Tell Me No Lies (38 page)

Lindsay's finger moved over the page, picking out relatives of Feng. As she turned other pages she recognized more men, people from her childhood in China, people from her lonely teenage years in San Francisco, people from her dealings as curator of ancient Chinese bronzes for the Museum of the Asias. But most of the faces were from her childhood, faces of men whom her parents had known, faces without bodies, faces pursuing her through years of restless sleep.

With each page turned, Lindsay felt herself sliding helplessly deeper and deeper into the past.

I've done this before. Pictures. Faces. When? Why?

Uneasiness moved over her, making her shiver as though it were midnight, and her nightmare surged invincibly from the dark well of repressed memory. She tried to fight it, to hold back the unwanted tide of remembrance, but could not. She had fought it for too many years, winning only in the day, losing at night; and now it was neither night nor day, only an endless twilight of faces pouring over her, pursuing her.

Grimly she turned pages, wondering why she had fought off the past so long and so successfully, only to lose the battle at a time when she had felt so safe. And she was losing. She knew it. Felt it in the chill claiming her blood. Tasted it like brass on her tongue.

Fear.

She turned the page and saw him. She whimpered like a child as the past exploded over her.

20

Lindsay?"

As though from a great distance Lindsay heard Catlin's voice calling to her. She sensed him coming to stand behind her, looking over her shoulder at the faces welling terribly out of the open wound of her past.

"Yes," he agreed, pointing to a snapshot on the left-hand page, "That's the man."

The warmth of Catlin's hand caressing Lindsay's shoulder seeped through the chill that was making her shiver repeatedly. But the voice and the warmth were all wrong, and her body was wrong; she was a child, not a woman, and she had just killed her uncle. She saw him dying, choking, blood spurting from him over her hands as she frantically tried to push the bright life back into the hole in his chest. Uncle Mark was dead and she was seven and her father was holding her; and she was thirty and her lover was holding her and her father was dead.

"I'm going crazy."

Lindsay didn't know that she had spoken aloud until she felt herself lifted from the chair into Catlin's arms.

"Easy, honey cat, easy," he murmured, carrying her to the couch. He sat and held her, rocking her. "He's just a picture on a page. It's all right. He can't get to you as long as I'm here. It's all right, Lindsay. You're safe."

"I killed him. Can't you see? I killed him!"

Catlin looked into Lindsay's blank indigo eyes and saw the same thing he had seen too many times before. Nightmare.

"What are you seeing?" he asked gently.

It was the same question he had asked before, when she had awakened whimpering, wrapped in fear and nightmare. But this time she began to speak, because now she could see everything clearly. Too clearly. In a cold, tearing rush she knew what she had tried to avoid knowing for so long.

"I was supposed to stay in bed, but Ha's daughter had whispered to me that Uncle Mark was back. I couldn't wait until morning to see him. He always brought me candy, bright ribbons, laughter."

Catlin waited while Lindsay drew a long, ragged breath. He imagined her as a child – quick, intelligent, a creature of her senses, hungry for the small gifts and flashes of color that poverty made so rare and so precious.

"Go on," he said softly, brushing his lips over her forehead.

"Oh, Catlin," she said brokenly, turning her face into his chest. "I killed him."

"Tell me," Catlin coaxed. "Tell me and the nightmare will end."

Lindsay's hands closed convulsively, digging through the cotton knit of Catlin's shirt to the flesh beneath. He ignored the discomfort as his hand stroked her hair and her back. He spoke soothingly, murmuring words without meaning, sounds as reassuring as his touch and the slow rocking of her body against his chest.

"I – " Her voice broke. She swallowed and tried again. "I was staying with the family of Ha, the rice merchant. Mother and Dad had been called into the city to talk to some government official. I waited until my friend was asleep and then I tiptoed out the back way and went to my uncle's house. No one was there. I was scared. It was windy and the moon was full and cold. I went to the church. He wasn't there, either."

Catlin felt the tension building in Lindsay. His arms tightened but his hand never stopped its slow, soothing motion over her head and back.

"I kept feeling like I was being followed," Lindsay whispered. "I would stop and turn suddenly but no one would be there. The shadows were all wild and twisted beneath the trees – or is that my nightmare?" She shivered. "It's hard to tell the difference after all these years. Memory. Nightmare. But two things are true and always will be. Uncle Mark died, and I killed him."

"You were only seven," Catlin murmured.

"How old does a Judas goat have to be?" she asked bleakly.

