Dragon Bones

by Lisa See

  She thought about what Hom had said about the people of Bashan and realized that from the moment she’d stepped off the ferry she’d sensed something unsettled about this place. On the surface it seemed like any other little town in the interior of China, with its cafés, dry goods shops, and vegetable stands, but there was an energy that percolated just under the surface. She had initially thought it had to do with the dam—the spirit of the great project infecting the populace with civic pride.

  She realized now that this strange vitality boiled out of something far more intimate—fear, anger, and the uncertainty of the unknown. Everything these people had known would be gone soon. Longtime neighbors would be dispersed. All of the alliances, all of the petty arguments, all of the secrets traded, would disappear into the ether as though they’d never existed. Strange sights would replace street corners that had been as familiar as the back of one’s hand. Houses that had been homes for generations would be lost under the lake, and that thought would have to be terribly unsettling because of the joys and sorrows that would be drowned and gone forever. And all the past generations, who’d been laid to rest in places selected for their good feng shui, would never again be visited, their graves never again cleaned for Spring Festival, offerings never again brought.

  Hulan was jolted out of these ruminations by a voice repeating her name. She turned and saw Michael Quon. He held a hand over his chest, panting, then he smiled and said, “I’ve been running after you, calling you. You obviously were very lost in thought, something I’m afraid I’m always accused of.”

  “Dr. Quon.”

  “Michael is fine.” He dropped his hand and smiled again.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Ha!”

  It seemed to Hulan that the light and airy syllable reached into the deepest darkness of her heart.

  “I was out for a walk. I saw you and you looked”—his forehead knit as he searched for the right word—“pensive. Are you all right?”

  “I was thinking.”

  “As I said, that’s what I’m always accused of doing. That’s when it’s best to get some fresh air, take a walk, clear the mind. Want to join me?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, but when he started up the hill she found herself keeping pace with him.

  “Have you walked the Qutang Gorge yet?” he asked, his voice buoyant. When Hulan said she hadn’t, he said, “Take an hour, Inspector, and come with me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Take it from a fellow brooder, you’ll think better.”

  After everything that had happened today—the tense exchanges with David, the parries with Stuart Miller, the hours with the paperwork, the retracing of what might have happened to Lily, the interview with the gatekeeper, and this last meeting with Hom—she was weary in spirit. She had only one person left on her list, but Angela McCarthy could wait an hour. So Hulan walked with Michael Quon.

  They left the main road and joined a path that continued west. The land here was completely different from the scorched earth near Site 518. Pine groves clung to the hills. Waterfalls cascaded from high precipices into deep gullies. Then suddenly she and Quon were on the old towpath cut right into the cliff she’d seen that first day from the ferry. She closed her umbrella, because the path was little more than a meter wide and she could touch the rocky ceiling above her. Below, the swollen river raged past. If the rain continued another day or two, this path would be submerged.

  Without speaking, they walked single file until up ahead Hulan could see the two imposing mountains that formed the Kuimen Gate at the entrance to the gorge. For the first time in days the sun broke through the clouds, and Quon abruptly stopped.

  “Look!” Rays of sunlight caught on wet outcroppings of rock even as high above them mists still hid the peaks. “When you see something like this,” he said, his voice a respectful whisper, “you know why the landscape painters were inspired to reflect on the insignificance of man in the face of nature.”

  “It’s beautiful,” she agreed.

  “It’s humbling,” he corrected.

  He rested his back against the rock and spoke out into the gorge. “‘In deep, fog-filled gorges, dragons and tigers sleep.’”

  She supposed that he was quoting Du Fu, but she wasn’t sure, and she was surprised that Quon, a Chinese American, could recite those words as though he’d known them his entire life.

  “Can you imagine what this must have been like in the old days?” he asked. “Men stripped down to loincloths with ropes slung over their shoulders and their bodies bent down so far with the effort of pulling boats upriver through the rapids that their noses nearly touched this stone floor. Imagine it, Inspector, the immense human effort.” He turned to her and smiled again. “For millennia the people followed Yu the Great’s approach to the river. He adhered to nature’s laws and had great respect for the inherent aspects of water. Then Mao came along and dynamited. Both understood that controlling floods was central to their success. But the results weren’t always for the best, were they?”

  “Well….”

  His laugh floated out into the gorge, and he ran a hand through his straight black hair, ruffling it up from his scalp.

  “How do you look at the world, Inspector? I bet you like facts—like how the river has its source in the Tibetan Plateau and how it crashes down through the Himalayas. Or how the river should drain into the Gulf of Tonkin but abruptly changes its course in Yunnan so that it washes through the width of China and empties into the South China Sea. Those are facts, but the legends are so much more romantic.”

  “I’m not from this area, so I don’t know them,” she admitted.

  “Every child knows the story of Yu the Great—”

  “I don’t. Tell me.”

  “At dinner,” he said, turning so that their arms touched.

  “I have to work.”

  “You still have to eat,” he countered.

  “It wouldn’t be proper.”

  “We won’t be alone. We’ll be in a room with scholars and waitresses. We all know who you are and that you’re a married woman.”

