by Lisa See
To Hom’s right, Su kept at his grisly task.
“Michael….”
He held up his hands to silence her and said, “Please don’t say something like I won’t get away with it.”
“I—”
He shook his head to stop her from speaking. “And don’t say someone will come to rescue you. No one will rescue you. The police, as you see, are already here.”
“There are others,” she said.
“Who? Your husband? I think not. If anything, he hurts your chances.”
Strangely, Hulan felt no fear. She was the one with the gun, didn’t they see that?
At David’s insistence, the chopper pilot radioed a local airstrip, was patched through to the Panda Guesthouse, and was told that Inspector Liu had left on some sort of emergency. When they tried to get through to Bashan’s Public Security Bureau and no one answered, David knew with horrible certainty where Hulan had gone. He frantically ordered the pilot to alter his course. David knew where he wanted to land, but when the pilot saw it he told the American he was out of his mind.
“See that cliff?” the pilot yelled. “With the wind we’ll be blown right into it! The rotors—”
But even as tenacious gusts buffeted the craft while it tried to maintain its altitude just below Bashan Village, David could see during the flashes of lightning that he’d made the right deduction. There, towering above the hillsides up ahead, was the geographical character for door—the Kuimen Gate—that Brian had used to mark the entrance to the Qutang Gorge on the coded map from his journal. Directly below them was the river. Just parallel to the pilot’s window were two smaller peaks, each topped with rocks that David knew from Brian’s map marked the Beheading Dragon Platform and the Binding Dragon Pillar. From this vantage so high in the air, David could clearly see the curled ancient dragon after its death and the places that Brian had marked as fields, though there were no fields there now and probably hadn’t been for centuries. The geography itself created cliff, and the formations buttressing the entrance to the Wu house formed cave. And just above cave was an outcropping of stone with a single large rock protruding beneath it—the character for below.
Lightning streaked around them. The chopper shook violently.
“Bring it down!” David shouted. “Now!”
The pilot fought the weather for control of his machine. They were about ten feet from the ground when a surge of air hurled them back out over the river. The pilot screamed, “I can’t do it! If the wind goes the other way, we’re dead!”
The weather had the upper hand. The wind pushed the chopper toward the cliff. The limestone face rushed toward the windshield. Then, in one of those quirks of nature, the wind right against the cliff died just long enough for the pilot to land. With the ruyi in hand, David jumped out and ran through the mud and rain. He banged on the door of the Wu house. No one answered, but he knew that even with the riotous sounds of the storm the inhabitants had heard the helicopter. He hit the door again as hard as he could.
It opened, and David entered the one room that made up the Wus’ home. The old blind man sat on the edge of a kang next to a kerosene lamp. His daughter-in-law, who’d answered the door, backed away and stood against the stone wall, clutching her swaddled child protectively.
Now that David was here he wasn’t sure how to proceed. His impulse was to shake out of the woman what he needed to know, but her terrified countenance told him she was already in danger of shutting down completely. He took a breath, closed the door, and replaced the bar that protected the Wus from outsiders. As he turned, he heard a distant murmur slink through the room. “Xiao Da, Xiao Da, Xiao Da….”
The old man spoke in a quavering voice. “Who is it?”
David kept his eyes on the young widow as he answered, concentrating on his tones like never before. “Wo shi nimen de pengyou.” I am your friend, he told them, but he addressed his words solely to the woman. He reached into his breast pocket, and she cowered against the rocky wall, frozen by fear. He unfolded Brian’s map and slowly stepped toward her.
“We embrace Nine Virtues.” The sound rippled through the room as though Xiao Da were there with them.
“We don’t want visitors,” the old man said.
David didn’t bother to respond. He held out the map and pointed to the ancient character for good—a mother protecting her child—then to the woman. She looked at it, then up at David. Her eyes were anguished. He reached out his hand. The woman shrank another inch or two down the wall, but she had nowhere to go. His fingers lightly touched the dirty blanket. As gently as possible he pulled the blanket away from the baby’s face. The child was awake. He had blue eyes, and his hair was just beginning to come in as light fuzz. The old blind man couldn’t know that this infant was not his grandchild.
David pointed to the symbol for cave on the map. The woman averted her face and closed her eyes.
“You should go now,” the old man said.
Again David spoke to the young woman before him, using the purest tones he could manage. “Show me the way.” Then he leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Brian died protecting you. Now you can save someone else.”
“The people will know,” she whispered back. She held the child out to him.
“The people will know anyway,” he said.
David watched several emotions play over the young woman’s features. She covered her baby’s face and brought him closer to her chest, then slowly and with great effort stood up. She looked at David, then nodded to the stack of boxes that made up the family’s storage area. He crossed to it as the woman went to the door. He timed his movements to hers. As she pulled up the bar, he pulled away the top crate. As soon as she opened the door and the sounds of the storm filled the little room, he yanked away the other boxes, grabbed the lantern and the ruyi, and stepped through the dark opening. He didn’t look back.
