He nodded. “Yes. I could run and jump and climb with these stones, easy as any man without them. But when I reached safety and had them taken off me… that first moment, I took one step and I thought I could fly! The barest movement made the world fall away from under me. It was like a dream, only for weeks I couldn’t take a step without soaring to the clouds. The war had started by then, and no one was paying much attention. As soon as I could walk, I went to Macao — I jumped from boat to boat, to tell you the truth, and when I couldn’t, I just jumped bouncing off water.”
“Nonsense.”
He put his long-fingered hand over his chest. “I swear to you, it is all true. I sailed for home on the first boat taking English families back.”
“This… ” I gulped one breath after another, my heart pounding. “But you make it sound as if it was natural. However, I am certain that no other person would succeed the way you did — they would’ve died in that well.”
He inclined his head, agreeing. “It allowed me to discover that I had such an ability — a confluence of an inborn talent and circumstance had brought it forth, do you understand? And either of them is nothing without the other — this is what is so extraordinary about it. Don’t you agree?”
“I do,” I said, and only then noticed a small burnt hole in his jacket, just below his right shoulder. The hole was almost invisible as it was obscured by a crust of dried blood. “My God, you’re injured.”
He followed my gaze, and probed the hole with his fingers, thoughtful and flinching. “Must have been that shot we heard. Who would be mad enough to shoot in such narrow confines? A ricochet is almost a certainty.”
“They did get you,” I pointed out. “Let me get my scissors and some thread — I can at least try to dig out the bullet and close the wound.”
“There’s no need.”
I stared at his visage, just a shade paler than usual. “Of course there is. You’re still mortal. Aren’t you?”
He grinned. “I assume so. Very well, you’ve made your case.”
I suspected he enjoyed being ministered to, as he took off his jacket and undid the collar of his shirt. His skin looked sallow, smeared with thick dry blood. The bullet entry stared at me like a solitary black eye, and I wished I had a more suitable tool than a pair of scissors. I probed the wound carefully, and felt a subtle scratch of metal under metal almost immediately. Some bone must’ve stopped it. I sighed with relief.
Jack closed his eyes and looked paler, but made no sound as I dipped the scissor tips into the wound, pushing them next to the bullet. I pivoted the scissors — easy as turning a key — and a stained black metal cylinder slipped out into my hand. One end was flattened where it had encountered Jack’s bone.
“That’s it,” I said. “You want stitches?”
He shook his head as he touched the wound and the single drop of blood that had squeezed out of it. “It seems pretty well cauterized, and I do heal well on my own. Thank you, and I promise to ask for the stitches if they are at any point necessary.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. I did not feel particularly useful, or helpful; I suddenly worried about Jack. The more I thought about how close he had come to being seriously wounded, the more I panicked. What if he were to be killed or gravely injured? As selfish as I felt when I thought that way, a part of me keened in a high, childlike voice, What would happen to me then?
Jack seemed pensive all day, quiet, and I did not think it was due to his injury. Rather it seemed as if he regretted opening up to me so much. I worked on my never-ending letter, which had acquired a worrisome similarity to a diary, especially once I realized I was unlikely to mail it from anywhere, be it Nizhniy Novgorod or Omsk or Beijing.
Jack read his booklets, only looking up at me when he thought I was not watching him. The fur traders played a game of cards, happy and angry exclamations alternated in an almost constant stream from their compartment. Ever since we had dispatched the English, in what I hoped would be a summarization of any future untoward encounters, the carriage belonged to us, as if the other passengers somehow got a wind of the events and worried of being thrown off the train as well. Even the conductor appeared infrequently, usually after dark, and only to offer woolen blankets or clean linens.
I folded my letter that had grown to seven pages in length, and went to refresh myself. The reverse corset was comfortable enough, but its weight and mere proximity to my skin induced almost fearful fits of sweating. The washroom in the end of the carriage was small, and boasted only a washbasin and a bucket of cold water the conductor refilled at every stop.
I wet a towel and loosened the collar of my jacket. Even though I shivered at the touch of cold water, I sighed with relief as it removed a layer of grime from my face and neck and chest. I was looking forward to the day when I would be able to take a proper bath. I hoped it would come before we reached Beijing. This cleaning myself with a rag soaked in cold water was starting to feel lacking.
After I felt sufficiently refreshed — or, at the very least, cold and shivering — I took the opportunity to affix a fresh mustache to my lip. I returned to my seat, to find Jack asleep with his head propped against the window. The fur traders, on the other hand, were wide awake — they had finished their card game and drank tea, talking loudly in their language. That made me sigh and think back to the social at the Crane Club. Poor, defiled Crane Club. I couldn’t help but glare at Jack a little, even though it wasn’t really his fault.
“Join us for tea, young hussar,” Kuan Yu called to me from across the aisle. “You sleep so soundly, you missed the last night’s stop. We bought fresh tea and local bread. It surely is better than stale sandwiches and cheese you get from the restaurant carriage.”
“Thank you,” I said, and crossed the aisle.
The compartment across from ours was thoroughly inhabited by the traders — it even smelled different from ours, of tea and sandalwood and some unfamiliar spices, of tanned leather and slightly wet dog. Ours smelled mostly of Jack’s cigars and pulpy reading material with a whiff of my ink and stationery. I relished the difference.
The three of us crowded on one bench, while the opposite one served as a sideboard: there was hot tea and round bread specked with poppy seeds, butter and raspberry preserves. Kuan Yu and Liu Zhi did not seem discouraged by the unfamiliar food — or, I supposed, they had traveled back and forth enough that food made no difference whatsoever. I hoped I wouldn’t look too provincial in the foreign land, where I would probably have to eat things that would be slightly confusing.
We drank our tea and ate in silence. “Do you live in Beijing?” I finally asked after my hunger had subsided and I did not have to converse with my mouth full.
Kuan Yu shrugged. “Sometimes. Here and there we go. I am originally from Hua County, in Guangdon Province.”
“He’s a Hakka,” Liu Zhi explained. “It is close to Canton.”
“I have heard of Canton and Hong Kong,” I said. “And Macao.”
“Hua is like that but different,” Kuan Yu said.
The word sounded familiar, and after turning it in my mind a little, I remembered I first heard it from Lee Bo, when he explained Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace to me. “Isn’t Hong Xiuquan also from there?” I asked. “The man who started the Heavenly Kingdom?”
The men traded a quick look. “Indeed,” Liu Zhi said. “How did you know?”
“I have friends who were in the university with me,” I said, momentarily forgetting my disguise and my story. In any case, there was no reason why a man couldn’t be a student before becoming a hussar. “A few of them talked about what was happening in China… before they left. St. Petersburg was not safe for them anymore.”