Chapter 108 A Chance Encounter and Remembered Lust
Chapter 108 A Chance Encounter and Remembered Lust
Of all the cities in China, the Europeans had left their most distinct
footprint in Shanghai. The British and the Germans, the French, the Spanish,
and the Portuguese, all had built banks and warehouse, homes and churches, for
the numerous fortune-hunters, diplomats and traders that had made Shanghai their
second home. But, after their crushing defeat of the French in 1870-71, the
Germans' influence in China was exceeded only the English, with whom their
rivalry grew ever more contentious.
When their daily afternoon walk led them to tour the European quarter of
the city for the third time in five days, Erika asked Daniel Kauffmann why they
had spent so much time in that district of the city as opposed to the others.
"First of all, Lorelei, you are European. Is it not likely that you lived
in this quarter, with family or friends? Perhaps you will see someone - or
someone will recognize you -- and our troubles will be over. Although I must
say," he said with a frown, "that it seems very strange that no one in the
European community has made an issue of your disappearance."
"That is why I asked, " Erika said as her eyes swept from face to face as
she passed people in the street, hoping to experience a flash of recognition.
"Perhaps I had only recently been brought to Shanghai. Do you remember my dream
about a lake in the mountains? Are there any large lakes nearby? Or any
mountains?"
"No, I don't believe so," Daniel Kauffmann said, frowning. His
near-success with hypnotism had never been repeated, despite several further
attempts. Schumacher's untimely entry seemed to have quashed his hopes in that
regard. Kauffman suddenly stepped to the side of the dusty street, where stood
a ramshackle flower-stall. He handed the flower-seller, a toothless old woman,
a coin in return for a small bouquet. He offered the flowers to Erika and she
accepted them with a shy smile.
"The other reason that I think it likely that you are known to some
Europeans is that the cloak you were wearing when we found you {Chapter 13} is
of British manufacture. It is more than a few years old, but of the highest
quality. Only a wealthy man could afford such a garment.
"British?" Erika repeated with a puzzled frown, as she inhaled the
fragrance of the fall flowers. "I'm not sure that I have ever met anyone
British. But then again," she added wistfully, "I'm not sure of anything." She
lifted the flowers slightly, as though she were toasting her physician. "Except
that you have been very kind to me."
Kauffmann waved away her thanks. "It is I who should be grateful to you.
There are not three physicians in Europe who are blessed with so fascinating a
case. And none," his voice dropped to a gallant whisper, "with so lovely a
patient."
Erika Weiss lowered her eyes, blushing. When she said nothing, Kauffman
sighed under his breath and returned their conversation to its former track.
"Yes, the cloak bears the marking of Anderson and Sheppard, of Savile Row.
Members of British royalty have done business with that firm."
Erika stared at him in disbelief. How was it possible that she, whose
dreams suggested that she had been abused by brutes who were little better than
animals, had been found in a garment having such a noble provenance?
"Yes, yes, it's true. The vice-consul told me once that the dapper
Disraeli himself used to wear such a cloak."
Erika racked her brain trying to think of a British connection in her past,
but there was nothing in her memory but a dim void. As they continued to walk
along she marveled at the sights and sounds and smells of Shanghai. The
European quarter was perhaps the newest part of the city, but it was by no means
the only interesting district of the teeming metropolis, and she was happy when
they left it behind and headed in the direction of the port, which Erika had
observed with such interest from the east-facing window of her bedroom.
While on their way toward the harbor district, Erika pointed out a
magnificent edifice in the distance which she could not remember having seen
before. "My goodness, Doctor. What is that building over there? Is it a
temple? A castle? A fortress? Standing alone on that high ground as it does,
it looks down over that part of the city like a Valhalla."
"It is a magnificent building, is it not? One can rarely see it so clearly.
Local legend has it that there's a dark and eerie cloud that sweeps in from the
bay and enshrouds it much of the time. It's almost sinister looking, isn't it?
The natives call it the Black Pagoda, and it was built by ... are you feeling
alright, Lorelei?"
Erika had stopped dead in her tracks to stare at the dark tower. "Y-yes,
Doctor, I think so. But for a moment there, I felt a little giddy for some
reason."
"Let me take you back to the embassy. You look as pale as a ghost. I was
a fool to let you walk this far so soon."
"N-no, Doctor. I am fine," Erika replied, but her voice remained a shadow
of what it had been moments earlier. " I don't know what came over me. You were
saying?"
"Nothing, really. Only that the Black Pagoda was built some years ago by
an old reprobate named Jiang Shao Chan. His son, Richard, took it over when the
old man died. There's a bit of mystery surrounding the Chans - Richard has a
brother, who's only a year or two younger - and no doubt a lot of nonsense, as
well. One night," Daniel Kauffman lowered his voice conspiratorily, "a wealthy
Chinese entrepreneur ... Ach! What was his name? Sung Hee? No, Sung Lo, I
think. Yes, that was it!" Kauffman exclaimed, pleased that he'd come up with
the name.
"As I was saying," the doctor went on in an animated voice, "the Chans'
name came up one night at a reception, and this fellow Sung Lo, who no doubt had
had one drink too many, later took me aside and told me a crazy tale about the
Chans heading a triad, or tong, known as the Black Scorpions, which controls all
of the vice in Shanghai and much more besides. Seems a preposterous notion.
They're very clever fellows, I'm told, the two brothers, and they're rumored to
be as rich as Croesus. They were educated in England, they say." Suddenly
Kauffman interrupted himself. "My God, Lorelei, you must have caught a chill.
You're shivering."
Daniel Kauffmann took Erika's hand; despite the warmth of the day, it was
cold as ice.
