The Second Wave Page 6

  The baby girl grew up to be a beautiful, mild-mannered woman, who was known as Meng Jiang Nu, or Lady Meng Jiang. So beautiful was she, that many men wanted to marry her. But Meng Jiang didn’t even look at them twice, for every night she fell asleep and had the same dream: in it, she saw a stranger, the man she would love, she knew, although the dream never revealed his face. One time the Gods spoke to her and told her that she must only love the one man who would catch a glimpse of her uncovered skin in the sunlight before he saw her face.

  At that time, the emperor Quin Shihuang started erecting the Great Wall. Many men died building it, so the emperor was always on the lookout for young, strong men who could work for him. He continually sent out his armies to go even to the remotest villages to get every man strong enough to join the work forces.

  It so happened that one of the men the emperor’s soldiers intended to catch was a young scholar named Fan Xiliang. He ran away from the soldiers, out of the city, over fields, and through smaller and smaller villages, until he came to the village where the families Meng and Jiang resided. It was the last village before the mountains. There was nowhere else to run.

  Fan Xiliang darted into the garden of the last house, which was the garden of the family Jiang, and hid under the large leaves of a gourd vine just next to a small pond, hoping and praying the soldiers would give up the search for him.

  On that day, Meng Jiang Nu went into the gardens to catch butterflies. There were many butterflies around that day, every one more beautiful than the one before it. But while Meng Jiang skipped and jumped about, her fan slipped out of her hand and fell into the pond.

  Meng Jiang knelt down at the brim of the small pool and, after making sure that no one was watching, she rolled up the sleeve of one arm to retrieve the fan out of the water.

  When Fan Xiliang saw her tender skin in the sunlight, but nothing more of the person this delicate arm must belong to, a longing sigh escaped his lips. Thus he gave away his position.

  Meng Jiang, startled at first, told the stranger to come out of hiding. But when she laid eyes on him, and he on her, she recognized in him the man from her dreams, and she fell in love with him passionately.

  Alas, it was not to be. Just when they were to get married, the emperor’s soldiers arrived at the village. They found Fan Xiliang and captured him, before the two lovers could so much as share a first kiss as husband and wife.

  Months went by like centuries. Meng Jiang waited for word from her husband, or, better yet, his return home. But nothing.

  When one year was over and there was still no word from Fan Xiliang, Meng Jiang decided on a reckless plan of action: she wished all four of her parents good-bye, and journeyed to the building site of the Great Wall herself, desperate to see her husband.

  The Great Wall, she saw when she came close, was almost finished, but at what price? The land around the wall was all but covered in dead bodies. Workers who couldn’t endure the whippings, who had starved, or had worked themselves to death.

  When Meng Jiang couldn’t find her husband among the living, she turned to the dead. With tears in her eyes she turned all of them over to look into their faces, but none of them wore the features of her beloved.

  Word got out to the emperor that a woman too fair for words was wandering along the Wall, crying. Meng Jiang cried for three days and for three nights, wailing and screaming and howling her husband’s name. The echo of her sobs travelled up into the heavens, and deep down into the earth, and was carried across the land by the wind. Her misery was so heartbreaking that the Gods couldn’t bear to watch her suffer. They shook the earth so that the Great Wall crumbled.

  And what should Meng Jiang unearth from the rocks and the mud but the long dead remains of Fan Xiliang. The two lovers were finally reunited.

  She cradled his lifeless body into her arms to carry him all the way home, so she could bury him properly.

  But the emperor had already made up his mind; he wanted to possess the woman whose passion was so strong that it could move heaven and earth.

  He followed her to the village and forced her hand in marriage. If she didn’t comply, he said, he would punish her and her family for the crime she had committed: the destruction of the Great Wall. But Meng Jiang was not merely beautiful, she was also bright. She told the emperor that he had to do three things for her ‘ere she would marry him. If he abided by them, she would forever be his and would love him with all her might.

  Such were Meng Jiang’s conditions: Fan Xiliang should be given a luxurious burial, one that was fit for an emperor. Meng Jiang should be allowed to mourn her deceased husband for one year, during which no one was to touch her. After one year had passed, the emperor was to take her to the ocean. Only then would she marry him.

  And so it came to pass. Fan Xiliang was given a lavish burial. Meng Jiang mourned him for one year, during which no one made physical contact with her.

  When the year had passed, the emperor arranged for a carriage for Meng Jiang and himself to bring them to the ocean. He wanted to marry her then and there, on the highest of the cliffs.

  But when they came to the cliffs and the horses stopped, Meng Jiang jumped out of the coach and quickly hurled herself off the cliff without so much as a glance back.

  Her body sank to the bottom of the sea, where the Dragon King had pity on her soul. When the emperor’s men tried to fish Meng Jiang’s body out of the water, he unleashed a flood to chase them away.

  But Meng Jiang died at the bottom of the ocean. Her last thoughts belonged to the man she had loved with all her heart and who she never had had the chance to kiss even once.

  * * * *

  When John ended his account. the tea in the samovar was long cold. The only hot liquid in the room were the tears that soaked the cloth on Celem’s eyes and streamed down his face.

