by Lisa See
Tang Wenting bowed his head piously, absorbing the sound. Then he raised his eyes and asked David in brittle Chinese, “What do you have hidden behind your smile?” Again the crowd parroted this two or three times before the man repeated it himself. “What do you have hidden behind your smile?”
This was the same question that had been posed to President Clinton when he’d come to China. Clinton didn’t know how to respond, and neither did David.
Hulan stepped forward and demanded, “If Xiao Da is so special, why does he not show his face?”
David wasn’t so sure that her question was a good idea, although it did divert attention away from him.
“And why don’t you ask Stuart Miller to show his true face?” Tang Wenting asked in response. “Is your government so greedy for this dam that they will look the other way while he steals China’s soul?”
“You are afraid to answer my questions!” she fired back. “Why doesn’t Xiao Da tell the people who follow him who he is? Why is he hiding behind you? Is he that afraid?”
The lieutenant put his hands on his hips and shouted back staunchly, “Xiao Da afraid? Not of you!”
“Is he afraid because he instructs his followers to kill and maim?”
“Waaa! You dare to speak this profanity? Only Xiao Da can punish the wicked!”
“So he hides because he kills and mutilates,” Hulan pressed.
Now David was convinced that this definitely wasn’t the right attitude to be taking in the midst of a crowd of worshipers in an isolated cave far from anything resembling police backup.
Then Tang Wenting pointed his finger at Hulan as he had that day on the square. “There is only one killer here, and that is you, Liu Hulan! Mother killer!”
Hulan recoiled from the impact of the denunciation. The followers, who were insulated in the Three Gorges not only from the outside world but from events in their own capital, did not know how to respond. The lieutenant proceeded to inflame them. “Mother killer! Mother killer! Mother killer!” The adherents picked up the chant even though they didn’t know the reasons behind it. “Mother killer! Mother killer! Mother killer!”
David felt hands on him, shoving, pushing. He couldn’t see beyond the faces twisted in loathing. Then he was tossed out of the cavern and back into the tunnel with the oil lamps. A moment later Hulan was thrown into his arms. The angry mob retreated. Hulan regained her balance and headed back to the room. “Hulan!” he called sharply. She didn’t even look his way but marched steadily forward. What could he do but follow? They edged to the opening into the large cavern. The lieutenant was on his hands and knees, touching his forehead to the stone floor of the ledge on which he perched, then lifting it again with an enraptured look on his face, then back down to the floor. The followers mimicked the obeisance in devout silence.
“As we go forward,” the disembodied voice lulled, still the epitome of harmony, still unfazed by the near violence of moments before, “we must all remember, if not for Yu, we all would be fishes, and if not for Xiao Da, we would become fishes.”
These words held the crowd in worshipful thrall until the lieutenant finally stood and spoke once again. “Now is the time to remember our tributes.”
About a dozen men emerged from the shadows holding baskets. “Remember the Nine Virtues, remember your grade, remember your tribute.” The voice floated out over the heads of the worshipers. “Nine Virtues, Nine Grades, Nine Tributes.”
People pulled out money and dropped it into the baskets as the low murmur of “Be reverent, be reverent” resounded off the limestone walls.
They left before the meeting concluded and hurried through driving rain up the pathway to the road that led back to town.
“My God, Hulan! What were you doing back there?”
“Trying to get Xiao Da to reveal himself!” Her delivery was fast, her words angry.
“We could have gotten hurt!” he volleyed back.
“So you finally admit that the group is dangerous!”
“Those people were dangerous because you provoked them!”
“What about the threat against Stuart?”
“What threat?”
“It was implied! First Brian, then Lily. Stuart’s next!”
“Stop!” When she didn’t, he grabbed her. “Stop! What are you talking about? What are you doing? Where are you going?”
She fought against his grip. “I’m going to the Public Security Bureau to get Captain Hom. He’s got to come back here and arrest these people.”
“By the time you get to Hom’s office, everyone in that cave will be gone.”
The truth of that sank in, and she stopped struggling. They were standing on a deserted road in a storm in the dark at the end of what had already been an emotionally grueling day. They still had a twenty-minute walk back into town. Maybe he could calm her down and get her to think clearly.
“You once trained as a lawyer. Try to look at this logically.” He attempted a smile. “Come on, let’s walk.” He took a couple of steps, and when she started walking beside him, he said, “We’ll take it one accusation at a time. First, the All-Patriotic Society—”
“It’s why I’m here. I know it! Zai didn’t send me here to protect me from the media or from internal MPS scrutiny. He sent me here to find Xiao Da.”
“Honey, if he’d known Xiao Da was here,” he reasoned evenly, “why didn’t he just have the man arrested?”
“What if he sent me here because he knew that foreigners were joining the group? It would be a huge embarrassment if the All-Patriotic Society spread abroad as the Falun Gong has.”
“That’s a valid point, but you have no evidence whatsoever that any of the foreigners here are members.”
“Stuart Miller—”
“Is clearly not a member.”
