by Lisa See
The path narrowed, and now the cliff rose so high and steep next to Hulan that her shoulder and arm brushed along jagged outcroppings. To her right, the path fell away precipitously perhaps a hundred meters to the water. If Brian had fallen here and bashed his head on the rocks on his way down, he would have been dead when he hit the water, making his death an accident after all.
After climbing for half an hour, they reached a small crest, then began heading down the cramped walkway. Dr. Ma nimbly hopped from rock to rock, easily transferring his weight when the stones shifted under his boots. Hulan and David were more cautious, very aware that a false step could, at the very least, get them cut, scraped, or gouged.
They reached a small cove with a sliver of beach. Ma turned to them, hands on his hips, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. “We found Brian’s daypack on a rock out there,” he said, gesturing with his chin toward the river. “He had a container of noodles, chopsticks, and a bottle of water sitting next to it.”
“Where?” Hulan didn’t see any boulders protruding from the water.
“You can’t see it now. With the rain the last few nights, the river’s been rising. It’s probably two meters higher than when Brian last came out here for lunch.”
“You think Brian walked all the way out here for a meal?” Hulan asked. “Why would he do that?”
“You just ate with us,” Ma answered. “Imagine having variations of that same conversation three times a day for several months, then coming back here a year later and having them all over again. Even I like to get away sometimes.”
Hulan edged down the bank. The rocks were wet, and with her shoe she tested to see how slippery they were. Plenty slippery. The river was narrow here too, so the current was fast. Brian’s body would have been carried away very quickly.
“Who found his things?”
“I did,” came Ma’s quick reply.
“And what brought you here?”
“Inspector, we’re a small group in a small area. We all have our little sanctuaries to get away from the others. Some of our people have places where they like to get away together, if you know what I mean. Men and women working side by side, the heat, the isolation….”
“Was Brian seeing anyone?” she asked.
“In particular?” Ma seemed to consider the possibilities. “I don’t think so.”
Hulan felt a few drops of rain and looked around for shelter.
“What about the other deaths?” David asked as the drops became heavier.
Ma’s lips curled disapprovingly. “I’ve discussed these accidents with the Public Security Bureau. If they are of no concern to our local officials, why should they be of concern to a foreigner?”
“Because I was hired by your boss to inquire about them.”
Ma nodded curtly, then said, “You have to forgive me. In our country innocent people are often blamed for crimes or misdeeds where none have occurred.”
The sky finally opened up, and it began to pour. Ma grabbed Hulan’s arm and hastily pulled her away from the river’s edge. David scrambled after them. At the base of the cliff was an opening to a cave. The three ducked inside.
Ma shook the water off his hat and wiped his face. “It’s monsoon season, and we’ve been getting rain every afternoon, but this is supposed to be a big storm. It shouldn’t affect us too much up here, where the river will rise many meters but stay within its banks. Bad flooding is predicted below the dam site however. The land flattens down there, and the floodwaters sometimes spread out miles beyond the riverbanks.”
The day was so hot that the rain should have been a relief, but the heat had not subsided. Yet a cool breeze coming from the deep darkness of the cave began to envelop them, bringing with it an awful smell like mold or rotting fruit. Hulan thought for a moment she heard a baby’s cry, but then the sound was swallowed by the cave’s echoing silence. This place was creepy, but the two men didn’t seem to mind.
“It’s a long walk back to camp. Let’s stay here a bit and see if it lets up,” Ma suggested. He squatted peasant-style, his knees drawn up to his chest. He looked out at the rain and began answering David’s earlier question. “We’ve had other deaths out here. I can’t deny it, but I can’t take full responsibility for them either.”
He looked around, reached for a stick, and began to trace in the soft earth of the cave floor the route they’d taken from Bashan dock all the way to this little cove. “We’ve come about a kilometer east of Site 518, walking parallel to what’s known as the Unlocked Gates Gorge—two peaks on the other side of the river. That’s here,” he said, jabbing an x just across from where they were now. “It’s not one of the official Three Gorges because it doesn’t straddle the river and isn’t very long or dramatic, but technically it still qualifies as a gorge. On one side of the gorge about midway up the mountain is what’s known as the Beheading Dragon Platform. On the other side is the Binding Dragon Pillar. You can see them from the river.”
He drew another line extending north from the town. “Bashan sits on the banks of a stream that feeds into the Yangzi. We crossed the bridge over that stream today. By the end of next year, that bridge will be submerged in phase one of inundation, so a new one was built on higher ground but not very well, apparently. Peng, Dang, and Sun were day workers who lived in the hills. They were crossing the new bridge when it collapsed.”
Ma’s words seemed distant as he conjured up the accident. “Inspector, I’m sure you’ve heard Premier Zhu Rongji talk about the dangers of ‘tofu construction.’ And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about the corruption that’s happening along the river in regard to the dam. Money’s been pocketed, and new roads, bridges, and buildings have failed. What I don’t understand, though, is your interest in the collapse of our bridge when there have been others with greater fatalities.” He lengthened the line for the Yangzi, then marked another spot much farther east. “A bridge gave way downstream from here, killing eleven people. And what about the collapse in Chongqing? Forty people dead. Eighteen of them police— your colleagues, Inspector. Who’s concerned about them?”
