by Unknown
‘Could it be the same people . . . ?’ asked the banker, turning to Tan.
The Superintendent was speechless.
‘I don’t know,’ said Wong. ‘But, if I can remember right—it is hard for oldster like me, who is more than fifty years old—there are two machines in this electronic bank. One has an out-of-order sign on it. The other one, I think, has a sign, says: “High-speed deposits”. I only notice this because feng shui of the room so bad. I was hoping no one thinks I am responsible for it. Singapore is a small town. Not difficult for me to keep eye on the few branches of your bank.’ The geomancer shook his head in dismay at the memory of the ill-designed room.
‘So that’s how you knew about the deposit-at-this-machine sign,’ said Madam Xu. ‘You let us all think it was an inspired guess. I think that’s cheating, Mr Wong.’
Tan’s mouth dropped open. ‘If it’s got your bank’s name on it, but it’s not your bank, it’s got to be some sort of scam.’ He pulled out his pocket phone. ‘I hope to heaven it’s the same people, trying to do a similar trick in a different location. This may be an opportunity for us to do our part. Paydirt.’ He leapt to his feet.
‘What does paydirt mean?’ asked Wong.
‘I don’t know. Ask your assistant,’ said Tan, thumping the phone buttons.
Joyce blinked. The space between her eyebrows turned into a little grid. ‘Don’t know. It’s just what people say when they find something they’ve been looking for, for a long time.’
Old Uberoi appeared through the steam with two large dishes, one containing string hoppers, and one egg hoppers.
‘Oh, paydirt,’ said Madam Xu, clapping her hands.
Spice of life
The Chuang-tzu, chuan seven, says: ‘The mind of the perfect man is like a mirror. It does not move with things, nor does it anticipate them. It responds to things but does not retain them.’
The same feeling of detachment can be found in another ancient text. The Yi-ch’uan Chi-jang Chi, chuan fourteen. Here you read the words of Shao Yung. He said this:
The name of the Master of Happiness is not known.
For thirty years he has lived on the banks of the Lo River.
His feelings are those of the wind and the moon;
His spirit is on the river and the lake.
To him there is no distinction
Between low position and high rank,
Between poverty and riches.
He does not move with things nor anticipate them.
He has no restraints and no taboos.
He is poor, but has no sorrow.
He drinks but is never drunk.
He gathers the springtime of the world into his mind.
Blade of Grass, slowly-slowly you are becoming wise. But remember this. The strength of the mind is the strength of its detachment.
From ‘Some Gleanings of Oriental Wisdom’
by C F Wong, part 131.
His journal tucked safely in the briefcase he clutched to his chest, C F Wong trotted briskly along the cracked and crowded pavements, his head held high.
A visit to Delhi is a very good reminder that one has a nose, he mused. Too often in visiting a city, the other senses prevail. One is visually entranced by the skylines of Singapore and Hong Kong; one’s ears are assaulted by the cacophony of construction in Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur; but here in old Delhi, you can conduct yourself by your nose alone. The tingling torrent of petrol fumes and dust tells you where the roads are, while the paved areas are marked by coriander, incense, spices, sugar, smoke, urine, new sweat, old sweat, plus some curious odour of burnt material which appeared peculiar to the oldest parts of the original part of India’s capital, although he had yet to identify what it was. Wong took a deep breath through his wide, flat nostrils to try out this theory, and immediately regretted it. The smells were so strong they hurt.
They jogged around a blind corner at speed and the geomancer was forcefully reminded of his other senses as he hit the side of some grey-brown monster—an elephant? No, a bullock. It turned baggy and infinitely sad eyes at him. He was repelled by the strangely inorganic way its rough, leathery skin hung like an ill-fitting cape off its angular bones. Aiyeeeah. Wong edged carefully through the small space between the fly-covered beast and a dusty, coughing bus that was dangerously nudging its way through a lane solid with human and animal flesh.
