Love and the Art of War

by Dinah Lee Küng

  She left the blooms with Lorraine. Extending the life span of bouquets was an actress’s trade secret extracted from backstage dressers who had to manage whole jungles of Stage Door Johnny floral tributes.

  Wednesday Jane committed another folly. She spent twice her budget for a sharp new Joseph outfit to wear to lunch on Thursday with Camille Harper. They would sign Jane’s contract and plan The Global Library series.

  ‘Actually, I was thinking of another working title,’ Jane said. ‘And The Word was Digital?’

  ‘That’s rather good,’ Camille admitted.

  ‘Or, perhaps Turning the Digital Page?’

  ‘Why, that’s even better. Reminds me of that Kindle Fire launch.’

  ‘You know, Camille, I had an idea for the opening credits that might—’

  ‘Jane! Order your lunch! You’ve got the job!’ Camille waved the menu in jest. ‘If taking off for a few years made all our researchers this eager, I’d insert an obligatory sabbatical into every contract.’

  Jane ate her chef’s salad and listened to how Camille’s shooting schedule dovetailed with other projects. How tactful of Camille to relegate Jane’s long retirement to ‘a few years off.’ Age and success had mellowed Camille. She wanted to hear about Lorraine’s health problems, Sammie’s food crises, and the pressures on libraries. She nodded with empathy over the tumbles and setbacks the accumulating years handed to all middle-aged women, whatever their paths.

  If Camille muffled her ambition under a light-hearted, even flaky demeanour, Jane perceived by the time coffee and tiramisu arrived that the sharp edges of C. Harper, veteran producer, hadn’t dulled. An entire generation of television styles and battles had passed Jane by as she hid herself in the library while Camille had toughed it out through all weathers. She didn’t go so far as to feign ‘madness,’ but like Stratagem Twenty Seven, Camille hid acute competence and competitiveness behind a superficial chumminess.

  Jane’s stylish Joseph jacket survived three courses of Camille, a midday meeting with the Camden Library Authority, and all the way to Baldwin’s class.

  ‘Avoid triggering a concentrated force which can generate an opposing force. Wild gestures can alert the enemy that something’s wrong. Be still, hide the size or formation of your troops and don’t explain manoeuvres to your men. Pretend to be a pig in order to eat the tiger. Play dumb. Hide behind the mask of a fool, a drunk, or a madman. Create confusion about your intentions and motivations. Lure your opponent into underestimating your ability until he drops his guard. Then you may attack.’

  ‘Never let them know what you’re thinking,’ Dan intoned.

  ‘Sun Tzu?’ Winston asked.

  ‘Nope,’ Dan shook his head, ‘Michael Corleone.’

  Nigel perked up: ‘Do any of you remember Richard Branson launching Virgin’s transatlantic flight? Branson dressed up in a pirate costume and filled the airplane with movie stars and champagne. British Airways took him for an idiot and didn’t see his threat until it was far too late. Wouldn’t that be Twenty-seven?’

  ‘An excellent example, Nigel. Let your enemies take you for an idiot. Exactly!’

  ‘My father knows I’m an idiot,’ muttered Winston.

  ‘Put it to good use, my dear fellow!’ Baldwin fired back. ‘Tell us, Winston, what was the outcome of your rumoured conference with the Dowager of Mah-jong?’

  ‘Madame Leong.’ Winston avoided Jane’s querying expression, ‘My plan went wrong. Again. AGAIN! Now they’re dating.’

  ‘Nelson and Selina? But we already knew that,’ Jane said.

  Winston shook his head. The rest of the class stared. The alternative was too horrible to utter. Winston’s father had taken up with Widow Leong? In Winston’s world, all forces re-aligned in love and harmony despite his very best efforts—Nelson with Selina, the widower Chu with the Malaysian entrepreneur—leaving poor Winston’s future hung out to dry in the Gobi winds.

  Baldwin seemed set back himself for a moment. ‘I see. Well, turn it to your purposes. If both young and old are busy romancing, you may not gain ground, but you’ll be needed, not sacked. You have all the more room to manoeuvre behind their backs, while they ignore you like a feeble-minded also-ran. Think of poor old General Cao Shuang who was co-regent in the state of Wei with the great Sima Yi.’