He cocked his head as if something had just occurred to him. “And our three workers weren’t the only ones to die on that bridge. Did you know that? Peng was walking with his wife, mother-in-law, and five-year-old son. There were also a couple of farmers from this side of the stream who were crossing into Bashan to sell their produce at the town market.”
“I assume the Public Security Bureau investigated the collapse,” Hulan said.
Ma jutted his chin dismissively. “Captain Hom is the contractor’s brother-in-law.”
David and Hulan exchanged looks. Village politics and connections were not so different from those in the capital.
“And the other accidents?” David inquired.
“A young man fell from a ladder and broke his neck. It could have happened to anyone, but it happened to another day worker, named Yun Re.”
“How? Where? When?” David asked.
“It happened during xiuxi about a month ago. Naps are especially important on a site like this, because the heat can be so oppressive in the afternoons. The caves give everyone a break. You feel it, don’t you? The coolness? We’re near the entrance, but if we went in farther, it would get even colder because a cave maintains its temperature based on the annual average between the internal and external temperatures. The average temperature in these caves is about sixteen degrees Centigrade.” Then he added for David’s benefit, “Or about sixty of your degrees. We’ve got tents, but who wants to sleep in them when you can escape the heat in the caves?”
“I don’t see where the ladder comes in,” Hulan said.
“We’ve got bunks. They’ve got ladders.”
“And this is just for your day workers,” Hulan clarified.
“I never said that. The vultures and students each have their own dormitory caves. Mine is private,” Ma confessed. After a moment, he went on. “The last death wasn’t at the dig. One of
our workers drowned.”
Again David asked the obvious questions, and Ma answered them. “On June twenty-eighth, Wu Huadong didn’t show up for work. Two days later, his body was found in a whirlpool about a li from here. That’s about an eighth of one of your miles.” Ma used his stick to mark the spot.
“How was the body found?” David asked.
“Someone on a ferry spotted it and reported it to the captain, who radioed to Captain Hom’s office. Hom must have sent someone out in a boat to retrieve the body.” After a moment, Ma added, “We think Wu Huadong fell in the river somewhere near here, probably from the path we came down.”
Again David and Hulan glanced at each other. It would be easy to slip off that path, even if you’d traversed it hundreds of times.
“Was Wu also from Bashan?” Hulan asked.
“We passed his house walking out here,” Ma answered. “That was his widow and child.”
So Wu would have been very familiar with this terrain, Hulan thought.
“Could the Englishwoman have had anything to do with either Brian McCarthy’s or Wu Huadong’s death?” she asked.
Ma spat on the ground. “Not possible.”
“Dr. Ma, did you hear the way your group went after her? Accusations of murder and theft are hardly the usual conversation among friends.”
“You may have noticed Lily’s a bit high-strung,” Ma said. “Usually we only have to deal with her for a few days at a time. After two weeks, I think the team would do anything to get her to leave.”
“If she’s that difficult, then why let her visit at all?”
“Lily brought us Miller. If not for his funds, this site would have been worked with bulldozers.”
“How does Director Ho feel about this?” David asked.
“The fish would die if the ocean were too clean,” Ma observed. He looked out into the rain. His shoulders slumped, and he seemed suddenly fatigued. David and Hulan waited.
“You also want to know about objects that have disappeared,” he said into the silence. “Of the things that I know are missing, most are relatively minor pieces—some bone, stone, and jade artifacts.”
“That you know are missing?” David pressed.
“You have to understand, Attorney Stark, that we’re under tremendous pressure down here. We don’t have time to follow the usual protocol by cataloging every piece right as we find it. Some artifacts have disappeared from our storage tent before cataloging and condition reports were completed, but I’ve also had workers show me artifacts that never even made it to the tent.”
“So you were never able to take measurements—”
“Which is why I can’t put them on the international list of stolen artifacts,” Ma finished for David. “That’s not to say I don’t know some of what’s missing. For example, Brian showed me some jade bis he’d found. They’re perforated jade disks believed to embody the powers of Heaven and convey to the emperor the ability to commune and consult with the gods. But each one is unique. They come in different sizes and types of jade, while the decorative work can be plain or quite elaborate.”
“Valuable?”
“On the open market, I’d put them at three to six thousand dollars U.S. apiece.”
More money was at stake than Hulan had first realized, and that was just for the bis.
“Unfortunately,” Ma continued, “without exact measurements and details about the carving on them, I can’t prove they came from this site.”
“So they aren’t on the list,” David verified.
“That’s right, and I’m sorry to say neither is the one object that I consider to be truly significant. It was a ruyi.”
“That’s what Miller was talking about at lunch.”
Ma sighed. “Miller’s got the best collection of guis and ruyis in the world.”
“What are they exactly?” David asked.
