Perdido Street Station - China Mieville [154]
The brothel quarter. The red-light zone.
It was late in the evening as David Serachin walked through the northern reaches of Spit Hearth. He might have been walking home to Skulkford, due west under the Sud Line and the skyrails, through Sheck, past the massive militia tower to Skulkford Green. It was a long but not implausible walk.
But when David passed under the arches of Spit Bazaar Station, he took advantage of the darkness to turn and gaze back the way he had come. The people behind him were only passers-by. He was not followed. He hesitated a moment, then emerged from beneath the railway lines, as a train whistled above and sent booms reverberating around the brick caverns.
David turned north, following the path of the railway line, into the outer reaches of the whoretown.
He dug his hands deep into his pockets and thrust his head down. This was his shame. He simmered in self-disgust.
At the outer reaches of the red-light zone the wares catered for orthodox tastes. There were some dollymops, streetwalkers poaching custom, but the freelancers that thronged elsewhere in New Crobuzon were the outsiders here. This was the borough for more languorous indulgence, under the roofs of the establishment houses. Peppered with little general stores which even here catered for everyday needs, the still-elegant buildings of this quarter were illuminated by gaslamps flaring behind the traditional red filters. In the doorways of some, young women in clinging bodices called softly to the foot-traffic. The streets here were less full than in the outside city, but they were hardly empty. The men here were mostly well dressed. This merchandise was not for the poor.
Some of the men kept their heads high, pugnaciously. Most walked as David did, carefully alone.
The sky was warm and dirty. The stars shimmered unclearly. In the air above the roofscape, there was a whispering and then a rush of wind as a pod passed by. It was a municipal irony that above the very centre of the fleshpits stretched a militia skyrail. On rare occasions the militia would raid the corrupt, sumptuous houses of the red-light zone. But for the most part, as long as payments were made and violence did not spill out of the rooms in which it had been paid for, the militia kept out.
The wafts of night air brought with them something unsettling, some brimming sense of unease. Something more profound than any usual anxiety.
In some of the houses, large windows were illuminated through soft, diffusing muslin. Women in shifts and tight nightgowns rubbed themselves lasciviously, or looked up at the passers-by through coy lashes. Here were also the xenian brothels, where drunken youths cheered each other on to rites of passage, fucking khepri or vodyanoi women or other more exotic breeds. Seeing these establishments, David thought of Isaac. He tried not to.
David did not stop. He did not take in the women around him. He plunged deeper.
He turned a corner into a row of lower, meaner houses. In the windows here were unsubtle hints as to the nature of the wares within. Whips. Cuffs. A girl of seven or eight in a baby’s crib, squalling and snotty.
David tracked on and on. The crowds thinned further, although David was never alone. The night air teemed with faint noises. Rooms full of conversation. Music, played well. Laughter. Cries of pain and the barks or howls of animals.
There was a tumbledown cul-de-sac near the heart of the sector, a little still place in the maze. David turned onto its cobbles with a faint shudder. There were men at the doors of these establishments. They stood, heavy and surly in cheap suits, vetting the miserable men that came to them.
David shuffled up to one of the doors. The massive bouncer stopped him, one hand impassive on his chest.
“Mrs. Tollmeck sent me,” muttered David. The man let him pass.
Inside, the lampshades were thick and dirty brown. The hall seemed glutinous with shit-coloured light. Behind