by Unknown
‘Dr Prasad, are there poisons which are like, really really slow-working and which would like, not be detected in an autopsy?’
Wong picked up the extension handset to listen to the man’s answer. ‘That is a very hard question, since it all depends on your understanding of what a poison is,’ said the voice on a crackly line. ‘The word usually conjures up images of strychnine, or arsenic, or some forms of mercury perhaps. These quickly and obviously do great damage. But consider alcohol. This is also a lethal poison, but taken in small quantities over a long time, it is not lethal, and some doctors—I am not among them—say it may even do some good. If you drank a bottle of detergent, it would make you very sick. Yet every night, we all consume tiny amounts of detergent left as residue on the cups and plates we use. You see, Ms McQuinnine, almost anything can be a poison if you take an inappropriate quantity of it over an inappropriate period, you see what I am saying?’
‘Yeah. I see. It’s McQuinnie, not McQuinnine. But is there any . . . I mean, like, is there a poison that you could use, and doctors doing an autopsy would just be like, “Oh, it’s natural causes or a heart attack”?’
‘There are many substances which can be introduced at low levels and could eventually lead to death. Most, I am glad to say, are detectable, particularly if the autopsy is done promptly, not more than a couple of days after death.’
‘Okay, thanks Dr Presshard.’
‘Prasad. It’s Prasad.’
During the lunch break, Wong and McQuinnie ate with Mardiyah Dev (at least, Ms Dev ate, while the two visitors pushed food around their plates and took tiny sips of bottled water). The Malaysian woman added little that she had not already told them the previous day. She said she believed Sooti Sekhar’s autopsy had been performed promptly, the morning following his death late one afternoon. ‘There were no suspicious circumstances,’ she said.
The assignment seemed to be over, the geomancer thought. The rooms had been done, and Sooti Sekhar had been confirmed by all routes of inquiry as a victim of death by natural causes. But Joyce’s doggedness had inspired him. Perhaps it would be worth making one final call. They should speak to the man who did the autopsy, he decided.
That afternoon, Wong phoned Dr Ran, brother-in-law of the dead man. The geomancer also had to shout into the phone. ‘Hello? Is it Dr Ran? What? Yes? I am Mr Wong from East Trade Industries. I am working today at Associated Food and Beverages. No, no, I am not selling anything. I am a feng shui master. I want to ask you about Mr Sekhar. What? No, I do not want to come to your surgery. Sick? I am not sick. What? You ask what? Who is sicker? No, not sicker. I am not saying sicker. I am saying Sekhar. Your brother-in-law is sicker. I mean Sekhar. Yes, yes, I know he is dead.’
Joyce gently picked up the extension. She waved to him to signify that she would do the talking.
‘Hi, Dr Ran, this is Jo McQuinnie, I’m like Mr Wong’s assistant. We are doing like a report at Associated on the death of your brother-in-law, and just, er, want to double-check a few things, if you’ve got a couple of minutes.’
‘Very well.’ The voice was low and measured.
‘Like, er, okay, so what happened?’
‘Well, Miss er . . .’
‘McQuinnie.’
‘Ms McQuinnie. I think you will find that I have supplied my findings to the company already.’
‘Would you mind just repeating them? Think of us as, like, fact-checkers.’
‘Very well. My brother-in-law had a ventrical infarction, a cardiac arrest. He had become overweight. He was swallowing a lot of digestion tablets in those last months. Fundamentally, I think, it was stress, physical and mental. Simple as that. Now I am really rather busy, so if you would excuse me, I am in the middle of an examination.’
By the end of that afternoon, the rooms were already becoming brighter and more appealing, although one side of the room, where the door was being moved, was a mess of bricks and mortar. Still, the operation was progressing at speed, and Wong thought the job would be complete with relatively few feng shui formalities (a sprinkling of sea salt for example) and a careful final inspection tomorrow.
By eight o’clock that evening, after the usual harrowing taxi ride through permanently honking traffic which seemed to continuously switch lanes for no reason and with no warning, the visitors got back gratefully to the coolness of Mrs Daswani’s home in Uttar Pradesh. They sat in wicker chairs on her verandah and sipped fresh mango lassi with a piece of lime floating on the top. The Indian suburban mansion seemed like paradise after a day in the heart of town.
