The First Excellence: Fa-Ling's Map
Page 19
Despite having slept on the plane he was exhausted. Just the same, he felt compelled to talk with the young woman who had caught his imagination. Yong-qi was a man who normally lived in his own head. He could read people well, but he was not a man of action in the sense that Cheng was. If he allowed Li Fa-ling to leave town without at least trying to obtain a promise to stay in touch, he would be annoyed with himself.
The night concierge, Henry, was off duty. His daytime replacement was a tall man of thirty-something with movie star good looks and a deep voice. Yong-qi noticed how easily he spoke with an elderly couple in English. No doubt the management of the Golden Lion Hotel found Henry’s fawning mannerisms and comical appearance to be better suited to the night shift.
Wang Yong-qi was in no mood to wait his turn to speak to the concierge. He placed his credentials on the counter in front of him.
“I am Detective Wang,” he said. “I would like to speak with one of your guests immediately.”
“Which guest?”
“Miss Li Fa-ling in room 606.”
The concierge picked up the desk phone and dialled Fa-ling’s room. After several rings, he replaced the receiver.
“Miss Li is not in her room at the moment. May I leave her a message?”
“I’ll wait,” Yong-qi said.
“Very well, Sir.”
Yong-qi chose a comfortable armchair facing the main entrance. He assumed Fa-ling was on the tour bus with her group. It might be hours before she returned to the hotel. In some perverse way he hoped it would be hours. He would enjoy the chance to annoy the manager by planting himself in the main lobby for the afternoon.
He lifted a magazine from the coffee table and settled in for a read, his eyes lifting every few moments to fix on the revolving door.
**
Chief Ho Lon-shi glared at Jiu from across the table. There were a dozen men in the room — all men, since Ho was not inclined to hire women — including senior agents like Jiu Kaiyu and their subordinates. In the more than twenty minutes since the start of the meeting, Ho’s insulting stare had rarely left Jiu’s face. Things had gone wrong with the cleanup job and Ho knew exactly who to blame. Jiu Kaiyu and Ng-zhi had better find a way to ingratiate themselves with young Master Yi, or they would find themselves on the wrong side of his powerful uncle.
Ho had no intention of getting rid of Kaiyu. He secretly admired the younger man’s ruthlessness and ingenuity. He hoped his idiot nephew, the lackadaisical Yi, would benefit from being trained by the master agent Jiu and his long-time partner Ng-zhi.
On the other hand, Jiu had a tendency toward insubordination that had to be trimmed back every once in awhile. By dressing him down publicly, Ho was also sending a warning to his other agents that no one was indispensable.
“Tell me again,” Ho said, “what happened at the airport.”
Jiu hid his annoyance at being humiliated in front of his peers.
“There was a girl,” he repeated. “We don’t know who she was, or how she knew we were coming. In any event, she got to Chan before we could apprehend him. They escaped together. To the best of our knowledge, they are both still in Shanghai.”
“Shanghai is a big place,” Ho said. “How do you propose to find them?”
“We have a bulletin out to all of the major transportation terminals, bus stations, domestic and international flights, the railroad. We’ve emailed Chan’s photo to the major taxi dispatchers. If he hasn’t turned up by this evening, we will have a wire sent out to all television networks.”
“Once you go to the networks, you’d better have an air-tight story. Chan is an American. The US will want to know why we’re looking for him.”
“Exactly,” Jiu agreed. He was pleased with himself. He had no intention of notifying the networks about Chan, but wanted to give Ho the opportunity to state the obvious. If Jiu knew anything about human nature — and he liked to think he did — Ho’s mood should lighten for the remainder of the meeting.
Predictably, Ho Lon-shi was now in a much-improved state of mind, having demonstrated to his department he still had a keen grasp of the obvious. Talking down to his men always brightened Ho’s day. He did respect Jiu after a fashion, at least as much as his personal sense of privilege and entitlement would allow. It was agreed they would continue the search for Chan quietly, keeping all details of the operation within their own unit.
