Authors: David Wingrove
Chapter 9
ENDURING WILLOW
I
t was a rest day and Jiang Lei was writing poetry.
At least, trying to.
Jiang Lei was a tall, elegant Han. A refined and dignified man, he had the
self-contained air of one accustomed to command. Dressed in a pale blue silk, his dark hair, in which there were threads of grey, tied back severely in a bun at the back of his head, he might
easily have been mistaken for a figure from an ancient painting. A study by Ku K’ai Chih, or Chou Fang, or the masterful Ku Hung Chung.
He was sitting on an ancient campaign chair his men had found for him some months back, when they had been in France; a relic of the Napoleonic Wars. Jiang liked the chair, even if it was
somewhat uncomfortable. He liked its history. The thought that maybe it had belonged to a general like himself.
The view was a pleasant one. Of water meadows and a river, and, beyond a small outcrop of rocks, the sea. Another day he might have brought his paint box from the ship and spent the morning
sketching. But not today. Today he was composing.
Or trying to.
The place he was in was quite beautiful. He had chosen it himself having seen it from the air a day or two ago during their reconnaissance. Just behind him, to his right, was an ancient temple,
what the locals called a ‘parish church’, and beside that a graveyard, curiously untended, the ancestor stones worn down and covered in moss, some of them hidden in the tangle of wild
flowers and brambles. He had walked there earlier, enjoying the peacefulness of the place; the sense of timelessness.
Only its time had ended now. In a day or two it would all be gone.
Jiang turned his head, looking back at the encampment. His tent was on the near side of the field, in the shade of an old oak tree; a spacious thing of delicate rose-coloured silk with pale
yellow panels. Beyond it, on the far side, were two rows of simple canvas tents, near to which his men – random specimens of ‘Old Hundred Names’, peasant soldiers with peasant
faces – went about their business, washing and cooking and checking their weapons.
Beyond them, some way distant, was the city – or part of it, anyway – being built even as he sat there, a great slab of hexagonal whiteness that dominated the horizon. Closer to
hand, not half a mile away, his men were busy putting up barbed wire fences, enclosing a large space in which stood six rows of dormitory huts made of the same opaque plastic as the city.
He turned back, looking down at the page, then tore the paper from the pad and, crumpling it, threw it down.
He was a good poet. A better poet, indeed, than he was a general. He was even famous, among his own people, the Han. But they did not know him as Jiang Lei, they knew him under his pen name,
Nai Liu
, ‘Enduring Willow’. Indeed, for many he was the voice of his time, his verses reprinted in a thousand places. But life was far from easy for Jiang Lei, for he was also a
general in the Eighteenth Banner of the great army of the illustrious and wise Tsao Ch’un, sole ruler of half the earth, and as such he was closely watched.
It was that watcher, a short and stocky man with a quite strikingly ugly face, who approached him now, walking towards Jiang Lei from the direction of the river. This was Wang Yu-Lai, the cadre
appointed by the Ministry, ‘The Thousand Eyes’ as it was known. His task was to watch Jiang Lei, to ensure that things were done properly, and to report back to his Masters whether they
were or not.
My dark shadow
, Jiang Lei thought, seeing him approach.
Wang stopped two paces from Jiang Lei, his shadow falling over the older man’s notebook. ‘Might I have a word, my lord?’
Wang’s head was bowed, his manner deferent, yet there was something in his voice that lacked respect. Wang thought that
he
had the power. That he had only to maintain the
semblance
of respect.
Not that that worried Jiang Lei too much. It was not that that rankled with him. Or not much, anyway. It was Wang’s humourlessness, the absence of any charity in his nature. Wang was not a
good Confucian. He did not understand that one had to lead by example; that benevolence was a virtue, not a weakness. No, the man was little more than a common bully. Jiang had seen with his own
eyes how he treated the men.
It was disgusting. But Jiang Lei had no choice. Wang Yu-Lai had been appointed to him by the First Dragon himself, the Head of The Thousand Eyes. To watch him with his petty little black eyes,
like a jackdaw watching a worm.
Jiang almost smiled. He would write that down later on. Make a couplet of it, maybe.
‘Go ahead,’ Jiang said, revealing nothing of his real self.
