The Nine Fold Heaven (17 page)

21

The Forgetful Soup

T
hinking of Jinying and Gao and feeling sad, I thought of a Chinese legend about life after death. After people have died, but before they go on to reincarnate, they’ll arrive at Helpless Bridge. Guarding this bridge is Grandma Meng, who will offer you a bowl of Forgetfulness Soup. If you accept this soup and gulp it down, you’ll forget all the troubles, miseries, and sufferings in your life that has just ended. But if you have the courage to refuse the soup, you will remember everything into your next lives. Some want only to forget, while others—especially if they had wealth, fame, a beautiful wife or handsome husband—choose to remember.

Some refuse to drink the Forgetfulness Soup because their heart won’t let them forget their loved ones. Ironically, sometimes the one you love the most is not the one who bears you children and shares your home. For a hundred possible reasons, the two of you could not spend your life together. But you love her so much that you cannot forget her, even though this comes with all the vivid memories of your sufferings—forced separation, departure without a farewell, death, the inscrutable working of fate.

But you don’t want to forget all the wonderful times you spent with her, your warm handholding, mutual promises to wait for each other till your next life so you two could reunite and live happily ever after.

And there are also those who cannot make up their minds—to remember or to forget? Should I drink and forget or decline and remember? This moment will decide your memories—or lack of them—for all your lifetimes to come.

However, there is a third choice. That you don’t eat the soup but wait on the bridge for your loved one to join you. Because one day he or she must also cross the bridge. But if you remain, not only will you delay your chance to reincarnate and remain a ghost for a long time, but because there are always so many crossing the bridge, you may miss each other forever.

When our days came, would Gao choose to drink the Forgetful Soup? Would I? I waved my hand to dispel the suffocating thought like a thick blanket thrown over me in summer.

I took out the lot and reread it, but failed to detect a hint for Gao’s whereabouts. In Shanghai, I’d run into him twice, then lost him. If he was still alive, where was he?

Since there was no answer, I paid for my tea and went to the Shen’s Circus’s dormitory.

Inside a shabby room with crumpling walls, I found Shadow sitting at a wooden table, receipts spread in front of her. None of the other circus staff was there, probably all were at the tent, rehearsing.

I sat down across from her and got straight to the point. “Shadow, I need to go back to Shanghai. I’ll pay you well if you’ll go back with me.”

Some silence passed before she spoke, her tone suspicious. “Camilla, why are you going back to Shanghai, and why would you want to pay me to go with you?”

“Shadow, I’ll pay you extra not to ask questions.”

“But I’ve been hurt enough. I don’t want to go back and get killed.”

I laughed. “Ha! Why would someone do that?”

“Camilla, I know you’re in danger and that’s why you’re here in Hong Kong.” She paused, then went on. “You told me that you stole money from Master Lung—”

I cut her off. “Exactly. Since you already know my secret, we’re in the same boat.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that if my life is in danger, so is yours.”

The danger was greater than I was willing to admit to her. I was sure that Shadow did not have the guts to pull a tiger’s whiskers, let alone step on its tail. She came across as confident and brave, but I knew that this was just another of her illusions. Her magic fooled the eyes, but not my mind. I knew full well that with her desperate need for money she would end up doing anything I asked.

So I said, “Shadow, I’ll pay you a lot. Do you really want to stay here as a clerk for a bankrupt, broken-down circus? You know you need money. Here you have no future and no freedom.”

Unkindly, I added, “Probably no one will even remember who you are in Shanghai, so don’t worry.”

Shadow rested her head in her hands and remained adamantly reticent.

“Shadow, I’m not going to harm you.”

“But I don’t see how I can help you!”

“I’ll let you know when it’s the right time. So will you do this for your freedom and your future?”

I took her silence as agreement and told her I would book the steamer tickets for early next week.

Outside the dormitory I heard circus music flooding the air; perhaps Shadow had just turned it on. The familiar music conjured unexpected memories. It was the tune I’d heard when Jinying had taken me to Shanghai’s Big World Amusement Park and we had ridden the wooden horses on the carousel. This was extremely dangerous, for then I was still his father’s mistress.

However, I had enjoyed seeing the happy little riders, watched carefully by their doting parents. It awakened a faded memory of me as a little girl riding a carousel just like this. My parents’ faces almost came back to me, when Jinying interrupted my reminiscence and the image faded away like a dream....

 

That night, as if on cue, Jinjin again entered my dream.

 

 

Just then I woke up from this dreamy revelation to find myself not in the amusement park but in my joyless Hong Kong apartment. Suddenly memories I’d been suppressing my whole life flowed into my consciousness like water bursting a dam.

I was about four, accompanying my parents for an outing. On the way, I fussed so badly that my parents said that after they’d taken me to pee, they’d get me some ice cream to cheer me up. While we were looking for a restroom, two big men jumped out of a seemingly deserted alley and grabbed us. One of them pulled a bag over my head so I couldn’t see. But I was able to hear all too clearly—flesh slashing, cow-slaughtering screams—then silence. After that, I was pushed into a car that sped away in full speed.

I cried hysterically, “Mama! Baba!” until the bag was lifted from my head.

In front of me was the face of a young Big Brother Wang!

At this moment, I knew what I must do next with Wang’s training.

PART SIX

22

A Telephone Call

B
ack in Shanghai, Shadow and I stayed at a medium-priced hotel in the French Concession. Here, we could get tidbits of information from the rickshaw pullers as they went in and out. Since the concessions were controlled by foreign governments, we were safer here than in the main city, controlled, of course, by the Chinese police and their gangster accomplices.

