A Palace in Peking

By Margaret Zee

A Palace in Peking is a tender and passionate story of love, friendship, and war. David Clierce is a talented musician who has grown up in Peking, China, the son of an American diplomat who gave up diplomacy to become a reclusive scholar of Chinese literature. Daria Krasnova is the illegitimate daughter of a White Russian mother exiled from Russia during the Communist revolution. Their love story unfolds during a brief period of Chinas history when the ancient capital, Peking, was a relatively peaceful haven for adventuresome spirits from all corners of the earth.
The events and characters of the novel are fictional creations of the authors imagination, but it would hardly be accurate to say that any resemblance to real persons or incidents is purely accidental. The individuality and eccentricity of members of the multinational foreign community and the personalities of Chinese friends and acquaintances provided an inexhaustible source of inspiration.
In this novel, the author seeks to evoke a truly magical moment in history: that vanished world in which a fortunate few were privileged to dwell, all too briefly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483612164

Margaret Zee

“Hoo Lee Jing” records the final days of Legendary Old Peking— the enchanted city which, during early years of the twentieth century, became home to adventuresome and romantic souls of many nationalities. After the dislocations of World War II, many “old China hands” returned to China with high hopes, only to realize that the Peking they loved was disintegrating, physically and spiritually, and in a few more years would be gone forever.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Margaret Zee (pen name of Margaret Krenz St.Clair Keenan).

Library of Congress Control Number:   2013904956

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-4836-1215-7

             Softcover    978-1-4836-1214-0

             Ebook         978-1-4836-1216-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 6/14/2013

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

1.   A Haunted Palace

2.   Thief

3.   Tears

PART I

1.   Daria

2.   A Train Ride

3.   Arrival

4.   First Meetings

5.   At the Dinner Table

6.   First Impressions

7.   Morning

PART II

1.   The Peking American School

2.   Visitors

3.   City of Emperors

4.   A Dinner Party

PART III

1.   Discoveries

2.   Judgment

3.   De-an

4.   A New Year

PART IV

1.   A Summer Idyll

2.   Heloise

PART V

1.   A Fleeting Vision

2.   A Musical Evening

3.   Seduction

4.   Consequences

5.   Secrets

6.   A Parting

PART IV

1.   A Wedding

2.   Deadly Peril

3.   De-an’s Story

PART VII

1.   Escape

2.   Encounter

3.   At Sea

PART VIII

1.   Perplexities

2.   The Elusive Mr. Liu

3.   Siege

PART IX

1.   Homecoming

2.   Oasis

3.   Defeat

EPILOGUE

1.   Ten Years Later

2.   The Plan of Action

3.   A Send-off

Dedicated to

Dorothy St. Clair,

with me always

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

In publishing this novel, I must acknowledge my debt to Patty Perrin, who read and edited each chapter as I wrote. Herself a published writer for many years, Patty Perrin has given unstintingly of her time and energy—and friendship—to help numerous would-be writers. It has been a singular privilege to be a member of Patty Perrin’s writers’ group. I also want to thank the other members of the group, who encouraged me along the way by their interest in the characters and the goings-on in A Palace in Peking.

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A PALACE

IN

PEKING

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE: CHAPTER I

A HAUNTED PALACE

Every highway leads to Peking (Beijing).

—Chinese proverb

Y ang guizi ! (Foreign devil!) shouted a ragamuffin, standing in a long unpainted gateway as the foreigner’s rickshaw passed. Malcolm Merritt waved to him.

Riding at a leisurely pace through hutongs of Peking on a mild summer evening, Merritt was not impatient at his puller’s unrhythmic jog. He had chosen an old-fashioned rickshaw rather than one of the recently invented pedicabs or tricycle-rickshaws because he wanted to give the pathetic old puller a fare—which he meant to cap with ample cumshaw. But the chief reason was that he had begun to agree with longtime residents that the old-fashioned rickshaw was the pleasantest mode of transportation ever invented—for the rider, at any rate.

