The First Excellence: Fa-Ling's Map

by Donna Carrick

  “I was a child. You were an adult. If you had fed us enough, I would not have been forced to sell myself for a handful of grapes.”

  “You don’t know what you are talking about. You think I make a fortune, doing this lousy job? What thanks do I get? A hundred ungrateful adults who never visit except to spit on me. Go back to Canada, Li Fa-ling. The past is gone. Xiao is dead.”

  Xiao is dead. That’s what Shujia said. Was it true? If it was, how did that change things? Fa-ling stared at the older woman, taking a moment to digest this bit of news.

  Finally, without warning, she got up.

  “Good-bye, Shujia,” she said, sliding past the headmistress. “Thank you for looking after us.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  The adoption group’s trip to the Yiling Caves was an exercise in forced exuberance. After the scare of the previous night, all ten parents opted to carry their babies rather than to use strollers, which made the trip through Yiling Park to visit the Buddha more difficult than it should have been. It did work out well, though, for the two hour walk through the caves, which involved climbing up and down hundreds of narrow, wet stairs in the multi-coloured but weak artificial light.

  The caves were spectacular, an assortment of weird and unexpected shapes that had formed naturally as stalagmites and stalactites. Coloured lights were aimed at the natural forms, revealing here a dragon-headed turtle and there a crane, and elsewhere a female Buddha.

  Guy Kader carried Mei Mei in a piggy-back-pack. He did not try to stay beside Paula, who wandered off in various directions and was seldom content to walk near him. Communication between them had slowed to a trickle of essential questions and answers.

  In the back of his mind, a plan was taking shape, forming slowly like the natural sculptures of the Yiling Caves. He had thought he loved Paula far too much to ever leave her, but now that he had Mei Mei he was no longer sure of his feelings.

  Maybe Guy was just afraid of being alone. With Mei Mei, he would no longer be alone. Could he really stand silently by and watch Paula abdicate her role as mother, raising Mei Mei in an environment of neglect and mistrust?

  He couldn’t take action now. To do so would mean the adoption would be off and Mei Mei would be sent back to the orphanage, or the foster home, or wherever the State chose to send her. She might be matched to another family, or she might be considered a ‘reject’ and be passed over for adoption altogether.

  Mei Mei was their responsibility, his and Paula’s, and he wasn’t going to let his narcissistic wife ignore this most basic duty. No, they were going to see this thing through. They would take Mei Mei with them to Canada, where they would live as a family in their house for at least the next year. They would pull themselves together and pass the six-month social worker visit, and the twelve-month visit, when the final adoption approvals would be granted. After that, Mei Mei’s status as their daughter and as a Canadian citizen would be indisputable.

  Then he would give Paula her walking papers. That’s right — unless things between them improved dramatically between now and then, he would send her packing. He would not let Mei Mei grow up in a loveless family. Maybe he would meet another woman someday, and maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, he was Mei Mei’s father, and he would see to it she had everything she needed.

  He saw Paula standing near the Gollucks, chatting cheerfully to Eloise, and for a moment his determination gave way to sorrow. Maybe he was being too harsh. Maybe they could still talk this through and work it out.

  Either way, they still had to get through these two weeks in China.

  **

  Cynthia scanned the group. She had asked them to stay close to her. After the incident outside of the restaurant, she wanted to be able to see all of the babies at a glance. Babies Kader, Golluck, Harlan, Kitchener and Brahn, all present and accounted for.

  As expected, they enjoyed lighting incense sticks for the giant jolly Buddha, and they were excited when a pair of playful grey monkeys bounded right up to them to see if they were carrying food. A young woman approached the Gollucks and their daughter, Meiju, making Cynthia start nervously toward the family, but she only gave a pair of incense sticks to Eloise and Joseph before being led away by her boyfriend.

