Tom Bradby - The Master Of Rain

“What kind of man was he?” she asked.

“Does it matter?”

“To know you-” she shrugged-“it matters.”

Field thought for a moment. He looked out of the window again. “He wanted me to be an accountant or a missionary and he was the worst combination of both.”

“And you are neither.”

“His father was a shoeshine boy, and for him, there was no margin of error.” Field held up thumb and forefinger so that they were almost touching. “One mistake, no matter how tiny…”

“He was a missionary?”

“He acted like one. My mother came from a well-to-do family, and her parents believed she had married beneath herself. She grew up in a big house with plenty of servants, and they didn’t think my father was worthy of her.” Field sighed. “He was an accountant, but he was ambitious and he started a business selling hosiery. The shops always struggled and I don’t remember…” She leaned forward to touch his hand. “Neither of them ever smiled. I don’t recall them appearing to be anything other than miserable.” Field withdrew his hand and leaned back, not wanting the intimacy of someone else’s touch as he recalled the past. “Sometimes my father would come home in a terrible temper and we would be sent out of the room and then he would push Mother until they began to argue. He would shout louder and louder.” Field could hear their raised voices as if they were in the next room, and he wanted to put his hands to his ears as he had done so often as a boy. “The next morning my mother would have bruises on her face.”

Natasha looked at him with concern in her eyes.

“What about your father?” Field asked.

Natasha shrugged. “He died of a disease… something… we never quite knew.” She waved her hand. “It was a long time ago.”

“But it doesn’t feel like it.”

She shrugged. “Life is sometimes sad.”

“And sometimes happy.”

She smiled. “Sometimes.”

How old were you when your mother died?” he asked.

“Seven.”

“Do you remember her well?”

“Remember, but not so well.”

“She was beautiful.”

“I’m not beautiful.”

Field did not dignify this with a response.

“Tell me more about your father,” she said quickly, as if trying to move him away from her own past.

Field felt that there was something stilted about their conversation that was not present in their lovemaking, as if only in bed could they shed the thousands of barriers, seen and unseen, that separated them. And yet, he reflected, the purity of emotion was the same. Here he felt as he had all night. He wanted to know about her and perhaps she him, but their questions were oblique, their answers wary. He looked out of the window. “He’s dead.”

“Was he like you? Not the cruelty, I mean but-”

“Albert Field had a platitude for every occasion.”

“Tell me one.”

“Honesty is a cloak to keep out the chill of loneliness.”

She frowned.

“In his eyes, if you’re honest, you’ll always have something to hold on to, no matter what the world chooses to strip from you. You will always have your integrity and a sense of self-worth and value.”

As he watched the color draining from her cheeks and realized what he’d said, Field wondered if, subconsciously, he had chosen the quote deliberately.

“So part of him was a good man?”

Field did not answer.

“I think you are your father’s son, Richard.”

Natasha was suddenly subdued and withdrawn as the café owner brought their coffees on a round wooden tray.

“And you,” he said. “Are you your father’s daughter?”

“I am glad he did not live to see Shanghai.” She sat up straight. “What will you do with me?”

“He was in the army.”

“What will you do with me? You have discussed it with your colleagues?” She was nervous and suddenly uncertain at the intrusion of the real world.

“What do you do for him, Natasha? You go to his house?”

“I do not want to talk about it.”

“I’m afraid you’ve got to tell me exactly what happens.”

“It is my business.” He thought the defiance he could see in her eyes was in fact fear.

“Has he ever shown any violence to you? Has he ever hit you or-”

“He does nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Sure.”

“Why does he-”

“Why do you want to know?”

Field continued to stare at her.

“I go… Always the same. To his house. There is a telephone call and I go down. I am shown to the room on the first floor by his bodyguards, and there I wait. Then one of the housekeepers comes down. Sometimes it is a long time. One hour, two. More.”

“You’re alone in that room?”

“Yes.”

“Then what?”

“Then I am taken upstairs, and the housekeeper-always the same, a Chinese woman wearing a uniform-she tells me to begin. At first, she explained, I must take my clothes off slowly and then, when he waves his hand, I can go.”

“The housekeeper withdraws.”

“Yes.”

“And…” Field felt his stomach tense. He wanted to shut out the image of her and Lu, and yet he desperately needed to know.

“I begin. I take my clothes off.”

“What do you wear?” he asked, no longer trusting his voice.

“Does it matter?” Her voice was sharp.

“It might.” He swallowed hard. “Lena was handcuffed to the bed, wearing stockings and a garter belt. Has he ever used handcuffs, or asked you to wear anything in particular, anything like that?”

Natasha shook her head.

“And when you have done that?”

“It’s all right, Richard.”

Unconsciously, he was tensing up again. He fought the urge to stand and punch the window. “And when you are finished?” he asked with exaggerated care.

She shrugged. “I pick up my clothes, and there is a dressing room. I put on my clothes and leave by a side door, back into the hall and down the stairs, past the bodyguards.”

“They are-”

“They think I’m a whore.” She put her hand to her mouth and started to bite one of her fingernails. Visibly upset, she turned to face the window and crossed her arms protectively across her chest.

“And Lu-what does he do? Where is he when…” Field cleared his throat. “Where is he when you come into the bedroom?”

“He is lying on the bed in a silk dressing gown.”

“Fully dressed?”

“He has a dressing gown on.” She shrugged. “There is an opium pipe beside him and his eyes are glazed.”

“But he is looking at you?”

“Please stop it, Richard.”

“He watches?”

“Yes.”

“But he never touches you? He never beckons you over to him?”

“I would never…” Her fist was bunched now, her face screwed up with pain. “Whatever you think, I would never…”

Field leaned back again, breathing out heavily.

“You think I have a choice,” she said. “About him, about my life. You think I have a choice.”

“And it hurts you that I think that?”

She did not answer.

Field fought to believe her. She only took her clothes off. There was nothing more involved. “Lena hid those notes for someone,” he said. “The ones we showed you.”

Natasha didn’t react.

“Did she leave them for you?”

Natasha shook her head but without meeting his eyes. Field thought there was a hint of color in her cheek.

“She discussed the notes with you.”

Natasha looked at him. “I don’t know anything about it.”

Field did not want to accuse her of lying, though he was certain that she was. “The notes refer to a second ledger,” he said. “Lu keeps a complete record of all his accounts, including transactions, payments, and shipments, somewhere in the private quarters of his house.”