‘You look relaxed, Mr Wong,’ said Mrs Daswani. ‘So have you fixed the rooms at Associated?’
He nodded. ‘I think so. It was a big job. So much out of place. But I think we have finished.’
‘It was a horrible pair of rooms,’ said Joyce. ‘Business-people often think big rooms are better, but they can be worse if they are badly laid out. This was dark and like, all out of shape.’
Mrs Daswani smiled. ‘But what I want to know is, did it really cause harm to the young man who died? Forgive me for being skeptical, but it still baffles me that inartistically planned furniture can kill a healthy young man.’
Joyce looked at Wong for an answer.
‘The feng shui in the room did not kill him. Not directly,’ the geomancer said. ‘It had an effect. It had a big effect. But it was not the number-one reason.’
‘So what did kill him?’
‘I can tell you. But in confidence only. You must not tell the company.’
‘Very well,’ said their hostess, sitting up, suddenly interested. ‘What was it?’
‘Suicide,’ said Wong.
‘It was?’ asked Joyce, surprised.
‘Do tell,’ said Mrs Daswani.
‘He had a problem. He was very good sales analyst.’
‘That’s a problem?’ asked the young woman.
‘Can be,’ said the geomancer. ‘It is like this. He was ambitious man. Star pupil. Keeps going up the ladder. Up and up and up. Boss loves him. Then he gets stuck as head of animal products sales. Can’t go up any more. Then, I think, he looks at two things. One is the business trend for his division. Far East business in ivory, tiger medicines, deer antlers, all that, is going down. He has chosen wrong specialisation. His department shrinking. He realises his work will one day disappear.’
Wong sipped his drink. ‘Number two. I think, maybe, he looks around at the other old men in his office and in his club. Sad, fat businessmen. Unemployed or underemployed. Both are bad. He did not want to be like them, but cannot not see any way to escape. Very hard to find a new job or change job after age forty in India. Almost impossible.’
‘That’s true if you believe the newspaper ads,’ said Joyce.
‘So he takes out life insurance policies. Big ones. So his wife and children get everything they need all their lives. Then he commits suicide.’
Joyce looked puzzled. ‘But how was it suicide? Everyone said it was natural causes. Some kinda poison, like I suggested?’
‘No. He committed suicide very slowly. He was an eater of kormas. Korma is number-one mild curry. He had ulcer in his stomach. But he made himself to eat vindaloos. He ate extra chilli. Then he had double vindaloos and palis. Hottest curries. He told the chef to make him spiciest food they could. Gave him great pain. Much bottom gas. When his stomach hurt, he ate many indigestion tablets.’
‘That killed him?’
‘I think so.’
Mrs Daswani was surprised. ‘But how do you know all this?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the geomancer. ‘I only guess. He liked mild curries. But he eats hot ones. He has stomach ulcer. But he eats chilli sauce. He is a teetotaller. But he makes himself drink beer every day. He loves sports. But he stops doing them. He hates pills. But starts swallowing indigestion tablets. So many changes in his life this year. So sudden. Add up. Must be deliberate.’
‘Gosh. He vindalooed himself to death,’ said Joyce. ‘Now that is truly weird.’
‘Maybe,’ said the geomancer. ‘Or not. But Dr Ran is brother of Sekhar’s wife. He also wants family to be happy.’
There was no sound for a minute except the loud, cyclic chirp of cicadas from the garden.
‘What a way to go,’ said the young woman. ‘But it makes sense. No one noticed a thing. I mean, what could be strange about an old Indian guy sitting in a Delhi club eating a curry?’
Mrs Daswani raised her eyebrows. ‘So, C F. Are you going to report that it was suicide, and save the insurance company a fortune?’
‘Take money from children? After he went to such trouble? Certainly not,’ said Wong. ‘Death was natural causes. This is what the doctor says. I am not a doctor. Only feng shui man.’
His hostess laughed.
Wong added: ‘Besides, there are many people slowly murdering themselves with hot curry. I think even I am one.’