  Nothing matched the natural beauty of the caves. Even Cynthia, who took the sight of Buddhas and monkeys for granted, had never really travelled until now. It was a blessing to see China in all of its magnificence through the eyes of her group. The Westerners were as excited as children by every mysterious, magical detail of the Orient.

  The clicking of cameras did not stop until they finally boarded the bus. Eleven exhausted adults, two cranky children and five sleeping babies returned at last to the Golden Lion Hotel.

  **

  Yong-qi was asleep in the lobby armchair. He woke as the couples began to stream in through the revolving door, followed at last by their guide. He kept watching until the bus pulled away, still thinking Fa-ling might be aboard.

  Finally he had to concede Fa-ling was not with the group. He stood and approached the guide.

  “Hello,” he said. “I am Detective Wang. I am investigating the incident the other night in room 607. I wanted to speak to one of your group, Miss Li Fa-ling. Did she take the tour with you today?”

  “No, Detective, she was not with us today. She opted to take a private tour instead. I lined up a driver to take her to Guilin.”

  “Guilin! That’s hundreds of miles away. What time did she leave?”

  “They were on the road at 8:00 am. They may not be back till midnight, or even tomorrow morning, if Fa-ling intends to do any sight-seeing.”

  Yong-qi looked at his watch. It was near 5:00 pm. Fa-ling could conceivably be back by 8:00, but that would mean her driver would have to maintain a top speed from Nanning to Guilin and back, with no stopover. Given the road conditions outside of the city, that would be an impossible feat.

  He had to admit it was likely to be late when Fa-ling returned. Wearily Wang left her a note at the front desk. He was due to meet Cheng at 6:00 for noodles.

  **

  Cheng Minsheng woke from a deep sleep. He had drifted off to the sounds of Ma-ma moving about the kitchen. There was something soothing about the presence of a woman in the house, even if age prevented her from being the skilled housekeeper and cook she had once been.

  Cheng dreaded losing her. With no prospects for marriage on the horizon, her death would render him far more alone than he had been previously, before Father died and she came to stay with him. At least back then he still had his parents, although he rarely saw them. He always knew they were there, offering him an undeniable connection to ‘home’.

  With each passing year, his chances of finding a wife were diminishing. She need not be a great beauty, or even his intellectual equal. She need only be loyal and friendly, someone who would welcome him home at the end of a long shift with a hot meal and a warm smile.

  Such women were few and far between, in Cheng’s opinion.

  The second he opened his eyes, he knew his mother was gone. It was more than the absence of sound that gave it away. It was a feeling of emptiness that filled the apartment whenever he was alone. It was devoid of her special life force.

  She must be gone to the park again, he thought, hoping she would not find a way to attract trouble from the police.

  Oh, well, she was a grown woman. Cheng knew better than to try to become his mother’s parent.

  FORTY-SIX

  Gege and Miao watched the adoption group from a distance, afraid of being recognised. Gege was nervous, scanning the area for any sign of the young woman who had chased him the previous night. That moment was frozen in his memory — he and Miao easily outrunning the foreigners despite the baby in his arms, making it safely to their bicycles, strapping the child onto the seat, then looking up, straight into the face of that Asian girl.

  Their eyes had met for no more than five seconds, probably less, but he knew it had been enough. He had seen the cool, cr
itical way the girl studied him, noting every feature of his face.

  Damn that girl! She would be his undoing, he was sure of it.

  Miao scolded him, her voice sharp. Finally Gege had to concede his cousin was right, the girl who had seen him was not with the group. To prove no one else would recognise them, Miao marched boldly to the tin of incense sticks, grabbing a handful. He followed as she approached one of the couples, ingratiating herself with her slight bow and wide smile as she presented the woman with two of the sticks.

  The nosy guide hurried toward them. Frustrated, Miao wanted to persist in giving incense sticks to the other parents, but Gege reached for her elbow and led her away.

  There would be other opportunities. Eventually, even the vigilant guide would let her guard down.

