Flower Net

by Lisa See

  As always, the airport was filled with soldiers. They were young men, most of them from the countryside and unaware of politics, but their presence had a physical effect on David. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead despite the waiting room’s chill. Hulan took his hand in hers and said under her breath, “All we have to do is get on the plane.” David wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “I don’t think they’ll look for us here. At least not yet.” But she said this only to calm David, for she knew that all it would take was just one of her colleagues to walk into this waiting room for her to be recognized. She and David had committed no crime, but that didn’t mean anything. People disappeared in China all the time. People were executed in China all the time.

  The flight was called. Hulan handed the tickets to the attendant. When the woman said something to Hulan in Chinese, she pretended she didn’t understand. “Have a good flight,” the woman said, switching to English, then tore the tickets without looking at the names.

  As soon as the plane took off, David felt the tension ebb from his body, knowing they would be safe for the duration of the flight. In just a few short hours his whole way of living had changed. He’d always valued the fact that he lived by his brain. He was skilled at logic, linear thought, conservative analysis. Now he seemed to be operating purely on instinct and intuition.

  He thought over what he’d done. Leaving Los Angeles without telling anyone what he was doing was crazy enough, but evading the police in China was another matter altogether. He could practically hear the unctuous tones of some Chinese official explaining to some bureaucrat at the American embassy that China could not be responsible for an American who went off on his own, that the government had the China International Travel Service just so foreigners wouldn’t get themselves into trouble, and that the government would do everything they possibly could, but how exactly were they supposed to find one lone man in a country of a billion persons?

  And while that government official blabbed on, David could already be dead. He imagined his own demise. Would he be conscious as his internal organs melted into pulp? Would he be staring into the eyes of the killer as his intestines were pulled from his belly? Or would he be totally oblivious—walking down the street one minute, a bullet in his brain the next?

  When David put his own welfare aside and thought of Hulan, wild desperation bubbled up inside him. How could he have let her come back to China? What would happen to her if she was caught by Zai or even Watson? Those people had no compunctions about killing, and if something happened to Hulan, David didn’t know what he would do.

  It was close to nine when the plane landed. As David and Hulan walked across the tarmac, they were once again gripped by fear. Would they be arrested as soon as they entered the terminal? But police and army activity at the small provincial airport was practically nil. No one seemed to be looking for David and Hulan, and they blended in with the other foreign travelers. Since they had nothing to pick up from baggage claim, they simply walked out of the terminal and pushed into the crowd beyond the barrier. They were assaulted by locals offering taxi rides. Hulan settled on a young woman whose English was fair.

  In the car, the driver asked where they wanted to go. David told her to take them to the best hotel. The driver nodded, put the car into gear, and began another hair-raising drive through a strange city. When the young woman behind the wheel ascertained this was their first visit to Chengdu, she gave a brief history of the city. It was also known as Brocade City, for in the ancient times Chengdu had been a stop along the Silk Route for that fabric. The driver knew of several brocade factories, which she would be happy to show her guests tomorrow. Chengdu was also known as Hibiscus City because of the abundance of that flower. However, the two foreign guests had arrived too early in the season to see them in bloom.

  Even in the dark, Hulan and David could see that this main road, South Renmin, was lined with small hotels, restaurants, and shops. Closer to the city, they drove past two large construction sites. The gate for one said BROCADE CITY VILLAS. Inside, David could see what looked like Orange County tract housing. The driver said, “These are the best villas in the city. For foreigners. If you want, I can bring you to this villa park tomorrow. Maybe you will buy one.” Across the street, a huge apartment complex—also for foreigners—was going up. A series of billboards advertised three-bedroom penthouses, pools, a golf course, and tennis courts.

