The Mark of the Golden Dragon (9 page)

Good ladies and gentlemens of this lovely town, please to listen to playing of happy tunes by Sangeeta, my beloved but hideously ugly sister. Pity us, good people, and please to place alms in our poor bowl so that we might eat. Lord Krishna will bless you, yes, and thank you, good lady, thank you, good man.

I think that approximates what Ravi is saying as he dances about, passing the bowl and begging for small change. He is quite good at it, for some coins do fall—I am sure Rooster Charlie would have welcomed the lad into our company back in our old kip 'neath Blackfriars Bridge.

***

At our first port of call on that day of the shark, we went ashore and sold the fish we had caught. The locals seemed astonished at the size of our catch, calling us blessed by the gods of the sea, and I guess we were.
Thanks Poseidon, or whatever you are called here.
I know full well that the fishmongers cheated us, but so it goes. Ravi bargained the best he could, but at least we now had some hard coin.

So with our meager funds, we went to the small market we found in the town and bought a flint striker so we could start fires and cook our food. Then, to reward ourselves for our virtue and cunning, we bought two rice balls, all greasy and golden yellow with curry and
so
delicious. It was our first neither-clam-nor-raw-fish meal in days, and we devoured our purchase instantly and without ceremony.
Oh, so, so good...

And to top it all off, we bought what would prove to be a great little moneymaker—a simple wooden flute. It had eight holes and a fipple mouthpiece and a sort of bulb at the end, and though it was not tuned to the same scale as my beloved pennywhistle, I was able to make it work. Ravi sang some of the tunes of his youth and I was able to duplicate them enough to get us by. We are now an act.

I had some concern about my safety in all this, me being a helpless young girl practically alone in a foreign land, and had bounced the idea off Ravi of retreating into the protection of boy garb. After all, we had plenty of canvas that I could cut into sashes to bind down my chest, but my young Indian consort did not think that would serve.

"Forgive poor Ravi, for what I am about to say, Memsahib, but your bottom, though not round enough to please Burma man, still is too round to be boy. No, no. Also is abomination for girl to dress up as boy. Against the rules of nature. Ganesh not like and will bring us bad luck. Bad karma. And your face, though most dear to Ravi, is not pretty to India man—nose and lips too thin. Cheeks, too. Should be full and round like peaches. And your hair ... please ... is wrong color, like freak."

My hair, which had been shaved except for my pigtail at the back, was slowly growing back in. There was a light blond fuzz on my skull now, which had to look passing strange. My shiv, though sharp, was not a razor and could therefore not shave my head and keep it clean in the Chinese fashion.

"Your hair," the little rotter went on. "
Tsk!
You look like crazy woman, but maybe that is not a bad thing. Maybe we get more alms. Maybe mens leave you alone in ways of naughtiness."

For someone scarce eight years old, Ravi was certainly knowledgeable in the evil ways of the world. I'm thinkin',
Nothing like a few years spent on the street to hone up the old survival skills.

And so it was decided that we travel up to Rangoon as boy Ravi and his mute and hideously ugly sister, Sangeeta.
Couldn't have him call me Memsahib, now, could we?
Ravi informed me that Sangeeta means "maker of music" in Hindi and so it fit...
but hideously ugly? I know I am no rare beauty by any means, but still there have been more than a few gents in my past who thought I was passable handsome ... Geez...

We made up a crude canvas veil to hide my ugliness. It comes to below my eyes, yet leaves my lips free to play the flute.

Ravi went on, to elaborate, "If pushy man lifts veil, you make twisted face, and he will drop veil and not bother you. See? Is good, no?"

I suppose ... I do love being the center of attention, but not as a freak,
I'm thinking.
Oh, well ... Suck it up, lass. Sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do...

And so we progress up the coast, going from town to town—sailing for a day or two, then stopping in the nearest port to sell our catch and do our act. We never again have such good luck in fishing, but we do all right with our street-singing bit.