  Unfortunately, no other opportunity presented itself that day at the Yiling Caves. They followed the group through the entire park, then paid admission into the caves and walked underground for two hours. Miao was furious. They had wasted the entire day and too much money on the expedition and still they came away empty-handed.

  “Calm yourself, Miao,” Gege said. “This is not the day.”

  “When, then, Biaoge? The next time we dare to approach, they will remember us from today. It will not be easy to get close to them.” Gege noticed the distance in her address. Since childhood she had called him only Gege, with an affection that went beyond the fact it was his name. The word also meant ‘older brother’, and that was how she usually spoke it, with warmth. Her use of the more distant term ‘biaoge’, meaning male cousin, underlined her annoyance over the entire affair.

  “They will not remember us,” he said. “To them, we look like every other Asian couple. We will wear different clothes, comb our hair differently.”

  “That guide will remember us.”

  “Then we will have to wait until she is not with them. Patience, cousin.”

  “Patience,” she said, her voice flat with contempt, “is not the tool we need for this job. We need courage. The next chance we get will likely be the last. We will have to move with speed and assurance.”

  “You are right. The next chance will be our last, and we will have to capitalise on it.”

  “Next time, there can be no mistakes,” Miao said.

  “No mistakes,” her cousin agreed.

  **

  Fa-ling almost tripped in her haste to escape from the Sunshine Rooster Home for Orphaned Children. By the time she stepped back through the main door into the brilliant afternoon sunlight, she felt as though she had stepped out of some alternate reality, barely aware of who she was, much less where she was or why she was there.

  She gripped the porch beam, dizzy from a rush of familiar sensations — the sunlight that touched the skin so differently here than it did elsewhere, the tickle in her nose from the dust that rose from the hapless gardens, the odour of despair seeping up from the rotting walk-boards. She expected to hear Fa-dao’s childish voice calling to her from the playground in the commanding manner assumed by all youths who have yet to be denied, “Fa-ling, come here right away and push me on the swing!”

  Who was she? How could she hope to make life-long decisions? She had been a daughter, then a surrogate mother, and finally a sister, and what a difficult transition that had been! — to go from being Fa-dao’s primary guardian, provider and caretaker, to being merely the sister of Daphne, to go from being the ‘little wife’ of a monster like Xiao, to being the daughter her new mother had always dreamt of having.

  Fa-ling suspected she had failed in many ways. No matter. She was what she was, and Mother and Father both seemed to accept her. She had to believe they would still accept her, even if they knew the truth of her past.

  If only she knew who it was they were accepting, then perhaps life would not be such a quagmire of self-doubt and indecision.

  Of course, that was why she had come to Guangxi Zhuang. It wasn’t really to dump the past onto Shujia’s head like so much excrement, although once she saw the woman all resolutions of forgiveness fell away and she was left only with a sense of measured justice that needed to be dealt. She did not raise her voice. She did not curse. Still, she knew her words were intended to cut through Shujia’s protective shell and pierce her inner core.

  Was that, then, who she was? Fa-ling the angry, the angel of justice, the ‘path’ and the ‘rule’, judge, jury, decider of who should pay and how? Was she to be ultimately defined only by the name she had been given by the administrator of an orphanage, the name ‘Fa’, meaning the ‘law’ and the ‘way’?

  Poor Shujia! The woman, after a fashion, gave her life to caring for these children. Despite her stinginess and her iron will, she had to believe she was doing a good job, she was giving herself to children whom society had cast aside, and for whom most people even now had only contempt to spare.

  In a single sentence, “You hurt me,” Fa-ling had sought to destroy Shujia’s self-image. Was that what she had come to Guangxi Zhuang to accomplish?

  She opened her eyes to find her driver, Quan, looking at her with concern.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, I will be.”

  For a moment she almost ran to the car, almost left Shujia to spend the rest of her life with her regrets. Something deeper than that, deeper even than her own anger, spoke to her. The voice was a gentle one, and she knew she must listen to it.

  “I’ll be back in a moment,” she said.