HULAN KEPT FLASHING BACK TO THE KNIGHT FACTORY AND THE women who’d died. This was an equally volatile situation. She didn’t want anyone to get hurt or die who wasn’t already a lost cause. She was willing to be left alone with Michael Quon rather than do something that would risk triggering a mass movement from the followers in the cavern below, which would only add to the tragedy. She would wait for them to go home before she made her move. But the only way to buy time was to engage Michael Quon in the intellectual cat-and-mouse game he’d played with her from the first time they’d spoken in the lobby of the Panda Guesthouse.
“You’re no better than the Falun Gong.” It was lame, but it was a start.
“We’re not as big,” Quon responded agreeably. “They have forty million followers worldwide. We have half that—all in China. But give us another year or two and the Communist Party’s fifty-five million will seem minuscule by comparison.”
“You think you can move so quickly?”
“I already have. The people have been waiting for someone like me. They see the corruption of the state and they embrace magic, qi gong, and—”
“And religious quacks like you.” She shook her head dismissively. “Your methods have been used by others before, but the people will understand the truth about you soon enough. As Mao said, the one who thinks he’s smarter than the masses will be abandoned by the masses.”
“The people look at nature and they understand the larger concepts of the universe. They see flooding and they know it is a message from Heaven that all is not right.”
“And you think you can help them?” Hulan baited him. “How? By preying on their weaknesses? By stealing their cultural heritage? By preventing them from enjoying the benefits of science and technology? Your motives aren’t so pure.”
The chanting resumed. Hulan fought her desire to look at her watch. Most of the people below were peasants. They would need to get up early to work their fields. The meeting had to end soon….
“You can’t stop the river from flowing,” Quon said.
“This isn’t about the dam or the people who’ll be move
d from these shores,” she countered, trying to break his reliance on his religious platitudes. “This is about the power of a single man. Do you really believe you have the Mandate of Heaven? You’ve said before that I know nothing of my country’s history, but let me tell you what we both know. Every dynasty was brought down by corruption, even that of Yu the Great.”
“You’re right. Each new Xia emperor was more corrupt than the last. First the amusements of the palace, then drinking and gambling, then women—”
“And you begin your rule with those most corrupt acts! I’ve seen you drink. I’ve seen how you are with women. And then there’s this….” She gestured to Hom and his brother-in-law.
Michael’s jaw clenched. She had to be careful.
“You say one thing to the people, but you’re just another fat rat stealing from them,” she goaded him.
“I’m not afraid of the intoxicating qualities of liquor.”
“Because you put yourself above the people! Tell me, Michael, did Yu labor for the good of the black-haired ones, or was he looking to create an empire for his own edification? What of his pride, his pleasure, his ego? During his labors he distressed his body, but he was rewarded by having the people under his control. This is no different than Qinshihuangdi or Mao. And you’re no different from them in your lies.”
“They destroyed the past. I’m preserving it.”
“By stopping the dam?” Hulan scoffed. “Even you can’t stop that.”
“Nature must be allowed to take its course.”
“Why? So people can die? You seem to forget the thousands of years of floods and deaths.”
“You look like a modern woman, Hulan, but you’re so old-fashioned. Confucian ethics won’t work on the river.”
With that, the Taoist elements of the All-Patriotic Society’s beliefs that had eluded her began to make sense. He’d used them with the people as shorthand to decry the benefits of technology.
“From the earliest days of Yu, two moral schools of thought emerged about hydraulic engineering,” Michael said, veering back into the stylized language of Xiao Da. “Do we confine nature or let it run free? Do we let raw sewage pollute the reservoir or let it flow to the sea? Do we build high dams that barricade nature or deepen channels? Do we let the silt gather behind those high walls or do we let it fertilize the fields downstream? It is the classic battle between the male and female, the yin and the yang. The high walls are masculine, while the excavation of deep concavities is feminine—”
“You are so full of shit!”
“Kun failed to prevent floods because he tried to repress nature. His son guided the waters to the seas.”
“Confucian and Taoist practices have no place in a Communist state.”
“The state can resist, but the old beliefs run through the body of China like dragon veins—hidden, sometimes suppressed, but always affecting those who live on the surface.”
“Stop talking to me like I’m one of your followers!”
“All right then. Let me put it in words you’ll understand. You’re a good Communist, but can you tell me you haven’t lived your life hemmed in by the strictures of Confucian thought? Filial duty—”
Officer Su stepped back through the opening. “They are ready, Xiao Da.”
Michael kept his eyes on Hulan as he raised his voice so that it would resonate through the cave system. “Go forth tonight with my message. Do not wallow in pleasure. Subdue the wild tribes in your heart. Remember the Nine Virtues, remember your grade, remember your tribute.” He paused to lower his voice for a final blessing. “Be reverent,” he said, and below the tithing began.
David put his left hand on the wall to serve as a guide as he maneuvered down the tunnel, but he pulled it away after just a few yards. His hand was covered in something gooey and smelly. Without stopping, he wiped it on his pants leg and continued on. He rounded a corner and entered a small chamber filled with artifacts. His eyes grazed over the jade chimes like the one he’d seen at the Cosgrove’s auction and some pots still whole, but now was not the time to stop.