Since we had not come back for pleasure, we didn’t go out much, but read all the newspapers to catch up on what was happening in the city. However, after Rainbow’s article that I’d read in Hong Kong, there was no further news about Jinying’s kidnapping or Wang’s efforts to take over the Shanghai underworld. This left me more worried than ever.

A whole week had passed and still nothing in the news. To overcome my inertia, I decided on a bold move: telephoning Big Brother Wang. This would be extremely risky, even suicidal, because then he would know I was in Shanghai, within reach of his hit men. I needed to be very careful not to carelessly reveal anything about my location or my plans. So I wrote down what I’d be telling Wang:

I figured this was an offer Wang could not refuse since getting these had been his life-long obsession. In addition, if Wang believed that I cared more about love than money, he’d fall more easily into my trap.

The next morning, I went to a public phone and dialed my former boss’s residence.

The man who picked up the phone—probably one of his bodyguards—barked a loud, “Yes?!” which sounded very much like a threatening “No!”

“Is Big Brother Wang there? I would like to speak to him.”

“Who’s that?”

“Please tell him it’s his former secretary.”

“Did he have one?”

I smiled into the phone and spoke seductively. “Sir, you must be new, of course he had!”

The bark seemed to be brought down a notch. “All right, miss, stay right there.”

Seconds later, Wang’s even more intimidating voice attacked me from the other end of the line.

“Who is this? It better be something good!”

“It’s Camilla, Big Brother Wang.”

A few seconds of deathly silence.

“Camilla? Is this a joke?”

“It’s me, Big Brother Wang.”

Another cemetery silence during which I imagined the relish of plunging a knife into his chest or firing a bullet into his head.

“Then where the hell have you been, and why are you calling me after this damn long time?”

“Sorry, Big Brother Wang, but I can explain.”

“Huh, explain? You’re pretty brave to even call me in person. My men can track you down and snap your pretty neck with a loud crack! Ha!” He snickered. “Maybe this just proves how well I’ve trained you to be fearless. But I didn’t mean to train you to be stupid!”

”Big Brother Wang, I’m well aware of my position.”

Before winning the battle, it’s always wise to play humble. As
The Art of War
taught me:

“Then when are you going to give me back what you stole from Lung’s safe, huh?”

“This is exactly why I called, Big Brother Wang.”

I heard him breathe in sharply.

“Ha, good. But otherwise, your pretty little head will no longer be sitting between your shoulders. All right, now tell me what you want.”

“I know you have Master Lung’s son and I want to exchange what I’ve got for him.”

“
Wah,
are you crazy or something? All that money for that worthless fool?”

“Because I love him.”

“Ha, ha, ha! Don’t make me laugh! Didn’t I train you to have no friends and no emotions? But you fall in love with a good-for-nothing and all your training goes down the shithole!”

“Love happens, Big Brother Wang.” I knew this idea was lost on him but said it anyway.

“All right. I don’t give a damn about who you love, don’t love, or used to love, or used to torture, or destroyed. Speaking of torture, tonight might be a good time for my men to torture Lung Jinying some more. I can hold up the phone so you can hear him scream, if you don’t believe me. Or, you can give me all Lung’s bank account numbers, cash, bank notes, American dollars, jewelry, gold and silver bars, and whatever else you took; then you can have your worthless Jinying back. Anyway, I’ve got to get rid of him one way or the other because I don’t want to keep paying for his meals. You know, these days the price of rice and meat keeps going up, ha, ha, ha!”

“If he’s such a burden, why did you bother to kidnap him?”

Although I already read the answer in Rainbow’s column, I needed to verify from Wang’s mouth. If it was the same as what Rainbow said, then she was telling the truth.

“Ha, smart as you are, you should have guessed—I keep him to lure his father to come out of hiding.”

“You think Master Lung is still alive somewhere?”

“I’m not sure, that’s why I need his son—for bait. If he still doesn’t show his face, I’ll start the torture.”

“Please don’t!”

“Ha! You really love this—”

“Big Brother Wang, why torture him, since I can trade you Lung’s treasures?”

There was a silence, as if he was actually thinking.

“You do have a point. Ha, see how well I trained you! But I still get to keep the son so I can torture him to have revenge on his father.”

“Big Brother Wang, what if Lung is already dead?”

“I don’t think so.”

“How come?”

“Because his body was never found. He must be seriously injured and trying to recover. Anyway, as soon as he can, I bet he’ll show his face to try to get his son back, ha, ha, ha!”

Yes, Lung, once the most powerful gangster, would have no face left if he was powerless to save his only son.

But I really didn’t care about Master Lung, only his son, so I asked urgently, “So, Big Brother Wang, what about if we set up a day and time for the exchange?”

“Sounds good. But if you play tricks . . .”

“You know I won’t dare to pull the tiger’s tail.”

“Ha! Then how come you dared to disappear for so long?”

“Big Brother Wang,” I lied, “I’ve been hiding because I was injured during the shoot-out.”

“Really? Where did you hide? And why didn’t you contact me earlier?”

I’d had an answer ready for this inevitable question. “I went to the convent and the sisters were kind enough to hide me and care for me while I recuperated. I couldn’t contact you while living inside a convent surrounded by the nuns.”

“Hmm . . . eventually my men would have tracked you down.”

After more useless conversation, finally Wang and I agreed to meet at an isolated area not too far from Master Lung’s secret villa. Wang and his men would bring Jinying and I’d bring Lung’s—now my—treasures. In fact, I had not taken the bank statements, but only pictures with my lipstick camera. When we met, I’d tell Wang the safe’s combination; then he and his men would go inside Lung’s place and open the safe. Once they had the treasures, they were supposed to release Jinying.

Of course I knew better than to trust the gangster’s promise. So I had a plan to handle all the ways he might betray me.