  She found Shujia in the great room on the main floor, standing alone in front of the empty desks, no doubt seeing there the generations of half-starved, barely educated children who looked to her for guidance and for what had to pass for love.

  “I came,” she said, “to tell you Fa-dao and I are happy. You did a good job finding a family for us. They have been kind and loving, and cannot bear to be separated from us. They did not want me to come, but I had to tell you this.”

  Shujia made no response, keeping her eyes fixed on the rows of empty desks, but Fa-ling sensed a flicker of a life returning to her tiny frame.

  “My parents are wealthy,” Fa-ling added. It wasn’t true, but she guessed it would make Shujia happy to think about her girls, her favourites, being heirs to a fortune. Fa-ling knew that for many evenings to come, when Shujia lay alone in her bed at the end of another long, thankless day, the Administrator would enjoy building on this particular fantasy, imagining how she had been instrumental, as indeed she had, in bringing those two special little girls to a life of splendour and riches.

  “Thank you, Shujia,” Fa-ling said. The older woman at last met her eyes, nodding once in her direction. Then Fa-ling left the room, this time for good.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Master Long spent most of the morning transplanting some of his favourite flowers from the overgrown patch near his house to the soft, newly turned, earth that lay over Wu Gui-Jing’s resting place. Now he sat alone on one of the worn wooden chairs from the vast supply in the shed, his easel in front of him and the rice paper clipped to the top of it so it fell in a loose, elegant scroll that rested near his knees.

  The title of the painting had come to him through the night, before Gui-Jing’s spirit had even passed. He would call it ‘A Hundred Sorrows’, an ironic play on the ancient Chinese blessing “May you have a hundred joys”, which was often altered in olden times to wish the recipient ‘a hundred children’ or ‘a hundred wives’ or some other measurable object of the heart’s desire.

  The ancient Chinese believed ‘one hundred’ was the optimum measure of goodness, a full enough supply to ensure life-long riches and happiness. Any more would spoil the soul and create poor karma. Any less would leave one wanting more.

  Long painted the faces, his photographic memory recalling each and every traveller who had passed through his care over the years in search of freedom from oppression. He used a traditional smoky brown pigment to carve the features. He would decide later whether to complete the intricately laced background
in the same shade of brown, or whether the overall finished piece would require a different colour to achieve its full expression.

  The centre of the paper was reserved for Gui-Jing’s image. As the afternoon stretched out he continued without pausing, patiently detailing each traveller’s face.

  Meanwhile, Shopei and Randy talked in the kitchen, drinking pots of green tea. They expected the knock at the door, but when it came it still surprised them, first three raps, then two, then three again, the code used by Long to identify his friends.

  Shopei hurried to the garden to fetch Master Long.

  “Grandfather,” she said, “he is here.”

  “Very well,” Long said. “Let him in. Offer him some tea while I clean up my work.”

  Shopei wanted to look at the scroll, but Long put up a hand and shook his head.

  “It will be finished soon,” he said. “Then we will hang it over the bed.” He meant, of course, the healing bed, the one in the living room shrouded by the red silk curtain.

  By the time Long made his way into the kitchen carrying yet another chair, the visitor was well into his second cup of tea and had eaten three biscuits from a plate. He nodded at Long, standing until the older man took his seat.

  “Master Long,” he said, bowing his head slightly before sitting.

  “Sun,” the old man said. “I see you have met my young friends, Shopei and Mr. Chan from America. Shopei is the eldest child of our mutual friend, Tan Lim.”

  “She has told me what happened to her family.” Sun patted Shopei’s hand. “I understand our escapee, Wu Gui-Jing, died this morning. As usual, I have papers for her. Given how dangerous it is at present for the daughter of Tan Lim to remain in the country, perhaps Shopei would like to use these papers. They are most excellent. The destination is New Mexico in the United States. Since Shopei has relatives in Boston, it would be easy enough for her to change her location soon after arriving in America.”