Julia Paradise by Rod Jones

behind the willows was shot full of flames and the screaming from the mission rent the air. None of them gave another thought to the woman. Out in the middle of the canal the current moved her quickly into the darkness, away from the firelight.
    â€˜Have you seen Julia?’ Ayres asked him quietly. His face told him that he had. ‘Is she—sleeping?’
    â€˜She’s sleeping now.’
    There was something horrible about the way he said it.
    â€˜What do you mean?’ Ayres demanded.
    â€˜I sat up with her until the early hours. I was going to wake you, but—I’m accustomed to giving the injections myself.’
    â€˜You mean she was hallucinating again?’
    â€˜Oh yes. Dreadfully. She kept insisting that someone had been burnt in the fire. I spent the whole night sitting with her, trying to get straight in her poor mind what had really happened. The truth is that I don’t really know, myself. None of us does. I kept going through the simplest steps of logic, as though explaining to a child, that there was not, could not have been, any of the girls burnt in the school. She said she saw the house burning, thick palls of smoke coming from the upstairs windows. She said she saw flames up there, even the sound of breaking glass. She said she heard a girl screaming—perhaps she had in the panic confused the soldiers yelling—’ Willy Paradise looked at Ayres, the exhaustion and terror finally breaking over his face. ‘And then she insisted, absolutely insisted, that she had seen a girl in a nightgown jump from the burning upstairs window onto the lawn below.’
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    There were no servants to be seen and Ayres had to make his own breakfast. He prepared eggs, buttered toast and brewed tea for himself. The stacked plates and dishes were still unwashed in the cold little scullery. In the dining room the table was still exactly as they had left it, with the partly-eaten birthday cake and the stubs of cigars. As soon as he had finished breakfasting he felt for his pipe then sat back and let the rich, sweet-smelling smoke unwind over the debris. He went through to the sitting room and picked up a week-old South China Daily News with its stale stories of the big strikes in Shanghai.
    The sounds of cars arriving outside roused Ayres but by the time he had hauled himself to the sitting room window only a wake of dust was left, rising lazily in the late morning sunshine.
    He found Julia in the garden sitting on the wooden seat built around a peppercorn tree, engaged in earnest conversation with a policeman. He was a very well-dressed young Chinese policeman, to be sure—he wore a Western tie and vest and clean white shirtsleeves, and balanced on his knee a bowler hat—but he was unmistakeably a policeman, nevertheless. His jacket was folded neatly across the passenger seat of his motorcar, a late American model. In the green lorry behind it two other policemen, sullen and bored, sat in the cabin on either side of Willy Paradise. He still wore his ruined clerical collar and he had not washed his face. He sat up there impassively, and the combination of the blackened face and the lorry made Ayres think of a coalminer. A few moments passed before Julia realized Ayres’ presence; then she turned her head to him, her black hair gleaming in the sun.
    â€˜They’ve arrested Willy,’ she said.
    Ayres stood his ground and regarded the well-dressed policeman. Julia made an introduction and the Chinese insisted on shaking hands. His name was Johnny Yang, and he spoke good English with an American accent.
    â€˜He’s been arrested on what charge?’ Ayres asked mildly.
    â€˜No formal charge is required. Perhaps you have not heard? The supreme command of the National Peoples’ Party has declared a state of martial law.’
    Suddenly Ayres was furious. He spoke sharply, his voice not disguising his loathing. ‘Except in the International