  ‘Hey, yeah,’ Winston perked up. Dynasty Warriors 6!’

  ‘Beg your pardon?’

  ‘Sorry, professor, but for once, I actually know what you’re talking about. Sima Yi is in one of those hack ‘n’ slash video games Nelson bootlegs from under the counter. There’s no European edition yet.’ Winston warmed up to his topic, ‘It’s a game manufactured by Koei, based on all this stuff the professor talks about, like The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The Japanese bundle it with PlayStation 3.’

  Baldwin leaned back and amused, merely sipped his tea.

  ‘In the game, the character Sima Yi is cunning, ruthless, and extremely arrogant, boasting over every little victory. If you play him, you can’t accept defeat. If he loses, he claims it’s just another little trick he planned, part of some grand tactic. The graphics are so cool.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Kevin played video games with his eight-year-old.

  ‘He wears all these amazing robes and shoulder guard-thingies and he wields this black fan,’ Winston rose from his chair and pointed his pencil at Nigel’s Adam’s apple, ‘The “Dark Feather,” which bestows superpowers—’

  Baldwin laid down his mug, ‘And which has nothing to do with history. Thank you, Winston, back to our lesson . . . ’

  Winston took his seat, all superpowers snuffed out. Everybody but Nigel laid down their pens, because they had learned weeks ago that once Baldwin was going to tell them a story, it would be all they could do to simply remember the outcome:

  ‘We go back to the Third Century.’

  ‘The Three Kingdoms period,’ Dan prompted.

  ‘Yes, with two regents, General Cao Shuang and Sima Yi, ruling over the adopted heir to Emperor Cao Rui, the young Cao Fang, Prince of Qi . . .’

  Keith groaned.

  ‘ . . . Now General Cao Shuang craved great power and prestige, and sought total control over the Wei kingdom. His first move was to persuade the young prince to promote his rival regent Sima Yi to personal imperial instructor, an honorary position giving Sima Yi no political authority, although he maintained his military command.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Keith interjected, somewhat facetiously.

  Baldwin smiled with his habitual tolerance. ‘In 241, Zhu Ran of the Wu kingdom laid siege to Fancheng, here.’ He pointed to his map of China. ‘Sima Yi broke the siege and drove off the attackers. Then he defeated Zhuge Ke of Wu, which in the year 243 was more or less around here.’

  ‘More or less,’ Keith echoed.

  ‘That’s enough of that, Keith. In contrast to these successes, General Cao Shuang’s attack on the Kingdom of Shu ended in failure. The difference between Sima Yi’s talent and General Cao’s lack of it was more obvious with each battle.’

  ‘I’m beginning to feel sorry for this Cao Shuang chap,’ Kevin nodded.

  ‘Sensing danger from too much success, Sima Yi took sick leave in 247. He was getting on in age, but was he really so ill? General Cao Shuang sent a spy to watch Sima Yi who pretended to be senile until Cao Shuang finally felt secure.’

  ‘Sima Yi bided his time and while the general took his ward Cao Fang outside the capital on an official visit to the deceased emperor’s tomb in 249, Sima Yi sprang into action in order to save the kingdom from Cao Shuang’s irresponsible rule. He moved on the imperial palace with his own men and convinced the emperor’s mother to give an order to arrest General Cao Shuang. With an imperial order declaring him a rebel, Cao Shuang and his allies surrendered because they expected their lives would be spared.’ Baldwin added, almost as an afterthought, ‘Of course, Sima Yi executed every one, and without a magic fan of black feathers, Winston.’

  Kevin turned a little green. ‘Oh, no,
not again. Could I just say, Professor Baldwin, without implying anything personal, your stories turn my stomach and I’m in insurance. I’ve heard some stories. But does it always have to end in cutting noses or arms or mass beheadings, group massacres, walking corpses?’

  ‘I had no idea a management course could be so stomach curdling,’ Keith nodded.

  ‘But I can’t convince my father of Nelson’s mismanagement,’ Winston protested.

  ‘Can you convince him you’re ill?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘Why not senile?’ Winston retorted, to which everybody laughed.

  ‘No, Winston, but you’ve given me an idea for your final exam. In the meantime, try acting as superlatively debile as possible. Nelson, your father, and the insidious State of Leong must never suspect what you’re planning.’

