Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur (книги бесплатно без онлайн txt) 📗
Old Ning Heng H'Sui had left more than a few widows and orphans behind him as he hacked his way to power. Rumour had it that he had once been head of one of Hong Kong's powerful secret societies, and that he still maintained close ties with the Tongs. He might now be an art collector and artist and poet, but there were many who remembered the old days and would dearly love to pay off a few ancient scores.
Tug felt no repugnance at all for the old man's personal history, just as he felt none for the youngest son's sexual foibles. Tug had a few secrets of his own, and knew the whereabouts of more than one unmarked grave in the African wilderness. He had lived his whole life in the company of, and in competition with, ruthless predatory men. He made no moral judgements. He accepted mankind as he found it, and looked instead for the profit to be made from its strengths or weaknesses.
Cheng returned the salute of the silver-helmeted guards with a nod and the Rolls passed beneath the Lucky Dragon's arched belly and entered a fantasy land of gardens and lakes, pagodas and arched Chinese bridges.
Shoals of jewel-coloured khoi glided beneath the lake waters, and flocks of -snow-white pigeons swirled about the eaves of the pagodas.
The lawns were green and smooth as a silk kimono stretched over a pretty girl's thigh. The rhododendrons were in full bloom. it was peaceful and lovely, in contrast to the tasteless dragon sculpture at the main gateway.
The Rolls drew up at the entrance to a building that reminded Tug of a miniature of the Winter Palace in Peking. The fountains that surrounded it shot a sparkling lacework of foam high into the cool mountain air. A cortge of white-jacketed servants waited on each side of the entrance to welcome Tug, and they bowed deeply as Cheng led him into the vaulted interior.
The panelled walls had been slid aside so that the gardens seemed part of the decor. The furnishings were simple and exquisite. The floors of red cedar glowed and the cigar-box smell of the woodwork perfumed the air. A few ceramic treasures which would have graced any museum collection were arranged to full effect, and a single flower arrangement of cherry blossom was the centre-piece of the room. One of the maids will make tea for you, Sir Peter, Cheng told him, while the other draws your bath and unpacks your suitcases. Then you will want to rest for an hour. My father invites YOU to take lunch with him at twelve-thirty. I will return a few minutes before that time to take you up to the main house. Tug realised that this was simply one of the guest houses, but he showed no sign of being impressed and Cheng went on, Of course, all the servants are at your command. If there is anything you should want, Cheng placed a slight emphasis on the sentence, that turned it into a leer, you need only ask one of the servants. You are my father's honoured guest. He would he deeply humiliated if you were to lack anything at all. You and your father are too kind. Tug returned the young man's bow. There would have been a time, not too many years ago when Tug would have availed himself of the discreet invitation, but now he was thankful that the irrational and uncontrollable element of sexuality had faded from his existence. So much of his youthful time and energy had been spent in sexual pursuit.
At the end he had very little to show for all the effort, apart from three useless sons and a couple of million a year in alimony payments.
No, he was glad it was over. His existence now was calmer and saner.
Youth was an over-rated period in a man's life, filled with so much confusion and anxiety and unhappiness.
The two Chinese girls who helped him down the tiled steps into the steaming perfumed bath wore only brief white kilts and he could look upon their pale creamy skins and cherryblossom nipples with a connoisseur's appreciation and only a brief sweet nostalgic stirring of the loins. No, he reiterated as he sank into the water, I'm glad I'm not young any more. Tug spurned the embroidered robes that the girls had laid out for him and chose instead one of his dark Savile Row suits with a Turnbull and Asser shirt and MCC tie that the valet had steamed.
Damned fancy dress will make me feel like a clown. Old Heng knows it; that's why he tried to get me into it. Young Cheng was waiting for him at the appointed -time. His eyes flicked over Tug's suit but his expression never changed.
Didn't fall for it, did I? Tug thought smugly. I wasn't born yesterday, was I?
They strolled up the covered pathway, pausing to admire the lotus flowers and water-lilies and the rhododendrons until they turned through an arched gateway festooned with drapes of blue wistaria and abruptly the main house was disclosed.
It was stunning, a creation of unblemished white marble and ceramic rooftiles in peaks and gables, modern and yet timelessly classical.
Tug did not miss a stride, and sensed the young man's disappointment beside him. He had expected Tug, like all other visitors, to gawk.
The patriarch, Ning Heng H'Sui, was very old, older than Tug by ten years or more. His skin was dried and folded like that of the unwrapped mummy of Rameses II in the Cairo Museum, and spotted with the foxing of age. On his left cheek grew a mole the size and colour of a ripe mulberry. It is a common Chinese superstition that the hairs growing from a facial mole bring good luck, and Heng H'Sui had never shaved his. A bunch of hair sprouted from the little purple cauliflower and hung down in a silver tassel below his chin above the simple tunic of cream-coloured raw silk he wore.
So much for the dragon embroidery he tried to rig me with, Tug thought, as he took his hand. It was dry and cool and the bones were light as a bird's.
Heng was desiccated with age; only his eyes were bright and fierce.
Tug imagined that the giant man-eating dragons of Komodo might have eyes like that.
I trust you have rested after your journey, Sir Peter, and that you are comfortable in my poor house. His voice was thin and dry as the sound of the wind rustling the autumn leaves and his English was excellent.
They exchanged pleasantries while they measured and sized each other.
It was their first meeting. Alt Tug's negotiations up until this point had been with the elder sons.
All the sons were here now, waiting behind their father, the three elder brothers and Cheng.
One at a time Heng H'Sui waved them forward with a birdlike flutter of his pale dry hand, and they greeted Tug courteously in strict order of seniority.
Then Cheng helped his father back to his cushioned seat overlooking the garden. It was not lost on Tug that the youngest, rather than the eldest, was so honoured. Though there was no exchange of glances between the other brothers and no change of expression, Tug felt the sibling rivalry and jealousy so strong in the sweet mountain air that he could almost taste it. All this was good intelligence he was gathering about the family.
Servants brought them pale jasmine tea in bowls so fine that Tug could see the outline of his own fingers through the china.
He recognized the cream on white leaf design, so subtle and understated as almost to elude casual examination. The bowl was a masterpiece of a fifteenth-century potter of the Ching emperor of the Ming dynasty.
Tug drained the bowl and then, as he was about to set it down on the lacquered tray, he let it slip from his fingers. It struck the cedarwood floor and shattered into a hundred precious fragments. I am so sorry, he apologised. How clumsy of me.
It is nothing. Heng H'Sui inclined his head graciously, and gestured for a servant to sweep away the broken shards. The servant was trembling as he knelt to the task. He sensed his master's wrath. I do hope it was not valuable? Tug asked, testing him, trying to unsettle him, paying him back for the trick with the dragon robe. An angry man, one with hatred in his heart, has his judgement impaired. Tug studied Heng H'Sui for a reaction.
