Eleven

Eleven

February 1927

The sun was out today, burning above the city as if it were a large diamond studded into the sky. It seemed most suitable, Juliette thought as she stepped out of the car, breathing in the crisp air. There were parts of Shanghai that she could not look at directly because it glimmered too harshly, so overwrought with the strength of its own extravagance that it could not be appreciated for any of it.

Particularly here, at the heart of the city. This was technically International Settlement territory, but the French Concession was only some streets over, and the overlap in jurisdiction was messy enough that Juliette never cared much about the border that existed along Avenue Edward VII. Neither did its inhabitants, so this was where they were starting their work in the French Concession: outside of it.

Juliette ducked into the shadow of a building, slinking around its exterior. Here lay all the fanciest hotels, so close in succession, and Juliette didn’t want to get trapped into conversation with any overeager foreign ladies out to experience the local culture. Quick as she could, she stepped into the alley and stopped, steeling herself.

He was wearing white again. She had never seen so much goddamn white on him.

“Alors, quelle surprise te voir ici.”

Roma turned at the sound of her voice, unamused by her false astonishment. Both his hands were in his trouser pockets, and it may have been Juliette’s imagination, but she swore one hand twitched like it was clutching a weapon.

“Where else would I have been waiting, Juliette?”

Juliette merely shrugged, having no energy to continue being a nuisance. It didn’t make her feel any better; nor did it improve Roma’s default scowl. When his hand came out of his pocket, she was almost surprised to find that it was a golden pocket watch he retrieved, flipping its cover to check the time.

Juliette was late. They had agreed to meet at noon behind the Grand Theatre because their destination was across the road at the Recreation Ground, where the foreign race club was. The race club was always at high capacity, but especially at these hours, when socialites and ministers threw bets like it was their full-time job.

“I was running errands,” Juliette said as Roma put the watch away.

Roma started off in the direction of the racecourse. “I didn’t ask.”

Ouch. Juliette physically flinched, a throbbing hot sensation starting in her heart. But she could handle it. What was a small bout of meanness? At least he wasn’t trying to shoot her.

“You don’t want to know what errands I was running?” Juliette pressed, following his brisk walk. “I offer you information on a platter and you do not even take it. I was checking the postmarks on the letters, Roma Montagov. Did you think to do that?”

Roma glanced over his shoulder momentarily, then turned back around as soon as Juliette had caught up at his side. “Why would I need to?”

“They could have been fake if the blackmailer hadn’t truly sent them out of the French Concession.”

“And were they?”

Juliette blinked. Roma had stopped suddenly, and it took her a second to realize it wasn’t because he was enraptured with their conversation. He was simply waiting to cross the road.

Roma waved for them to cross.

“No,” she finally answered when they were on the sidewalk again. From here, she could already hear the thundering of hooves. “They indeed came from various post offices across the Concession.”

What Juliette didn’t understand was why someone would go through the labor. It was harder to make stamps talk than people . . . Juliette could accept that. No one would be foolish enough to hire help for delivering the messages, because then Juliette could catch the help and torture a name out of them. But to use the postage system? Could they not have left letters around the city for any old gangster to pick up and bring to Lord Cai? It was as if they wanted Juliette to storm into the French Concession, given how obvious the postmarks were.

She didn’t say any of this aloud. Roma didn’t look like he cared.

“You’re giving this blackmailer too much credit,” he said. “They come from the French Concession because, as expected, it is someone around these parts of the city who took on Paul’s legacy.” A sigh. “So here we are.”

At once, Roma and Juliette lifted their heads, looking upon the race club’s central building. The clubhouse stood on the western side of the racetrack, spilling outward with its grandstand and climbing skyward with its ten-story tower. A collective roar sounded from the track to signal some race finishing, and activity inside the clubhouse rumbled with excitement, awaiting the next round of bets.

This was a different face of the city. Each time Juliette walked into a Settlement establishment, she left behind the parts that juggled crime and party in the same hand, and instead entered a world of pearls and etiquette. Of rules and dazzling games only maneuverable by the fluent. One wrong move, and those who did not belong were immediately ousted.

“I hate this place,” Roma whispered. His sudden admission would have taken Juliette by surprise if she, too, weren’t so simultaneously captivated by awe and revulsion—by the marble staircases and oak parquet flooring, by the betting hall within glimpse of the open doors, loud enough to compete with the grandstand cheering.

Roma, despite what his words were saying, could not look away from what he was seeing.