Naked little nut-brown boys played about open gateways. Bare-chested peddlers intoned their calls as they moved in measured steps, balancing heavy loads swinging from bamboo poles across their shoulders. Women were out shopping with their bottles to be filled with sesame oil or bowls for soy sauce. A matron, stepping mincingly on bound feet, shielded her eyes from the low sun with a palm leaf fan and, in her other hand, carried a handkerchief from which the bright green ends of onion stalks stuck out. Open shop fronts showed dim interiors where shopkeepers lolled and fanned themselves among red streamers of flypaper. Troughs of fresh vegetables glittered in the last rays of sunset. The various odors of the hutongs, whether fragrances of wagon cook pots or stenches of garbage mounds, no longer appalled him.

How Peking had gradually cast its spell over him, Malcolm Merritt could not explain. He had heard a lot about Peking during his stint at the U.S. Embassy in Chungking in 1946 during the final year of The War. Don’t judge Chinese cities by Chunking, he was told. Chunking looked as if it had been constructed overnight out of discarded packing cases and scraps from some vast junk heap. During the war years, in spite of daily bombings, it had grown and spread out of all proportion up- and downhill like a tenacious fungus. Peking is as beautiful as Chunking is ugly, the old China hands assured him.

His first impressions of the reinstated northern capital were disappointing. It was less crowded yet no less dirty than Chunking, though its dirtiness was more picturesque, more authentically Chinese and ancient. There were no acres of rubble, since the Japanese had had the restraint not to bomb legendary old Peking. However, Malcolm’s first sorties beyond the Legation Quarter were depressing. At the heart of the city, the Imperial Palace with its surrounding parks and lakes were in a dismal state of neglect and disrepair, and the rest of the city seemed to consist mostly of labyrinths of narrow, winding, muddy, often-malodorous alleys called hutongs.

Yet in time, he found himself taking pleasure in every ride through the hutongs. He eagerly took advantage of the opportunity when it was announced at the Chancery that someone had to ride out to the former residence of a family named Clierce to inventory the furnishings which had been left when the family was repatriated during the war.

They lived in part of an old palace out in the eastern section of the city, Griswold, the vice-consul, explained. If the Japs have been in there, there may be nothing left of the Clierces’ possessions. Get hold of the landlord, a fellow named Gu, who lives next door. See if Tingchai can get him on the phone for you. The old lady’s back in England now.

In England? Are the Clierces British?

She was British. Married an American, who used to be in the service, I believe, but that was many years ago. The son fought under Stilwell in Burma—was killed in ’45.

Of course it was the kind of chore they expected Merritt to undertake, since he was low man on the totem pole. But since it meant getting out on his own into the city, he accepted gladly.

Merritt was nothing but a file clerk, as a certain beautiful young woman had discovered a few days ago to her undisguised disgust. So much the worse for her, he thought, but he had been stung by the slight. He was annoyed with himself for feeling it, but it came on top of other slights he frequently encountered from people who questioned, more or less outspokenly, why a healthy-looking young man of twenty-six was not in uniform. Never would he explain that he had been rejected by the army because he was virtually blind without his glasses. He had long ago overcome the boyhood embarrassment caused by the nickname Owl Eyes. Most women found him attractive, and he no longer avoided looking at himself in mirrors.

The son of Senator Donald G. Merritt could easily have had an official post in the Foreign Service, but Malcolm didn’t want a career in the Foreign Service or the Department of State based on his father’s reputation; he wanted to see the world on his own terms, free of the demands of professional diplomatic protocol.

Having learned from the tingchai at the Chancery that Mr. Gu long time not in Beijing but Mr. Ah Ke-li maybe at home in evening, Merritt decided to go in person after office hours to visit Mr. Ah Ke-li, who was said to be in charge of Mr. Gu’s business affairs in his absence.