For the tenth time, Wong scanned the bewildering scene ahead of them and wondered if they had lost their guide. The boy slid through tiny, fast-closing gaps in the crowd so often that few observers would have thought he had any connection with the old Chinese gentleman and the young Caucasian woman following.
‘Jeez. Does he have to go so fast?’ cursed Joyce, who had trouble keeping up as she wanted to take photographs of what she called ‘characters’—old people with lived-in faces. ‘Has he like, totally forgotten we’re supposed to be following him?’ Her testy comments belied the fact that she was thoroughly enjoying her first visit to India. The feng shui master’s assistant found it totally seductive, with the sights and colours and smells and tastes combining to suck her almost into a state of trance.
They had arrived late the previous night, so she had only really taken her first good look at India in the morning light. The desolate tranquility of Rose House, the old colonial mansion in Uttar Pradesh where they were staying, had been wonderfully calming. The pleasant dry heat, too, was quite unlike the uncomfortable humidity of Singapore. She had rinsed out a thin cotton top and hung it on the balcony to dry before going down to breakfast. An hour later, after a wonderful breakfast of mangoes, pale-yoked eggs and homemade yogurt, the garment had been dry enough to wear.
Then they had gone into town. The old city of Delhi was equally mesmerising but in a different way. It was happy pandemonium. There was something hypnotic about being in this huge, hyperactive mob, surrounded by swirls of multicoloured silk, she decided. It wasn’t just the women who caught her eye. Many of the men appeared curiously fashionable, with their retro 1970s-style haircuts, Burt Reynolds’ moustaches and flared trousers. But were they truly wearing retro fashions? Or had the man in the old Delhi street simply not changed styles for thirty years?
‘I see him! Follow,’ said Wong, and thrust himself through a tiny opening between two motor-scooters, one of which was carrying a family of four, and the other a family of five, plus a monkey.
Joyce took one more photograph, this time of a bald spice-seller who looked at least 150 years old, and dived after her employer.
Five breathless minutes later, the pair were relieved to reach the commercial building which had been described to them in the briefing notes faxed to the office by Laurence Leong of East Trade Industries. The Associated Food and Beverages Delhi Manufactory Old Building was a crumbly, grey block on a busy corner. On first glance it appeared to be leaning to the left, but the careful observer soon realised this impression was the result of curious architectural design, featuring stepped overhangs. Joyce knew this would mean a heavy over-supply of something. She watched as Wong looked up to locate the harsh glare of the sun behind cumulus clouds. ‘Southwest influences. Maternal female ch’i,’ he said. ‘Difficult, difficult.’
Following a fleeting glimpse of their guide slipping past the uniformed security guards—who were holding hands, a sight Joyce had been told was common in India, but which continued to surprise her—they entered the building. Or rather they entered a time warp. She felt as if she was in the Edwardian era. The furniture was old, dark wood, with parts of it looking like genuine mahogany. The walls were panelled with some cheaper hardwood that someone apparently thought would match but didn’t. There was a dying plant on the receptionist’s desk and two old, black bakelite telephones, plus a small switchboard system of the sort favoured in early Clark Gable movies.
‘Cool,’ said Joyce.
‘Hot,’ said Wong, mopping his face with a handkerchief.
After a brief wait, the two of them were led up an old staircase to a
rectangular conference room and introduced to many executives of the company, all of whom had identical moustaches and names featuring an extraordinary number of syllables, nearly all of which over-featured the letter ‘a’. There was a Mr Nadarajah and a Mr Vishwanathan and a Mr Kanagaratnum. The last of these added, in a strong north Indian accent: ‘But you may cull me Ravi.’ Joyce’s thanks were heart-felt.
There was much open staring at the young Caucasian woman, and one elderly bald man commented quietly to Wong: ‘She doesn’t look very Chinese.’
The geomancer turned his eyes to his assistant and nodded as if he was noticing this for the first time. He nodded. ‘Yes. She does not look very Chinese.’
After the exchange of pleasantries, the conversation quickly dried up. Wong was anxious to escape the small talk and get down to work. ‘Where are the rooms, Mr Ravi?’
