And it will have this city dance on its strings.
Four
Word of the attack spread through the city so quickly that by morning it was on the lips of every servant in the house. They murmured to one another while they dusted the living room, not daring to discuss White Flower casualties with any sense of pity, but moving the volume control on the radio as high as it would go, captivated by the reports coming through.
All morning, everyone waited for the inevitable, waited to hear about rising numbers. But it didn’t come. The White Flowers of the Podsolnukh had all dropped dead like this was merely the work of an assassin, not a monster bearing contagion.
Juliette ran her blade over the flat of the bowl again. She was sharpening her knives because they were as blunt as a well-fed beast, each metallic strike echoing through the house. No one seemed particularly bothered; Rosalind was sitting in the living room, blowing on the nib of a pen while she leafed through the giant tome of a French-to-English dictionary on the table.
“I’m not disturbing you, am I?” Juliette called over.
Her cousin glanced up briefly. “With your loud blade-whacking? Why, Juliette, who could possibly be disturbed?”
Juliette pretended to scowl. One of her great-aunts wandered in from the hallway at that moment, hovering between the kitchen and the living room, catching sight of Juliette just as she struck the bowl again. When Juliette switched quickly to a grin, the aunt only eyed Juliette with absolute apprehension before sidling into the living room and hurrying away.
“Now look what you did,” Rosalind remarked, arching a brow. The aunt’s footsteps faded up the staircase. “Your knives are already too sharp.”
“You take that back.” Juliette set her weapons down. “There is no such thing as too sharp.”
Rosalind rolled her eyes but didn’t say more, opting to resume her task. Curious now, Juliette turned the bowl right side up and walked over, peering at what Rosalind was writing.
Stock Report on Commercial and Economic Conditions in Shanghai Following Anti-British Boycott of 1925
“For your father?” Juliette asked.
Rosalind made an affirmative noise, her finger scanning down the page of the dictionary in front of her. Mr. Lang was a businessman located in the central city, delegated to handle the smaller Scarlet merchant trade that wasn’t important enough for Lord and Lady Cai but still important enough to keep within the family. For the last few years, he had quietly done his job, to the point where Juliette would downright forget Rosalind and Kathleen still had a father until he showed up to a family dinner as a reminder. It wasn’t as though Rosalind and Kathleen interacted with him often either, given their residence at the Cai house, and as far as Juliette knew, her two cousins didn’t want to reside with their grouchy father.
But he was still their father. And about a week ago, when he had proposed taking them out of the city to move into the countryside instead, Rosalind and Kathleen had hated the idea immediately.
“I’m trying to get as much of his affairs in order as possible,” Rosalind explained absently, flipping to the next page of the dictionary. “He’s using the excuse of politics to get out, but I also think he is sick of work. I will not be made to leave simply because my father won’t write up a few reports.”
Juliette squinted at the paper. “What on earth is a hog casing, and why are we exporting them to America?”
“Je sais pas,” Rosalind grumbled. “But prices dropped last February, so that’s all we care about.”
In truth, Juliette wasn’t quite sure she cared about that either. Her father certainly didn’t. That was the very reason why Mr. Lang was off chasing merchants about hog casings, and the inner circle of the Scarlet Gang busied itself with funneling opium and torturing police chiefs who wouldn’t fall into line with gangster rule.
Juliette came around the other side of the sofa, sinking in next to Rosalind. The cushions bounced up and down, cold leather squeaking against the beads of her dress.
“Have you seen Kathleen?”
“Not since this morning,” Rosalind answered. Her tone had turned colder, but Juliette pretended not to notice. Kathleen and Rosalind kept having little fights. If it wasn’t Kathleen getting on Rosalind’s nerves, telling her to quit doing their father’s work, it was Rosalind getting on Kathleen’s nerves, telling her to quit running around with Communists when she wasn’t on a task. There was something lurking under the surface, something that Juliette suspected neither sister was telling her, but she had no business trying to push. At the end of the day, Kathleen and Rosalind couldn’t stay mad at each other for long.