Ian MORSON - A Deadly Injustice

I gazed modestly at the ground, though I was in fact very pleased with myself. But I knew it was hard to hide things from Gurbesu.

‘Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve known for some time, but you are right, I do intend to catch her.’

I left them both uncertain and worried and crossed the courtyard, easing loose the dagger I had stuffed in my belt when I had got up that morning. I needed some reassurance, in case my plans went wrong. Jianxu’s disappearance had accelerated the situation, and I had to hurry. The conclusion of this vexed case was in sight, but the threads were unravelling faster than I might have wished.

I strode through the back alleys of Pianfu in my desire to avoid the bustle of horses and sedan chairs on the main highways. The delicate twanging of tuning forks signalled the presence of travelling barbers ready to serve their customers. As I passed one side street, I heard the clatter of copper bowls and knew that a water seller was close by. I found that noise and the cries of street vendors a comforting and familiar sound after well nigh five years in Cathay. Was I settling down here? Would I stay, and live my life out amongst the Chinee and Mongols? I liked my life, but Venice and Caterina Dolfin always came back to haunt me. And the boy who was my son. It was strange, but thinking of him brought me back to Madam Gao, Jianxu and the task in hand. I suppose I was reminded because the girl had lost her father, and lived her life under the watchful and heartless eye of Madam Gao. My son had no father to bring him up, either. Would it affect him as it seemed to have done Jianxu? I hoped not.

The Geng household was now just ahead of me. I approached it cautiously, peering through the gate at the apparently deserted courtyard. Where was Madam Gao? And had Jianxu come here after all?

She had crept into the house keeping to the shadows cast by the afternoon sun on the far side of the courtyard. It had proved easy to slip away from the supervision of the Kungurat woman. After all, she had long experience of sneaking away from the old lady now and then. And she had been much more watchful than Gurbesu. She felt no sorrow about leaving them. Despite all their shows of friendship towards her, when that black crow of a Christian priest had arrived, she had dropped completely out of their minds. When she had looked in on their revelry, only the red-haired man had noticed her presence. And he had only engaged her look for a moment before returning to the conversation with the priest. And his fondling of Gurbesu’s thigh. The dark-skinned Kungurat had ignored her completely, revealing how false her concern for Jianxu had really been. In a way, she couldn’t blame them. From a child she had been brought up to be silent unless spoken to, and subservient to all men in her family, and that of her husband. Madam Gao was a tyrant, and she did her every bidding. So why would the rowdy and undisciplined foreigners even notice her? She was to them no more than the pile of documents that represented her case to them.

Now she stood in the shadows, shivering slightly, in the morning chill. She had returned to the only person whom she knew and understood. She had come back to be under the scrutiny of Madam Gao and she was fearful of what might happen to her. But there was now no going back.

I thought I saw a shape in the shadows on the far side of Geng’s courtyard. I moved that way, but it must have been my imagination. A weed blowing in the wind, perhaps. But then I saw the marks of a woman’s pattens on the packed earth. However small, they were not as tiny as Madam Gao’s bound feet, and there were no servants in the house to have made them. Jianxu must have come here. They led towards the kitchen.

She quietly made her way to her old domain – the kitchen of Geng’s house. At the door, she took off her wooden pattens and carefully placed them side by side on the threshold. She stepped inside. The kitchen was cold with no fire burning in the hearth. If she had been here in the past and had let the fire go out, Madam Gao would have given her a tongue-lashing. Even the servants got treated better than her. She picked up a metal poker and prodded the ashes. They drifted up into the air, and a cold wind whistling through the kitchen blew them across the floor. She could not see even a dim red glow left in the embers.

She pricked her ears, thinking she heard a sound. If so, it could only be her mother-in-law. There was no one left in the house. In fact, she had not been sure that the old lady would be here. But then she would not have returned to her old house as it was empty, and all her possessions moved to Geng’s. No, Madam Gao had to be here, and the creaking of timbers above suggested she was awake and moving around. Gripping the heavy poker more tightly in her hand to defend herself, Jianxu crept towards her mother-in-law’s upper room.

The old lady sat upright in the darkened room of the empty house. She had always been taught never to slouch, and though her back troubled her more and more often, she still did not give in to its niggling pain. There was time enough to lie down when you were dead. Her thoughts drifted over the last few years that had been such difficult ones for her. It had started when that penniless scholar had brought his girl child to her. She had needed a servant, and gave the man the money he wanted to complete his studies. She had assumed he would come back to claim his daughter, but he never did. The old lady had no complaints about that – she had got a compliant servant at a very cheap price. The first real piece of bad luck had been Cangbi being so sickly. He had always been a weak child, but she had assumed he would grow out of it as he became a man. He didn’t, and was reliant on her for most of his needs. It had been a surprise and a relief when her son had begged her to let him marry the girl. She was even more surprised when the girl agreed. She had always ignored her son, only doing for him what the old lady told her to do. It had been a great tragedy when he had died, despite the ministrations of the doctor.

Things then had gone from bad to worse in a way that suggested her great yun cycle was on the wane. Old Geng saving her life had seemed like a boon, until she saw what an obligation it had created. The only way out of his clutches that she could see was if he died. She paused in her reverie. Her feet were hurting, and she bent down to squeeze and pummel them. It was the only relief she could find for the aches. If only Jianxu had been here, she could have massaged them for her.

Where was the girl anyway? She had been released, had she not? Why had she not returned where she belonged? The old lady sat up, thinking she heard the floor boards creaking outside the room where she sat. But when she listened hard, she could not detect another sound. She bent down again to manipulate on her feet. One thing she was sure of. When the girl did turn up, she would kill her.

I saw the pattens on the threshold of the kitchen. They had been placed with such exact precision that it had to have been Jianxu’s work. I looked cautiously round the door, but couldn’t see her. The kitchen was cold and silent, the pots left dirty, and several utensils were scattered over the table. It would not have been so when Jianxu was working there. I saw a smear of cold, grey ash had drifted across the floor. In it were the imprints of a woman’s feet clad in socks. I followed the grey marks on the floor towards Madam Gao’s quarters.

She sneaked up the staircase, keeping to the edge to prevent any step creaking and giving her away. If she alerted the old woman to her presence, she feared for her safety. But she had the poker and the element of surprise. She saw that the door to Gao’s bedroom had been slid open, but the room was still in darkness. Gao must have risen, but had not yet opened the shutters to let the daylight in. As she got closer, Jianxu could see strips of sunlight cutting across the room. The shutters were old and warped, and didn’t fit tightly any more. A huddled figure in a blue silk gown sat on a low stool, her head bowed. Her grey hair hung over her face and she seemed oblivious to the intruder. It appeared Madam Gao was examining her bent, bound feet that often still gave her pain in the mornings. Jianxu knew she could hardly bear to put her weight on them until she had rubbed and pummelled them into some sort of feeling.