"Ayeeyah, what does he mean, be like bats?" Ah Soh asked irritably. "Bats are silent but they squeak. Bats can fly in the dark but are blind during the light, are invisible at night, helpless by day. Their droppings are valuable but stink to Heaven. What does he mean, heya?"
"Eyes and ears and nostrils open, like a bat, and watch where you drop droppings!" Ah Tok cackled. "Ten thousand summers to Noble House Chen, without him we would not have known her Jade Gate's hung on my son's door!"
"How do we know it was him?" Ah Soh said with a robust belch. "How do we know it was the Master and not someone else?" She dropped her voice and looked around as though expecting alien ears and Ah Tok's chopsticks hesitated in midair.
"Someone like Long Pointed Nose, the same kind of foreign devil as she is, heya? Those two are as close as lice in a beggar's crotch. And didn't he sink the bottle, all the evidence in the sea, remember?"
The old Ah Tok was no longer laughing.
"Fang-pi!" she said, using the rare expletive. "That's what Illustrious Chen must have been cautioning us about! Bats weave as they fly and don't alight on the first branch and even then they hang upside down. He's telling us to find out which Yang possessed that Yin! Ayeeyah, yes, I agree, it's possible, possible Long Pointed Nose's made my son wear a green hat!"
"The Master cuckolded!" Ah Soh's eyes went to Heaven. "It's true Long Pointed Nose spent enough time in her room to..." She gasped. "Ayeeyah! Remember, weeks ago, when she sent me away and later screamed because she thought someone was climbing into her room from outside when it was only the wind banging the shutters? I remember now, I was quicker than a bat to her side but Long Pointed Nose was already there and both of them... now I think of it, both were whiter than a five-day corpse! Was that the time his Yang..."
"When was it, Young Sister? The day? When?"
"It was the day... the day after the Master had that native whore from the brothel across the Canal."
Both women began calculating, minds abacus-fast. Today was twelfth month, fifth day. "That would be, that would be tenth month, eighteenth or nineteenth day, Elder Sister."
"Not enough, perhaps not quite enough time, unless this Dark of the Moon is swallowed earlier." Absently Ah Tok sucked more of the fish head, then spat out the bones with conviction: "They must have lain together earlier. The whore had plenty of chances, heya?
She was always at that barbarian house, even before you both stayed there."
"You're right, you're right as usual, Elder Sister! We must inform Illustrious Chen at once."
"But why should she give her Jade Gate to such an ugly foreign devil when my son's panting over it?"
Ah Soh shrugged expansively.
"Barbarians! Who knows what they think? You should tell the Master!"
Weak with excitement, Ah Tok looked at her bar. Madeira, whisky, brandy. "We need strength!" She selected the whisky and poured two large tots. "To work! We must plan, plot and think how to get the whore and her paramour to reveal the truth!"
"Good, very good! Together we'll do it!"
"But no hint to my son, unwise for us to carry dirty tidings. Until we are sure." They clinked glasses. "By all gods great and small, no one is going to cuckold my son, make him wear the green hat and live a long and happy life!"
"Good evening, Father Leo," Angelique said politely, knelt and kissed his hand, finding it hard to contain her revulsion against his strong odor.
They were alone in the little church, the nave dimly lit, only a few candles burning, the dying sun coming through the small, poorly executed stained-glass window. There were few Catholics in the Settlement, the revenue miserly, even so the altar and crucifix were rich. Outside, in the sunset, Vargas waited to escort her back again.
"You wanted to see me?" she asked innocently, knowing she had missed Mass again on Sunday. Her pink bonnet had been chosen carefully, also the long Kashmir shawl over her most maidenly afternoon dress of somber silk.
"How well you look, Father."
"I'm glad to see you, senhorita, my child," he said with his heavy Portuguese accent. "You are not at Mass again."
"It's the vapors, Father. I'm still recovering from the disorder... Dr. Babcott advised rest," she replied, her mind on what she would wear for tonight's birthday banquet for the Russian Minister, and what she could do to entertain Malcolm during the evening. "I am sure by next week I will be better."
I'm glad, my young and not so feeble teller of lies, Leo thought, disgusted with the perfidy of humanity. It's ungodly to dance at night and kick up your heels and show your unclothed nether parts. "Never mind, I will confess you now."
Angelique could have yawned, he was so predictable. Meekly she followed him into the confessional, knelt and went through the motions, glad for the screen between them, parroting her litany, comforted with the pact she had made with the Virgin Mary, repeating their code fervently, as always, "... and Father, I forgot to ask the Blessed Mother for forgiveness in my prayers."
Her absolution was quick, a modest penance of a few Hail Marys and she felt the better for it.
She began to get up-- "Now, a private matter, my child. Two days ago Mr. Struan sent for me, privately, and asked me to marry you both."
She gasped, then smiled gloriously. "Oh Father, how marvelous!"
"Yes, my child, yes it is, "Please marry us as soon as possible," the young Senhor Struan said but it is difficult indeed." Night and day he had wrestled with the problem. An urgent letter had gone the same day to the Bishop of Macao, Catholic spiritual leader in Asia, begging for advice, equally urgently. "Very difficult for us."
"Why, Father?"
"Because he is not a Catholic an--"
"But he has agreed our children are to be brought up in the True Church, he promised."
"Yes, yes, my child, he has, he has, he told me the same but he is not of marrying age, not without permission, nor are you, but I wanted to tell you secretly that, even so, I have asked His Eminence for permission to conduct the ceremony for the greater Glory of God, even so--with or without your father's... approval. I hear your father, he is missing, somewhere in French Indo-China or Siam, or somewhere."
Particulars of her father's frauds and flight had raced around the Settlement but, in deference to her had been kept quiet, also from Struan. "If His Eminence agrees, I am sure Senhor Seratard, in loco parentis, he will agree, even so."
The tightness in her throat did not go away.
"How long will it take for His Eminence to reply, to approve?"
"By Christmas, around Christmas, before then, if he is in Macao and not travelling, visiting the Faithful in China, and if it is the will of God."
As usual he sat facing away from the screen, ear close to it for whispered privacy, but now he glanced through the mesh and could see her vaguely.
"The matter I like to discuss, privately, is the conversion of the Senhor."
Again she gasped, "He said he would convert?"
"No, no he has not yet seen the Light, that's what I want to talk about." Father Leo leaned closer to the screen, savoring her nearness, choked with a desire he knew to be unholy and Satan-sent, the same that, on his knees, daily and nightly he fought against--as, in equal torment, he had fought against for as long as he had been within the Church.
God give me strength, God forgive me, he thought, almost in tears, wanting to reach out and fondle the breasts and rest of her that was hidden by the screen and by her shawl and by her clothes and the wrath of God. "You must help, help him embrace the True Faith."
Angelique was as far from the screen as she could be. Painstakingly, she eased the curtains open to reduce the claustrophobia the boxlike structure gave her. Confessionals never used to be like this, she thought, shuddering. It's only since ... since that which never happened. "I will help, Father, I do, as much as I can," she said, her nervousness increasing, and again began to leave.
"Wait!"
The violence in the voice shocked her. "Father?"
"Please... wait, please wait, my child," the voice said nicely now, but the niceness was forced and this frightened her for it was no longer the voice of a priest and sacrosanct in a sanctified place, but of a stranger. "We must talk about this marriage, and his conversion, my child, and beware of evil influences, yes, we must, conversion is a must, a must as preparation for... for Eternity."
""Must," Father?" she muttered. "Were you about to say, "must as preparation for marriage"?"