My disguise as girl-too-ugly-to-ravish works. In fact, one time a crude brute made so bold as to lunge at me as I played the whistle on a corner in one of the towns where we had managed to attract a small crowd. He lifted the veil, took a beady-eyed look, and then flung it back down again. It was so sudden, I didn't even have a chance to put on my ugly face. He then said something to much laughter from the small crowd we had gathered, and then looked very satisfied with himself.

After we had collected our few copper coins and were walking back to the
Eastern Star,
I asked Ravi what the man had said.

"Oh, it was nothing," he'd answered, not meeting my gaze. "Not worthy of Sister Sangeeta."

"Come on, Ravi," I snarled. "Out with it."

He sighed and said, "Not to get mad, Missy, but he say, 'To benefit unwary, unsuspecting man, she should have
two
veils over that face.'"

"Why?" I asked.

"In case first one rips," answered Ravi sheepishly, looking for anger in my face.

Grrr ... very funny.

So we make a few coins, we eat, we have some fun, and we get farther and farther north.

Soon, Rangoon.

Aboard our
Eastern Star,
we had followed the line of fishing boats past tiny villages up what I later discovered was the Rangoon River to the city itself, and oh, what a sight it is! Glorious golden spires, dozens of them, reaching way up into the sky. I, who have seen the Cathedral of Saint Paul's, in London, and the Notre Dame, in Paris, stand awestruck at the splendor.

"What ... what are they, Ravi?"

"I believe they are called pagodas, Sangeeta," he says. "They are the most holy shrines of the Buddhists. My master, Mr. Elphy, visit here one time and he come ... came ... back and told his whole household of all the glories of this city. I remember sitting before him, rapt with wonder at his tales."

The Splendor of the Orient, indeed...

Well, so much for sightseeing, my goggle-eyed girl, let us get on with things, shall we?

As we approach the wharf area, I spy a ship, a merchantman, flying the Union Jack and lying portside to one of the many piers. Cargo is being loaded aboard. My heart leaps to see the familiar flag once again as I pull the tiller over to head for the merchant's side.

"Ahoy, mates!" Surprised eyes peer over the side, gaping down at an apparition in ragged clothes and pigtail, speaking to them in Cockney English. "'Ave you been seein' three ships sailin' by on your way here and they was maybe flyin' the American and British colors?"

"And just who, darlin', are you?" asks the grinning rogue above me.

"Me name is Jacky Faber," I says, without thinking too hard about that. I mean, who out here would have heard of—

"Ha! Jacky Faber? Bloody Jack? Hell, Puss-in-Boots is dead ten times over, by God, and rottin' in 'er grave! Look, I gots a tattoo here to prove it!"

The sod pulls up his sleeve to show the kitten-with-sword tattoo with the word
Vengeance
writ large above it.

"See? She 'ad 'er bloody 'ead cut off by them Froggies!"

Other grinning sailors have joined him at the rail.

"Maybe so, but that weren't me," I says, pushing on, anxious to change the subject. "The ships I'm askin' 'bout, Jocko, was two merchants, the
Lorelei Lee
and the
Cerberus,
and the HMS
Dart,
a Royal Navy sloop of war. Seen 'em?"

The sods look at each other and shake their heads.

"Nay. We spotted a small ship flyin' Yankee colors a few days out of Bombay, but that's about it. Tiny ship, hardly worth the mention."

Heavy sigh by me, but I really didn't expect to see my lost fleet here.
Huh, from Commodore to common tramp in one swift fall. Oh, well...

"Say, lass, how'd a nice Cockney bint loike you get all chinked up loike that, 'ey?"

"Long story, mate," I answer, pushing off with my oar. "Mayhaps you'll hear about it someday. Cheerio, lads."

We drop the sail, pick up the oars, and row the
Star
to a likely looking spot on the pier. We tie up, and Ravi barters our fish for dockage. That being settled, we head off into the wondrous city of Rangoon.

"Let's set up here," I say, pulling my flute from my sleeve. "It seems a likely place." We are in front of one of the golden temples at the corner of two streets and there are many folk about who seem to come from many different places—some who look Indian, some who look Chinese, some who look ... what?...I don't know. There are saris and turbans and great mustaches and beards and pigtails and whatnot.
Hmmm
...It is a city in which I could thrive ... and hide, maybe...

