Read Online Everything Under the Sky by Matilde Asensi - Free Book Online Page B

magic of a thousand sensations that combined like the colored glass in a kaleidoscope to form a unique, breathtaking image.
    “What are you going to do with all of this, Auntie?”
    Do? What was I going to do? Well, sell it, of course. I desperately needed the money.
    “We'll see,” I murmured, starting to place the little treasures back in their places. “For the moment I'll put it back where it was. Keep this a secret, do you hear me? Don't say a word to anyone, not to Father Castrillo or Mrs. Zhong.”
    We left for the Bund a short while later, each of us in a rickshaw. The midday heat was stifling. A haze floated in the air, distorting the streets and buildings, the asphalt seeming to melt like gum under the poor sweaty coolies’ bare feet, and no one was safe from attacks by fat, iridescent flies. Municipal employees continuously threw buckets of water on the tram tracks, while the doors and windows of houses were covered by bamboo blinds and rice-paper mats to shield the interiors from the high temperatures. What had Tichborne been thinking to arrange a meeting at such an impossible time! The only thing that made me smile was the wicked thought that our pursuers, whoever they might be, were being deep-fried right along with us.
    We passed through the wire fence bordering the French Concession and reached the international Bund within ten or fifteen minutes. It was then that we saw the shimmering waters of the filthy Huangpu, spoiling the incredible majesty of that grand avenue crowded with halfnaked Celestials and Europeans in shirtsleeves and cork pith helmets. The rickshaws came to a stop. The coolies set the poles down in front of an impressive marble staircase guarded by typically British doormen in red flannel livery and top hats bearing the Shanghai Club emblem. In this heat the club's nod to tradition seemed a bit cruel.
    Fernanda and I went up the stairs and into the luxurious entrance hall dominated by a bust of King George V. The cool air (nearly frozen compared to outside) smelled of loose tobacco. I took a lovely, deep breath of it and walked over to the concierge to ask for Mr. Tichborne's room number. He interrogated me tactfully, to which I replied pleasantly, showing him the book the Irishman had given me the day before. I don't know whether the concierge actually believed me or just pretended to, but in any event he advised the journalist that we had arrived and asked us to please take a seat in the leather armchairs nearby. Indeed, from what I could tell during the short wait for our host, there weren't any women there at all. Various shops and offices, including a barber's, opened up off both sides of the hall, and an exclusively male crowd wandered silently in and out, with pipes in mouths and newspapers under arms. All men, no women: so typical of misogynistic English clubs.
    The fat, bald Irishman suddenly appeared from behind a column and came to greet us. He was very polite to Fernanda, treating her with the respect afforded an adult woman. He then whispered to me that the girl couldn't stay on her own in the entrance hall and would thus have to accompany us, as if this were inconceivable and would ruin our meeting. I tilted my head in assent, letting on without further explanation that that was precisely my intention. A wide white marble staircase curved around behind the majestic iron elevator the three of us took up to the journalist's room. By the looks of it, Rémy's antiquarian friend Mr. Jiang was already waiting for us there.
    I had seen a good number of Celestials since my arrival in Shanghai. Not only was the French Concession full of them, but there were also the servants at the house and the clerks in Western clothing at M. Julliard's office. I had not encountered an authentic mandarin, a Chinese gentleman in old-style clothing, a shopkeeper I would have mistaken for an aristocrat had I seen him on the street. Mr. Jiang, who leaned on a light bamboo cane, was wearing a full-length