he is Asian. He'll just be Biao.”

“He'll need a last name, too,” Paddy pointed out. “Will you adopt him? Are you prepared to become the legal mother of a Chinese boy?”

I knew that this time would come.

“If necessary, yes,” I replied.

He looked at me for a long while, whether with pity or admiration I'm not sure. Then, with a great deal of effort, he stood and picked up his crutches. I stood as well.

“You can count on my help,” he declared. “Now I'm going to shower, as you suggested, and go to the bank. I'll buy new clothes and a ticket to England. Then I'll come by your hotel, though you haven't yet told me where you're staying….”

“Astor House.”

“Then I'll go by Astor House and … No, better yet, I'll stay at Astor House as well, and we'll talk about this again. Thank you, Elvira,” he said, holding out his hand. I shook it warmly and walked to the door, followed by the rhythmic clicking of his crutches.

“We'll see you at the hotel,” I said by way of good-bye.

He smiled. “See you then.”

But we never did see him again. That afternoon, once I'd arranged Biao's documentation with Father Castrillo at the orphanage and returned to the hotel, the concierge handed me an envelope containing the first-class tickets that M. Julliard had bought for us on the
Dumont d'Urville,
a packet boat leaving for Marseille at seven the next morning, Wednesday, December 19. There was another envelope with a note signed by Patrick Tichborne, apologizing for his absence: He'd been lucky enough to find passage on a steamer leaving that very night for Yokohama. After a great deal of thought, he'd decided to go to the United States, to New York, where he could arrange for the best prosthetic leg in the world. He promised to look me up in Paris as soon as he got back to Europe.

He never did. We never heard news of Paddy again, never knew what had happened to him. I suppose he got his prosthetic leg and lived like a king, drinking to excess somewhere in the world with the fortune from the First Emperor's mausoleum.

The children and I returned to my house in Paris. After everything she'd learned in China, and no doubt due to a certain family propensity, Fernanda developed a sharp sense of independence over the years that made her a woman to be reckoned with. When young, brilliant Biao was accepted to the famous Lycée Condorcet, my niece decided she wanted to study as well. While our splendid house was being built on the outskirts of Paris, I was forced to hire private tutors for her in the same courses Biao was taking at the lycée. She continued her studies after we moved, and when Biao was accepted to the Sorbonne at the University of Paris to study physics, she became the first foreign woman ever to enroll—with some help from influential friends and acquaintances—at the L’École Libre de Sciences Politiques. There she met and became engaged to a young, forward-thinking diplomat who knew how to handle her as no one else did.