On the eastern edge of the city, dominated by the dark mass of the old Tartar Wall, his puller deposited him on the steps of a large roofed gate that had probably not been painted since before the war. Admitted by the gatekeeper, Merritt was conducted across spacious entrance courts to a formal reception room. Merritt had come with a letter in Chinese explaining his mission, but as he stood waiting for Mr. Ah Ke-li to appear, he began to wonder whether he was really up to this interview without an interpreter.

Good afternoon, Mr. Merritt. How do you do?

Merritt turned to meet his host, a Chinese gentleman in his prime.

I am Achilles Gu, at your service. My father is out of town, but I hope I can help you. The accent was Chinese but also curiously Bostonian. Though entirely Chinese in appearance and attire, Mr. Achilles Gu shook hands in a warm American manner and, when complimented on his English, admitted that he was a Harvard graduate.

After half an hour of cordial conversation over cups of jasmine tea and a plate of bean meal cakes, Mr. Gu told his guest that a servant would conduct him to the gate of the Clierces’ former residence, which was down the next hutong from the Gus’.

There are three houses, you see, used to be a palace—belonged to Prince Kong Jianxing in the time of Qing Dynasty. Now my father owns it for many years, but during the war, the Japanese occupied some parts. They don’t pay rent, of course. Achilles laughed mirthlessly. All is badly needing repairs, but that requires a lotta money, you know.

Did the Japanese occupy the Clierces’ house?

Some parts. But there are furnitures belonged to Mrs. Clierce stored in safe places.

The servant assigned to Malcolm left him standing before the gate of the Clierces’ former home while he ran farther down the hutong and around a corner. Silence fell on the deserted alley, enclosed on both sides by irregular walls. The only relief of that grayness of moldering brick and plaster all the length of the hutong was the sunset-tinted sky overhead and the once boldly red gate before which he waited and the minutely painted rafters of its roof at which he gazed admiringly. Footsteps sounded from the other side of the gate, bolts were drawn, one of the thick panels swung open, and there was Gu’s servant smiling and bowing. He had entered from the next alley by a side door.

Passing round the spirit screen inside, Malcolm paused to contemplate the front courtyard. Stunted Oriental pines of exotic shapes framed an arched entranceway to the central court. The melancholic mood of monotonous hutongs outside the walls was left behind. Here, Malcolm had a sense of contact with a private world that he was half-reluctant to invade. He lingered through deserted and neglected courtyards, followed silently by the servant. At last, feeling almost guilty as if he were breaking in, he entered the main building on the central court. The furnishings had been removed from all the chief rooms. Dust lay thick over the tiled floors, and the raftered ceilings echoed to every sound.

But where is the furniture?

All carry topside, carry back side, said his guide and led the way into a hall from which a flight of narrow stairs ascended. All the furniture that could be taken up the stairwell had been piled high in the single large room above. Malcolm was amazed to see that there were even two baby grand pianos up there. The room, though large, was crammed to the rafters, with the exception of one clear space left beside the windows, which overlooked the central court. Here, by itself, stood a small Chinese desk and stool as if prepared for someone to work at.

Looking down into the courtyard, Malcolm was saddened by this deserted house. The mildness of the evening air, the grace and beauty of these courts and buildings afforded such aesthetic pleasure that he was only gradually aware of the underlying oppression. He could rationalize his emotion as a sense of the passing of an era or the awareness of the transience of human affairs, but it was more than these—personal, as though this scene of a past unknown to him embodied some irreparable private loss of his own.

Leading him back down the stairs, the servant unlocked the door of one of the back rooms on the ground floor, where Merritt found, piled many rows deep, a whole library of books: English, French, German, Russian, and Chinese. There were sets of fine leather volumes and rare bindings and boxed silk-bound copies of Chinese classics. And the room beyond this, a long narrow hallway, pungently odorous of cedar and sandalwood, was a veritable treasure house. There was fine Ming furniture; there were magnificent porcelains, sets of dishes, and a large number of scrolls; and there were carved woods, bronzes, articles carved out of jades of various hues, and objects of silver, copper, and brass. And these were simply the household effects accumulated by an ordinary foreign family living in Peking. Evidently, these things had suffered no damage during the war, had never been noticed or disturbed. How the Japanese army of occupation had missed them was a wonder.

