He looked to Yun, a query in his eyes. His companion smiled and beckoned him on.
She there, Yun mouthed. You wait. I go.
He wanted to stop him; wanted, despite his burning curiosity, to back out of there and return to the barge. But it was too late. He heard the door creak open then close behind him.
Slowly he crossed the room, conscious of the noise each footfall made. The bare planks had been swept, but here, at the centre, a colourful rug had been spread. He stared down at it, noticing how stained and threadbare it was. Like all else here, it had the air of fallen elegance.
Again the faintest rustling came from behind the screen.
For an instant he felt the urge to step across and tear the curtain aside, but the memory of the music stayed his hand. He looked around, wondering briefly if it hadn't perhaps been a trick, after all; if that beautiful music hadn't been artificially produced. There was no sign of any instrument Besides, this place . . .
He laughed inwardly. What had he been imagining? That he would find some pearl, some jewel of a girl in a place like this? No. For there were only whores here. Pleasure girls. Girls who would do anything if the price were right.
He turned away, meaning to leave, then stopped, hearing the curtain move on its runners.
"You want to go, Mister?"
He stood there a moment, undecided. The voice was not as common as he'd expected.
"Well? Don't you want to look at me before you make up your mind? I'm a nice girl. I'll treat you well."
Words formed in his mind. 7 want. . .
What do you want? he asked himself suddenly, as if it were Sampsa in his head and not himself.
I want to know where that music came from?
He turned, not knowing what to expect, telling himself, even before he saw her, that he would go once he had seen her face.
He looked. For a long time he stood there, studying her, drinking in the sight of her, surprised - beyond all imagining surprised - by just how beautiful she was. And young, too. Younger, perhaps, than himself.
"Well?" she asked finally, the faintest smile on her glistening red lips. "You like me? You want to stay all night?"
I want...
Slowly he raised his right hand and, placing his forefinger to the tip of his tongue, shook his head.
"You're dumb? Is that what you're trying to say?"
Tom nodded.
She stepped closer, taking his hands in hers. "I'm sorry. I'd have liked to know all about you. What you do. Where you come from. I like to know such things. But we can be friends anyway, neh? You come and sit with me. I'll talk, you listen. Okay?"
Okay, he answered in his head, the sweet jasmine scent of her, intoxicating now that she was so close, the feel of her tiny hands in his making him feel strange, unreal.
He looked down at where their hands were linked and thoughtlessly began to caress the backs of her fingers with his thumbs. For the briefest moment he waited for the doubled sensation of the Stim, for that abrupt transition as the guide-track switched in to control his muscles, but there was nothing this time - only the singular response of his own nerve-ends.
"That's nice," she said, a new softness in her voice. "You're very gentle."
He looked up, meeting her eyes, seeing how openly they smiled back at him, surprised by that.
You're real, he thought, strangely awed by that; yet even as he thought it, he knew how ridiculous it was. Of course she was real. Cut her and she would bleed, kiss her and . . .
"Well?" she said for the third time. "Shall we sit down? Or do you want to fuck me straight away?"
The straightforward manner in which she said it took his breath. But why should he be surprised? It was as he'd told himself only a moment earlier: however beautiful she seemed in this half-light, however "different", the girl was still a whore, a sing-song girl. Anyone could have her, no matter how fat or ugly, old or foul of mind they were. What he was as a man meant nothing here, only the money he brought. No, he was not to fool himself: this was not romance, this was trade.
He looked away, troubled.
Removing her hands from his, she reached up and turned his face gently, her fingers warm on his cheek and neck, making him look at her again.
"What is the matter?" she asked, her eyes trying to read him. "Don't you like the way I talk?"
He sighed, then shrugged.
"Would you like me to play for you, perhaps?"
She saw how his eyes lit at that and smiled. "You'd like that, yes? Maybe you heard the music on the other boat and you thought, who is that girl playing the p'ip'a? And maybe you thought you'd like to see that girl, neh?"
He nodded.
"Good." She seemed excited now that she understood. "You sit down there while I get ready, okay?"
She made her way across, then turned, a new look - of curiosity - in her eyes.
"You have a name?" She gestured to her hands. "You spell it with your fingers, maybe?"
He signed for her, straight forefinger to forefinger, forefinger and thumb looped, then the vee of thumb and forefinger linked to forefinger and middle finger.
"Tom? You're called Tom, right?"
He nodded.
She smiled. "That's a nice name. Tom suits you. I'm glad now you have a name. I'll not have to call you Mister all night."
For the first time since he'd stepped into the room he smiled. All night. .. The words took on a whole new meaning, a whole new sense of promise.
He watched her cross the room, conscious suddenly of the scent of her - not of her perfume, but of her - and of each silken, whispering sound her body made within its clothes. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he was alive to her. It was like waking.
As she disappeared behind the curtain, he looked about him once again, seeing this time a dozen tiny details he had passed over the first time he had looked - things he had seen but not seen. Reaching out he lifted the fan and unfolded it, studying the picture cut into the scented wood.
It was a town, an ancient Chinese town, with boats on the river and a bridge. He smiled and put it back, then sat back, waiting, looking about him, his eyes - like his father's eyes -recording everything, unable to forget.
The curtain twitched back, the girl stepped out, carrying the lute as if it were a child.
He could see at a glance that it was an ancient instrument - a real collector's piece - and wondered how she, a young whore on a flower-boat, had managed to afford it.
It was beautiful, its pear-shaped sound-box tapering delicately into the long neck, the ivory tuning pegs jutting out like the display feathers of some strange and elegant bird. Its four strings - tuned a-d-e-a - were of the finest gut. Looking at it, he had no doubt that it was from this instrument that the sounds he'd heard had come.
She sat, facing him on the sofa, crossing her legs, thep'ip'a held upright against her, her right hand curled about the sound-box, the fingers of her left resting loosely against the upper frets. For a moment she seemed almost to doze, her head tilted, resting against the neck of the instrument, then she looked up at him again and smiled.
"What do you want me to play? High Mountain, Flowing Streams? Crescent Moon at Dawn?"
He shrugged. For once it did not matter. He just wanted to see her play. She smiled as if she understood, then, wordlessly, she began, the notes spilling clear and pure into the air.
He watched her, entranced. As she played so she seemed to caress the instrument like a lover, her whole being lost in the ancient melody, her fingers moving expertly, the bright red nails plucking the strings with faultless ease. He looked to her face, conscious that for that moment he did not exist for her. Her mouth had fallen moistly open, her eyes stared distantly away, as if she was somewhere else, lapsed out, beyond this mundane world of deals and betrayals.