Chapter 17
Seventeen
Checkpoint
i am curled up in the back of a fancy black car, hiding behind my mauve sunglasses and feeling like I ought to crawl into a coffin somewhere.
Big Wang’s man Willie turned up at the hotel at stupid o’clock, hauling us all out of bed.
There’d been some disquiet with the Japanese forces so he decided to drive us to Zhabei himself to ensure we would not be troubled.
This early the streets are quiet, but the sun fills the space with a loud intensity that stabs through my eyes, straight to the back of my head.
We’re heading to see the old woman at the Hokkien Market who sold the talisman to Mr Lee, but I’m not sure I can speak without vomiting.
Maybe a drinking wager wasn’t my best idea.
Ah Lang lounges on the small fold-out seat facing us as if he’s sitting on a throne; one arm casually draped across the back of the front seat.
He’s far too cheerful. Gigi sits next to me, slumped in the caramel leather seat, her head leaning on the open window frame.
She’s wrapped in a frothy dress, a pale lemon yellow confection with her usual long flowing sleeves.
A pair of hastily purchased sunglasses perch on her paler-than-normal face.
At least she looks worse than I feel, which makes me feel marginally less like rolling into the gutter and letting the roosters have me.
Mr Lee sits up front, which is a good thing. Even with the windows open, my throat burns from the persimmon sweetness swirling in the car.
I’ve never gone this long without blood, and I’m acutely aware of the smell.
Lang and Gigi’s gingery scent gives me something else to focus on, as does Willie’s odd combination of scents.
The occasional waft of raw sewage, while disgusting, also helps quell the burn.
I clutch my purse, still full of sweets, though I can’t quite face eating anything right now.
‘Ronin ahead,’ Willie says.
Mr Lee stiffens. I’ve heard of them. The Japanese volunteer police force.
Brutal and merciless. A good many of the ghosts arriving on the ferries were the result of encounters with the ronin.
Willie rolls the car to a stop in front of a makeshift barrier of sandbags.
Ronin in brown uniforms with white armbands surround the car.
They all wear black boots with rubber soles, the toe-box split in two like the cloven hooves of goats.
The one closest to the driver side door waves a rifle topped with a blood-stained bayonet and shouts at Willie; his words are rapid-fire.
He has the same black hair and dark brown eyes as we do.
His face still has the roundness of youth, smooth and unlined, but his eyes are hard and his face is full of contempt.
‘Don’t make sudden movements.’ Willie’s voice is low; he doesn’t look at us as he speaks. He produces a red booklet and holds it open for the shouting ronin. ‘I’m here at Y. L. Wang’s behest,’ Willie says, his voice full of calm authority.
‘Did I tell you to speak? Get out,’ the ronin snarls in heavily accented Mandarin. He yanks open the driver-side door and jabs the bayonet to Willie’s throat.
A ronin on the other side of the car speaks – his words staccato like the rat-a-tat-tat of an artillery gun; I catch the word Wang and a nervous undercurrent.
The first one holding the bayonet to Willie frowns.
Uncertainty crosses his face, but then his expression shutters, and he barks something back.
I don’t have to understand the language to know the other man’s concerns have been dismissed.
‘Lady Gi, would you do the honours?’ Willie says.
Gigi groans, but pushes up from the seat.
‘I’ll try not to vomit,’ she says and leans out the window.
She slides her silver framed sunglasses down her nose to peer at the ronin.
At the movement, he swings his rifle from Willie towards her, but then, on seeing her, and more particularly, on noting Gigi’s low-cut top and her feminine assets heaving from their pale yellow confines, his lips curl into a leer.
The other ronin have carefully shuffled away from the car, their gazes darting between their sneering comrade and us.
‘He’s not really that stupid, is he?’ I whisper.
Gigi’s hand grips mine, squeezes as if to say hush. The ronin takes a step closer. I glance at Ah Lang in the seat opposite me. His lack of anxiety is reassuring. The ronin reaches out, intending to grab Gigi.
Before he can touch her, Gigi says, ‘Stop.’ Her voice, barely a whisper, rings clear in the early morning stillness; within the single word skitters the susurrus of many whispering voices, like insects scattering in the dark.
The ronin stumbles backwards, shoulders pulled tight around his neck. His comrades, already a distance from our car, run. Hells, I want to do the same. Ah Lang has Mr Lee by the shoulder, murmuring reassurances to him.
Willie pulls his door shut and leans out the open window. ‘Y. L. Wang will be most disappointed in your lack of cooperation.’
