Chapter 44 Qieu -- A Story of Fear and Courage
Throughout the next day, Luk Yee began to become more and more alarmed.
That there was no word from Li Chang was not so strange; he, after all was
presumably safely in Formosa by now. But when Luk had gone to the house of
Wen-chi, no one had answered the door. Luk Yee consoled himself with the
thought that perhaps the old man and his grand-daughter were merely out visiting
friends. Liu had always preferred to attend to her grandfather's needs herself,
and thus they had no servants to answer the door when they were out.
Luk Yee made the rounds of his cell leaders, being careful to see that
he was not followed, warning them to be cautious, that there was likely to be a
counter-strike from the Scorpions. But no one could tell how much, if anything,
the Chans knew of their organization, so the degree of danger was difficult to
assess with certainty.
******
Qieu had woken that next morning before Luk Yee, who had risen while she
was preparing the morning tea. Each of them was pre-occupied and withdrawn; he,
concerned with the fate of Li Chang and the future of their cause; she, plagued
with nervousness and guilt regarding her fearfulness with respect to performing
her marital obligations.
Luk Yee earned only a pittance from his teaching duties, and she had a
sense that he had been neglecting them in recent weeks, especially since the
mysterious suicide of his strange hunchbacked professor. As a result Qieu had
begun taking in sewing as a means of augmenting the meager family income. Her
father had offered to help the young couple, but Luk Yee, conscious of the fact
that his father-in-law's business was not prospering as it once had - partly due
to the iron grip of the Chans on the city's economy - had refused to accept any
help.
As she plied her needle and thread, doing peacework for a textile
jobber, Qieu lamented the fact that she had no mother to ask for advice. Her
mother had died not long after Qieu's birth, one of the millions who had lost
their lives during the famine-plagued years of the Taiping Rebellion, of which
her father rarely spoke. As a girl she had asked about her mother often, but as
she grew older she could see that it gave her father great pain to talk about
her, and so over the years, she had begun to inquire about her mother less and
less frequently. But she did know, from her father, that her mother had been
beautiful and kind, and that her memory was treasured by all who had known her
in their home city of Nanking.
Working quickly and skillfully Qieu finished her quota for the jobber
early in the afternoon, and set about finishing the scarlet gown with which she
intended to surprise Luk Yee. She had worked on it a little each day since the
wedding, and it was nearly done.
When at last she had finished the garment, and tried it on to make sure
that it fit perfectly, she realized that Luk Yee would be home before long. She
just had time to bathe and shop for the items that she would need for their
special dinner.
While she slipped out of her clothes Qieu lit a candle in front of the
small shrine that honored her long dead mother and wondered what she would have
done in Qieu's place, had she been plagued by the same fears. But, alas, no
answers were forthcoming from the shrine.
A few moments later Qieu stood nude on a small absorbent mat alongside
the small basin of water that she had taken care to conserve all day. Qieu was
not an envious person by nature, but she envied the relative ease with which the
well-to-do were able to keep clean.
She picked up the amber-colored sponge, dipped it in the lukewarm water
and rubbed it lightly across her breasts, smiling slightly as her nipples
stiffened slightly at the touch. She closed her soft brown eyes as her hand
moved the porous natural sponge lower, rubbing her ribcage and midriff gently,
until her golden skin was gleaming like a dewy mountain meadow on a spring
morning. Then she dipped the sponge in the basin daintily, wetting it, and slid
it further down, below her tiny waist and across the gentle rise of her mons.
And then lower still, touching herself intimately; she quivered slightly with
sensual pleasure as she wondered if tonight she would have the courage to let
her beloved touch her as the sponge had done.
When she was done with her sponge bath, Qieu did something that she had
never done before. Even though she was alone she blushed self-consciously as
she dabbed a drop or two of attar of mimosa into the narrow valley between her
nude breasts, and then, even more hesitantly, added a touch of the scent to the
secret place between her soft thighs.
As she looked down at the graceful curves of her supple body, it was
impossible not to be troubled again by her secret; at times such as these the
thought plagued her that perhaps she should never have married at all. Perhaps
... but Luk Yee was a good man, she consoled herself. With luck all would be
well in the end.
