The First Excellence: Fa-Ling's Map

by Donna Carrick

  “Isn’t that like playing God?” Randy said. “With so many prisoners to choose from, how could he know which he should save?”

  “It was a great responsibility for him,” Long agreed. “We spoke of it many times. He sought my advice on the subject. In the end he understood that, as difficult as it was to make these choices, they had to be made quickly and without recrimination, or the ‘train’ would be derailed.”

  “What did he base his decisions on?”

  “His first criterion was imminent danger. If a prisoner was at immediate risk of torture or surgery, that prisoner would make the list.

  “Second, Lim also had to have easy access to the prisoner. He could not attempt any rescue that would heighten chances of his being discovered.

  “Finally, he tried to choose those prisoners who were resilient enough to survive the long journey to freedom.”

  “Why, then, did he choose Gui-Jing? He must have known she had little chance of recovery.” Shopei translated Randy’s question in a whisper, not wanting the injured woman to hear.

  “I suspect he took an inordinate risk in saving Wu Gui-Jing. No doubt he knew she might not survive, and when he arrived with her, he had to carry her into my house. In fact, I would not be surprised if he was seen removing her from the camp. She was not conscious when he put her into the vehicle.”

  Long scratched his head before continuing. “I don’t know why he chose her. Maybe he felt empathy for such a young girl. Maybe she reminded him of his daughter.”

  “Exactly what was done to her?” Randy asked.

  “Lim told me Gui-Jing was beautiful when she arrived at the camp. It did not take long for the other wardens to notice her. One night he heard them when he was performing his rounds. They were in her cell. She was calling out for help, but of course, no help would come. Your father,” Long said to Shopei, “tried to intervene at once, but had no authority over the men. He pleaded with them to stop, but they became more violent, beating the girl and taking turns with her. Lim could not stand to hear her screams. He left her to suffer alone. He was ashamed of this.”

  “He had no choice,” Shopei said defiantly. “Those pigs would have killed him.”

  “Exactly. Later, though, he told me he was so ashamed that he knew he had to save her. He planned to take her away the next night. He did not realise, though, she had been scheduled for surgery that afternoon. He looked for her, but she was already in the operating room, undergoing surgery to remove her kidneys.”

  “But she still has her kidneys,” Randy said.

  “Yes.” Long nodded his head. “When the surgeon made the cut, he immediately saw the damage that had been done to the organs. The beating she’d suffered had bruised her kidneys. The surgeon ordered the incision to be closed immediately. Gui-Jing was sent back to her cell to heal, so the operation could be performed at a later date.”

  “She didn’t heal, though.”

  “No. Unfortunately the conditions of the operating room were less than sterile. She was sewn up badly, and thrown back into her bed without antibiotics. Her captors cared little whether she lived. There were plenty more kidneys to be had. Lim took her that night. He was afraid even in her battered state the others might try to abuse her further. He could not witness it again.”

  “He hoped you could heal her,” Randy said.

  “Lim said to me, ‘Father, I bring you this one so she may know peace in her spirit. If she dies, let her die here in your garden. I will come for her body when it is practical to do so’. He carried the girl inside and laid her on the healing bed. That was the last time I saw him, two weeks ago today.”

  “The next day he was attacked,” Shopei said. “He must have aroused suspicion when he tried to defend the girl. They may have been watching when he carried her to the car.”

  “Let’s hope they didn’t follow him here,” Randy said.

  “They did not follow him,” Long said. “I am sure of it.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Fa-ling watched the sun rise through her hotel window, painting long shadows on the city below. Already the traffic was heavy with delivery trucks, brightly coloured buses and labourers on bicycles. Large sections of street were currently under construction, the sidewalks ripped apart and thick dust hovering in the sullen air.

  Her room did not have a balcony. Fa-ling felt self-conscious about the idea of practising her T’Ai Chi alone on the grounds, but she preferred to exercise in the fresh air. She made her way to the courtyard beside the outdoor pool and began her hand movements.

