The Luminaries

‘Where’s the pistol, Joh

‘Where’s the pistol?’

‘Check in his waistband.’

There were hands on his body, patting and punching. Somebody aimed a kick at his ribs and he gasped.

‘Stashed it, most likely.’

‘What’s that you’ve got? Coolie papers?’

His indenture was wrenched from his hand, sca

‘Now what?’

‘Now what have you got to say for yourself, Joh

‘Ah Quee,’ said Ah Quee, managing to speak at last.

‘Got a tongue in his head, does he?’

‘You’ll speak in English if you speak at all.’

Another kick in the ribs. Ah Quee gave a grunt of pain and doubled up.

‘He’s not the right one,’ said one of his attackers.

‘What’s the difference?’ responded the other. ‘He’s still a Chinaman. He still stinks.’

‘He doesn’t have a pistol,’ the first man pointed out.

‘He’ll give us Sook. They’re all in thick.’

Ah Quee was kicked again, in the buttocks this time; the toe of the man’s boot caught his tailbone and shot a jolt of pain up his spine to his jaw.

‘You know Joh

‘You know Joh

‘You seen him?’

‘We want to talk to Joh

Ah Quee grunted. He attempted to raise himself up onto his hands, and fell back.

‘He’s not going to spill,’ observed the first man.

‘Here. Move away a bit—’

The second man danced away on light feet and then ran at Ah Quee like a kicker hoping to make a conversion. Ah Quee felt him coming at the last moment, and rolled fast towards him, to cushion the blow. The pain in his ribs was excruciating. He could only breathe with the topmost part of his lung. The men were laughing now. Their voices had receded into a throbbing haze of sound.

Then a voice thundered out over the street:

‘You’ve got the wrong man, my friends.’

The attackers turned. Standing in the open doorway of the Weld-street coffee house, his arms folded across his chest, was the magnate Dick Ma

‘We’re under instructions to apprehend a Chinaman with the name of Joh

‘That man’s name is Joh

‘We didn’t know that, did we?’ said the second man, his hands stealing into his pockets also.

‘Instructions from the gaoler,’ said the first man.

‘The chink called Joh

‘He’s got a pistol.’

‘Armed and dangerous.’

‘Well, you’ve got the wrong man,’ said Ma

Ma

‘Didn’t mean any trouble,’ the first man muttered. ‘Had to make

‘Yellow-lover,’ muttered the other, but quietly, so that Ma

Ma

‘Thank you,’ he said, when he could breathe at last.

Ma

‘Don’t know,’ said Ah Quee.

‘Where is he?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Have you seen him? Anywhere at all?’

Ah Quee had not seen Ah Sook since the night of the widow’s séance, one month prior: late that night he had returned from the Wayfarer’s Fortune to find Ah Sook packing his few belongings and vanishing, with a grim efficiency, into the rustle of the night. ‘No,’ he said.

Ma

He held out his hand for the certificate. The document was brief, and had been written without consultation with Ah Quee: it provided his ‘apparent age’ instead of his actual age; the origin of the ship he had arrived on, rather than his actual birthplace in Canton; and a brief list of his attributes as a worker. It was heralded with the numeral five, indicating that the length of his indenture was five years, and had been stamped with the Company seal. Ma

‘Can’t get a bit of luck, can you?’ Ma

‘You,’ said Ah Quee, massaging his ribs.

‘Together again,’ said Ma

‘Unlucky,’ said Ah Quee.

‘Unlucky for you or unlucky for me?’

Ah Quee did not reply to this, having not understood the question, and all of a sudden Ma

‘Very good,’ said Ah Quee.

Ma

‘Very good,’ said Ah Quee again.

Ma

‘Not a duffer?’ said Ah Quee, slyly.

‘Not this one,’ said Ma

Ah Quee nodded.

‘Get yourself back to Kaniere,’ said Ma

VENUS IN PISCES

In which the chaplain loses his temper, and the widow loses a fight.

‘But who is this?’ said Lydia Wells. ‘A man of God?’

She stood in the doorway, half-smiling, plucking at each of her fingertips in turn, to ease off her gloves; A