Flower Net

by Lisa See

  Lee’s trial, like the others before it, was perfunctory at best. A woman prosecutor stood. Her hair was short and permed. She wore severe wire-rim glasses. Her voice was loud and strident as she gestured to Spencer Lee and introduced him by his Chinese name, Li Zhongguo. (“‘New China’ Lee,” Hulan whispered.) “Li Zhongguo has not only brought disgrace on his name but on his entire country,” the prosecutor proclaimed. She then enumerated Lee’s crimes against the people. He was involved with a gang that was trying to reach its tentacles into China. This gang was known to be involved in the worst of all trades—that of human life. The exit and entry dates from his passport and the fact that he fled—she didn’t say where from—added to evidence that he was also involved in several murders.

  The case was over in ninety minutes. The lead judge said, “You have been found guilty of various corrupt and vile acts. You have taken many lives in many forms. For this you should pay with your life. Your execution will be held tomorrow at noon.” A murmur filtered through the courtroom. The judges gave the crowd a dour look and polite silence was instantly restored. “Until then,” the judge continued, “you will be held at Municipal Jail Number Five.” Spencer Lee was led away.

  Municipal Jail Number Five was located on the far northwestern edge of Beijing near the Summer Palace, where the old imperial court used to retreat during the hottest months. Peter drove with loquacious vehemence, but in the backseat, David and Hulan seemed relaxed. They had all lost a day crossing the international date line. On their arrival in Beijing, a car had dropped David off at the Sheraton Great Wall. (For propriety’s sake, Hulan said.) As a result, they had all gotten a good night’s sleep. They would be grateful for it today. Hulan had arranged interviews with Dr. Du and Ambassador Watson after their visit with Spencer Lee.

  This was the first time David had been away from the center of the city, and he took in these sights with much the same awe and excitement as Peter had shown in his travels across Los Angeles. With surprising speed the scene might change from a walled hutong neighborhood to a spate of brand-new cast-concrete high-rises of shoddy design and even shoddier construction. The balconies on the new buildings had been enclosed with glass to create extra rooms. Looking up into them, David could see laundry hanging on lines, plants growing bravely, lovers kissing. No matter where they drove, they couldn’t escape the life of these neighborhoods. On a street corner, a man hunkered down with a tin pan of water, washing his hands and feet. Outside the Beijing Zoo, budding merchants sold balloons, miniature stuffed panda bears, and cans of Pepsi and Orange Crush. In fact, everywhere David looked he saw something for sale—kitchen-wares, candles, incense to light in temples, bottled water, CDs, low-slung rattan chairs. Wherever there was a vacant stretch of sidewalk or asphalt, old women—dressed in thick padded jackets and wearing white kerchiefs over their hair—swept in long fluid motions with bamboo brooms. At some intersections, using exaggerated arm movements and high-pitched trills on their whistles, other women instructed the pedestrian traffic when to cross.

  Along the periphery of one intersection—actually an old crossroads where several streets met in a large circle—a free market had been set up where peasants sold fruit, vegetables, meat, live poultry, eggs, and raw herbs and spices for cooking and medicine. A block from there Peter drove through high gates and into the jail’s courtyard.

  Inside the Administration Building, David and Hulan were met by the woman prosecutor. Away from the courtroom, Madame Huang was friendly and gregarious. David learned that she and Hulan had worked on many cases together over the years. “Inspector Liu finds the criminals and brings them to us,” the prosecutor explained to David, then waggishly told him that Municipal Jail Number Five catered to VIPs. They passed several offices and a Nautilus gym for staff use; then she escorted them into an interrogation room. A tea girl came in with a thermos and poured cups of the steaming liquid for the visitors. To David, this didn’t look like a place that Amnesty International would target, but by now he knew that his preconceptions were almost universally wrong when it came to China.

  A pair of guards seated Spencer Lee across from David and Hulan. Lee wore an army coat to stave off the cold of the room.

  “How are your new accommodations?” David asked.

  “They seem all right.”

