The Year of Dangerous Loving

8

The next day, after an early breakfast, they went for a walk. It was the first time they had ventured outside their secluded hotel: but they would meet nobody he knew at this hour in this part of Macao and even if they did they would not know Olga – even if they recognized her, so fucking what? She was a night-club singer, that’s all. And if they didn’t believe that, fuck ’em, he was a free man!

It was a hot Sunday morning, the church bells pealing. They walked hand-in-hand along the old stone Praia Grande, under the trees, past the gracious old Leal Senado, the legislative council, past the governor’s residence. Out there land-reclamation barges were at work building big dykes to hold back the muddy River Pearl, to turn the bay into freshwater lakes with artificial islands where giant modern buildings would go up, hotels and shops and offices, all connected with the old shore by sweeping thoroughfares. Hargreave had difficulty understanding it: for centuries Macao had been a small, sleepy, faded Portuguese enclave on the China coast, thoroughly neglected by Lisbon; now, four years before the joint was to be handed back to China, in 1999, there was this frenetic burst of staggering investment that would transform the place into a mini-Hong Kong.

‘Has Lisbon suddenly acquired a guilty conscience?’

‘No,’ Olga said, ‘it is all local taxes from the casinos, it’s called the Infrastructure Programme, to make Macao survive after 1999.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘It is in the newspapers.’

‘You read the Portuguese newspaper too?’

‘I try. It is interesting to know what is going on. The same is happening in Hong Kong, not so?’

Yes, the same was happening in Hong Kong and Hargreave had difficulty understanding that too. One and a half years to go before the handover to the Comrades and Hong Kong businessmen and overseas investors were pouring billions into land reclamation all along the waterfronts to make more of the most expensive real estate in the world for more towering buildings: even the highly successful Hong Kong Hilton, in Central, was being pulled down to be replaced by another towering office block. And now the colonial government was building a massive new international airport on reclaimed land off Lantau Island, and when it was finished the old runway jutting out into the harbour would be sold as more real estate to be crammed with yet more skyscrapers; and all along the old flight path into Hong Kong the existing height restrictions would be repealed, old buildings would be torn down and replaced by yet more high-rise development. Lord, was there no end to the optimism and sang-froid?

‘It is the China fever,’ Olga said, ‘now that Communism is dead, China is going to go vroom. Imagine: one thousand million new customers for the world! Russia can be the same.’

‘But,’ Hargreave said, ‘just up the coast are Shanghai and Swatow and all the other China ports, and just up the River Pearl is Canton, a huge port – fantastic development is going on in all those places too. Shanghai is going to become the biggest industrial centre in China, not Hong Kong. A businessman could build in Shanghai for a fraction of the cost.’

‘It is because Hong Kong has the experience,’ Olga said sagely, ‘and British laws.’

Hargreave snorted. ‘It doesn’t take a Chinese long to learn anything; Shanghai will soon catch up on experience and I think a lot of Hong Kong investors will burn their fingers. And I wouldn’t bank on there being British law for very long – China will throw it out the window as soon as it suits them. And,’ he added, ‘I wouldn’t bank on Communism being so dead, either.’

‘Oh, it is dead, darling! Finished, kaput! Look at Russia. Capitalism has proved it is the only way to succeed.’

‘But it only takes a military coup to put Communism back on the throne and then everything’s ruined again. And China’s massive army is all the Party faithful. There was a coup against Gorbachev, and against Yeltsin. And what about this New Communist Party in Russia?’

‘No,’ Olga said, walking along with head lowered pensively, ‘the spirit is out of the bottle, the people will never accept Communism again.’

‘China put the genie back in the bottle very effectively at the Tiananmen Square massacre, didn’t they?’

Olga tapped her head. ‘“Genie”, that is the word, not “spirit”. Yes, but that was the political genie, not the money genie. A thousand million Chinese will not let the genie go back into the bottle with their money.’

‘Mao Tse-tung,’ Hargreave said, ‘and the Bolsheviks made a pretty good job of it. The guy behind the machine-gun is always right. And it doesn’t take much imagination to see them doing it in Statue Square, Hong Kong.’

