Читать книгу City Of Shadows - M. J. Lee - Страница 11

Chapter 1

The girl lay beneath the covers listening to the sounds of the night.

Off in the distance a dog barked. Somewhere closer a woman sang the opening bars of a song from The Peony Pavilion, but soon trailed off into humming the melody. Closer still, a bottle was kicked over in the dark, shattering against the wall of one of the houses in her row.

The girl listened to the sounds of the Shanghai night as she had done every evening for the last six months.

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes.

The pale light of the moon streamed in through a small crack in the curtains where the maid had not closed them properly, reaching across the room to the far door. On the wall, a picture of Jesus, chosen by her birth mother, stared down at her, his hands framing a bright red heart.

Next to the door, her wheelchair was pushed against the wall beside her crutches. Why hadn’t the maid left them closer to her bed?

Since the onset of polio, the girl had been dependent on the kindness of strangers. The first week of fevers, headaches and weakness had been the most frightening. Then the paralysis had set in, just her legs at first, but slowly creeping up her body.

The diagnosis, when it finally came, had been a relief to her father and both his wives. At least they now knew what they were dealing with. It was just a question of time, waiting for her muscles to recover their strength. But always, the fear lurking like a hyena that she would never recover. She would lie here in her bed for the rest of her life, paralysed.

They had moved to this new house a month ago. A healthier area her birth mother had said, a more modern house. She didn’t miss the old neighbourhood, or the sly, insinuating words of her father’s first wife. Here, the sounds were more playful, happier, keeping her entertained each evening. The night soil collectors on their rounds. Her neighbour’s phonograph playing the latest jazz from America. Her brother running up and down the stairs, how she envied him. The rows between her birth mother and her father late in the night. Rows about money, always about money.

It was as if the world was a series of sounds that only she could hear, created just for her.

She knew she was supposed to get up every day to exercise her wasted muscles, but she preferred lying here in her bed. Twice a week, she had to go for hydrotherapy at the hospital on Bubbling Well Road.

She resented the pitying looks of the people as the maid pushed her in the wheelchair. Pity edged with relief that it was her in the chair and not them.

Even the nurses cut her with their words when she visited the hospital.

‘Here you are, Miss Lee. I’ll help you up.’

Or: ‘Take my hand, you’ll need it if you want to get dressed.’

And the worst: ‘You pee now. I’ll stand here and wait until you’ve finished.’

She hated them all, but more than anything else, she hated her mothers, both of them.

The one who had given birth to her, her father’s second wife, was the worst. She beat her on the legs and arms every day to get rid of the ghosts she said were infesting her body. At first, the blows were not too hard, a tap with a wooden paddle to the soft part of the calf. But as her illness worsened, so the blows became harder, until she screamed from the pain. Her mother constantly telling her she was only doing it for her own good.

And the other, her father’s first wife, who kept insinuating in her sly way that this illness was a punishment from the gods. A punishment that, one day, would also take her brother. At least they had left her behind in the old house, to stew in her barren bitterness.

God, she hated both of them. One day she would be up and walking again. No need for the wheelchair or the crutches. She would run up and down the stairs every day, just for the hell of it. And, when she was strong enough, she would run away from this house.

She heard two sharp raps on the door of the courtyard. Who could be visiting them at this time of the night? She hadn’t heard anybody walk up the street.

Her brother shouted something, but she couldn’t make it out. What had he said? She heard his feet running out to open the door. A few indistinct words were spoken, followed by the slow creak of hinges as the door opened.

She would have to tell father that it needed oil.

Another sound.

She lifted her head from the pillow, straining to hear. There it was again. Fainter, this time, coming from the back of the house, where the kitchen was. A sharp tap, the crack of glass as it fell to the floor.

She listened intently, straining her neck muscles to hold her head upright off the pillow.

The window was opening, a scrape of something on the ledge. A soft bump on the tiled floor of the kitchen.

Where was the maid? Why didn’t she ask who was there?

More words in the courtyard. Her brother speaking. A man answering him. A stifled shout. Then, a sound she had never heard before like the gurgle of a frog, but cut off, strangled.

Where was the maid?

A startled cry from the hallway. It sounded like her mother shouting at her father during one of their arguments, but the voice was different. Too high. Too sharp. Too surprised. Then, the clatter of shoes running up the stairs. Shoes with sharp little heels. Not the soft felt slippers of the maid.

Where was the maid?

She turned her head towards the door. Something was going on downstairs. Something wasn’t right. She willed her body to move, straining it to sit up, urging it to get out of bed.

