The Flowers of War Read Online Free PDF Page B

talked, he realised in surprise that he and Yumo were conducting a calm, polite conversation.
    ‘Hah! Now we’re really going to become nuns!’ said Hongling with a laugh.
    The allusion was obvious and the women chuckled. There was an edge in their laughter and even Fabio, who knew little of matters between men and women, was aware theywere being lewd. ‘Quiet! I haven’t finished speaking,’ he commanded harshly, although part of the harshness was directed at himself for no longer being sufficiently stern with them.
    Yumo turned towards the women and quelled them with a glance.
    ‘How many meals do we get a day?’ asked Cardamom.
    ‘How many would you like, Miss?’ Fabio asked scornfully.
    ‘Well, we usually get four meals, with an extra one at night-time,’ Cardamom answered in all seriousness.
    ‘Something simple at night would be fine,’ Hongling hastily added, ‘a few snack dishes, a soup, a nice glass of wine …’ She knew Fabio was going to lose his temper. In fact, she thought he was very amusing when he was angry. In her experience, a fight between a man and a woman created instant intimacy and made everything more exciting.
    ‘Can we join the congregation?’ asked Nani.
    Hongling clapped her hands in joy. ‘So we’ve got someone here who wants to be baptised and made into a new person, have we? What she’s actually asking is how many glasses of red wine can a person have when they go to Mass. Don’t be taken in! She can drink a barrel of wine dry!’
    ‘Bitch!’ Nani swore at her but without any real anger.
    Yumo hastily attempted to distract Fabio from their bad language. Fixing her gaze on him again, she said, ‘Deacon Adornato, if it were not for your goodness in taking us in, we would all be facing calamity by now. We are deeply grateful that you are prepared to share a bowl of gruel with women like us in times of war. We would also like you to convey our thanks to the schoolgirls.’
    Fabio felt drawn into the depths of those great eyes. Just for those few moments, he forgot that this woman was a whore, and imagined that she was someone he had come across in a park, or by the Xuanhu Lake, or in the shade of the French plane trees on Zhongshan Avenue; someone obviously from a good background. Perhaps she overdid the dignity a little, but her refinement and gentleness were genuine, and her words seemed honest, even if her accent was sometimes difficult to understand.
    Fabio had planned to deal with the entire matter in a few brief sentences but he found himself leading Yumo round to the back of the church. Yumo was sharp-eyed and spotted the other women creeping after them. She stopped. ‘Be good girls and go back to the cellar now. Fabio asked me to go with him, not all of you.’
    Behind the church, there was a rectangular cistern built of carved white marble. A layer of hickory leaves, rotted to a rusty red, covered the bottom. Fabio pointed to the tea-coloured water which half filled the pond and said, ‘I just wanted you to see this. Since you arrived, the water level has gone right down. Could I ask you to tell them not to pilfer the remaining water for washing clothes or faces?’
    He felt ashamed of himself. Deep down he knew that he hadn’t needed to bring her here alone to admonish her. He had just wanted to spend more time in her company, to drown himself in her black eyes. In fact, her eyes seemed to present a more terrible danger to him than the war outside the church walls.
    ‘Of course, I’ll pass on your message, Father,’ Yumo said with a slight smile.
    Her smile terrified him. She had divined thoughts in his head that he had scarcely divined himself. But it was also comforting. It said: It doesn’t matter, you’re a man, and you’ve shown you’re made of flesh and blood.
    ‘If the water supply stays cut off, within three days we’ll die of thirst. We’ll be as dry as this grass,’ said Fabio, putting his foot on the lawn, which was withered and yellow