  “An exquisite tale,” he sniffed unashamedly. “And told with much grace. You are one skilled storyteller, my multi-faceted, old partner in crime. My friend will do the job for you. And because it was so moving a story, I feel I want to give you a gift. Tell me where you are staying, and I will send you someone beautiful and experienced to while away the lonely hours of the moon.”

  “I’ll be staying at Malik’s han tonight.”

  “Male or female? I remember you were never particular about such matters.”

  John shrugged, realizing too late that Celem couldn’t see him, then said aloud with an audible smirk, “Since you’re feeling so generous—I’ll have one of each.”

  Celem’s creative curses followed John out into the streets like a lover reluctant to let go.

  Night had fallen while the two men talked; John found himself in the eerie presence of memories he had pushed away for too long. To chase them away he went straight to Malik’s little inn. He downed his first drink before he had even exchanged greetings with his old acquaintance Malik. Yet Malik wasn’t the only old acquaintance of John’s, and by the time the latter was light-hearted from raki and hot-blooded from his lascivious company, a man entered the shady tavern who had some unfinished business with Yahya he was keen to finish tonight.

  It was a nasty fight, but over quickly. The inn was wrecked, four people mysteriously lost their wallets in addition to several teeth, the police couldn’t make heads or tails of anything because everyone involved in the brawl pretended like nothing unusual had happened, and John, on top of paying his debt in lead, got to spend the rest of the night undisturbed in the presence of his two lovers.

  Yes, he had definitely missed nights like this.

  * * * *

  Chapter 13: Betrayal Is a Kiss in a Cupboard

  Some say that we choose our life before we come to this world. Our souls select where and to whom we are born to from another plane of existence. Our paths are therefore pre-determined in a way. What we cannot determine is whether we indeed go on to walk the path we have selected for ourselves, because once we are born into this world, we forget about what was before. That is what makes
us human. Some say that is a good thing. Perhaps those who say that are the ones who do well for themselves. Certainly not the ones who end up locked in a cupboard in a run-down orphanage by the Black Sea.

  Like the twelve-year-old boy who sat huddled in the darkness, knees drawn up to his chin, his skinny arms wrapped tightly around them. It was cold, but the boy was used to it by now. He spent more time in here than he did anywhere else. The nuns who ran the orphanage didn’t know what else to do with him. John usually didn’t mind too much; at least it was quiet and he could plan his flight undisturbed. Also, he knew he probably deserved being punished, he could accept that. Only this time it wasn’t his fault!

  He gave the closet door an angry kick. It was that idiot Yegor’s fault. And as soon as John was out of here, he’d put a snail into that fool’s sock, or smear soap on his toothbrush, or do something equally nasty to him.

  A soft rustle startled him out of his revenge plotting. He tried to see something, but it was completely dark in the cupboard.

  “John?” a timid voice peeled itself out of the darkness. He recognized it at once as Vladimir’s.

  “Vladik? How long have you been in here?”

  “I don’t know. When did we have leftover blinis for breakfast?”

  “This morning.”

  “Since then, then.”

  John remembered breakfast; he remembered Paul tickling Vladimir until he fell from his chair. Sister Magda dragged him out of the hall and that was the last time he’d seen his roommate.

  “What did you do?” Vladimir asked.

  Another angry kick at the door. “I punched Lena in the face.”

  “Wow! Why?”

  John’s hands curled into fists. “Because yesterday she says she likes me, and today she kisses that idiot Yegor.”

  “Really? Man, you miss out on everything when you’re locked up in here!”

  John rested his chin on his knees, seeking his own physical contact to protect himself from the cold that crept through the cracks in the wood into their little prison. The cupboard was outside in the backyard, which was all right in summer, but it was snowing outside and John was freezing now.

  “I’m running away,” he huffed. “I hate it here.”

  “You can’t just run away!” Vladimir cried out. “They’ll catch you, and then you have to stay in the cupboard forever!”

  “They’ll never catch me. No one will!”

  He’d be gone before anyone would notice anything, and then, he decided, he could do whatever he wanted and punch whomever he wanted. He’d learn how to fight and how to kill, and then no one could lock him up in a cupboard anymore. He’d be free forever.

  The two boys were silent for a while, until Vladimir announced quietly, “I’d miss you.”

  Before John could reply to that, he heard the other boy moving; something soft and wet landed on his ear. John felt his intestines twist into a knot. He stopped breathing for a moment.

  “Did you just kiss me?” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  A small hand materialized on John’s shoulder. Exceptionally carefully—he was afraid he might rip the air between them apart, if he moved too hastily, and then the sudden magic would be over—he turned his face around to try and make out Vladimir’s silhouette in the blackness.

  “Are you just saying you like me now, and tomorrow you’ll kiss someone else?” He wanted his voice to sound sharp, but it betrayed him and came out hoarse, frightened even.

  “No,” Vladimir told him with the seriousness of a twelve-year-old who would never tell a lie until he would. “I really like you,” he emphasized.

  It was decided then. “Then I like you, too.”

  Their hands searched and found one another. They huddled closer together. It was already much warmer than before. John could almost feel his toes again.

