by S. J. Rozan
A weary hand wave told us to sit. We did, on the glazed ceramic stools, and watched Mr. Zhang unhook a scroll from a nail on the wall. Behind it was a safe door. He twirled the combination, removed papers and cash, and then, with a screwdriver, pried a false bottom from the safe. This was something I’d never seen before. Even Bill raised an eyebrow. Still, neither of us said anything. Nor was a word spoken when Mr. Zhang lifted a velvet box from the hidden compartment and held it out to me.
Until I heard my own disbelieving voice. “You have it?”
And the reply, a command with edges of fear: “Ms. Chin, Mr. Smith. You must never let this knowledge leave this room.”
“You have it? And your cousin doesn’t know?” My voice seemed to be going on without the rest of me, which was unable even to reach out and take the box.
Bill did that. He opened it, peered in, looked up at Mr. Zhang, and turned the box toward me.
On a pillow of blue velvet sat a minute brooch. Eight tiny diamonds circled a diminutive jade disc. No other stones, no grand setting, no filigree or fretwork or chasing. The whole thing wasn’t an inch wide.
“Behold,” Mr. Zhang said. “The Shanghai Moon.”
“This? No. It can’t be. This isn’t-”
“Worth a million dollars. It’s not worth ten thousand. The jade, because of its antiquity, has some value, but as you can see it’s cracked. The diamonds are small, and two are flawed. The only worth of this piece is based on its story, but most collectors, seeing it, would react as you have.”
I took the miniature thing from the box and rested it in my hand. The jade, split along its length, felt cool to the touch, as jade always does; and tiny and flawed though they were, the diamonds sparkled.
Mr. Zhang looked as though he wanted to reach out and grab it back from me, but he didn’t. “The jade Kairong gave Rosalie was not the most valuable stone his family possessed. It was the oldest. Though cracked and small, it was created for a Chen ancestor’s wedding and had been in the Chen family for fifty generations. To Kairong it rep resented enduring family love. The necklace Rosalie chose to dismantle for its diamonds was not the most valuable piece she brought to Shanghai, either. It was the one that meant the most to her.”
I looked up. “How do you know that?”
“Yaakov Corens told me.”
I held the brooch to the light as he went on, “By the time my cousin and I came to America, Lao-li’s obsession with the Shanghai Moon was total. Its legend had grown in the decades since it vanished, both in his mind and in the world of collectors. When I found we were in the same city with its maker, I could not risk Lao-li discovering its truth.”
“Why not? Did you have it by then?”
As though the words were cumbersome, Mr. Zhang spoke slowly. “I have always had it.”
“Then what are you talking about, ‘the decades since it vanished’? It never vanished. You had it!” I thrust out my hand, the brooch sparkling in it. “How could you do that to Mr. Chen? How could you let his obsession ever get started? Why didn’t you tell him? What was the point?”
The silence returned, and lasted so long I was starting to think Mr. Zhang had no answer. And really, what answer could there be? Greed? A family bitterness, a rivalry? Something to lord over his cousin, a way to control him?
Softly, Mr. Zhang spoke. “The seed of the legend of the Shanghai Moon was planted in desperate, dark times. It was watered with tragedy and tended in heartbreak. Public and private. Private and public.
“The truth you hold you in your hand, that small, flawed thing, was meaningless in the face of people’s need-Chinese people and exiled Jews and others besides-to believe something glorious could exist outside the despair and horrors of wartime Shanghai. No, more: could exist amid that despair and horror. From the moment it was made its legend began. That Rosalie would not show it only helped the legend flourish. In whispers, in rumors.
“Those rumors were why, years later, the robbers came for it.” He reached out and took the brooch from me. “But they did not leave with it.”
Mr. Zhang turned the gem in his hand, watching it gleam. “The moment he shot Aunt Rosalie, the robbers’ leader panicked. He commanded the others to retreat. They did. When I reached Aunt Rosalie-as I told you, I was the first-I found the Shanghai Moon’s gold chain broken but the gem still on it, on the floor beside her. I put it in my pocket. I wanted to be the one to give it back to her, when she was well. I wanted to be the one to bring her that happiness.
