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back. The old fears gnawed at him and the sounds of Mm Street beckoned him away from the house.
    But something else drew him to it, something Captain Friedman had said to him early in their therapy, a quote from Spinoza: So long as a man imagines he cannot do something, so long as he is determined not to do it; then it is impossible for him to do it.
    Finally he went up the cobblestone walk and rang the bell.
    The door was opened almost immediately by a woman, an ageless and splendid Chinese woman, tiny but erect and commanding, her greying hair pulled tightly away from a face that was unwrinkled and smooth as a rose petal. She was elegantly dressed in a formal cheongsam and wore a tiara of small, perfectly shaped diamonds. If she was startled by Halford’s gaunt appearance, by the sunken eyes peering from black circles and the caved-in cheeks, she did not show it. She bowed deeply to him.
    ‘Welcome to my house,’ she said. ‘I am Madame Kwa. You must be Colonel Halford. We are honoured by your presence and thank you for being so punctual.’
    ‘After twenty-four years in the army, Madame, I doubt I would know how to be late.’
    ‘You forget time here, Colonel. At the House of the Purple Azalea there is no time, only pleasure.’
    She ushered him into a small room in the south wing. The lights were low and soothing and the room was decorated with antiques from several Chinese dynasties. There were gold, teak, and silver and the furniture was deep and soft, covered with satin and linen. There was music somewhere, as elusive as an old memory, and the imperceptible presence of perfume. She brought Halford a drink, offered him opium, which he refused, and seated him facing a wall covered by a scarlet silk curtain.
    ‘And now, Colonel,’ she said, ‘permit me to introduce my young ladies to you.’
    The lights in the room lowered and went out. The silk curtain drew back on soundless runners. Behind it was a plate-glass window and behind that, darkness. Then a spotlight faded in and a young woman sat in its glow. Her hair was woven in a pigtail that hung over one shoulder and she looked out through the glass with narrow almond-shaped eyes that were the deepest brown Halford had ever seen.
    She wore gold slippers trimmed in white and a white mandarin sheath split almost to the hip. On her left arm, over the bicep, the numeral I had been tattoed in bright colours. She smiled.
    ‘This is Leah, the number one girl,’ said Madame Kwa. ‘She is nineteen years old and was trained in geisha houses before she came to me. She has perfected the Twenty-one Pleasures of the Chinese Wedding Night and she speaks English, French, Portuguese, Japanese, and three dialects of Chinese, and can recite more than a hundred love poems, including those banned by the cabala priests of Israel...’
    One after another, the lights illuminated the women of the house, each a beauty in her own way, each with some special love secret from the ages, each with her number tattoed in small colorescura numerals on her arm. Halford’s fears evaporated. He was entranced. He was aware of old stirrings, old needs. But he was waiting now for one girl in particular, because the cousin of Kam Sing had told him as he was leaving the cab, ‘Wait for number nineteen. Kam Sing says the number is very special. You will understand.’
    And now Halford understood, for the light revealed a young woman whose beauty stunned the Colonel. She was small and delicate, her skin the colour of brushed leather and hair coal-black, hanging straight to her waist. She looked not at him, as the others had done, but at the floor, and Halford was drawn to her instantly.
    ‘This is Heth,’ Madame Kwa said. ‘She is special to all of us. She is only eighteen and she came to me when she was nine from deep in old China. She speaks Chinese and Japanese and some phrases of English. She has observed the mysteries of love from all the other ladies and she has mastered the ancient secret of