“Me too,” Juliette replied quietly.

Maybe one day, a history museum could stand where the clubhouse was instead, boxing within its walls the pain and beauty that somehow always existed at once in this city. But for now, today, it was a clubhouse, and Roma and Juliette needed to get to the third floor, where the members’ stand was.

“Ready?” Roma’s voice returned to normal, like the previous moment had been erased from memory. Rather reluctantly, he offered his arm.

Juliette took it before he could have second thoughts, wrapping her fingers around his sleeve. Her hands were gloved, but still her skin jumped upon contact.

“There were sightings yesterday. In the outskirts of the city where workers were striking. They said a monster was present.”

Roma cleared his throat. He shook his head like he didn’t want to discuss it, though monsters stalking their city were precisely why they were here. “Unless people are dying, I don’t care,” he muttered. “Civilians make up sightings all the time.”

Juliette dropped the topic. They had stepped inside the clubhouse, and the double takes started almost immediately. It would have been impossible to go entirely under the radar, not when Roma Montagov and Juliette Cai were wholly recognizable, but Juliette had thought at least there would be a delayed reaction. There was no delay at all. Frenchmen in suits and women twirling their pearls were positively craning their heads with outright curiosity.

“None of them are going to be helpful,” Roma said under his breath. “Keep moving.”

The onlookers thinned out as they climbed upward, passing a bowling game happening on the mezzanine level. The second floor rang loud with a billiards game clacking across the space, almost in tune with the hooves clamoring just outside.

On the third floor, there was a booth installed outside the closed double doors, standing sentry to the long lines of dark timber and glazed panels that made up the domineering entranceway. A fireplace roared close by, keeping the floor warm enough that an immediate sweat broke out under Juliette’s coat, prompting her to undo a few buttons until the fur hung open.

“Hello,” Juliette said, waiting for the woman behind the booth to look up. By her hair, she appeared to be American. “This is the members’ stand, yes?”

A collective outburst of laughter wafted from the doors, accompanied by the sound of glasses clinking, and Juliette immediately knew that it was. In there were all the well-to-dos and must-knows of the French Concession. In a city that teemed with people, someone had to be aware of something. All it took was to find the right people.

“Are you members?” the woman asked dryly, sparing the briefest glance up. Her accent came out clearly. American.

“No—”

“Grandstand for Chinese is outside.”

Juliette let go of Roma’s arm. He reached out as if to pull her back, but thought better of it at the last moment, his hand floating inanely in the air as Juliette walked forward, her heels clicking on the smooth flooring. She approached the booth, then slapped her two hands right onto it. Just as the woman was finally startled into looking up properly, Juliette leaned in.

“Say that again,” she said, “but actually look at my face this time.”

Juliette started to count to three in her head. One. Two—

“M-miss Cai,” the woman stammered. “I didn’t see you on our expected visitor list—”

“Stop talking.” Juliette pointed to the door. “Open it, would you?”

The woman’s already wide eyes flickered to the door and then to Roma, before widening even farther, at risk of popping right out. Some dark part of Juliette reveled in it, in the rush that surged through her veins each time her name was spoken with fear. Some darker part still was more rapt at the sight that she gave, looming while Roma waited at her side. They would rule this city one day, wouldn’t they? One half each, fists over empires. And here they stood, together.

The woman hurried to open the door. Juliette offered a smile that was nothing but bared teeth as she passed.

“You embarrassed her so deeply that she’ll be looking over her shoulder for the next three years in fear,” Roma remarked inside. He inspected a passing tray of drinks.

“It means little that I managed to embarrass her,” Juliette grumbled. “Every other Chinese person in Shanghai doesn’t have the same privilege.”

Roma picked up a drink, giving it a sip. For a moment, it almost seemed like he was going to say something more. But whatever it was, he clearly decided against it, because all that came out was “Let’s get to work.”

For that next hour, they mingled in and out of the crowds, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries. Foreigners who moved into this city long-term liked to call themselves Shanghailanders, and though that term gave Juliette such nausea she preferred to permanently block out its existence from her mind, it was the only acceptable one that she could think to use to describe every person in this room.

How dare they claim such a title. Juliette clutched her fists tight as she let a couple pass in front of her. How dare they label themselves the people of this city, as if they did not sail in with cannons and forced entry, as if they are not here now only because they come from those who lit the first fires.

