“I see,” Wan said. “It will take a moment … uh, the price will … uh, I will have to ask sixty thousand Hong Kong dollars.”
“That’s a little high, but I ain’t arguing. You know where to pick it up?”
“Hai.”
“Five-thirty, it’ll be there. Now, where do I go?”
“You have something with which to write?”
“I don’t write anything down. You gimme the details once, I’ll give it back to you word-for-word.”
“It is a place known as the House of the Purple Azalea in New Kowloon …”
_____________________
Colonel Halford had fallen asleep on the balcony outside his room. He was still weak from dysentery. His nerves were shot. He was burned out. And even though his mental and physical condition were improving each day, it was easy to drift off in the hot afternoon sun.
As usual, he dreamed.
Violent nightmares.
The dreams were never the same, but they were alike. Unrelated scenes, spliced together into subliminal nonsense rhymes.
Fragments of fantasy and reality, leaping back and forth through time.
He was in Italy. An olive grove, standing beside a long conference table under the trees, talking to a group of American and Italian officers, but the words were gibberish, like a record played at triple speed, and he was interrupted by the sound of trumpets, and then bells, and sticks beating on pans. Everyone began to run so he ran too, blindly through the grove, past great numbers of soldiers lying dead on the ground, out of the grove to the rim of a high, steep hill and there, looking down, saw hundreds of North Koreans charging toward him and there was gunfire and explosions and men fell all around him screaming but the bullets passed through him and he felt nothing and then the Koreans reached the crest of the hill and ran past him as though he were invisible and he picked up a gun and fired over and over again but it was impotent. He ran after them, back to the conference table and now there were Americans and Italians and North Koreans standing at the table, judging him, pointing all around him to the bodies of the soldiers swinging from tree limbs. And he looked at them and he knew them but he could not put names with their faces and when he tried to speak to them, the words that came out of his mouth were foreign to him.
He awoke in a sweat. For a minute it was difficult for him to breathe. He stood up and took several deep breaths and stood watching the sampans and junks gliding lazily through the harbor. Below, the street was alive with the sounds of civilization and he began to relax.
He tried to ignore the dream, to concentrate on other things.
He thought about the man he had seen on the floating restaurant the other day and tried to place his face. He was sure he knew the man. Perhaps from Honolulu when he was stationed at Pearl. Or from the days in Tokyo, before Korea. But the mental walls were still there, separating Halford from his subconscious.
He began to think about tonight. Perhaps he should not have accepted the invitation. The last time, in Tokyo, he had been embarrassed. The young girl had tried so hard, been so understanding and, ultimately, comforting. He was not sure that he wanted to risk so soon again the anguish of an emotional need he could not satisfy physically.
When he had left Tokyo for Hong Kong and terminated his three-month, twice-a-day therapy with Captain Friedman, it was like cutting an umbilicus. Friedman had recommended the four-week leave. “Get out of here, try some of the things we’ve been working on,” he had told the skeptical Halford. “Look, it’s going to be like going to camp by yourself the first time. Scary, but exciting. You’re going to be okay, Charlie. Thing is, don’t be afraid to try. Remember what Bishop Chamberlain said in the seventeenth century: ‘It’s better to wear out than rust out.’ ”
An hour out of Tokyo old fears had begun chewing at his gut again, but he owed it to the doc to at least try. And he had to admit, in two weeks things had improved.
Then there was Kam Sing, who had gone to such trouble contacting his cousin here, arranging “something special” for him. Yes, tonight he would have to try again. For months, Kam had been a faithful collaborator in Korea and he could not risk insulting the man who had become his friend.
He went into the bathroom and splashed water on his face and then fixed himself a Scotch and started to dress for dinner.
_____________________
Burns had time for only an hour’s nap before the phone jarred him awake.
“Seven forty-five, Mr. Burns,” the hotel operator said.
“Dor jeh,” he said.
“Dor jeh.”