‘Not Mr Ravi. Ravi is my farst name. I’ll just write your names in our visitors jarnal and then we’ll go. Come, come.’ As they walked, Ravi explained that he was the external relations manager for Associated Foods, and would be looking after them during their stay. He led them down a dark corridor to a door leading to another gloomy passage. A slow-moving, potbellied man with pockmarked cheeks, Ravi’s calm, warm smile was welcome after the tumult of the streets. A turn to the left, another to the right, and the ascension of a small flight of steps led them to the room of the man who had died.
‘Here, this is the place,’ said the Indian executive, smoothing down his moustache with his finger and thumb as if he felt it were stuck on with insufficient glue. ‘Mr Sooti Sekhar’s old room.’
It was a large office, ill-organised and unappealing. Even without the use of his lo pan to take bearings, Wong could see many ways in which the room had not been properly formed. There was a desk sideways to the main door, leaving the occupant with his back to a second door. Light should have come from a series of tall sash windows on the far side, but bookcases and filing cabinets obscured them. Several jagged edges caused the ch’i energy to flip and swirl. The room reeked of musty paper, overlaying a damp, mildew-like smell. Ravi flipped a pair of switches, but only one of the two ceiling fans started to whirl.
Stepping into the middle of the room, Wong became aware that it was a distorted L-shape. ‘Ah. This room needs much work,’ he said. As did the rest of the building, he thought, wondering why he was not required to review the entire premises.
Ravi seemed to sense the question. ‘We are wanting you to do your thing here, because this wing is the international division, and most of the Far East deals are being done here. See those files over there?’ He pointed to a wall of filing cabinets and cupboards. ‘All the Far East deals are there, including, in that locked one on the right, the papers that bind us to your own East Trade Industries. Our Far East Division staff work in that room there, behind Sekhar’s desk. At the moment, there’s only one person there, a Malaysian woman, Ms Dev.’
He pointed to the main desk and the chairs around it.
‘We used to be big in niche Far East animal products, ivory, tiger medicines, things like that. Sekhar did all that for us. When we have clients from the Far East, they were always dealt with by Sekhar in here, around this table. After Sekhar died, some of them said that the feng shui was bad here. That’s why this room needs a touch of your magic, if you don’t mind me calling it that.’
‘I understand. You have no need of feng shui readings to be done in other parts of the building.’
‘Correct. They’re all Hindus on that side, except for some Muslims in one of the departments, who make their own arrangements, but you don’t have to worry about all that. You’ve just got to fix up this room and the one behind that door on that side, to keep our Far East clients happy, and of course our Singapore shareholders.’ He said this last line with a nod and a half-smile, to acknowledge the corporate bonds between Associated Foods and East Trade.
‘I thought you weren’t allowed to sell ivory and stuff?’ asked Joyce.
‘Yes, this sector is warsening warldwide. We are dropping the animal products entirely and going to relaunch this part of the operation as import–export of appliances. More politically correct.’
He pressed his moustache onto his upper lip again. ‘One more thing. The internal engineering team, who will reorganise the office and redecorate it after you have done your stuff, they are only available tomorrow and the day after. That means that you only have today to do your readings. I hope that will be enough time for you.’
‘It is not much time. But I think I can do it,’ said Wong.
The executive left the room with a polite farewell nod, and Wong and McQuinnie spent some time talking to the one remaining staff member of the Far East Division, who was spending the day packing files into boxes, in advance of the redecoration. The woman, Mardiyah Dev, had been with the company ten years, and was happy to tell them the full story.
Sooti Sekhar’s history was that of many young executives. He had joined the company some twelve years ago as an enthusiastic thirty-year-old fellow of a university near Mumbai, and risen relatively quickly up the ladder to be assistant director of sales of animal products by the time he was thirty-six. Two years later, he had settled, quite happily, in a job which required little effort from him, as executive director of sales of animal products. This was a bit of a sinecure, since he simply had to analyse sales trends for his sector, with those under him doing the active sales work.
