Mandarin Yellow (Socrates Cheng mysteries)

by Steven M. Roth

  I’ll drop the wisecracks, he decided.

  Socrates cleared his throat and said in a serious tone, picking up on Jade’s earlier comment, “I still read Mandarin occasionally, but your father didn’t know that when he came to see me. It couldn’t be that.”

  “There might be another reason,” Jade said. She smiled, reached out, and took Socrates’ hand. “I’m sure my stepmother figured out how much I love you even though I never came right out and said it to her. I’m sure she could tell from what I did say about you and how I said it.”

  Socrates smiled and squeezed Jade’s hand.

  “She must have told my father how I feel. That’s why he came to you, that and your knowledge of pens,” she said. She looked across the room, then added, “At least I hope that’s why.” Jade held onto Socrates’ hand, leaned across the table and pulled him closer to her. Then she kissed him.

  Socrates released their kiss after a few seconds, let go of Jade’s hand, and straightened up in his seat.

  “There’s something else you should know,” he said. “I met with Brandon about this. I wanted his input.”

  Jade noticeably tightened up.

  “Come on, Jade, it’s time you get over your problem with him, for your good and mine.” He sighed at the known futility of his statement. They’d been through this many times before. “I intend to keep both of you in my life.”

  “Whatever,” Jade said, as she shrugged. She looked up and stared at the wall behind Socrates, and tapped her fingers on the table as if now impatient to bring their conversation to an end.

  “So,” Socrates said, “you never answered my question. What do you want me to do? Help your father or not?”

  Jade nodded. “Help him.” She nodded several more times, then frowned. “But be careful. He and my brothers can be dangerous. Don’t ever let your guard down, and never — never, never, ever — make the mistake of thinking they are your friends or care at all about your interests.”

  JADE.

  LI BING-JADE. Her name in vernacular Chinese.

  JADE LI. Her name in western English.

  By whatever name she was called, Jade was the love of Socrates’ life.

  SOCRATES OFFICIALLY MET Jade when she broke his arm.

  HE HAD FIRST noticed her in 1987 during orientation week of their freshman year at Penn State. They each were seventeen years old. Socrates thought Jade was the most exquisite woman he’d ever seen.

  She was almost his height — tall for a Chinese woman at slightly over 5’9” — and fit like a conditioned long-distance runner. She had burnished Mandarin skin, a smile that could melt the coldest heart, and long blue-black hair she wore tied in a fist-sized bun at the back of her head in the severe style made popular in the 1950s by Madam Chiang Kai-shek.

  Because they both were China Studies majors, Socrates and Jade found themselves thrown together in several classes. Socrates saw this as his opportunity to meet, date and court Jade, but he was sadly mistaken. Try as he might to engage her in conversation, Jade would not give him the time of day. She was always polite, but aloof, conducting herself in that situation like the well-bred Confucian daughter Bing-fa had brought her up to be after her mother died. All of Socrates’ attempts to break through Jade’s reserve met with the same cool response. Eventually, for the balance of his freshman year, Socrates stopped trying to engage Jade in conversation and contented himself with watching her from across the classroom.

  A FEW WEEKS after the start of their sophomore year, when Socrates signed up to take Saturday classes studying three related Chinese martial arts — T’ai Ch’i Chuan, T’ai Ch’i sword, and Kobudo - he discovered that Jade also had enrolled in the classes. But this happenstance did not change Jade’s outward response to him. She rebuffed Socrates’ renewed attempts at being friendly, and merely acknowledged his presence at the beginning of each class with a brief nod and a contained smile, before she turned away.

  Yet Socrates believed he was making some progress with her. Several times during instruction when he suddenly looked over at Jade, he caught her staring at him. She immediately looked away each time, and sometimes also blushed, confirming Socrates’ belief that Jade had been deliberately staring at him, as he’d hoped, and not merely daydreaming.

