The Shanghai Murders - A Mystery of Love and Ivory (12 page)

Geoffrey held up his hand for a moment and called out “Hao” (good). He turned to his interpreter and asked Hao Yong to join them. She was now in her late twenties but she still carried herself like the teenager she had been when she played
Rita Joe
for Geoffrey those eleven years ago. Since then, she had been in a show a year for Geoffrey, sometimes more. She was talent that walked and talked. Not pretty, but so alive that when she smiled you smiled with her. In the eleven years she had learned a little English, enough to hold her own at lunch with Geoffrey from time to time. Enough to have been his lover briefly some seven years ago. Before Fu Tsong.

“Help me with the language here.” He pointed to the Viola/Olivia scene and the three of them went through it line by line. “When you read this translation, Hao Yong, does it feel like Viola is falling under the power of Olivia?”

For a moment Hao Yong looked at Geoffrey and then with an apologetic shrug of her slim shoulders turned to the translator. There followed a rapid and animated conversation in Shanghanese which left Geoffrey completely at a loss. He loved the way the Chinese actors talked about things like this. For years he thought that every Chinese conversation was a yelling match, but now he didn’t think so. Now he knew they were yelling matches.

He watched Hao Yong’s face with a growing pleasure. As a student she had been truly brilliant. As a professional actor she was one of the few who was able to overcome her training. She had shucked off the old Stanislavski stranglehold and was in freefall. An artist of true power. But after all these years how little he knew of her. He had never been to her home. He knew that she was married now but he’d never met her husband. He didn’t even know if she was an only child; it was likely that she was as she’d been born in the onechild era. But she carried herself and used the knowledge of one who came from a more extended family.

One of the strange ramifications of the single-child policy in China had been the loss of one of the basic communication tools for an actor. Actors use simple family relationships (father/son, older brother/younger sister, husband/wife, lovers, etc.) to convey to an audience the nature of more complex relationships. When an actor goes to work on, say, the relationship between a teacher and a student, the actor playing the teacher chooses father/son while the actor playing the student chooses younger brother to older brother. The ability to find conflicts even on the basic level of relationship greatly enriches performance. From the audience’s perspective they ’get’ teacher/student because they identify with it as either father/son or older brother/younger brother. But with the single-child policy, the basic knowledge of brothers and sisters has been diluted if not lost. It has removed a potent weapon from the actor’s arsenal. Some claim the other loss is that single children never learn how to play properly. Being the only child that the parents will ever have, the child is put under enormous pressure to succeed. Nightly, parents do the child’s homework with them. Weekends are often spent preparing for the child’s examinations. Getting into university has become an obsession in China. During the final callbacks for entrance to the Shanghai Theatre Academy, the 120 finalists, who had been chosen from over 2,800 applicants from across China, arrived on campus with parents and grandparents in tow. They were dressed and preened and poked like show dogs. It occurred to Geoffrey that the loss of sibling feeling and the loss of the ability to play could have serious effects on a society as a whole. But his mind did not travel comfortably in the world of sociopolitics.

Hao Yong turned to him and touched his hand to bring him back to the present. What an enormous advance in contact that was. They had worked on three shows together before he felt it acceptable to touch her in any way. Her cool hand tapped the base of his palm and in accented, but pretty English, she said, “You think Viola love Olivia?” Her eyes twinkled. After all this time, she certainly knew that was precisely what he thought. “Yes, me too.”

“Good,” he said, “but does the language support that?”

“No,” she said, “but the silences do.”

She smiled at him and for a moment he wondered how he ever let her get away. Then he said, “Hao” and was about to let rehearsal start up again when Hao Yong smiled at Geoffrey and said, “Viola is narcoticized to Olivia.”

Geoffrey was lost and turned to the translator. A brief moment later, his translator, now embarrassed, said, “She says that Viola is addicted to Olivia.”

Seeking clarification that he did not really need, Geoffrey asked, “Addicted but not drugged?”