Then they came around the corner of the Praia Grande and there, towering up thirty storeys high, dwarfing all the buildings around it, was the new steel and glass tower of the official Bank of China. ‘There, darling,’ Olga pointed, ‘is the reason they will not go back to Communism!’

Yes, it was reassuring, like the new Bank of China building in Hong Kong; it tended to show that the Chinese took commercial stability seriously now that Deng had proclaimed, ‘To become rich is glorious’ – but if Hargreave were a businessman he would wait and see before investing his millions. Olga said: ‘And have you seen all the factories just beyond the Barrier Gate?’

No, he hadn’t, but he’d heard about it – and he’d seen the same thing across the Hong Kong border, in the new Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in the Samchun Valley where a few years ago there had been only sleepy paddy fields. Now the valley was covered in factories and apartment blocks and businessmen from around the world were setting up industries there because land, building costs and labour were so cheap. Yet just over the border, in Hong Kong, only ten or twelve miles away as the crow flies, on the most expensive real estate in the world the same damn thing was happening. It didn’t make long-term sense. Hargreave was no businessman but it seemed to him that there had to be a levelling of the two sets of values, and surely Hong Kong’s had to go down?

Olga said: ‘And now let’s go to my old Macao, where I live; I love it.’

They walked hand-in-hand up the narrow, crowded streets, the grubby Chinese tenements on both sides, their signboards fighting each other up to the sky, the shops selling everything from silks and hi-fi gear down to lizards’ tails, through the smells of gutters and restaurants and spices and butchers and incense and smoke and urine, through the coolies and shopkeepers and urchins and mangy dogs and scrawny cats and the hammering and the yammering and the clattering of mah-jong, until they came to a tailor’s shop near the old Central Hotel. Olga pointed up at the top floor of the joyless tenement building opposite.

‘Those are my windows. It is old-fashioned but nice inside. I would take you in but my girlfriends are asleep now. I like it here because it is the old China, so much life everywhere. And I would like to show you my cats.’

‘Cats? How many have you got?’

‘About twenty, but they are not really mine, they live on the roof. Every day I feed them there and they are very grateful. I will show you another time, darling, when I cook you a nice Russian stew. But –’ she held up a finger – ‘I am learning Chinese cooking too; perhaps I must give you that, to impress you.’

‘I’m already impressed.’

‘Yes, but that is in bed – I mean in the kitchen.’

Hargreave grinned. ‘Do you like your flatmates, the girls?’

‘Oh yes, they are very nice. Yolanda is my good friend, she comes from Vladivostok, she spent all her life in the orphanage, since a baby – I was lucky. But she is so stupid, always falling in love with silly men.’ She grinned: ‘Not like me, who only falls in love with very important lawyers.’

She led him through the narrow, jostling, odoriferous streets, till they came to a squat, modern, white building with sheet-iron gates guarded by two lucky red flag-ensembles draped in yellow flowers. A small white sign on the wall read: Missionaries of Charity.

‘This is my favourite place. This is where the Sisters of Mother Teresa work.’ She looked at him. ‘And a few years ago Mother Teresa herself came here, and said it was her best mission in the world!’

Hargreave was taken aback by her enthusiasm. ‘So you’re really not an atheist?’

‘Yes, I am an atheist, that’s what I was taught at school, but Mother Teresa is wonderful because she is so kind – she won the Nobel Peace Prize! She gives her life to the poor people. Such sacrifice! So good. Here they look after anybody, food, clothes, bed, find a job. I always give money to Mother Teresa, and any old clothes the girls don’t want, even stockings and suspenders! Look.’ She burrowed her hand into her brassière and pulled out a hundred-pataca banknote. She marched through the open gates, up to the door, and slipped it in through the letterbox. ‘See? Even though I don’t believe in gods.’

‘None at all?’ Hargreave grinned.

Olga cupped her hands to her mouth and gave a whisper-shout at Mother Teresa: ‘That’s from both of us this week.’ She giggled and put her arm around him and then led him off down the street. ‘Do you?’ she asked.

‘Yes. One.’

‘The Christian one?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not the Buddhist one?’

‘No.’

‘Not at all?’

‘No.’

