Chang nodded.

Hu Tai-wai sighed and Chang felt the weight of it. ‘There were more of them.’ The shoemaker gazed out in the direction of the wooden frame, hidden from their sight by a brightly decorated tearoom. ‘We took them down but one had to remain.’

‘A warning to other soldiers who think of deserting the Red Army. Yes, Mao Tse Tung insists on it. But it is an army of peasants who cling to the belief that Mao will bring about the redistribution of land throughout China. That’s why they fight for him. They long to own the fields they work, fields they want to pass on to their children and their children’s children. When they discover that our Great and Wise Leader is more interested in power than in people, they try to return to their villages to harvest their crops but…’ Chang silenced his tongue. Let his heart bleed in private. ‘Was he here long?’

Though seated, the shoemaker gave a deep bow over the leather work on his lap. ‘Yes, Mao was here long enough.’

Chang glanced at the guarded face and murmured, ‘Tell me, my friend.’

Hu Tai-wai resumed his stitching, meticulously outlining the twitching tail of the dying monkey. ‘He stayed here a month.’ His voice was low. ‘A section of his army camped outside on the terraces, spoiling our crops, but the men had nothing to do while their leader lazed in the best house in town, so they drank maotai and swaggered through the streets. They scared the girls and took whatever they wanted from the shops.’

Chang hissed through his teeth. ‘Mao Tse Tung was a schoolteacher. He is not a military man and does not know how to control an army.’

‘No, unlike Zhu. With Zhu in command, that army was disciplined. ’

‘But Mao stole Zhu’s army from him. He humiliated Zhu and lied to Communist Party Headquarters in Shanghai. You have to admit, old shoemaker, our leader is clever. His lust for power is so great and his ways so devious, he may yet conquer China.’

Hu Tai-wai grunted.

‘Was his latest wife, Gui-yuan, with him?’ Chang asked.

‘Yes, she was. As delicate as a morning flower. Together they took over the grandest and biggest house in Zhandu, spent each day in bed supping rich stewed beef and drinking milk.’ Hu Tai-wai abruptly snapped his thread with disgust. ‘Who in their right mind drinks milk? Milk is only for babies.’

Chang smiled. ‘In the West I believe everyone drinks milk.’

‘Then they are sicker in the head than I thought.’

Chang chuckled. ‘They say it is good for you.’ He had a moment’s flash of a cup at his lips. The unpleasant fatty taste of milk in his mouth. A gentle fanqui voice telling him, ‘Drink.’ For her, he drank.

‘It is better,’ he told the older man, ‘when Mao travels with his wife. Better for the towns he stays in.’

‘Why better? She was an expense to us each day she was here, demanding the best of everything.’

‘Even so, it is better.’ He stared at a young woman sweeping the doorstep of the rope seller’s shop on the opposite side of the road. Her hair was long and braided prettily. ‘It is better for the town’s girls,’ he said.

‘I’d heard rumours,’ Hu Tai-wai scowled, his thick eyebrows swooping together in a black line. ‘I kept Si-qi locked in the house.’

‘A wise decision.’

‘So.’ Hu Tai-wai jabbed his needle into a scrap of leather that was tied round his wrist and left it there. ‘Tell me, whelp of the wind, why has the Chinese Communist Party sent one of their best code breakers to the lazy town of Zhandu?’

‘No one knows I am here.’

‘Ah.’

‘I have come to speak with you in private.’

‘About what?’

‘The Russians.’

Hu Tai-wai gave him a slow, amused smile. ‘Then you are a fool. You’re too late, my young friend. The years when I was an adviser and negotiator with the Russians, the bearded ones, are long gone. You know I gave it up. Now I am just a poor country cobbler.’ His black eyes glittered, the lines around his mouth contented in the sunshine. ‘I value my life and my family too much. With Mao, as with Josef Stalin, that other power-crazed vozhd, you never know when he will tire of you. You blink and the next thing you know your head is raised on the point of a stick.’

‘But you’ve been to Soviet Russia.’

‘Many times.’

‘I fear we all dance to the tune of roubles now. So tell me about them, Hu Tai-wai. Tell me what I must prepare for.’


Hu Tai-wai’s house was modest. Nothing like the elegant home Chang recalled that he used to possess in Canton, with its numerous courtyards and an abundance of jade and ancient carved furniture that had once belonged to his father and his father’s father. Here everything was plain, sturdy and adequate for a shoemaker’s family. Only in the hallway a shrine to his ancestors boasted of what once had been. Pearls and gold adorned the paintings of his parents and his grandparents. Silver platters offered up carefully cooked slices of veal and dolphin along with colourful fruits and sweetmeats. On a marble stand an engraved glass goblet, so fine it was barely there, contained thick ruby wine.

