Free The Black Isle by Sandi Tan Page B

countryside, bursting with butterflies and olive trees, spread out along his arm. “You look lovely tonight.” I blushed and walked nimbly over to join him. He tilted his head at the dancer. “Don’t worry about her.”
    He pushed his steaming bowl of meat and rice, apparently untouched, toward me and handed me his fork with a flourish. I promptly forgot all my manners and started into the food. The rice was fluffy, the sauce tangy, the cubes of beef so pinkly tender they practically melted on my tongue. Even with my childish palate, trained on Ah Ying’s salt-lashed casseroles, I knew what I was tasting would be hard to surpass.
    “Beef Stroganoff,” he said. “The chef’s specialty. He cooked for the Russian imperial family during the old days. I can tell you like it.”
    He watched my unladylike gorging with his sad eyes, and I grew self-conscious.
    “I shouldn’t be stealing your food.” I pushed the plate back toward him, but the meal was already half gone.
    “Nonsense. There’s plenty more where this came from. It’s a pleasure to watch you eat. One of these days you should join my wife and me at the Metropole for tea. We’re there the last Sunday of every month, without fail. The Metropole’s famous for its high tea. You remind me a great deal of my wife, actually. Pei-Pei. That’s her name.”
    My cheeks prickled again. “Your wife’s Chinese?”
    “Very much so.”
    “Do you have children?”
    He shook his head, regretfully.
    “Why not?”
    “It’s difficult when I live in one place and my wife lives in another.”
    “Why don’t you stay with her on the Black Isle?”
    “There’s no place on the Black Isle for someone like me. You’ll see what I mean. It’s not like Shanghai over there. It’s a jungle. People are less open-minded.”
    “Then why doesn’t your wife live with you in Shanghai?”
    “Do you always ask this many questions, Pandora?”
    “Stop calling me Pandora.” I put down my fork.
    “Have you noticed something unusual, Pandora?” He smiled, pointing to his lips.
    I covered my mouth: we’d conducted our entire conversation in English.
    In the company of my good teacher, I had absorbed this new knowledge like a thirsty sponge. But here’s the truth. This was due less to talent than to empathy , and it would be much later before I’d come to understand—or rather, accept—the difference.
     
    Both Li and Father were seasick again, taking turns at the bucket out in the corridor. Between the two of them, the door creaked open and clanked shut all through the night. I was tempted to tell them about the rooms in first class, but I held my mouth shut.
     
    When I woke in the morning, Father and Li were gone. I instantly regretted my secrecy.
    “They’re in the Isolation Ward,” said an old widow who shared a cabin with her middle-aged daughter. “It’s at the tail end of the ship, down several very dark, very steep flights of stairs. My girl’s there, too. Best you wait here and keep me company. Come, come.” She handed me one of her knitting needles, which I was to hold still while she tied endless loops around the other. I flung it down and fled.
    The Isolation Ward? I had to find Odell.
    A crew member intercepted me on the promenade. A stocky Chinese sailor so tanned he looked almost Indian.
    “I have to meet my friend at the swimming pool,” I told him.
    “Rubbish, the swimming pool is closed.”
    “No, it’s not. That girl Rachel swims there every day.”
    The sailor’s lip quivered. “Rachel? You saw Rachel?”
    The sailor didn’t wait for me to answer. He grabbed the collar of my blouse and dragged me through a set of doors marked CREW ONLY and then down a long corridor rattling with noisy generators. The ship seemed to pitch more dramatically in that tight space. At the end of the way was a frosted glass door with the word ENGINEER painted in gold. It opened even before the sailor could knock. A lank, sinewy European in a crumpled, unbuttoned