The House of Velvet and Glass (12 page)

The young girl, the first down the stairs, never lifting her eyes, drifted to a spot along the wall opposite the bar and stood, hands folded, stockinged knee extended. Each woman after her stopped, lining up, some gazing levelly at the band of sailors, others staring into the middle distance, others with their eyes locked on the floor.

For a surreal instant Lannie was reminded of the vivid
tableaux vivants
mounted by the young women of his acquaintance: Diana the huntress, attended by woodland nymphs, depicted in motionless splendor by proper young ladies swathed in drapery, green vines coiled through their hair. Of course the tableaux were “artistic,” conceived as paintings brought to life. But this row of women, so close to him that Lannie could smell their competing perfumes, was not some abstract paean to female beauty. These women could be talked to. Could be touched. The idea simultaneously thrilled and repelled him.

The Western-dressed madam paced in front of her merchandise, straightening robes, adjusting posture with sharp slaps against a shoulder, a cheek. In response to these brusque ministrations the row of women organized into their most attractive display, and waited.

The madam started at the end of the line, resting a proprietary claw on the last prostitute, a plump woman with a lavish bosom hidden behind the clutched-closed top of her pink robe. The madam smacked her hand away, and the robe parted, revealing a soft swell of flesh from which Lannie averted his eyes. The madam spoke a long torrent of Chinese—Lannie was at a loss to know what dialect—and Richard Derby, laughing, said, “Well, fellows, you need me to translate that, or have you pretty well got it?”

The group bellowed their appreciation, and one of the sailors whooped, bounded forward, and grabbed the curvy woman around her waist, hoisting her into the air and jostling her like a child. She squealed in surprise, one curl of hair tossed loose, and her squeal morphed into simulated laughter. The sailor slung her over his shoulder and carried her to the stairs, ignoring the madam, who followed beside them like a clucking chicken.

“Right, then!” Tom leered, jabbing his elbow into Lannie’s flank.

Lannie recoiled at the rough gesture but fixed a game smile to his face. The older sailor rubbed his hands together, as if approaching a vast banquet. The madam was still following their crewmate up the stairs under his heavy burden of squirming woman, and so Tom, half-toothed mouth grinning, elbowed forward and caught the wrist of the first girl, the young one with the downcast eyes. She gasped in protest, twisting her arm to free herself, but the sailor took this for play and held on tighter.

“Aw, she’s feistier than she looks, eh?” He laughed. The girl’s struggle intensified as Tom started to drag her, first with subtle insistence, then with impatience, toward the stairs. The girl’s eyes widened, and she called out, trying to summon the madam. Lannie frowned. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted one of the anonymous men at the bar swivel in his seat, placing his glass down.

“Just because you’re in the
yichang
doesn’t mean you can act like an animal,” the man said.

Yi
was a word that had been banned in Shanghai, at least in reference to white people. It meant “barbarian.”
Yichang
meant “barbarian quarter,” and Lannie understood that the man had just issued the most mortal insult to Tom at his disposal.

“What?” said Tom, pausing. The girl struggled, but he held fast to her with no more effort than if he were dangling a line for trout.

A space cleared as the group of sailors withdrew, sensing the shift in the room. Lannie glanced at the speaker and was surprised to find that he was Chinese, for his voice had a slight British inflection. He was young, in his early twenties, dressed in the plain tunic and pantaloons of a scholar, with a long queue down his back. His body, though shorter than the Western men, was muscular, and his cheeks were pitted from pox, giving him the appearance of being able to back up his words with more than his intellect.

“You have made a mistake,” the man by the bar said, his hands relaxed by his sides.

“What in God’s name is he talking about?” Tom laughed, addressing himself to his shipmates. Silence passed from one to the next, born of tension and watchfulness.

“You are treating her as a
yao’er
,” the scholar continued, unfazed by the sudden quiet. With quiet came stillness. The other men at the bar had new bands of tension running up their backs. “Like someone unworthy of respect.”

“Why, I believe the Chinky bastard might be talking to
me
,” Tom said, mirth draining out of his voice, his eyes narrowing.

At that moment the madam reappeared. She leaned over the banister and called out to the young girl, her curls trembling. The girl started to respond, voice high. The scholar cut in, barking something to the madam, and she hurried downstairs, coming to a stop near the bar.

“I will explain, so that you may apologize,” the scholar continued, still betraying no sign of anxiety, his voice steady and calm. Friendly, almost. “She is a
shuyu
, from Suzhou, where the women are uncommonly beautiful. An artist. She tells stories. She plays marvelous music. Her voice is like water pouring over stones. And she has excellent conversation.”

Tom’s face contorted in confusion, and he tightened his grip on the girl’s wrist. “You talk pretty good English for a Chinaman,” he snarled. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve gotta listen.”

The scholar smiled, a thin, frosty smile, and continued as though Tom had not spoken. “It is a simple mistake to make. She must be courted. Her attentions must be won, at great length and with effort, and then only if you are to her liking, or very fortunate. You have taken her for a saltwater sister, because you are a sailor, and you have money in your pocket. This is understandable, but it is most offensive. Of course, uncivilized people cannot always be expected to understand. But now that you have been told of your mistake, I must insist that you release her. And apologize for your error.”

Tom looked around in growing disbelief. Then a slow smile dawned across his face, and he released the young girl’s arm. She scurried back to the line of women, resuming her place, eyes downcast. The sailor, meantime, started rolling up his shirtsleeves.

“I see,” he said, drawing the words out, taking his time with the sleeve rolling. “A mistake’s been made. An apology should follow. That right?”

“That’s correct,” the scholar affirmed. He pressed the knuckles of one hand into the palm of the other. Through the silent room Lannie distinctly heard the young man’s knuckles crack.