  Socrates’ first opportunity to breach Jade’s cultural rampart occurred early in their second year at school during a Saturday T’ai Ch’i Chuan practice session when their instructor coupled Socrates and Jade as sparring partners for a weight-shifting and balancing exercise known in Chinese as Taolu, and in English as Push Hands.

  Socrates and Jade performed this slow moving drill well together that first time, and although they went their separate ways without any conversation immediately after class, they voluntarily paired-up the following Saturday for a leg-kick and hand-to-hand combat sparring match known as Shanshou.

  Within minutes after they began Shanshou, Jade caught Socrates with his attention wandering and dropped him to the mat with a cross-leg kick, sweeping both his feet out from under him. Socrates fell hard, his body fully rigid in his astonishment, and snapped the bone in his left arm just below the elbow. This, as Socrates liked to say from then on, was his lucky break.

  As a result of this injury, Jade now paid attention to Socrates. She sat with him during classes and shared her lecture notes with him because left-handed Socrates could not now take his own notes. She also studied with him each evening at the school’s Pattee Library, although Socrates, who welcomed her company, did not see why his broken arm compelled Jade to sit with him while he read assigned materials.

  Over the remainder of the second half of that sophomore school year, Jade and Socrates progressed to spending time together socially, but only as friends, not as a dating couple. In due course, as they passed more time together and shared more and more personal thoughts, they discovered that in addition to common interests such as Chinese martial arts, China’s history and culture, listening to jazz, and attending art exhibits, they also shared important core values, especially the veneration of their respective families and their high regard for education. By the end of their sophomore year, Socrates and Jade were dating. The two friends had become college lovers.

  The only demonstrable flaw in their relationship was Jade’s open hostility to Brandon. When Socrates occasionally questioned Jade about her hostility, she invariably answered with something to the effect that Brandon was too trendy, too full of himself, and much too rich for his own good. She often ended her recitation by saying, ‘In short, he’s a complete ass’. Socrates decided, although he never discussed it with her, that Jade was jealous of the considerable amount of time he and Brandon spent together. Socrates concluded that from Jade’s point of view, he should have been spending much of that time with her.

  When Socrates and Jade graduated from Penn State, they decided to end their dating relationship and go their separate ways unencumbered by the challenges of maintaining a long-distance romantic relationship. They both believed they needed to focus their full attention on their upcoming graduate-level studies. They parted as friends.

  After Penn State, Socrates enrolled at Columbia Law School in New York. He eventually became one of five partners — including Todd — in a small Washington, DC law firm.

  When Jade graduated from Penn State, she enrolled at Wellesley College where she earned her Master’s Degree and then her Doctorate of Philosophy Degree, both in Chinese Thought. After finishing these studies, Jade moved to Washington to teach undergraduates in the Department of Philosophy at Georgetown University.

  Almost fifteen years after they’d embarked on their divergent paths, Socrates and Jade found one another on a sunny, crisp Sunday fall morning while shopping at Eastern Market on Capitol Hill. They were overjoyed to find one another. Within two weeks of their fortuitous reunion, and after several late night lengthy telephone conversations, they resumed dating.

  SOCRATES SPENT THE night at Jade’s condo. In the morning, after Jade left for
work and he arrived home, Socrates called Bing-fa.

  “I’ll help you,” he said. But only because Jade wants me to, he thought.

  He and Bing-fa agreed to meet at 4:30 that afternoon at Socrates’ store to go over what Socrates would need to get started.

  After his call to Bing-fa, Socrates walked to the West End Branch of the District of Columbia public library at 23rd and L Streets. He borrowed three books that described how to conduct a criminal investigation. From the library, he walked to Georgetown and spent the balance of the morning at his store preparing to close it down until he finished with Bing-fa’s investigation. He wasn’t thrilled about interrupting his business this way, but it made more sense than having the business limp along using either Eldest Brother or Brandon to fill-in for him.

  When he finished at his store, Socrates walked to Jade’s office at Georgetown University to meet her. They had agreed they would meet at 11:30 a.m. to eat sandwiches and discuss Bing-fa’s investigation so Socrates could benefit from Jade’s perspective. He also brought along a surprise to show her.