The team would have to come up with something that would draw Chan in, some ‘bait’ as it were. The task fell to Jiu, Ng-zhi and Yi to come up with a plan.
Jiu had anticipated this eventuality. Prior to the meeting, he and Ng-zhi had taken Yi aside to discuss a plan Jiu Kaiyu had already devised earlier that day. Naturally, the details had been carefully mapped out. However, to mollify Ho, Jiu convinced Yi to ride point at the meeting and present the plan as his own. He knew Yi’s vanity would welcome the opportunity to shine.
“I have an idea,” Yi said, addressing his uncle.
Don’t screw it up, Jiu thought.
“What is it, Yi?” Ho asked.
“We can arrange for the Tan bodies to be discovered by one of our people,” Yi said. “When we remove them, we shroud the two elders, but we make it look like the son, Tan Dahui, is still alive. We splash it all over the news. Tan Dahui is alive and in care at the nearest hospital. That should bring Chan and his female associate forward.”
“That might work,” Jiu said, careful not to overstate the compliment. “I think it’s worth a try.”
“Brilliant idea, young man!” Ho said. He was not stupid enough to believe Yi had come up with the idea on his own. Still, Yi was now positioned to gain the respect of his peers, those other young men who would one day follow his command after Ho had stepped into retirement.
From Jiu’s perspective, the meeting could not have gone better. He’d allowed both uncle and nephew to puff themselves up — Ho, by taking pleasure in demeaning his men, especially Jiu, and Yi by accepting credit for an idea he could never have developed on his own.
All in all, it had been a good day in the job-saving trench warfare that was the Chinese civil service.
FORTY-FOUR
Fa-ling paused in the empty classroom. With China’s growing industry in International adoptions, the number of school-aged orphans had diminished since her days at the Sunshine Rooster facility. Those children still under State care beyond the age of five were largely made up of mentally or physically handicapped.
Certainly the ‘Shujia’ of Fa-ling’s memory had little tolerance for weakness. Her meter-stick danced to a hair-trigger temper and would come crashing down on the desk, and sometimes on the head, of any girl who did not appear to be learning her lessons quickly enough. She took State inspections seriously, insisting her girls be scrubbed raw and dressed in clean, pressed clothes. Any child who embarrassed her by slouching or picking her nose was dealt with privately and harshly.
Fa-ling turned from the voices in her imagination — one, two, three, four…, the children counted off their phantom presence — and left the big room. She was surprised Shujia had not already come to confront her. She made her way back to the staircase, descending slowly into the basement.
The large kitchen was tidy but dirty. Fa-ling wandered around the open space, reaching into a canister and liberating a biscuit for old time’s sake, chewing it slowly as she worked her way toward the pantry. The door was rigged to stay open, probably to discourage children from hiding among the shelves of rice and noodles. Several refrigerators stood along one wall, filled with fruit and juices of every variety.
The old wooden table still stood against the other wall, wedged in between two floor-to-ceiling shelves. The short-wave radio no longer sat on its top, though, having been replaced by a plastic vase filled with fake blue flowers that stood beside a small silver CD player.
Fa-ling pulled out the ancient vinyl-upholstered, chrome-legged chair and sat at the table, barely aware of her own thoughts as she leaned on her elbows.
&nbs
p; This was the room that had saved her life at the expense of her soul. A fair trade, and one she would make again without a moment’s hesitation, but not without the requisite feelings of shame that accompanied such a decision. Still, she would do it again, would have no choice, really, faced with the same set of circumstances and the same responsibility towards her baby sister. There was no point second guessing her actions at this late date.
She closed her eyes, the static memory of the short-wave radio filling her mind. Xiao was partial to the BBC, though Fa-ling wasn’t clear on whether he spoke English. She had never thought about it at the time, but in retrospect she guessed he must have, because she would usually find him listening intently with the volume turned low, compulsively fiddling with the tuner in a vain attempt to minimise the crackling distortion.
She was four the first time she followed her hunger into the pantry. There he sat at the table, like a spider on its web, waiting for a creature to fly into its trap. He had seemed old even then. He must be ancient now, if he was still alive.