“But of course there was to be no happiness. Rosalie was dead. When Uncle Paul found her so, and saw the Shanghai Moon gone from about her throat, he wailed and, shocking me, began to curse the gem and those who now possessed it, calling down all manner of misery upon them. They had stolen it, they had killed for it, and now let them suffer all the torments of hell for it. His inconsolable grief and anger frightened me as much as the robbers had. He saw that, and calmed; he embraced me; he asked me to attend to my young cousin while he cared for Grandfather, who was badly hurt. I did so. For many hours I tried to comfort Lao-li with sweets and stories, sang to him, made tea. I brought water for Uncle Paul and tore cloth into bandages. I helped without question in whatever way I was asked. Trying to be good. Trying to hide my guilt and my terror. Because as day turned tonight I’d come to understand that the loss of the Shanghai Moon had killed Aunt Rosalie. Also that punishment was assured to-and deserved by-whoever possessed it now.”
Mr. Zhang paused, sad eyes still on the gem. He seemed to have shrunk.
“Oh,” I said, “but that’s-”
“Yes.” He nodded without looking up. “But I was eight years old.
“Over the next few days, barricaded in the kitchen, Uncle Paul nursed Grandfather while I tried to comfort and distract my cousin. In the dead of night we stole to the garden to bury Rosalie. Uncle Paul chanted prayers and shed tears. And I kept my terrifying secret.
“When Uncle Kai-rong surprised us with his return, he echoed Uncle Paul’s shock, his grief and his curses. Echoed and multiplied them. He forbade us ever to speak of the gem again. And with tears in his eyes he said Lao-li and I were his treasures. A treasure-that was what I wanted to be! Not a thief! Not a cursed killer!
“I thought many times to bury the Shanghai Moon in the garden. To throw it in the river. As though that would remove the curse! Always I was stopped by the thought of Aunt Rosalie. How she had loved it. I hid it among my things.
“In the weeks that followed, I found my young cousin shared my understanding that the loss of the gem had caused Rosalie’s death. Hadn’t Uncle Paul and Uncle Kairong said exactly that? At first we returned to that day over and over, trying to comprehend, but finally, terrified of its power, we made a pact never to speak about it. We kept to our word until my cousin stunned me, weeks later, with an idea spoken casually, as simple truth: Finding the gem would bring his mother back.
“I was a child, at the limit of my understanding, but I knew this was wrong. He went on to confess his greatest fear: that he was not up to the task, and that she could not come back until he accomplished it.
“What I would have given for adult counsel! But I could ask for none. But I also could not bear for my cousin to shoulder this impossible task and the guilt that would accompany his inevitable failure. I was racked with enough guilt for two already! I determined to take the only course I saw. I would show him the Shanghai Moon. I had no doubt this would bring down on my head the punishments the gem’s thief and possessor deserved, but it had to be done for my cousin’s sake.
“Some nights later, by the glow of a forbidden candle, and with my heart pounding, I retrieved the Shanghai Moon and held it out to him. He took it from me with a child’s interest in a sparkling, pretty thing, admired it, and gave it back. He didn’t seem to understand. ‘This is the Shanghai Moon,’ I said. ‘It was Aunt Rosalie’s. Cousin, in this life she cannot come back.’
“He smiled as though I was kind but simple-minded. ‘No,’ he said.
‘When I find the Shanghai Moon, she will come back.’
“Possibly you can imagine how it was for me then. A child alone with this secret, this quandary! Three more times in the next months I tried to show the gem to him, and three times he denied the jewel I had was the missing Shanghai Moon. Until finally he became angry with me. His shouting and his tears brought Uncle Paul running to see what the trouble was. Neither of us would say. In my terror of being discovered I professed ignorance, and my cousin said only that I had been teasing him. Uncle Paul asked us please to find ways to be kind to each other. Then he sat us down and said he had something to tell us that would make us sad, so he was going to tell us now, when we were sad already. He was going away, he said, leaving Shanghai. He was on his way to America, a beautiful place, and we were to stay with Kai-rong and Grandfather, but someday we could come see him in America, too. A few weeks later, he sailed from the harbor.