  “Are you being treated well?” Spencer Lee jutted his chin, then David said, “You’re in a difficult position.”

  The young man looked around the interrogation room. He was a long way from his easy life in Los Angeles.

  “The inspector and I don’t believe you were involved with the deaths of those boys…”

  “The judges said I was responsible. I guess I was,” Lee said at last.

  “You’ll be executed,” Hulan said.

  But Spencer Lee didn’t seem concerned. He said, “Do you think I came back to China to escape from you? Do you think I was so infantile that I would not know the MPS would be waiting for me when I landed in Beijing? You two are really very naive.”

  Hulan was about to say something, but David put a hand on her arm. She stood and quietly left the room.

  “There is a plan,” Lee continued. “There has always been a plan.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “That would take the fun out of it. Besides, I’m guilty.”

  “Then let me ask you this,” David said amiably. “If you are guilty, then why did you tell Zhao that Cao Hua would contact him when he returned to Beijing?”

  A flash of doubt crossed Spencer Lee’s flawless features, then he once again professed his guilt.

  David looked at his watch, then up at Lee. “You have twenty-four hours left. We want to help you.” He tried to sound reassuring as he said, “If Guang Mingyun is behind these crimes, let him be executed, not you.”

  “There will be no execution,” Lee said, his confidence restored. “I told you before. I have protection. I have friends.”

  Hulan returned with a phone, which she plugged into a jack. “I am going to call the ministry,” she said. “I want you to hear my conversation.”

  She dialed and asked for Section Chief Zai. When she had him on the line, she explained where she was and what the situation was vis-à-vis Spencer Lee. Then she said, “Let us put through a petition to postpone Lee’s execution. I am sure that given time we will get to the truth.” She listened, then said, “Yes, he is reluctant to help us. But please, let us not lose our only lead.” She nodded a few times, said good-bye, then hung up the phone.

  “Spencer,” Hulan said softly, “the people you’re dealing with have no further use for you.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “I am trying to save your life. My superior says he will file the petition, but you have to help me.”

  The young man was unmoved. “You are Chinese, Inspector Liu. You should understand that family is everything. I am protected. Now, may I go back to my cell?”

  “If we can get the court to agree to the petition, then I’m sure we can stop the execution,” Hulan said as they drove back into town. “Meanwhile, we have to try to find evidence, a witness, anything. If we can accomplish that, maybe Lee will believe us and maybe then he’ll tell us who’s really behind these crimes.”

  “Is it possible he’s right? That he won’t be executed anyway?”

  “Who would have that kind of protection?” she shot back. “David, you said it yourself. He’s the patsy.”

  Now David worried about the importance of keeping their appointment with Dr. Du. “Shouldn’t we be going straight to Watson and Guang?”

  “We will, David. But the bear bile is at the heart of this.” When he grudgingly agreed, she said, “We don’t know anything about that business. Dr. Du’s the only person I know who can help us.”

  While David and Hulan went inside the Beijing Chinese Herbal Medicine Institute, Peter sped off to Cao Hua’s apartment to look for the Panda Brand products that Hulan had seen in the refrigerator. The institute’s elevator still wasn’t working, so they walk
ed up the six flights of stairs to Dr. Du’s office. He greeted them warmly, ordered tea, and asked, “How can I help you?”

  As Hulan and David quickly ran through their recent discoveries, Dr. Du shook his head in sympathy. When they were done, he said, “You want to know about bear bile, and I will tell you. But you have to understand about our medicine first.”

  Hulan glanced at David. They were in a hurry, but they needed this information. “Whatever you think best, Doctor.”

  “Good,” Dr. Du said. In his grave, scholarly way, he told them that Chinese herbal medicine could be traced to 3494 B.C., making it the longest continuously used medical tradition in the world. “To this day, every person gets the same prescriptions, but the skill is in how you create the proper dose. If you can master that, then you can become the best doctor in all of China. You look at me. I have practiced for thirty years and seen thousands and thousands of patients, but never the same dose.”