But it was either the wretched Shanghailander or imperialist, and she doubted her father would be very happy if she went around the room addressing merchants and bankers as such. She simply had to swallow it. She had to laugh with one Shanghailander after the other in hopes that they had information to give when she casually mentioned the new deaths.

So far nothing had turned up. So far they were more interested in why Juliette and Roma were working together.

“I thought y’all didn’t get on,” one remarked. “I was warned that if I did business in this city, I oughta pick a side or get shanked.”

“Our fathers tasked us together,” Roma said. He flashed a quick grin, looking debonair enough that the foreigner visibly swooned—though she was old enough to be his mother. “We’re on a mission so vital that the White Flowers and Scarlet Gang must collaborate, even if it means placing . . . business aside for the meanwhile.”

Juliette wondered if Roma had practiced those words and the way he was to deliver them. He spoke like the perfect glimmering prodigy, because no one could hear the bitterness but her. All the foreigners took in was his easy beauty and smooth speech. Juliette listened to the words. To the resentment that they were tasked to this, for otherwise he would be far, far across the city.

She hoped the blackmailer would hear about this, or better yet, could see them right this moment. She hoped they would observe the cold cooperation and have terror strike their heart. Once the Scarlets and the White Flowers joined together, it was only a matter of time before their mutual enemy collapsed.

“Why, I don’t know if I should be offended that I have waited so long still without a greeting!”

Roma and Juliette both turned at the voice, coming from a short, booming man. He tipped his newsboy cap, and in return, Roma inclined his boater hat, looking the picture of sophistication in comparison to the man’s huffing, red face. It was an unfair competition. Juliette eyed the two women who accompanied the man and knew that they saw it too.

“Forgive us,” Juliette said. The man reached for her hand, and she let him take it to press a kiss to her gloved fingers. “If we have met before, you will need to remind me.”

Ever so faintly, the man’s grip tightened on her fingers. He let go in the next second, so it could have been played off as a mere slip of his grip, but Juliette knew that he had acknowledged her slight.

“Ah, we remain strangers, Miss Cai,” the man said. “Call me Robert Clifford.” His eyes flickered back and forth between Juliette and Roma before gesturing at the two women with him. “We were having a delightful conversation before our curiosity simply got the best of us. And I thought—well, why not ask? The member applications usually come through me, but I have not seen yours. So . . .” Robert Clifford lifted his arms and gestured all around the room, like he was reminding them where they presently stood. “When did they start letting gangsters into the Club?”

Ah—there it was.

Juliette smiled in response, biting down hard until her molars made a sound at the back of her mouth. The red-faced man’s tone was jovial, but there was a certain sneer in the word “gangsters”that made it clear he did not mean only that. He meant “Chinese” and “Russians.” He had much more nerve than the American outside. He thought he could look them head-on and walk away with a victory.

Juliette leaned in and plucked the handkerchief out of Robert Clifford’s pocket. She held it up to the light, inspecting the fabric quality.

She gestured for Roma to take a look, using the opportunity to turn away from the man and mouth, Is he British? The two women with him were French, if the Coco Chanel sportswear was any indication. But Juliette did not have the same eye for men’s fashion, and accents were hard to parse when people learned all the European languages as a sign of wealth.

Yes, Roma responded.

Juliette released an airy laugh, returning the handkerchief with a harsh shove into his pocket. She flicked Robert Clifford’s hat, hard enough that it almost came right off his head, then turned to the two women and said in French, “Mon Dieu, when did they start letting English newspaper boys into this city? Maman is calling him home for dinner.”

The women hooted in sudden laughter, and Robert frowned, not understanding what Juliette had said. His hands darted up to his hat, fixing it back in position. A single bead of sweat came down his face.

“All right, Juliette,” Roma cut in. It sounded like he was starting a scolding, but he had switched to French too, so she knew he was playing along. “You mustn’t expect too much of him. His newspaper runs must have tired him out. Poor soul might need a towel.”

That, at least, seemed to ring some comprehension in the man’s expression. Serviette. He quickly mopped his face again and caught on. It was too hot in the room. He was wearing a suit too expensive, its thick fabric suited for the cold winter outside.

“Please, excuse me for a moment,” he said tightly. Robert Clifford pivoted on his heel for the washroom.

“And I thought he would never leave,” one of the women remarked, visibly relaxing while she adjusted the belt on her wide-flared trousers. “All he does is yap—yap yap finances yap yap horses yap yap monsters.”