‘It is just… I have had a word, my lord… with those at home and…’
‘Go on,’ Jiang said, noting Wang’s hesitation. It was usually the prelude to some nastiness or other.
‘Well, my lord, the feeling is that you have been too…
lenient
, shall we say. That you have allowed, perhaps, too many into the camps that should have been passed
over.’
Killed, you mean.
But Jiang didn’t say that.
‘And is that how
you
feel, Wang Yu-Lai?
Am
I being too lenient?’
Wang bowed even lower. He seemed to be cringing, but Jiang knew that Wang’s true self was smiling, even if his face showed something else.
‘Oh, no, my lord… but my Masters…’
Wang’s head lifted a little, his eyes taking a sneaky little look at Jiang Lei to see how he was reacting to the news, then went down again.
‘Well… it would not harm to placate them, neh, my lord? To give them what they want.’
Only Jiang knew what they wanted. Annihilation. Genocide. Call it what you will. But this was better. This semblance of fairness.
‘You may tell your Masters that I hear what they say… and will act.’
Wang bobbed as much as bowed. ‘My lord…’
Jiang waited until the odious little bastard was gone, then, setting his book aside, stood up and walked over to the river’s edge, looking out across the waterlogged fields.
He was a good Confucian and his service record was exemplary, but lately he had come to question his role in things, and some of that questioning had come out in his poetry. All of which
disturbed him, for a good poem ought to possess ‘
Wen Ch’a Te
’ – elegance, and of late his work had had a certain spikiness and lack of shape which he abhorred. Only
what could he do? It was the path his creative instincts chose and they had always, until now, been right.
And yet it
felt
wrong. Not only that, but he knew that such poems could not be published, not in the current climate, anyway, and should the odious Wang get hold of them…
well… there would be trouble.
Jiang closed his eyes, letting go of the turbulence within, letting his mind clear, his inner spirit grow calm, and in a moment all was well once more. When he opened his eyes what he saw was
the simple beauty of the land. Its ancient mystery.
Ying Kuo… Inn-glaan.
Jiang formed the words in his mind the way his men would say them, in that crude peasant way of theirs.
Inn-glaan
. He, of course, could speak the language fluently, but sometimes it paid
to feign ignorance when you were dealing with them.
Sometimes…
Jiang sighed, hearing the man’s creeping footsteps approach from behind him once again. He waited and, after a while, Wang cleared his throat.
‘My lord,’ he said, speaking to Jiang’s back. ‘Forgive me for disturbing you but… another batch of processees has arrived. I thought…’
‘I’ll deal with it later,’ Jiang said, making no move to turn and face the man; his voice brooking no argument. ‘Just settle them in, neh?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
Jiang Lei waited, listening to the rustle of the man’s cheap silks as he retreated, then turned.
Wang was hurrying across the field towards the tents, lifting his skirts so as not to get mud on them. He was already some way off, but even from that distance Jiang Lei could see a kind of
pent-up vindictiveness in the man. Wang was a busybody. He had an instinct for making others’ lives miserable, and right now he was going to spread some of that misery among the men.
Jiang watched a moment longer, then turned away. The truth was he despised Wang Yu-Lai. Loathed Wang with a fierceness that was most unlike his normal self, not merely for his pettiness but for
his cruelty.
Jiang shook his head slowly. He had given up on the poem. There would be no composing today. Wang had seen to that. He was in much too sour a mood now to continue.
As for this matter of his leniency…
Jiang walked across, then stood in the doorway of his tent. He had told Wang he would do this later, but there was no real point in delaying. No. He would begin at once. Get it done and out of
the way. Then maybe he could rest.
He went inside, into the right-hand chamber where his portable desk was. His papers were still there where he’d left them earlier, and his slate.
Jiang picked the slate up and took it through into his inner sanctum. There, sprawled out on his bed, he began, watching their faces come onscreen, quickly reading through their files, sorting
through them one by one, deciding which would stay and which go.
Like Solomon
, he thought, recalling the old story.
Only the wisdom of Solomon evaded him. At best he was a good servant to Tsao Ch’un. At worst… Well, some might have called him a murderer.