‘Not the littlest bit? Even the possibility? Such Christian arrogance, darling! So only you are right, all the stupid Orientals are wrong? What about Allah?’

Hargreave smiled: ‘God and Allah are the same god. Just different names given by different prophets.’

‘But only your prophet is right? Poor Mohammed and Buddha, they made a big fat mistake? So you all fight each other, to prove who is right, ever since the Romans. Ever since King Henry VIII chopped the head off his poor wife to make himself the highest priest of England! And now today you are still fighting the Arabs who say you are infidels. Really,’ she squeezed him, ‘you religious people surprise me. Such arrogance, darling!’

‘That’s what they taught you at school?’

‘It’s not true?’

‘So you reject all of it, because of its gruesome history?’

‘Pathetic history, darling! Shameful But …’ She stopped and pointed up at the sky as Chinese thronged past them: ‘See that up there? That is infinity! It goes on for ever. No end. With millions of worlds? With billions of millions of creatures. Who made all that?’ Her eyes widened. ‘It is so amazing to think about it that you must decide that somebody made it. And that is what men call God. Or Allah,’ she added. ‘Or Buddha.’

‘And who made God?’

‘Ah!’ She held up a finger. ‘That is the answer! Nobody made God – He was always there, that’s why He is God.’

Hargreave grinned: ‘But I thought you didn’t believe in God?’

‘Not the God you Christians and Jews and Arabs are always fighting each other about. You are so cruel to each other. Such bullies. How can a sensible Russian girl believe in that? But …’ She held her finger up at the sky again: ‘There is Somebody up there, I think.’ Then she wagged her finger under his nose. ‘So you be nice to Mother Teresa!’

They climbed the wide stone steps leading up to the ruin of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, only the beautiful façade remaining, towering up, with carvings and colonnades. ‘This was also the very first university in Asia,’ Olga informed him. ‘Did you know that? Started by the Jesuit missionaries nearly five hundred years ago.’

Hargreave didn’t know that. ‘I thought it was just a church.’

‘No. The Jesuits were very rich because they taxed all the ships that came to Macao to trade. They wanted money to convert the whole of China to Christianity. But then the Duke of Pombal took power in Portugal and banished all the Jesuits and took all their money, but when the soldiers came to this cathedral they found everything gone, all the gold and silver and silk, even the library. The Jesuits were sent to Goa in chains, but the treasure was never found. So where is it?’ She tapped her toe on the stone steps. ‘Under here. People say there are secret rooms under these steps leading to the harbour, the treasure is buried there. Exciting, huh?’ She added, ‘When China takes over they will probably dig all this up, to look for it. That would be terrible.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘I got books from the library. So interesting. There are some nice little museums here, I will take you one day. Have you been to the new University of Macao, on Taipa?’

‘No.’ Hargreave smiled. ‘Should I have?’

‘It is very important because now there will always be Western education in China. Like the University of Hong Kong. That’s good, huh, good for China, good for the rest of the world, it will stop China being so …’ She put her hands to the sides of her eyes, like blinkers. She added: ‘One day I would like to go to a university.’

‘And study what?’

‘There’s so many interesting things to learn.’

Oh, this lovely girl was no prostitute, not in her heart, nor in her head …

They stopped at a Chinese restaurant in the narrow crowded streets of the old quarter, where Portuguese wine was served. It was noisy and pungent with a multitude of cooking smells, all the Chinese talking loudly, young girls circulating with trays of dim sum, small plates of Chinese delicacies, and there were glass tanks of fish and crayfish and crabs with their claws bound. Olga sat with her back to them so she couldn’t ‘see their unhappiness’. She did not know that the restaurant also served snakes, puppies and monkeys – when Hargreave went to the toilet he saw them in their cages in the kitchen, but he didn’t tell her. They drank a bottle of vinho verde while they picked at a selection of dim sum as an aperitif before returning to the Bella Mar for lunch.

Olga said: ‘So you don’t know whether you will continue to work after 1997?’

Hargreave sighed; he was at a loss where to begin. ‘Do you understand what the Rule of Law means?’

She shook her head.

