Free Shanghai by David Rotenberg Page A

least.
    â€œWhy bother seeing her at all?” It was his elegant eldest son, Ari, who thought of the woman as his mad older cousin.
    Because she’s my heart, Eliazar wanted to say but didn’t dare. Then he turned on his son. “How dare you interfere with my privacy?”
    â€œI had no choice, Father.”
    â€œAnd why exactly is that? Why are you here?”
    â€œThere’s news. News that couldn’t wait for your return to the office.”
    Vrassoon raised a single bushy eyebrow. His son signalled him to follow.
    Ten minutes later they were in the family’s luxurious carriage. The company’s two China hands sat across from the Vrassoons. The Patriarch demanded, “They’ve been authorized by the government to do what?”
    â€œTo blockade the Yangtze if they see fit, sir,” said the elder China hand, then added, “so that not a single ship can get into the river. And on the river itself they’ve been given permission to stop every boat—to take the goods and burn the vessels.”
    â€œThey’re fools, Father,” said Ari .
    Eliazar Vrassoon looked out the carriage window and thought about that. The men on the British Expeditionary Force were men in search of riches, not so different from himself. He reached out and flipped the latch. The window folded outward. The stink of London entered the carriage. Finally he asked, “Will there be hunger?”
    â€œSurely,” the younger China hand replied.
    â€œStarvation?” Vrassoon asked.
    â€œProbably.”
    The Patriarch tapped his fingers against the leather-upholstered side of the carriage. The rain was coming down in sheets. So there would be hunger. Much hunger. He thought about that, then about prayer and faith and the willingness to believe. He thought about the mad girl who had shared his bed, whose daughter was now in her fifth year with the farm family in Hereford. The wind shifted and the rain came at the carriage on a slant. He reached out and pulled the window back into place. The wind shifted again and the rain suddenly beat on the roof of the carriage so loudly that it was hard to hear anyone speak. Eliazar Vrassoon nodded. There will be hunger and starvation—and the world will change, he thought. So be it. Then he turned to the others in the carriage and said loudly, “Do you think it will ever stop raining?”
    The men were actually stunned by the question. Was the Patriarch of the Vrassoon family chatting about the weather? Did he expect them to respond?
    Before any of them could speak, Eliazar Vrassoon answered his own question. “Everything stops eventually, gentlemen, and something new arises. It has been and will be forever thus.”
    There was a palpable sense of relief in the carriage as it raced past the rain-soaked beggars and drunkards of East London on its way to the centre of the Vrassoon company’s seat of power, its offices on the Mall.

chapter ten
Hunger
    On the Yangtze River December 1841
    Richard moved silently away from Gough and Pottinger. He knew a great deal more about hunger than they did. He passed by the deck watch unchallenged. As the expedition’s translator, he had a temporary commission as a sub-lieutenant and pretty much free rein of the ship, so long as he stayed away from the crew quarters.
    Richard stood at the port rail mid-deck and watched the fires on the shore as the great ship headed upriver. He turned his face to the wind and breathed deeply. Then he thought of the people on either side of the great river who might well soon be hungry. Some of whom might, in fact, shortly begin the lengthy process of starving to death.
    â€œ Starving’s nothing special, boychick. It’s just not eating. ”
    Richard wasn’t surprised to hear his dead father’s voice. Lately, as he neared the completion of his plan, his deceased father’s words, spoken in his unique mix of old-fashioned formal Farsi and