  ‘That’s easy. I’m not planning anything.’ Winston shrugged.

  Jane worried that Winston would fail Baldwin’s class. With every week, Winston’s ploys only drew the Chinese and Malaysian families closer into a web that shut him out. As far as the coming exam was concerned, Winston was encouraged by Baldwin to bone up on his defensive positions and risk-reduction tactics. Perhaps Winston’s best hope was in keeping his father in a holding pattern until Nelson outgrew his ambitions for the Chu shop.

  He might dream of wielding a black fan, but in real life, Winston was what Lorraine might call one of life’s gold-standard bit-players. Jane began to suspect Chu Pater was playing games of his own, sending his son to study tactics the old man had employed for decades in his petty-minded way. As long as Winston ignored the call of escape out from under his father’s disapproval, as long as his endearing if slightly pathetic real-estate agent ambition remained in the kingdom of dreams, there was little victory in sight.

  As for herself, Jane had tired of Baldwin’s concealment and confusion strategies. She’d resolved that in only a few days, she was going to make a move that no one expected of the mousey librarian crazed by jealousy and abandonment and now rendered unreliable by middle-aged lust.

  She was going to use Stratagem Twenty-eight—on herself.

  Chapter Twenty-eight, Shang Wu, Chou Ti

  (Lure Your Enemy on the Roof, Remove the Ladder)

  Jane sat in the offices of Higgins, Higgins & Wraigth the next Tuesday at ten o’clock. KP Higgins was running late, so Jane shuffled through a pile of golfing mags. The librarian in Jane noticed how well thumbed the magazines were. Apparently Solicitor Higgins kept a lot of clients waiting—perhaps much-divorced men skimping on alimony for golf memberships?

  Jane had long postponed this day; just sitting in this antechamber of oak walls and green plush, so sequestered and confessional, amounted to an admission that things between Joe and herself would never be reversed.

  Then, last Friday night, Baldwin had taught them something that had sounded an alarm bell deep inside Jane.

  Their teacups and smelly snacks aloft, the class had squeezed back into the little room and settled down like willing children at bedtime. During the break, Baldwin had outlined a business deal on the board. Evidently Nigel’s weekly howl for more commercial applications had registered with the professor.

  ‘Lure Your Enemy on the Roof and Remove the Ladder—the fourth of our six Gaining Ground strategies. Of course, it sounds like something you do to the enemy, but perhaps not always, hmm?’

  The professor scrutinized Jane’s face, shook his head, and turned away. Not for the first time, Jane found his doleful expression smacked as much of self-pity as academic frustration.

  ‘Let’s take an ancient example. The famous Han general, Han Xin, rode off against two rebel kingdoms, the Qi and the Chu. Chu sent out General Long Chu with two hundred thousand men to intercept the Han. The two armies met on opposite sides of the Wei River. General Han ordered his men to fill over ten thousand sandbags and carry them upstream to dam the water’s flow. The next morning General Han led his army across the lowered river and attacked Chu, but after a short engagement, he pretended defeat and fled back across the river. General Long announced, “I always knew Han Xin was a coward!” He led his army across the river in pursuit.’

  ‘General Long isn’t long for this world,’ Keith quipped.

  ‘Exactly,’ Baldwin poured a cup of jasmine tea from his thermos.

  ‘Chu Long’s army was just midstream, when at a prearranged signal, General Han’s men removed the sandbags and freed the pent up waters which drowned half of Chu’s troops. General Han then wheeled around his retreating forces and attacked the advance guard of Chu, killing General Long. The remaining Chu troops were captured by the pursuing Han soldiers.’

  ‘You were going to give us a business example, Professor.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Nigel. I’m ready for you. Get the enemy into a position where he can’t back out. The so-called “ladder” could be any enticement. I’ve written here on the board the chronology of a Sino-German business negotiation. The names of the companies and the negotiable items in this column over here are for Nigel, as he’s probably the only one of you who cares at this point.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Keith protested. ‘Swiss Re isn’t some corner newsagent.’

  ‘Forgive me, Mr Phipps. This is the point, here, where the Germans wrong-footed the Chinese.’

  ‘The Germans used Twenty-eight on the Chinese?’ Keith marvelled.