I have no choice, he told himself, not for the first time. If it were not I, then another would do this, and cause much greater suffering than I. At least I am fair.
Only it didn’t convince him. It never did. And as he came to the end of it, he felt what he always felt – a kind of self-disgust. A self-loathing almost equal to that he had of Cadre
Wang.
Only deeper and more profound.
‘Curse my mood,’ he mumbled, setting the slate aside. ‘And curse the lack of poetry in me.’
But it wasn’t the lack of poetry that really worried him. It was the lack of pity.
On that clear, beautiful autumn day, in the grassy space at the back of St. Peter’s Church, they gathered to say goodbye. There were more than a hundred in all, friends
of Tom, come in from the surrounding villages to pay their last respects.
Beside the grave itself, stood Mary and her girls, the four of them dressed in black, distraught, clinging on to each other as that darling man, their father, was lowered into the earth.
For Jake, looking on, it was unbearable. His loss was vast, yet it was the sight of Tom’s girls, weeping uncontrollably, that got to him. He felt bereft, his heart broken, yet his sorrow
was but a shadow of theirs. Mary, particularly, seemed close to collapse. As Geoff Horsfield read the eulogy, she shook, like at any moment she would fall into that awful, gaping hole with the man
she’d loved.
Afterwards, when all the guests had left, Jake went out into the kitchen.
Mary was standing with her back to him, at the window, looking out into the darkness of the garden.
‘Are you all right?’
It was a stupid thing to say, but he had to say something, for they had barely spoken all day.
Mary’s head dropped. For a moment she was silent. Then she turned, looking at him. Her voice was small, like it came from far away.
‘Will you stay tonight?’
It was the last thing he’d expected her to say.
‘Mary?’
She shuddered. ‘Don’t say no, Jake. I need you to.’
‘But I can’t. I…’
She came across and, putting her arms about him, kissed him. Her eyes, red-rimmed from crying, searched his own.
‘Don’t you see, Jake? You have to. Tom… Tom would understand. In fact, he said I must. For the sake of the girls. The end is coming, Jake. We all know that. And if
that’s true, then I want to face it beside you… you and Peter, that is.’
Jake stared back at her, stunned. ‘But the girls…?’
‘I’ve spoken to the girls. You can’t be Tom… can’t
be
their father. We all know that. But you’re a good man and you’ve been alone too
long.’
‘But it’s too soon…’
Mary looked down at that. ‘Maybe. And maybe some would think it ill judged, but if we don’t do it now… tonight… we never shall. Isn’t that right? We’ll let
old ghosts come between us, and then…’
She looked down, her face breaking into a grimace of pain. ‘Please, Jake…
Please
. For Tom’s sake.’
But he knew, even as he told her yes, that this wasn’t for Tom. This was for himself. He wanted her. But it was wrong.
That night, when all was quiet in the house, she came to him. She was wearing a plain white cotton nightdress. That pained him, for it was how Annie had dressed for bed, when she was yet
alive.
‘Mary,’ he said gently. ‘You don’t have to. We can take our time.’
She stared at him, as if steeling herself, then peeled the white gown up over her shoulders and let it fall.
In the candle’s light she was beautiful. She had the full figure of a mature woman. Her breasts and thighs were everything he’d imagined. And her eyes…
She slipped in beside him, putting her arms about him, shivering now.
‘Don’t speak,’ she said, leaning over to blow out the candle. ‘Just hold me, Jake. Just hold me.’
Jiang Lei woke in the night, thinking of his wife.
Chun Hua was far away, in Pei Ch’ing, together with his daughters. It was two years since he had seen them last, and sometimes, as now, their faces haunted him.
There had been a time when they had been inseparable. Chun Hua had been his secretary, his aide, truly his other self. In both day and night she had been there, at his side. Sweet Hua, the
yin yueh
– the music – of his life.
Now, however, it was different. Now it felt like he was a single goose making its lonely path across the sky.
As he stepped out from his tent, Steward Ho hurried across and, going down onto his knees, bowed low, touching his forehead to the ground.
‘Master…’
Ho had been given a rare day off. But Ho was never happy when he was away, and he had hurried back, to serve Jiang Lei and make sure he had everything he needed.