After a moment of conversation in Mandarin, Hao Yong squatted on the stage, her dress tucked between her knees, so that her face was at the height of Geoffrey’s as he stood on the auditorium floor. “No, Geoffrey,” she said, her eyes dancing again, “not drugged—addicted.” Then a smile erupted across her face. She turned back to Olivia and, spreading her arms, sang out, “Build me a willow cabin at your gates. . .”

From the back of the house Fong watched the interaction between the delicately boned Hao Yong and the awkward white man. He was not surprised. He had been around Fu Tsong long enough to understand the casual nature of contact in the theatre. He had also heard the rumours about these two. Fu Tsong’s response to the rumours had been interesting. It had angered her.

Fong held Fu Tsong’s massive complete works of Shakespeare in his lap. It had Mandarin translation on the left-hand pages. He was following the text as they rehearsed. He agreed with Hao Yong. Viola was not infatuated, she was addicted. This whole play was about love as a driving need which, once experienced, puts everything else into a false light. Addiction.

Fong took out his note pad and jotted down the word.

Fong’s English did not go to the extent of words like serendipity or synchronicity, but as a policeman and as an easterner he found these ideas above questioning. Two murdered men, ivory, and addiction—but how did these pieces fit together?

Loa Wei Fen was surprised when he found out the address of the sender of the e-mail. No, surprised is the wrong word. He was shocked. For the first time in many years, something akin to fear tickled down his spine. He slowed his pulse and slid his breath into a deeper section of his lungs. The tickle went away. He had learned this basic trick many years before. As a child in the monastery he would wake the other children when he screamed in his sleep. The monks tried everything to stop him but failed until the Old One took him to his bed. There in the fastness of sleep, when the dreams took him, the Old One awoke him and taught him where fear lives. Taught him the breath that relieves the fear, taught him how to release his
chi
.

There was never any sexual contact between the two men. In fact Loa Wei Fen was technically a virgin. His life energies were directed from the groin, not to it. The entertainments of the flesh had frequently been offered to him, but they held no allure, no fascination. His focus lay elsewhere.

As his martial training continued he slowly learned how to release the energy of his
chi
into his fighting. On the day that it first exploded through his arms, he threw his partner so hard that the other boy’s ribs cracked and a shoulder blade snapped as he hit the floor.

Loa Wei Fen had no idea what had happened, where this strength had come from. But his teacher knew. The Old One was brought in and from that day on, Loa Wei Fen did not see the other boys in the monastery. He ate alone. He meditated alone. It was only in lessons that he met others—teachers. Martial arts teachers. Fighters of every technique. Then one day in his eleventh year, his fifth at the monastery, his third since he was put into isolation, a young Mongolian woman appeared in the fighting room. She appeared alone and spoke none of the common tongue. For days and weeks she spoke at him as he sat in perfect stillness until finally her words began to fall into patterns. Phrases moved into his consciousness and eventually he understood her.

Her broad dark face was a mountain terrain. There was life deep in her eyes. A glimmer of knowledge. At the end of their first month of daily sunrise-to-sunset meetings, she reached into her robe and pulled out a Mongolian swolta—a six-inch double-sided blade with a pin-sharp point made out of tempered steel hard as diamond. A carved serpent coiled around the handle. She was about to order him to close his eyes and turn away from her, but her thought had already conveyed itself to him.
Yes, he was gifted.

Then, with the swolta, she marked him.

The blade did its work deftly in her hands. An eye on each deltoid and the line of life that joins them arching down toward the centre of his back. The cuts had to be deep enough to mark and the blade was nothing if not capable of such cuts. Then she rolled the knife handle in the blood from Loa Wei Fen’s back. Without her needing to ask him, both of his hands reached out, waiting.
Yes,
of course, the chosen will work with both hands.

He put his hands behind his back, palms facing each other and stretched far back virtually closing the cuts. She slid the knife between his palms.

Loa Wei Fen remembered the first touch of the knife. Slick with blood, the serpent had rolled in his hands. Rolled from one hand to the other, finding an ideal perch in each, then rolling back to the centre.

The Mongolian watched with pleasure as the knife, seemingly on its own, moved in the boy’s hands, still stretched taut behind his back. After a moment the boy took a slow deep breath and, rolling his arms full circle in their shoulder sockets, brought the knife up over his head. Then he put the bloody hilt of the blade in his mouth and rising, he flared his marked deltoids.