The task Malcolm Merritt had been assigned began to assume unanticipated dimensions. He was responsible for the safety of these possessions. If workers were brought in to crate them on the premises and learned that the house was unoccupied, how could they be expected to resist such temptation? Merritt came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea for him to move into the house himself and acquire at least one reliable servant so that there would be someone on hand at all times.

PROLOGUE: CHAPTER 2

THIEF

Faded ink is stronger than memory.

—Chinese proverb

T hat evening, Malcolm Merritt discussed his new assignment with the American woman who managed the boardinghouse where he was then living.

Mrs. Hortense Brick had operated her boardinghouse in Peking for some twenty-five years before the U.S. became embroiled in the Second World War, and though repatriated in ’42, she had returned to China at the earliest opportunity after the war was over. Her boardinghouse was a large square two-story building of red brick, ivy clad, looking as American as possible, and enclosed behind Chinese walls and an entrance gate.

Of course I’d prefer a Chinese house myself, Hortense explained, but American tourists like an American house. It’s good for business. American beds, American bathrooms, and American cooking. They even wanted American window blinds, those god-awful roller things. Had to import them.

Mrs. Brick had been a handsome young woman, but now, in her fifties, was self-indulgently frowsy, yet she had a quick bright eye and a quick shy smile and a tendency to explosive language, which Merritt found appealing. Her frank manner was American. It had been refined but not spoiled by many years—most of her adult life—spent in Europe and China.

Peking workmen have been packing treasures for foreigners for years and not stealing them—not that I ever heard of, she said. But of course, times have changed; the city is full of outsiders these days, so you may be right to worry. I’m sure Mr. Gu would let you stay in the house while you’re getting things packed.

The problem is to find someone I can rely on, Malcolm said.

Well, Mrs. Brick considered, maybe I could lend you Bao for a week or two. He’s managed my house for a quarter of a century. No question about his reliability.

Next day, the transfer of Merritt’s few possessions across town to the former palace of Prince Kong was easily accomplished. He was under the spell of that house, those leafy courtyards ringing with the summer trill of cicadas, those raftered rooms lit tenderly through the paper of lattice-framed windows. When he arrived that evening, he found that Bao, with the help of one of Gu’s servants, had prepared a room in the back court for him. They had furnished it with items selected from the piles of furniture upstairs, even to a luxurious Oriental carpet. However, it had not been possible to get the electricity turned on. Several kerosene lamps had been provided and a supply of candles.

When the servants had left, Merritt made a leisurely tour of inspection of the whole house, going with his guttering lamp from shadowy room to room and across breezy courts. He quite relished a certain element of fear that pursued his solitary footsteps, until having unlocked the door to those back rooms containing the books and art treasures, he was overcome by real alarm. The room was not as he had left it the previous evening. Piles of books had been shifted about, boxes of papers had been dragged over toward the windows and their contents heaped on the floor. A photograph album lay open. Papers fluttered across the tiles in the wind from the open door. Someone had also visited the next room and had made a path through stacks of china, vases, and cartons of silverware. Whoever had been there had been selective and had made directly for specific items.