A moment later the alarm went off. He closed up the travel clock and put it in the toilet case. The pill had worn off and he felt even worse than he had that morning. His mouth was fuzzy and his eyes burned. He took a quick shower, shaved, and put on a clean shirt, clean socks, clean underwear, and threw his dirty clothes in the carry-on bag. He took the attaché case out of the drawer, examined its contents once more, and went down and checked out. Then he walked two blocks on Nathan Street to the Imperial Hotel and took a cab to the airport. There he checked the bag, confirmed his reservations on the 11:45 P.M. flight to Tokyo and then took another cab to the House of Eagles on Min Street. He had to hand it to old George Wan. The place was no more than ten minutes from the airport. The House of Eagles was a flashy third-class night club which, were it not for the sign in both Chinese and English, could have been in Miami or North Beach or on Sunset Boulevard. The decor was early joint, imitation leather, fake silk drapes, candles in used wine bottles. Three of the five girls were Caucasians and the bartender looked like an ex-sailor from Brooklyn. The place was almost empty. As Burns sat down at the bar one of the Oriental girls walked up to him and ran her hand across his neck.
“Are you from Hong Kong?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“Ah, American. Aw chung-yee may gock yun. That means ‘I love Americans.’”
“Not tonight, I got plans.”
“Plans can be changed.”
“Maybe tomorrow I’ll come back.”
The girl’s smile vanished and so did she. Burns ordered a glass of plain soda water and asked where the bathroom was.
The restroom was filthy. Soiled paper towels littered the sink and floor, and the entire room seemed coated with grime. Burns entered one of the two booths and locked the door. He opened the attaché case and took out the surgical gloves and put them on. He loosened his belt, lowered his pants, and tied the cord around his hips using a simple bow-knot, then pulled his pants back up and buckled them. The knot was directly under the zipper. He took the other pill and put it in his suit pocket and put the cotton swabbing in one of his pants pockets. Then he took out the pistol and checked it once more before reaching around to his back and slipping it in his belt.
He buttoned his coat and flushed the toilet and went back to the bar.
The glass of soda was waiting for him. He slipped the pill into his mouth and washed it down with soda water. The rush was almost instantaneous. His body seemed to vibrate with electrical charges. Life surged back into his feet, his hands, his fingertips. New strength flooded his worn-out body, adrenaline pumped through his brain. His eyes began to clear. The sounds in the room amplified, were crisper, more distinct. With the rush came an anticipation so keen that he began to fantasize as he mentally ticked off the steps he was about to follow.
He looked at his watch. It was 9:20, time to go. When he got up to leave he was aware for the first time that he had an erection.
_____________________
The house on Bowring Street sat back from the road among hundreds of dwarf azaleas, an old Chinese one-story mansion, weathered and ancient, its tiled pagoda roof scarred by the years, its azaleas, perfectly shaped, blooming in small step terraces down to the curb.
The house was deceiving, for it was shaped like a U and only the south wing faced Bowring. A wall circled the entire block. It was nine feet high and had a single opening, a mahogany door nine inches t
hick with brass hinges embedded in the wood. The door had no latch. It could be opened only from the inside with a special key. The top of the wall was littered with broken glass.
Behind it was a garden almost three hundred years old, a garden that was weeded and trimmed and pruned every day and was so immaculately manicured that it was rare to find even a single blossom on the ground. A small stream curved through it with benches at intervals where lovers for the evening could sit and talk or perhaps just touch each other. Each of the interior rooms of the house had a frosted-glass panel that opened onto the garden.
In the front of the house, over the door, a lamp hung from an ornate brass serpent that seemed to curl from the wall. There were no other lights. The windows of the house had been blacked out for years.
The place was as still as a painted landscape.