  They settled down on a picnic blanket outside Jade’s office window. Jade immediately said, “What’s your surprise for me? I’ve been dying to know all morning since you mentioned it.”

  “Not yet,” Socrates said. “First, let’s talk about your father’s problem.”

  Jade nodded, but Socrates thought she looked disappointed.

  Socrates bit into a tuna salad sandwich, swallowed his mouthful, and said, “Can I count on your brothers to help me if I need them?”

  Jade raised her eyebrows and shook her head. “Probably not.” She looked off in the distance as if contemplating her answer, then turned back to Socrates and said, “It depends on which ones you mean. The problem is, they all consider you to be low faan because your mother’s not Chinese. In their view, that makes you a barbarian.”

  Socrates knitted his eyebrows together and frowned. Even Jade, he thought, falls prey to her family’s parochial attitude. She knows I know the meaning of low faan, yet she’s defined it for me as if I am a barbarian who needs her explanation. He sighed.

  Jade reached out and sandwiched Socrates’ hand between both hers. She lifted his hand to her mouth and lightly kissed his fingers, one at a time. Then she leaned her cheek against the back of his hand and said, “Eldest Brother won’t help you because he blames you for my failure to demonstrate appropriate filial piety.”

  Socrates shook his head. “I don’t get his attitude, Jade, all this filial piety crap. This is the 21st Century in America, after all, not in Shanghai. You know I respect my father, I always show him I do, but I don’t carry on like Eldest . . . .”

  “Our families are different, Socrates,” Jade interrupted, “you know that. We’re Chinese, very traditional in our beliefs and practices. Your family’s not. You were raised like an Occidental, as much like a Greek as like a Chinese person. You can’t possibly understand our orthodox world.”

  “We’re Chinese, too,” Socrates said, “at least my Shanghainese father believes we are, and I agree with him.”

  Jade fanned out her palms. “You must admit, Socrates, our families are different. I remember once when you and I were in college, and I visited you at your parents’ home over Christmas vacation. It was a real eye opener for me, almost cultural shock at the time. You and your parents were very casual with one another. You even addressed your father using the salutation, You, rather than Father or Honorable Father, as we always did at home.”

  Socrates couldn’t resist smiling at this. He tried to imagine his father rolling around on the floor laughing, with tears streaming down his cheeks, if Socrates had ever dared address him as Honorable Father. And he shuddered to think how such a salutation directed to his father might have disabled his mother’s otherwise impenetrable self-control.

  “As children,” Jade said, “we were not permitted to speak in our father’s presence unless he spoke to us first. I bet it wasn’t like that in your household.”

  “You better believe it wasn’t,” Socrates said, smiling big.

  “What most struck me when I visited your family,” Jade said, continuing as if Socrates had not responded to her rhetorical question, “was that you and your parents laughed with one another, even teased one another. It was never that way in my father’s household.”

  Jade looked off into the distance again, and said, “When we were growing up, my father’s word was law. That’s the way it is in a traditional Confucian and Taoist home.”

  Socrates rolled his eyes, but only in his imagination, not so Jade could see him do it. He was many things, he thought, but he wasn’t a fool. No point stirring the pot with an actual eye roll.

  Jade continued. “Respect, order and tradition were always the rules in our family, especially for Eldest Brother as the first born male.” She nodded to underscore her point.

  “My father imposed great demands on Bing-wu so he would present the correct example for us younger siblings,” Jade said, again looking off in the distance as she spoke.

  “Eldest Brother is so wrapped up in tradition,” she said, “I don’t think he’d help you even as a way of helping our father.” She paused as if collecting her thoughts, then turned back and looked into Socrates’ eyes. She took his hand again.

  “Socrates, darling, listen to me. You must be wary of Eldest Brother. Don’t underestimate Bing-wu’s inclination to act against his own, and against our family’s, best interests when his emotions take hold.” Jade again kissed Socrates’ fingers.