Ravi nods and holds out his bowl, and I put flute to lip and start swaying and playing and trying to work up a bit of a crowd.

We have dropped the veil bit, for blokes were always too curious to see what horror lay beneath it. Plus, as we had gotten closer to Rangoon, the towns were bigger and more cosmopolitan, less likely to be shocked by the appearance of someone from another land. So instead of the veil, I took to streaking my idiot face with dirt and acting the total fool, if it came to it. If anyone looks at me too closely, I cross my eyes and start to slobber. I'm getting rather good at working up some spit and drooling on cue. Then I point to my wet mouth with a dirty finger and make gurgling sounds. It works. I am not troubled with anything other than a pitying glance.

Ha! The very proper Amy Trevelyne should see me now...
I have to stifle a giggle at the thought...
or better, yet, Miss
Clarissa Worthington Howe, of the Virginia Howes, don'cha know—she would just die of pure vindication—"Ah told all of you that Jacky girl was nothin but a tramp and ah was right!" I guess you were, Clarissa, after all
—heavy sigh—
and as for the ever-so-uptight-and-proper Jaimy, well, don't even think about it.

Anyway, I begin tootling away, and Ravi starts his rant and passes his bowl and things are going right well when I notice a tall mean-looking bloke standing off to the side, looking at me. He wears a white turban and big fierce mustache and has a stern look in his beady eyes. Do all badmashes have big mustaches? Did I slip up and speak English to Ravi as we were setting up? Did he hear? Did he know what it was I spoke? I hope not, but I know I can grow careless sometimes...
Damn!

Things quickly go worse, with the sudden and very unwelcome arrival of several of the sailors from that English merchantman I had seen earlier.

Uh-oh...

"Hey, if it ain't our little Cockney bint what's got 'erself all dolled up as a ching-chong Chinaman!" says the leader of the louts. 'Tis plain they're off on some well-deserved liberty and looking for some fun, and who am I to deny them that.
But, no, not at my expense.

"Play us a tune from the old sod," says one. "To warm our poor hearts so far from home."

I'm sweating now.
This is not going well!
I nod to Ravi and he does his routine about me being a crippled mute, and I cross my eyes and drool and limp, but it doesn't work.

"Oh, come on, we've heard her talk, by God, and we'll have no such guff! A song!"

I step out of character. "Come on, mates, let me be. You are putting me in danger here, you are. I know you mean well, but you don't understand, you—"

"
Ingrish!
"

That from the throat of the big badmash with the mustache.

He lunges toward me, grabs me by the neck, and drags me up the street. The English boys protest, but they do not pursue. Why should they? It ain't their concern what happens to some ratty-looking street singer, English or not.

I put on my big, looping limp and moan my idiot's moan, and Ravi pleads
—please, please, please, good sir, my poor sister
—in some sort of language or other, and pummels the legs of the badmash, but it doesn't do any good. I am hauled farther and farther up a dark alley toward a huge, brass-bound door at the end of it.

Time for my shiv...

I whip it out of my forearm sheath and thrust it into the side of my abductor ... but it doesn't go in there. No, it doesn't because the brute has cinched a thick leather sash about his waist and I can't plunge my blade through that.

I pull back for another try at his throat, but his other hand grasps my knife hand by the wrist and I am helpless. My shiv falls to the ground and the badmash stoops to pick it up, all the time shoving me relentlessly toward that big door. He puts my shiv to my throat and I don't struggle anymore.

Oh, Lord, what now? What lies beyond this door?

My abductor takes his hand—the one coiled about my shiv, not the one wrapped around my throat—and raps three times on the massive door, then twice, then he steps back as the massive thing swings open, revealing a long, dimly lighted hallway, down which I am thrust, with the wailing Ravi right behind me. With a grunt I take to be a curse, the brute pushes me on, and then abruptly, he turns to the right and we face yet another door.