  As they crossed over the Jin Jiang River, a tributary of the powerful Min Jiang, which would eventually join the Yangtze, the driver pointed to the hotel. On the roof of the Jin Jiang Hotel were huge electric signs in gold, orange, and blue advertising the hotel, shops, and products of the region. Twinkling lights festooned the trees in the motor court, where several young men in bright red uniforms jumped to attention to open doors, carry David’s and Hulan’s parcels, and escort the travelers to the front desk. The lobby was all highly polished marble and sparkling crystal. At the center of the room was a six-foot-tall bouquet.

  Just as at the airport, there were no guards and no army personnel in evidence. Perhaps for this reason they had no difficulty in arranging for a room. In fact, to Hulan’s eyes, the man behind the desk affected an ostentatiously casual demeanor at the presence of this mixed-race couple.

  With considerable pomp, the bellboy showed them to the hotel’s best suite, which included a sitting room with a piano, white brocade-upholstered furniture, a skylight, a bathroom with a sunken tub big enough for six, and a bedroom with a lush red canopy over a gilt-encrusted bed. David bestowed a generous tip—an increasingly popular custom in China—on the young fellow, then locked the door behind him. “This is too expensive,” Hulan said, looking around at the lavish decor.

  “Hide in plain sight,” David said. “I don’t think anyone will be looking for two desperadoes in the Princess Suite or whatever this is. Besides, if we’re going to go out, we might as well do it in style. Do you still like room service?”

  22

  FEBRUARY 13

  Panda Brand Deer and Bear Farm

  The next morning they slept till eleven. When they finally awoke, the temptation to stay in that bed, in that place forever, was great. Languidly, Hulan pulled herself out of bed and tottered off to the bathroom. David flipped on the television to CNN, hoping to hear news of the current status of U.S.-China relations and if it was still safe for him to be in the country, but the network was airing an international sports segment. David turned it off, threw off the bedclothes, and walked to the window, where he stood naked looking out over the city. The sky was cloudless, and David could feel the sun’s rays through the glass, but the air itself was thick from the numerous factories that spewed orange-brown chemicals from their smokestacks. The people on the streets below—vendors selling fruit from baskets, pedestrians on their way to work, a few old people doing tai chi in the park by the riverbank—were dressed for this more temperate climate in bright lightweight sweaters.

  Hulan emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a terry-cloth robe, her hair twisted up in a towel. “Lots of hot water,” she said. “It feels great.” And it did. Despite their tenuous situation, the good night’s sleep and the warmth of the air assuaged their fears just enough that they decided to go down to the restaurant for brunch. The dining room was huge and colorful. At the far end of the two-story room was a floor-to-ceiling sculpture of a local mountain replete with craggy rock, hanging plants, and waterfalls. Giant umbrellas in magenta, orange, red, yellow, and turquoise hung from the ceiling. The mezzanine was decorated with pillars, wrought iron, crystal chandeliers, potted palms, and crisply appointed tables, while the ground floor was sumptuous in earth tones and white linen.

  On a series of long buffet tables, trays and chafing dishes brimmed with Chinese and American food. David found himself passing up the scrambled eggs, pancakes, and French toast. Instead he piled his plate with noodles, dumplings filled with pork and garlic, hom don—hard-boiled salted egg—and fresh pineapple and watermelon. From
the condiment table, he procured large dollops of chilied turnip, spicy bamboo shoots, and pickled radish. All of this he washed down with steaming hot cups of jasmine tea. The meal was rich, spicy, and deeply satisfying.

  After breakfast, they wandered through the ground-floor shopping arcade, where David purchased and changed into a new set of clothes. Now they were finally ready to face the day.

  One of their biggest mistakes, they realized now, was not getting the exact location of the Panda Brand farm, but when they’d last spoken with Guang Mingyun, they were concerned only with saving Spencer Lee’s life. That was only yesterday morning and so much had changed. Hulan stopped by the concierge desk and was told that the farm was located in Guanxian City. “However,” the concierge said, “the Dujiangyan Dam may be a more rewarding experience for you. Panda Brand does not cater to Westerners, and the dam is very dramatic.” But at Hulan’s gentle insistence, he gave the directions to the farm.