Chang experienced a tug of envy when he set eyes on the shrine, and a spill of guilt flowed that he had created nothing similar for his own dead family. He dipped his hand into an onyx dish of azalea petals and sprinkled them over a bowl of pomegranates and mangoes, murmuring words that bound him to his father’s spirit. He lit an incense burner and watched the fragrant smoke coil up in a thin wisp of faith.

Communism decried faith. Just like it decried the individual. It was designed to train the human mind to produce a new and improved version of man. That was the future task of Communism and that was the battle that Chang was committed to. He loved China with all his soul and was convinced that Communism was the only way forward for his country. He believed its ideals could bring peace and equality to an unjust society in which fathers were forced to decide which child to sell in order to feed the others. At the same time glossy fat overlords bathed in goats’ milk and burdened their tenants with land rents that crippled their backs and shortened their lives.

Chang gazed at the flame in the burner. His black eyes swallowed its fragile flicker and he felt the familiar lick of rage in his gut flare alongside it. It was a fire he fought to control, but time and again it blazed unchecked, beyond his reach. Scorching him.


‘Chang An Lo, you bring light to our humble home and joy to my unworthy heart.’

Chang bowed low to Yi-ling, wife of the shoemaker. ‘It is an honour and a pleasure to see you again. I have travelled far and your home is as always a bed of rose petals for my weary bones.’

He bowed again to emphasise his regard for her. He was always tongue-tied and awkward in her presence, uncertain of how to express his gratitude to this woman. She was broad-hipped and broad-cheeked, with a high forehead, but it was the warmth in her eyes that made her beautiful. He would not presume to guess her age, but she was old enough to be his mother and kind enough to have taken him into her home during that desperate time when his parents were beheaded in Peking.

Yet it was Yi-ling’s husband, Hu Tai-wai, who widened his world. He was the one who had introduced the young Chang, son of a court adviser to the Empress of China, to the ideals and aims of Karl Marx and Communism; the very reverse of all he had previously been exposed to. But Chang had not stayed long, unwilling to endanger their lives by association with him. So he had moved on and that had become the recurring pattern of his life, but a part of his heart had always remained in this woman’s pocket.

She poured tea for him now into small, handle-less cups. ‘The gods have kept you safe. I thank them for that and will take a gift to the temple.’

‘They have been kind to you too. I have never seen Hu Tai-wai so fat and relaxed. He sits out front there at his work, as contented as a cat in the sun.’

She smiled. ‘I wish I could say the same for you, Chang An Lo.’

‘Do I look so bad?’

‘Yes. Like something a dog has spat out.’

‘Then I’ll take a bath, if I may.’

‘You’re welcome. But that’s not what I meant. I was looking only in your eyes, and what I see there tears at my heart.’

Chang lowered his gaze, sipped his tea and for a moment silence settled in the small, humid room, where the air moved sluggishly and reluctantly each time they spoke. Eventually Chang raised his eyes and they both knew that part of their conversation was over.

‘How is Si-qi?’ he asked.

‘My daughter is well.’ Yi-ling’s face lit up, as if the sun had rolled over it. Her eyes met his, intent and hopeful, and instantly he realised what plans blossomed behind them. Si-qi was sixteen, of marriageable age.

‘Go,’ she said and flicked a delicate hand to urge him on his way. ‘Go and speak to her. She’s in the courtyard.’

He stood and bowed with respect. She snorted gleefully.

‘Before I go, Yi-ling, I would like to give you a gift.’

Her thin straight eyebrows rose and she brushed at her black skirt uncomfortably. ‘That is not necessary, Chang An Lo.’

‘I think it is.’

He opened his leather saddlebag and removed something bundled up in an old shirt. He held it out to her. She rose to her feet and accepted it, but when she felt its weight, her smile grew full of curiosity and she unwrapped the gift.

‘Chang An Lo,’ she whispered. Her breath shuddered.

In her hand lay a gun.

‘Yi-ling, I know that your husband refuses to own a firearm any more because he says he is finished with violence. But I fear violence has not yet finished with him, nor with China, so I want you to have -’

Her eyes darted to the door, but Hu Tai-wai was still outside with his leather and needles. Deftly she rewrapped the pistol and slid it into the embroidery workbox beside her chair.