The tunnel began to lead down, breaking off here and there in new directions. Leaning his head into one shaft, he heard water rushing below. Focusing on another small opening, he heard echoing silence. He listened at every shaft, tunnel, alcove, and indentation, trying to home in on the chanting. Even when it stopped, he could still hear voices. Hulan was down there somewhere! Though he couldn’t make out the words, he could catch her inflections and cadences floating to him through the darkness. A tumultuous combination of relief and gritty determination pushed him forward.
The tunnel narrowed and shortened until he had to get on his hands and knees to pass through. He pushed the lantern and ruyi ahead of him, then edged behind them. His head and side throbbed. Each movement sent searing pain zapping across his nerves. He began to hear the lies Michael Quon told. He heard the mistakes as well. He knew that Hulan had found her way here somehow, but she still didn’t know the truth of what had happened. He hoped that ignorance would protect her.
The rocky ceiling lowered even farther. If it got much tighter, he’d have to abandon the lamp and do this blind. If it got much tighter than that, he wouldn’t be able to make it through at all.
The people below had gone home, and it was just the four of them now: Hulan, Michael, Su, and Hom. She still had her weapon, and it was loaded, but she could see that Su had his service revolver, and for all she knew Michael had Hom’s. But every time she tried to focus on how to disable the two men without getting killed herself, Michael interrupted her thoughts with his persistent and increasingly personal conversation.
“How many times has your husband gotten you into dangerous situations?” he asked.
“I’ve gotten myself into things that were dangerous.”
Michael considered this, then said, “Your husband led you to your father’s hiding place. Your father would have killed you.”
But David had taken the bullet for her.
She stayed beside Hom and put her hand on his chest. She wanted him to know she wasn’t leaving. To Michael she said, “You’ve researched my life, but so what? Any fool can find my life history. A search on the Internet, a day reading newspaper clippings….”
Michael ignored her words. He stood and gracefully stretched his arms above his head, then brought his hands down to the small of his back and stretched again. He crossed over to her and hunkered down so that they were eye to eye. “And what man who loves a woman would let her go into a factory of death?”
Yes, the terrible deaths at the Knight factory, but Michael didn’t know the truth of that day either.
“I went in there against his wishes.”
“That man has no sensitivity to our culture—”
“It is not your culture—”
“If he’d opened his eyes, he would have known you weren’t safe. He would have protected you,” Michael wheedled.
“I’ve protected myself—”
“You’ve protected your heart.”
“You’re trying to exploit my weaknesses just as you’ve abused the weaknesses of the people, but it won’t work.”
But even as she contradicted him, she knew that he’d hit the core truth about her. She didn’t deserve happiness. She had never been strong enough to protect the people she loved, whereas the real Liu Hulan had loved so much that she’d been willing to lay her life down to save an entire village.
“Actually,” Michael said, as though reading her thoughts, “you would let your body go in a minute. That is why you have always put yourself into positions where you could die.”
“I’m not brave. If you knew anything about me, you’d know that.” She looked down at Captain Hom and squeezed his shoulder. “But this man is a hero, and he’ll be remembered as a martyr when you’re revealed as a fraud—a foreign one at that.”
Michael’s eyes flashed angrily. Could she provoke him into making a mistake? Again he seemed to read her mind, because with the gr
ace and speed of a qi gong master he’d grabbed her gun and tucked it into his belt even before she could begin to react. Then he motioned to Officer Su, who set down his sponge, picked up an ax, and in two brutal motions chopped off both of Hom’s feet. Hulan heard Hom’s muffled screams through his gag. Su looked at Michael, who motioned for his underling to put the ax on the stone platform next to Hulan. She wasn’t sure if he was tempting her to pick it up or warning her that her end was inevitable.
Michael resumed his niggling. “You marry this David Stark, but you don’t really love him.”
“Of course I do.”
Michael shook his head knowingly. “The man loves you— anyone can see that—but you don’t love him with your whole heart. Your heart is a fortress against happiness.”
In spite of herself, Michael’s dime-store babble was getting to her. She broke eye contact with him and looked down at Hom. “You can’t know what’s in my heart.”
Hom’s eyes were glassy. His skin, which had always looked jaundiced and unhealthy, was even more depleted, wrinkling as the life ran out of him.
“Your husband gave up so much to be with you—his homeland, his career, his happiness. You can’t do that to a man.”
“I tried to make him happy.”
“But you failed. You failed in the one way a woman must never fail.”
She turned back to Michael. His smile was beautiful, and his skin glowed in the candlelight. “Yes, Hulan, I’m talking about your daughter.”
“How do you know about her?”
“You were after us, Hulan. It was important for me to know everything about you.”
Hulan knew what she was dealing with now. Michael Quon was not a psychopath. He’d gotten to this point with the cold and deliberate plotting of a mathematical mind.
“You should have done more,” he said. “You should have protected her.”
She’d been trained never to be tricked into giving personal revelations, but she couldn’t stop herself. “I did everything I could.”
“Why didn’t you take her to the hospital sooner? Did you not want to make a fuss because no girl child is worth it?” He paused, then recited, “‘When a girl, obey your father; when a wife, obey your husband; when a widow, obey your son.’”