Catlin's eyes closed for an instant. He could guess what was coming, and it enraged him. He could guess just how a young girl's trust could be twisted to an assassin's use, but it was for Lindsay to discover that and put her discovery into words. It was her truth, her nightmare, her mind that had been unable to fully accept an act that had occurred long ago and was still tearing her apart.

"I knew that there was a place where Uncle Mark sometimes met with other men," said Lindsay. Her voice was flat, raw, the voice of a woman again rather than a child. As she spoke, nightmare was receding slowly, but not horror. That would stay with her for the rest of her life. "I knew that it was supposed to be a secret. But I wasn't going to tell anyone. I was just going to surprise him with a visit. So I ran through the village to the meeting place at one of the outlying farms. He was there. So were four other men."

Lindsay began to tremble. She started to speak, failed and tried again. Catlin watched the tears streaming silently down her face and wished he could spare her whatever was to come. Yet he knew he must not. She needed the knowledge that she had both sought and denied through years of nightmares.

"The other men were angry with me, but not Uncle Mark," said Lindsay, words rushing out, leaving her no time to breathe, words demanding to be said. "He just held out his arms and hugged me and then there were shots and screams and he fell. I tried to push the blood back into his body – I tried and it just spurted through my fingers. He – he cried out a word and then he died and I ran and ran and ran."

"What did he say?" Catlin asked gently.

Lindsay closed her eyes, sending a veil of tears down her cheeks. "Betrayed."

"He didn't mean you," Catlin said, rocking her slowly. "You were too young to know that soldiers would follow you to the secret meeting place."

"I think – yes, I remember now – that's what my parents said to me when they found me the next day." Lindsay drew a shuddering breath. "They washed me, held me, and then – " Her eyes widened as she remembered. "They had me look at pictures. Like now. That's what brought back the nightmare. Faces and more faces, years of mother's snapshots pouring over me, picture after picture, face after face. 'Is this one of the men who shot your uncle? This one? This one?' And when I said, 'No! I killed him,' they held me and told me over and over that it wasn't my fault, that I didn't kill him." Lindsay closed her eyes. "But it was my fault. I was greedy for his presents, his laughter."

"You were a child, Lindsay," Catlin said, kissing her eyelids. "Just a child. Someone used you."

"If I hadn't been greedy – "

"If your uncle hadn't been up to his neck in politics," Catlin interrupted grimly, "he wouldn't have been shot."

Lindsay's eyes opened, surprise clear in their indigo depths. "How did you know about the soldiers and the politics? I didn't find out until just a few years ago, and even then all mother would say was that Uncle Mark was dead and times were changing, and it was better that the past die with him." Catlin rubbed his cheek slowly against Lindsay's soft hair.

"I knew because in those days in China, there wasn't much else besides soldiers and politics." He kissed her cheek gently, tasting tears that should have been cried years before. "Was your uncle a missionary?"

She nodded.

"Then he was probably involved with the Christian underground," said Catlin. He watched Lindsay, but saw no understanding on her face. "Various missionaries banded together and smuggled out their parishioners – particularly those who had fought against communism and lost and had been declared traitors to be executed on sight," he explained. "It took a lot of guts to hide those people, feed them, steal their families out from under armed guards and smuggle the whole lot out of China to a new life in Hong Kong or Taiwan or North America. It was the Church Militant in action. Quite impressive and quite dangerous, as subversive action is always dangerous."

"Subversive!" Lindsay said, startled. "My parents were missionaries, not revolutionaries. They didn't want to rule. All they cared about was God and their converts."

"The Communists viewed religion as dangerous political competition," pointed out Catlin, smiling crookedly. "Which it was, so long as politics were pursued with religious fervor. Mao didn't permit moral competition from anyone, even Christ. Since Mao's death, things have changed. Politics is slowly becoming a profession again, rather than a holy calling. That could change, though," Catlin admitted. "It could change in an instant. The balance is very precarious."

"Chen Yi," murmured Lindsay. "That's what he's afraid of, isn't it?"

"Partly. Like a lot of intelligent, educated Chinese, he didn't enjoy the Cultural Revolution, or any of China's recent stabs at creating its very own version of the Dark Ages."

"What happens if we don't find the bronzes?"

Catlin leaned back against the couch, pulling Lindsay with him, resettling her in his lap. "If no one else finds them, either, the prodevelopment element of China's government will probably manage to patch things up and continue dragging China into the twentieth century, trading in the people's Little Red Books for radios and refrigerators and leaving people's souls to priests rather than politicians."

"And if we do find the bronzes?"