  Like Confucius, whose teachings she had studied, Fa-ling believed in the steady pursuit of “five excellences” to ensure a balanced and productive life. She had already chosen four excellences: music, to empty the soul of anger and to bring beauty to the mind; poetry, to assist with understanding the inner self; languages, to heighten one’s ability to communicate with others; and martial arts, to align the three elements of life, mind, body and spirit, with the universe. To her distress, she didn’t know yet what the ‘first excellence’ would be.

  She was passionate about all four of her selected endeavours, but none of them would ensure her a living. She needed to decide on a career.

  That was the reason for this trip. Fa-ling believed she could not go forward until she had first gone backward. She needed to revisit the past in order to gain a better understanding of who she really was. Only then would she know what she should do with her life.

  Fa-ling respected the experience of her elders. Her father hoped she would become an academic like him, to make use of her understanding of literature and art. Her mother said she only wanted Fa-ling to be happy.

  Be happy! That was a tall order. How could one be happy without direction, flailing around after this achievement and that, never really knowing what one was meant to do, never discovering the “first excellence”?

  By the time she finished her exercise ritual, Fa-ling felt more relaxed. She knew what she must do that morning, if not in the distant future. She would have to postpone her planned visit to the Li River until the following day. Instead, she would place a call to the detective, Wang Yong-qi. She should have called him immediately, while the man with the vacuum cleaner was still in room 607, but at the time panic had dominated her thoughts and her mind had failed to find its way to that obvious conclusion.

  Since there was no longer any urgency, Fa-ling decided to get breakfast out of the way before calling Wang.

  From the courtyard she went directly to the hotel restaurant. It was seven am when she approached the buffet. Unlike North America, China was not separated into geographical time zones. From the eastern capital of Beijing to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the far west, one clock reigned supreme in all of China. There was a precise twelve-hour difference between Toronto and Nanning, making it easy for Fa-ling to keep track of the time. There was no need for her to re-set her watch.

  She chose a Canadian breakfast, one egg, two strips of bacon, a piece of toast and some fruit. Her father had pointed out that breakfast and dinner were included in the travel package, but lunch was not. It was a good idea to fill up in the morning and skip the mid-day meal.

  She looked around for a place to sit, finally spotting a small table in a corner. As Fa-ling made her way through the restaurant, she saw three of the couples already eating their breakfasts. Ting-lo and Adrian Harlan were at a large table with Eloise and Joseph Golluck. The Kitcheners were in another corner with their daughters.

  Ting-lo waved and motioned for Fa-ling to join their group. It would be rude to refuse. She took a seat.

  “Did you sleep well?” Eloise asked cheerfully. She was wearing an elegant morning dress, with a set of long colourful beads dangling around her neck. At nearly fifty she was still beautiful, perhaps more lovely than ever. Her age brought with it a poise that is often lacking in younger women. Her eyes, though, betrayed her fatigue.

  Joseph, on the other hand, appeared fully refreshed in a pair of blue jeans a
nd a sports jacket.

  “Only so-so,” Fa-ling said. Like Eloise, she was exhausted. Her T’Ai Chi session had revived her energy level only marginally.

  “We were awake most of the night,” Adrian said. “Jet lag.”

  “Me, too,” Fa-ling agreed. She did not want to go into details about the suicide.

  “Only eight hours till The Big Delivery,” Ting-lo said.

  “What a long pregnancy this has been,” Adrian added. “Almost two years to the day since we started the process.”

  “At least we didn’t have to give up drinking,” Joseph joked.

  “Amen to that,” Adrian said.

  “Unfortunately, though,” Ting-lo said, “we haven’t been able to justify ‘eating for two’. I feel cheated, not having all those food cravings to enjoy whenever I feel like it.”

  “On the other hand, we get to keep our waistlines. That’s a good thing,” Eloise said.