“In the most simple terms, a gui is a kind of tablet that was given as an imperial gift either at the start of a mission or at the completion of a particular task,” Ma explained. “A ruyi was also an imperial gift—but it was more personal in nature.” He wiped away the map with his hand, then drew two objects in the dirt. The gui was long and flat with a triangular top. The ruyi looked like a scepter with a long handle and a head, which widened at the top into a circle with wavy edges about six inches in diameter. “A ruyi can be made from jade, bone, even bronze, but the one Brian found was formed from a fungus. The stem was knobby and very dark. The head, if it had been of jade, would have had carving—an insignia, characters denoting a name, or a simple geometric decoration. Obviously this one had no carving. It unfurled in a natural form.”
“A fungus?”
“Probably a lingzhi mushroom.”
“Would you consider this ruyi to be valuable?” David asked.
“Depends on how you measure value, but it might be, considering its provenance.”
“Could someone like Stuart Miller smuggle your ruyi out of China?”
David was asking the archaeologist to rat out his benefactor, but Ma’s verdict seemed measured yet truthful. “He could, but if he had, I don’t think he’d be hanging around the site.” After a pause, he added, “It doesn’t look like this rain is going to let up. Do you want to stay here and explore the cave for a while?”
The idea of going deeper into the darkness sent a shiver through Hulan.
“I’d rather speak with the families of the other victims,” David said.
Ma shook his head. “I can’t help you there. In light of the deaths, the families were given extra money to move before the deadline.”
“To Beijing?”
“Their stories are doubly tragic. They were sent to the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.”
That was a remote and desolate area, and about as far west as you could go and still be in China. While it was true that the government was trying to colonize the region with displaced families from the inundation zone, it was also a great place to send someone you never wanted to hear from again.
“But the Wu family is still here,” David said.
“Yes, and you can visit them if you want,” Ma responded. “But do you think your visit will be a comfort to Wu’s wife or father?” He glanced at David, then Hulan, but neither of them said a word. Since there seemed to be nothing more to say, he stood and said, “We should get back.”
The walk back up the cliff was arduous and wet. The rocks were slick and, with little greenery, there wasn’t much to grab on to. Once they reached the main path, the threesome picked up their pace. When they arrived at the Wu house, David knocked on the door and called, “Wu Taitai. Wu Taitai.” No one answered.
DR. MA DROVE DAVID AND HULAN BACK TO BASHAN AND DROPPED them at the entrance to the Panda Guesthouse. They were sopping wet from the hike back to the dig and the Jeep ride into town. They entered the lobby, checked in, and set out for their room, which was located in the fourth courtyard. The Panda Guesthouse was a traditional Chinese compound—slightly larger than Hulan’s family home and far smaller than Beijing’s imperial Forbidden City. In typical fashion, the guesthouse had been built on a north-south axis with a series of connecting courtyards, buildings, and pavilions, all surrounded by a high protective wall. As David and Hulan walked, painted landscapes portraying subjects from the Chinese classics unfurled on the eaves above them. Carved wooden screens covered the windows they passed. The third courtyard housed a traditional Chinese garden with three huge scholar’s rocks serving as the centerpiece. David and Hulan reached the fourth courtyard, and he opened the door to their room. It was lovely in the sense that it had one double bed and no television.
David knew that if anyone was going to make the first move, it had to be Hulan. Still, he was completely unprepared that it happened so soon or so effortlessly. Hulan didn’t say a word as she came toward him. She gently put her hands on his cheeks and brought his face down to hers. Her lips were soft and yielding. She pulled back, and he looked into her eyes. She couldn’t h
ide what was in them from him, and he realized that all this was happening just a little too easily. But as soon as she undid the first button on his shirt, he reached for her as though it had been years and not months since the last time they had made love. He wanted to believe—if only for the time that they were here in the Three Gorges—that they still could have a life together.
Their wet clothes clung tenaciously to their skin, but every inch revealed was reclaimed and reconquered. They didn’t hurry as they touched and tasted each other. For these minutes they forgot everything except the needs of the flesh. When he finally entered her, she moaned in pleasure as she lifted her hips to meet him. They moved together across tides of sensation and emotion, until neither of them could endure another moment. This was why he’d wanted to get her out of Beijing, away from the MPS, away from their own bed, away from memories of Chaowen.
By the time they were sated, they were both as damp as when they’d walked into the room. The sheets lay in a rumpled pile at the foot of the bed. The air from the overhead fan slowly cooled their sweaty bodies. They had so much to talk about. Even if this encounter had been staged by Zai, even if Hulan had forced herself in the early moments, couldn’t this be a new beginning? But David couldn’t and wouldn’t push Hulan. She wasn’t yet willing to reveal her mind’s deepest intimacies, but she was ready to talk about the case that had brought them here. For David, it was a start, and his heart welled with cautious happiness.
“How can I prove Brian was murdered?” She rolled onto her side and put a hand on David’s chest. “By the time I saw his body, whatever evidence might have been there had long washed away.”
“Witnesses—”
“What witnesses? If someone saw Brian getting tossed in the river, don’t you think it would have been reported?”
“People don’t always want to come forward—”