“Well, all right,” Tom said. The room froze, all attention focused on the humming space between the burly, half-toothed American sailor and the compact Chinese youth.

“Tom, don’t!” Lannie started to cry out, too late, for the older man had lunged, swinging a fist that grazed off the younger man’s shoulder.

The scholar pounced, landing three blows in quick succession, bursting the sailor’s nose. Tom let out a furious roar, blood streaming into his mouth, and without thinking Lannie dove between them.

“Stop, Tom, stop!” Lannie bellowed, his voice deepening, hands warding the sailor off, but his words fell on deaf ears as Tom’s fists barreled forward, landing first on the scholar’s trunk with the dull
thwack
of a hammer hitting a side of beef. Then there was an abrupt explosion of white light and dancing stars and a cracking sound, like a snapping tree branch, and the floor was suddenly rushing up to meet Lannie, smacking him in the face.

A gasp rose from the group of sailors, a flurry of boots rushing across the floor, the floor that was now pressing against his face, the boots tracking through a spreading pool of something sticky and red. Shouting, cursing, and across his narrowing field of vision Lannie saw the thrashing form of Tom being subdued by Richard Derby and three others.

“God dammit, Greenie!” Tom hollered, veins in his neck standing out.

Lannie blinked, dazed, felt strong hands take hold of his shoulders, and the floor pulled away as someone rolled him up to a seated position. For a second every figure in the room split into two, vibrating and blurring before snapping back into their regular shapes, and he brought a hand up to his head. His skull seemed intact. His fingers hunted through the sandy mop of hair, searching for blood. Nothing.

“Aw,” a voice by his ear laughed, and under his lowered lashes Lannie observed the smiling face of the Chinese scholar, squatting down to inspect him. “That’s going to smart.”

He gestured to Lannie’s face, and Lannie brought his fingertips up to his jaw. The light pressure of his fingers caused his eyes to squeeze closed in pain.

Lannie’s tongue probed his cheek, tasting copper and salt. He discovered an object in his mouth, like a boot button, rolled it onto the tip of his tongue, and spat it out. The object hit the floor with a clack, bouncing once, twice, then skittering to a rest against the toe of Tom’s boot.

It was a tooth.

“Christ almighty, Tom!” he slurred through the blood pooling in his mouth.

“Serves you right, you little rich bastard,” Tom spat, still enmeshed in the restraining hands of the crew. He lurched, and was subdued. Richard Derby peeled away from the knot of men, coming to kneel at Lannie’s other side.

“Lannie,” he said, voice low. “Look, I know what you were trying to do. And I admire it. You’ve got sand. But perhaps . . . look, why don’t you light out for a bit? Meet up with us later? Tomorrow, maybe.” Dick rested a hand on Lannie’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Let it blow over.”

Lannie looked into Dick’s face, then glanced over the Salem man’s shoulder to Tom, surrounded by the other sailors. Their murmurs obscured what was being said.

“C’mon,” Dick said, hoisting him to his feet. “It’ll be all right. You’ll see. Happens all the time, first night in port. Men get twitchety. Doesn’t mean anything.”

Lannie’s eyes slid to Dick’s face, testing to see if his friend was speaking the truth. He couldn’t be sure. If Dick was telling him to leave, though, he’d best make himself scarce.

“You heard the man,” the scholar said, clapping a hand on Lannie’s other shoulder. “Let’s leave this sink of iniquity.”

He took Lannie’s elbow, tossed a fistful of yuan onto the bar, and steered him to the door. The madam bustled up, thrusting a cold compress into Lannie’s hand.

He started to slur a “thank you,” but the scholar spoke over him, shooing the woman away.

The door swung open, and they plunged into the humid night.

Chapter Six

Harvard Square
Cambridge, Massachusetts
April 16, 1915

The cab wove through the student throng of Harvard Square, dodging two dinging trolleys, a hod-carrier pulled by a flea-bitten horse, and half a dozen boys on bicycles, their coattails flapping. Sibyl gripped the hard leather seat with both hands, terrified that some new threat would appear out of the mist just in time to be pulled under the wheels of the car. The cabbie, a sallow man with bristly gray whiskers and a low hat, seemed unperturbed. He spun the steering wheel this way and that, depressing brakes, leaning on the horn. Sibyl despaired of ever learning to drive herself.

“To know another’s mind,” Benton had said before she left his office. “Some question whether that’s even possible.”

Sibyl looked up at him, cross and impatient. “What good is it, then?” she said, pulling free of his grip. She pressed her lips together in mingled annoyance and shame at her own worthlessness to those in actual need. Her mind roved a catalogue of balls attended, new dresses worn, reworked, and discarded, all for the betterment of those less fortunate, or so the invitations always stated.

Oddly, Benton hadn’t seemed offended. “Professor James—he was my mentor, before he died—said that facts only become true insofar as they are useful to an understanding of our place in the world. But I agree with Doctor Freud—the human mind is like a machine, assembled by circumstances in childhood, which can be tweaked with attention and care. We can change ourselves, Sibyl. I believe it.”

She had gazed up into Benton’s face, his pale eyes softening against the blow of what he was implying about Harlan. Sibyl had reached down to take Benton’s hand and squeezed it, smiling a grateful, yet sad, smile up at him, and then turned to go.

Now she stared out the cab window at the gray world outside, her mind shuffling through different options to solve the problem of Harlan. Well, if they’d had him leave school for some reason, she supposed they could just accept him back, couldn’t they? And if he owed money to some of his friends, well, her father would have a solution in mind. Harley’d known all those fellows since boyhood. He’d be able to set it right. If it was just a question of money, she supposed her brother could borrow the necessary sum from her father, against his share in the estate. Or could take up some sort of job in Lan Allston’s shipping company.

He could find an answer.

He could.

If he came home.