"Chen Yi and his colleagues will have a little housecleaning to do," Catlin said. Then he added sardonically, "Assuming they manage to hang on to the broom and their own necks long enough, that is. Otherwise – " Catlin shrugged " – the isolationists and ideological purists will win. There will be another round of purges and withdrawal from the world, and once again millions of Chinese will starve while their rulers learn a simple truth: pure ideology is a piss poor guide to running a country."

"Chen Yi," Lindsay murmured again, resting her head on Catlin's chest. "He must hope we don't find the bronzes."

Catlin laughed softly. "Not quite. He's hoping we find the bronzes all right – but he's hoping they're frauds."

Lindsay sat up and fixed Catlin with an intent glance. "Why?"

"Then it would be America's face at risk, not China's. It would be a joke on greedy capitalists, not a slur on the morals of the Chinese race.''

"Do you think the bronzes will be frauds?"

"If the bronzes exist at all. I could make arguments on either side of the question," said Catlin. "In the end, what I think doesn't matter. True Qin or recent fake, you'll know the difference. And when you tell us, we'll know. That's why the Chinese would have no one but you for the job. You have an unimpeachable reputation for knowing the truth about bronzes – and telling it, no matter whose ox is gored. Truth is a religion with you, and you're its shining missionary. Yi knows all about religions and missionaries." Catlin smiled sardonically. "Chen Yi is one shrewd son of a bitch."

Lindsay searched Catlin's golden eyes for a long time, feeling his words sink into her, wondering what he was trying to tell her that he wouldn't put into words. "And betrayal?" she asked. "Does he know all about betrayal?"

"He's Chinese. They wrote the book on loyalty and betrayal."

"But was he the one – Did he –?" Lindsay's voice broke.

"Is he the kind of man who would whisper Christmas in a child's ear so he could follow her to Santa Claus and kill him? Is that what you're asking me?"

Lindsay flinched but didn't look away. "Yes," she whispered, "that's what I'm asking."

"He could have," Catlin said flatly. "He would have, too, if he'd wanted to kill your uncle badly enough. But did he?" Catlin shrugged. "I doubt it. The world is full of men like Chen Yi and your uncle, men passionately committed to opposing causes, men in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'd bet that Ha the rice merchant was one of them. I'd bet that he told his daughter to whisper in your ear and then watched from the shadows while you tiptoed out into the night."

Lindsay shuddered. "Oh, God," she whispered. "To be used like that, betrayed. I hate lies."

"Then stop lying to yourself," Catlin said bluntly. He watched as Lindsay's head jerked up and she stared at him in surprise. "You didn't kill your uncle, Lindsay. Men with guns did. If you'd stayed on your little straw pallet that night, your uncle still would have been betrayed and murdered. There have been a lot of times and places in China when life just wasn't worth a handful of shit. Hell, I'm surprised your parents weren't killed, too. They were lucky to have been out of town when the hunters closed in for the kill." Catlin's hand tilted up her chin. "And you, honey cat." He kissed her wet eyelashes gently. "It's a miracle those men didn't kill you, too. The life of a girl child, especially a foreign devil, meant nothing at all."

Lindsay's arms went around Catlin abruptly, and she shuddered. "But the blood," she whispered. "The blood!"

"I know," he said softly, rocking her, remembering his own horror when blood had first spilled over his hands. "I know."

Catlin didn't tell Lindsay how he knew, for that wouldn't comfort her at all. He simply held her while she pulled herself back together, settling pieces of the past into new places, letting the ramifications of that resettlement ripple up into her present. It was a process without an end, the adult reassessing the child's view of reality. The new knowledge was painful but necessary, for while nightmare ruled, ignorance was not bliss. Ignorance had brought weakness, not strength; and she needed strength to face and survive the demands of the present.

"Thank you," Lindsay said finally, kissing the hard line of Catlin's jaw. "No one else ever understood. Not even my parents. They wanted me to give my fear to God and then forget it. All of it. Mother said that no good ever came of remembering the past. I tried to forget. I thought I had forgotten, but-"

"You dreamed," said Catlin, stroking her hair.

"I dreamed," she agreed, sighing.

"And you hated lies."

"Yes."

"And you trusted no one. Not really. Not completely. Not even God."

Lindsay looked up and saw herself reflected in Catlin's desolate amber eyes. She wondered who had betrayed him and who had died and if he had ever trusted anyone or anything again.

And then she realized that distrust, like the nightmare, like the man called Rousseau, was part of the past. She lived in the present. So did the man called Catlin.

"I trust you," she whispered. "I feel safe with you. That's why I gave up fighting the nightmare. You were with me."