“I never again showed the Shanghai Moon to anyone, from that day to this. Aunt Rosalie’s death, my cousin’s anger, Uncle Paul’s leaving us-all these things were bound in my mind to the gem. As I grew to manhood, of course, I came to understand that the truth was both simpler and more complex than my childhood fears had made it. Still, it was years before the magic powers of the Shanghai Moon ceased to hold me, and to frighten me.”
Mr. Zhang turned the brooch in his fingers. “Those powers have never ceased to hold my cousin. He grew up obsessed with the gem. In time he began to laugh at his former connection between its return and Rosalie’s. The fantasy of a grieving child, innocent and foolish. Or so he said, and no doubt believed he believed. But his obsession did not diminish. Nothing interested him but gems. He read and studied, became an authority, and when we arrived here he took up his profession without hesitation. And, freed of the embargo against the world outside China under which we had grown up, he immersed himself happily in the search for the Shanghai Moon.”
Mr. Zhang’s deep brown eyes moved from Bill to me. “Mr. Smith? Ms. Chin? My cousin was mad. He is mad. The report of Kai-rong’s death soon after we arrived here sealed his folly, but really it had been complete for many years. His madness, though, has only one dimension. As long as he can continue the hunt for the Shanghai Moon, he’s as able to function in the world as you or I. He courted and wed and fathered two fine children. He has run a business honorably and participated in the life of his family and community. He’s been kind to me, and to my brother-kinder, I think, than I have been-and to Uncle Paul. All he ever asked was that I join him in the search. How could I refuse?”
The question floated in the air. The vigilant terra-cotta soldiers, the cricket cages and the scrolls, the traffic sounds and the shadows in the open safe all seemed part of it, this same question.
“The search…” I began.
“I’m not a wealthy man, but my business does well enough. When we were younger, one or the other would travel where the rumors led. Later, sometimes, we sent agents. The cost of travel was easily manageable. The larger cost, the cost my cousin counted on me for-the purchase of the gem itself, when we found it-I knew I would never have to pay.”
“Your brother-does he know this?”
“No. He’s looked skeptically upon our enterprise from the beginning, but for my part I’ve scoffed at his scoffing. As though I didn’t know he was right. My brother has no patience for memory, for nostalgia.” An ironic smile lifted the corners of Mr. Zhang’s mouth. “My cousin and I were taught the past must be smashed. My brother fought against that philosophy. Now I sell reminders of the past. My cousin seeks it. And my brother scorns it. No, he doesn’t know the truth. About the Shanghai Moon, or me.” Nor you about him, I thought. “My brother’s interest in gems is solely a function of their value. To him they have no deeper meaning.”
If you didn’t count purity or immortality. I wondered if the brothers had ever once, over the years, actually talked about the deeper meaning of anything.
“It seems to me,” Bill said, “that a lot of people have gotten caught up in your game over the last sixty years.”
“Please believe me, it was never a game. Yet what you say is true, and a source of regret. Many collectors, not just ourselves, have expended time and money in this search. I’ve comforted myself that to collectors the joy is in the chase, not the capture. Some other gem would have kept them running, if not the Shanghai Moon.”
“It wasn’t the thrill of the chase that drove Alice Fairchild,” I said.
Heavily, Mr. Zhang stood. He walked to the window and looked out over Chinatown. “No. And now two men are dead. My brother is hurt and my cousin very ill. Lives have been disrupted, and more heartbreak lies ahead. Because of me. Because instead of reality, I fostered illusion. Instead of truth, I encouraged dreams.” He turned to us. “Do you see? This is what was spoken by Uncle Kai-rong and Uncle Paul. This is the curse of the Shanghai Moon.”
43
A weary Mr. Zhang busied himself with kettle, tea canister, and little cups. Bill lit a cigarette and went to the window. I watched the Shanghai Moon sparkle against my fingertips.
It didn’t look cursed. On the contrary: The tiny diamonds’ sparkle and the green marbling of the jade made me hopeful, comforted me. As though, through everything, Rosalie and Kai-rong’s love still glowed.