  To get there, they would need a car, and Hulan would have to be the one to rent it. She left the hotel and waited at the corner for the traffic director, who stood on a podium in the intersection, to signal a direction change, and for an old woman, who was responsible for pedestrians, to blow her whistle for the all clear. Hulan crossed South Renmin Road, walked down a block past smelly public bathrooms to the Minshan Hotel, where she used her mother’s identification papers to rent the car. She arrived back at the Jin Jiang’s motor court with her enthusiasm severely dampened. “I haven’t driven in twelve years, David, and even that was in Los Angeles. I don’t know if I can do it.”

  But an hour later Hulan had negotiated her way straight through the middle of town—passing department stores, hostels for pilgrims about to set out overland to Tibet, the railway station, and a colossal statue of Mao, under which was carved a slogan, “Realize the Four Modernizations; Unify the Motherland; Vigorously Develop China.” As she drove, they talked about how they should present themselves once they reached their destination. Just this single morning they had shifted personas a couple of times. In the hotel, they were American. Hulan had rented the car as a Chinese. In the car, David wrapped his muffler around his face and hoped that the other drivers, the traffic directors, and the old women with their whistles would not take notice of him. But once they got to Panda Brand, David would not be able to pass as a Chinese.

  “Maybe I should pose as your interpreter,” Hulan suggested.

  “Okay, but then what am I? A businessman, a doctor, a tourist?”

  If he were a tourist, then why wouldn’t he be accompanied by an interpreter and driver from the China International Travel Service? In Beth’s Armani suit and with a change in attitude, Hulan could pass herself for an overseas Chinese. But then why was she there, where was she from, who were her relatives, what did they do in America, and what did she do in America? All of these questions they needed to be prepared to answer without hesitation. They hoped that this constant shifting, this constant movement, would keep anyone from making an accurate identification of either of them. But the fear of being caught kept David and Hulan very focused.

  By two, they’d left the hubbub of the city behind them. The sky was a radiant blue, and David and Hulan rolled down their windows to let the warm air flow in around them. Within a half hour they were driving past fields lush with winter greens that spread out from the highway to the horizon. Here and there, peasants bent to their labors. Some pulled weeds, some clipped at errant suckers. Still others carried buckets of water slung from poles across their shoulders. With great care, the water was ladled onto individual plants.

  Which was not to imply that Hulan and David’s journey was peaceful. If anything, the drivers on this road were worse than those in Beijing. The highway had four lanes—two in each direction. The outside lanes were unofficially designated for pedestrians, bicycles, tricycle carts, wheelbarrows, hand-pulled wagons of every size and variety, and beasts of burden. Most of these conveyances were loaded down with produce.

  The two center lanes were devoted to automobiles, great trucks carrying scrap metal, produce, and gasoline, buses packed with humanity and with goods of every sort strapped to the roofs, and motor scooters whose drivers tempted fate as they wove in and out of traffic. Everyone passed any and everything he or she could. Typically cars swung left out around an obstacle and into oncoming traffic. Sometimes—and it happened more often than David would have liked—two cars abreast would do this maneuver, pushing the one farthest to the left into the oncoming “pedestrian” lane.

  But for all this tumult the actual pace was relatively slow. Hulan kept at a steady twenty or twenty-five miles an hour except for those moments when she would push the car to seventy or eighty. So, although Guanxian City was only thirty-four miles from Chengdu, it took almost two hours to reach. Leaving the City of Brocade, they passed through the villages of Xipuzhen, Pi Xian, Ande, and Chongyizhen before hitting the outskirts of Guanxian, known—as the concierge had said—as the home of the famous Dujiangyan Dam and irrigation system. This system, Hulan explained, was known to all Chinese, for it had been in use for more than two thousand years.