  Baldwin lifted an eyebrow: ‘Indeed. One wonders if the Germans even knew they were using Twenty-eight at the time. They didn’t leave enough time between their arrival in Beijing and their abrupt departure for anyone to complete the Chinese translation of the contract—although a preliminary draft in English had been agreed. Normally Chinese joint ventures insist that the Chinese-language version is the only basis for arbitration in case something goes wrong. And as you’ve learned in this course, things always go wrong. But it was too late for the Chinese side. Their choice was to let the contract fall apart at the last minute or allow the Germans to depart with the English version serving as the definitive text.’

  ‘So Twenty-eight is a sort of locking-in tactic, securing the ground you’ve won?’ Keith asked.

  Baldwin nodded. ‘Exactly. Quite useful in insurance, I should think, or sales of any kind. You entice your insuree up on to the roof with attractive premiums and generous coverage until he has no way down. You hope he never needs to find out that your coverage had a loophole or that he needed to add more coverage at a later stage when he was less insurable. You make special offers with hidden snags.’

  Watching Keith scribble this down with such enthusiasm was bad enough. Jane winced to see Nigel jump into the flow: ‘Or slap fines on premature withdrawal of funds but keeping that in the small print?’

  Kevin loved Twenty-eight too: ‘Offer customer discount cards and loyalty programmes that don’t have any entrance fee, but require a minimum purchase for annual membership renewal?’

  ‘Also in fine print?’ Winston suggested.

  ‘’Course, Chu. That’s the idea, innit?’

  ‘My, my, this strategy certainly appeals to our high flyers! Can the rest of you spot a catch? Any particular danger?’

  Dan’s hand shot up and knocked over his empty paper cup, but these days, Baldwin gave him a wink and a pass. Everybody knew that Dan knew—well, whatever it was he knew. Baldwin preferred to pick on the others: ‘Winston? Jane? Oh, go ahead, Kevin.’

  ‘When a tiger is cornered, it turns ferocious. Its energy is totally focussed on getting out of that corner.’

  Keith mugged, ‘Speaks the Great White Hunter.’

  ‘Hah! You just try going into the ladies’ dressing rooms to stop a seventeen-year-old in the middle of her shoplifting spree.’

  ‘Good point, Mr Filgrove!’ Baldwin said. ‘Trapped, the shoplifting kitten turns tigress. Remember the corollary from Sun Tzu, Principle Seven? If you burned your own bridges and threw your own troops into a position from which there is no escape, you could count on them to fight like hell. Now, can any of you think
of another strategy that would come into play as Kevin’s shoplifter unsheathes her claws?’

  Dan raised his hand again. Winston pulled it back down.

  Jane tried, ‘Shutting the Door to Capture the Thief? No, that’s too similar. And I expect a dressing room is escapable.’ Joe’s night on the floor of the bathroom had burned Number Twenty-two into her memory.

  ‘Pretty obvious,’ Keith chortled. They all hemmed and hawed. They were getting better at this game and wanted to offer Baldwin something subtler.

  ‘Number Sixteen,’ Keith tried. ‘If you want to catch’em, let’em go? That way, Kev, your teen-ager tells all her friends what a nice manager you are. How you let her off with a warning. You avoid a hassle with her parents and get some good PR as the store that understands.’

  Baldwin checked his watch. ‘So we have just enough time for the most subtle interpretation of Twenty-eight.’

  They waited, curious. He teased them, ‘Think of General de Gaulle. As president of France, he made every referendum a vote for or against himself. Thus—?’

  Thus, four days later, Jane found herself staring at a threadbare carpet, in a solicitor’s office tucked next to the Wallace Collection on Marylebone High Street. The venerable partnership of Higgins, Higgins & Wraigth came highly recommended by Lorraine’s friend StJohn: ‘Excellent, my dear, for the sorting-out of tedious complications off-stage.’

  An elderly man in a three-piece pinstriped suit dotted with dandruff coughed and shuffled past Jane and disappeared into the loo at the end of the corridor. He might be Higgins senior—he was slow enough. Jane took up her bag, but the old man passed her a minute later, blind to her presence. She cleared her throat, and he jumped a little, then peered down at her through rheumy eyes. ‘Waiting for KP? Won’t be a moment.’ He shuffled away.