The servant boy appeared and struck a gong to signify that dinner was ready. ‘Just wait till you see what we have for you tonight,’ said Mrs Daswani. ‘This will kill you.’
The taxi driver
The great sage Lu Hsueh-an lived on the Plain of Jars one thousand years ago. A man came to him. ‘Sage. I need your help. I have so many burdens. My house has started to lean over. I think it will fall down.’
Lu said: ‘Can be fixed.’
The man said: ‘I have another problem. My chief he does not like me. He wants to get rid of me. What can I do?’
Lu said: ‘Can be fixed with the same action.’
The man said: ‘I have yet one more problem. My wife looks at my neighbour. I think she likes him. I don’t want her to leave me.’
Lu said: ‘Also can be fixed with the same action.’
The man said: ‘What is the action?’
Lu said: ‘Spend three days in contemplation in a temple on top of a mountain.’
The man did this.
After, the man returned.
Lu said: ‘Your problems are fixed. I knocked your house down. I told your chief you are leaving. I moved your wife next door.’
The man said: ‘This is not what I asked for.’
Lu said: ‘How do you feel?’
The man said: ‘Free of my burdens.’
Then the man became very happy. He thanked the sage and lived happily after that.
Blade of Grass, do not listen to what people say. Listen to what they mean.
This is a truth that all of nature knows.
Only humans do not know. A hungry puppy knows he needs food. But a hungry child thinks he needs toys.
The poet T’ang Yu said: ‘Tears can be lies. The rain cannot.’
From ‘Some Gleanings of Oriental Wisdom’
by C F Wong, part 145.
Winnie Lim’s heavily mascara-ed eyes blinked fully open. She clamped her perfectly manicured hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone. ‘C F,’ she whispered. ‘For you. Madam Fu.’
C F Wong’s hand, which had been reaching for the phone, snapped sharply backwards on hearing the name of the caller. ‘Say I am not here,’ he said.
‘He is not here,’ said Winnie.
There was an asphyxiating silence in the office and a tinny version of Madam Fu’s screechy voice could be heard erupting from the office administrator’s phone.
‘Okay, I tell him,’ the young woman said.
Wong nervously picked at his lower lip. Winnie turned again to him. ‘I tell her you are not here. She say she wan’ to speak to you anyway.’
‘Okay, okay.’ The geomancer nodded and Winnie pressed a button which transferred the call 128 centimetres from her phone to his. He raised himself to his full 1.65 metres, and smoothed down his jacket.
‘Hello, Madam Fu. Very nice to call me.’
‘Wong? My cousin comes on Thursdays for tea. Every Thursday. That’s why you must do it now.’
‘Yes, Madam Fu.’
‘Immediately, if possible.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘This afternoon or at the very latest tomorrow morning.’
‘Yes, Madam Fu. What you want me to do this afternoon or tomorrow?’
‘No, tomorrow morning. You have to have finished by the end of tomorrow morning. Sometimes she comes just after lunch. Better for you to come now. For safety-lah.’
The geomancer decided to try a different tack. ‘You have some bad luck recently, is it? Or new extension in your house? Something you want me to look at?’
‘No, Wong, I want you to tell me whether I should take it away or have it thrown away or just leave it to rot. My cousin is very sensitive to these things.’
‘But what? What is it?’
‘The thing. I keep telling you. The thing in my garden.’
‘In your garden. What sort of thing?’
‘ Alamok! That’s what you have to tell me. I can’t do your job for you, Mr Wong.’
Winnie Lim, who was listening on the other phone, put her hand over her mouthpiece and said to Wong: ‘ Aiyeeaa. Give up. Sudah-lah.’
The geomancer realised the futility of continuing and ended the conversation with an obedient promise to drop everything and head to Fu Town Villa straight away. He put the phone down and then crashed into his seat with the grace of a warehouse being demolished.
His assistant, Joyce McQuinnie, lowered her book and looked over at him. She hadn’t failed to notice his deep disinclination for the assignment. ‘Why don’t you just tell her to get stuffed?’
‘Who?’
‘Madam Thing.’
‘Madam Fu.’
