The Brothel Creeper: Stories of Sexual and Spiritual Tension by Rhys Hughes

Author:Rhys Hughes [Hughes, Rhys]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Gloomy Seahorse Press
Published: 2015-06-19T21:00:00+00:00

Mah Jong Breath

The danger of the road is not in the distance,

Ten yards is far enough to break a wheel.

The peril of love is not in loving too often,

A single evening can leave its wound in the soul.

Meng Chiao.

White is the colour of death in China, and also in parts of Cardiff. Not that the inhabitants of the latter are truly aware of this. The docks of the Welsh capital have been adjusted — grassland cleared; churches torn up and replanted along the edge of the marina; historic cranes likewise, with fashionable cranes; pubs shut — but cultural effects survive their habitats. Even if they leave with their owners, they return like cats to the locations where they dwelt, in the present case to yachts and malls. Many immigrants had moved before the first new building was erected, but they forgot to blindfold their beliefs on the voyage to the suburbs. One at a time the fears slipped back.

That’s what I like to think anyway. Uncle Xia told me all about the tenacity of superstitions on our very first meeting, in a post office on Albany Road. I had rarely spoken to a Chinese, except when ordering from a waiter, and the attention was flattering. His first divulgence: he was a gambler and drinker. I judged him to be about fifty years old and when he claimed to be nearer eighty only his hands convinced me of the truth. He showed me a wallet containing a single mah jong tile — it depicted a vase of flowers; plum blossoms, he said. Then he invited me to guess who it once belonged to. I trawled my memory for the name of an emperor, and finally mispronounced Shihuangdi.

He chuckled. “The game is much more recent than that. I doubt it is two centuries old. You refer to the Qin dynasty, over two millennia ago. No, I took it from Chairman Mao.”

The tile seemed valueless. “You stole it?”

“Of course not. Included among my winnings after a night’s session. Nothing to look at, I admit, yet…” He tapped his nose conspiratorially but did not lower his voice. “I’m heavily in debt. Normally I let people like you approach me first. Hard times, poor manners. Say if you require carnal sensation. Something peculiar.”

My knuckles paled on the tyres of the wheelchair. “You are offering me a prostitute? I have a wife.”

“There are tricks you simply don’t know about.”

All the old clichés tumbled in my mind. Scented chamber, opium pipe and carved jade dragon in a recess. Maybe sparrows on the roof. And with bound feet, voluminous sleeves, painted cheeks, a concubine straight out of a Sax Rohmer story. She would be timid, silent, utterly submissive. I might ease the fear in her eyes with a tender word, though she would not understand what I was saying. Or would I be brutal? Tearing the silk off shoulders, messing hair dark and cool as winter rain, punishment for the aloofness of her sisters, small girls who never catch my eye, dolls with glazed skin, unsmiling.

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