  “You’d have no choice, now,” Joseph said, “given the new adoption policy. No fat people allowed in China!” He was referring to the new restrictions imposed by the Chinese government on the criteria for couples wishing to adopt. Persons who were obese, physically disabled, or who suffered a visible ‘facial deformity’, to quote the policy, would be rejected.

  Fa-ling wondered how a person’s appearance could possibly interfere with his or her ability to love a child. Her own mother wore scars over the left side of her face, having suffered severe burns in a house fire years earlier.

  “Oh,” said Eloise, “here come the Kaders.”

  Joseph made a funny face.

  Ting-lo laughed. “I guess we’d better call them over,” she said. She turned and waved at the couple. Guy smiled and strode toward the group.

  “We have plenty of room at our table,” Eloise said. “Please join us.”

  “We will, thanks,” Guy said. He had circles under his eyes and deep lines on his forehead, but his smile was genuine. He returned to his wife at the buffet table.

  “Don’t say a word,” Eloise whispered sternly to her husband, who was grinning like a monkey.

  “I didn’t say anything.” Joseph raised his hands in mock protest. “If I had said something, what I would have said was: Man, that guy is a saint!”

  Both couples chuckled quietly and even Fa-ling could not quite suppress a smile. The general consensus seemed to be that Paula Kader was a “high maintenance” kind of girl.

  Guy and Paula filled their plates and joined the others. Whatever had been troubling Paula the previous day seemed to have vanished. She treated the group to a beaming smile.

  Guy watched his wife, in awe of her chameleon-like ability to alter her mood at will. Within moments the three wives were talking like old friends, including Fa-ling in their chatter.

  “Did you sleep all right?” Ting-lo asked.

  “Not at all,” Paula said. The lack of rest didn’t appear to affect her much. She was in form, turning on the charm the way that only Cool Hand Kader could.

  “We had some excitement on the sixth floor,” Guy said, “at around two in the morning.”

  “What happened?” Eloise asked.

  Fa-ling stared into her coffee. She wished she could ask Guy and Paula to keep quiet. A solitary man had come to the end of his personal despair, taking his own life in an act of desperation. He must have been suffering in ways one could only try to imagine. He should be left to rest in peace, not become the subject of idle gossip.

  “A man was murdered,” Paula said, “in the room next to ours.”

  “Murdered?” Eloise said, her hand flying to her throat.

  “I think it was a suicide,” Fa-ling said. “The police said he took his own life.”

  “Oh, I forgot you are on our floor,” Paula said. “What room are you in?”

  “I’m in 606,” Fa-ling said. “You must be in 608. Did the police question you?”

  Unlike many hotels, the Golden Lion was laid out with room numbers that flowed first up and then down the corridor, rather than with even numbers on one side and odd on the other. Fa-ling’s room was to the right of the dead man’s, while the Kaders’ was on his left.

  “I called Security,” Paula said, “and I’m telling you, it was a murder. I was awake. I heard the whole thing.” She gazed wide-eyed at the group, letting the drama sink in.

  No one noticed that Ting-lo and Adrian had fallen silent. Adrian reached for his wife’s hand under the table.

  Meanwhile, Paula enjoyed the spotlight, regaling the group with her story and laughing at poor Henry’s butchered attempts to translate for the police.

  Fa-ling felt ridiculous. Like a fool, she had believed the big policeman, Cheng, when he told her not to worry. A suicide was cause for sadness, but not for alarm. Had she known a murder had taken place, she would not have ventured out of her room when she heard the vacuum cleaner. In fact, she would have demanded that Henry transfer her to another floor immediately.

  Ting-lo stood up and murmured something about a headache.

  “Please tell Cynthia we’ll pass on the Nanning tour today,” Adrian said to Eloise. “I think the excitement is getting to us. We’ll hook up with the group again before the babies arrive.” Then he hurried after his wife, who was already half way out of the restaurant.

  Fa-ling left moments later. She needed to get back to her room and call Detective Wang. Also, she had promised to call Daphne at eight o’clock.

  What, she wondered, was going on with her little sister?