Roma and Juliette exchanged a look, the passing glance lasting an incredibly brief moment with only the blankest of expressions—but still, they knew how to read each other. Perhaps they were finally onto something.

Juliette extended a hand. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure . . . ?”

“Gisèle Fabron,” the woman in the trousers supplied, shaking firmly. “And my companion is Ernestine de Donadieu.”

“Enchanté,” Ernestine offered primly.

Roma and Juliette returned the introductions with poise and grace and flattery. Because these were the roles they had been raised to play. These were the games they knew how to win.

“Of course we know you,” Gisèle said. “Juliette. Lovely name. My parents almost named me so too.”

Juliette placed her hands to her chest, feigning amazement. “Oh, but a fortune that they did not when Gisèle is so beautiful!” As she spoke, she nudged her shoe out, stepping her heel down so it would graze Roma’s ankle.

Roma took the hint. He pretended to search through the members’ room. “Funny, has Robert Clifford left us permanently?”

Ernestine wrinkled her nose, smoothing her short hair with nonchalance. “He may have wandered out into the members’ stands. I suspect he placed some rather large bets while we were downstairs.”

“Is that so?” Roma replied. “Or perhaps he has roped another poor soul into a riveting discussion about monsters.”

The two women broke into chuckles again, and Juliette had to resist patting Roma on the shoulder to congratulate him on the fantastic segue.

“For shame!” Juliette said with mock admonishment. “Do you not hear that the city stirs awake once more?”

Roma pretended to pause and consider. “Indeed. But I hear it is not a monster this time. I hear it is a puppet master, controlling creatures who do his bidding.”

“Oh, bof.” Gisèle waved a flippant hand. “Is it not the same as before? Swindlers and raving con men, using the opportunity to sell their wares.”

Juliette tilted her head. By “swindlers,” Gisèle surely meant the Larkspur and his vaccine; she meant Paul Dexter, who had distributed saline solutions for profit even though he possessed the true cure. Only there was no Larkspur anymore hawking his wares on the streets. So who was she speaking about?

“Yes,” Juliette said, trying to hide her confusion. “They are quieter this time, I admit.”

“Quieter?” Ernestine repeated with some disbelief. “My, they have been cramming flyers under my door for the past week. Just this morning”—she patted around her pockets, and her eyes lit up when there was the sound of crunching—“ah, I thought I still had it. Ici.”

From her pocket, she retrieved a terribly thin flyer, half-transparent when it was held to the light. Roma took it first, his brow furrowed deeply, and Juliette hovered her chin over his shoulder, reading alongside him.

The French was riddled with errors. But the sentiment was clear enough.

The madness arrives again! Get vaccinated!

At the bottom of the flyer, there was an address, just like last time. Only now the address wasn’t even in the city. It was in Kunshan, which was a whole other city in a whole other province. Despite the railways making it a relatively short journey, to go so far from Shanghai was to leave its protective bubble and enter a whole new battleground of warlords and militias. Shanghai was its own unique mess, but out there, rulers and rule shifted at a moment’s notice.

No matter. It was better than nothing.

“May we keep this?” Juliette asked, flashing a grin.

The rest of their time at the clubhouse provided nothing of particular importance, and Roma suggested they leave before the afternoon turned dark. Juliette was still mulling over the flyer as they exited the racecourse ground, returning onto Nanjing Road. The city roared back to life around her, rumbling trams and honking cars replacing the rhythmic beating of hooves. Juliette almost felt herself relax.

Almost.

“Why advertise in French?” she mused aloud. “Why only advertise to the French? I have seen nothing of the sort anywhere else. It is rather selective to only slide such flyers beneath the doors of residential buildings.”

“Think it through,” Roma said roughly. Now that they were no longer playacting for the foreigners, he had returned to his coolness and detachment. “The blackmailer seeks resources from us, meaning if we fail, it is only our people who will suffer for it.” His gaze slid to her, then slid away in the same second, like a mere glimpse of eye contact was too nauseating. “But it is not as if the foreigners know this. It is two birds with one stone. Feed off foreign fear and take their money. Let the gangsters remain vulnerable so they may die when they are selected to die.”

Juliette thinned her lips. So it was indeed the Larkspur all over again. Only this one was smarter. Hardly any of the Chinese or Russians in the busiest parts of the city had the money for such vaccines anyway, so why waste the effort?

Roma muttered something beneath his breath, as if he had heard her thoughts.

“What?” Juliette prompted, startled.

