A-Splendid-Ruin(77)

The night grew cold; I drew my coat more closely about me. She wasn’t going to come. She’d used a pail instead. I should find a place to sleep among the ruins. But then, a shadow approached, a hurried walk I thought I recognized. I waited until I was certain, and then I stepped out. She started with a gasp that echoed in the space between us. I saw confusion in her eyes reflected in lamplight, and then recognition, and then . . . fear.

“No,” she whispered. “You cannot be here.”

“I need to speak to you.”

She shook her head. Again, she said, “You cannot be here.”

“Just a word—”

“You must go!”

My aunt’s words. The echo shook me, and turned my desperation into anger. “I can’t go! Don’t you understand? I’m tired of warnings and demands. I’ve risked a great deal to find you, Shin. I want the truth, for once, and I think you know it. I deserve to know it. Please. I need your help.”

I’d surprised her, I saw. She looked furtively about. “I cannot be gone long or they will wonder. Can you meet me tomorrow?”

I couldn’t hide my relief. “Wherever you say. Whenever you wish.”

“In the morning. The first thing. I am supposed to be in the relief lines, but they can be very long.”

I understood. They would not question her if she were gone for some time. “Where?”

“The Fairmont.” She put her hand on the latrine door—it seemed to glow in the darkness. But before I’d taken two steps, she cautioned, “Do not be seen. They cannot allow you to be dead, but they don’t wish you alive, either.”

I frowned. “What?”

Shin said, “Tomorrow morning. Be careful, Miss May.”

Now all I needed was a place to wait for morning. If I was to meet Shin at the Fairmont, why not there? In the darkness it loomed, an ominous shadow. I crept into a lower-story window when a cadet’s back was turned, and into the vestibule of the Fairmont Hotel. It smelled of plaster and wood and smoke, newness tainted by fire and fallen stone. There, hidden well away, and feeling strangely at peace, I slept.

When morning came, the daylight highlighted the worst of the damage, lath and plaster fallen from walls and ceilings, construction scaffolding broken and teetering. The hallway felt narrow and confining; I remembered the severed foot and my own burial with a dizzy panic, and hurried into the broader vestibule. Marble pillars gave the illusion of vastness, and one could imagine that it would be elegant when it was finished, the damage repaired, the exposed brick plastered over. It had held very well in the earthquake, but it was dark and shadowed and huge, and I wondered where Shin had thought to meet me, and decided that the vestibule was the most obvious place.

I sat on the unfinished stairs, staring at the brick wall, trying to ignore my stomach grumbling. It wasn’t long before I saw Shin’s familiar dark and shining hair.

She said again, by way of greeting, “You should not be here.”

“I needed to find you. You helped me before—”

“You don’t understand. It is impossible.”

“You know I didn’t kill my aunt. You know they’re stealing my money. You tried to warn me, and I wasn’t paying attention. But I need you now. I’m going to take my money back. I’m going to clear my name—”

“How?”

“We’ll go to the police. You’ll tell them what you know.”

She laughed. “You think the police will listen to me?”

“Why not? You know I was in the kitchen when she died. You’re my only witness.”

“Then you might as well plead guilty. It is the same thing.”

I was taken aback by her insistence. “I don’t understand.”

“Look at me.” She gestured, shortly, impatiently. “Look at what I am, Miss May. No one here believes a Chinaman. You will be putting yourself in your uncle’s hands once more. Is that what you wish? Better to be dead.”

I remembered now something Goldie had said about Chinese lies, about the police not trusting them. I had not questioned my cousin, but coming as it did now from Shin’s mouth, I found it ludicrous that I had so simply accepted that a whole race could be liars. And yet, Shin was right—I’d been naive to think she could save me. I had seen only that she was my ally. I’d been too blind to understand that because she was Chinese, it wouldn’t matter. Neither did I want to admit it now. I was too desperate; I’d pinned my hopes of clearing my name on her.

“But you know I didn’t kill my aunt.” I pulled the button from my pocket and held it out to her. “I found this in her hand. My uncle’s vest button.”

Shin glanced at it briefly. “Yes. They fought. I heard them.”

“You heard? Then we must go to the police—”

“The police will not help you! He knows the police! Why don’t you understand?” She quieted. “I am dead if we go to the police. He can’t afford for you to be dead, but you will be locked away. This time forever.”

“What do you mean, ‘he can’t afford for me to be dead’? You said that last night.”

“The asylum burned, along with the papers. There is no record of who was there and who was not.”

I had no idea why that was relevant. What did it matter if there was no record? The Sullivans knew I was there. “You’re speaking in riddles.”