But Mr. Zhang must be right. Look at all that had happened because of it. It must, in fact, be cursed.
Ah, what do you know, Chinsky? What was the last cursed thing you saw? I jumped at the voice in my head.
What, Pilarsky, you think this is funny? I silently demanded.
Hey, I’m one of the guys the thing took out, why would I laugh? I must’ve been losing it anyway, falling for Alice like that. But listen: That’s not the problem anymore.
What’s not?
In the first place, you can’t be serious, blaming that chatchke for all this tsuris. People made the mess, like always. Second, the bad guys are in jail. We’re square, you and me. Thanks, by the way.
Thanks? But I-
I said thanks, that’s it, no more, the end. Stick to business: You’ve got a bunch of old Chinese men here who still have troubles.
And? What am I supposed to do about it?
I should know? But you always said the old Chinese men, they were your problem.
“Ms. Chin? Are you all right?”
I looked up to see Mr. Zhang holding out a cup of tea. How long he’d been standing there, I couldn’t tell, but he seemed concerned. “Yes. Thank you. I’m fine.”
Bill had a teacup by his side at the windowsill. He was looking at me, too, quizzically but without worry. As though, whatever was going on, he knew I could handle it.
And of course, I could.
After all, I was Lydia Chinsky.
Mr. Zhang sat down and leaned toward me. “Do you understand, now, why this investigation must stop? If my cousin were to learn I never intended to buy the Shanghai Moon, and why… He’s just had a heart attack. Another might end his life.”
I sipped my tea. An idea began to glow in my mind, just a tiny pinprick at first, then brighter. Go, Chinsky! I had some more tea, to stall. Was I really about to do this? “Your brother,” I heard myself say to Mr. Zhang. “You know he would do anything you ask?”
“Yes,” Mr. Zhang said sadly. “And the one thing he’s asked, a brother’s love, I’ve been unable to give.”
“Maybe now,” I told him, “you can.”
Of course, I wasn’t there to see it. Bill and I had to content ourselves with Mary’s report. She was there because C. D. Zhang had requested “that Chinese detective,” just as his brother had instructed. For all Mary knew, we had no idea what was even going on.
Right.
“You made this happen.” She hadn’t sat down at our Taiwanese tea place before the words were out of her mouth.
“I got ginger black with condensed milk.” I lifted the teapot.
“Never mind that.” She held out a cup anyway because ginger’s her favorite. I po
ured for her and for Inspector Wei, who gave the tea a skeptical sniff. “C. D. Zhang’s confession,” Mary said. “You guys’ pawprints are all over it.”
Bill held up innocent hands.
I shrugged. “I owed you, girlfriend.”
“So, what, you manufactured a confession and found someone to deliver it?”
“I just suggested to C. D. Zhang that he admit he did his brother dirt.” And if the crime he confessed to wasn’t the one he committed, was that so terrible?
“Of those three, C. D. was my least likely suspect.”
“Sometimes that’s who did it.”
“And sometimes”-Mary put her cup down-“a guy admits to stealing his brother’s million dollars, his brother declines to press charges, and we have no one to prosecute.”
“For that. But Alice rolled on the White Eagles. You have your conspiracy.”
“True. So it just so happens we no longer need Wong Pan. So when he slips Midtown’s clutches and gets shipped back to Shanghai with the DA’s blessing, everyone will be happy.”
At that, Inspector Wei lifted her cup. We all clinked. “This tea,” she said. “Well made. But condensed milk, so sweet, terrible.”
“Sorry.”
“Oh!” Mary said, as though something had just hit her. “Except there’s one guy who’ll be left with nothing, so he won’t be happy. And just by coincidence, it’s Mulgrew.”
“Well,” I said, “some days the bear gets you.”
“You know Mr. Chen will never forgive C. D. for endangering his chance at the Shanghai Moon, even though it wasn’t a real chance.”
“I’m afraid that’s true. But Mr. Zhang will. He already has. That’s why he’s not pressing charges.”
“In fact, he turns out to be quite a humanitarian. I hear he’s offered to help pay for home health care for Alice’s sister. Oh, didn’t you know she has a sister? In Boston.”