The ronin blinks stupidly at Willie for a few seconds, then turns tail and runs to join his comrades. With a low chuckle, Willie shifts the car into drive, and we roll away from the now abandoned checkpoint.
When we cross from the International Settlement into Zhabei, the difference is immediate and stark.
Gone are the gay colours. Gone are the wide boulevards.
Gone are the grand stone buildings. Here are narrow streets, ramshackle buildings, and so many people.
I count only a few foreign faces. Zhabei is Chinese territory, home to the hundreds of thousands who will end up crossing the veil into my Shanghai.
People here are draped in dark drab clothing, soiled and frayed.
Small children run barefoot through the teeming crowds.
A woman balances a long pole over her shoulders, woven baskets full of luobo radishes hang off each end, their green fronds bouncing with her every step.
A man with empty baskets strapped to his back runs out across the street, nearly colliding with us.
He spits at the car, cursing, before disappearing into the crowds.
Willie drives slowly, pushing through the rickshaws and bicycles and people, and finally pulls into the drive of a burned-out warehouse.
‘I’m afraid I cannot accompany you to the market. I need to report the ronin behaviour to my superiors. It won’t take long. I will return here and wait for you,’ Willie says.
‘They’re getting bolder,’ Mr Lee says.
Willie sighs. ‘Yes. Unfortunately, the Municipal Council turns a blind eye, and our people are the ones who end up suffering.’
‘Why don’t you stop them?’ I ask, thinking of Madame Meng’s candied haw sticks and those first ferries full of innocents.
Willie turns, and his gaze is uncannily like Big Wang’s – dark and unfathomable. ‘Our duty is to maintain the balance of yin and yang, Lady Jing. It is not for us to determine fate.’
‘But—’
‘All actions have consequences, sooner or later. Interfering in the yang world will only delay the inevitable and make things worse. What the Japanese forces are doing up north, the karmic debt they are incurring . . . well’ – Willie sighs heavily – ‘it will not end well for them.’ Something flashes in Willie’s eyes, the flick of a shark’s tail, before disappearing into murky depths.
We follow Mr Lee through the narrow streets of Zhabei. Either side of us are two-storied wooden buildings with shuttered windows, open doors leading to darkened stairwells. There are people leaning against the doorways, squatting in front of the buildings, some sleeping slumped on the ground.
People stare openly at Gigi and me. No one here is dressed anything like Gigi.
Her clothes are more suited to the Han dynasty than 1930s Shanghai.
My grey Western suit is the right colour, but the wrong style.
Only the older amahs wear trousers – theirs wide legged and almost always paired with a muted coloured tangzhuang; unlike Willie’s, the mandarin collared jackets these ladies wear are grey, blue, brown, and tired.
The smell of blood and yang is making me woozy so I take a too see roll from my bag.
‘What’s that?’ Gigi asks.
‘Nothing,’ I say, closing my hand and holding my purse behind me.
‘I saw you take something from your purse. What is it?’
I ignore her, but she reaches around me, tries to pull up my arm. I’m a lot stronger than she is, so she doesn’t make much headway.
‘It smells nice. I want one.’ She puts her hand out. When I ignore her, she adds, ‘I shared my caramel vodka with you.’
‘You had two bottles!’
‘And you don’t have a whole stockpile in there? Tian, you’re greedy.’
I twitch my shoulders; Ah Lang and Mr Lee walk either side of us, arms out to keep us from being crowded. But the smell is intense. ‘The candy helps with the dizziness.’
‘The yang qi?’ she says.
I nod. ‘And the blood.’
‘You didn’t have your glass last night.’
My fangs push out at the thought. I groan, press my fingers to my aching gums. ‘Don’t remind me.’
‘There are corpses everywhere – why don’t you just have a drink now. We’ll stand guard.’
I blink at her. ‘What?’
She gestures to the woman leaning against the building to our left, and then at a man lying not three feet away from us, and then at a child, barefoot, curled up against a wooden post. Now that I’m paying attention, beneath the unwashed bodies and the yang and blood is a scent I hadn’t noticed before.
In my Shanghai, corpses always come with the stench of the river.
Here, there’s a dry kind of smell. Like desiccated leaves, or the sandy winds that sometimes blow in from the Gobi Desert.
I stare at the unmoving people. They’re not sleeping. They’re dead.
I catch Mr Lee’s gaze. The resignation in his eyes tells me these scenes are not new to him. That seed of knowledge contains more horror than the poor souls abandoned where they lay.