Page 51 of Our Violent Ends
“Don’t you think?” Roma shrugged. “There must be a certain comfort here. Cities can fall and countries can go to war, but this”—he raised his arms, gesturing at the rivers and the stone paths and the delicate ceiling tiles that decorated what were once temples—“this is forever.”
It was a nice thought. It was a thought Juliette wanted to believe in. But:
“This is a town within a city within a country that is always near war,” Juliette said quietly. “Nothing is forever.”
Roma shook his head. He looked visibly shaken, though Juliette was not certain if it was because of what she had said or because of what her words had incited within him. Before she had a chance to ask, Roma was already brushing it off. He cleared his throat. “They call this place the Venice of the East.”
Juliette scowled. “Just as they call Shanghai the Paris of the East,” she said. “When are we going to stop letting the colonizers pick the comparisons? Why don’t we ever call Paris the Shanghai of the West?”
A twitch pulled on Roma’s lips. It almost looked like a smile, but it was so fast that Juliette might have imagined it. They were emerging from the alley now, nearing an open square with a large bridge on its opposite end. Beyond the bridge, they would find their destination.
But here, in the square, there was a group of men loitering with military weapons slung over their shoulders. Militia soldiers.
Juliette exchanged a glance with Roma. “Keep walking,” she warned.
In quiet places like this, it was true warlord rule that continued to thrive. Militias patrolled the streets, utterly loyal to the one general who oversaw the wider district. The generals who had grown into warlords were no mighty figures—they were only men who had managed to seize power when the last imperial dynasty fell. The current government, really, was no more than a warlord installed in Beijing: all they had different from the rest of the warlords was the seal of approval from the international stage, but that did not mean control; it did not mean their power actually stretched any wider than the soldiers they had loyal.
“Juliette,” Roma said suddenly. “How far along is the Northern Expedition right now?”
“The Northern Expedition?” Juliette echoed, taken aback by the question. “You mean the Nationalists?” She tried to remember the last update she had heard from her father, searching her memory about their campaign to defeat the warlords and unify the country with a true government. “A telegram some days ago said that they’ve completely captured Zhejiang.”
It would have been a worry. Zhejiang was the province directly below Shanghai, but after all, what had the Scarlet Gang been doing sidling up to the Nationalists this whole time if not to ensure their own survival? The Nationalist fighting armies were edging closer and closer to the city, but it wasn’t as if they were trulydefeatingthe warlords. Merely placating them. Reaching agreements, so that there was an understanding about the Kuomintang’s place as eventual rulers of this country.
“They may have come even closer since then,” Roma muttered. He inclined his chin toward the militiamen. “Look.”
It was not the men he was gesturing to. It was what the men were looking at, which Juliette saw as soon as one shifted on his feet and moved away: a rising sun, painted crudely on the outside wall of a restaurant. The symbol of the Nationalists.
“Hey, you!”
The militiamen had spotted them.
Juliette immediately stepped forward. “Who, me?”
“Juliette, stop it,” Roma hissed, making a grab for her wrist. She jerked her arm out of his reach, and he didn’t try again.
“Not you,” one of them said with a sneer, approaching. “The Russian. Did you do this?”
“Do I look like I have the time?” Roma retorted.
The man lunged forward. “You sure have a lot of time to talk back—”
Juliette held out her hand. “Not a step closer. Unless you want your ashes scattered into the Huangpu.”
Like magic, the soldier immediately halted, a clarity entering his eyes. Juliette’s coat was undone now. It was time for her identity to be used, placed in the open like a playing card in a game of offensive maneuvers.
“Let’s go,” Roma muttered to Juliette.
When she didn’t move, he nudged her shoulder. This time, Juliette allowed herself to be led off, sparing one more glance at the men eyeing her warily. Though she was finished, the one at the front of their group clearly wasn’t.
“Soon it won’t matter who you are, Lady of Shanghai,” he called after her. “The Nationalists are coming for all of us who rule by anarchy. They will take us all down.”
With one last tug, Roma had Juliette over the bridge and out of sight before she could retort.
“It’s supposed to be in and out, Juliette,” he muttered.
Juliette’s neck gave a littlecrick!with the speed she turned to look at him. “You heard me in the car?”
“I’m a liar—what can I say?” Almost flippantly, Roma stopped and pointed up ahead. It was an old-style residence, built in a way that was utterly untouched by foreign influences and sospacious, because all who had once lived there and lived there still could afford it. “How are we going to do this?”
