*9*
They didn't block
the road till the suburbs.
There were five, masked and armed.
The Patrolman who'd escorted me from
Singers, the same one I'd punched and kicked, he must have had a sense of duty.
I tried stopping him but he leapt at the nearest masked gunman. He crumpled in
an agonised heap, clutching a bloody thigh.
Cliché it may be, but red-anger
splashed my vision. ‘Take me for any fanatical reason you like, but stop the
shooting!’ Quite a speech. Or epitaph.
They understood and shoved me into
the back of a hover-van. I was stripped: naked. Before the nothingness of a
blindfold, I glimpsed how I was destined to die: alongside me lay my very own
see-through coffin.
Their continual Chinese jabbering
bombarded my ears - until I was bombarded on my still-delicate cranium - this
was getting monotonous! - and slithered yet again to a gratifying oblivion.
*10*
The rubble of earth
being shovelled onto my coffin was the first sound I heard.
At first I clawed manfully enough at
the lid. But to no avail. Frustration. Vexation. Chagrin, at not knowing why I
was being done to death.
*Epilogue*
Seems fitting, an
epilogue.
Without fresh air or sustenance I
felt worse than dead as I lay there, eyes red and sore with staring into
nowhere. Breath was short and pained, ears as if muffled. Clinging, the humid
musty odour of earth and of aged rotten manure. Fingers and skin, they felt
emaciated, but this could be my recent tattoos...
Try as I would, I was unable to keep
my aching eyes open; and as they closed, I remembered ten years ago, of a young
rather callous matelot wending his drunken way home, of his apparent stumble
and of his premonition.
But now I could see all the rest.
Right up to the moment I fell unconscious my first morning in Singapore's
Verdun Road. Rolled, yes, I was. But my compassionate bed-fellow had found me,
dazed and still drunk. She'd taken me back, removed my uniform and folded it
away in her wardrobe. We'd made love, and somehow I had no thought of my own,
none at all, like a child, really.
I learned my youngish Oriental
saviour was called Lee Fong, but for some obscure reason I called her Tai-tai.
In that state I possessed only a
simple smattering of English, but soon picked up phrases Tai-tai used and
quickly assimilated meanings.
Mamasan, the head of the brothel,
wanted to return me to the authorities, but Tai-tai and the other girls pleaded
to keep me. Under Mamasan's voluminous folds of skin she must have had a heart
of gold, for she consented. I think I became their mascot. I suppose it was
different for them, a change from having drunken Westerners and esoteric aliens
pawing them, rancid breath smothering their faces, brutally thrusting to get
their money's-worth, particularly if coupling was for a ‘short time’ only. Me,
I was undemanding, compliant with their wishes. If I'd but known it, I was in
heaven.
In the six years that I stayed there
my life comprised sleep, food and copulation: existing.
Physically, I reacted admirably well
and obviously enjoyed every minute of it. But I suppose I wasn't much better
than one of Pavolv's dogs - just responding with much delight to very
pleasurable stimuli.
When Tai-tai, my surrogate
mother-lover, entertained visitors, I thought nothing of lying beneath her bed,
awed by the grunts and groans: our love-making was so serene and quiet in
comparison... I could never touch enough of her cool beauteous olive skin, so
fragrant, with a lovely sheen. Yet the sensation of jealousy never entered my
addled brain. As she often told me, ‘entertaining’ was her job.
Then came that night of storm. As
usual, I lay under the bed, Tai-tai and a customer on top. Suddenly, the door
burst open to reveal a massive roaring Manchurian, parchment cheeks suffused
with anger, claiming he was Tai-tai's master.
A row, violence, shadows flashing,
screams, a glinting sword raised... Her olive skin, torn, rent asunder, marred,
all red, oh God! The jealous suitor departed, still in a rage, his one solitary
eye and thrice-scarred face scowling horribly.
In a daze, I crawled out to see if
there was anyone I could contact, to seek succour, a new mothering mistress, a
fresh sense of security.
The crowd found me there, rifling
through drawers with Tai-tai's grisly corpse yet warm on the floor, that of her
late bed-mate nearby. A large well-dressed Chinese aristocrat entered. Every
movement poetry. He looked down upon his despoiled treasure, his wayward
daughter. His long-nailed fingers clicked, twice. My uniform was snatched up;
then I was taken to his private grounds where he told his beautiful wife what I
had supposedly done. She broke down in front of me - thereby shaming him -
wanting to scratch my eyes out, hurling abuse, verbally castrating me. But he
had a better idea.