Yes, a good man... her other self seemed to reply ... one that does not
deserve a wife with a shameful secret...
********
It was nearly dark when Luk Yee returned home that night, greatly
fatigued from his tireless crossing and re-crossing of the city to alert his
comrades to the danger of their situation.
Qieu had resolved that she would tell Luk Yee her secret that evening,
come what may. Accordingly she had it in mind to prepare his favorite meal, a
thick steaming soup of seafood and laboriously hand-cut home-made noodles,
seasoned with the pungent red chiles of Szechuan. She had also spent more than
they could really afford on a fine bottle of shaohsing, the Chinese rice wine.
As she prepared the broth Qieu recalled "Tu Kang Makes Wine", the two
thousand-year-old story that her father had told her as a little girl. The
ancient folk tale made manifest the importance of wine to nearly a hundred
generations of the people between the two great rivers. Once, while her father
was enjoying a cup of shaohsing, he had recounted to her how the wily European,
Marco Polo, had endeavored to convince the Chinese court to renounce their wines
made from grain in favor of the grape wines of Europe. And how none other than
the great Khan himself had risen to the defense of the native wines of Cathay.
Soon the broth was steaming, rich and red and redolent with spices, and
awaited only the last minute addition of the fast-cooking seafood, noodles and
vegetables. Once the soup was safely begun, Qieu washed her hands quickly and
changed into her new gown of scarlet trimmed with gold, and awaited Luk Yee's
arrival.
When Luk Yee finally returned home he took one sniff of the aromatic
dish and smiled broadly; Qieu was standing with her back to him, ravishingly
radiant in her new dress, a blood-red hibiscus provocatively pinned to the
raven-black hair behind her left ear. At the conclusion of their wedding vows
Qieu had transferred a white hibiscus from behind her right ear, where its
location signified her availability, to behind her left ear, which, in the lore
of the people of the islands, proclaimed to the world that she had found the
man she loved. It had been the most charming moment of a blessed day.
It struck Luk Yee that his wife must have spent many minutes at the
flower-seller's stall looking for a specimen whose color so perfectly matched
the dress she had made. A dress that out-crimsoned even the deep red richness
of the seafood soup. Luk said a silent prayer of thanksgiving to the gods for
his beautiful wife, crept up softly behind her, brushed aside her ebony tresses
and kissed her gently on the neck as she stirred the soup. As he inhaled the
delicate scent of mimosa and hibiscus it occurred to him what a blessing it was
to unshoulder, if only for a few hours, the weighty burden of leadership.
Smiling shyly when Luk Yee's hands began to stroke her flanks, Qieu spun
away neatly, giving her handsome husband a warm smile but cautioning him that
his dinner was at a crucial stage. Cautioned by this edict from his culinary
empress, Luk Yee retired gracefully and took a seat at their charming little
dining room table. Their entire apartment, though small, was beautifully
arranged. Qieu had artfully applied the ancient Chinese belief in 'feng shui'
-- harmonious aesthetic balance -- to every corner of their lodgings.
After adding the final ingredients to the soup, Qieu poured two cups of
Shaohsing and they happily toasted each other while the seafood and the noodles
cooked to the desired tenderness. Then Qieu used a deep ladle to pour the soup
into an elegant serving dish of Kaolin porcelain -- a wedding gift from Liu --
from which they each served themselves. Their talk was of neighbors and
friends; Luk Yee did not wish to burden his wife with his fears for the safety
of Wen-chi and the others.
Luk Yee was contentedly slurping away in the noisy fashion of Chinese
noodle-eaters when they suddenly heard a sharp rapping at the door.
Qieu smiled seductively at her husband. "It is probably our neighbor,
that nosy baker's wife again. Let me get rid of her. This is our night." Then
she walked over toward a window adjacent to the front door and peeked out
through a crack in the curtain. "Yes? Who is it?"
"Is this the house of Luk Yee?" she heard a deep voice inquire.
Qieu hesitated and just then the tall man on the doorstep, who was
clothed in black from head to foot, turned slightly toward the curtain from
which she watched. And even through the tiny crevice in the curtain she could
see the gaps between his ugly yellowing teeth. And the two men, one huge and
bull-like, one young and slight, who waited watchfully a step or two behind him.