‘Yes.’
‘No, tell Madam Fu to get who?’
‘Get stuffed. It’s not a name. S. T. U. F. F. E. D. As in, have her internal organs removed by a taxidermist.’
‘She does not believe in Western medicine. Only Chinese medicine.’
‘Never mind.’
Once more, Wong felt that he was having a conversation with an unhinged person. Did everyone feel constantly surrounded by madness or was it just him? He decided to change the subject. ‘The book. Good or not?’
Joyce was reading a volume of ancient Chinese myths and legends that he had proudly recommended to her. She threw it down. ‘Well . . . to be honest, some of these are okay. But some are naff city.’
‘Hmm?’
She put her feet on the desk. ‘I mean, the girls always change into foxes or ghosts or something. That’s weird enough. But in this one, the guy changes into a chrysanthemum. I mean, puh-lease. A chrysanthemum? Who writes this stuff?’
‘P’u Sung Ling wrote it.’
‘He needs like a good script editor if he ever wants to break into movies.’
‘I think he does not. He is dead already.’
‘Yeah, well, not surprising.’
The geomancer was packing his bag. ‘I am going to see Madam Fu. Do you come?’ he asked, silently praying for an answer in the negative.
‘Sure,’ said Joyce. ‘A chance to see the loony upper crustaceans of Singapore society? I wouldn’t miss it for all the tea in Winnie Lim.’
The office administrator, hearing her name, momentarily lowered her eighteenth cup of gok-fa tea and glanced over at the speaker, but received no further information.
Suburban Singapore on a cloudy weekday in summer is a pleasant place. The traffic was snarled up in the centre of town, leaving the roads away from the business district clear, fast-moving and welcoming. The sky was an impossible shade of deep blue, made more rather than less beautiful by the white mountains of cirro-cumulus clouds standing over the horizon.
This was the sort of trip when Wong sometimes wished he had his own car. He watched rather enviously as free spirits in open-topped sports cars raced past, their hair whipping in the wind. But with tax on private cars in the city-state more than doubling their prices, it was out of the question for a small-businessman like himself.
On the other hand, if he were ever to save enou
gh money for one, it would be through customers like Madam Fu. She was wealthy, required his services regularly, and paid in cash—usually more than he asked for. Putting up with a little madness was a small price to pay.
And, as for now, Singapore taxis were comparatively cheap and trustworthy—the one he was in at the moment was a Mercedes-Benz, a type of car associated with the highest grade of cadre in his hometown of Guangzhou. It took them less than fifteen comfortable minutes to travel from Telok Ayer Street in town to the open, residential roads of Katong.
‘Probably be an easy job. She sounds like a mad old bat,’ said Joyce.
‘Rubbish,’ said Wong.
‘She’s not mad?’
‘No, rubbish. The problem, I think is rubbish. In her garden.’
Madam Fu’s house was in a high-class low-rise housing estate just off Meyer Road, better known as Condo Valley, but her back yard faced a quiet country road, often used for mildly nefarious purposes such as lovers’ meetings or for the disposal of trash, which would simply be thrown over her wall. To be even-handed, observers would have to say it was partly her own fault, since her garden was so poorly tended and overgrown that any passer-by would assume that it was common land. But as soon as one person dumped an old fridge on the spot, every passer-by would seemingly pay the garden a similar compliment. In a week, a single item could grow to an entire town-sized rubbish dump. Sometimes the initial discarded piece of household waste was placed by Madam Fu herself. She never blamed anyone for the resultant mountain of trash, appearing to believe that unwanted items of furniture multiplied by high-speed asexual conjugation.
Wong guiltily felt that this sort of assignment was not really the work of a feng shui reader. The woman was eccentric, or even mentally disturbed, and he thought she needed to be looked after the traditional Chinese way—hidden away by her children where she could do no harm.
But his visits, every few months, had become a regular part of her tranquillity, and had also become an appreciated part of his income, so why complain? Both sides got something out of it. Besides, there was a degree of psychology in every geomancy case. The energy flows inside a house, however perfectly arranged, will not produce a happy household if the dwellers in the building are in a state of disturbance.
