27

September, and hot. Still hot.

A brass fan whirred on the ceiling. All it did was take bites out of the leaden air and chew it up a bit. Lydia was sick of standing here with her arms stretched out while Madame Camellia stuck pins in her. She was sick of the satisfied private smile on her mother’s face as she draped herself in the client’s chair and watched. Most of all she was sick of the silence from Chang. It roared in her ears and made her long for news of him.

No word for a month. A whole desperate month of not knowing.

He must have taken heed of her warning. Left Junchow. That had to be the reason for his silence. Had to be. Which meant he was at least safe. She clung to that thought, warmed her hands on it, and murmured again and again as she lay wide-eyed in bed at night, ‘He’s safe, he’s safe, he’s safe.’ If she said it often enough, she could make it true. Couldn’t she?

He was tucked away now in one of the Red Army training camps; she pictured him there, taking potshots at targets and marching up and down, polishing his boots and his buckles, doing scary things on the end of ropes. Isn’t that what soldiers did in camps? So he was safe. Surely. Please let him be safe. Please, let all his strange gods protect him. He was one of their own, wasn’t he? They’d care for him. But she took deep breaths to quiet her racing heart, because she didn’t trust them, neither his gods nor hers.

‘Darling, do stop fidgeting. How can Madame Camellia work properly when you won’t keep still?’

Lydia scowled at her mother. Valentina was looking extremely cool and elegant in an exquisite cream linen suit made by Madame Camellia, Junchow’s most coveted dressmaker. Her salon copied the very latest Paris fashions and had a long waiting list of clients, so it was an honour to be allowed to cut in line, all because of Alfred, who had pulled a few strings. Valentina’s heart was set on having the very best for her wedding.

‘Doesn’t she look adorable in it, Madame Camellia?’

The Chinese owner of the salon glanced up at Lydia’s face and studied it for a while in silence. Lydia was standing on a small round padded platform in the middle of the room while Madame Camellia touched and tugged and twitched the soft green silk, which was as pale as her songbird’s throat. A bird sat in a pavilion cage in the corner of the room and sang with a constant burst of trills and spiralling notes that grated on Lydia’s taut nerves.

‘She looks lovely,’ Madame Camellia said with a sweet smile. ‘The eau de nil colour with her hair is just perfect.’

‘You see, Lydia, I told you you’d adore it.’

Lydia said nothing. Stared at the jade pins in the dressmaker’s hair.

‘Mrs Ivanova, some swatches of the new tweeds from Tientsin arrived this morning. In readiness for winter. I thought you might like one for your honeymoon costume. Would you care to view them?’ It was spoken as if conferring a special privilege.

‘Yes, I’d be delighted.’

Madame Camellia nodded to her young assistant, and Valentina was escorted out of the room. The walls were pale and soothing with rose-pink drapes, but splashes of colour were provided by a bowl of orchids and the bird’s golden cage.

‘Miss Lydia.’ She spoke softly. ‘Would you like to tell me what it is about the dress that displeases you?’

The dress? As if she cared about the dress. She dragged her thoughts back into the room and looked down at the satin-smooth hair that was coiled up on top of the dressmaker’s head. A delicate camellia, made of the finest white silk, nestled in its ebony folds. She looked like a little black-crested bird, bright and quick, her tiny figure encased in a tight turquoise cheongsam with a side slit to show off one slender leg, but Valentina had mentioned that at night Madame dressed in stylish Western fashions while she did the rounds of the nightclubs on the arm of her latest American lover. She had made herself into a wealthy woman and could pick and choose.

She looked at Lydia with intelligent eyes.

‘Tell me how you’d like it to be.’

‘It’s my bridesmaid dress. Mama is the person deciding on it.’

‘Yes, I know. But what style would you prefer?’

‘I’d like it more… well, more…’ She thought of Chang’s bright eyes. What would make them shine?

‘More what?’

‘More revealing.’

Madame Camellia did not laugh. Or say, What have you got to reveal? She nodded to herself and reached up to shift a piece of material here and unpick some stitches there.

‘Better?’

Lydia gazed into the long mirror in front of her. The demure high neck her mother had chosen was transformed into a fluid scoop that showed soft white skin.

‘Much better. Thank you.’

Madame Camellia started to adjust the sleeves, to shorten and tighten them.

‘Madame, you live in the Chinese old town, don’t you?’

‘Mmm.’ Her mouth was full of pins.

‘Are the soldiers still there?’

Skilful fingers were tucking the pins round the armholes. ‘The stinking grey bellies, you mean?’

‘The ones with the yellow armbands. From Peking. The Kuomintang troops.’

‘Ai! They are devils.’

‘So they’re still in Junchow?’

Madame Camellia dropped her charming smile, and abruptly her face looked its age. ‘They sweep through like a sandstorm, each day a different street. Tearing workers from their stools and scribes from their offices. They go anywhere a finger is pointed. Beheadings and executions at sunset, till our streets run red. They claim they are wiping out Communism and corruption, but it seems to me that many old scores are being settled.’

Lydia’s mouth went dry. ‘Are any young people being killed?’

Madame Camellia looked at the Russian girl more carefully. ‘Some. Students and their like. Communist ideals are fierce among the young.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Do you know one?’

Lydia almost spoke his name, she was so desperate for news.

‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘I am concerned for them all.’

‘I see.’ The dressmaker gently touched her hand. ‘Many escape. There is always hope.’

Lydia’s throat tightened, and she wanted to scratch out the eyes of his callous gods. She looked away and saw her reflection in the mirror.

‘Do you think, Madame, that I could have green beads over the dress?’

They didn’t talk. Not about the wedding. Lydia was aware that preparations for it were being made. She heard mention of a date in January, but she didn’t ask and she wasn’t told. Letters started to arrive by each post in thick embossed envelopes but she passed no comment, and even when Valentina was out she made a point of not looking inside the lovely rosewood box where they were all tucked away. The box was an engagement present from Alfred. The box and the ring. A solitaire diamond. It radiated light even in their dingy room and Lydia couldn’t help thinking that Mr Liu would give ‘plenty dollar’ for a ring like that.

The days grew cooler. Still no word from Chang. But black shadows no longer hung around her in the streets and a sudden movement on the edge of her sight lost its power to set her pulse pounding. It took her a while to be certain, and she was never quite sure how she knew. But she did. They were gone, the snakes. They had crawled back into their fetid holes. She didn’t know why this should be so but she was convinced it was something to do with Chang. Even from afar he protected her.

Nothing else had changed in the attic. Lydia struggled to concentrate on her schoolwork in the evenings, chewing on the end of her pencil and casting sideways glances out the window, scanning the street for a quick light step, or sometimes staring at her mother on the sofa. At the bottle and the glass. They were always at Valentina’s side despite the absurd display of abstinence the day she cut her hair. Only the height of the liquid inside them varied. She would sit there with a music score on her lap and hum a Bach fugue softly to herself until she reached some point in her head that was unbearable, and then she’d hurl the pages across the room. For hours after that she’d stare blankly at the space in front of her, seeing things that her daughter could only guess at.