No, there was probably no such thing in Russia either. ‘The Rule of Law means that everybody is equal before the law, and the law always rules, not the politicians. It is the fundamental principle of the English legal system. The courts are not afraid of the politicians. But in China the Communist Party rules, the only law is what the Party wants, and that can change from week to week, day to day. And when China takes over in 1997 it will be the same in Hong Kong – despite the Joint Declaration which says that English law will continue to apply.’ He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t practise law like that, it’s against everything I believe in.’

‘So are the people in Hong Kong worried?’

‘Oh, the poor old average Chinese worker has no choice but to hope for the best – and pretend to be patriotic when China comes marching in. But thousands upon thousands of middle-class Chinese have emigrated to Canada and Australia and the US. And most of the British civil servants are worried as hell about whether China will pay their pensions, and there are very good reasons to think China will not, no matter what she promises – once they see these vast sums leaving every month to pay capitalist foreign devils who made a career of exploiting the holy soil of China, they’ll put a stop to the outflow, and there’ll be a lot of poor pensioners. Yes, they’re very worried. But the big business houses are staying because all they’re interested in is trade and most of their assets are safely offshore – they don’t care about democracy and the Rule of Law.’ He shook his head. ‘But they should – because Hong Kong is prosperous only because there is British law here to give them justice. Take that away and Hong Kong will be a dangerous place to do business.’

Olga said pensively, ‘I do not believe it. I look around and I see all the big business, all the new buildings, the big new Bank of China, and I do not believe China will eat the gooses who lay the golden eggs.’

Hargreave sighed.

‘Lord, they’ve already broken the Joint Declaration half a dozen times. Look, the Joint Declaration is a legally-binding international agreement between China and Britain, and it says, amongst other things, that when China takes over Hong Kong will be an autonomous region and that there will be democracy. So in 1985 Britain began to introduce democracy, and China immediately protested, before the ink was dry, and has been threatening us ever since, vowing to throw out our legislative councillors.’ He looked at her. ‘How’s that for breaking the Joint Declaration?’

‘But,’ Olga said, ‘it is understandable, Hong Kong never had democracy before, now Britain introduces it –’

‘How can it be understandable when China said that “only the flag will change”, that her policy was “One Country, Two Systems”, that there would be a “through-train” on which the civil servants and the legislative councillors would travel smoothly from being a British colony into the new era?’ He shook his head. ‘The only thing we can understand from her behaviour is that China simply does not understand the law because they think the Communist Party is the law and can do what it likes – that is how Communists think. They have never had democracy or human rights in China, so they simply do not understand the real world – that is all that’s understandable about them.’

‘But,’ Olga argued solemnly, ‘they will change because they want trade.’

‘But only on their lawless terms. Do you know that thirty-one foreign banks are presently trying to recover debts of six hundred million US dollars owed by China’s state-run companies? And they owe millions to numerous American companies. Like McDonald’s – the world’s biggest fast-food chain? They signed a twenty-year lease with China for a prime site in Tiananmen Square, and after a while China just evicted them.’ Hargreave frowned at her. ‘They’re simply not like us, Olga, they simply don’t feel that the everyday laws of contract are binding on them, let alone strange international treaties made with foreign devils about this strange thing called democracy … And,’ he held up a finger, ‘China will suffer dearly for it. What China needs is what Hong Kong has – the Rule of Law. Last year Fortune Magazine voted Hong Kong the best place in the world to do business in, better even than New York or London. Why? – because of our free trade, of course, but particularly because of our Rule of Law: the international business community knows they can rely on our courts. But that will go when China starts interfering – Hong Kong is going to go to the dogs.’

‘What does that mean, go to the dogs?’