  TWENTY-THREE

  Wang Yong-qi and his partner Cheng returned to the station earlier than usual, hoping to avoid contact with the crew of the day shift, and in particular with Fat Bayao. Fat was a pain in the ass, but he was dedicated to his job. He did not tolerate poor discipline in his staff. He normally arrived between 8:00 and 8:30, and expected to see his shift fully accounted for by morning roll call at 8:45.

  Wang and Cheng signed off their night shift with the desk clerk at exactly 7:59 and hurried out the door. As Wang exited the underground parking lot he waved at Fat, who was just pulling in.

  “That was a close call,” Cheng said.

  “We bought ourselves another day,” Wang said. “He’ll expect our reports by this time tomorrow.”

  Wang joined the chaotic flow of traffic, not flinching when a truck came within inches of sideswiping his sedan. Local drivers instinctively understood the unwritten rules of the road. Right of way was assigned according to the size of the vehicle. The largest trucks went first, followed by smaller trucks and buses, followed by vans and cars, then motorcycles, bicycles, and finally pedestrians. Traffic lights, where they existed, were meaningless. Pedestrians had to adopt a Zen-like view of life and death in order to cross a busy road.

  It was a short drive to Cheng’s inner-city apartment. Wang had been inside several times, but not during the past year, since Cheng’s widowed mother had moved in. Considering Cheng’s questionable habits concerning his personal hygiene, Wang found the big man’s apartment to be surprisingly tidy and well furnished. Cheng lived the life of many heterosexual bachelors. He ate simple foods, leaning over the sink so as not to spill crumbs, and he immediately washed his dishes. His plate and cup could be found at any time standing like soldiers in the drying rack.

  Cheng climbed out of the car and onto the curb outside of his building.

  “I’ll pick you up early tonight,” Yong-qi said. “We can get started on the reports.”

  “I’ll be ready at 6:00. We can go for noodles.”

  Cheng disappeared through the lobby entrance. It was a good building, not aesthetic in the Western sense, but certainly one of the nicer residential buildings in Nanning. Cheng’s position allowed for certain privileges. He had the good sense to appreciate them.

  Wang Yong-qi was dying to meet the woman who had borne and raised his unconventional partner, but to date he had not been invited to do so. He knew better than to embarrass his friend by pressing the point. If Cheng was reluctant to make
introductions, there must be a reason.

  Yong-qi was about to pull away from the curb when his cell phone erupted to the melody of Volaré. He put the car in park and fumbled to free the phone from his jacket pocket.

  “Detective Wang speaking,” he said. Anyone hearing Yong-qi speak on the phone would guess from his disembodied voice that he was a scholar, or perhaps even an actor. It did not carry the thick baritone of a stage performer, but rather the mellow quality often assumed by movie stars.

  On meeting Wang, though, the illusion was shattered. True, he knew how to dress and move among the upper classes, having come from an intellectual background, but the ‘re-education’ of his parents had taught Yong-qi it was best not to display his true personal style. He had mastered the skill of acting like a simple policeman.

  Those who knew him were certain of one thing: Wang Yong-qi was anything but ‘simple’. Although he had never been outside of China, his parents had instilled in him a worldview, ensuring he was able to speak French and Russian as well as Mandarin and Cantonese. Such achievements were not acknowledged outside of the home. Even now, years after the University entrance-exam policy had been re-instated throughout the country, intellectualism was still viewed by the state with suspicion.

  In China, no other single skill was as important to one’s survival as the ability to fit in.

  “Hello,” he said. No phone number was displayed on the tiny monitor. He wondered if his phone had dropped the call.

  “Hello,” a woman’s voice finally responded. “Detective Wang, this is Li Fa-ling at the Golden Lion Hotel. We met last night. I’m in room 606.”

  “Yes, I remember, Miss Li. What can I do for you?” Yong-qi tried not to sound pleased.

  “I have some information regarding what happened next door.”

  “May I ask what kind of information you have?”

  “I’d prefer to speak with you in person. Are you able to see me this morning?”