Merritt knew that somewhere, a second gate opened from the Clierces’ courtyards into a nearby alley, but he had neglected to inquire where that door was. The thief might have used that door to come and leave—if he had left. In fact, he might still be in the house. Determined to remain calm, Malcolm placed his lamp on a box and locked the door of the book room, locking himself in. Then he crawled about the floor picking up the flyaway papers and began repacking the boxes. It seemed strange that a thief, presumably Chinese, should hunt through boxes of correspondence, English and French newspaper clippings, and photo albums. Then the idea crossed his mind that this might not be an ordinary theft. Was it possible that he had inadvertently become involved in some sort of political intrigue? The city at this period, though externally lethargic, was seething with factions engaged in secret international negotiations, espionage and counterespionage. Was it possible that old Mrs. Clierce’s private papers contained anything of value to a political spy? Outlandish! And yet…

Malcolm cast an eye over some of the papers he was handling, which appeared to be ordinary personal and business letters. He was struck, though, by the fact that this correspondence was all addressed, not to Mrs. Clierce, but to her son, David. What sort of man had he been? He might have been engaged in activities that would explain why someone wanted to search through his papers. However, Malcolm became convinced of the futility of hunting for clues to answer those questions. The best he could do, he thought, was to try to prevent any further thievery by remaining in this room for the rest of the night.

Mrs. Brick had provided him with a thermos of coffee for the morning. He returned across the back court to the room that had been prepared for him and got the thermos and a couple of blankets to make himself comfortable among the book boxes. The night in this far corner of the city was quiet even at such an early hour, with tranquility hard to associate with fear. From far across the rooftops, the shrill sobbing of a huqin, the Chinese two-stringed violin, floated on the air, modified by distance. Malcolm paused to admire the jagged spreading pines, their needles ashimmer in the moonlight.

The thermos and pillow and blankets made a clumsy load to carry in addition to the lamp. Awkwardly laden on his way back across the court, Malcolm thought he heard a door closed somewhere toward the front of the house. He carried his load into the book room and took up the lamp again to search for the cause of the sound. Why had he not thought to provide himself with a revolver?

As he retraced his earlier route through empty rooms, angular shapes pursued him along the walls. The rays of his lamp glowed on carved woods and danced in counterpoint of light and shadows among the rafters. The moving light, shining through a screen composed of panels of open carving, cast its pattern of bamboos across an adjacent wall and set off a flight of the carved heron through that shadowy grove. This house was haunted—but not by gloomy ghosts. The movement of light and shadows, in cadence with his footfall on dusty tiles, called back to life a rhythm, a soundless music, a gaiety that echoed the happy existence of a time past.

All was at peace. Malcolm walked out to the front court. There was the servants’ court with all its separate rooms; those he was reluctant to explore beyond ascertaining that all was silent and dark in that region.

Convinced that the thief was no longer on the premises, Malcolm returned to the back court, when, expecting a step that wasn’t there, he stumbled, and at the same moment a heavy body hurtled against him out of the dark and knocked him down. His lamp was smashed, the flame snuffed out. His assailant was a large black dog. Malcolm sat up and immediately searched for his glasses, which, luckily, had not been broken. He strained to see whether some other figure was waiting for him in the dark, but the body of the dog blocked his view.

Get away, dog! Suppressing his fears, Malcolm assumed what he hoped was a firm but friendly tone. Get along with you! The dog’s response to a shove was to give him a lick on the ear.

Getting to his feet by degrees among the broken glass and spilt kerosene, Malcolm could see no sign of the dog’s owner. It was a mongrel, well-built but underfed and so gaunt that Malcolm wished he could offer it a meal. It followed him with wistful eyes as if in hope of a handout, but it had a gentle manner. It was no ordinary Chinese wonk, Malcolm thought, no stray off the street.

Come along, he called as he recrossed the court to the storage rooms. While he settled himself again, spreading a blanket on the floor beside a new lamp, his companion examined the piles of books, sniffed and whined and pawed at some of the boxes.

Clierce’s dog! Malcolm guessed. You poor old fellow, he said, stroking the animal’s head. What have you been doing all these years that your master’s been gone? The dog laid its muzzle sadly on Malcolm’s knee. Where did you come from tonight? Who brought you here?