Halford stood in front of the house for several minutes after the taxi left. He smoked a cigarette and walked to the corner and back. The old fears gnawed at him and the sounds of Min Street beckoned him away from the house. But something else drew him to it, something Captain Friedman had said to him early in their therapy, a quote from Spinoza: So long as a man imagines he cannot do something, so long as he is determined not to do it; then it is impossible for him to do it.
Finally he went up the cobblestone walk and rang the bell.
The door was opened almost immediately by a woman, an ageless and splendid Chinese woman, tiny but erect and commanding, her graying hair pulled tightly away from a face that was unwrinkled and smooth as a rose petal. She was elegantly dressed in a formal cheongsam and wore a tiara of small, perfectly shaped diamonds. If she was startled by Halford’s gaunt appearance, by the sunken eyes peering from black circles and the caved-in cheeks, she did not show it. She bowed deeply to him.
“Welcome to my house,” she said. “I am Madame Kwa. You must be Colonel Halford. We are honored by your presence and thank you for being so punctual.”
“After twenty-four years in the army, madame, I doubt I would know how to be late.”
“You forget time here, Colonel. At the House of the Purple Azalea there is no time, only pleasure.”
She ushered him into a small room in the south wing. The lights were low and soothing and the room was decorated with antiques from several Chinese dynasties. They were gold, teak, and silver and the furniture was deep and soft, covered with satin and linen. There was music somewhere, as elusive as an old memory, and the imperceptible presence of perfume. She brought Halford a drink, offered him opium, which he refused, and seated him facing a wall covered by a scarlet silk curtain.
“And now, Colonel,” she said, “permit me to introduce my young ladies to you.”
The lights in the room lowered and went out. The silk curtain drew back on soundless runners. Behind it was a plate-glass window and behind that, darkness. Then a spotlight faded in and a young woman sat in its glow. Her hair was woven in a pigtail that hung over one shoulder and she looked out through the glass with narrow almond-shaped eyes that were the deepest brown Halford had ever seen. She wore gold slippers trimmed in white and a white mandarin sheath split almost to the hip. On her left arm, over the bicep, the numeral I had been tattooed in bright colors. She smiled.
“This is Leah, the number one girl,” said Madame Kwa. “She is nineteen years old and was trained in geisha houses before she came to me. She has perfected the Twenty-one Pleasures of the Chinese Wedding Night and she speaks English, French, Portuguese, Japanese, and three dialects of Chinese, and can recite more than a hundred love poems, including those banned by the cabala priests of Israel …”
One after another, the lights illuminated the women of the house, each a beauty in her own way, each with some special love secret from the ages, each with her number tattooed in small colorescura numerals on her arm. Halford’s fears evaporated. He was entranced. He was aware of old stirrings, old needs. But he was waiting now for one girl in particular, because the cousin of Kam Sing had told him as he was leaving the cab, “Wait for number nineteen. Kam Sing says the number is very special. You will understand.”
And now Halford understood, for the light revealed a young woman whose beauty stunned the Colonel. She was small and delicate, her skin the color of brushed leather and hair coal-black, hanging straight to her waist. She looked not at him, as the others had done, but at the floor, and Halford was drawn to her instantly.
“This is Heth,” Madame Kwa said. “She is special to all of us. She is only eighteen and she came to me when she was nine from deep in old China. She speaks Chinese and Japanese and some phrases of English. She has observed the mysteries of love from all the other ladies and she has mastered the ancient secret of the String with Twelve Knots. It is said that her tongue is like the wings of a butterfly.”
Halford was moved by the obvious vulnerability of this beautiful creature and by the sadness in her enormous eyes.
“Yes,” Halford whispered, “it must be her.”
Madame Kwa smiled. “You have made the choice of the wise men,” she said. “The gods will envy you.”
“How do I talk to her?” Halford asked.
“It will not be necessary. She will communicate with you, Colonel, and you will have no trouble understanding.”
_____________________
Burns stood in the shadows at the end of the alley watching the house on Bowring Street. He had disposed of the attaché case in a convenient storm sewer. He waited until he was certain the street was empty and then crossed swiftly to the mahogany door, which was propped open by a stick.