  “Forgive me, Doctor, for not knowing more,” Hulan interrupted, “but I remember something about medicines to cool or heat the body.”

  “Oh, yes. We think of the four essences—cold, hot, warm, and cool. But I also consider the four directions of action for a medicine—ascending, descending, floating, and sinking. I use the five flavors—pungent, sweet, sour, bitter, and salty.”

  “How do you know what dose to prescribe?” David asked.

  “By the age of the patient. By the seasons. I have to determine if someone needs a cooling medicine or one for heating if it’s summer or winter. By where someone is from. In China people eat different foods in different provinces. What I would prescribe for someone from Sichuan is different from what I would give someone from Guangdong Province. The weather is mild and hot in Sichuan. The people eat hot and spicy food. The medicine I would give a Sichuanese would have a strong fragrance and be powerful. For a Cantonese, who has a cool diet, I would give something bland.”

  Suddenly Dr. Du stood. “Come, I will show you.”

  As they followed him down the hall, Hulan asked, “Do you use Panda Brand products?”

  “Sometimes,” Dr. Du said. “But you will see, we like to make our own prescriptions.”

  He stopped at a door, unlocked it, and they stepped into a storeroom. The floor space was taken up with huge burlap bags, each opened and peeled back to reveal its contents. Hulan and David recognized the cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, and dried tangerine peel; they learned these were good for hiccup, wheezing, staph infections, salmonella, flu, and a variety of other symptoms. They saw chunks of raw minerals—some crystalline or chalklike; others were just jagged pieces of rock—fluorite, amber, pumice, borax, and cinnabar. Dr. Du showed them tubers, roots, and rhizomes in every size, variety, shape, and color. In one bag was something that looked like saffron, while in another, dinner plate-size patties of dried yellow flowers lay in stacks. They saw burdock root, lotus plumule, swallowwort root, chinaberries, and lichee and ginkgo nuts.

  Dr. Du did his best to explain what the herbs were used for. Even Hulan struggled with many of the Mandarin words, not knowing their English equivalents. Some of the herbs Hulan couldn’t have translated even if she’d wanted, for they were grown only in remote areas and had esoteric names. When this occurred, she used a literal translation—“Commerce Continent,” “Sweet Process,” “Chicken Blood Wine,” “Snake’s Bed Seeds,” or “King Who Does Not Stay But Departs.”

  Dr. Du took them to another room, which held the medicinals derived from the animal world. Here again were burlap sacks overflowing with abalone, clam, and turtle shells. These and other minerals, Hulan and David were informed, anchored the spirit by reducing irritability, insomnia, palpitations, and anxiety. Sacks overflowed with dried sea horses—used for impotence and incontinence. Dried scorpions were separated by size and placed in large tin bowls. Similarly silkworms were separated by stages of development as well as by “healthy” and “sick.” Yet another bowl held silkworm feces—good for rashes, spasms of the calf muscles, and diarrhea. They saw piles of snakes dried into coils and hundreds of dried centipedes tied together in bundles.

  “I know this is a delicate issue,” David said at last, “but I understand that many of the medicines come from endangered animals…”

  “Bears, tigers, rhinos—I don’t use those.”

  “You answer very quickly,” Hulan said, the investigator coming out in her.

  “I answer quickly because every spring the government sends me from province to province to educate other practitioners about alternatives.”

  “What about bear bile?” David persisted.

  “Bear gallbladder was first prescribed three thousand years ago,” Dr. Du answered. “Since then many scholars have written about the benefits of bear bile, meat, brain, blood, paw, and spinal cord. But the gallbladder is considered to be the most important part of the bear and very strong—like rhino horn, ginseng, or deer musk.”

  “I’m sorry,” David said in exasperation, “but you can’t really believe this stuff works.”

  There was a long silence. At last Dr. Du spoke. “The ingredients may sound strange, but actually your drug companies use many of these same compounds or synthetic versions in their products, because they’ve been proven to work. Ursodeoxycholic acid is the active ingredient in bear bile. The synthetic version the U.S. makes dissolves gallstones and is showing promise in treating a usually fatal form of cirrhosis of the liver.”

