French Concession by Xiao Bai Read Free Book Online

her an answer in the true colonial spirit: “Who cares what they call it? Once we give it a name, it’s ours.”

    The Shanghai Paper Hunt Club’s race at Rubicon Creek

    Her husband, Baron Franz Pidol, would have approved of that answer. The Luxembourg United Steel Company’s chief representative in Shanghai, he spent most of his energies speculating on land, and he currently had his sights on a field near Rubicon Creek. “Even that old cripple, Sir Victor Sassoon, has his eyes on the creek,” said Franz.
    The Board of Works had been planning to build roads west of the concessions toward the creek. Their timing was perfect. After years of flooding along Lake T’ai’s river system, to which the creek belonged, all the fields were now barren.
    Here in Shanghai, Franz was in his element. Others might think the muggy nights and mosquitoes a nuisance, but all it seemed to do to Franz was prevent him from ever visiting Margot’s bedroom. It was unlikely that he never slept with anyone else. The talkative Mrs. Liddell told Margot that all the men took Chinese lovers. They all fell in love with the place, with the social scene, with smoking Luzon cigars and playing cards, and with the superior goods on offer at the brothel on Avenue Haig, where the women did not sit naked in the sitting room the way they did elsewhere. Subtlety was more to the taste of the worldly businessmen whose circle Franz was about to join.
    Margot was lonely. Until Franz declared that he was in love with Shanghai, Margot had been counting on going home when his three-year contract ended. Was it really so easy to fall in love with a place? Wasn’t it much easier to fall in love with a person, like Brenen?
    Brenen Blair had fallen in love with Margot the moment he saw her. Margot only had two friends in Shanghai, and apart from Therese, Brenen was the only person in whom she could confide. In the tearoom at Arnhold & Co., Brenen had suggested she buy parchment lamp shades bordered with dark gold, as she was looking to change the lamp shades in her bedroom. It was the first time they had met. Only much later would he have a chance to admire the lit lamp shades, when Franz had begun to travel inland frequently by train.
    Mrs. Liddell said that although Mr. Blair was young, he was a veterandiplomat, who had proved himself capable of handling tricky situations during postings to Australia and India. He was currently a political adviser to the Nanking government. As the go-between for the colonial British government and the Nanking government, he had the right to convey his views directly to the Foreign Office in London without going through the British consul in Shanghai, Mr. Ingram, or through the British temporary representative office in Beijing.
    Brenen suggested that Margot join the Shanghai Women’s Equestrian Club, and Franz supported the idea. The two of them accompanied her to the stables of the riding school on Mohawk Road, and picked out a gray mare flecked with white. Franz could not understand why Margot wanted to name the horse Dusty Answer. The odd name was actually Brenen’s idea. Franz had been cordial to Brenen until they had summered together in Mo-kan-shan, the mountains near Shanghai, where Franz had just bought a plot of land and built a summer resort. When they got back, he began assiduously to avoid all social occasions at which Mr. Blair might appear.
    Margot showed Therese into the club grounds. The grass had been freshly mowed. The Chinese servant at the club had been busy since dawn, carrying bamboo chairs out of storage and wiping them down, filling silver buckets with a cocktail made from rock sugar and gin. The grass was dotted with wildflowers that attracted bees and butterflies to buzz about your ankles. A water buffalo burned black by the sun lazed on the southern shore of Rubicon Creek. The club used to wait until the end of November to put on its official competition. By then, the