‘Although some people were surprised that he was happy to be deskbound, the timing seemed to be right. He was then thirty-eight, he had got married to someone his parents had chosen for him, they had had a couple of sons, and he no longer wanted to travel half the year,’ said Ms Dev, a rather solid woman in her thirties. ‘For a few years, he had lived a simple life. He worked nine to five, he spent his Sundays with his family, he occasionally went out for a drink with friends. There was less and less work to do. But then the division was reorganised, he was moved to that dark room, and he became more and more quiet.’
Her brow wrinkled as unpleasant memories came to the fore. ‘About a year ago, he still said good morning, but it was more of a groan than a greeting. There was just two of us left by then.’
‘Poor you. Must’ve been a major downer. Did you like, ask him what was wrong?’ asked Joyce. Wong was glad his assistant was with him. His questions always sounded harshly interrogatory compared to hers, which came across as sympathetic concern.
‘Oh yes, we were good friends,’ the woman replied. ‘He insisted that nothing was wrong. His wife and children were happy and healthy. He had no debts, as far as I knew.’
Wong looked around the old-fashioned room. It was not a happy room, but neither were the negative forces in it great enough to kill its occupant. Its wooden furniture and hand-built cupboards were actually rather more attractive and durable than the modular furniture of modern cities, although this particular office probably underwent less wear and tear than the somewhat ragged reception downstairs. ‘Business was good?’ he asked.
‘Not particularly,’ said Ms Dev. ‘Animal products is not a good line to be in these days, and there was shrinkage. But it was gradual. Nothing dramatic.’
The Malaysian woman said ‘nothing’ as ‘nut-thing’, having picked up an Indian lilt in her many years here, he noted. ‘And then . . . ?’
‘Well . . .’ She tilted her head diagonally to one side, another habit clearly picked up from Indian colleagues. ‘And then suddenly he was dead. At the age of forty-two. We couldn’t believe it. It was amazing. I mean, he had the usual executive stress problems—stomach ulcers and so on—but he was unusually fit. He had a line of trophies for sports things he had won. It was in that glass case over there. He was long-jump champion at his university or something. It was almost as if his energy was running out, as if he was a battery, and one day it was all gone. And then bang. Heart attack.’
‘At his desk?’ asked Wong.
‘At his desk.’
�
��There was an autopsy?’
‘Sekhar’s brother-in-law is a doctor and dealt with the body. He said it was natural causes. There did not seem to be any controversy about it. He had no enemies, no one to, you know, poison him or anything.’
‘Jeez. Poor fella. Was he like okay to work with?’ asked Joyce.
‘Yes, he was a very nice man. He was moody, and a bit dispiriting, and his health went downhill—he had a bit of flatulence towards the end, but I don’t think that would have killed him,’ Ms Dev said with an embarrassed smile.
The story of Sooti Sekhar’s unexplained death at an early age intrigued the feng shui master. He knew that in such cases, there are often financial problems which do not appear until after the death. He attempted to mentally will Joyce to continue her sympathetic inquiries, and was surprised to find her doing just that.
‘Like, how were his wife and children? They must have been like, utterly devastated and stuff.’
‘They were okay,’ said Mardiyah Dev. ‘I mean, they were upset, of course, but I think they were all right in the financial sense. Sekhar had some savings, he had paid off their mortgage on their big house, and I think he was insured. You can ask his wife. She works part-time in despatch at Deshpande’s.’
‘Deshpande’s?’
‘It’s a handbag factory. Just about eight minutes down that way. Near the old market. You can take a taxi.’
Wong smiled. ‘Thank you for your help.’
The rooms required a great deal of work. The geomancer and his assistant spent the whole of that afternoon poring over floor plans, drawing charts, making measurements, and watching how the light moved in the rooms, as the sun was reflected in from the frosted windows of an old red stone office block opposite. Almost every item in the room was in the wrong place, and the mis-positioning of doors caused enormous trouble, with a too-fast flow of piercing northeast energy right across Sekhar’s old desk. No wonder he had been unhappy.
