“I have lain awake all night, Neodo Marco, worrying over your situation—our several situations—and I came straight here without even taking time to break my fast, to tell you-”
“No!” I snapped. “I am long past being a little nephew boy, and you will do no telling to me. I also sat up all night, determining what I must do, though I have not yet determined exactly how I will do it. So, if you have any ideas, I shall be willing to hear them. But I will hear no telling of instructions or ultimatums.”
He immediately pleaded, “Adasio, adasio,” and raised his hands appeasingly, and let his shoulders slump as if he were enduring a lash. I was almost sorry to see him so quickly cowed by my strong rejoinder, so I said less harshly, “If you have not yet broken fast, yonder is a pot of cha still hot.”
“Thank you,” he said meekly, and sat down and poured a cup, and began again. “I came only to say, Marco—to suggest, that is—that you not embark on any drastic plan of action until I can talk again to the Wali Achmad.”
Since I had in fact no plan of action, drastic or otherwise, I only shrugged and sat down on the floor to continue sorting through my keepsakes. He went on:
“As I tried to tell you last night, I have already petitioned Achmad to consider a truce between him and you. Mind you, I hold no brief for the atrocities he has committed. But, as I pointed out to him, in the doing of those things, he has bereft you of supporting witnesses, so he need not fear your crying calumny against him. At the same time, as I also pointed out, he has sufficiently punished you for having angered him in the first place.” Mafio sipped at his cup of cha, then leaned down to see what I was doing. “Cazza beta! The relics of our journeys. I had forgotten some of those things. Arpad’s kamal. And there, a jar of the mumum shaving ointment. And that phial, is that not a memento of the charlatan Hakim Mimdad? And a pack of the zhi-pai playing cards. Ola, Marco, but you and I and Nico were once a carefree threesome of journeyers, were we not?” He sat back again. “So my argument is this. If Achmad has no reason to pursue his campaign against you, and you have no weapons against him, then a declaration of truce between you—”
“Would mean,” I said scornfully, “that nothing disrupts your cozy affair with your masterful lover. Dolce far niente. That is all you care about.”
“That is not true. And if necessary, I am prepared to prove my caring for—for all concerned. But even if you deplore that side result, there is much else to be said for a truce. No one gets hurt and all are benefited.”
“It does not much benefit the slain Mar-Janah and Buyantu and Lady Chao. Achmad slew them all, and all were innocent of any harm or wrong to him, and Mar-Janah was a friend of mine.”
“What would benefit the dead?” he cried. “Nothing you could do would bring them back alive!”
“I am still alive, and I must live with my conscience. You just now mentioned us three carefree journeyers, forgetting that for most of our journeys we were four. Nostril was one of us. And later, as Ali Babar, he was Mar-Janah’s devoted husband, and on my account he has lost her. Your conscience may be infinitely pliable, but I will not be able to look Ali in the eye again until I avenge Mar-Janah.”
“But how? Achmad is too powerful—”
“He is only a human being. He can die, too. I tell you honestly that I do not know how I shall do it, but I swear to you that I will kill the Wali Achmad-az-Fenaket.”
“You would die for doing it.”
“Then I die, as well.”
“And what of me? What of Nicolò? What of the Compagnia—?”
“If you suggest good business to me again—” I began, but I strangled on it.
“Look, Marco. Do only what I asked a moment ago. Do not so rashly commit yourself until I have talked again with Achmad. I shall go immediately and plead with him. He may offer a palliative to your anger. Something you would accept. A new wife for Ali, perhaps.”
“Gèsu,” I said, with the deepest disgust I had felt yet. “Go away, you creature. Go and crawl before him. Go and do whatever sordid things you do with him. Get him so delirious with love that he promises anything … .”
“I can do that!” he said eagerly. “You think you make only a cruel jest, but I can do that!”
“Enjoy the doing, then, for it will probably be the last time. I will see Achmad dead, and as soon as I can arrange it.”
“You really mean that, I think.”
“Yes! How can I make you understand? I care not what it costs me—or you—or the Compagnia or the Khanate or the Khan Kubilai himself. I shall seek only to shield my innocent father from the repercussions of my act, so I must do it before he returns. And I will. Achmad will die, and by my doing.”
He must have been at last convinced, for he only said dully, “There is nothing I can say to dissuade you? Nothing I can do?”
I shrugged again. “If you are going to him now, you could kill him yourself.”
“I love him.”
“Kill him lovingly.”
“I think I could not live, now, without him.”
“Then die with him. Must I say it to you straight—to you who were my uncle and companion and trusted ally? I say it then: the friend of my enemy is as much my enemy!”
I did not even see him leave the room, because Hui-sheng and the two maids came back just then, and I was briefly occupied in showing them where to stow her little stock of clothes and belongings. Then, during another little while, I managed totally to forget the evil Achmad and my pitifully decayed Uncle Mafìo and all the other cares that weighed upon me and all the hazards that waited for me beyond this place and this moment—for I was happily engaged in giving to Hui-sheng the deed to herself.
I motioned for her to sit down at a table, which had on it the brushes and arm rest and ink block that the Han use for writing. I unfolded the title paper and laid it before her. I wetted the block to make ink, and brushed some of that onto the engraved surface of my yin, then pressed that firmly on a clear space on the paper, and showed her the mark. She looked at it and then at me, her lovely eyes striving to comprehend what I meant by those actions. I pointed to her, to the mark on the paper, to myself, then made dismissing gestures—the paper is no longer mine, you are no longer mine—and thrust the paper at her.
A great light came into her face. She imitated my gestures of dismissal, and looked questioningly at me, and I nodded definitely. She held the paper, still gazing at me, and made as if to tear it up—though she did not—and I nodded even more definitely, to assure her: that is correct, the slave deed no longer exists, you are a free woman. Tears came into her eyes, and she stood up and let go the paper and let it flutter to the floor, and gave me one last questioning look: there is no mistake? I made a wide, sweeping motion to indicate: the world is yours, you are free to go. There ensued one frozen moment, during which I held my breath, and we simply stood and regarded each other, and it seemed an interminably long moment. All she had to do was gather up her belongings again and take her leave; I could not have prevented her. But then the frozen moment fractured. She made two gestures that I hoped I understood—putting one hand to her heart, the other to her lips, then extending both to me. I smiled uncertainly, and then I gave a happy laugh, for she threw her small self against me, and we were embracing as we had done the night before—not passionately or even amorously, but gladly.