  On they drove, following the banks of the Min Jiang, finally reaching Guanxian proper. Prosperity had hit this town hard. The whole area was caught in a vortex, catching up one or more centuries in just a matter of years. Old-style farmhouses-low stone edifices with tile roofs-were dwarfed by the new multistory office and residential towers that rose next to them. Near the river, new plantings had yet to soften the brutal cuts into the landscape made by the construction of a series of villa parks similar to the one David and Hulan had seen when they first arrived in Chengdu. Hulan had never been here before, but she surmised that this town had always been a resort of sorts. Now that the Sichuanese had real money, they were buying homes and apartments for weekend getaways. She suspected that truly wealthy businessmen, who could afford a car and driver, might even make this commute daily.

  David and Hulan began seeing advertisements for Panda Brand Deer and Bear Farm. From billboards pink, powder blue, and soft yellow cartoon animals (but no pandas) beckoned all to come visit them in their wonderful home. Hulan followed the signs to a residential neighborhood, drove under a high gate that read PANDA BRAND DEER AND BEAR FARM and FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, and into a parking lot filled with tour buses.

  Hulan and David followed more signs leading down a lovely tree-lined pathway to the “observation area.” To their right were low houses hidden behind high stone walls. To their left, they could see into open pens where a small herd of deer grazed. They passed a guide in a uniform and a perky blue hat hurrying her charges back to their bus. But after this tour group, the lane was deserted except for a few molting chickens and a couple of kids on bicycles who ignored the farm for the everyday sight it presented. The two investigators climbed a set of stairs and crossed over a small bridge, which served as the observation deck above the pens. They continued farther into the complex, turned a corner, and came upon two side-by-side enclosures for the bears.

  The pens were open, clean, and home to perhaps thirty Asiatic brown bears, more popularly known as moon bears for the white marking that resembled a crescent moon on their chests. Seeing humans, the animals, as a mass, lurched to their feet. Immediately, David and Hulan could see that these animals had no corsets, no drains, or any other foreign objects attached to them as they swayed over to just under the overhead bridge. Looking down upon their round heads, David saw that they were much smaller than he expected. They looked like pudgy ten-year-old boys—short, plump, with goofy faces that looked up at the visitors longingly. The bears balanced on their hind feet and begged for handouts.

  Hulan and David retraced their steps and entered the souvenir shop. The room was large enough to hold several tour groups at once. Despite the obvious popularity of the place, the manager saved energy—a mandate throughout the country—by keeping the lights off. So, although fluorescent fixtures hung in pairs from the
ceiling, the only illumination came from the waning daylight that filtered through the windows.

  Along the perimeter of the room were glass display cases behind which young women waited to serve customers. In the middle of the room, a few final tourists gathered around a long table where they could pick up, fondle, and smell ginseng or deer musk. Several full sets of still-fuzzy deer antlers lay atop these other remedies. The other two walls were bordered by low couches and tables where customers could sit, sip tea, sample the wares, and bargain for the best price. Just as Guang Mingyun had said, the Panda Brand Deer and Bear Farm did not openly sell bear products in any form. Again and again David and Hulan asked if there was any bear bile for sale, each time trying variations on their question. David complained of liver problems. Hulan said she needed bile for her mother, who had been ill many years. David said he wanted to take some back to America to give as gifts. But each woman they asked insisted that there was no bear bile for sale there. It was against the law.

  At five minutes to five, the stragglers from the last tour group left. Once the others were gone, Hulan approached another saleswoman and said that a friend in Beijing had suggested they come here for bear bile. “She was mistaken,” the clerk answered tartly. When David offered a bribe, no one took it. Then the manager came out and began locking up. “It’s time to go home,” he told Hulan in Chinese. “You can come back another day.”

  Reluctantly David and Hulan left but lingered by the car to watch as the clerks filed out. Most left in groups of three or four, throwing their sweaters over their shoulders, swinging lunch pails, gossiping and laughing. A final group stepped out into the parking lot and stood together talking. The manager closed the door behind him, said good night to his employees, then set off down the walkway that led past the deer and bear pens. Three of the women gave last waves, mounted their bicycles, and pedaled away.