  “I want to kiss you,” Vladimir mumbled under his breath and right into John’s ear, sending unfamiliar shivers down his spine.

  John found enough strength in him to form a coherent sentence. “But you just did.”

  He sensed rather than saw the other boy shake his head. “I mean a proper kiss. Nelly showed me how people kiss properly. It’s super fantastic.”

  And it was super fantastic indeed, John fancied; amazing even, with the potential to be ground shaking. It made his skin crawl and his fingers flex and his eyelids flutter. It turned the cold air in the cupboard into a hot, sticky mess.

  It made John beg Vladimir to run away with him. He had everything planned out, had collected bits of food over the months that he had stashed in his mattress; in this warm, magical moment he told Vladimir everything, because all he wanted was a better life for both of them.

  Two nights later, the Reverend Mother shook him out of his sleep, slashed open his mattress, took away the half-rotten food and flogged John hard enough to leave permanent scars on his back. She made Vladimir watch, whose eyes were wide in terror. She left John a bloody, whimpering mess in the middle of the dormitory. All children had to get up, the girls too, to come and see what happened to naughty boys who stole food and talked of running away.

  When his tears dried later in the cupboard, John promised himself two things, promises he kept to this day: he would never cry again, and once he got away, he’d keep running for the rest of his life so no one would ever catch him.

  Never had he been made to stay in the cupboard for such a long time, and never did the time go by more slowly. One night, one day, and another night he was in the closet. It was freezing cold, but all the while he sat crouched opposite the door, like a long-distance runner waiting for the gunshot.

  The sister who unlocked the door late in the second night didn’t see it coming. As soon as he heard the sound of feet trumping through the freshly fallen snow, every fibre in his body tensed. It didn’t matter that he was hungry, thirsty, and still black and blue from the flogging. The key turned, the door opened, and John pounced into the sister’s knees like a human cannonball. He didn’t stop to look who it was; it was vital that he got a head start. Still in his pyjamas, he bolted across the courtyard, squeezed himself through the barbed-wire fence, darted into the starlit wood, and ran without looking back for what felt like an eternity.

  Maybe it was the path his soul had chosen for himself long before he was born. Or maybe he had missed the right path and was just struggling not to drown. Whatever it was, the little boy kept running.

  * * * *

  Chapter 14: A Change of Tide, a Change of Heart

  Like every coastal city, Byzantium’s everyday life was ruled by the sea. Its slow, tireless tide washed in ships and filled the fishermen’s nets. When the sea’s surface was calm, and the waves rolled almost casually to the shore, life in the city was tranquil. People went about their daily business with a certain laziness, undisturbed by any rush.

  During high tide, a busy hectic washed over the people of Byzantium. Not enough to affect their temper, but it seemed that the squeaks of the donkey carts resonated through the streets more quickly than they did a few hours earlier, especially when the tide was accompanied by a refreshing breeze.

  John came to town during the months of the undertaker’s breath. When at night the land chilled down sufficient enough to ghost away the sea breeze. It was a time when thunderstorms haunted the coast, not only at night. The air that hung over the buildings and in the streets was heavy and reeked of rotting seafood. Work was cumbersome, the animals stubborn. The women were cranky, the men morose and the children hysterical; a dangerous mixture at the best of times. Now that word got around about the return of Yahya, the city’s criminal movement was one shoot-out shy of becoming a powder keg.

  Byzantium’s organized crime was run like a family business, with the exception that there was no head of the family. It was more like a loose fitting-together of cousins and distant blood relatives who all worked in different parts of town, but casually kept tabs on each other to ensure that everything went smoothly.

  Fo
r instance, Celem’s computer genius contact, George, worked for Adniye, a spice smuggler and sister to Lamiya, who was Erol’s right hand, who, in turn, was the man John shot in Melik’s han the night before. To give but one random example.

  The three men, George, John, and Celem—buyer, seller, and middleman—met in George’s lab in the North tower of the Topkapi Research Facility. A small room with more computer hardware cluttering the space than was probably healthy to have lying around. Celem stayed talkative on their way to the facility, but exaggeratedly so, unusually chipper. John didn’t know if the man had simply changed over the past years, or if something was bothering him; in any case, he stayed wary.

  George met them at the back door, all but a teenager, and led them to his chamber via a few secret passageways. His official employer didn’t need to know just how deep their own security specialist was involved with the local organized crime.

  “This is so cool!” George blurted out when he inspected the ticket. They were in his lab, sitting on the floor. The computers surrounding them seemed to bleep their approval.

  “I’d sell my best hard drive to get my hands on one of these!”

  John didn’t understand the boy’s excitement. “You’d give up your life here to go to some village in the middle of nowhere?”

  John had heard they didn’t have any computers or other technological advances there. Why anyone in their right mind would want to live in the equivalent of the outlawed zone was beyond him.

  “Yeah, but dude!” George beamed. “The middle of nowhere on another planet!”

  A lot made sense seen in this new light. Another planet indeed. Now John understood why the ticket was so valuable, and why Celem had made such a big deal out the whole business.

  “Yes, there is no doubt about how cool it is,” Celem chided George, angered by the boy’s blabbering. “But the question is, can you hack into it?”