I took more notice of Geng’s house this time, hoping it would give me some clues to what had happened there. It had obviously once stood on the edge of town. The red tile roof with its curved gables gave the impression of a substantial residence belonging to a rich merchant. The aspect of the windows along the frontage spoke of a property that once looked out over open land towards the river. Now all the occupants could see from them were other, smaller buildings. The city had encroached on the house and swallowed it. It was barely possible now to appreciate the symmetry of its frontage. Stepping through the doorway from the road, Lin and I found ourselves in a central courtyard, surrounded by buildings. Once again, I could tell that the house was somewhat down at heel. Wall timbers were splitting and some roof tiles were loose. Two broken red tiles lay on the packed earth of the courtyard, and probably had lain there since they had fallen from above weeks earlier. The whole house was unusually quiet, with not even any smoke coming from the rear of the building where the kitchen stood. I could tell it was the kitchen, because it was built slightly apart from the other ranges. Fire was a constant hazard to timber-framed houses. There was no evidence even of the servant who had been present last time. A couple of chickens pecked desultorily at the barren earth of the courtyard.
We hovered in the centre of the yard for a moment, before Lin whispered in my ear.
‘Do you think they’ve all fled?’
I grinned.
‘No, I don’t think so. I just caught a glimpse of a youth peering round the edge of an upstairs window behind you. I will rouse them.’
I pulled my short Tartar sword from its sheath, and took a swing at one of the chickens. There was a squawk from the chicken, which flew up in a blur of feathers. And a responding squawk from a human.
‘That is my best layer, I am glad your prowess with a sword is so poor.’
The old lady emerged from the kitchen door, tottering on her tiny feet. I sheathed my sword.
‘I aimed to miss, or the bird would have been running around headless by now. Which is not a criticism I can make of you, Madam Gao.’
She narrowed her dark, little eyes, making the wrinkles on the lined face even deeper and more numerous.
‘How do you mean?’
Whether she really didn’t understand my Western analogy, or was just maintaining her appearance of being a rather stupid, old lady, I wasn’t sure. But one thing she had done was give the game away about her ability to understand my Mongol. When we had first interviewed her, I had stumbled through a three-way conversation using Lin as my interpreter. The crafty old bird had used a feigned ignorance of Mongol as a way of avoiding my more searching questions. Now I knew that, I explained my meaning directly.
‘You told us you were poor, and needed to marry Geng in order to survive. But the truth is it was you who loaned Old Geng money. Money he desperately needed to keep his business afloat.’
As I spoke, I took a couple of steps towards where she stood. Suddenly, two very large, very hairy men emerged from the kitchen and placed themselves either side of the old lady. They only had sticks in their fists, but they were such large and hairy fists and such heavy sticks, that I did not think for one moment of drawing my sword again. From behind me Lin piped up in his thin but authoritative voice.
‘There is no need for violence here, Madam Gao. We are the defenders of the law, and to threaten us would be a crime carrying a severe penalty.’
The old lady bowed low, her head tilting to one side, until we could see the bald patch atop her head. When she straightened up, she showed a mouth with more gaps than teeth in it.
‘I am sorry. My… nephews — ’ she gestured at the two hairy monsters — ‘are a little overzealous at times. I asked them to stay with me, as I am fearful for my life.’
She sighed theatrically, in a way I could now recognize as a pantomime k’o. Lin would have been pleased that my knowledge of Chinee drama was expanding. Madam Gao continued.
‘The times have been so strange of late. What with the poisoning of Geng that could have so nearly been mine. And the attack that I suffered a few weeks ago.’
‘Attack?’
Lin was interested now, and pressed her to explain. She sat down wearily on a bamboo chair set in the shade and waved a hand. The two hairy bodyguards disappeared, though I could still feel their presence like a cold wind blowing from the north down the back of my neck. I squatted down on an upturned bucket, but Lin remained standing in that peculiarly still way of his. His question remained hanging in the air, and, once settled, the old lady answered it.
‘It was a few weeks before Geng’s death. I was still in my own house, living with the girl, of course.’
I decided to interrupt, because I realized the old woman had avoided answering my earlier question about her wealth, and wanted to disconcert her a little.
‘Was this before or after your son died?’
The old lady’s face hardened, and the lines round her mouth stood out. It was not the reaction I would have imagined a loving mother to have had to my brutal question. She had an answer nevertheless, even though it was brief.
‘Afterwards.’
‘You see, I have concerns about your son.’
Her eyes were like daggers stabbing into me.
‘How so? His death has nothing to do with what happened to me, or to Geng’s death. He was a sickly child, and he grew up to be a sickly man. The girl married him at my behest, but he did not live long enough to give her a child. That is all there is to say about the matter.’
I noticed that, finally, a single tear squeezed out of her eye and ran down her wrinkled cheek. I suspected it was manufactured. I held up a hand and signalled for her to go on. She brushed the tear from her face.
‘I was explaining about the attack. I suppose, thinking about it, I should have reported the man. It was someone who owed me money, and he said he had come to negotiate a deal. The next thing I knew, quite out of the blue, he leaped at me and tried to strangle me. I was lucky that Old Geng was due to visit me and was a little early. He came into the room and saw what the man was doing. He grabbed him and pulled him off me. There was a scuffle and my attacker fled. Geng was too old to give chase, and anyway, I needed his attention.’ She stared Lin in the eye, pointedly avoiding looking at me. ‘That was why I agreed to marry him — and that was when my fortunes changed. Geng had saved my life, and I was indebted to him. He said he had been looking for a wife, and now he had found one. It was my fate to obey him, and at his insistence I got rid of my own house and moved in here.’ She waved a weary hand at the ramshackle range of buildings. ‘I think my yun was waning from that point on.’
At last I had the answer to my question about why a rich old woman should marry a poor man who owed her money. I knew a little bit about Chinee belief in fate and luck. So I knew Madam Gao had not been happy to accept Geng’s marriage offer, but had felt bound to do so. Her luck had taken a nosedive from that point. She looked tired, but Lin wanted more.
‘And was it your idea that Jianxu should marry Wenbo?’
‘No, that was Old Geng. He has been looking for a wife for his son for a long time. You can see for yourself how weak the boy is. His father thought my obligation to him would stretch to the girl. And indeed, I saw no reason why she shouldn’t have married Wenbo. It was she who objected. She has always been a wayward child, never doing as she was told. You would have thought she owed me nothing the way she behaved.’
As the old lady rambled on, I had noticed that the boy had moved from his window, where I had first seen him, to the edge of the courtyard where we sat. He was hiding behind one of the doorframes to my right. Madam Gao was not able to see him, but he could see her, and hear what she said. His shoulders had slumped when she described him to us, and his fists had clenched. I could see there was no love lost between them, the tough-minded old woman and the skinny youth.