Gweilo by Martin Booth Page B

twelve hours. This was where the tourists from the big liners or staying in the better hotels unwittingly mingled with touts, pickpockets and other ne'er-do-wells.
    When we alighted, it was to head through the streets behind the Pen and into a small baker's shop with a display bow window such as one might have found on any Edwardian street that had survived the Second World War. The window glass was flawed, the frame darkly varnished. Above was the establishment's name – Tkachenko's . Inside were a number of rattan chairs and tables, also darkly stained. Along one wall ran a glass-fronted cool cabinet which contained a cornucopia of cakes and pastries the likes – and sumptuousness – of which I had never seen: gateaux covered in flaked dark chocolate, puff pastry slices filled with fresh cream and cherries, white chocolate-coated éclairs with segments of glace fruit and angelica embedded in them and tortes containing fresh fruit slices.
    My mother and I sat opposite each other at a table. The rattan scratched the backs of my legs. She ordered a pot of Assam tea, a tumbler of cold milk and four cakes.
    'What is this place?' I asked in tones of wonderment.
    'A long time ago,' my mother began obtusely, 'there was an uprising in Russia called the Bolshevik Revolution. Many people were killed. Others lost their homes and businesses and had to flee.'
    'Like Ching?' I suggested. My mother glanced at me, surprised I knew of his past.
    'Yes, much like that,' she confirmed. 'Some fled to France, a few to London even, but most came east, through Siberia to Manchuria and on to Shanghai, always being forced to move along by war. Finally, they settled here in Hong Kong. And where they went, they took their skills with them. And the Russians are famous for their cakes and pastries.'
    An elderly European woman, her grey hair in a dishevelled and disintegrating bun at the back of her neck, approached our table with a tray.
    'Herrre iss your orderrr, madame,' she announced in a thick accent, sliding the tray between us.
    The milk was fresh, chilled and tasted quite unlike that served in the Fourseas. The cakes were summed up by my mother, her upper lip moustachioed with cream.
    'If God was a baker,' she said, 'this is what he'd bake.'
    When the bill came, she ordered a box of cakes to go and paid with ease.
    As we walked to the bus terminus at the Star Ferry, I felt somehow uneasy. It was not that I had over-indulged at Tkachenko's but more a feeling of unaccountable foreboding, as if something was not quite right, not just with me but with the whole world. The air seemed heavy, more humid than usual. Blustery breezes blew along the street, peppering my legs with fine gravel. An old man who usually made lucky grasshoppers out of woven bamboo strips by the fire station had packed up his pitch and gone. Glancing down Salisbury Road towards Signal Hill, I could see the observatory tower on its hill. From the signal mast hung a black symbol like an inverted T. In the harbour, the sea was choppy. The sampans and walla-wallas were conspicuous by their absence and the ferries were having difficulty coming alongside their pier.
    In fifteen minutes, we were back in the Fourseas. Even in that short time, the sky had darkened. When we arrived, the room boys were busy in the first-floor lounge, fitting strips of towelling into the french window frames whilst the gardener was occupied removing the pots of flowers from the lounge balcony and the sides of the driveway.
    'There's a typhoon coming,' my mother told me.
    'What's a typhoon?' I asked.
    'The word is English but it comes from the Cantonese, tai fung , which means a big wind. It's the Chinese equivalent of a hurricane.'
    Throughout the evening, the wind increased. When I went to bed, it whistled through the window frame. Ching came in just before I fell asleep and stopped it with lengths of rag. At intervals during the night, I woke to the sound of the wind but fell asleep again. Just before