‘Go into a decline. But that’s only part of the godawful story, Olga. The rest is even worse. Because what about human rights?’ He waved a hand. ‘China has agreed that our Bill of Rights will continue to apply, and they even wrote it into the Basic Law – but what does China now say? That will be thrown out along with our democratically-elected legislative council!’ He spread his hands: ‘Lord, how can anybody trust these guys on anything? And freedom of the press?’ He snorted. ‘Do you know that freedom of speech is actually enshrined in China’s constitution? Well, we all know what that means in China – life in jail, more likely the executioner’s bullet for speaking out against the Party. Tiananmen Square massacre, that’s what happens.’ He snorted again. ‘The Basic Law also says there will be freedom of the press – but what happens?’ He spread his hands again. ‘China’s propaganda chief has recently warned Hong Kong journalists to “be wise and bend with the wind”, and “to watch out”. And now China has banned television satellite dishes because she is terrified of her people learning what is going on in the rest of the world. Because information, general knowledge, is power, it empowers the people.’ He shook his head. ‘The press in China is just a propaganda machine, Olga, and it’ll be the same in Hong Kong after they take over. And that’ll be the death of our open, free-market culture that has made us so prosperous.’ He looked at her. ‘How can one do business with a country like that?’

Olga sighed. ‘But then I look at all the new business going on, the new skyscrapers going up –’

‘That’s called optimism, Olga. That’s called sang-froid, which has always been a characteristic of the China coast. That’s called dollar-signs in the eyes of businessmen who know that a thousand million customers are wonderful – the businessmen will roll with the dirty punches and smile as long as they make their dollars, they don’t care if democracy and human rights are trampled underfoot. Even though Hong Kong will go to the dogs they’ll get their money back before it does.’ He held up his hands. ‘Oh, there may be a sort of honeymoon period while China tries to find its feet, but after that the bamboo guillotine will come down. And chop the heads off anybody who disagrees with the Communist Party.’

Olga shook her head solemnly. ‘Communism is dead.’

‘Yes, and long live the Communist Party of China – where it is alive and well. Not necessarily as a Marxist economic philosophy any more, because it is a proven failure which even China can understand, but as a diehard, tyrannical regime that has been in power for fifty years and doesn’t intend to let go – like Russia did with such attendant chaos.’

Olga sighed. ‘Do you know Martin Lee, the big Chinese politician in Hong Kong? He says the same as you.’

Of course, everybody knew Martin Lee, but Hargreave was impressed with her general knowledge. ‘Martin Lee is a good friend of mine. Excellent man, and an excellent lawyer. Yes, he says the same as me – we must have democracy, so we can stand up to China and insist on the rule of law. Or rather, I say the same as him. I’m just a civil servant who can’t say anything publicly; he’s the courageous politician who is standing up to China as the leader of the United Democratic Party.’ He added: ‘He’s going to win the elections, but he’s going to lose his freedom in 1997.’

‘Will he get his head chopped off?’

Hargreave snorted. ‘Martin is probably too high-profile internationally for China to dare shoot him. But he’s a sitting duck for being thrown in jail as a subversive – along with Jake McAdam and the likes.’

‘And you, darling?’ Olga said anxiously. ‘What would they do to you?’

Hargreave sighed, weary of the question he and his fellow lawyers were asking themselves.

‘I’m not a politician; I’m just a government servant whose job is to administer justice. However, if the new government wants me to pervert justice, to bend the Rule of Law, to prosecute people who are innocent, or if new laws are made which violate the Joint Declaration or the Basic Law, or if the new powers-that-be insist I do not prosecute somebody who is guilty I will have to speak out, refuse to cooperate, I will have to set an example – and that will doubtless land me in jail, yes.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t want to practise law under conditions like that. So I want to quit in 1997, yes. But,’ he sighed, ‘I’ve got to think carefully about the financial aspects. Divorce is a costly business. So? At this moment I’m not sure.’

Olga grinned: ‘We’ll find out. Finish your wine and I’ll take you to my favourite fortune-teller!’

Hargreave didn’t go a whole bundle on fortune-tellers – he didn’t like messing with mumbo-jumbo and preferred not to know the future. Olga thought that was hilarious – ‘My fortune-teller is beautiful!’ Hargreave was reassured to find that the soothsayer was a little old Chinese man squatting on a corner and his paraphernalia consisted of a canary and a deck of little cards. Hargreave paid ten patacas and Olga squatted to observe the ritual closely. The man opened the cage door; out hopped the canary, picked a card out of the pack with its beak, presented it to the fortune-teller, was given a pinch of birdseed as a reward, and hopped back into his cage cheerfully. Olga was delighted. ‘Isn’t that clever!’