At the sight of the gaptoothed man, Qieu suddenly felt as cold and
bloodless as a harbor eel. Trembling, she backed away from the window and then,
making up her mind in an instant, whispered to Luk Yee.
"Out the back window! Now! There are men looking for you. Bad men.
There is no time to argue with me . Go! Go! And do not come back until it is
safe. I will be all right. Go! Go! Go!!"
They heard the insistent pounding on the door again, louder this time.
"Luk Yee!" the threatening voice called again.
"I'm coming," Qieu lied in a quavering voice. "One moment."
His head spinning and his mind racing, Luk Yee rose, congratulating
himself on having told his wife nothing of his activities. The men who were
looking for him would surely have no interest in her. She knew nothing of his
work. And she knew nothing of where he was going. For the simple reason that he
himself didn't know where he was going. He was fortunate that his wife had
reacted so swiftly.
Luk turned and ran to the back window which opened on an alley which led
toward the labyrnthian maze of streets of that quarter of Shanghai.
"I will return when it is safe my love! Or send for you. They will
leave when they see that I am not here."
"Go! For the love of heaven, Go!"
Again the heavy fist pounded at the door. "Luk Yee!! Open up before I
kick the door in!"
Qieu glanced quickly out the window, and saw that Luk was nearly at the
end of the alley. She said a prayer of thanks that he had escaped. Then,
closing the window softly, she took a deep breath to compose herself, and walked
on shaky legs toward the door.
When she opened it the gaptoothed man looked at her strangely for a
moment while his two comrades joined him in the doorway.
The leader of the three spoke. "We are looking for Luk Yee. We have
news of his friend Li Chang."
"My husband is not here; I do not know where he is. But what of Li
Chang?"
The men pushed past her roughly, and quickly searched the small living
quarters finding no one.
"Where is he, woman? Your husband?"
"I do not know," Qieu said, her voice quaking. "I have not seen him
since this morning."
"You haven't, have you? I suppose you were eating two bowls of soup and
drinking two cups of wine yourself?"
"I...I..."
WHAMPPP!! Gaptooth's right arm lashed out wickedly, backhanding her
across the chest. The force of his powerful blow crushed her tender breasts as
if the crimson robe had been no thicker than tissue paper.
"Nghhhhhh!!"
"For the last time -- where is he?" Gaptooth roared.
"I told you," Qieu moaned in pain, "I don't know."
Dao signalled for the Ox to pinion her arms behind her and then Gaptooth
buried his bony knee into the soft tender place between her legs, causing Qieu
to cry out in agony. She would have fallen to her knees and beyond had not the
Ox held her up.
"Lying bitch! You're coming with us! Where we can talk things over
without being disturbed by prying neighbors!" And Gaptooth grabbed her arm
roughly and pulled her toward the door.
Trying her best to remain calm, Qieu asked, "Where are you taking me?"
But in her heart of hearts she already knew the answer.
"You will see, wife of Luk Yee. You will see. Gag her, Ox!"
Two minutes later, the Ox, and the Drooler were ushering Qieu toward the
horse cart waiting in the street, while Dao, the man with the Jack-o'-Lantern
smile, stood by, armed with Feng's phony credentials, prepared to assure any
inquisitive neighbor that he and his men were acting on behalf of the emperor
himself.
And once the onlookers had dispersed, the horse-cart set off in the
direction of the Black Pagoda.
*********
Less than an hour later, Qieu was standing, trembling in fear, between
the two great columns that supported the dark dungeon of the black pagoda. The
huge man and the smirking boy had been sent off on other business. But not
before the big brute had assisted Gaptooth in tying her hands tightly behind her
back. And now she was alone with Gaptooth. The long mirror that lined one wall
reflected the eerie torchlight of the subterranean chamber and seemed to make
Dao's grinning split-toothed visage an even sicklier yellow than before.
The beautiful young wife of Luk Yee forced herself to be calm; she did
not think that he knew... that he rememembered. Perhaps there yet was hope. In
a way she was thankful that she was still gagged, that her features were partly
obscured. She tried to keep her head turned to one side, to make it more
difficult.... In the gloomy darkness her eyes peered into the far corners of
the room; corners that held ghostly shapes of whose purpose she could only
guess, but which sent ghastly chills of terror coursing through her slender
body.
