Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [74]
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