  Dr. Du’s stern look transformed into a smile, the white ghost’s impudence forgiven. “Now, I could use cow or pig gall…”

  “But?”

  “The pig and the bear have habits very much like human beings and they eat the same food. Some doctors use cow gall at a very high dose, but I’m not so sure. Who among us is like a cow?” When he received no response, Dr. Du continued, “I prefer to use gardenia, rhubarb, peony root, even Madagascar periwinkle in place of bear gall, but as I said earlier, only a good doctor will know how to prescribe them.”

  “Can’t you use farmed bile?”

  Dr. Du answered, “There are some people who believe they can farm bears for their bile. But let me tell you something. What they do to those bears is terrible.”

  “How do they extract the bile?” Hulan asked.

  “Doctors surgically implant a tube into the gallbladder. This is held in place by a metal corset around the bear’s stomach. The bile is draining all the time. Some people even pay to drink the bile straight from the bear at milking time.”

  “How can those places operate if they’re illegal?” David asked.

  “You’re a foreigner, so you don’t understand China,” Du said sympathetically. “In our country, the government is very busy with other matters, so these hooligans can get away with it. In the remote provinces—Jilin, Yunnan, and Heilongjiang—anyone can go out, trap some bears, and start up a farm. Even if you go down to Chengdu in Sichuan, you can find maybe one hundred bear farms. We have over ten thousand bears living on illegal bear farms in China.”

  “How do you know all this if the extraction process is such a secret and the police are looking the other way?” Hulan asked.

  “I already told you, the government sends me out to different provinces. On some trips I have gone on raids.” He paused, then added, “Those places are very bad, but the masses are happy because they believe that the best medicine comes from the wild animal.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you take on the attributes of that animal—bear, tiger, monkey. You think you will become strong, potent, or wise tricksters. So most of the people don’t want farmed bear anyway. They want to see the wild bear with their own eyes.”

  “But something like bear gall,” Hulan said, “how does it work? How do you use it?”

  “Your mother and father are very knowledgeable about our medicine,” Dr. Du observed. “Did they forget to teach you?”

  “I was away in America for many years,” she explained. “I forgot the old ways.”

  Dr.
Du scratched at his sideburns, then shook his head in sorrow at what Hulan had lost in the far-off land. “Bear gall is bitter and cold. Bitter medicinals dispel heat, dry dampness, and purge the body. The cold attributes cool the blood and detoxify the body.”

  “Which means you use it for what?”

  “I don’t use it!”

  “I understand that, but you would prescribe a bitter-cold medicine…”

  “For jaundice, skin lesions, convulsions in babies, fever, ulcers, poor vision. For hemorrhoids, bacterial infections, cancer, burns, pain and redness in the eyes, asthma, sinus infections, tooth decay…”

  “A little of everything,” Hulan said. Now her skepticism was showing. “Isn’t it just the placebo effect?”

  “You come in here and say this to Dr. Du?” There was no mistaking his indignation this time. “Our medicine is many times older than Western medicine. It is not a placebo. This is why I am invited to speak at Harvard Medical School, and it is why our government lets me travel so freely.”

  He threw his hands up over his head. He’d had it with these impertinent fools. “You go away now! I am tired of this!” Then he began shooing them out. At the door, he shook his finger at Hulan. “You show no respect. Your parents would be very disappointed in you.”

  Downstairs, Peter was waiting for them. “How did it go?” he inquired as he pulled away from the institute.

  “I think we insulted him,” Hulan said.

  David snorted. “That’s an understatement.”

  “But did you get useful information?” Peter asked.

  Hulan and David looked at each other thoughtfully. “I don’t know,” Hulan said. “Maybe.”

  “What I still don’t understand is, if the farms are illegal, how can they operate?” David asked.

  “Our government says no to many things,” Hulan said. “Still, people want to make money. Some say they’ll open a ‘legal’ bear farm. They say they have a permit, but I bet all they have is a permit to open a business, not a bear farm.”