  “I meant it wouldn’t be proper for me to have dinner with you while I’m conducting an investigation.”

  He turned away from her, laughing again. “And I thought you thought I was making a pass.”

  Why did Americans always have to say everything that crossed their minds?

  “You’re not afraid, are you?” he asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “Then have dinner with me. I can hardly be one of your suspects, so your integrity will be safe with me.”

  She knew he was daring her, and the only thing she could think of was to call his bluff. “All right. I’ll have dinner with you.”

  She knew a lot about human nature, but she couldn’t read his look except that it wasn’t the nervousness she’d hoped for.

  “You said you wanted to be gone for only an hour,” he reminded her.

  She suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to hold her ground. “If you’d told me the story of Da Yu when I first asked, it would already be over.”

  Quon gave in at last. He turned back to look out into the gorge and lifted a hand to take in the sweep of the river. “There was a time of great flooding. Yu used dragons to sculpt China’s hills and valleys and chase away the waters. He worked so hard that the hair fell from his shins.”

  “That’s it?”

  “The short form.”

  “There are no such thing as dragons.”

  “Then what about dragon bones?”

  “Even I know those are just old turtle and ox bones.”

  “You’re very practical, Inspector,” Quon decided.

  “I don’t believe in Chinese ghosts or fox spirits either.”

  “What if you’re wrong? What if Yu’s dragons did exist?”

  “There’s no such thing as a dragon,” she insisted.

  “How do you know? There are scholars who believe that China may
have had dragons once upon a time. Call them dinosaurs if you prefer, but still huge, powerful creatures that lived in the time before the great climatic change. Look at this slice of river, where almost every hill has a pagoda with a dragon locked under it, where every rock or curve has some story related to how Yu came through with a dragon and saved the people. Where do you think those stories came from, and why are they all so similar?”

  “They came from the minds of simple village people.”

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you that those simple village people, as you call them, may know more than you?” His disappointment in her was palpable. “Come on, let’s go back.”

  AT SIX, DAVID DRESSED IN HIS NEW SUIT, GRABBED THE CATALOG, and walked the few blocks to the Ritz-Carlton. The storm was about to hit Hong Kong, and the wind was furious, but this hadn’t deterred a group of demonstrators from parading outside the Ritz with plastic-wrapped placards in English and Chinese that read, DON’T SELL OUR HERITAGE, OUR HERITAGE BELONGS IN CHINA, and RETURN OUR HERITAGE TO THE MOTHERLAND. David was here to see if he couldn’t help some of those slogans come true. As Fitzwilliams had said, there wasn’t time today to stop the auction through legal means, but tonight David could watch where the pieces that matched Ma’s descriptions went and on Monday begin litigation against their new owners if the Cultural Relics Bureau wanted him to.

  He pushed through the revolving doors and into an immense air-conditioned lobby scented by bouquets of lilies and tuberoses. He rode the elevator upstairs with Daisy Ting, a Red Princess from Beijing. David had been at her daughter’s wedding last year—a lavish affair at the Palace Hotel. As soon as he got off the elevator, he recognized another couple of people from Beijing, including Nixon Chen, Hulan’s old lawyer friend who’d vouched for David’s abilities to Director Ho.

  “Are you here on business or pleasure?” Nixon asked after they’d shaken hands. “We all know that your dear wife has one of the best art collections in the capital.” It was Nixon all over—florid, unctuous, but fully aware of what he was doing. Soon he’d be hauling out the American metaphors that he loved so well but usually mangled.

  “Those are Liu family pieces,” Daisy Ting corrected, sidling into the conversation. “Everyone knows that Hulan’s mother’s family had some of the most beautiful artworks in the country.”

  “Had is right. Those things were destroyed or confiscated,” David said.

  “In the Ting family too.”

  “And even in my family,” added Nixon, “which is why I’m here.” He angled in close to David. “If I may ask, what are you bidding on tonight?”

  “Nothing,” David answered. “I’m here for the Cultural Relics Bureau.”

  “Of course! Now we’ll learn nothing! Attorney-client privilege! Attorney Stark always plays his cards close to his vest, just like you, Daisy. I know you have your eye on those Song Dynasty ceramics.”

  “And you, dear Nixon, on the snuff bottles,” Daisy bandied back. “No one tonight has a chance against you.”

  “You rank me too high,” Nixon said modestly.

  “Tell me who here today does not already know the strength of your paddle?”

  Nixon burbled happily at the subtle innuendo, then he and Daisy drifted off. A young woman approached and in an efficient though extremely polite succession of questions determined David’s needs. Since he already had his catalog, he wouldn’t need to check in unless he wanted to bid. If he wanted to bid and didn’t already have a Cosgrove’s account, he’d need to make financial arrangements based on how much he might spend this evening. That this was Saturday night wouldn’t be a problem as long as Mr. Stark could provide his banker’s home phone number. None of this was necessary if he wanted to pay in cash. When David said that he didn’t think he’d be bidding, the young woman said that he should go into the ballroom then and enjoy the last few minutes of the preview.