“Hello,” he had said, his grin displaying a set of teeth that would frighten a dragon.
She’d hesitated, standing on the threshold of the open door for endless moments, her fear battling against the overwhelming hunger pains.
“Would you like some grapes?” he said. He stood and opened one of the fridge doors, taking out a bowl of purple grapes that gleamed at her. Her mouth began to water, but still she stood, hovering in the doorway and wishing the bowl of grapes would float out of Xiao’s hand and toward her. She was ready to take flight the moment she had her hands on the food.
Spellbound, Fa-ling watched Xiao place the bowl on the table in front of the only chair. “Come,” he said. “You look hungry.”
She approached the table. He laughed. He lifted her into the air and sat on the chair, so she was perched on his knee.
Afraid the bowl of fruit might vanish at any moment, she grabbed two fistfuls, shoving one into her mouth to the delight of the horrid ‘caretaker’.
“Yes,” he said, “eat, little one. You’ll never have nice tits if you don’t eat.” He stood and carried her to the refrigerators, pulling out muffins, chilled meat and fish, and a bunch of bananas. Then he put the dishes on the table beside the grapes and sat again on the chair.
The juice of the fruit ran down Fa-ling’s chin. She gobbled everything in sight, hiding two bananas in her shirt to mash for baby Fa-dao. As she shoved bits of food into her mouth and pockets, Xiao took his own pleasure, invading her body with his hands and pressing himself against her skinny bottom.
So began their demonic arrangement, a contract forged in shame and secrecy. Every afternoon after classes, when Shujia was gone to visit friends or to do her shopping, Fa-ling would leave Fa-dao in her crib in the infant ward and make her way down to the basement to visit Xiao. She would demand an extra bottle of formula or some thick congee to take back for her sister, and would invariably fill her pockets with meat, biscuits and fruit which she would hide under her bed, filling her stomach in her tiny room when everyone else was asleep.
Fa-ling’s visits to the pantry continued for the next four years. Fa-ling and Fa-dao amazed their teachers with their physical and mental development. Because Fa-ling was no longer starved to the point of distraction, she was able to focus on her lessons and soon rose to the top of the class. Shujia came to believe the sisters possessed superior genes. Despite the inadequate meals served by the Sunshine Rooster Home for Orphaned Children, their faces glowed and their hair, though unkempt, grew thick and lush.
The years passed. Little Fa-dao was soon four-years-old and ready to begin taking lessons. Fa-ling had already become the first favourite of the head Administrator, Shujia.
She could not understand, though, why Fa-ling was so protective of her younger sister. At eight years old, Fa-ling behaved like a mother, insisting Fa-dao sit beside her in class, and never encouraging the child to play with children her own age.
The reason was that Fa-ling had begun to notice a subtle yet undeniable shift in Xiao’s attention, away from her and toward Fa-dao. Fa-ling was walking a fine line. She became increasingly precocious in her behaviour towards the janitor, allowing him to take more and more liberties. Still, every day he asked about Fa-dao, and something in his voice sent off a current of warning to Fa-ling.
No one, no matter how big or how frightening, was going to mess with Fa-dao.
As fate would have it, the situation never came to involve little Fa-dao in that way. Destiny stepped in, as it sometimes does, and took control of its two key players. One hot August afternoon Shujia decided to alter her routine and take a bath before going out to shop. As she was dressing, she couldn’t remember whether she had already stocked up her supply of Deer Infant Formula, the dry, unappealing powder used to make milk for the babies in her charge.
Not wanting to waste the money or go out of her way unnecessarily, she decided to check the supply in the pantry first.
That was the day — that was the very door Xiao had closed so as to hide his actions from prying eyes. He had been so lost in his own passion he did not hear the door open until it was too late, until Shujia let out a loud gasp, falling against the doorframe with her hand over her mouth, and until Fa-ling lifted her mouth from its guilty task, staring at Shujia through eyes that had not been so afraid since the night of the big moon four years earlier, when Ma-ma had left her alone on the mountain with Baby Fa-dao.