Chang Loi was an artist, a
tattooist; brilliant, really.
Below his resplendent house I lay
out-stretched. He did his work well. What part of me he left without
pictographs has equally meaningful pictures tattooed thereon. A bloody walking
willow-pattern, that's me!
He wouldn't listen to my
protestations of innocence. As time passed and his wife's hate faded, I tried
my scanty Malay on her whenever Chang Loi was away visiting Tai-tai's shrine. I
discovered she had been of Tai-tai's calling, and not of such fastidious tastes
as her spouse...
As I lay spread-eagled she began
idly caressing parts of my body still unmarred by needle and ink. Soon, her
touch affected me, but she wasn't shocked. Her pupils dilated and her pointed
red tongue moistened slightly parted lips.
After about half-a-dozen similar meetings,
she attained such a pitch of expectancy that before I could blink she was
straddling me.
But the release her horse-womanship provided
quickly cloyed. Secured as I was, she completely drained me, and soon I dreaded
the subservient role I was allotted.
Eventually, even this palled for her
and I grasped her boredom immediately and suggested I could best give her
pleasure if released.
It was a gamble; but I had nothing
to lose.
Surprisingly, my colourful promises
convinced her and she turned me loose.
Once free, I needed her help to
stand, to walk; sex during those painful minutes was far from my mind. But her
ministrations helped get the blood flowing, tingling, and when my circulation
was adequately restored, I ran hellish fast! I escaped three days before I was
due to die by Chang Loi's hand, his needle cutting me as he believed I'd
savaged his daughter... I'd lain there only existing for his needle to pierce
yet another pigment for three years and six months... With me went my shoddy
uniform, clothing to conceal my nakedness, my obscenity.
I ran and ran. Until I stumbled into
a monsoon ditch...
But Chang Loi had many friends, for
here I now lay, buried alive...
Dimly, I heard high-pitched sirens.
Then the crackling, hammering above. Deafening after the stillness! Splinters
of Plexiglas jabbed my face. Light, painfully thrusting at me. Fresh air burst
into my lungs, I gulped and heard voices: ‘Get them in the Maria...’
‘He's here, all right - we might be in time...’
Before I collapsed in their helping
hands, I glimpsed the Reg standing by the Police Maria, his thigh heavily
bandaged. His radio-box hung on his belt, intact.
In hospital, the shock of Tai-tai's
gruesome murder finally hit. I cried.
Thoughts of vengeance, of seeking
out the murderous Manchurian, passed through my ravaged mind, but eight million
people at Sinapore's last count is a lot of people... The hunt for the one-eyed
Manchurian? I'd leave that to The Fugitive - I couldn't face it.
Patricia? I tried saying no, but she
went ahead and married me a year back. She has been with me ever since I walked
away from Whitehall a free man. She has compassion; I need her and, strangely,
she seems to need me. Our daughter's ten and called Veronica.
Doubtless my rescue and subsequent
good fortune will seem an anti-climax, as though Fate had contrived a happy
ending. Far from it.
My luck held the other month when a
mysterious explosion rocketed the driverless tracked taxi I was travelling in.
The capsule leapt off its computer-routed over-head guide-way and I ended up
with multiple bruising and a broken arm. And, only two weeks ago I barely saved
myself from being ‘accidentally’ shoved onto the Portsmouth tube-line as an
underground train approached.
Now, I know my death is near. Chang
Loi has lost face and will use his long and powerful arm to regain his honour.
Persistence will pay.
Patricia and Veronica are well
provided for. When the time comes, as surely it must soon, I've expressed a
strong desire to be cremated.
One of Tai-tai's quotations springs
to mind. Rather apt, really. ‘Life is a lodging place, death is returning
home.’
I am ready, Chang Loi.
***
Originally published in Nova SF, 1993. Copyright Nik Morton, 2014
If
you liked this story, you might like my collection of crime tales, Spanish Eye, published by Crooked Cat, which
features 22 cases from Leon Cazador, private eye, ‘in his own words’. He is also featured in the story
‘Processionary Penitents’ in the Crooked Cat Collection of twenty tales, Crooked Cats’ Tales.
Spanish Eye, released by Crooked Cat Publishing is available as a paperback and as
an e-book.