  Just inside the ballroom, a staff of uniformed men stood at the ready with flutes of champagne on silver trays. The paintings David had seen in the catalog hung on the walls. The other artworks stood on risers around the perimeter of the room. Folding chairs lacquered a glossy deep forest green filled the middle. A center aisle through the chairs led straight to a podium that had been set up on a platform at the front of the room. Two huge screens flanked this. To the right were lined long tables with computers and other electronic equipment, while on the left another elevated platform provided space for a table thirty feet long with fifteen chairs set behind it. On top of the table were telephones, pads of paper, pitchers of water, and glasses, all set just so.

  Most of the hundred or so people here mingled around the risers, turning the objects this way and that to admire the detail, check for artist marks, and look for imperfections. None of the pieces was behind glass, and the number of security guards seemed paltry given the value of the objects and the fact that people could handle them so freely.

  Once David figured out the numbering system for the lots, he made his way to the display area for the three ruyis. They lay side by side and were as different from each other as could be, although they all followed the same scepterlike design that Ma had drawn in the dirt the day before yesterday. The first was composed of turquoise cloisonné with an interlocking lotus design in red, yellow, and white. The catalog said it was from the sixteenth century and listed the estimated price between fifty thousand and seventy thousand Hong Kong dollars.

  The second ruyi, dating from the late Qing Dynasty, was far less colorful but no less ornate. An elaborate rendering of the Eight Immortals had been carved into the jadeite shaft and head. Although this ruyi came with its own carrying case, the estimate was a meager HK$1,500 to HK$2,000.

  The third ruyi was completely different, yet immediately recognizable from Ma’s description. It looked like a dried mushroom on a stick. The estimated price was HK$22,500 to HK$38,000, or $3,000 to $5,000 U.S. David felt like a bumbling philistine: He didn’t know a lot about art, but he knew what he liked. And he just didn’t see how any of these ruyis could be so valuable or what anyone would do with them if they owned them.

  “David Stark.”

  David turned at the sound of the familiar voice and saw Stuart Miller dressed in an elegant suit of beige linen. A middle-aged woman in a skintight cheongsam hung on his arm.

  “I thought you were at the dam,” David said.

  “I was.”

  “I thought you were supposed to stay in China.”

  “In case you haven’t heard, Hong Kong was returned to China,” Stuart said lightly.

  “Does Inspector Liu know?”

  Stuart grinned as if his hand had been caught in the proverbial cookie jar. “Your wife….” He let out a low whistle. “We had a nice chat this morning, but my hat’s off to you, buddy. She’s tough.”

  “Which doesn’t answer my question.”

  “I didn’t tell her my plans. There’s nothing to worry about, though. I have my project to finish. I’ll be back.”

  “Is everything okay up there? I heard a report on the weather.”

  “Yeah, it’s a bitch. I took back roads down to Wuhan, then took a commercial flight. Same as you, I’ll bet.” Stuart smiled disarmingly, then gestured to the woman at his side. “Have you met Madame Wang? How would you like to be introduced, dear? Shall I say you’re the absentee owner of the Panda Guesthouse?”

  “Whatever makes you happy,” Madame Wang answered.

  A waiter appeared and silently refilled their glasses with Mumm’s. As soon as he’d stepped away, Stuart said, “I’m here for a few days. Why don’t you come up for breakfast tomorrow morning?” Then he made quite a show of offering his card to David in the Hong Kong manner, cupping it in both hands in presentation and bowing slightly. Stuart then returned to scrutinizing the competition. “David, have you been to an auction like this before?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Bidding?” Stuart asked with feigned disinterest.

  “You know why I’m here.”
>
  “Then you’re in for quite an experience. An auction like this is full of drama. Those two men by the bronzes are dealers from New York. Even though each believes himself to be specialized, there’s a lot of overlap in what they buy. So right now they’re negotiating over who’s going to bid on what. They’re competitors but they’re also businessmen, and there’s no need to drive up the price unnecessarily.”

  “Sounds like price fixing.”

  “Except that price fixing is against house rules.” Though Stuart spoke graciously, his eyes still surveyed the room. “No, we certainly don’t want to call it that, especially not after the Sotheby’s and Christie’s price-fixing fiasco. Of course that was between the houses themselves over sellers’ commissions, and not between buyers. But if the auction houses can call it friendly conversation, so can the dealers and collectors. This is high-stakes poker. Right now Cosgrove’s is shuffling the deck, and we, the players, are rolling up our sleeves and checking out who our opponents are and how high they’ll bid.”

  This explained Nixon’s jocular inquiries, though even David—an absolute neophyte to the proceedings—could see that Hulan’s old friend was not a poker player of Stuart’s caliber.

  David asked, “How many of these people do you know?”

  “Tonight, in this room? Almost everyone, including Nixon Chen and Daisy Ting. We saw you talking to them earlier.”

  “Nixon Chen and his snuff bottles.” Madame Wang sniffed dismissively. “But I saw Daisy examining the two Song dingyaos. They’re both fine pieces, but did you see the chip on the rim of the one with the ducks and lotus pattern?” When David shook his head, the woman appraised him with steely determination. “Which one will she be bidding on?”

  “I don’t know,” David answered honestly.