“He’s the next target—”
“I don’t think so. I think this Tang Wenting may want the followers to believe something about Miller. But I’m suspicious of that too. Was he talking about Stuart Miller for their benefit or ours? He let the meeting go on for a long time before he acknowledged us, even though he had to know we were there. He used that time to try to convince us—”
“That Miller’s the one stealing China’s heritage,” Hulan finished. “Still, one of the foreigners from Site 518 could be a member of the group.”
“I doubt it. They’re all academics. They’re too cerebral for that mumbo jumbo.”
“Since when? Americans are always getting caught up in that stuff. Madonna with Cabala. That kid who joined the Taliban. Every housewife who ever took a yoga class….”
“That’s simplistic and condescending. And besides, not everyone at the site is American.”
Hulan shrugged, and rain poured off her clothes.
David could be obdurate too, if that was what she wanted. “All right then, could the All-Patriotic Society be involved in either the thefts or the murders? Most crimes are motivated by greed, but those people back there say they don’t care for material things, and I never heard them advocate stealing. And I certainly didn’t hear anything to suggest that they were interested in killing people. Just the opposite. They talked about the sanctity of life.”
“The hidden voice talked about the sanctity of life—”
“Brian’s and Lily’s murders were ritualistic in nature,” David continued right over her. “They were branded. Didn’t you hear what they said? They don’t practice rituals.”
“Everything they did was a ritual—”
“That takes advantage of the gullible. Their only rituals had to do with ‘honoring the spirit within,’ or something along those lines. Besides, you just saw those people. Do they really seem like they’d get together to torture and brand someone? A good part of the residents of Bashan Village would have to be aiders and abettors.”
“This country is made up of aiders and abettors. The Cultural Revolution….” Hulan’s voice trailed off. When she next spoke it was with renewed indignation. “Time and
again human history has shown that fervent nationalism can lead to domestic instability, international conflicts, even war.”
“This isn’t the Cultural Revolution,” he reminded her, “and Xiao Da hardly has the power of the Gang of Four.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes as the rain pelted them.
She tried another tack. “Captain Hom is getting rich off of the people who live here.”
“Five minutes ago you wanted his help.” Knowing that had to sting, he added, “But we aren’t here to investigate local corruption.”
“I have larger obligations that you can’t possibly understand—”
“Like finding and arresting Xiao Da? I’m married to you, Hulan. I know what it would mean to you to shut down his operation.”
“Could that really have been Xiao Da back there?” she asked, and for the first time he thought he heard doubt in her voice.
“Why would he come here to meet with a hundred supporters when he could have gone to Beijing and addressed thousands?” David asked. “The All-Patriotic Society probably uses this system to make people believe they’re ‘seeing’ the real Xiao Da. It’s very clever and would explain how the group has grown so quickly, because everyone has a personal experience to share. Not only is it good advertising but it allows the Society to link politics and spirituality by presenting two faces: the first and more practical in the form of a real man, the other and more ethereal in the form of a disembodied voice.”
Hulan listened, and David pressed his advantage. “I’m not going to tell you it isn’t strange that Tang Wenting is here, because it is. I’m not going to tell you that the group is completely harmless, because the hostility in the cave was scary, but it had to do with all of the terrible things these people are dealing with—moving, uncertainty, feeling powerless. And I’m certainly not going to tell you that I support everything the Society advocates, but you know as well as I do that people ought to have the right to practice their religion.”
“Even if that means making threats against the dam? Wu Peng said his son was going to stop it.”
“Wu Huadong was a peasant living in abject poverty. How exactly was he going to stop the dam?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to the dam tomorrow to find out.”
“You’re way off track. We never should have gone to that meeting—”
“Why can’t you respect my opinion?” she asked. “You said we should see what other facts came in. Now that they have, you’re choosing to ignore their implications.”
“That’s not true,” he said in exasperation. “I’m trying to keep us focused on our assignments. You’re investigating what are now two deaths. I’m supposed to be looking into these thefts—”
“To me, those things are minor compared with seeing Tang Wenting in that cave! He said he’d make me pay for what happened in Beijing, and now he’s here!”
“His presence in Bashan doesn’t necessarily make him vengeful or dangerous. Yes, he threatened you in the heat of a terrible and emotional moment, but he may just be making his regular rounds to chapters in the countryside. And remember, he tried to stop the woman in the square from cutting off her daughter’s hand….” He held back the rest—that Hulan’s solution had resulted in death.
This argument was moving into perilous territory. He took a deep breath and started over. “Two people have died here in Bashan. You need to table your campaign against this religion for now and solve Brian’s and Lily’s murders.”
“It’s not a religion. It’s a cult,” she muttered.
“Call it whatever you want, Hulan,” he said, his frustration rising again, “but we both know you’re using it as a barrier—”
“Xiao Da is using religion to control the group in a political way. He’s teaching people to mutilate—”
“Where do you get that?”
“The mother on the square,” she answered. In response to his look, she added defensively, “Well, you brought it up.”
“You said yourself she was crazy.”
“Then what about Brian and Lily?”
“They were branded. That’s what you should be looking at. What does that brand mean to the killer?”
“You don’t understand!”
“Then help me.”
