Another lacquer screen. I walk around it and through the little entry and then into the main room.
There’s this low, almost yellow light. More carved Chinese furniture, antique urns and scrolls, black lacquer chests, red silk hangings, chunks of pale green jade. It kind of looks like Crouching Tiger exploded.
I pick my way through the Chinascape. Knots of guests watch me pass, or maybe it’s my imagination. But there aren’t a lot of foreigners here. There’s Marsh, and there’s me.
“So you came.”
I turn and see Meimei, lounging on one of those carved wooden bed things with the little table, smoking a Chinese brass water pipe, the kind with the chamber that fits in your hand and a long curved stem. She’s wearing a take on a men’s silk jacket with a mandarin collar, her hair slicked back like last time, and a pair of antique-looking round gold-framed spectacles with the lenses flipped up. China steampunk.
She extends the hand with the pipe. “Care to try?”
“What is it?” I ask.
“I don’t know, maybe just some tobacco.”
“No thanks.”
“You can always have something else if you’d like.”
I don’t know what she means, but man, am I tempted to ask.
Don’t be stupid, I tell myself. “I’m good,” I say. “Got my wine here.”
“Have you met Tiantian yet?”
“Not yet.”
She swings her legs off the side of the bed and hops to her feet in one nimble move. “I will introduce you.”
I limp after her.
We walk to the back of the main hall. There’s an exit that leads to a narrow courtyard and, like I thought, a two-story hall behind that. As we step up the three stairs that lead to the entrance, this random factoid flashes into my head, that the back house was where the unmarried daughters used to live. I don’t know if that’s true or something I’m just making up.
Whatever the truth is, this doesn’t look like a home for cloistered daughters. It’s more like an upscale man cave. Leather, glass, and chrome furniture. The biggest TV I’ve ever seen embedded in one wall. A living room, I guess. There are a bunch of men sitting around, some obvious rich guys but also a few who remind me of Pompadour Bureaucrat, wearing polo shirts and ugly designer belts, others dressed in subdued black suits. The women who are here are mostly younger than the men. Of course they’re cute. Of course they’re wearing expensive outfits with short skirts and high heels and carrying rhinestone-studded designer purses. They perch on the arms of the couches, hanging around the edges.
“Hello!” Meimei calls out in English.
Everyone turns and stares. It’s like one of those scenes in an old western, where the gunfighter walks into the saloon. The music doesn’t stop playing, though. Too bad, as it’s this cheesy Mandopop, and I have a low tolerance for that shit.
One of the men stands abruptly. The girl hovering next to him has to step aside, and she totters on her candy-red heels, and for a moment I think she’s going to fall back on her ass. But she grabs the arm of the couch and steadies herself.
The guy has to be Tiantian. In his thirties, a little heavy through the hips and gut. He’s wearing a black jacket, a grey shirt, and black slacks, and even from across the room I can tell that the clothes are expensive, but for some reason they still don’t fit him quite right, like his sort of dumpy build defies all the custom tailoring.
“I’ve brought Father’s friend Yili,” Meimei says.
“Ah.” Tiantian smiles briefly and bobs his head. “A pleasure to meet you,” he says to me in English. He doesn’t speak it as well as Meimei or Gugu.
“Hen gaoxing renshi ni,” I offer back. Nice to meet you, too. “Thank you for your hospitality.”
He waves that off. “You’re my father’s friend.”
I can see the resemblance to Sidney-like Gugu, Tiantian got dad’s bony nose and high cheeks. His face is broader, more like Meimei’s. Maybe they got that from Mrs. Cao, whoever and wherever she is. It occurs to me that I’ve never seen Mrs. Cao, never even seen a photo, never heard Sidney or Vicky or anyone say a word about her.
Tiantian gestures at the chair to his left. “Please, sit. So we can have a talk.”
I hobble over and sink into the chair. The leather is as soft as velvet. Meimei perches on the arm of it, rests one dainty ankle on the other knee.
Tiantian sits in his chair. Jerks his head to one side and snaps his fingers. One of the serving girls rushes over. The same one I bumped into earlier, I think, or maybe she just looks like her. I mean, they’re all pretty. All in qipaos. All with their smiles in place, anxious to serve.
“What will you like?” Tiantian asks, his lips curving up as if they’re being lifted by tiny hooks.
It’s a good question. What will I like? I mean, how do I even know until I’ve tried it?
“Uh… wine. Thanks.”
“That wine you have now, we can do better.” He raises his hand to his mouth and mutters something to the xiaojie. Something about “tebie hong putaojiu.” Special red wine.
I sip the one I’ve got. Tiantian watches me, that fake smile frozen in place. Am I supposed to say something? Make small talk? I suck at small talk. But one thing you don’t tend to do in China is get right to the point.
Plus, I’m not even sure what the point is. The museum project I made up to save my ass? Marsh Brody?
I settle on, “This is a great house.”
“A traditional Beijing siheyuan. You know this kind of house, I think.” He’s proud of this place, I can tell. Well, who wouldn’t be? It’s a fucking expensive piece of real estate, for one thing.
“Yes. I’ve lived in Beijing for a few years. Not too far from here.”
“By Gulou, I think, yes?”
Great. Well, it’s no surprise that he could find out where I live.
“Right.”
Sidney’s family is from Anhui Province, and when Tiantian speaks, unlike Meimei and Gugu, I can still hear the Anhui in his accent. He’s older than the other two by nearly a decade, I’m guessing. I figure Tiantian, being the eldest, was probably raised in Anhui, way before Sidney built his ghost city, Xingfu Cun, maybe even before Sidney made his billions.
What’s the draw for Tiantian in Beijing, aside from traditional courtyard architecture?
I look around the room, at the guys in polo shirts and plain dark suits, and think, Party members. Officials. Somebody has to be in the capital to represent the family. Tiantian’s the eldest. Of course that would fall to him.
“I like it a lot,” I say, remembering that I should be making small talk.
“Yes. Beijing is still a culture center. Traditional Chinese culture.” He shoots an unsubtle look at Meimei. “Not like Shanghai.”
Meimei chuckles. “Shanghai is more modern. And clean.” She looks around the room, at all the guys in suits and polo shirts, and smiles. “It’s too dirty here.”
The xiaojie has returned with the special red wine and some glasses on a tray. Tiantian nods and points at me. She trots over and holds out the bottle, like she’s highlighting a product in a commercial. I’m supposed to pay attention to it, I guess.
So I do. Make a show of studying the label, which looks like your typical snooty French wine label, with a little castle engraving on it and a name that starts with “Château.” Except it’s from Ningxia.
“Wow, Chinese,” I say.
“Yes. It is good quality. We can do this as well as France.”
Meimei rolls her eyes. “Not yet. Maybe someday.”
“Zhen, zhen!” Tiantian snaps at the serving girl.
She hastily hands me a glass and pours me a taste.
I do the sniff-and-swirl because I’ve seen Harrison do it enough times, and I’m trying to be polite, though about all I usually get out of it is, “Hey, smells like wine.”