Malcolm wondered whether in one of the photo albums there would be a picture to confirm his conjecture that the dog had belonged to David Clierce. His curiosity about the family was aroused as he scanned the photos, labeled in a neat, artistic hand. Sure enough, there was the same dog, robust and sleekly groomed, standing beside a lean, blond young man, no doubt its master. Under the photo was a single Chinese character. Malcolm had noticed a Chinese-English dictionary among the books. He knew how to hunt down a character by its radical, so learned the name of his new acquaintance: Lang, pronounced Lahng, meaning wolf. Now he spoke to the animal by name and stroked the shaggy coat as he leafed through the album, recognizing Mrs. Clierce and her son, both as boy and as man. Other faces too began to seem familiar, and scenes of old Peking, courtyards, streets, temples… With a start, Malcolm realized that he was dozing.

Had he heard or only dreamed a sound of breathing, a human sound—panting, breathing—laughter? Lahng lay still but awake on the blanket by his side, watching him wistfully.

What was that, Lahng? Who’s there?

Though the dog raised his head with perked ears, he soon put it down again between his forepaws and let his eyes close.

Well, sleep, old boy. But I won’t. Malcolm raised himself to an upright posture and refilled his cup with coffee. He was tired, though, and beginning not to care whether there was a thief in the house or not. He drank the coffee and aimlessly leafed through a few books, pausing over a volume of Chinese poetry translated by Arthur Waley.

Immeasurable pain:

My dreaming soul last night was king again;

As in past days

I wandered through the Palace of Delight,

And in my dream

Down grassy garden ways

Glided my chariot, smoother than a summer stream.

There was moonlight,

The trees were blooming,

And a faint wind softened the air of night,

For it was Spring.

In one box, there were notebooks filled with a small script like that in the albums. On opening one of these, instead of scholarly notes, Malcolm found it to be full of writing in no language that he could recognize. The alphabet was Roman, but what language in the Roman alphabet could be so odd? Was this a foreign language, or was it a code! An entire notebook written in code! Was this the prize the thief was seeking? A closer examination led Malcolm to believe that the code was not particularly sophisticated. He set out sheets of paper and began to experiment with combinations of letters. At first he worked purposefully, but before long, he had to fight the sluggishness of his mind. More coffee only made him tremble and break out in cold sweat.

Among the proliferating sheets on which he scribbled and crossed out, in the smoky lamp light, half-sitting, half-sprawling with the coded volume on his knees and a cup of coffee perched on a box beside him, he fell asleep.

Now he heard laughter plainly and saw the face of a girl. It was the only clear image in a murky and hectic dream from which he eventually wrenched himself as if from heavy bonds, waking, damp with sweat, half-sick from the smell of kerosene, and so disoriented that it was a while before he remembered where he was. Then he looked for the dog and saw that it was gone and that the notebook of code and all the papers he had covered with his efforts to decode it were also gone. The wick of the oil lamp burned fitfully inside a blackened chimney, revealing to him that he had been robbed.

PROLOGUE: CHAPTER 3

TEARS

Alas that the feasts and frolics of old times

Have withered and vanished, bringing us to this.

When shall we meet and drink a cup of wine

And laughing, gaze into each other’s eyes?

—Bo Ju-Yi, Separation

(772–846 CE)

W hat was the use of his vigil, Malcolm Merritt asked himself. Cramped and leaden in his limbs, half-sick as if he had been drugged, he could only think of sleep, nothing else seemed important. Since his presence in this room had proved no deterrent to the robber and the locked door no barrier, he might as well retire to the comfortable bed prepared for him. He would lock himself in the bedroom. Whoever had robbed him evidently had no intention of doing him physical harm. Presumably, the thief now had what he wanted and might be expected to let his victim sleep. Malcolm turned up the wick of the lamp and collected his bedding from the floor. But by the time he had crossed the court to the opposite bedroom, he was refreshed by the night air and fully awake. So having cleaned the chimney of his lamp, he took it and set out once more to search the house.

His third excursion was completed with as little reward as the