But nothing happened. Her head collapsed back on the pillow.

A loud bang. A heavy weight fell on the landing below her door.

She expected to hear more shouts from her mother. The loud screech of her voice with the rounded trill of its Peking accent.

But she heard nothing.

Silence in the house.

She focused on her bedroom door. The moon still streamed in through the crack in the curtains. A dog was barking in the house two doors away.

She listened for more noises in the house, but all she could hear was her own breathing.

Something was wrong. Where was the maid? Where was her father?

A soft sound on the stairs. A creak as weight was placed on a step. The third step from the top. It always creaked when somebody stood on it.

There was the creak again. Two people coming up the stairs.

She could hear their footsteps now. Remorseless, one after another, coming closer to her door.

Whispering.

Two men’s whispers. She couldn’t hear what they were saying.

The footsteps stopped outside her door.

Whispers again. A language she’d never heard before. Words she didn’t understand.

The round wooden handle of her door began to turn. She buried her head beneath the covers, pulling them over her.

Please don’t come in here. Please don’t. I’ll be a good girl. I’ll say my prayers every night and be good to my mother. I promise. I promise.

The door cracked as it opened. More whispers in the strange language. She stayed beneath the covers and closed her eyes. Perhaps, if she pretended to be asleep, they would go away.

Please let them go away.

Soft steps across her room towards the bed.

Please let them go away. I’ll be good from now on, I promise.

A hand pulled the covers off her. She opened her eyes and stared into a small mousey face with a sharply pointed chin. She knew that face. She had seen that face before. What was he doing here?

On the next floor up, the slamming of a door. Heavy boots running up the uncarpeted stairs to the top floor. Her father’s footsteps.

The man ran out of her room, closing it behind him. She lifted her head off the pillow. More footsteps running up the stairs. A door on the top floor slammed shut.

A loud shout. Again, she didn’t understand what they were yelling. Something foreign, like the words her doctor spoke at the hospital. Harsh words, hurtful words.

Someone was banging on a door upstairs, shouting once again in a loud voice. The sound of a door being kicked, once, twice, flying open, knocking against the wall.

A shout from her father. She knew it was her father’s voice. Then a bang, muffled, less sharp than before.

Heavy footsteps stomping across her ceiling. She followed them until they reached the window upstairs, right above her bed.

Another bang.

Something falling heavily, hitting the ceiling with a loud thud.

She wanted to scream, to shout out for someone to save her. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She tried again, but all she heard was a gagging noise in her throat.

Her body was rigid beneath the covers. Should she try to get away? She lifted her head above the sheets. Her wheelchair and crutches were still propped against the far wall. Why had the maid put them over there?

Steps on the staircase, coming down, getting closer, getting louder.

The handle of her door turned again.

The door opened a crack, throwing a sharp shaft of light onto the wall, illuminating her crutches.

Please don’t come back. You don’t belong here.

The shadow of a man was thrown into the room. He was standing in the doorway. She could see no features on his face, just a darkness and the sharp outline of a pointed chin. But she knew it was him, the man she had seen before.

She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out. It was as if her voice was now as paralysed as her body.

The shadow moved into the room.

She closed her eyes tight.

The footsteps on the carpet were getting closer to her bed.

Keep your eyes closed. Pretend you’re asleep. Perhaps he will go away and leave you alone.

She opened her eyes.

The round end of a piece of metal was staring straight at her. Wisps of blue smoke escaped from it, sinuous strands rising into the air. The smell was sweet and heavy, like the morning after Chinese New Year when the stench of the firecrackers hung over Shanghai.

A hand with dirty nails was holding the metal, pointing it straight at her, coming closer with every second.

The other man in the doorway silhouetted against the light from the hallway. More words in the language she didn’t understand. The small man turned and said something.

They were talking about her. She knew they were talking about her.

Her eyes darted left and right. How could she let them know who he was?

Then she saw the letter lying on the table, next to her bed. She grabbed it while the men were talking and crushed it tightly into a small square in her palm.

She closed her eyes again. She prayed like she had been taught by the nuns at her school before the illness, mumbling the words over and over again.

Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us.

Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us.

Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us.

The men finished speaking. Through her mumbled words, she heard his breathing. Short, sharp bursts of breath, as if he had been running.

She couldn’t help herself, her eyes opened again. The metal cylinder began to come closer, lowering, pointing directly at her now. The metal eye getting larger with every step.

‘Sleep well, child,’ he said in Chinese.

They were the last sounds she ever heard.