"No, really, I'll be fine," Erika smiled wanly. I'm just feeling a little
light-headed." She looked ahead. "The waterfront is not far, now. Come,
Doctor. The sea air will do me good. Perhaps a cup of tea will settle my
nerves," she added. "And then perhaps we can get a bite to eat?"
************
They had toured the waterfront once before on one of their walks, and Erika
had found it endlessly fascinating. Dozens of ships, often including huge
steamers, a cannon-studded naval vessel or two, and colorful junks, sampans, and
tiny little dinghies that seemed hardly spacious enough for one fisherman, much
less his catch, dotted the harbor. On this particular afternoon, a
splendid-looking British steamer, its Union Jack flapping briskly in the wind,
was a veritable beehive of activity as it prepared for its next voyage.
From the vantage point of Erika's second-story window at the embassy, the
harbor had seemed picturesque but stately, its constant motion obscured by the
distance from which she watched. But when she and the doctor actually strode
along the streets and quays of the waterfront, she was struck by its tumultuous
nature. Sailors, porters, fishermen - and their sharp-tongued wives - were
everywhere, scurrying around the docks. They had looked like mindless mariner
ants from her window, but up close they were thousands of individuals, talking,
arguing, cursing, but all moving purposefully to an agitated rhythm against the
backdrop of the placid harbor. So unlike, it struck her, the graceful gulls who
glided serenely overhead, circling endlessly, ever alert for a stray scrap of
fish, or a bit of cabbage that had fallen from an over-laden cart.
Erika and the doctor took a late lunch at an eating place adjacent to a
fishmonger's, where a wizened old man broiled pieces of whitefish on a smoky
grill, and served them alongside steaming mounds of rice. Dr Kauffmann noted, as
he had several times before, Erika's facility with chopsticks. Although he had
been in China for some time, she was far more proficient than he; clearly she
was no newcomer to east Asia.
While they sipped green tea and nibbled at savory bits of fish Erika
noticed a middle-aged fisherman and a young woman, the prettiest young woman she
had seen during their tour of the harbor, as they walked by, struggling with a
bulky net. The young woman, clearly imagining Erika and her companion to be
lovers, gave them a cheerful greeting as she passed. Erika returned the smile,
correctly sizing up the pair as father and daughter, and wondered if she would
ever come to know her own family again.
********
Over a simple but tasty dinner of steamed vegetables and rice later that
evening Lily, the daughter of Chung-hua, whose fishing boat, the Gem of the Sea,
had pulled Li Chang out of the harbor two nights earlier, {Chapter 35} told Li
Chang of the pleasant young European couple that she and her father had seen on
the pier that morning.
At first Li, pre-occupied by the gnawing pain in his crushed legs, had
displayed no particular interest in her friendly chatter, but when she commented
on the woman's height, and her striking beauty. Li stopped in mid-bite, set his
half-full rice-bowl down and gave his pretty young hostess a peculiar look.
"Did ... did this woman have long golden hair?" Li asked in a whisper,
gritting his teeth against the pain that seemed to have no end.
"Why, yes, so she did, Li," Lily smiled. "But how did you guess that?"
"I ... I knew such a woman once," Li said, with a faraway look in his eyes.
"She had the loveliest skin you could imagine. A beautiful face. And
beautiful hands." Lily looked down ruefully at her own hands, which, despite
her youth, were already a bit weathered by wind and sea. "She made me feel like
... like a dried fish."
"You are a beautiful young woman, Lily," Li said gently, taking her rough
but feminine hand in his own. "You are surely one of the favorite pearls of the
goddess of the sea. Do not let anyone tell you differently. If I were still a
man..." and this time it was Li Chang who spoke with regret, as he lowered his
hands to the legs that the Scorpions had crushed on the Night of the Tiger.
Lily turned away, pretending not to have heard her guest's doleful words.
But when she saw that Li had lapsed back into one of the black moods that had
plagued him since his rescue, Lily smiled brightly at him and did her best to
cheer him up, chattering away brightly about the events of her day.
But Li's mind was far away. He had been transported back to the rustin
cabin on the shore of the mountain lake, and the erotic delights of that long
ago sexual sojourn, far from the cares of the city.
He retired early that night, after Lily had rubbed his almost useless
legs, as was to become her nightly custom, with a skin-burning balm that a
Chinese doctor had told him might help to keep the muscles from atrophying.
But after she left him alone on his cot, he could not sleep, as visions of
Erika Weiss and Ming-tsu danced before his eyes. He imagined himself once again
under the canopy in the back of Hong's rowboat, watching excitedly as Ming-tsu's
deft fingers undid the laces that held the stunning young blonde's skimpy
buckskin halter together. He drew in a long, slow breath as he remembered the
thrilling moment when his exotic temptress and lover had triumphantly stripped
Erika's revealing top away, so that the lake nymph's succulent pink-tipped
breasts could sway freely with each long sweep of her oar, even as they baked
under the blazing sun. In his mind's eye he pictured the ever-widening rivulets
of perspiration trickling down the smooth planes and curves of Erika's bare back
while her fair skin reacted deliciously to every stinging flick of the whip.
And for the briefest of instants, Li felt a pleasurable tightening in his loins,
a tightening that he had feared that he might never feel again....
How much of that sensation, Li wondered in the stillness of the night, did
he owe to the two beautiful women on the mountain lake, and how much to the
caressing touch of Lily's hands?
********
Little did Li Chang know that not too many miles away, Erika Weiss also
dreamt that night, as she had many times before, of that same encounter. But
there had been no erotic pleasure for her, neither in the boat nor in the rustic
lodge of that island wilderness in the mountains to the north. There had only
been back-breaking labor, broiling sun, and days and nights of sexual
subservience to the handsome young couple who had traveled a great distance to
discipline her body and subjugate her soul.