  Socrates assumed an appropriately solemn expression to match Jade’s message, and nodded.

  “Eldest Brother is very reactionary. He hates Westerners. Bing-wu is so out-of-date in his beliefs, he’s convinced Chiang Kai-shek was China’s savior until the United States betrayed him, enabling Mao and the Communists to take over the country.” She smiled, then said, “Believe it or not, Eldest Brother would live in Formosa, I mean Taiwan, if our father would permit it.”

  “That’s very enlightened,” Socrates said. He smiled at his attempt at levity, but it fell flat with Jade.

  “My middle brothers, the Twins, won’t help you either, but not because of you. They’re just spoiled adolescents, in their own world, totally wrapped up with themselves and each other. I’ve been telling you that for years, and nothing has changed with them. Even our father has trouble getting the Twins to do anything for him. They say yes to father, then don’t follow through. They give new meaning to the phrase, passive-aggressive.” She smiled and shrugged. “What can I say?”

  “Well, you’re right about the Twins,” Socrates said. “I’ve heard that song before.”

  “Youngest Brother will help you, if I ask,” Jade said, “if for no other reason than to please me. I’ll ask him if you want, but you should use Youngest Brother sparingly so he does not feel conflicted in his loyalty.”

  “I’ve got the picture,” Socrates said. “I won’t count on your brothers for help, including Youngest Brother.”

  That’s probably best,” Jade said. “Now, show me my surprise.” She smiled, sat up taller, and wiggled her slim hips and flat butt into a comfortable sitting position.

  JADE WATCHED INTENTLY as she anticipated the surprise Socrates had brought for her.

  Socrates reached into his sports jacket’s inside pocket and withdrew a narrow, six inch long white cardboard box. He removed the lid and placed the box on the blanket, halfway between himself and Jade. He looked up at Jade, ready to bask in the joy she would experience once she saw the box’s contents.

  “That’s it,” Socrates said, pointing at the box. “A Parker Duofold Mandarin Yellow pen. This one’s from my collection. It’s similar to the one stolen from the exhibit, but without the historic attributes and without George Parker’s inscription dedicating the first model of this pen to Chiang. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  Jade nodded slowly, almost warily, then leaned in and brought her face down close to Socrates’ Mandarin Yellow. She
squinted, then looked over at Socrates.

  “So . . . that’s it?” she said. “That’s what all this fuss is about with my father? This yellow pen?”

  Socrates felt like a suddenly deflated balloon. “It’s the pride of my collection, Jade,” he said. “It’s not just a yellow pen.” He strained to keep his voice from revealing his disappointment.

  Jade looked down at the Mandarin Yellow, and said, “Okay, Darling, I’ll buy that. Tell me what’s so special about it other than its color? I mean, compared to other old pens?”

  Socrates smiled again, inspired now as only someone can be who has been stricken all his life with the collecting gene. He picked up the box and carefully cradled it in both hands.

  “Besides its historical connotations,” he said, “the Mandarin Yellow is a beautiful writing instrument, wonderful to look at, wonderful to hold in your hand because of its fine balance, and a joy to write with because of its fine nib and smooth ink flow.

  “As you can see, the outer surfaces of its cap and barrel are tinted with a beautiful yellow dye that was intended by George Parker to emulate China’s Imperial Yellow, the color traditionally forbidden to everyone but the royal family. Part of the pen’s visual attraction results from this yellow hue which becomes warmer over time, a rich, lustrous patina.” He paused to see if he had Jade’s attention. He did. She smiled, raised both eyebrows, and nodded him on.

  “But its outer beauty was deceptive,” Socrates added. “The Mandarin Yellow carried its own death wound with it because its outer skin was exceedingly fragile. The pen literally could crack if you looked at it wrong.”

  Socrates paused to gather his thoughts. Jade waited half a minute, then said, rolling her finger in a film director’s lights, cameras, action motion, “And . . .?”

  “Oh, sorry,” Socrates said, as he blushed. “I was lost in thought.”