He moved the stick, stepped quickly through the door, let it click shut behind him, and stood with his back against the wall, waiting until his eyes were accustomed to the darkness of the garden. It was empty. He moved swiftly across the stream and stood in the shadows under a cherry tree thirty feet from the corner room of the north wing of the house. Again he waited.
_____________________
The room was small and comfortable, its floor covered with a llama rug, its walls decorated with yellow and red striped satin. It contained a large wooden tub big enough for two people and a massage table covered with a mat of goose feathers. Beside it was a smaller table covered with urns of oils, powders, and creams. There were no lights, only scented candles.
Heth led Halford by the hand to the room and she slid the door shut behind them.
“You wait,” she said in her tiny, melodic voice.
She walked across the room to the door leading into the garden. But a foot or two from the door she stopped. Her hand reached out and, like a hummingbird poised before a honeysuckle bush, it fluttered for a fraction of a second before it found the door and slid it open.
Halford was stunned. Now he understood her vulnerability, the sadness in her incredible eyes, why Madame Kwa had said, “She is special to all of us.”
Heth was blind.
“You see,” she said turning in his direction, “garden.”
Emotions he had forgotten swept over him, desire, feeling, longing. He walked across the room and held her face between his fingertips.
“Yes, I see,” he said gently. “I see for both of us.”
Heth smiled and her fingers moved over his body, as soft as cobwebs swaying in the wind.
Thirty feet away, Burns watched from the shadows, saw Halford framed in the doorway, watched as he touched the girl’s face, saw her respond, her fingers moving over his body, the buttons on his shirt opening as if by magic as she removed his clothing.
The girl was great.
She led Halford to the tub and her hands moved down, unbuckling his belt, unlacing his shoes. She knelt before him and removed his shoes and pants and, reaching up, slipped her hands inside the waistband of his shorts. Her fingertips flirted with him, touching and yet not touching. She finished undressing him, leaning forward and breathing softly on him, letting her lips brush against him. She began an almost imperceptible chant in Japanese. She touched his face, felt the rigid line of
his jaw, his quivering lips, and slipped two fingertips inside his mouth, tapping his tongue. Her own tongue fluttered over his chest and sucked at his nipples. She took his hand in hers, helped him undress her, guided them over her breasts, her stomach, and down to hair as soft as rabbit’s fur.
His fears vanished. He was hypnotized, overcome by a sensuality more complete than any he had ever known. His manhood was restored.
Burns moved silently across the garden and stood near the door, heard her soft chant, the sounds of water splashing, the murmur of soft laughter. He took the cotton swabbing from his pocket, wrapped a strip around one hand, held it in place with his thumb, and slipped on one of the surgical gloves. He repeated the action with the other hand. He unzipped his pants and took out the nylon cord, wrapped it several times around each hand, and tested it again, pulling it taut. The knot was centered perfectly. He eased himself to the door and looked in.
They were out of the tub. Halford lay on his back on the table, facing away from Burns, who stood watching, behind him.
Heth covered her hands with warm oil and began massaging Halford, her strong fingers kneading the muscles in his legs and chest. She stroked his arms and placed them at his sides. Then she got up on the table, straddling him, settling down on him, moving against him, leaning over him. Her butterfly tongue teased his stomach, moved lower, and her mouth enveloped him.
Halford was unaware of the new presence in the room, an obscene presence moving stealthily across the llama rug, the nylon cord dangling between latex-sheathed fists.
But Heth was aware. Her keen ears amplified each creak in the floor, the rustle of clothing, a different rhythm of breathing in the room. She reached out to the smaller table. Her fingers found a short silk string with twelve knots tied in it, each about an inch apart. She slipped her hand under Halford and began to insert the string. Halford, lost in fantasy, hardly felt it. His pulse was hammering, his breath was labored and quick.