The scene that followed Shujia’s discovery in the pantry lived on in nightmarish flashbacks. The headmistress flew into a rage, grabbing a broom from beside the door and beating Xiao as he tried to cover his head with his arms. Not satisfied she was making her point, she began to beat his naked bottom, and even launched several blows onto his limp manhood.
Then she turned on Fa-ling, who still cowered speechlessly under the table, her pockets filled with the fruits of her labour.
Shrieking, Shujia threw the broom against the pantry shelves and grabbed Fa-ling by her left arm, pulling her out from under the table. The terrified child tried desperately to pull away, but Shujia would not be controlled. Still holding onto Fa-ling’s upper left arm, she used this leverage to slam the child against the table over and over, until finally she felt the fragile young bone snap in her hand and was forced to stem the tide of her rage.
“Out!” she shouted at Xiao. Then she lifted the crying Fa-ling and carried her to her own quarters, where she used the orphanage’s third-rate medical supplies to fashion a splint and wrapped the arm tightly in bandages to set.
The whole time she was tending to Fa-ling, she rained verbal abuse on the child, calling her ‘whore’ and ‘peasant dirt’, and telling her there would be no more special treatment for Fa-ling and her sister, no more secret meals and no more help with lessons.
Finally Shujia’s verbal abuse subsided and was replaced with repeated demands that Fa-ling keep the events of that day a secret. She warned Fa-ling if she ever told what had happened, no one would believe her. She would be outcast forever and would have no hope of one day finding a home.
For the next year, Fa-ling and her sister suffered the inadequate diet of the orphanage, wasting away into two shells of what they had been. Shujia seldom if ever spoke to either girl, though Fa-ling struggled desperately to gain her attention through academic excellence. When, in 1994, the Republic opened its doors to International adoption, Shujia finally saw her chance to eradicate her mistake. She became involved in the program, and when a couple made an early application to adopt older children, siblings if possible, Shujia jumped at the chance to foist the sisters onto the Canadian parents.
So Li Fa-ling and Li Fa-dao, named ‘Li’ after the River where they had been found, became Fa-ling and Daphne, the daughters of Bernice and Gabriel MacLeod, a Canadian couple who had previously lost two sons to a house fire. Fa-ling clung to her Chinese name, which meant ‘the law’ or ‘the true path’, but her sister was eager to forget the past and embraced her
new English name.
Years later, Fa-ling understood it was shame that drove Shujia’s behaviour on that day. She was ashamed to have allowed such a thing to happen to one of her girls, and she was ashamed to have been duped by her favourite student, her protégée.
At the time, though, crying herself to sleep in Shujia’s bed, Fa-ling was aware only of her own shame. She had, after all, struck a bargain with the devil. She had been a willing accomplice from the start, thrilling in the extra food that kept her and Fa-dao alive.
**
A shuffle outside of the pantry door made her turn, although from her angle she could not quite see into the kitchen. No matter. The unmistakable sound of footsteps brought Shujia to the doorway.
“I thought I’d find you here,” the headmistress said.
Fa-ling studied her face for signs of a shared memory, for any indication she recalled that horrible day. Unfortunately the event was forever lodged in Fa-ling’s own mind, renewed in vivid colour with every twinge and every minor ache in her left arm.
Shujia had aged. Lines of grey marked her hair, but she was still beautiful, in an icy, unbending way.
“Why are you here?” she said. “This is not your place anymore.”
“This was never my place,” Fa-ling said, “but I often have trouble remembering that. I needed to come, to see this room again. I needed to tell you…I needed to let you know how much you hurt me.”
“Me? I didn’t hurt you. It was that bastard, Xiao. He was the one who abused you.”
“Yes. He abused me. He damaged me in ways I may never understand. It was you, though, who hurt me the most. That final year…” Fa-ling paused, the effort to control her emotion almost too great, “that last year when we were here, you turned your back on me. Until then, I had always imagined you were fond of me. It made it easier, having no mother, to think you believed I was worthwhile. When you took that away from me, you took everything.”
“You deceived me.”