The cuts opened like red rivers on his flesh.

She was pleased. The cobra’s hooded mask was clearly carved on his back.

As he stood on the Promenade facing the Bund he allowed the nerves in the skin of his back to trace the line of the cobra. Full circle clockwise on the left eye, then down the line of life and up to the other eye, which he traced counterclockwise. Loa Wei Fen felt the snake’s hood open as he looked at the building directly across from him. It housed the District of Shanghai Central Police Administration. It was also the building from which the e-mail had been sent.

Amanda found the streets confusing. The best map that the Shanghai International Equatorial Hotel could come up with was one that showed, in great detail, where all seven of the Esprit shops were located but hardly bothered to name most of the streets. She managed to get reasonably good directions from the concierge and then was forced to ask him, “Is it safe, for me to walk to the Shanghai Theatre Academy?” Being assured that it was not only quite safe but also quite nearby she headed out with a vague idea at least in what direction she ought to head.

Once on the street she came nose to nose with a large street map at one of the bus stops. Labelled OFFICIAL STREET MAP OF SHANGHAI 1989, it was infinitely better than the one that she held. Esprit didn’t sponsor the old one. Progress she guessed. Even at ten o’clock in the evening the streets were crowded with cars and bicycles. She stood at the corner of Yan’an and Hua Shan and waited for the light to change. As she waited the world passed her by and everyone from children to old women crossed the street. So she ventured forward. It was a mistake. There is an art to crossing Shanghai streets. An art that she had not yet mastered.

Eventually managing to get to the other side, she walked along Hua Shan knowing that the academy was on Hua Shan. She reasoned that by following the street only three or four blocks as the concierge said she was bound to come across the school. She passed by the Hilton and the Bank of China building and crossed another street, which seemed to lead her to a more residential area.

There were many people sitting on chairs on the narrow sidewalks taking the night air. Fruit stands were still open and small pineapples, which had been skinned and carved to remove the eyes, were on prominent display, their bright yellowy orange pulp a tropical temptation. Several times the sidewalks were clogged with bicycles, forcing Amanda out onto the street. And everywhere people looked at her. She was tall in a short world. Blond in a dark one. White in a brown one.

A leather mini-skirted young Chinese woman, with dark brooding eyes, openly evaluated Amanda as she passed.

Continuing, she crossed Julu Lu and sensed that something was wrong. She looked at the street sign on Hua Shan. It was in Chinese characters, thanks a heap. She crossed the street and looking back noticed that the street sign she had looked at was in English from this side. So, she recrossed the street and looked at the sign. It said Chong Shu. What? She hadn’t gotten off Hua Shan or had she? She doubled back the way she had come. The leather-skirted girl was still in her doorway and her laughter was not the least bit good-humoured as she saw Amanda coming back.

At each corner Amanda checked the street sign. She discovered that the signs were set up for drivers, not walkers. So at each street sign she grabbed the post and swung out into the road to read which street she was on. She finally came to the corner of Chong Shu and Hua Shan and realized that Hua Shan, on which she had started, simply made a right turn without notifying anyone. By staying straight on you were dumped onto Chong Shu. Okay, fair enough, she thought. Lesson learned.

She crossed the street toward King’s Bakery, knowing that the school should be on that side. As she did, movement in a glass window beside the bakery caught her eye. Her breath stuck in her throat. Several large snakes were in the window, many rising up to get a good look at her.

She hurried on. She passed the Jing An Hotel, which had a high wall with glass embedded in the top. Then she passed a lengthy area of what looked like stunted scarred elm trees, after which on her right she saw the small polished plaque for the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Thank God it was in English, she thought.

Across the street was the Marco Polo Night Club. Some fancy cars were parked there. And lots of neon suggested untold pleasures within. She turned away from the Marco Polo and back to the school. She was face to face with a problem. A gate. A locked gate. No door and a locked gate. Inside she saw a diminutive old woman pouring hot water from a thermos into a large glass jar with what looked like seaweed in the bottom.