By late afternoon, the pirates began crawling out one by one, and it was only then that the ship gradually came alive on a larger scale.
Wei Lai went looking for Hu Sha and walked into exactly the scene he’d anticipated: two pirates who had apparently slept on top of Hu Sha were hunching their heads and darting about trying to dodge him. Hu Sha was cursing and kicking out viciously; his slipper wasn’t fastened securely and flew off with one kick. One of the pirates, trying to ingratiate himself, picked the slipper up and returned it, at which Hu Sha grabbed the toe of the shoe and promptly whacked him across the face with it.
Slap slap slap — the sound of each blow landing on flesh made Wei Lai’s scalp prickle: this was worse than being kicked.
There was also an unexpected element: that young boy was standing to the side laughing hysterically, and would sometimes follow up right after Hu Sha struck, spitting at the pirates or adding a kick of his own — a perfect little lackey.
Wei Lai felt that he had earlier directed his sympathy entirely at the wrong person. Right now he could only think: he wouldn’t mind watching this little rascal get a good beating.
Hu Sha wasn’t called a pirate chief for nothing — his expressions came and went at will. The moment he saw Wei Lai, he turned on a smile and called out a greeting: “Hey…”
Then he faltered. He had never once asked Wei Lai’s name.
Wei Lai patiently supplied it for him: “Wei.”
He then laid out the plans going forward, mentioning “the Suakin border” and “Komke.” Hu Sha nodded throughout.
With a face full of regret: “Jin is leaving just like that? I still wanted to take her to Bosaso for a meal. No, no — I must speak to her myself. She saved my life; she’s my good friend…”
Wei Lai stepped in front of him: “Miss Cen is resting… She has an important negotiation at the Suakin border tomorrow and needs to go over some documents. I’d advise you not to disturb her.”
Hu Sha believed him immediately.
The regret gave way to admiration: “Jin is remarkable. She said she’d stepped back from the international organisation — turns out she’s now doing negotiations full-time… When I get abroad, I won’t even know what work to do…”
There was genuine, heavy wistfulness in his voice.
Wei Lai nearly laughed out loud. Negotiations with governments often dragged on for a long time — sometimes there was an observation period lasting a year or two, meaning that whatever you’d agreed to, you had to follow through with for a sustained stretch before the government would recognise it and move to the next stage. Hu Sha was already wondering what job he’d do once he got abroad — wasn’t that a bit premature?
——
While there was still daylight, the fishing boat weighed anchor and set sail. On the way back to the cabin he ran into Sha Di, who apparently had a habit of pressing aromatic tea leaves on people — he pressed another handful on Wei Lai.
It was hard to refuse, so he put some in his mouth to chew.
He munched away as they chatted about the awful weather. Sha Di was remarkably cheerful: “If we keep heading south, we might sail out of the sandstorm pretty soon.”
Wei Lai was puzzled: “Sail out of the sandstorm?”
“Exactly. A sandstorm is like a belt,” Sha Di sketched the idea with his hands, “the Red Sea is very narrow, you know — there’s desert on both sides, and when the wind picks up, the sand blows across and drags over the sea like a great sand-serpent… but the Red Sea is long, and no sandstorm can swallow the whole stretch of it. Keep sailing, and you’ll come out the other side…”
Then he complained: “Last night, I wanted to have a drink with you — I knocked on your door, you didn’t answer.”
Wei Lai startled: “You knocked on my door?”
Sha Di said: “Yes.”
“Did you… hear anything?”
Sha Di wrinkled his brow: “You sleep so deeply, Wei — a bodyguard needs to be alert… I didn’t know what you were doing in there; all I heard was: rustle… rustle… rustle rustle rustle…”
Of course all he could hear was that.
The reality was: he’d been in the dining room with a crowd of people, drinking merrily, when he’d suddenly thought of Wei Lai and shouted: “Drinking needs friends — I’ll go get Wei!”
The people around him beat bowls and pots, clearing a corridor for him; Sha Di, his head heavy and his feet unsteady, stumbled out the door, went in the wrong direction, lurching and staggering along until he finally crashed headlong into the hatch that led up to the deck.
Then he pounded on it frantically: “Wei! Come out! Drinks!”
No one answered. Sha Di, irritated, kicked at the hatch — it was bolted from the inside with an iron bar, so of course it didn’t budge. So out of curiosity he pressed his ear against the door to listen.
Outside, the sandstorm was blowing; dense grains of sand struck the door.
Rustle. Rustle. Rustle rustle rustle.
——
Sha Di adopted a look of utmost gravity: “Wei, you are a bodyguard — you need to stay alert. Otherwise it is very dangerous…”
——
That night Wei Lai slept fitfully: he was aware at some point of the ship sailing through the night, aware of when it stopped, and aware of it setting out again and then stopping again near dawn.
Not long after it stopped, Sha Di came and knocked once: “Miss Cen, we’ve arrived. The ship can’t get too close to shore — you’ll need to take the speedboat from here. Get yourselves ready and you can head off whenever you like.”
Wei Lai flicked the beer bottle cap from under the bed, landing it square on the door — his way of signalling he was fully alert: “Understood.”
After Sha Di left, he looked down at Cen Jin, still asleep in his arms: “Time to get up.”
Cen Jin was so drowsy she couldn’t prise her eyes open, and burrowed with clear reluctance deeper into his arms. Wei Lai smiled, leaned down to kiss behind her ear, and let his hands find their way to every ticklish, sensitive spot on her body without any particular sense of restraint.
She giggled and squirmed away, and finally couldn’t help it — she opened her eyes: “Get out of here, you’re hopeless.”
Wei Lai said: “If you break the character ‘good’ apart, doesn’t it show one man and one woman together? I’m performing ‘good’ so perfectly — what more could you ask of me?”
Cen Jin had no comeback for that. She got up, took a quick shower, and came out wearing the clothes she’d boarded in — white T-shirt, jeans. The kiss marks and bruising on her body were mostly covered, but at the neck and collarbone and behind the ear…
She glanced at Wei Lai with a half-smile that said: so what are you going to do about this?
Wei Lai smiled ruefully, then had a terrible idea: “It doesn’t really matter if people see, does it? Think about it — dark-skinned people might not even be able to see marks like this on themselves… so even if they notice, they probably won’t know what it is…”
Cen Jin couldn’t help herself: “Are you actually stupid?”
She reached down into the luggage bag and pulled out the black draping cloth, tying it in the style of an Arabic headscarf — front and back folded and knotted, leaving only her face exposed.
Her skin was pale; against the black cloth, the contrast of white and dark was striking, and her eyes shone with a bright lustre.
Wei Lai drew her close and studied her carefully: “A colour on the lips would be even more beautiful.”