They had stopped again. They were wet, muddy, and standing on one of the most barren tracts of land David had ever seen.
“I killed that woman.” Hulan’s voice was tired. “In the square. I’m the mother killer. If I’d followed my instincts then, she’d still be alive.”
“Oh, honey, that has nothing to do with this.”
“And if I’d followed my instincts when we got here, then Lily would still be alive too.”
“You can’t blame yourself.”
“Of course I can.”
Even in the dark he could see she was trembling. This wasn’t about Xiao Da, Tang Wenting, or the All-Patriotic Society anymore, nor was it about Lily or the woman in the square. It was about Chaowen. David had longed for this conversation for months, but he had never anticipated that it would come in the middle of an argument.
“There was nothing we could do,” he said softly, trying to rein in his anger of moments before.
“I was her mother!”
“You’ve got to stop punishing yourself.”
“I can’t.”
She wanted to say something more, and he gently coaxed her. “What is it?”
“You should have done something,” she said at last.
“What, Hulan?” he asked in anguish. “What could I have done?”
“You should have made us move to the States. She might never have gotten sick, and if she had, she would have gotten proper medical care….”
He heard what she said as an unfair, cruel, and false accusation. He was the one who had wanted Chaowen to be born in the United States; he’d wanted her to grow up there. It was Hulan who had refused to leave China—over many years and many requests. It was she who had insisted they not take Chaowen to the hospital “just yet.” Some Tylenol would do, Hulan had claimed. And then it was she who had emotionally deserted David, leaving him to mourn his bright and beautiful daughter alone.
“If going to Los Angeles would have saved our daughter’s life, then you are to blame,” he retorted without thinking. “Just as you’re to blame for not wanting to go to the hospital sooner.”
Finally she’d gotten him to say what they’d both been censoring all these months. Hulan didn’t say a word. She just turned away from him and began walking toward Bashan.
They were soaked to the skin by the time they got back to town. David took a hot shower and got into bed, then watched as Hulan, wearing a white silk wrap that was sheer enough to hint at her nakedness underneath, called Beijing and left a voice message for Vice Minister Zai outlining their travel plans as well as what she’d discovered about the cult: the group appeared to be advocating violence, a high-ranking All-Patriotic Society lieutenant was in Bashan, Xiao Da himself might be here too, and the MPS should send a team to make arrests at one of the nightly meetings in the cave as soon as possible. After hanging up, she gathered a few things to take with her tomorrow. Then she opened the window to its widest. Warm, moist air followed her to the bed. She sat on the edge of the mattress and looked at him squarely.
They were way past apologies, and she spoke with chilling matter-of-factness. “Tomorrow you and Pathologist Fong will drop me at the dam so I can ask Stuart Miller about what we heard tonight and find out more about his relationships with Brian and Lily. You and Fong can continue on to Wuhan airport. He’ll catch his flight to Beijing, and you can fly to Hong Kong for the auction.”
She turned off the light and curled on her side away from him. He lay there listening to the whirring of the overhead fan. Once he thought she was asleep, he got up, dressed, slipped out into the corridor, and walked to the veranda outside the restaurant. He sat in a wicker chair and watched as the downpour tapered off to heavy mist.
/> David was in deep despair. He’d loved Hulan for so many years, even those when she’d been lost to him. He’d believed theirs was a true love, but tonight—after everything that had happened today—when he heard her self-reproach for what seemed the millionth time, he’d let down his guard and lost his patience. He’d personally given up much to have a family life in China. He’d abandoned his love of the great issues of law and justice, settling instead for small cases of little significance. (Looking for a few stolen artifacts in a small town in China’s interior was a far cry from the international disputes he’d handled before.) It was a choice he’d willingly made so that the three of them could be happy.
David didn’t hate Hulan for what had happened to Chaowen. Hulan had done what any mother would have done in the same circumstances. An hour or a day wouldn’t have made any difference; the meningitis strain was too virulent, and Chaowen could have contracted it anywhere. But when David heard Hulan blame him for Chaowen’s death, he’d cracked. In that moment he’d finally faced what had been before him these past months. Hulan might never get past the what-ifs. She might look at him forever with eyes as empty as if a curtain had fallen over her soul. He’d thought she was lost and he could save her. What he hadn’t understood was that that same blanket had covered him. He was lost, too—in his career, in his spirit, and in his marriage. He loved Hulan with all of his heart, but if there was to be redemption for either of them, she would have to reach out to him.
THE SWORN DOMAIN
(Yao Fu)
Remoter still. Within the first 300 li are allied barbarians and people of restraint. The last 200 li are saved for criminals undergoing lesser banishment.
THE HELICOPTER SWOOPED DOWN FOR A CLOSER VIEW OF A particularly dramatic outcropping of rocks and verdant foliage in the Xiling Gorge. David sat up front with the pilot, Hulan was in the backseat with Fong, and Lily’s body was shrouded on one of the helicopter’s pontoons. Pregnant clouds hung heavily over the lofty, pine-covered summits. Down below, the swollen river swaggered past villages and towns, terraced fields and honeycombed rocks.