“I said—” Roma stopped in his tracks. The sudden halt forced civilians walking behind him to jolt and go around with a slight glare cast back, only the glare morphed into fear when they recognized Roma and then astonishment when Juliette was sighted too. The two heirs ignored the goggling. They were used to it, even if the attention magnified tenfold now that they were together.

“—we always end up here, don’t we?” Roma waved the flyer that was still in his hands, crumpling the paper so roughly that it started to tear. “Chasing lead after lead and inevitably circling back to where we started. We will continue asking around the French Concession, and when all roads lead to this vaccine facility, we will go, only to be pushed right back into the Concession. I can see it already. How easy it would be if we could just cut right to the end.”

His eyes met hers, and this time he did not flinch away. In that moment, Juliette knew they were both sifting through the very same memories, through the events that had transpired months past. Roma was right. It felt like the exact same path. Zhang Gutai’s office. The address of the Larkspur’s facility. The testing of the vaccine. Mantua. Mantua.

Juliette blinked hard, trying to shake out of it, but the memories were gelled to her mind like glue.

“If it were that easy,” she said quietly, “it would not be us who needed to do it.”

She had thought that would perhaps earn her an affirmative response, but Roma remained stony. He merely looked away, then checked his pocket watch. “We resume tomorrow.”

And off he walked.

Juliette remained on the sidewalk for some time until she snapped out of her stupor. Before she could stop herself, she was chasing after him, pushing through the swaths of window-shoppers. Nanjing Road was eternally busy, and the cold did nothing to deter them. As Juliette exhaled in a hurry, her breath clouded all around her, blurring her vision. She almost lost sight of Roma before he turned into a smaller road, and Juliette hurried to follow, squeezing by a strolling couple.

“Roma,” she said. She finally caught up to him, yanking off one of her gloves and grabbing his wrist. “Roma!”

He whirled around, eyeing the hand she had clasped around his wrist like it was a live wire.

Juliette swallowed hard. “For what it’s worth . . . ,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Why should you be?” Roma replied, like the words had already been waiting on his tongue. “You returned the hurt I gave you, after all. We are the faces of two sides in a blood feud, so why not revel in the death and the misery—”

“Stop,” Juliette spat. She was shaking. Her whole body had started trembling without her noticing, and she didn’t know if it was anger toward Roma, or anger toward his accusation.

Roma made a noise of disbelief. “Why do you react like this?” he asked harshly. He scanned her up and down, at her barely contained outrage. “It was false to you. I mean nothing to you. Marshall meant nothing to you.”

This was a test. He was goading her. For as long as Roma was Roma, there would be a part of him that could not fully believe Juliette would betray him, and he was right, but he could not know. She could not be a foolish girl, and though she was, though that was exactly what she was and what she wanted to be, she needed to be something bigger. Everything that unfolded between the two of them was bigger than them, bigger than two children trying to fight a war with their bare hands.

Juliette smoothed her expression over, choked back the emotion that soured her throat to the point of pain.

“I understand if you want your revenge,” Juliette said. Her voice had leveled, sounding almost fatigued. “But do so after our city is safe. I am what this city made me. If we are to cooperate once more, you cannot hate me while we’re on a task. Our people will be the sacrifice of such carelessness.”

Do not do this to me, she wanted to say instead. I cannot stand seeing you like this. It will break me faster than the city ever could if it tried to cut us down together.

Roma yanked his wrist away. With everything and nothing hidden in his cold gaze, he only said, “I know,” and walked away. It was not forgiveness. It was far from it. But at least it wasn’t open, unadulterated hatred.

Juliette turned and started to move in the other direction, her ears faintly ringing. These past few months, she might have thought herself to be living in a dream if it weren’t for the heaviness that constantly dragged in her chest. She put her hand there now and imagined reaching in and tearing out whatever was weighing her down: the feeling of tenderness blossoming as physical flowers in her lungs, her relentless love curling in and out of her rib cage like climbing vines.

She could not succumb to it. She could not let it grow so thickly inside her that she knew of nothing else. She was a girl of stone, unfeeling—that was who she had always been.

Juliette scrubbed at her eyes. When her sight was clear again, Nanjing Road was half-swathed in the falling dark, its neon signs flickering to life and bathing her in red, red, red.

“These violent delights have violent ends,” Juliette whispered to herself. She tilted her head up to the clouds, to the light sea breeze blowing in from the Bund and stinging her nose with salt. “You have always known this.”