Then she heard a voice... THE Voice ... the sinister Voice without a
face... the Voice that had been as dry and forbidding as the trackless wastes of
the barren Gobi Desert far to the north. The Voice was now accompanied by a
slow, increasingly ominous tread of footfalls downward toward the corner of hell
in which she found herself. Footsteps that echoed eerily in the cavernous
dungeon, each one seemingly weighed down with the sense of inescapable doom
that accompanied them.
The Voice was close enough now to be understood. "The stars have
blessed us, George, just as Mai-Lee's astrologer predicted they would. It was
no coincidence, my brother, that I sprang our trap on Li Chang on the night
when the earth was closest to Mars, the Roman god of war. Last night we put an
end to the schemes of Li Chang and the interfering old man; tonight we have
taken the wife of his best friend, and through her we shall ... Ah, here she
is!"
"On your knees before the Lord of the Black Pagoda, woman!" the
gaptoothed man growled, and shoving violently downward on her shoulders, sent
Qieu sprawling forward.
The Voice, that voice that she would never forget, would have sent a
long tremulous shudder through Qieu's body even if she had never heard of Li
Chang; but she knew him to be her husband's best friend. The pretty young wife
of Luk Yee tried desperately to still the panic that seemed to be enveloping
her like the dark, hilltop-hugging clouds of an autumnal typhoon.
Was Li dead? Dying? And the old man -- could he mean Li Chang's
venerable foster father? Now, as she saw the two men step through the grim
doorway, she saw, for the first time, the possessor of the sinister Voice.
Before she averted her eyes, while she silently implored her mother's spirit to
impair his memory, she noted that the speaker was tall for a Chinese, and
slender, and he was clad in a silver robe. His hair was black edged with
silver, and cut short -- in one of Richard Chan's few affectations -- in the
manner of the Roman Caesars whose renderings Yuk Lee had one shown her. His
eyes were as black as his hair, and narrow-slitted; his lips were thin and
remorseless. Next to him strode a slightly younger man, a shorter, stockier,
smiling man, but one who bore an unmistakable familial resemblance to the elder
of the two.
When the two men were about ten feet away, Richard Chan stopped
abruptly. Even though Qieu's eyes were cast floorward, she could sense his eyes
upon her, analyzing, scrutinizing his captive. But his pause was only
momentary. Then he addressed the gaptoothed man sharply, "Dao, why did you not
tell us that an old friend had come to call?"
Qieu felt the cold fingers of dread tighten around her heart. He knew.
"An old friend, sire? "
"Dao, Dao." Richard Chan clucked sardonically. "You will never reach the
Council of Twelve unless you develop a better memory for faces. And bodies."
Then the Lord of the Scorpions approached the young woman who knelt
before him, visibly quaking, and lifted her chin so that she was forced to look
into his cold dark eyes.
"It gives me great pleasure to see you here once again, Miss Wu; your
last visit was most enjoyable. I trust that you will stay longer this time."
The icy hand of fear closed tighter on her heart. Richard Chan's keen
eye had been unerring. For Qieu was indeed the daughter of Cheng Wu. Her
father was the shopkeeper from Nanking ** who had so stubbornly refused to
contribute to the Scorpions 'protection' racket'. Until his his only child, a
lovely young woman who had been nicknamed Cherry in her childhood, had been
abducted, blind-folded, and dragged to the Black Pagoda.
Once there his lovely daughter had been stripped and whipped and raped
and, when the Scorpions had done with her, dropped off half-naked and half-dead
on his doorstep on that terrible dawn more than three years ago. As an example
to any of Cheng Wu's neighbors who might be inclined to join him in his
obstinacy.
That incident had terrorized her father into acquiescing to the
Scorpions's demands and had aged him twenty years in twenty hours. And the
trauma of her abduction had left Cherry Wu, now Qieu Yee, with the physical and
psychological scars that threatened her marriage.
And here she was, for reasons she could only guess, once again a
prisoner in the dreaded lair of the Black Scorpions.
** Please see the Prologue
