“Who’s getting locked up? Are they finally locking you up, Ollie?” Nick said, as he approached the table with Astrid.
“They haven’t been able to pin anything on me yet, Nicholas,” Oliver retorted. He turned to Astrid and his eyes widened. “Holy Mary Mother of Tilda Swinton, look at those earrings! Wherever did you get them?”
“Stephen Chia’s … they’re VBH,” Astrid said, knowing he would want to know who the designer was.
“Of course they are. Only Bruce could have dreamed up something like that. They must have cost at least half a million dollars. I wouldn’t have thought they were quite your style, but they do look fabulous on you. Hmm … you still can surprise me after all these years.”
“You know I try, Ollie, I try.”
Rachel stared with renewed wonder at the earrings. Did Oliver really say half a million dollars? “How’s Cassian doing?” she asked.
“It was a bit of a struggle at first, but now he’ll sleep till dawn,” Astrid replied.
“And where is that errant husband of yours, Astrid? Mr. Bedroom Eyes?” Oliver asked.
“Michael’s working late tonight.”
“What a pity. That company of his really keeps him toiling away, don’t they? Seems like ages since I’ve seen Michael — I’m beginning to take it quite personally. Though the other day I could have sworn I saw him walking up Wyndham Street in Hong Kong with a little boy. At first I thought it was Michael and Cassian, but then the little boy turned around and he wasn’t nearly as cute as Cassian, so I knew I had to be hallucinating.”
“Obviously,” Astrid said as calmly as she could, feeling like she had just been punched in the gut. “Were you in Hong Kong before this, Ollie?” she asked, her brain furiously trying to ascertain whether Oliver had been in Hong Kong at the same time as Michael’s last “business trip.”
“I was there last week. I’ve been shuttling between Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing for the past month for work.”
Michael was supposedly in Shenzhen then. He could have easily taken a train to Hong Kong, Astrid thought.
“Oliver is the Asian art and antiquities expert for Christie’s in London,” Nick explained to Rachel.
“Yes, except that it’s no longer very efficient for me to be based in London. The Asian art market is heating up like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I hear that every new Chinese billionaire is trying to get their hands on a Warhol these days,” Nick remarked.
“Well, yes there are certainly quite a few wannabe Saatchis around, but I’m dealing more with the ones trying to buy back the great antiquities from European and American collectors. Or, as they like to say, stuff stolen by the foreign devils,” Oliver said.
“It wasn’t truly stolen, was it?” Nick asked.
“Stolen, smuggled, sold off by philistines, isn’t it all the same? Whether the Chinese want to admit it or not, the true connoisseur-ship of Asian art was outside of China for much of the last century, so that’s where a lot of the museum-quality pieces ended up — in Europe and America. The demand was there. The moneyed Chinese didn’t really appreciate what they had. With the exception of a few families, no one bothered to collect Chinese art and antiquities, not with any real discernment, anyway. They wanted to be modern and sophisticated, which meant emulating the Europeans. Why, even in this house there’s probably more French art deco than there are Chinese pieces. Thank God there are some fabulous signed Ruhlmann pieces, but if you think about it, it’s a pity that your great-grandfather went mad for art deco when he could have been snapping up all the imperial treasures coming out of China.”
“You mean the antiques that were in the Forbidden City?” Rachel asked.
“Absolutely! Did you know that in 1913, the imperial family of China actually tried to sell their entire collection to the banker J. P. Morgan?” Oliver said.
“Come on!” Rachel was incredulous.
“It’s true. The family was so hard up, they were willing to let all of it go for four million dollars. All the priceless treasures, collected over a span of five centuries. It’s quite a sensational story — Morgan received the offer by telegram, but he died a few days later. Divine intervention was the only thing that prevented the most irreplaceable treasures of China from ending up in the Big Apple.”
“Imagine if that had actually happened,” Nick remarked, shaking his head.
“Yes indeed. It would be a loss greater than the Elgin Marbles going to the British Museum. But thankfully the tide has turned. The Mainland Chinese are finally interested in buying back their own heritage, and they only want the best,” Oliver said. “Which reminds me, Astrid — are you still looking for more Huanghuali? Because I know of an important Han dynasty puzzle table coming up for auction next week in Hong Kong.” Oliver turned to Astrid, noticing that she had a faraway look on her face. “Earth to Astrid?”
“Oh … sorry, I got distracted for a moment,” Astrid said, suddenly flustered. “You were saying something about Hong Kong?”
3
Peik Lin
SINGAPORE
Wye Mun and Neena Goh were stretched out on teal-colored leather recliners in their screening room at Villa d’Oro, munching on salted watermelon seeds and watching a Korean soap opera, when Peik Lin burst into the room.
“Mute the TV! Mute the TV!” she demanded.
“What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” Neena asked in alarm.
“You’re not going to believe where I just came from!”
“Where?” Wye Mun asked, a little annoyed that his daughter had interrupted during a pivotal moment of his favorite show.
“I just came from Nicholas Young’s grandma’s house.”
“So?”
“You should have seen the size of the place.”
“Dua geng choo, ah?”[44] Wye Mun said.
“Dua doesn’t even begin to describe it. The house was huge, but you should have seen the land. Do you know that there is an enormous piece of private land right next door to the Botanic Gardens?”
“Next to Botanic Gardens?”
“Yes. Off Gallop Road. It’s on a street I’ve never even heard of called Tyersall Avenue.”
“Near those old wooden houses?” Neena asked.
“Yes, but this wasn’t one of the colonial houses. The architecture was very unusual, sort of Orientalist, and the gardens were unbelievable — probably around fifty acres or more.”
“Bullshit, lah!” Wye Mun said.
“Papa, I’m telling you — the property was immense. It was like the Istana. The driveway itself went on for miles.”
“Cannot be! Two or three acres I might believe, but fifty? No such thing, lah.”
“It was fifty acres at least, probably more. I thought I was dreaming. I thought I was in another country.”
“Lu leem ziew, ah?”[45] Neena looked at her daughter in concern. Peik Lin ignored her.
“Show me,” Wye Mun said, his interest piqued. “Let’s see it on Google Earth.” They walked over to the computer desk in the corner, pulled up the program, and Peik Lin began searching for the place. As they zoomed in on the topographical screen, she immediately noticed something amiss in the satellite image.
“Look, Papa — this whole patch is empty! You think it’s part of the Botanic Gardens, but it’s not. This is where the house is. But why are there no images? It doesn’t appear on Google Earth at all! And my GPS couldn’t find the address either.”